Harvard wants MBAs to learn how to be happy at work

As business schools train the corporate leaders of tomorrow, skills such as improving emotional awareness and well-being are taking their place alongside deal-making and financial modeling. Courses on happiness, relationships, and balance are among the most sought after courses in top MBA programs. Their popularity reflects both the demand for soft skills and the students’ desire for a more balanced life and the intent to become better bosses among schools.

At Harvard, the 180 spots in Arthur Brooks’ “Leadership and Happiness” are quickly filled. Some students who do not take electives actually attend lectures or ask fellow students to retell the lectures, say students.

Participants are taught how to cultivate the happiness of their teams as well as their own. A central tenet is that happiness is key to being an effective leader. Happiness is not a product of mere coincidence, genes, or life circumstances, Dr. Brooks believes, but is habitually tended to in four key areas—family, friends, meaningful work, and beliefs or life philosophies.

“Think carefully about each of the four parts of your portfolio,” a slide presented on the first day of class this semester. “What are you over-indexing?” As per the curriculum, students will complete the curriculum with the tools to better compete in the labor market and enjoy work and life.

The seven-week, half-credit course was first introduced in the spring semester of 2020, coinciding with the advent of COVID-19. Happiness at work has since taken on new urgency for employees and managers, as workers leave jobs at record rates and rethink their goals. Many companies are scrambling to boost morale, reduce turnover, experiment with new ways of working, and even offer wellness retreats for employees.

“Leadership and Happiness” began with 72 students; In the past two years, enrollment at the school has more than doubled, but Harvard said it still doesn’t suit everyone who tries to enroll.

This is one of several MBA classes designed to teach the soft skills of management to otherwise left-brained high achievers. At Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, “Organizational Behavior 374: Interpersonal Dynamics” — known as “Touch Feely” — teaches self-awareness to improve communication and relationships. Yale School of Management students can enroll in “Mastering Influence and Persuasion,” which promises to teach students how to more authentically persuade and inspire others.

Dr. Brooks has also started talking to companies about workplace happiness. About 16,000 Allstate Corp. employees listened to a virtual lecture they organized for the insurer in December; The company said the week later the recorded session was viewed by more than several thousand people.

Dr Brooks, a social scientist who joined Harvard in 2019 after leading the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute for a decade, said he sometimes feels lonely as a boss. He said he was inspired to pitch the class at Harvard after seeing it with other leaders.

Classroom presentations can mix Bible verses and Buddhist teachings with psychological research on wellbeing or romantic love. He asks students to separate “real friends” from more transactional “bargain friends”. (Real friends have “a beautiful quality of worthlessness,” said Dr. Brooks. “I don’t need you, I just love you.”)

Harvard MBA second-year student, Bartosz Garbazewski, says he enrolled in the course this semester to learn better work-life balance. The two long-term romantic relationships had come to an end while pursuing professional success in the energy and technical fields. He wanted to improve the odds of the next one.

“I’m not going to make money a priority in my career,” he said. “If I’m happy, it’s going to come.”

When he graduated, Mr. Garbazewski said he wanted to prioritize the happiness of his team. Part of that, she said she learned, would be to put herself in other people’s place.

Dr. Brooks’ students assess their relationships, materialistic values, and other emotional metrics. In a recent morning class, he displayed the students’ unknown scores on a screen in front of the lecture hall.

Some high achievers, he said, rank high in finding meaning and accomplishments but score low on positive emotions. “You’re constantly juggling your satisfaction,” he said, which can lead to irritation.

This resonated with Ashley McCray, an engineer and mentor in the classroom. She remembered being named on the 2019 lists of top women in business in Minneapolis and St. Paul—but focused on the next goal instead of savoring the achievement. “This small, young ambitious Ashley had a dream, and I achieved it, and I felt nothing,” she said.

Brooks’ class before coming to Harvard and now serves as the appointed “VP of Happiness” of the HBS Student Association, sharing happy moments around campus on social media and Helps classmates recharge with campus therapy dogs and massages.

Mark Girgosian, a 2021 HBS graduate, now works in private equity in Boston. He stores a series of reminders for daily practice in his office desk drawer. One is pulled straight from orbit: live in “day-tight containers”—that is, be aware of future goals but live in the present.

He said that guidance is especially helpful when things go wrong. Mr Girgosian said he advises stressed colleagues to fix mistakes, then move on and not be overwhelmed by the things they can’t change. The curriculum has also helped them understand their fear of failure. People are not afraid of failure itself, Dr. Brooks tells students, but how failure will make them feel.

“There has to be a limit to how much I must stress myself to go to work,” Mr Girgosian said.