The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Month: September 2004

  • Book review: Smart Love

    I try to gather input for the Happy At Work Project from many sources. Web sites, books, movies, magazines – whatever may give me some new angle on what makes people happy at work. So please don’t read too much into it when I tell you, that I just finished reading a book called Smart Love: The Compassionate Alternative to Discipline That Will Make You a Better Parent & Your Child a Better Person by Martha and William Pieper :o)

    I saw the title, and thought that any alternative to discipline might be a nice thing to know about, in the search for ways to create better work environments. Indeed, much of what is says CAN be transplanted from the world of bringing up children to that of working together on the job.

    The obvious notion NOT to take with you, is the one where managers take on the roles of parents and employees become the children. Where knowledge, authority and responsibility is seen to lie only with some people (those who happen to be leaders) and employees are expected to do as they’re told. Fortunately this mindset is slowly disappearing.
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  • Happy at work – world-wide

    At the Interactive Organizations Conference 2004, I offered the idea of creating an international IO, based on the happy at work project.

    Instead of getting all theoretical, we could simply organize around the purpose of making people happy at work, and create an IO for just that. Here’s the idea: We already have some proven methods and technologies in the work we do in Denmark. We have lectures, a workshop, a book, a game, a video, a conference and much more. All of this we are willing to give away to anyone who’s interested in using it, and we’ll make this the basis of the world-wide happy at work project.

    If you’re interested in participating in this drop me an email. The exact details are still a little hazy – but mostly, I think it could be a LOT of fun :o)

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  • Interactive Organizations Conference

    The interactive organization is one that is less dominated by traditional control structures and where people are more free to do their work. Interactive organizations (IO’s) are therefore more efficient, adapt faster to changes in their environment – and they’re a lot more fun to be in. They can also be chaotic and frustrating :o)

    I’ve been a leader and participant (in interactive orgs everyone is both) in three different organizations which were interactive, and I can assure you, that I will never again work in a “traditional” workplace. I could simply never function again under the old, inflexible ways defined by the org chart.

    So when I heard that the first conference on IO’s was being organized in Krakow I knew that I had to be a part of it. The term Interactive Organization was defined in Harrison Owen’s book The power of spirit, how organizations transfrom and describes what a workplace organized around Open Space Technology might be like.
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