Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

Happy babies at work

CNN has a great story of a small company who tried an innovative solution when four key employees became pregnant at around the same time:

We had fewer than 25 employees at the time, and the soon-to-be moms were our head of publicity, a media buyer, the manager of print production, and a senior account executive. Each had client and supplier relationships that were vital to our business. Plus, conducting four executive searches at the same time would be costly.

So I decided to try something radical. A few months before they left for maternity leave, I invited the women to bring their babies to work when they returned.
…
The moms were so thrilled to be close to their babies that none ever dropped the ball when it came to work. When one had to run to a meeting, another babysat. We made sure employees who couldn’t stand the sound of crying babies didn’t sit near the “romper room.”

As we grew to become the $60-million-a-year company that we are today–we now have 150 employees who fill six historic homes in Austin and an office in New York City–additional moms and even dads brought their babies to work.
…
So far, 33 babies and a small army of dogs have “grown up” at our company. I can’t measure in hard numbers the impact of the goodwill that our family-friendly policies have had on productivity, but our local newspaper routinely names T3 as one of the best places to work in Austin.

They do have one rule, though: No goats!

I like this approach (to the babies, not the goats) and I think it has massive potential. It reframes the situation from “Oh no, one of my employees is pregnant, that’ll create huge problems” to “yes, pregnant employee, what fun!”

Kirsten Stendevad, a friend of mine, has written two books on the subject. One is about motherhood and how it can be a career boost, rather than a hindrance. The other she co-wrote with her husband Esben Kjaer, and it takes a similar approach to being a father. Both books are only available in danish so far.

All of this is yet another case of self-fullfilling prophecy. When you approach something as a problem, you make it a problem. Regard the same situation as an opportunity and, well… this story speaks for itself.

May I add: “Yes! Crisitunity!”

May 30, 2006
Four Fantastic Phrases at work
Let’s say you agree with me, that being happy at work is really important. That coming to work day after day, year after year, simply for the paycheck is just not enough. Hey, we spend most of our waking hours at work, so we might as well enjoy it, right?

Assuming that: What can you do to be happy at work? Specifically, what can you do right here and right now? Something simple, easy and fun, that will make a positive difference for you and your co-workers.

If that’s where you’re at, there are Four Fantastic Phrases you should know. Four simple things to say that make work a lot more fun. Four phrases whose absence is guaranteed to make work absolutely miserable.

Here they are:

1: “Thank you”

It’s so simple: People are constantly helping each other out at work and doing stuff for co-workers, and a simple “thank you” can really make a difference.

Take it a step further and praise people while you’re at it. Remember that you can praise people both for what they do and for who they are. As in “Thanks for getting that report to me a day early” or “I really like working with you because you’re so dependable” respectively. Both are good!

Praise and thank-you’s take no time and cost no money, but really brighten people’s day.

2: “I’m sorry”

Let’s face it, we all screw up once in a while. When you do, don’t hesitate to apologize. In fact, the sooner you apologize, the easier it is.

Some people think apologizing is a sign of weakness, but in reality it shows that you take responsibility for your actions and it makes it easier to move on after making an error. It also shows that you learn from your mistakes, provided, of course, that you don’t keep making the same mistake over and over.

Most of the time, a mistake is not your fault alone, but you can always take responsilibity for the part that is your fault and apologize for that. When it’s both your fault and somebody else’s fault, apologize first, instead of waiting for the other guy to do it. He may be waiting for you too, you know :o)

3: “Help”

Ask for help when you need it. Many people actually like being asked, since it makes them feel appreciated and needed, so there’s a chance to make somebody happy at work right there.

Also: Offer your help, even when not asked. Some people feel too busy to offer their help, but when we all help each other, we each become more efficient and get more work done. When everybody’s thinking “I really don’t have time to help others” everybody gets less work done, and the statement becomes self-fullfilling.

4: “Yes, and…”

A co-worker comes to you with a new idea. “Let’s try a new approach on the Hansen project. Why don’t we [insert new idea here]?” Here are some potential responses:
- “No, that’ll never work”
- “Yes that sounds interesting, but we don’t have time for that”
- “Yes that sounds interesting, and I’d like to hear more”
No’s and yes-but’s discourage people. It’s a sign that you’re not really open to new ideas. Yes-and means you’re willing to listen and consider new ideas in depth. People love being listened to.

NB: Yes-and is not about saying yes to everything. If you do that, you’ll never survive :o) Yes-and is about being open to other people’s suggestion instead of immediately rejecting them.

So.

Imagine a workplace where people:
- Constantly thank and praise each other
- Apologize freely when they make mistakes
- Easily offer and ask for help
- Are always open to each other’s ideas
That would have to be a nice place to work. On the other hand: Imagine a company where people rarely or never use those four phrases. Scary thought, huh?

Here’s the deal: Each of the four phrases is contagious. The best way to spread the virus is to use them yourself. The more you thank others, the easier it will be for them to thank you. The more you admit your errors, the more your co-workers can do it too. Etc…

And start now. Find a co-worker and praise her. Have you made a mistake recently? Go apologize right now. Are you stuck on some task? Go ask for help. Does one of your colleagues look stressed? Go offer him your help.

Anybody can use these phrases, employees, executives, middle managers, techies, receptionists, janitors, office workers, everyone. I will say this though: Coming from managers, they have an even stronger impact. But that’s no excuse for the rest of us not to use them, untill management does :o) Remember: Something happens when you do something. Not before.

Will it make a big difference? Not immediately. But it gets the ball rolling and makes you and others a little happier at work every day.
May 29, 2006
Help Alex write a book

I have a big announcement:

Happiness at work is my favorite topic and I believe this idea is revolutionizing the business world. But while happiness is a deep theme in more and more business books (Nuts! and The Seven-Day Weekend are prime examples), there’s still no one book that deals with how you’d run a company based on happiness.

I’m writing that book – and I’m writing it right here on this blog.

The book’s central idea is this:

Happiness at work is the best and most efficient force in business.

You can be in business for money, power, out of ambition or to change the world, but the one approach that will get you lasting success and a good life is to base your business decisions on this question: How can I make myself and others happy through my work?

Click here to read all the details – and please help me out.

May 24, 2006
Happy At Work at IKEA

I spotted this sign in the men’s room of our local IKEA:

For those (unfortunate few, I’m sure) of you who don’t read Danish, it says:

I assume there’s an exclusive restaurant
for managers only?

Erik Edelstein did not make it into IKEA’s
Management Potential Programme

Heh! So if you’re the kind of manager who believes it is your god-given right to eat your lunch in a special, exclusive restaurant seperate from the employees, then you’re not going to manage at IKEA.

Which makes excellent sense for three reasons:

1: Facetime is important for happiness at work

Managers must spend time with their employees and lunch may be the best time for it! How else are manager’s going to know what’s going on? And one thing that makes employees happy at work is a manager who has time for you and understands you.

2: Management applicants self-select

When IKEA promote their management programme in this gutsy way they are making sure that they weed out applicants with the wrong attitudes from the very beginning.

3: It matches IKEA’s brand

It also speaks to me as a loyal IKEA customer and it blends perfectly with the principles of democracy and equality that their brand of cheap but well-designed furniture stand for.

So: Management development, brand development and happiness at work all in one. Not bad, huh?

Previously: BMW brand themselves againt bureaucracy.

I’m adding “management-only restaurants” to my list of vampire ideas.

May 23, 2006
Book review: The Seven-Day Weekend
You should know one thing before you read my review of Ricardo Semler’s excellent book The Seven-Day Weekend: He’s my idol.

I’ve read his books and followed his work and I’m a fan. Completely, unashamedly, unreservedly, probably in the same way that 14-year old girls are fans of Justin Timberlake. If he ever comes to Copenhagen to give a speech, I’ll be in the front row, screaming my little lungs out.

Ahem. I deeply admire Ricardo Semler. He’s the CEO of the Sao Paulo, Brazil-based company Semco, and his vision of leadership has been the driving force behind an organization so different, so innovative and so successful that the business world has been forced to sit up and pay attention.

That’s admirable but it’s not the most important reason why Ricardo is my idol. The core reason is this: Semler has chosen happiness as his driving force in business.

He enjoys life and he wants Semco’s employees, customers, suppliers and community to be happy as well. That is the real motivation behind Semco. Not growth. Not profits. Not power. Not status. But happiness.

This is why Semco has chosen to do things… somewhat differently. At Semco:
- Employees set their own working hours
- Employees choose their own salaries
- All meetings are voluntary and open to everyone
- Employees hire their own bosses
- HR has been almost abolished, because leaders need to be able to treat their employees right themselves
- All employees rate their bosses twice a year and all ratings are published
- Employees choose which leader they want to work under
- Employees choose which Semco office they want to work out off
- Employees can take early retirement, meaning they get one day a week off in return for working one day a week after they retire.
Etcetra, etcetera, et-fricking-cetera… It’s hard to find a single aspect of traditional organization and management that Semco hasn’t either blown up, reinvented, abolished or turned upside down. I like it!

Semler first described his vision in the aptly titled book Maverick (also an excellent read). The Seven-Day Weekend was written about ten years later and goes even further.

The title references Semler’s belief that life cannot be divided into work and free time any more. If you can answer business-related email on a sunday evening, why can’t you go to the movies on a wednesday morning? Semco wants employees who are 100% themselves on the job or off it. Consequently, they treat employees as adults who are capable of making decisions for themselves. In return, people respond by honoring that trust and delivering fantastic results.

The book is full of stories from Semco’s everyday existence, and these stories are a joy to read. Time and again these stories illustrate, that Semco does not choose the easy way out. The easy, safe and comfortable way is to fall back on well-known, hierarchical control structures. Semco consistently resists this temptation and instead chooses to believe in its people and its corporate values.

As a result, on of Semco’s top management’s most important leadership tools is… inaction. Not to do anything. To not interfere and to let the organization work out an issue on its own. To trust the process they’ve defined and see where that takes them.

Not out of a laissez-faire management style or a fear of conflict (if anything, Brazilians seem to relish conflict), but out of a realization that every time top executives step in and mandate a solution, they rob the rest of the organization of initiative and the will to act.

This is without a shadow of a doubt the best and most important book on leadership I have ever had the pleasure to read. This book quite simply rocks, and any leader who reads it will be able to pluck dozens of useful, practical and innovative ideas from it’s pages.

It’s an easy, fun read, the stories are told amazingly well and the book is 100% free of MBA-jargon.

Read it!!!

If you liked this post I think you might also enjoy these:
May 22, 2006
The anti-CEO

Ricardo Semler’s leadership style amazes me because it is radical and practical at the same time, as this excellent interview Semler demonstrates.

My favorite part of the piece is the one where he examines Jack Welch’s leadership style. Welch is revered as the world’s best leader in many circles, but I personally see many things wrong with the way he has run GE. So does Ricardo:

The model that Jack Welch presents, however, has problems, principally in its emphasis on charismatic leadership. This is true not only of Welch but also of Lou Gerstner, Michael Eisner, and Roy Vagelos of Merck. CEOs around the world are drawn like a magnet to the idea of having the influence that Welch had. But I don’t think it’s in the best interests of GE or any company to have a very strong charismatic figure, because the capacity to make succession happen is diminished. When succession time rolls around, the question is, Should the organization be attuned to the Neutron Jack way of doing things, or should it be attuned to what GE needs to be in the new world? That is the trouble with the Jack Welch paradigm.

My second objection has to do with a method of management that says, Here’s what I need you to do, here’s my vision-lock into it and you’ll be all right. Work hard, deliver, and you’ll survive, but if you don’t play along, you’re out of here. To my mind, that’s a format of terror.

That’s exactly what it is – it’s ruling by fear and it’s great to see that modern leader are abandoning that approach.

May 20, 2006
BMW sez: bureaucracy sucks

The latest BMW ad campaign has very little to do with cars and focuses instead on the corporate values of the Bayerische Motoren Werke.

One version of it says:

We say no to:

Compromise
Complacency
Bureaucracy
Red tape
Lowest common denominators
Middle managemet
Second guessing
Herd mentality

So we can say yes to good ideas.

BMW fights bureaucracy. This is cool. Why is it cool?

1: Bureaucracy kills happiness at work
Bureaucracy saps people’s energy and motivation. If you don’t believe me, read Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon Mackenzie. It’s an excellent book about how to thrive in organizitions plagued by red tape.

2: Branding through good corporate identity rules
BMW are choosing to brand themselves not through their products or technology but through how they run their business.

3: Branding that matches products rules
This campaing works only because the corporate identity they are expressing happens to match the products. BMW’s vehicles (I’m the proud owner of one myself) are innovative and exciting matching the (mildly) revolutionary message of the ads.

It’s great to see companies making a stand against bureaucracy and It’s even better to see companies making bold, positive identities and standing by them.

It just struck me though: Is anyone else surprised to see such an anti-authoritarian message… from a German company :o)

May 19, 2006
Happy at work at Southwest Airlines

The NY Times has an article about 17 original Southwest Airlines who signed on at the very beginning in 1972 and still work there. Most of these people are now millionaires thanks to the company’s profit-sharing plan, but still work as mechanics, flight attendants or at the ticket counter.

Why do they stay on? Many people at other companies dream only of the day they can retire from work, so what is it about Southwest that makes their employees stay on far beyond that point? Here are some of the things they say in the article:

“Passengers — you get a feel how far you can go with them,” she said. “We had businessmen in suits pass out peanuts and pick up trash. We’d see how many people we could lock up inside the lavatory. They loved it. We had them on top of each other. Seven or eight? Quite a few. And those lavatories are pretty small.”
—
Though a union shop, Southwest is less bound by work rules than most other airlines. “If you saw something that needed to be done, and you thought you could do it, you did,” Mr. Wilson said.
—
Mr. Marcell, 64, lost a kidney to cancer and more recently the disease showed up in a lung. He is on medicine to control its spread. “I’m going to work until I can’t work anymore,” he said. “I just like to work.”
—
And Ms. Force, the one-time Esquire cover model, who is 61 and single, just completed chemotherapy for breast cancer and, after six months off, returned to work this month. She does not need the paycheck, with more than 100,000 shares of Southwest stock, valued at about $1.6 million.

“I love to work,” she said. “Southwest is kind of my family and my husband.”

How would you like your employees to say things like that about your company? Would you enjoy working at a place where this is a common attitude?

Southwest’s model for happiness at work is worth learning from, and it’s decribed magnificently in the classic business book Nuts! by Jackie and Kevin Freiberg. Read it!

May 17, 2006
Quote

Finding your calling is a wonderful thing, but how do you do that? Will you know your calling when you see it?

Here’s my definition: You know you’re doing the right work when you would rather do it and fail, than not do it.

– Alexander Kjerulf

May 16, 2006

Let’s go vampire slaying

Cold, undead relics from a past age haunt the corporate world, spreading fear and carnage wherever they go. These monsters can look good, seductive even, but if you let them, they’ll suck the life force out of you and leave you dead. Or worse: One of them.

I call them vampire ideas and all they deserve is a stake through the heart. Vampire ideas can be found in stock management philosophy, tired old leadership theories or business advice from an earlier era. Wherever they come from, they’re bad for you and they’re bad for business.

Here’s a table comparing vampire ideas to actual vampires:

Actual vampires	Vampire ideas
Can look really good	Can look really good
…but are actually disgusting and evil	…but are actually disgusting and evil
Are undead	Should’ve been dead a long time ago
Suck people’s blood	Suck a company’s energy and creativity
Are deterred by garlick and crosses	Are deterred by good leadership
Can’t enter your house without an invitation	Can’t enter your business without an invitation
Are really hard to kill	Are really hard to kill
Wither and burn in the light of day	Wither and burn in the light of logical thinking
Cast no shadow or mirror image	That’s kinda where the analogy breaks down

So what are some commonly seen vampire ideas? Here are a few examples.

Fire the bottom 10% of your employees every year

This is one of the most inhumane, cynical and just plain stupid ideas I’ve ever heard about. Who on earth still believes that this is a good way to do business and to get the best performance from employees. This idea keeps employees constantly afraid, but if that’s what you want, go for it. The exact opposite view is described here and trust me, it works much better.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it

Considering how many things in a business are unmeasured, not to say unmeasurable, this is one more bad idea in need of a final resting place. I’ve written about it previously here. This idea of management-by-spreadsheet stifles new ideas and reduces a leaders focus to things that can be expressed in numbers.