Club Lunch: The Art of Happiness, Bhutan Style

Monday, April 27, 2015
12:30pm for 12:45pm – lunch
1:15pm – address
1st Floor

Speaker: Tenzin Lekphell
CEO of the Institute for Management Studies, Bhutan

We all seeked happiness. Few ideals were as difficult to grasp than happiness itself. Everyone had experienced it and yet many were still quite ignorant to what happiness was and how to stay happy.

Lekphell was the pioneer of the Seeds of Happiness Programme. He would share his insights about happiness from a Bhutanese perspective. Bhutan was the first and perhaps the only country to steadfastly measure its happiness index closer than it measured its GDP. The concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) was incepted in 1972, following a decree from His Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan. It revolved around the four main pillars: good governance, sustainable socio-economic development, cultural preservation and environmental conservation. The speaker would share the secrets of happiness at work and putting GNH into practice as a management tool. He would also explore if this positive emotion can exist alongside rampant globalisation and how to plant seeds of happiness for you, your children and employees.

Lekphell graduated from University of Delhi with a BSc and obtained a Master of Science from University of London; and was the Chief Labour Officer in the Royal Bhutan Ministry of Labour previously and the Royal Bhutan Army. He was based in Thimphu with his wife and three children.