Readers’ experiences

What happens out there in real life? Get a dose of the real-life experiences of other readers and share your own here.

8 Comments »

  1. Phinius Said,

    January 27, 2007 @ 12:53 pm

    WOW….

    I sat down yesterday night after a rough week….I just finished it 30 minutes ago. I am planning a meeting with my boss to get her to start doing these exercises as soon as we can.

    Thank You for writing this.

  2. Frauke Godat Said,

    March 11, 2007 @ 4:55 pm

    Hi Alex,
    I have received your book through your friend Carsten who I know through the Pioneers of Change network. Together with that little note “Yeah! A free book :)”

    What a great idea to send that book traveling! And it was good to have some positive pressure to read it in one week ;-)

    First of all, I have registered the book at http://www.bookcrossing.com (BCID: 615-4906954). Thus others can see the story and the journey of your book, as well.

    I really liked the Appreciative Inquiry exercise in chapter 9. I will adapt some of those questions to start one-to-one Pioneers of Change network dialogues here in Holland: http://pioneersofchange.net/communities/networkdialogue

    And finally, your book is a great addition to our book: “Change the World 9 to 5″ from the international movement: We Are What We Do (www.wearewhatwedo.org)

    I have given a book to Carsten but I am happy to send you a copy as well and start another international Bookcrossing ring!

    Groetjes from Amsterdam,
    FRAUKE

  3. Frauke Godat Said,

    March 12, 2007 @ 10:54 am

    We just had a discussion on defining our values on the AIESEC Imagine blog and I have posted another reference to your book with adapted exercises there: http://imagineblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/output-values-session/

    For me happiness at work is a lot about living my values and I actually left my last work because, I couldn’t live my values in the way I wanted to and started full-time volunteering for We Are What We Do and some paid trainings on the side which is much more fulfilling now: http://imagineblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/displaying-values/

  4. Frauke Godat Said,

    March 12, 2007 @ 2:02 pm

    Inspiration is flowing here on Monday morning: I guess, that happens when you love your job ;-)

    I have just really thought out-of-the box and have used the Appreciative Inquiry exercise for We Are What We Do ACTION 01:
    http://godat.hyves.nl/blog/1518332/Telling_the_story_of_your_bag/uuVr/
    http://godat.hyves.nl/blog/1518286/ACTION_1_My_favorite_shopping_bags/IAhT/

  5. Frauke Godat Said,

    March 13, 2007 @ 8:31 am

    I read this poem in a XING forum this morning:
    HAPPINESS IS A BYPRODUCT OF ACTIVITY

    Happiness lies in the joy of achievement,
    in the thrill of creative effort.
    The human spirit needs to accomplish,
    to achieve, to triumph to be happy.

    Happiness does not come from doing easy work,
    but from the afterglow of satisfaction
    that comes after the achievement
    of a difficult task that demands your best.

    Your personal growth itself contains the seed of happiness.
    You cannot pursue happiness by itself.
    There is no happiness except in the realization
    that you have accomplished something.

    Happiness thrives in activity.
    It’s a running river, not a stagnant pond.

    Source: The Eyes of Haiti

  6. Eric D Said,

    January 14, 2008 @ 11:21 pm

    Hello Alex,

    I discovered your website several months ago while searching the web when I finished reading another excellent book, “Peopleware” by Tom De Marco & Tim Lister. I loved it right away. I first read the online version of the book (very good idea indeed - I then purchased several paper versions) and found everything in it so true and well written, full of funny pictures and convincing contemporary examples !

    One of the brilliant things in the book is that it gives very practical and workable advice on what we can do to improve. Up to the point that I recently explained in a board meeting (I am engineering head in a high-tech company) what is a happy plan. I just started to implement one in my team, and believe me, the first feedback is extremely positive. I’ll provide updates about my experience on this site.

    This is both a brilliant book and website, which really deserve to be better known.

    Thank you so much Alex for all that: please carry on, we need you as a CHO !

    Eric.

  7. Eric D Said,

    January 23, 2008 @ 12:02 am

    As promised, here are some news about my ongoing experiment:

    Let me first give a little background.

    The initial reactions when speaking of happiness at work in France is “you’re kidding”, and it can even turn into despise from some people when they realize you really mean it. This comes from both managers and employees, the first ones believing that happy people are lazy people (”you have to whip people to get them to have things done”), the second ones wondering what you’re hiding behind your back (”there must be something bad hidden”).

    The deep lack of mutual confidence among individuals and organisations in general in France is probably even more true than in many countries. As happiness relies on confidence, the statement “being happy at work” goes against quasi-cultural beliefs. However, when digging a little when it is possible, most people agree interestingly that when they are happy, they do a better job ! For that, and also because I recently moved to a company where the CEO shares this view, I found hope that all of this can change :o)

    For a start, I have started to implement the 7 points listed in “what managers can do”.
    Point 1 is Ok: I decided to be happy myself
    Point 2 drives my day to day activity: I do spend as much time with the people as I can
    Point 3 is just what I have done in the past few days, evaluation of my direct report’s happiness; asking questions like “what makes you happy” and “what could make you happier” is a very enjoyable experience, even if some of them had difficulties to answer. I know they will think about it now !
    Asking if I do a good job is a bit trickier, as people are not necessarily comfortable with such a question (me first). For a start, I collected interesting feedback, about good things (which helps) and had some tracks for things to improve (which helps a lot).

    Point 4 Visualize your happy organization, is Okay as far as I am concerned: I do figure out what it looks like, no problem ! I now have to make it share to others…

    I let Point 5 aside from now (happiness business case), as this seems pretty obvious to me.

    Point 6 Put Happiness First is not so easy in fact; for now I spend time to explain by explaining the book to some people, I prefer spending time doing things than speaking, to strengthen the confidence in such an approach (words are only words, after all).

    As per POint 7, I started to draft an actual “happy plan”; the current one is made of things such as “organise a celebration for the release of xxx new product”, “have lunch with team members twice a week”, “bring croissant for an an early start meeting”. I have asked team membres to propose me “fancy” items for this plan, and would really like to get examples of what others have done: I need intermediate steps before the “Mexican Wave” or singing happy songs.

    More to come….

    Eric.

    PS1: “happy hour is 9 to5″ is part of my top 3 management books, along with Dale Carnegie’s “How to make friends” and Tom De Marco’s “Peopleware”.

    PS2: I would love to have a French version of the book in order to be able to make even more buzz about it around me.

  8. Eric D Said,

    March 21, 2008 @ 5:43 pm

    Alex,

    Some news about what is going on in my company.

    Let me first say that I do have your book on my desk, and I refer to it quite often in my day to day activities. I must confess that while I adhere 150% to its content and look permanently for ways to make people happier in their jobs, I still feel some difficulty to implement concretely a happy plan. Putting in place concrete actions to make the workplace more fun is not that easy: work can be a fun place, it is still work and too far-fetched ideas could be seen out of place given our culture, in my opinion. But I may be too shy and can be wrong on that point…

    That said, I have some interesting things to mention that happened recently, without a « real » happy plan in place:
    - most employees bring eating or drinking stuff (we are in France, after all) for their anniversary and employment birthday: croissant, home made cakes, crepes, etc… I personaly offered a drink and buffet before lunch for my first year in the company; this creates regular occasions to gather everybody in a friendly way;
    - small and soft rugby balloons have been introduced in the lab following the world cup; when I see one around, I throw it to the next office as everyone else would do;
    - a lot of people have a lunch break onsite, and some like to play to a network game after. Instead of looking with a black eye at the screens I see when walking around, I smile and asks who wins (I do not personnaly enjoy network game player).
    - when coming back from a business trip to switzerland before easter, I brought back easter eggs;
    - Our IT manager is the last one to present during company meetings: as he is a fun guy (unusual for an IT manager, I know, but it happens !), it is now the tradition that he displays a joke at the end of his slides and hence the monthly company meeting, ranging from funny YouTube videos to an automatic tool generating weirdo product names.

    Also, it has become a joke to say « happy plan ! » when a fun or simply nice idea comes to the mind of my close collaborators, as a kind of motto.

    Now, when the situation is more tense due to unhappy events occuring (it happens!), this kind of things have to be handled with more care: it’s not easy and sometimes not fair to have fun in that occasions. Recent exemples I have include stopping a contract of an under-performing employee, or the announcement of poor financial results. The good point I noticed is that this kind of “happy plan” behaviours comes back quite rapidly after several days, when re-initiating the thing a little bit.

    I will soon poll people again to know if they are yeah, meuh or bof. Personnaly, I am definitely Yeah++.

    More to come…

    Eric.

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