The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

  • CSR – Doing well by doing good

    CSR works

    Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is defined as voluntary efforts by businesses to contribute to society. It may include

    • Workplace issues (such as training and equal opportunities)
    • Human rights
    • The business’ impact on the community
    • Reputation, branding and marketing
    • Ethical investment
    • Environment
    • Ethics and corporate governance

    I think CSR is great and many corporations practice it already. One percent for the planet, pioneered by Patagonia, is one of my favorite examples.

    And now something even more interesting is going on right here in Denmark: we’re implementing a national policy to enhance corporate growth and sustainable social development by teaching small and mid-sized businesses about CSR .

    I just had a very exciting meeting with Karen Høeg, an old friend who’s currently working on that very project for the Danish Commerce and Companies Agency.

    The project kicked off formally last week and will educate 12.000 danish leaders and employees from small and mid-sized businesses in CSR, helping them to increase their profits while doing something good for society and the planet. It is, as far as I know, the largest CSR project in the world.

    Studies show that companies who do CSR make more money than those who don’t. Quite simply, doing good helps businesses do well.

    I have a simple explanation for why this is the case: Doing good feels good. It makes people happy. And happy people are the best way to business success.

    In my post about Creating a Happy and Rich Business, I outlined the six practices of happy workplaces, and two of these are “Care” and “Think and act long-term”. CSR is an expression of both of these. That’s why it makes people happy, and that’s why it’s good for corporate profits and corporate growth.

    But then again, I would say that, wouldn’t I? :o)

  • The cult of overwork (again)

    The cult of overwork is the prevailing belief that the more hours people work, the better for the company. That notion is not only harmful, it is dead wrong, as this story from Arlie Hochschild’s book The Time Bind demonstrates.

    One executive, Doug Strain, the vice chairman of ESI, a computer company in Portland Oregon, saw the link between reduced hours for some and more jobs for others. At a 1990 focus group for CEOs and managers, he volunteered the following story:

    When demand for a product is down, normally a company fires some people and makes the rest work twice as hard. So we put it to a vote of everyone in the plant. We asked them what they wanted to do: layoffs for some workers or thirty-two-hour workweeks for everyone. They thought about it and decided they’d rather hold the team together. So we went down to a thirty-two-hour-a-week schedule for everyone furing a down time. We took everybody’s hours and salary down – executives too.

    But Strain discovered two surprises.

    First, productivity did not decline. I swear to God we get as much out of them at thirty-two hours as we did at forty. So it’s not a bad business decision. But second, when economic conditions improved, we offered them one hundred percent time again. No one wanted to go back!

    Never in our wildest dreams would our managers have designed a four-day week. But it’s endured at the insistence of our employees.

    Interesting, huh? They cut back work-hours but production remains the same.

  • Time and happiness

    A study shows that happy employees put in more hours but remain less prone to stress than uhappy employees.

    What makes them happy? Easier unscheduled time off, schedule flexibility and better telecommuting options. What makes them unhappy? Too much work, their boss’s behavior and long hours.

  • The cult of overwork

    Tired

    Some years ago CNN asked 12 well-known leaders including Carlos Ghosn of Nissan, Marissa Mayer of (then) Google and Wynton Marsalis how they manage their time and stay efficient.

    My favorite answer is this one:

    I know that it’s expected of executives to start the day extremely early, but frankly I feel I make better decisions and relate better to people when I’m well rested. So I usually get up around 8 after a good night’s sleep.

    I also make sure to almost always work a standard 40-hour week and never work on the weekends. This is important to me for two reasons. First of all, I have a life outside of work. I have a family who likes to have me around and friends and hobbies that I also want to have time for. I find that the time I spend outside of work recharges my batteries, expands my horizons and actually makes me more efficient at work.

    Secondly, if I’m always seen arriving at the office at 6 in the morning and leaving at 9 in the evening, not to mention taking calls and writing emails late at night and all weekend, it’s sure to send a signal to my employees that this is what the company expects, that this is “the right way”. But it isn’t.

    It’s a simple fact that for most leaders and employees, the first 40 hours they work each week are worth much more to the company than the next 20, 30 or 40 hours. But those extra hours spent at work can harm your private life, your family and your health. Which in turn becomes damaging to the company.

    Frankly, if you can’t structure your time so your work fits inside a 40-hour week, you need to get better at prioritizing and delegating.

    Refreshing words. Guess which of the executives said that?

    Come on, take a guess!

    NONE OF THEM! Not one.

    Instead, there’s a lot of “I get up at 5 and arrive at the office at 6” and “I work 16 hours a day” and “I take a lot of calls on the drive in to the office” and “I usually leave the office at 7 and then work a few more hours in the evening at home.”

    I fully expected one of them to go “I get up at 4 in the morning, half an hour before I go to bed, and work a 27-hour day, only stopping for a 3-minute lunch break in which two assistants stuff food down my throat like a foie-gras goose.”

    I know it’s normal to view people working this hard as heroes of the organization, but still I think they would be more efficient and enjoy life more if they cut down their time at work. They may find that they become more open, less stressed, have more fun AND are better role models for their employees. This cult of overwork has got to stop.

    The school of “work your butt off, everything else comes second” is bad for business and bad for people. Can we please retire this tired idea once and for all?

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  • Links

    If you stand up for too long you may pass out, as this video demonstrates. Am I a bad person for finding this hilarious?

    The band Arctic Monkeys became hugely popular by giving their music away. This make more sense to me than, say, signing your music over to a record company for next to no money.

    David Myers has a lot of great articles on happiness.

  • The artist as a young geek

    A couple of weeks ago I posted this list of the top 10 mistakes managers of geeks make, which instantly became one of the most read posts on the site.

    Mike Wagner (of Own Your Brand) has a lot of experience working with geeks, and he emailed me his take:

    Some of the mistakes I remember making with Geeks or seeing others make are:

    1. Treating their work and its results like a hammer when Geeks see it as a work of art. Managers must respect the different perspective each brings to IT development. Business managers see it as a tool. Geeks see it as a work of art. This is one reason Geeks often feel undervalued in the corporate culture. Geek temperament is really an artistic temperament.

    2. Building on this; managers must understand the cynical feelings Geeks have towards commerce in general. Like artists who resent people putting a dollar value on their art, a Geek feels that all the business manager wants to do is make money. This is big time Geek turn off.

    3. Geeks respond to critique and suggested changes of their “creations/code” like an artist. When a manager or client says we want you to change the functionality or code – it is like saying “can’t the Mona Lisa have blonde hair instead? Blonde tested better with the focus group.”

    All of this can be worked with in a positive way IF the manager can practice empathic understanding – but if not, well…that’s the rub.

    Great insights, Mike! People are increasingly approaching their work as art. It’s not that their painting or sculpting at work, it’s just that the nature of work has changed, so that the way people approach work is looking more and more like the way an artist approaches art.

    This is true for geeks and for many other employee groups, and it profounfly changes the nature of work. Thanks Mike, for your great (as usual) input.

  • Links

    Even CNN says that you should take it easy, and not work to hard.

    Great website on strength-based leadership. I am deeply envious of a last name as cool as “Zinger”.

    Philip Greenspun has an excellent piece on early retirement. I say we should all do this intermittently, and work a couple of years, retire for a year or two and then stage a come-back. Semco’s part-time retirement scheme is also cool.

  • Make your business happy and rich

    Happy SprayIt pays to be happy. Studies show that businesses with happy employees consistently outperform their less happy competitors in the marketplace and in the stock market.

    Considering the challenges that modern organizations face, creating a happy organization is the number one strategic imperative and the only way to long-term success.

    This article will tell you why happiness is so important for businesses today, and how you can make your business a happy one.
    (more…)

  • Share the gold mine

    X-ray

    A Fast Company article from 2002 tells the story of a Canadian gold mine threatened by bankruptcy:

    McEwen [the owner] believed that the high-grade ore … was present in parts of the 55,000-acre Red Lake stake — if only he could find it…

    Eventually, the group’s attention turned to the Linux operating system and the open-source revolution. “I said, ‘Open-source code! That’s what I want!’ ” McEwen recalls…

    Gold nuggetHis reasoning: If he could attract the attention of world-class talent to the problem of finding more gold in Red Lake, just as Linux managed to attract world-class programmers to the cause of better software, he could tap into thousands of minds that he wouldn’t normally have access to. He could also speed up exploration and improve his odds of discovery.

    He released all his corporate survey data from the company’s land, information that is:

    • The heart of any mining operation
    • Very expensive to come by
    • Normally an extremely well-kept secret

    He organized a contest – on the internet – to point out the best sites to dig. Anyone could access the survey data and participate. The first prize was $105.000.

    The result? The company has drilled four of the top 5 winners’ sites, and have found gold in all four. Which proves that you can get very valid and valuable results from this approach.

    The first prize winners? An australian geoscience outfit who’d never been to the mine – or even to Canada. Which proves that this approach can open new sources of information that you’d not have access to otherwise.

    Corporate information is worth little when it’s locked up. Don’t keep all data in your business a deep, dark secret. Insteat, open your company’s inner workings to the world. The good and the bad!

    The perils of secrecy

    In the information age, many businesses have fallen into a trap: They have correctly identified information as the key to success or failure, but they have incorrectly concluded that the best way to profit from the information is to lock it away from the world. They make corporate information secret by default.

    This goes for financial information, project development, new partnerships, strategies and plans and virtually every other aspect of the business. “Knowledge is our corporate, intellectual capital and we must protect it or it will be stolen from us.” seems to be the thinking.

    But this approach comes at a cost:

    • It reduces the efficiency of employees who don’t know what’s going on
    • It makes the company look untrustworthy to the public
    • It limits the potential for generating new ideas and partnership

    The opposite approach, to make all information public by default and only keep a few select areas secret, makes much more sense. This is especially true in an information-dense environment which carries a high probability that a company’s dirty secrets will be revealed sooner or later.

    In fact, as we saw, releasing top-secret corporate data can be a gold mine. Literally. Here’s another example.

    Be open with customers

    Another great example of the open approach is Semco. Yes I know I write about them all the time, but they get it, dammit. They get it and they do it. In his excellent book The Seven-Day Weekend, Ricardo Semler tells the story of a negotiation with a potential customer for a huge contract.

    Of course Semco had done their homework and made calculations showing what their profits would be depending on what price they could negotiate. At the meeting, Semler showed the customer these calculations, letting them know exactly how much Semco stood to make from the deal. This honest, open approach impressed the customer and Semco got the contract.

    Businesses should ask themselves these questions:

    1. What are we keeping secret and why?
    2. What information could we share, that would bring us new ideas, new partners and increased profits?
    3. What risks are involved in sharing this information? Are they offset by the benefits?
    4. What risks are involved in not sharing it?

    That last question is often left out, as businesses list the dangers of openness and ignore the dangers of secrecy.

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  • Cool links

    BossmanThe smart people at The Well talk about globalization and China and more. Bruce Sterlings comments are particularly insightful. Via Classy.

    Superhero action figures from the office. My favorite: Bossman. “Leading a crusade to reach objectives he empowers, implements change and captures mindshare.”

    There’s rising Frustration with Microsoft’s Compensation and Review System. Salaries are stagnant, the stock isn’t rising and their review system is “little more than a closed-door popularity contest in which managers “fight??? for higher scores for their team, or defer to higher-level decision makers who mandate how many workers drop to the bottom of the review scale.” We’ve also been discussing this over at the businesspundit.