The business of happiness: learning the ropes at Harvard Business School. From the article:

As business schools train the corporate chieftains of tomorrow, skills like emotional awareness and improving well-being are taking their places alongside deal making and financial modeling. Courses on happiness, relationships and balance are among the most in-demand courses at top M.B.A. programs. Their popularity reflects both the demand for soft skills and students’ desire for more-balanced lives—and an intention among schools to turn out better bosses….

Participants are taught how to cultivate their teams’ happiness, along with their own. A central tenet is that happiness is key to being an effective leader. Happiness isn’t just a product of chance, genes or life circumstances, Dr. [Arthur] Brooks posits, but of habitually tending to four key areas—family, friends, meaningful work, and faith or life philosophy….

The seven-week, half-credit course was first offered in the spring semester of 2020, intersecting with the arrival of Covid-19. Happiness at work has since taken on new urgency for employees and managers, as workers leave jobs at record rates and rethink their goals. Many companies are scrambling to boost morale, reduce turnover, experiment with new ways of working—and even offering wellness retreats for employees….

Class presentations can mix Bible verses and Buddhist teachings with psychological research on well-being or romantic love. He asks students to distinguish “real friends” from more transactional “deal friends.” (Real friends “have a beautiful quality of uselessness,” Dr. Brooks said. “I don’t need you, I just love you.”)