In Good Companies

To conclude our Sea Suite series and help you get back to work on a high note, we’re bringing you an episode about joy. Recent research by Oxford University found that workers are 13% more productive when they’re happy. And yet, another study by BCG found that most company leaders aren’t building their strategies around how their employees feel at work. So joy? It’s a real business question.

In this episode, we are joined by designer and joy specialist Ingrid Fetell Lee, to find out how to make our workplaces, our jobs, and ourselves more joyful. A former design director for IDEO, Ingrid is a self-starter with a decade’s worth of research into the science of joy. Her findings made it into a book: Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. 

Today, she helps us answer the hard questions: how do we get to feel joyful? Our surroundings, the objects in our homes, the things and people we interact with every day… Why do they influence our emotions? And crucially: what does that mean for our companies? Together, we discuss how to make our workplaces more enjoyable and productive, and what joy means for leadership, teamwork and our business philosophy. 

Join Ingrid and Ari to spread joy today and make it an integral function of your organization.



Highlights:
  • When Ingrid first stumbled upon Joy (2:45)
  • Universal joyful patterns (4:54)
  • The evolutionary explanation for joy (7:32)
  • The difference between joy and happiness (9:33)
  • The Aesthetics of Joy in the Workplace (10:29)
  • How physical space can impact our mental health (13:32)
  • The branded environment: “No one wants to work inside the corporate logo” (15:30)
  • The case of joy contagion at Coca-Cola (16:34)
  • Adopting a new joyful leadership (18:56)
  • “The biggest mistake that I've seen employers make is inconsistency” (20:56)
  • Undoing the corporate bias against joy (22:03)
  • Signs that we have changed our team for the better (23:23)
  • Finding joy while working remotely (25:57)
  • Embracing joy in the present (27:46)
  • Gen Z: a new philosophy of joy (29:27)


Links:

Feedback:
If you have questions about the show or topics you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producers, Natalie.Barron@cadencebank.com, Eydie.Pengelly@cadencebank.com, or Danielle.Kernell@cadencebank.com.


What is In Good Companies?

Starting and running a business or managing one isn’t for the faint of heart. You’re balancing internal and external forces in a continually changing landscape. This is where Cadence Bank’s In Good Companies comes in. We share our wealth of knowledge–and insights from noted industry experts–to guide you through the forces shaping business today.

Our new host is Ari Marin, and his idea of “good company” is being around creative, insightful people who enjoy sharing personal stories about the things that helped make them successful. From 9 to 5, Marin is a Cadence Bank Senior Vice President and family enterprise advisor, whose specialty is consulting with family-owned and small businesses. With In Good Companies, he leads discussions with business owners and subject matter experts about how they’re tackling business challenges like:

● What are ways to grow my business without growing my debt?
● How can I turn my data into meaningful information?
● Why is company culture more important than ever?

It’s information you need, in one place, in under 30 minutes. More than 250,000 listeners tune in each week. Shouldn’t you?