The Chief Happiness Officer » Happy At Work

When your boss saves your job

Alexander — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:33:40 +0000

Bob Sutton, author of the excellent book Good Boss Bad Boss tells this story from the very early days at Pixar:

The company was under financial pressure and much of this pressure came down on the heads of the Division’s leaders, Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith.

The new president, Doug Norby, wanted to bring some discipline to Lucasfilm, and was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it.

But Norby was unmoved. He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order: “You will be in my office tomorrow morning at 9:00 with a list of names.”

So what did these two bosses do? They showed up in his office at 9:00 and plunked down a list. It had two names on it: Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith.

Remember, there are many great managers out there. If you work for one who isn’t great, don’t just accept that as the natural state of things. Do something about it.

Kom til Arbejdsglæde Live! konference 24. maj (in Danish)

Alexander — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:31:12 +0000

We just announced our annual conference about happiness at work in Copenhagen. Here’s the announcement – in Danish.

Vi er super glade for igen at kunne invitere til Arbejdsglæde Live! konference, hvor du og 300 andre deltagere blandt andet kan høre:

Will McInnes – Måske Englands gladeste direktør.

Hans Erik Brønserud – Direktør for en af Danmarks absolut gladeste arbejdspladser.

Wikke & Rasmussen – Fra Voldsom Volvo til Flyvende Farmor. Med glæde.

Lise Egholm – Årets leder i Danmark 2011 fortæller hvordan hun skaber arbejdsglæde.

Rowan Manahan – En ekspert fortæller hvordan arbejdsglæde fremmer din karriere – også i en krisetid.

Paula Larrain – Dagens konferencier.

Læs meget mere om konferencen og køb billetter her.

#h5yr and #h5is – find out how these two cryptic twitter tags promote happiness at work.

Alexander — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:31:57 +0000

Take a moment to check out these two websites with some slightly cryptic links:

They were created by Douglas Robar, a member of the Umbraco Community, that develops and uses the open source Umbraco CMS.

They wanted a good way to share both success and mistakes and since there are hundreds of people working with Umbraco spread out all over the world they do this through twitter.

If you want to praise a fellow member of the community for doing good work you can mention them on twitter and add the twitter tag #h5yr for High Five, You Rock (based on one of the exercises from our speeches).

If you’ve just made a mistake at work and want to share it so others can learn from your example, you can tweet about it and add #h5is for High Five, I Suck.

The two sites above list the most recent tweets that contain those two tags so the community members have a record of their successes and their failures and can appreciate and learn from both.

And remember: It’s important for a workplace to celebrate when things go well, but equally important to celebrate mistakes and failure. Here’s why.

PS.
Also note that there is no h5ys (High Five You Suck) tag. That would NOT promote happiness at work!

Happiness at work in Bangkok

Alexander — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:09:59 +0000

I always say that happiness at work can be found anywhere, in almost any job. Here’s more evidence to support that hypothesis from a man who makes ice tea on the streets of Bangkok:

Do you enjoy your job this much – or do it with half as much flair? If not… why not?

Give it your best shot

Alexander — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:13:35 +0000

Arbejdsglæde

How do you think this word above is pronounced? Make a recording of your best guess (video or audio) and post it here…

We need this for a little surprise project we’re working on. And yes, Danish is a weeeeeeird language.

UPDATE:
Here’s an attempt from the US:

And another great one from Poland:

Nice tries both… but not quite there. What’s your best shot?

Hmmm… is this me?

Alexander — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:10:47 +0000

Last night I was reading the excellent thriller novel Killer Move by Michael Marshall when I came to this passage where one of the main characters arrives at his office and runs into his assistant:

“How’s…” I struggled and failed to come up with the name of her spawn. “Feeling better?”

This was not something I cared about in the least, but that morning a Danish positivity blogger had suggested going out of one’s way to attempt to get inside other people’s lives and minds, however small and unappealing they might appear, as a thought experiment in connection building.

Now this may be conceited of me but I gotta ask… is that me? There aren’t that many Danish positivity bloggers and this is exactly the kind of thing I write about, eg. here, here and here.

I’ve been featured in The Times, The NY Times, Washington Post, BBC and Economic Times of India but this would be the first time I’ve ever been mentioned in a crime novel :o)

Happiness at work in The Dominican Republic

Alexander — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:51:52 +0000

A month ago I had the pleasure of speaking for the first time in The Dominican Republic. I was invited by Proaccion, a local consulting company who did a fantastic job advertising and arranging the event.

70 CEOs and top level managers came to hear me speak for 3 hours about felicidad en el trabajo para la rentabilidad organizacional. There’s an article about the event here (in Spanish).

I want to thank everyone who came for their enthusiasm and all the great questions. People seemed really inspired and from what I can tell the people of The Dominican Republic have a great capacity for happiness in life and a massive potential for translating that into their workplaces.

And I especially want to thank Zoraima, Salvador and everyone else at Proaccion for taking such good care of us. They made sure we had a wonderful time, met many great people and even found a suit for me, so I could attend the private tour of the government palace, since the palace is a no-jeans-zone.

So here – for the first time in years – is yours truly in a suit and tie:

My next international gig is in December in Greenland… so a slightly different culture and climate :o) Should still be very interesting.

Grant a wish at work

Alexander — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:42:52 +0000

I’ve previously blogged about the American company Zappos and how happy they are. I’ve had the opportunity to visit them several times and their energy, vision and culture blows me away every time.

My good friend Jamie Naughton who works for Zappos recently sent me this video from one of their all-hands meetings. This clip is from the Zappos Wishez part of the program:

Here’s a video that explains the program a little more and shows some examples of previously granted wishes:

I love this program because it ties into two of the most important things that make us happy. First of all, the happiness research shows that the best way to become happier yourself is to make someone else happy. I think it says something incredibly positive about us human beings as a species, that we gain the most happiness from increasing the happiness of others.

Also, this program builds positive relationships inside the organization, again one of the most important drivers of happiness in the workplace.

Your take

What do you think? Does your workplace have something like this? Could it work? What would it mean to you be able to make a wish or grant one? Please write a comment, I’d love to hear your take.

Celebrate your mistakes

Alexander — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:22:57 +0000

I gave a speech about happiness at work recently to a Danish IT company, where I talked about the importance of celebrating successes and mistakes in the workplace.

After the speech, one of the developer emailed me this clip from the animated movie Meet the Robinsons.

That’s it right there – failure and mistakes are not embarassing. They’re not meant to be hidden or explained away. Getting it wrong is a cause for celebration.

I wrote about it previously – here are The Top 5 Reasons to Celebrate Mistakes at Work.

Much Better Meetings

Alexander — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:20:47 +0000

We are extremely proud to be able to announce our newest product, which is called Much Better Meetings.

Basically, meetings often suck and make people unhappy at work.

I talked to a friend today who says he has a doctor’s note to the effect that any meeting longer than 10 minutes gives him a nosebleed.

Much Better Meetings is a complete system, ready to install in any meeting room, which helps you plan and facilitate effective, structured, fun meetings.

However, I’m afraid it’s only available in Danish so far under the name of Meget Bedre Møder. Read all about it at www.megetbedremoeder.dk.

Depending on the interest we get an English version may be coming soon.