I found recently a post in Donald Trump’s blog called The World’s Happiest Nations where he provides the results from a research done at the University of Michigan. For me it is not a surprise that among the happiest nations are ones that have a high level of welfare. But one would never predict that people in countries like Puerto Rico and Colombia are so happy.

Here is the full list of the happiest countries:

1. Denmark
2. Puerto Rico
3. Colombia
4. Iceland
5. N. Ireland
6. Republic of Ireland
7. Switzerland
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Austria

The fact that brought my attention, however, was that my country – Bulgaria – is in the list of the most miserable countries in the world.

My people doesn’t feel happy with its destiny and I can see it in their eyes. Now the whole world knows it. The question is: why? Why are we so unhappy? We tore down the communist regime more than 18 years ago and started to build a democratic society. And still my people is unhappy. It seems that we don’t understand democracy well or we just don’t appreciate it.

I am a happy person. I have a loving family and got on my own way towards professional realization. But you cannot succeed if you live among miserable people. I honestly wish happiness, welfare, “and justice for all”. But how can I help my people feel happier? How can I help them enjoy their lives? I ask these questions but I still haven’t go the answers. Any advice, folks?

Here is the list of the most miserable countries in the world:

1. Zimbabwe
2. Armenia
3. Moldova
4. Belarus
5. Ukraine
6. Albania
7. Iraq
8. Bulgaria
9. Georgia
10. Russia

It is interesting to note that most of the countries in this list are from the former Soviet Union or the Socialist Block. Could it be we still love and grieve for the “old times”?

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I found this very interesting post in the Predictably Irrational blog (via Bas de Baar) where the author asks the question: Which is the best form of motivation – cash or gift?

I don’t think the word “motivation” is appropriate here – I firmly believe that money is not a motivation but rather hygiene factor in the work environment. I think “reward” is more appropriate word in this case as rewarding is a very powerful instrument in the manager’s hands for showing appreciation to the employee’s work and thus, indirectly to influence on the employee’s motivation.

Back to the main question: Which is better – cash or gift? I think there is no simple answer. I love the proverb that one size doesn’t fit all and I think it applies here, too. Some people like to be in control of their lives (or at least to think they are in control) and they would prefer having the cash so they can decide by themselves how to spend it. Giving them the cash shows them that you respect their right to make decisions, their freedom to live their live as they want to and I believe that this will increase their loyalty to you and their motivation to work better.

On the other hand, there are people who need to feel your attention, they need to know that the company and the manager care for them and thus giving them a gift shows them your special attitude. Giving a gift means you have spent some time thinking about the other person while choosing a valuable present.

While this mindset is individual, it is also strongly dependent of the national culture. There are countries where most people would appreciate the present and other countries where most people would prefer the cash. So when you make a decision about the form of reward, take in consideration the person’s mindset and their national culture.

In my country, for example, most of the people would prefer the gift even if it is much less in value that the cash. The Bulgarians have an external focus of conscious, i.e. we look for the reasons of everything happening in our lives outside of us. We always need somebody else to take care of our lives and we always hold the others responsible for our destinies.

The national culture plays a very important role but don’t forget that there are also many exceptions! The important thing to know is that there is no best way – it always depends on the person you are dealing with so in order to find the right way to reward them, you must know them quite closely, as the great managers do.

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I found a great article at Steve Olson’s blog entitled Seeing the World Through Entrepreneurial Eyes, in which he describes the most typical characteristics of people who don’t have entrepreneurial eyes and I can see that they are too common for our society and clearly explain why we became the poorest country in Europe. Here they are:

• Us vs. Them Mentality. We’ve been taught to think like this from the first grade at school. We, the workers, the poor, the underdogs, the unhappy are better than Them – the businessmen, the exploiters, the rich, the Party leaders, the politicians. And the best we can do is to sabotage them by not doing our jobs, not fulfilling our tasks, not voting, not paying taxes.

• Retirement Thinking. I know many people who started thinking about retirement in their forties, i.e. about 20 years earlier. They are making their plan for what they are going to do after they retire. But why don’t they make plans to do something now? It’s because most of the people are afraid. They think they have the obligation to work 40 years to make some income, to feed their families but not chasing their dreams. They plan to do something for themselves only after retirement when they will be old, weak, and probably ill but not now when they are young, healthy, and strong.
• Naysayers. I don’t know other people more pessimistic than Bulgarians. If someone comes up with an idea, there will be ten people who will tell him that the idea is not worth it and is just a waste of time and effort. There is no bigger obstacle to the innovation and progress than the negative thinking in which we are the greatest specialists.
• Money and Jobs. The common notion is that people should work something to make money. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, you just have to work to make your income. The real entrepreneurs do something because it’s good, it helps people, and because they like to do it. “Entrepreneurs don’t start businesses for the money. Money is the result of the game. The game is creating businesses. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but the fun is seeing what works.”, said Olson.

You can find the whole article here.

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Yesterday I saw a great post in Penelope Trunk’s blog – 10 ways to make people hate you at work. She presents a very colorful list of ways to be nasty. You should read it. My favorite one is “Being obsessed with your workload” and I an going to share some thoughts about it.

I don’t know if this is a matter of culture or education but when I first faced with such behavior I was shocked. I’ve been working in some small companies before and it was my first collision with the corporate culture. It was the first and the biggest software corporation in Bulgaria. It was held by U.S. owners and it was announced as the first software company organized in “the American way”. My case was pretty simple: I was a developer at that time and I had some technical problems, which I couldn’t resolve myself. I needed help and I asked one of the senior guys, known as a “big expert” for a help. Then he answered: “I am a very important person and my work is very important. Your work is not, so I can’t waste my time solving your problems.”

I had never seen such attitude in my career before that and I was astounded. Later on, in the same company I saw many more examples of such behavior and I understood that this is a part of the corporate culture. Before that I hadn’t seen people working with headphones on, now I see them everywhere. I understood that people involved in intellectual work (such as software developers) need privacy and should not be interrupted frequently because their thought process cannot be restored easily and every distraction causes them a lot of time to get back on track but still don’t understand what kind of person should you be not wanting to help your mates?

Now I am a manager and I have a superior manager. He is a direct manager of four people like me and not only doesn’t he respond to my e-mails but sometimes he doesn’t read them at all explaining that he is so overloaded with work that he doesn’t have time to read or answer my e-mails. I am still wondering: if you are a manager and you don’t have the time to manage your subordinates because of too much work, what kind of work would it be?

I will highly appreciate your comments on this topic.

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