What leads to personal and professional fulfilment? It's a question everyone wants to know the answer to. Here, we discuss MRG’s research on the motivational, life architecture, and quality of life factors to see what we can predict about individual satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

1. A Life Well-Lived?
The Science of Satisfaction
Andrew Rand, Ph.D. | Consulting Psychologist, MRG

2. Host
Lucy Sullivan
Head of Marketing, MRG
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3. Management Research Group is a global leader in
designing assessments that foster a deep self-
awareness and impact people in profound and
meaningful ways with solutions for Leadership, Personal
Development, Sales and Service.
MRG conducts extensive research on effective
leadership behaviour, leveraging a database of more
than 1.2 million assessment participants.
Andrew Rand, Ph.D.
Consulting Psychologist | MRG

4. Agenda: The Science of Satisfaction
1. What do we know about the relationship between career, work and life satisfaction?
2. Are there motivational, life architecture and quality of life factors that predict individual
satisfaction?
3. Are there motivational, life architecture and quality of life factors that predict individual
dissatisfaction?
4. How can we help individuals find satisfaction across the different facets of their lives?

5. Poll: Satisfaction in Practice
My clients/the leaders I work with believe that their overall
satisfaction is a necessary ingredient to being successful.
A. Most of the people I work with believe this
B. Some of the people I work with believe this
C. Very few of the people I work with believe this

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Let’s talk about satisfaction
What the research tells us

7. What Neuroscience tells us about Satisfaction
Decreases stress
Improves brain
health
Improves cognitive
function
 Amount of information we can process
 Complexity of information we can process
 Ability to think creatively
 Ability to solve problems
 Amount of insight accessed

8. Why isn’t it easier to
be satisfied?
What gets in the way
of satisfaction?

9. The organizing principle of the brain:
Minimize danger.
Maximize reward.
THREAT REWARD

10. What is the root of Negativity Bias?
Let’s look at the two kinds of mistakes
our ancestors could make.
From Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson

11. Thinking there’s a tiger in the
bushes when there’s not.
Thinking there’s no tiger in
the bushes when there is.
From Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson
Mistake #1 Mistake #2
NEEDLESS
ANXIETY DEATH? ?

12. We evolved to make Mistake #1 a
thousand times…
…so we’d never make Mistake #2.
From Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson

13. Negative experiences stand out…
and stick around.
Stimuli differ in salience.

14. What about work?

15. Work factors that predict satisfaction
• Being employed
• Current salary
• Being younger at time of graduation
(also career satisfaction, and career
success)
• Age/time on the job
• Choosing a career that matches
vocational interests
Work-related benefits of satisfaction
• Greater productivity
• Low absenteeism
• Organizational citizenship
• Lower burnout
• Highly effective leaders report high
satisfaction and low dissatisfaction
Occupational and Personal Outcomes of Satisfaction
(Amdurer, Boyatzis, Saatcioglu, Smith & Taylor, 2014; Feldman, 2015; Kaplan, DeShon & Tetrick, 2017)

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Satisfaction Research
Are there motivational, life architecture and quality of life
factors that predict individual satisfaction?

17. How much of your work involves helping leaders
develop specific techniques to increase satisfaction
and/or decrease dissatisfaction?
A. This is a regular part of my work with clients
B. I do this with some clients, but not others
C. I’ve just begun to explore this work with clients
D. I haven’t built this into my practice in any significant
way
Poll: Achieving Satisfaction

18. Demographics

20. Satisfaction
• Fulfilled
• Happy
• Experiencing pleasure
• Satisfied
Dissatisfaction
• Unfulfilled
• Unhappy
• Frustrated
Our Outcome Measures

21. Higher Satisfaction | Motivational Evidence
Relative Importance Index
(Total variance explained = 7%)
30010 10 20

22. Higher Satisfaction | Life Choice Evidence
Relative Importance Index
(Total variance explained = 15%)
30010 10 20 40

23. Higher Satisfaction | Quality of Life Evidence
Relative Importance Index
(Total variance explained = 32%)
30 010 10 202040

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Dissatisfaction Research
Are there motivational, life architecture and quality of life
factors that predict individual dissatisfaction?

25. Higher Dissatisfaction | Motivational Evidence
Relative Importance Index
(Total variance explained = 4%)
30 01020 10 20 30

26. Higher Dissatisfaction | Life Choice Evidence
Relative Importance Index
(Total variance explained = 9%)
30 01020 10 20 30 40 50

27. Higher Dissatisfaction | Quality of Life Outcome Evidence
Relative Importance Index
(Total variance explained = 40%)
30 01020 10 20

28. Questions
& Comments

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Supporting Satisfaction
What we can do to help clients reach the right
balance

30. Have we found the right combination for increasing satisfaction
and reducing dissatisfaction?

31. Strategies for Increasing Satisfaction
1. Strive for balance.
2. Harness self-awareness for self-regulation.
3. Practice mindfulness.

32. Strategies for Increasing Satisfaction
1. Strive for balance.
2. Harness self-awareness for self-regulation.
3. Practice mindfulness.

33. Simple Ways to Greater Satisfaction
Exercise more
Move closer to work
Plan a trip (but don’t go!)
Help others
Family & friend
time Be outside
Sleep more
Meditate
Practice gratitude
Separate reaction
from experiences
Exercise more
Beth Belle Cooper; Fast Co. Magazine

34. Finding the Balance for Satisfaction
Increase exposure to satisfying experiences.
Decrease experience of dissatisfaction.
Maintain balance between satisfaction and
dissatisfaction.
1
(Hanson, 2013; Lyubomirsky & Della Porta, 2010; Pinel, 2011)

35. Finding the Balance for Satisfaction
Find new ways to interpret dissatisfaction.
Face difficult situations with a positive attitude.
Resilient individuals engage in behavioral
responses to improve a situation.
Change appraisal and response to negative
stimuli.
2
(Hanson, 2013; Lyubomirsky & Della Porta, 2010; Pinel, 2011)

36. Finding the Balance for Satisfaction
Be more attentive to everyday positive experiences
and hold onto them for 10-15 seconds to grow
new neural networks in the brain.
Synapses grow in efficiency with repeated
stimulation.
Train your brain.3
(Hanson, 2013; Lyubomirsky & Della Porta, 2010; Pinel, 2011)

37. Strategies for Increasing Satisfaction
1. Strive for balance.
2. Harness self-awareness for self-regulation.
3. Practice mindfulness.

38. Mitigating reactive cycles
Step 1: What am I most sensitive to?
How much of this is how we feel and what we
believe about our world?
How much has any basis in fact?
Uncertainty?
Feeling unsupported?
Feeling excluded?
Feeling out of
the loop? Feeling unappreciated?
Criticism?

39. Mitigating reactive cycles
Step 2: How do I react?
When does this happen most?
Keep a diary.
Physical tension? Lack of sleep?
Loss of appetite?
Increasingly
emotional?
Mental turmoil?
What helps me to dissipate these effects as
quickly as possible?

40. Mitigating reactive cycles
Step 3: What actions alleviate these effects?
Talk to that version
of you one week
ahead.
Evaluate:
rationalization or
distraction?
Learn from the
lessons of the past:
be more evidence-
based.

41. Achievement vs. Happiness
?
Excelling?
Gaining Stature?
Creating, Independence?
Stability?
Life line: key events, achievements, highs & lows

42. Overarching objectives and life goals
What is really important to me?
My career?
My family?
My health?
Do my natural drivers work in service of my
overarching objectives, or do they simply serve
themselves?

43. Overarching objectives and life goals
Positive indicators
Objective
self-observation
Powerful internal
narrative
Winning back
perspective
Stronger commitment
to self-value

44. Strategies for Increasing Satisfaction
1. Strive for balance.
2. Harness self-awareness for self-regulation.
3. Practice mindfulness.

45. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is paying close attention to the present in
an open and accepting way.
Mindfulness changes
the structure of our
brains.
Mindfulness isn’t
difficult.
What is difficult is
remembering to be
mindful.
Breathe.

46. Summing up the ideas
There is strong evidence, from both the Neuroscience and
Leadership research, that satisfaction increases cognitive
and leadership effectiveness.
Satisfaction is both an outcome and a practice.
Our brain’s sensitivity to threat is often a block to
satisfaction.

47. Summing up the ideas
Keeping track of our energy helps us make decisions that will
cultivate more satisfaction.
There is solid research about things we can do that increase
our happiness (and the list doesn’t include getting richer or
thinner!).
There are great, brain-friendly ways to enhance the positive
and balance our tendency to focus on the negative.

48. Every individual is different and has their own
path to satisfaction.

49. Questions
& Comments

50. Resources
• Your Brain at Work, David Rock, 2009
• Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert, 2005
• Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson, 2013
• The Surprising Science of Happiness, Daniel Gilbert, TED Talk, 2009
• Mindfulness, Ellen J. Langer, 1990
• The Mindful Brain, Daniel J. Siegel, 2007
• Positivity; Barbara Frederickson, 2009
• www.getsomeheadspace.com
• http://zenhabits.net/
• http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/
• http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/12/a-simple-way-to-increase-your-joy/
• http://www.fastcompany.com/3015486/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/10-simple-science-backed-ways-to-
be-happier-today
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