Comments on: The key to innovation is… happiness at work

By: swg credits

swg credits — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:46:07 +0000

I found this blog very interesting – keep up the good work ^^ If you’re willing to share, what theme have you installed on this site? It’s amazing and I’d love to know if it’s a free one.

By: Baker

Baker — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:47:19 +0000

This is amazing. Well put!

+Baker

By: Chris Young

Chris Young — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:25:50 +0000

Nice post Alex, and thank you for sharing your experiences from the conference. I too am pleased to hear that the thought leaders are able to recognize the importance of engagement in and happiness with one’s work.

I have selected your post as one of my weekly Rainmaker ‘Fab Five’ blog picks of the week which can be found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2008/12/the-rainmaker-f.html

Be well!

By: Ron Meledandri - Sentra Business Solutions

Ron Meledandri - Sentra Business Solutions — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:19:53 +0000

I think there is a difference between making people happy and creating a company culture that allows people to be happy. I think we have to be a bit careful with the idea of making people happy. We may make someone happy by implementing their idea. But what if it is a bad idea? What if we know it will hurt the company? What if it makes other employees unhappy? Creating a culture that allows people to be happy is one in which the employee knows that his her efforts, results, and ideas are appreciated even if they are not implemented. It is one in which they will try again and again even when they fail.

By: Bennet Simonton

Bennet Simonton — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:33:15 +0000

That people are more innovative when they are happy is not exactly breakthrough knowledge. What is amazing is that so few executives and managers realize that truth.

In my 30+ years of managing people and attempting to unleash each employee’s full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation, and commitment, I had to develop a set of tools to achieve that goal. After my first 12 years, I began to understand that the traditional top-down command and control approach was a real loser and started moving away from it. When I eventually moved to it opposite, that of bottom-up, and had my subordinate managers and supervisors using the same tools, I achieved that lofty goal. In the process, I learned that people are at least four times more capable than we think. This was managerial nirvana because we were able to blow away our competition and almost everyone loved to come to work.

Our problem is that most of society is authoritarian in nature, top-down, and that includes parents, teachers, churches, government, and the media. All this indoctrination causes the vast majority of managers to use what they were subjected to throughout their upbringing, not realizing that it is the worst way to manage people.

There is no doubt that Google has unleashed much innovation, not through training managers but mainly through having so few that they are unable to micromanage workers, by providing all sorts of useful support such as oil changes for cars, and by mandating 20% of the employee’s hours as free time to be used as the employee sees fit. Although I trained managers on exactly what to do and not do with their people, I can imagine that the Google approach might be as effective as mine though I tend to doubt it.

Best regards, Ben

By: Gauatm Chaudhury

Gauatm Chaudhury — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:46:39 +0000

I agree in toto.
Gauatm Chaudhury