The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

  • Free ebook: 1001 best things said about work

    Fortune cookiesErnie Zelinski emailed me a copy of his free e-book “1001 best things ever said about work” and I gotta say that that’s quite the quote collection.

    It includes nuggets like:

    Guidelines for Bureaucrats:
    1. When in charge, ponder.
    2. When in trouble, delegate.
    3. When in doubt, mumble.
    — James H. Boren

    Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
    — Thomas Edison

    When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President: I’m beginning to believe it.
    — Clarence Darrow

    Thank you Ernie for sending me this! I am quite the quote-hound myself, as you can see here.

    You can download Ernie’s ebook of quotes here (pdf) and you can find Ernie’s other books here, including his intriguingly titled book “The joy of not working”.

  • Quote

    Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.

    – Arnold J. Toynbee

  • More great blogs about happiness at work

    Happy ducksThe more I look the more blogs I find that talk about happiness at work. It seems like there’s a regular groundswell of interest in getting love your job – or getting a job you love.

    Here are some more of my favorites, that I follow closely and here’s my previous crop of Happy At Work blogs.

    The Engaging Brand
    Anna Farmery’s blog should be about branding, I guess, but she keeps writing great posts on improving work life and business culture. Check out 10 ways to bring fun to meetings and How to screw up successfully. She also does podcasts – the last one was with Dan Pink and she interviewed me for one this week which will be out next week – we had a blast talking and I think the result will be well worth listening to.

    The Performance & Talent Management Blog
    Max Goldman writes this excellent blog for consulting company SuccessFactors. He has a fresh, interesting perspective on all things HR.

    Hello My Name Is Scott
    Scott Ginsberg once forgot to take off his name tag after an event, found that it created an immediate connection with people and has worn one ever since. What a cool, friendly happy idea. Btw: He thinks you should set fire to your TV. I agree!
    (more…)

  • 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces

    office

    Physical space matters. It’s easier to be productive, creative and happy at work in a colourful, organic, playful environment than in a grey, linear, boring one.

    And I’m not talking about the outside of the building. Many companies have buildings that are sleek, modern, architectural glass-steel-and-cement sculptures on the outside – and cubicle wastelands on the inside. These companies need to remember that most employees tend to work inside the building.

    With that in mind, here’s some eye candy from 10 different innovative, well-designed workplaces.

    (Also check out my post on 12 Ways to Pimp Your Office).
    (more…)

  • A question for ya: Three tips for your boss

    QuestionI have yet another question for ya: What three tips would you give your boss? What would you like him or her to do, stop doing, change, say, not say?

    Write a comment, I’d really like to know!

  • Career surfers

    Surfer crossingDanish newspaper Jyllandsposten had an article last week about career surfers. In it they describe how employees today often decline job offers or promotions that a company offers them.

    Professor Henrik Holt Larsen of the Copenhagen Business School says:

    It’s harder than ever for businesses to attract and retain employees who not only possess the required skills but who can also be emotionally bound to the company. People tend to focus more on their own desires and needs and therefore to surf between multiple career paths.

    We don’t know enough yet about this narcissistic personality.

    You know, Henrik, you say that like it’s a bad thing :o)

    I have two comments on this. First, I find it incredible that someone would cast this tendency for people to choose career paths for themselves in a bad light. This is not narcissistic, it’s common sense. I choose my career path based on what’s good for me, not on what’s good for the company.

    Secondly, if companies want to “bind their employees to them emotionally”, as Larsen puts it, this bond needs to go both ways. In short, the company must be prepared to offer it’s employees more than just a paycheck. If a company wants it’s employees to feel something about the company, the company must be prepared to feel back. To value it’s employees as people, not just as resources.

    And this means yout won’t fire people, just to get a 5% increase in stock price. This means that you won’t carelessley reassign people to a department they don’t want to work for. This means leaders will do everything in their power to make their people happy at work.

    The equation is simple:

    Want your employees to care about the company?

    Start by having the company care about them. Not as employees but as human beings.

  • How to turn around a bad day

    Bad day at work
    Bad days happen to the best of us. Days where you just wake up in a really bad mood. Where something (or nothing) has made you angry, sad, frustrated, disappointed, whatever. Days where you know up front that “MAN, this is going to suck”.

    You still have to get up and go to work, but before you even get there, you’re already seething inside. You try to do your job but somehow all the angry, dissatisfied clients have conspired to call you and complain on the same day – though you have no idea how they coordinated that little feat.

    Everything your co-workers say to you sounds incredibly stupid. Everyone seems out to annoy you. The next person to open his mouth is likely to get his head ripped clean off.

    Not much fun, huh? Luckily, you can do something about it. Here are six ways to turn around a bad day.
    (more…)

  • With nothing, everything is possible

    Living roomTed Dewan is an artist who does roadwitching – reclaiming streets for humans from automobiles. His presentation on this was one of the highlights at EuroGEL and he recently sent me these wonderful thoughts on how we can reclaim our workplaces:

    Reclaiming the workspace is something I attempted during my two summers in a cubicle. I made a little ‘fort’ out of my cubicle elements, and alas, this was frowned upon on ‘health and safety’ grounds (the cubicle elements were 1970’s leftovers, all purple brown and orange and round…90 degree arcs. They were seriously cool cubicle elements which were thrown away in 1983 and replaced with square grey ones that were higher and difficult to peer over. What a shame–they’d be very much sought after now as sort of groovy retro office furniture, although they probably went up in flames in a second due to the old foam.

    Anyhow, I think going beyond posting Dilbert cartoons is the way forward in cubicle land. Some choice in cubicle arrangement and design was for me the most important way of introducing a bit of happiness into my environment back then.

    That costs, though, and part of the pleasure of Roadwitching is just how cheap it is. One of my mottos is ‘with nothing, everything is possible’.

    One thing that might be fun is renegade meeting rooms. I once heard of a group that set a meeting table up in a parking spot (they were meeting to plan Roadwitch-like activities) and they found the experience envigorating and it helped their thinking as a result. It might be a bit distracting, but depending on the sort of meeting, it’s worth a try I suppose. I’d test it first before offering it as paid-for advice, of course!

    I like it! Just as most streets have lost all their humanity to the demands of the automobile, so many workplaces have lost their human touch to a desire for sameness, efficiency and professionalism. It’s a shame, because it makes people less efficient.

    Stay tuned for a post on great examples of great design in the workplace that allows people to work more efficiently AND have more fun.

  • Bad managers in Norway

    Norwegian flagVetle from Norway sent me a link to an article about how bad management is making norwegian employees unhappy at work and costing business tons of money.

    From the article:

    22% of employees surveyed consider their immediate manager so weak, that maybe that person shouldn’t be a manager at all.
    …
    There is a clear connection between good managers, satisfied employees and profits. Happy employees create happy customers – and better results for the business. According to our research, happy employees mean a 40% increase in profits.

    Also one in three rate their manager as technically competent but a bad leader.

    The question is: Is this a norwegian phenomonon or is this true in your country too? What do you think?

  • Monday Tip: A warm “good morning”

    The Chief Happiness Officer's monday tipsThis monday, your mission is really simple: All morning, give everyone you meet an extra warm greeting. Smile broadly. Say “Good morning” in a cheerful voice. Take time to ask people how they are (really, not the fake “how are you” greeting).

    Don’t worry if people don’t answer or don’t smile back – it’s not a slight on you they may just be preoccupied or having a bad day. When that happens smile even more at the next person :o)

    The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

    Previous monday tips.