Own It, Lead It: The Joy Journey

A large blue/green notebook laying on a desk. The notebook has the word HAPPINESS in large letters on the front.

Helping leaders create a workplace culture where everyone can thrive

What if joy at work wasn’t a fluffy nice-to-have, but the secret sauce behind thriving teams and great workplace culture? That’s exactly what The Joy Journey is all about.

At The Happy Business School, I help leaders and teams create people-first cultures where happiness isn’t left to chance—it’s intentional. Because when your culture works, so does your business.

Why joy at work matters

Most of us will spend over 80,000 hours at work. That’s far too long to feel stuck, undervalued, or disengaged. A thriving workplace culture isn’t about free fruit or beanbags—it’s about:

  • Trust between leaders and teams
  • Respect for people’s ideas and time
  • Fairness in opportunities and recognition
  • Listening—really listening—to what people need

Get those right, and you don’t just boost wellbeing—you supercharge collaboration, innovation and performance.

The Joy Journey framework

The Joy Journey has two simple but powerful pillars:

1. Own It (the individual toolkit)

Helping individuals take ownership of their own happiness with tools like:

  • Building stronger workplace relationships
  • Learning from failure without fear
  • Staying in your circle of control
  • Celebrating wins with recognition and encouragement
  • Creating “happy habits” that stick
  • Developing self-awareness as a genuine superpower

2. Lead It (the leadership toolkit)

Guiding leaders to intentionally create a workplace culture where people thrive, focusing on underplayed but essential leadership traits:

  • Curiosity: asking questions, not just giving answers
  • Vulnerability: showing the human side of leadership
  • Kindness: small acts that make a big impact

I use the Four Es to help leaders embed this approach:

  • Evaluate: check in with your team, understand what’s going on for them
  • Example: role-model the behaviours you want to see
  • Empower: give people the tools and freedom to own their happiness
  • Encourage: create a culture that supports joyful working

What this means for organisations

When leaders and individuals both take responsibility for workplace happiness, you create a culture where everyone thrives. The Joy Journey isn’t fluffy—it’s a culture change framework that:

  • Attracts and retains brilliant talent
  • Strengthens team collaboration
  • Sparks creativity and innovation
  • Improves performance (without burning people out)

Ready to start your Joy Journey?

If you want to build a workplace where people don’t just work but actually want to be, let’s chat. I offer workshops, keynotes, and consultancy that bring The Joy Journey to life in your organisation.

Get in touch to find out how The Happy Business School can make joy your organisation’s sharpest edge.

5 myths about happiness at work

Wrong. The absence of disease isn’t health and the absence of misery isn’t happiness. Just because we might do enough as leaders to not have our people crying at their desks doesn’t mean we are invested in their happiness. Just because an employees comes in every day, does a good job and leaves without complaining about anything doesn’t mean they are happy.

Wrong. It’s right that some some people are more naturally optimistic but, with practice, you can become happier. There is a wealth of science that shows, when we know how, we can train our brains to be more positive. Asking someone to write down three good things that have happened in the last 24 hours may appear glib but this is about training the brain to spot positive things. When we learn to look for things we see them more easily.

Wrong. In fact blind optimism is a bad thing. Who wants to be in a plane where the pilot never believes anything bad can happen so doesn’t bother doing all the safety checks (not me for sure!). Just like in the world of work we don’t want to fail to look out for the risks and dangers, we just don’t want to be overwhelmed by the fear of them.

Wrong. The science tells us that being happier at work makes us more productive, more resilient, more creative, more accurate, more analytical, less likely to take time off sick, leave or burnout. Who doesn’t want those benefits? Yes, what a great wellbeing initiative to be able to say we are interested and investing in your happiness but it goes much further than that. There are real business benefits to helping people increase their happiness.

This one is only a half myth. Yes, people need to be invested in working on their own happiness but as a leader it is for us to help them with that, to show them we value their happiness, to allow them time to work on it, to give them the tools they need to become happier at work. Importantly we need to help them understand why being happy at work is important. As a leader if you can show you are invested in your own happiness it will show your people they should invest in theirs too.

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Together we can create happier workplaces.

Forget gimmicks like ice cream van visits or ping pong tables – let’s work together to build a positive culture where people feel valued and encouraged. Let’s help your people find purpose and meaning in their work.

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