The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

  • What makes people happy at work

    Maria’s new job had it all: An organization with loads of money, interesting tasks, great salary, impressive offices, a french chef, a gym, free fruit, massages and a view out of her office windows that took your breath away.

    Maria is an easy-going, attractive woman in her forties with a broad business background, but even in her first month at the new job she noticed that things were very wrong. As wealthy as the organization was, it still completely lacked human and social values. The workplace was plagued by distrust, infighting, slander, backstabbing, sexual harassment, lack of respect, repression and veiled threats.

    She spent the second month pondering how she could change things. By the third month Maria realized that she probably wouldn’t be able to change much and that she might get crushed trying. She quit without having found a new job.

    Maria is now a publishing editor, and is also responsible for HR and the work environment at her new workplace. Her salary may be lower, but her quality of life is much higher, and she told me: “I’m now a believer when it comes to happiness at work, and want to help spread the happy message.???

    While all the traditional trappings of a good job don’t hurt, they’re just not enough. It doesn’t matter how nice your office, how large your salary or how good the food is, if the mood at the company is bad.

    I think that some of the things we strive for at work (the title, salary, perks, etc.) aren’t the things that make us happy. I’m not saying that a high salary will make you unhappy, at least that never happened to me :o), but it won’t make you particularly happy either.

    So what will? Let’s look at that.
    (more…)

  • Happiness at work leads to success

    Happiness leads to success

    Why is happiness at work important to you and me? I just finished the chapter on that in the happy at work book, and in that chapter I reference a study that shows that happy people are more likely to be successful. Here’s some more info on that study:

    a lot of research has pointed in another direction, contending that happiness is the result of a lot of things — success at work, a good marriage, a fit body, a fat bank account.

    But according to psychologists at three universities, that’s backward. People aren’t happy because they are successful, they conclude. They’re successful because they are happy.

    The researchers combed through 225 studies involving 275,000 people and found that most researchers put the proverbial cart before the horse. Most investigators, they concluded, “assume that success makes people happy.”

    They conclude that happy people are easier to work with, more highly motivated and more willing to tackle a difficult project. Thus, they are more likely to be successful. That fits neatly with a study done several years ago that concluded the main reason people get fired isn’t incompetence or unreliability or tardiness or any of the other things that distinguish some of our co-workers from ourselves. It’s that they can’t get along with their colleagues.

    Read more about the study here, or read the chapter about why happiness at work matters for people.

    So not only is being happy at work more fun, it will also make you more successful.

    I think Southwest Airlines realized this a long time ago, and that it’s the reason why they mostly hire people based on personality, citing the motto “Hire for attitude, train for skill”.

  • What is happiness at work

    Arbejdsglæde

    Happy at work cupWe Scandinavians have an advantage over the rest of the world: We have a word for happiness at work. In Danish (my native language) the word is arbejdsglæde, and while that quite rightly looks utterly unpronounceable to the rest of the world, it’s a concept that is deeply ingrained in Scandinavian work culture and one that most Nordic businesses focus on to some degree. Its also one reason why Scandinavian companies do so well and contributes to the success of companies like NOKIA, IKEA, Oticon (the world’s leading producer of hearing aids), Carlsberg, Ericsson etc…

    “Arbejdsglæde” translates into English simply as work-happiness, and it’s that feeling you get when you:

    • Enjoy what you do
    • Do good work and feel proud of it
    • Work with nice people
    • Know that what you do is important
    • Are appreciated for your work
    • Take responsibility
    • Have fun at work
    • Are motivated and energized
    • Feel that you kick butt

    Most of us already know that feeling. We’ve been there some of the time or even most of the time in our work lives. The question is: How do we get there some more.

    And in case you’re wondering, arbejdsglæde is pronounced something like ah-bites-gleh-the.

    So what is it, then?

    What exactly is happiness at work? This question seems like a good place to start, and I’ve been working long and hard to come up with a definition of happiness at work, precisely because so many people ask me just that.

    Working with clients, big and small, private and public, got me closer and closer to the answer, and after long deliberations I came up with what I believe is a concise, spot-on definition.

    This will amaze you. Are you ready? Here it is:
    (more…)

  • Why being happy at work matters for businesses

    A grand old lady falls ill

    Irma is the grand old lady of Danish retail. The company was founded in 1870 and is the second oldest grocery chain in the world. It’s a multi-million-dollar business with 70 locations in and around Copenhagen.

    But during the 1990’s the lady was ailing – the joke was that the only people who shopped there were little old ladies who did so mostly out of habit, because Irma was where they’d always shopped. Danes are very cost-conscious when it comes to food, (a less charitable description would be to call call us downright cheap), and most of Irma’s customers had switched to the low-cost supermarkets that had spread all over the country. For a decade, Irma had been losing it’s owner a lot of money.

    Switching to cheaper products to compete with the discount stores didn’t work. An attempt to expand from Copenhagen to the rest of Denmark proved downright disastrous and had to be abandoned. Advertising campaigns didn’t work. The owner was on the verge of either selling of Irma, closing all the stores or converting them to their discount alternatives.

    (more…)

  • Why being happy at work matters for people

    Why happiness at work matters for people

    When I got my first consulting job I worked very hard. I was the picture-perfect, traditional IT consultant working many overtime hours in the name of success. I’d moved to a new city for that job, far away from my friends and family, but that was fine: I didn’t really have time for anything outside of work. Basically, my main goal was success at work!

    But after a year of this I suddenly realized something: I was successful, certainly, and I made good money. But I was not happy. I was in fact feeling lonely and unhappy, because all I ever did was work. I thought about that for a while, and I decided to change my life and to always work in a way that would make me happy. I cut back on work and started spending time exercising and making friends in my new hometown. Over the course of a year, my life transformed completely. Before my evenings consisted of the drive home from work, some fast food and lots of TV. Now I had new friends, interesting hobbies and I was in the best shape of my life from all that exercise. I also lost that extra 20 pound consultant-belly I’d been slowly amassing :o)

    Think about it: You will spend more of your adult life on your job than on anything else, except possibly sleep. Your work will take up more of your time than your family, friends and hobbies combined. Won’t it be nicer if that time is spent at a job that actually makes you happy?
    (more…)

  • Why being happy at work matters

    Patricia, an outgoing, engaging, perpetually smiling woman in her early 30’s with a shock of unruly, prematurely grey hair, was really happy to get her first management job. She’d been a secretary, back-office worker and all-round administrative worker previously, but as purchasing manager for a major producer of food additives. she looked forward to really streamlining their purchasing procedures.

    The hiring had gone smoothly. The company needed the position filled quickly and a former colleague of Patricia who now worked there had recommended her. Everything looked great: Nice offices in a wood-land setting: Check! Interesting responsibilities: Check! Nice colleagues: Check! A good salary: Absolutely!

    But as Patricia started on her new job, things turned out to be less idyllic. The mood at the company was very much one of competition rather than collaboration. Her immediate manager was rarely there and never appreciated or even commented on the work she or her colleagues did. In fact nobody seemed to care what anybody else did, it was “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

    (more…)

  • Steve Forbes doesn’t get it – or why having the world’s highest taxes is a good thing

    Taxes

    Steve Forbes was in Denmark this week on a European tour, meeting with political and business leaders. His main message was that while Denmark has arguably the strongest economy in Europe right now, the high danish taxes are limiting our economic growth.

    And danish taxes are very high: The highest tax bracket kicks in after only 40.000$ earned, and you pay 60% taxes on everything you earn over that. This money is used to finance a very high level of public services, including free health care, schools and universities for everybody.

    The high tax level also finances what is called the danish flex-security model: In Denmark it’s relatively easy to fire employess (flexibility) but unemployed danes enjoy great benefits (security). Compare this to Sweden where it’s very, very difficult to lay employees off because the unions have enormous influence or to the US where unemployment benefits are not as generous.

    Forbes argues that the economic success Denmark is currently enjoying comes in spite of the high tax levels, and said “just imagine what you could achieve with lower taxes.” His argument goes something like this:

    1. Because taxes are so high, working more doesn’t pay much, therefore people work less
    2. If taxes were lower (say 40% in the top bracket instead of 60%) people would work more
    3. People would also make more money, meaning the state would take in the same amount of money in taxes
    4. People working harder would result in increased economic growth

    I think he’s wrong, wrong, wrong, and I’ll tell you why!
    (more…)

  • Happy at work in prisons

    I’m back from the FutureCamp event with the Danish Prison Service and I am exhausted. After 48 gruelling but fun hours, the director of the service could take home an catalogue of a dozen ideas which had been fleshed out and about 50 more that were still hanging in the air.

    The theme was to make the prison service a great place to work. Currently, this is how they see themselves:

    1. People don’t stay long in their jobs
    2. People feeling overworked and stressed
    3. Absenteeism is high
    4. There is little trust and communication between managers and employees
    5. Prison wardens don’t talk to case workers, case workers don’t talk to IT people and nobody talks to the central administration

    Which doesn’t really seem too different from many other workplaces. Of course, working with prisoners does give this workplace some unique challenges, but it also give employees an incentive to stick together and support each other.

    The camp had 40 participants from the prison service, from many different departments and from all levels of the hierarchy. I was called in as an outside expert to participate in the process. Participants were divided into six groups, each of which focused on a specific topic, eg. leadership, relations with inmates, relations with colleagues. I was placed in the group that worked on IT in the prison service, probably because of my background in IT.

    The process itself was quite impressive with illustrators, facilitators, a camera man to film everything and produce movies on the fly and various suprises along the way.

    And what happened was the same things that always happens when you put people together in an inspiring process around an important topic: People got creative. And they got to talking. And they got fired up. I love it when that happens and it’s great to be a part of.

    My favorite part of the whole event happened on the morning of the second day, where they brought in a gospel singer and his keyboard to get everybody up and singing. Now, I’m not much of a singer, but suddenly I found myself hollering with the best of them :o) That was great fun and energized the whole room.

    So what am I taking away from this event:

    1. Give people a chance to talk and magical stuff happens
    2. People ARE creative, anybody saying differently is lying
    3. A lot of ideas can be created and worked on in 48 hours

    I’m also left with a lingering suspicion, that making the event such a huge production makes it more difficult to take home the spirit and the lessons of the event. If it had been more like real work-life, the results would be more easily transferable – which is what we’re really after. *cough* Open Space Technology *cough*.

  • Happy at work at Motek

    I met Motek’s CEO Ann Price at the 2006 WorldBlu Forum on democractic organizations, and her story of how they work at Motek was tremendously inspiring.

    Motek make warehouse administration software and here’s some of the great things they do according to this excellent article in American Way Magazine:

      Parasol

    • Price offers her employees a $5,000-a-year travel benefit for flights, tours, cruises, you name it – but only if they take at least a three-week paid vacation. She gives employees another two weeks off for paid holidays throughout the year and leases luxury automobiles for any employee who has worked at the company for at least 10 years. Then there’s the fact that Price sends employees home at five p.m. sans laptop and locks the doors on the weekend.
    • …every Motek employee has a designated backup available to provide cover while they’re out of the office. The only requirement is to check with the backup to make sure he or she is around before the employee leaves.
    • The company keeps a single to-do list… Anyone can enter an item, including customers and vendors. The list can include everything from ordering ink cartridges to customizing a specific function for a customer. Motek divvies up the tasks at meetings and teams don’t pay any attention to who entered particular items.
    • Price doesn’t cut any corners when it comes to bonding with customers. She designates individuals – from top executives to line workers – heroes for their roles in effecting change at a company that uses Motek’s software. Then she sends out a professional photographer who shoots for Fortune magazine – at somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 a shoot – to snap their photo, which she then posts on the Motek website. There, you can read all about the person’s achievements and how they were able to deliver superior results.
    • For Price, the endgame isn’t to earn money at any cost. And it isn’t about ruling the software industry. No, Price has bigger ambitions: She hopes to change the world.

    The result: Happiness and profits. Eighty percent of the technical team has been with the company for at least 10 years, compared to an industry average employment span of 18 months. In 2005, Motek’s revenue per employee topped $217,000. Competing firms’ revenue typically ranges from $150,000 to $200,000.

    This is a wonderful story of great, unconventional leadership focused on making employees and customers happy rather than on growth and profits. With growth and profit as the results.

  • The need for structure

    Structure?

    My recent post on how not to manage geeks has sparked a lot of interest and a lot of great comments.

    Right now there’s a very interesting debate going on in the comments about the need for structure in small or large organizations. This debate is great because it goes right to the core of the central dilemma of new leadership and employee empowerment.

    Here are some of the key arguments that have come up:

    Elling writes: I think you’re attacking structures which you can do without in a small company… In a large company there’s a NEED for the structures…

    Jeremy writes: I can anticipate some of this need – the need to account for diverse costs accurately and thoroughly, the need to maintain a standard of output for workers in an organized, fair fashion, etc. – but these play to the weaknesses of large organizations. In other words, large organizations SHOULD be at a disadvantage, and the structures we’re proposing tearing out actually add value only in the sense that MegaCorp is inherently inefficient and out of scale with the market.

    Numeeja writes: …there is NEVER a ‘NEED’ for self-serving, ‘personal progression over departmental improvement’ style work places and managers.

    Thad writes: The place where I work is managed by good people who don’t want to be bureaucratic jerks, but they can’t grasp one simple concept: they are giving me money in exchange for doing something I love–they don’t have to shackle me with schedules and policies to get me to produce! I will be here working my little heart out because *I want to be*. I try to block out the memos and TPS reports and remind myself that those things aren’t really changing what I get to do here, but damn, every time the red tape is thrust in my face it just deflates me and I don’t even feel like trying to design or build something.

    Elling writes: If you have 20 people which you want to pull in the same direction, you NEED to have a manager who’s job it will be to try and ensure that the people in the group DO pull in the same direction… On the other hand, I do realize that there ARE idiot-bastard-managers out there. And I’m not defending them.

    Cityzenjane writes: …small tech teams in my experience – when left to their own devices do a GREAT job of pulling in the same direction, getting behind technical strategic priorities that they have been part of developing.

    First let me say thanks to all who’ve commented. THIS is what blogging is all about – one post sparking many great contributions. I feel lucky to be hosting this dialogue.

    But which is it? Do companies need structure or don’t they? Is less management better than more management? Is management a necessary evil or simply evil? :o)

    Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist once said:

    The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth

    and that’s exactly what I think we’re dealing with here. Whenever I’m faced with one of these either-or questions, I try to loook beyond the immediate choice, to see if there might exist an answer that transcends the dilemma and includes both. Can we have both personal freedom and structure at work?

    The answer is not only that it can be done, but that many highly succesful companies are actively doing it. The truth is that there needs to be structure for personal freedom to even be possible. But we are talking a different kind of structure. Where the “old” structures are often opaque, rigid and top-down we can instead create new structures that are the exact opposite but perform the same function of coordinating and streamlining people’s efforts. These new structures are transparent, dynamic and participatory.

    Southwest AirlinesCompanies that have done this include business school case classics like Semco, Oticon, Southwest Airlines and GE Aviation. None of them are doing too shabby (understatement alert), and people are really happy at work there. Herb Kelleher, ex-CEO of Southwest, was once asked how he could maintain control when his employees had so much freedom. His answer is classic:

    Control? Never had it. Don’t want it.

    I think we can move forward most efficiently if we shift away from choosing between freedom and structure, and work from the assimption that it’s about choosing both and thus creating a new kind of structure.

    Let me hit you with one last Niels Bohr quote (Yes I’m a fan, dammit):

    How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.