How to be happy at work
I recently asked you what makes you happy or unhappy at work and got a lot of great answers. Thank you to everyone who responded!
Though small, unscientific and totally without academic merit, there are still a few things to learn from this mini-survey, and any managers reading this could stand to take a look at the answers. Here are some of my conclusions.
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Josh Peck emailed me a great suggestion last week:
I’ve been keeping up with your blog for a few months now and first, thank you for bringing some sanity to the world of work. Secondly, as I read the blog, I keep seeing examples of great companies that are doing things right. How can I find companies near me that “get it”?
Could it be time for a CHO job board, where only enlightened companies are allowed to post?
Could it ever! And what if we add a Google map, where we can all plot in companies we know to be happy and what makes them happy? That way it would be easy to find happy companies to go work for in any country/city/town.
What else would we need? What would make this idea really great? Does something like this already exist?
Write a comment :o)
I have found a veritable treasure trove of articles on happiness at work over at the Gallup Management Journal.
Here are a few great ones:
Construct the workplace to encourage interaction
You are three times as likely to have a close-knit group if the physical environment makes it easy to socialize.
Dilbert Is Right, Says Gallup Study
A national employee survey confirms that uncomfortable work environments do make for disgruntled employees.
Bringing Work Problems Home
Employees who aren’t engaged in their jobs are more likely to be unhappy in their personal lives too.
Can Employees Be Friends With the Boss?
Yes, according to research. In fact, managers who demonstrate care for employees have more engaged staffs.
Last year, my friend Jakob got a job he really likes in a medium-sized IT company. His boss is a great guy, his co-workers are competent and fun and his clients are all terribly nice people.
There’s only one fly in the ointment: Jakob’s boss’ boss (one of the VPs) is… less nice. He tends to summon all his employees to meetings and chew them out collectively and loudly for whatever problems he sees. He’s abrasive and unpleasant, always complains and never acknowledges his people for the good work they do. His emails to his underlings are a case study in rudeness. And, of course, he’s known for summarily firing people who cross him in any way.
Now, while Jakob likes his job, he doesn’t need it. He’s independently wealthy and so skilled he can always go out and get another job, and therefore has zero fear of being fired. Where other people in the company feel they must watch their tongue for fear of the consequences, he feels free to say and do exactly what he thinks is right.
And here’s the thing: When Jakob stands up to this VP and tells him that he won’t stand for his unpleasant approach and exactly why his abrasive style creates problems for the company, he listens. Nobody has ever told any VP at the company these things before, and for the first time the company has an employee that is totally unafraid of doing so.
The result: This particular VP is slowly changing his ways. And he certainly pulls none of his usual attacks on Jakob, who he knows simply won’t stand for it.
The risk of being fired is the biggest axe a company or a manager holdes over employees’ heads. It’s a mostly unstated, but well-known fact of working life that if you as an employee get too far out of line, you’ll be fired. Or terminated/axed/given the chop – don’t you just love those terms, with their unsubtle flavor of death?
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Do what you can, with what you have, where you are
– Theodore Roosevelt
So. The book is ending.
Right around this time the typical business book would probably tell you to:
This might work if you’re building a bridge, but it does not work for making yourself and your organization happy. I suggest that you do indeed make a plan, but that you do the exact opposite of the typical plan.
So I’m not going to give you the whole “if you want things to get better, you must do something about it yourself” and “it doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO or the security guard, YOU can make a change” spiel. Either you already know this or I can’t convince you that it’s true.
And anyway, it doesn’t matter if you believe it or not.
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This monday morning, as you look forward to the work week ahead, what are you thinking?
Are you dreading the week that’s just begun, thinking about all the hard work, unpleasant encounters and unfinished business?
Or are you looking forward to doing great work and having fun with the people around you?
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Two black T-shirts and you too can be a ninja at work. Team random at work.
(Thank you Amy).
Rob Paterson tells the story of silverorange, a company that sounds like they have a LOT of fun.
From the you-did-how-much-research-to-find-this-out department: Feeling good matters at work. Well, duh!
Knowledge Sharing is hot these days, and many companies are introducing processes and technologies that allow employees to learn from each other and to collect the implicit knowledge present in any company.
And very often, it doesn’t work. Companies put a knowledge management system in place… and nothing happens. Nobody uses it. It then becomes a struggle to convince employees that knowledge sharing is good for them and for the company, based on a “what’s in it for me” approach.
And that’s because the whole Knowledge Sharing approach is fundamentally flawed, and because businesses really need to focus on something else.
That something else is Passion Sharing.
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What makes you happy or unhappy at work?
The big stuff or the small stuff. The good stuff or the bad stuff. I’d really like to know.
Write a comment.
The way most companies recruit new people is in need of some serious improvement.
Taking or not taking a job is a big decision, and yet you as an applicant are supposed to decide based on just one or two job interviews. The result is that when you show up for your first day at a new job you have little idea what the job, the manager or the co-workers are really like. You may be in for some surprises.
Also, it’s difficult for a manager to know if she’s hiring the right person, when all she has to go on is a CV, a personality test and one or two job interviews with that person. How can she know what this person is really like? Some people interview very poorly but are great to work with. Others seem charming, elouquent and competent in interviews, and then turn out to be… not so great to work with.
There’s gotta be a better way.
This is why I was very happy to hear that the good people at Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor, Michigan have found a way to hire people that is both faster and better than the traditional way.
They call it Extreme Interviewing (a term they’ve trademarked, btw). It’s the coolest, most innovative way I have heard of to hire new people and the results are amazing! Read on to see how they do it.
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The Chief Happiness Officer Academy is our most in-depth 3-day training where we share everything we know about creating happier workplaces. Get an in-depth background in happiness at work, hear about the latest research in the field and learn how to use this in your own business.
