Happiness is the new GDP

      We all know about Bhutan, but Canada has done it for ages, Britain is thinking about it, and France has taken it on board, too.
      What is it? Gross National Happiness, to complement - or even replace - GDP.
      The search for meaning in life is also seeing governments world-wide acknowledge that financial measures such as gross domestic product can’t tell us everything about how well people are really doing. Things like cleaning up oil spills and building more prisons are great for GDP, but most of us would prefer clean water and less crime. And we work to live, not live to work, right…?
      So more and more businesses are focusing on people – staff, directors, shareholders, value chains, customers and local communities – in ways that make a measurable difference to our shared quality of life and overall happiness. And more and more shareholders, suppliers, customers, communities and governments are looking for businesses that do this.
      Effective businesses will be measuring their outputs in units that reflect social and environmental as well as financial and economic wellbeing. They have to: as consumers realize that more ‘stuff’ doesn't yield the lasting pleasure so lavishly promised in the advertisements, they are replacing ‘things’ with experiences – spending time with family and friends and enjoying natural and cultural activities.
      Built-in obsolescence is starting to die and leasing is progressively replacing the purchase of many products, as people realize they can share or hire cars and appliances as and when they need them – even items like floorings and furniture, in both their professional and personal lives. To give the best service, reduce the expense of repair and replacement and avoid the costs of wastefully disposing of increasingly scarce resources, such service suppliers will have to make sure their products are better made and more easily repaired and recycled – or even “up-cycled” into more useful and intelligent products.
      Farsighted businesses will see that leasing a product to a client is an ongoing service based on reliability and relationships, and this will yield them genuine lifetime clients whose value is worth so much more than just a series of sales.

The content of this blog is adapted from some thoughts I put together for the wonderful Ann Andrews of The Corporate Toolbox for her free ebook, "What's next? 29 Entrepreneurs share Predictions for 2011/12". Many thanks to Ann for allowing me to reproduce some of that material here.