Taking a Break from “Choosing a PMO Vision” to Consider Happiness Economics

The latest issue of “USC Trojan Family Magazine” contains an article about Richard Easterlin’s happiness economics. The Easterlin Paradox says that “once a society’s basic needs – food, shelter, employment – are satisfied, the accumulation of greater and greater wealth does not generate collective or personal happiness over the long run”. While Easterlin admits that happiness is not a be-all, end-all economic measure, the evidence suggests that making money is not what life is all about.

I agree and firmly believe that the best companies have passionate employees who achieve goals and strategies with good systems in place. In fact a director of a manufacturing company told me that money incentives are the weakest incentives; the idea of having a system in place that helps people to get their job done in a satisfying way is much more important. I’ve heard this type of thing before after asking a manufacturing manager what his greatest benefit was from a lean manufacturing project; his answer: my wife talks to me again and the people I manage enjoy their work. 

The bottom line is that people are willing to passionately support a business process improvement project if they know it will improve their work life. It definitely is not about the money. This relates to PMO visions and models because a successful PMO has to be helping people get their projects done and be sought out by the rest of the organization to do that. As long as goals, strategies and tactics get accomplished, profits will come.