Foreword

By Lars Kolind

When I first saw Alexander’s title on his business card—Chief Happiness Officer—I must confess I didn’t take it seriously. What next?!

But later I realised that Alexander has a point: Happy employees, managers, customers and suppliers make the best team. They get more work done, they come up with more new ideas, and they create more value.

Happiness can be part of a company’s competitive edge. It shapes corporate culture, helps attract the most talented people, and it makes them stay longer.

I have spent quite a few years researching and experimenting in order to find a new formula for running a business in the 21st century. My goal is to find a substitute for yesterday’s rigid, hierarchical, financially-driven business and organizational models. I arrived at four key elements:

A meaning that comes before profit.
A partnership between the company and its employees and others.
A collaborative organization.
Value-based leadership.

Reading this book, it struck me that happiness across the board supports all four elements. Companies are seldom happy if they are only about money. It is much more fun to work for a worthy cause.

If companies and employees are opposites or enemies instead of partners, nobody will be happy. If there are barriers between employees that prevent collaboration, energy will be spent on internal friction rather than customer satisfaction. The open and collaborative organization has fun.

It is that simple.

Therefore I dare say that happiness is not a joke in management. It is damn serious: Happy companies will win. Happy companies will grow and happy companies will innovate.

The company of the future is—happy.

Lars Kolind

Lars Kolind is the internationally renowned CEO responsible for the dramatic turnaround of troubled hearing aid manufacturer Oticon. Lars led Oticon from near collapse to world leadership during his ten years as CEO from 1988 to 1998. His turnaround—which includes introducing the spaghetti organization, mobile workplaces and the paperless office—is required reading at many business schools.

Lars is the chairman of the Grundfos Foundation and the author of The Second Cycle—Winning the War Against Bureaucracy.

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