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University System of Maryland

Let’s Get Happy: Happiness Drives Performance

University System of Maryland and University of Maryland, College Park via edX

Overview

In this course you will learn about great culture – the goal of every great leader. Find out how happy you are personally and at work, be able to make the case for happiness at work as a critical strategic approach, understand how happy project and technical professionals are right how, and learn how to build you own personal happiness and happiness at work

Practical tools and techniques for use right away to be happier, more productive, more promotable, and more passionate at work.

This is the first course in the Reimagining Leadership certificate. This certificate offers an extraordinary opportunity to spend some quality time with yourself to assess your current level of soft skills, clearly define your core self, and build soft skills which are essential to professional, not to mention life, success

This course is the first in a series of leadership courses. The second course is Let’s Get Started: You First! which will be offered in the summer of 2020.

Great leaders, create great culture, which yields great work: G3. Great culture, where individuals flourish and organizations thrive, requires happiness as a competitive strategy.

This course provides both new ideas and practical applications you can use immediately. You’ll learn that soft skills are so important that they are now called POWER SKILLS. They are the most sought-after skills by recruiters and hiring managers. Power skills are key to creating and sustaining happiness at work. Happiness drives performance.

  • Get the Models - Understand what happiness and happiness are work are
  • Get Why It Matters - Understand the business case for happiness and happiness at work
  • Get the Data - Establish their personal baseline for happiness and happiness at work
  • Set the Goals - Set personal development goals for increasing happiness and happiness at work
  • Learn the Tools - Learn tools and techniques for how to build happiness and happiness at work
  • Take Action - Build effective action plans to increase happiness and happiness at work
  • Make the Change - Practice new skills to increase happiness and happiness at work
  • Get the Benefit - Be able to build positive workplaces where individuals flourish and organizations thrive

Start your journey to becoming a Great Leader, creating Great Culture, yielding Great Work with Happiness at Work!

Syllabus

The Business Value of Happiness

  • Introduction
  • Happiness as Strategy
  • Why Happiness is Great Strategy
  • Happiness & Soft Skills
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to What is Happiness

What is Happiness?

  • Introduction
  • What is Happiness?
  • Happiness Limitations
  • Myths about Happiness
  • A Primer on Building Happiness
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to What is Happiness at Work

What is Happiness at Work?

  • Introduction
  • Happiness Refresher and Selected Models
  • What is Happiness at Work, Part I
  • What is Happiness at Work, Part II
  • Building Happiness at Work
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to How Happy are PM’s at Work?

How Happy are PM’s at Work?

  • Introductions
  • PMI Research Findings, Part I
  • PMI Research Findings, Part II
  • APM Research Findings
  • A Primer on Building Happiness at Work
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to My Leadership Journey

My Leadership Journey

  • Introduction
  • Learning from Experience
  • Learning by Building Self-Awareness
  • Learning through Professional Development
  • Becoming a Best Self Leader
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to Next Course: Let’s Focus on You: Building Self-Awareness

Taught by

Jocelyn S. Davis

Reviews

4.4 rating, based on 27 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Let’s Get Happy: Happiness Drives Performance

  • Anonymous
    This is an absolute "must-do" course! I wish I learned this information and skills in college or prior to acquiring my first job. This course puts everything together in developing the essential skills one needs not only succeed, but also thrive in personal and professional life. Jocelyn S. Davis is an incredible teacher. She explains concepts in an understandable and very interesting manner. The resources and references in this course are extremely helpful. This course has changed my life for the better and I credit this teacher for making a huge difference.
  • Anonymous
    The instructor uses valuable instructional techniques to foster learning and comprehension. She demonstrates the scientific research behind the concepts of happiness and performance, as well as its practical applications with extreme skill. I also appreciated how the videos were constructed. The repetition of content in the recap pages were also extremely helpful in retaining the information.
  • Anonymous
    This course is great. I have learnt a lot and had chance to reflect a lot to. It's not just about learning how to be happy to support self and team, but also about setting achievable goal to progress consistently.

    I think I gonna keep reminding myself from now on all the time that we are working for progress, not for perfection.

    Thank you.
  • Anonymous
    Good course and I got more about the course

    Iam so lucky to have this online course and I strongly believe that you will provide more opportunities for students including me.

    I will recommend this for my friends also

  • Anonymous
    I enjoyed this class and the way it was organized. While the content was repetitive with the videos and reviews, I found it helped me to retain more of the information. I learned a lot of new content and how to apply it. I wish there had been more s…
  • Anonymous
    Overall, I enjoyed this course. I feel like the information is an imperative start to create positive changes in yourself, thereby catalyzing positive changes in others, whether at a personal or professional level.

  • Anonymous
    I like this course because it answered a lot of my questions about happiness in a clear, organized, research-based way. I like the idea of the big recap because it helped me retain the big ideas of the topics. I liked most is the primer on building happiness not just personally but professionally. It gave a lot of things we could do to be happy. I also liked the way the lecture was organized where they start with why it matters, then the science behind, the models and theory, the how's.
  • Anonymous
    Great course. I learnt a lot and got to understand the impact of a number a things which seems natural to do.

    I was looking for tools to help me with my professional development, I found one which will also help me with my personal one.

    The course in itself is well structured, with clear cases and examples which will help you to understand and put the new knowledge rapidly in practice.

    I will definitely be taking more courses.
  • Anonymous
    It was a very insightful and great sharing by the tutor.I enjoyed a lot the practical examples shared and the additional reading notes.
    The sharing of the Professor makes it easier to relate and this will definetely help in building happiness in my personal life but also help with building happiness at work.
  • Alan Liu
    I truly love this course!! I think this course well introduces happiness as a strategy to the business table and gives you a tangible roadmap to achieve better leadership, better culture, and better outcomes! I learned a lot from this course and I believe that I can apply this knowledge into my career!
  • Profile image for Reynaldo Angulo Cázares
    Reynaldo Angulo Cázares
    In general, the instructions of the Certificate area and I find the contents useful for my career. Nonetheles, I would suggeste to set the instructions in a more clear and sequential formal. Also, to have at hand an email address to ask questions.
  • Anonymous
    thank you It was great ! I leanr a lot of my pwn happines and hapiness od my collegues. It was realy interesting to knew new models of happines. And everything has it's own structure, which gives a lot of clar space to develope.
  • Anonymous
    thank you It was great ! I leanr a lot of my pwn happines and hapiness od my collegues. It was realy interesting to knew new models of happines. And everything has it's own structure, which gives a lot of clar space to develope.
  • Anonymous
    I really enjoyed learning all about how important happiness is in work places. I definitely learnt a lot of new and interesting things through this course, and would recommend it to anyone! :)
  • Anonymous
    I find this teaching approach helpful: it capitalizes on the personal and professional experience of everyone and offers a theoretical path for revealing the scientific base of practical experience.
  • Anonymous
    The Course was really great. . Easy to understand with the videos and lots of great things that apply to our work and personal life. After this course I will be able to improve my WLB.
  • Anonymous
    Really does take about 4 hours or so per week - I kept falling behind! Luckily on EdX I could push my dates forward a few times to stick with it.

    The videos were engaging and although many things are repeated throughout, I think it helps you remember the key concepts. I definitely had some concrete takeaways from the course that I can apply, but I would have liked more examples of how, as a team leader, I can help implement strategies for my team members and their happiness, or even what can be done to change culture at a company if you are in a position to do that.
  • Anonymous
    The content was simple and good, yet reached depth and breath beyond what I expected. I was taken back by the science behind simple concepts and the impact it can have on how we live and how productive/successful companies can be when intentional plans are put into place. The list of powerful corporations that have gained an edge due to the implementation is impressive. I think the content can be applied to daily life as well as the number of hours we dedicate at work. This course caused much reflection for me as I reflected on how I work/interact with others.
  • Anonymous
    It is an interesting course. It has an organized way to present a management style that is different from what we have experienced as common. It is titled happiness, but it has a lot of elements linked to respect and dignity, things that are valuable to people even when they dont seem to know it. It is definitely an introduction to a journey in leadership that can be applied in many ways not just work.
  • Anonymous
    Overall, it is a good course and it has helped me to refresh things which I learned long back by attending off-line courses. I also learned some new things which I didn’t know before.

    While learning I found this course too lengthy and due to which felt bored in completing this course.

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