The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Month: October 2006

  • Ask the CHO: Spruce up your workplace

    QuestionAllengirl4 saw my post on 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces, and wrote this in a comment:

    What a beautiful, and inspiring environment to work in! However, some of us are not so fortunate – so I pose the question, If you live in a fairly regimented pod-based cubicle world, how do you make your own space creative?

    I guess you could always hang up some Dilbert cartoons, though that is probably more an expression of desperation than an actual attempt to create a better looking, more inspiring workplace.

    So I’ll pass the question on to you, dear reader: What would you do to a perfectly ordinary office or cubicle to make it more creative?

  • Quote

    Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been the key to everything I’ve done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin’s success.
    – Richard Branson

  • Friday links

    TattooSteve Farber on The Greatness Paradox. “There is no law of physics, no universal rule–that I know of, anyway–that says your succeeding requires my failing, your fulfillment requires my emptiness, your happiness, my grief.” Steve is looking for stories on how you make others great. Go give him one.

    Fred Gratzon on Weeds and Life’s Purpose. “The problem is that most folks, besides not believing they are special (a tragic oversight, by the way), are so dulled out or fatigued that their innate intelligence, creativity, and passion are encrusted with inertia and thereby rendered sluggish.”

    How not to apply for a job in banking. Funniest thing on the net this week. You can’t make this stuff up, but Aleksey Vayner has. You MUST watch the video!

    Our employees’ tatoos. The missing link corporate website has a page showing it’s employees’ tattoos? Btw: It would be kinda funny if this company has one guy who’s just different and refuses to fit in – because he doesn’t have a single tattoo or piercing anywhere on his body :o)

    And have an amazingly great weekend!

  • Part 2 of podcast up at The Engaging Brand

    PodcastAnna Farmery has posted the second (and last) part of our conversation at her blog.

    In the second part we talk mostly about how you can create a happy business. Give it a listen and tell Anna what you think of it!

  • Ask the CHO: Implied overwork

    ClockOffice Lady asks this question:

    I have a question, can anyone help? On our contracts, we are supposed to work 39 hours a week (excluding lunch hours).

    So we all come in at 9 am and leave at 6 pm. But since we are supposed to work 39 hours only, we supposedly can leave at 5 pm one day of the week.

    But of course nobody does and everyone works until at least 6 pm five days a week.

    According to instructions, “of course??? we can leave at 5 pm one day of the week….we just need to inform our supervisors first.

    I of course also work until at least 6pm everyday, but sometimes, there are things that I wanna do that I want to leave early for.

    Should I really not ask even though I am entitled to it? :(

    I’m fairly sure that this kind of situation is quite common. The rules say “work X hours a day”. Practically everyone works more or way more.
    (more…)

  • Journey into leadership: Introduction

    New leaderThis post is part of a series that follows A.M. Starkin, a young manager taking his first major steps into leadership. Starkin writes here to share his experiences and to get input from others, so please share with him your thoughts and ideas. This post is the first in the series.

    Hi, I am a young manager who has very recently got his first Profit-and-Loss responsibility in a large corporation where I have to turn around a small and loss-giving company rather quickly.

    Would it be interesting and inspiring if I shared my thoughts and experiences with you on this task?

    A lot of us – statistically at least – work for big corporations that may or may not share our points of view and our ethics. We all have the choice whether we want to make the best of it, quit or just stay passive. How do you make a difference if you are just a pawn in a chess game with 100.000 pieces?

    That is what I want to explore and share with anyone, and that is why I agreed with Alexander to post those thoughts and experiences on his site, which is read and contributed to by a lot of inspiring people, who at least have in common that employees are real people, not “human resources”.
    (more…)

  • Announcing: Journey into leadership

    New leaderI’m totally excited about announcing the newest feature on the site: Journey into leadership.

    I was contacted by A.M. Starkin, a young manager who recently got his first profit-and-loss leadership position of a small company. He must turn this company around from loss to profits and must do so quickly.

    He believes that happiness at work is a major part of the solution, but is also a part of a larger organization that may not always share these beliefs.

    Starkin will be chronicling his journey, thoughts, ideas and questions about once a week, but not on a fixed schedule.

    This is real life, as it happens. Not a business case, edited after the fact. Not an anecdote from a “friend of a friend”. This is a real person in a very real situation, and I’m totally jazzed about following his journey and about seeing how the readers of this blog, as a community, can help Starkin.

    You can see all the posts about Starkin’s journey into leadership here.

  • How did you lose your innocence

    CleanDavid Maister asks a great question: How did you lose your business innocence?

    I keep meeting people who have given up their ability to believe in the power of standards and ideals (or to believe that anyone else in business has them).

    An example: “the firm pretends that it wants to inspire us, but the truth is that we do boring work, and so do those more senior than us. We cannot imagine that there are people who do work they are still excited about. That’s a luxury we cannot dream about. They just want us to work harder and get the people who report to us to work harder.???

    So here’s my question to you: How did we / you end up here? Clearly, something was missing from my education and upbringing – the world forgot to “beat out of me” my ideals, but seems to have done a good job of beating them out of most other people.

    I’m really interested: What (specifically) happened to you that made you lose your innocence about how business (or academia) was run (stories please?)

    (more…)

  • Podcast at The Engaging Brand

    SpeakerAnna Farmery of The Engaging Brand does some great podcasts. Last week it was Dan Pink, next week it’s Seth Godin and this week it’s… me!

    I skyped with Anna last week and she has posted the first part of our conversation here with a second part coming later this week.

    I had a great time talking to Anna about happiness at work and answering her great questions, some of which were:

    • On your blog you give a Monday morning tip – which tip would you share with the listeners as your favourite?
    • You believe happiness breeds creativity and engagement – can you explain to me why you so passionately believe in this?
    • You talk about humanness on your blog – as a manager/leader how do you make stronger personal connections without losing that respect level?
    • Is this kind of culture one that develops or do you have to work at it?
    • Are there cultural differences around the world – can there only one definition of a happy work place?
    • What would your 8 word legacy be?

    I think the podcast came out very well – what do you think?

  • Fiddling while the blog burns

    As you can probably see, I’m fiddling with the blog layout, and things may look strange for a while.

    Yes, I code some of my own php. Yes, that makes me a geek :o)