Book review: Joy, Inc by Rich Sheridan

Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love by Rich Sheridan came out December 26 and it’s the single best business book I have read in a long while.

Menlo is a software design and development company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They have built a culture that removes the fear and ambiguity that traditionally makes a workplace miserable and made joy their explicit goal.

I have recently had a chance to spend a day at Menlo talking to their founders and their people and I can say with confidence that they are an amazing workplace with a remarkable energy.

How would you like to work at a company where:

  • They’ve eliminated meetings
  • They’ve eliminated internal email
  • Employees can bring dogs and babies to work
  • You work a 40-hour work week
  • Finances and salaries are transparent
  • You get to constantly learn from and with your co-workers

I’ve previously written about Menlo on this blog – especially about their hiring process which is radically different from other companies.

Joy Inc by Rich SheridanThis book is a pleasure to read and has a great story that will pull you right in but it is, above all, incredibly useful.

Sheridan clearly lays out the many innovative and effective things they’ve done to create a happy workplace and most of them could without a doubt be translated into any kind of workplace.

You will read this book with a smile on your face and go “Of course – that makes perfect sense! Why isn’t every workplace doing this?”

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8 thoughts on “Book review: Joy, Inc by Rich Sheridan”

  1. Alex –

    It was such a pleasure to host you and the Woohoo! team here at Menlo. I am delighted and honored to count you among my good friends. Keep up the good work that you are doing.

    Rich

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  3. Thanks for this useful review Alexander. I thought I would kick off the new year by getting this book for myself and my leaderteam…Looking very much forward to reading it!!

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