First of all you have to know what you're good at and focus on that and build on it. Then even when you're in a group that's good at what you do, you can still stand out, like Wayne Gretzky tracking the puck. He was famous for his ability to predict where the puck would go and get there first. Wayne "Go where the puck is going, not where it has been" Gretzy.

This is Babe Ruth replying when asked HOW he hit home runs like he did, "I like to," his assumption being that the rest of us could, if only we wanted to or "liked to". He couldn't even grasp the question.

Here are some steps you can take to begin this focus:

2. Write your Personal Mission Statement (www.franklincovey.com/mission builder/index.html). Define your values, principles, and what matters to you. Then use this as a touchstone for making decisions and setting priorities and goals.

If your organization needs a Mission Statement, write one collaboratively, if possible. Getting everyone behind the "mission," the "bigger picture," will add to communal work satisfaction.

2. Attach meaning to what you do, what your department does, your organization does, and help others feel the mission in it.

The person who's answering the phone, for instance, isn't "just answering the phone," they're representing your company to the public and a key player in the success of your group mission.

If you feel your work isn't meaningful, and can't be, then you have some "recrafting" to do.

4. Get a good organizational system - whatever works for you. These will work if you work them.

5. Develop your emotional intelligence; it matters more to your success and happiness than your IQ, and it can be learned. Take an EQ assessment, The EQ course online, work with a coach, read, and practice.

6. Engage the services of a coach. This will greatly shorten your learning curve re: how you apply your natural abilities and talents and how well you develop your EQ, and he or she will hold your feet to the fire on accountability until it becomes second nature.

So there's a formula: Knowing your leading strengths and crafting your life around them, defining and managing your values and mission which give meaning, and actually accomplishing this because you've become organized.

Lastly, stay connected. In an interview, Mother Teresa was asked, "You've been in India dealing with illnesses like cholera and AIDS. What's the worst illness you've ever seen?" and she replied without blinking an eye, "The worst illness I have ever seen is the loneliness and isolation in the West." So, in conclusion, whether or not "pleasures" can occur in the workplace, the deeper satisfactions of life can and your job can be one path to happiness.

If you're the leader, the more opportunities for personal growth, development of potential, respect for strengths, opportunities for personal excellence, and "flow" you facilitate, the happier everyone is likely to be, and therefore more productive.

It could be that employees are more after this sort of experience than pizza parties and hoopla.