The Happy Group

About The Happy Group

Better organizations begin with understanding people.

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The Happy Group (THG) is an organizational management consultancy founded in 2019 by Gillian A. Smith.

We help organizations understand how their people, processes, structures, leadership and environments interact and use that understanding to develop organizations that are more effective, adaptable, and meaningful places to work.

Our work is grounded in a simple belief:

Organizations are living systems.

They aren't simply collections of jobs, policies, departments, and processes.

People interact with one another. Information moves...or doesn't move. Decisions are made. Relationships develop. Processes evolve. Leaders influence behaviour. Employees influence culture. The organization changes in response to its environment.

Changing one part can affect another.

That's why THG looks beyond isolated workplace problems.

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Where THG Began

     The Happy Group was founded by Gillian Smith in 2019 after years of experience working in and around small businesses and a growing interest in why some organizations seem to function well while others struggle.

From an early age, Gillian worked alongside their father in the family retail businesses. That experience provided a firsthand look at what it means to keep a small business running: serving customers, working with employees, solving problems, making decisions with limited resources, and adapting when things don't go according to plan.

That experience continued through work in other small-business environments, including retail, service, non-profit and political organizations. Moving between different workplaces exposed Gillian to very different organizational cultures, leadership styles, working relationships, and ways of getting things done.

     Gillian's practical experience was eventually joined by an interdisciplinary education spanning biology, anthropology, human resources, leadership development, organizational behaviour, and business management. Together, these experiences shaped a way of looking at organizations that extends beyond individual employees or isolated workplace problems.

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Organizations began to look less like machines and more like living systems.

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     People affect organizations, and organizations affect people. Culture emerges through relationships. Processes influence behaviour. Leadership influences how people respond. Information determines what people can do. The environment places pressures on the organization. And changes in one part of the system can create unexpected effects somewhere else.

     This became the foundation for The Happy Group's approach to organizational management:

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Understand the system. Improve what isn't working. Create better ways of working.

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From People Problems to Organizational Problems

Many organizational problems initially appear to be about individual employees.

Someone isn't performing.

Employees aren't communicating.

Turnover is high.

Managers are overwhelmed.

A process isn't being followed.

Conflict keeps occurring.

Recruitment isn't producing the right candidates.

But an individual may be responding to the environment in which they work.

A performance problem might involve job design.

A communication problem might involve organizational structure.

A turnover problem might involve leadership, workload, culture, or the employee experience.

A manager's difficulty may be caused partly by systems surrounding the manager.

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The problem you can see isn't always the problem you need to solve.​ THG therefore looks at the broader organizational system before recommending change.

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What We Believe

     We believe organizations can be both human and effective. People shouldn't have to choose between meaningful work and productive organizations. We believe people are capable of developing greater agency over their working lives. Sometimes that means improving an existing workplace. Sometimes it means becoming a stronger leader. Sometimes it means creating a project, starting a business, or building an organization with other people.

There is more than one way to organize work.

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     THG's thinking has been influenced by organizational behaviour, management, leadership, organizational development, systems thinking, and thinkers such as Frederic Laloux.

Ideas surrounding autonomy, self-management, purpose, distributed responsibility, and organizational development provide useful possibilities for rethinking how organizations operate.

However, THG does not believe that every organization should adopt a single organizational model.

The right organization is the organization that makes sense for its people, purpose, environment, and stage of development.

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Why "The Happy Group"?

     For THG, happiness doesn't mean that work should always be easy or entertaining.

It means creating conditions in which people can:

• contribute meaningfully

• develop their capabilities

• experience purpose

• build healthy relationships

• exercise appropriate autonomy

• take responsibility

• and participate in something worthwhile

We believe those conditions can contribute to both human fulfilment and organizational effectiveness.

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More Than a Consultancy

     THG is also developing an educational and media platform through its YouTube channel and other resources.

The goal is not simply to tell people what organizations should look like. It's to encourage people to think, experiment, and create.

You might use THG ideas to improve your current workplace.

You might become a better leader.

You might experiment with self-management.

You might start a business.

You might build something with colleagues.

Or you might simply begin asking different questions about the way you work.

You don't have to wait for someone else to build the organization you want to work in. Sometimes, you can help build it yourself.

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Our Vision

     We envision a world in which people have greater agency to create meaningful ways of working, with organizations that have the capability to support both human development and meaningful results.

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Understand. Improve. Create.