The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

  • Declaration of content

    Inspired by an ancient MAD Magazine article, I did this declaration of content, for the “happy at work” conference:

    Typical conferenceOur conference

    Talk:
    More talk:
    Innovation:
    Energy:
    Action:
    Boredom:

    		45%
    25%
    2%
    2%
    1%
    25%    		Talk:
    Action:
    Innovation:    		25%
    50%
    25%

    How does that sound?

  • Happy at work conference

    I’m very proud to announce the happy at work conference on May 27 in Copenhagen.

    We have a great program for the day, with more action and less talk than most conferences. And in a novel twist, we’re making the day a “Powerpoint free zone”. There are many great ways to use Powerpoint – and many bad ones. We thought we’d try and see what happens when you can’t use it for a whole day.

    We have some great speakers, including Mads Kjaer, the CEO of Denmarks best workplace, and Jesper Bove-Nielsen, the author of Corporate Kindergarten.

    Here are a couple of banners you can use, if you’d like to help us advertise the conference:

  • Motivation games

    Yahoo has a whole section on Work/Life health with some interesting stuff in it. I especially enjoyed some of the games describes in this article.

  • Book review: Synchronicity

    Synchronicity, the inner path of leadership by Joseph Jaworski is the story of his own transformation as a leader. From his earlier life (as he calls it) as a trial lawyer to his quest of identifying and promoting better leadership.

    His transformation began, as it often happens, with a personal tragedy. Until his wife left him, he had been living what must have seemed on the surface a perfect life. He had a high-payed, challenging job, a nice home, a wife and a kid. But when it all came tumbling down, he realized that he hadn’t really been living. His life felt two-dimensional.

    He has since then been through an amazing transformation which is described in the book in a no-nonsense, down-to-earth manner. He’s met, worked with and learned from people like David Bohm, Peter Senge and Arie deGeus, and the lessons are passed on in the book.

    And mostly, it’s about openness. About realizing that everything in the world is connected. That ultimately the border we perceive between “self” and “not-self” is an illusion. It’s about not trying to control life, but letting life flow through you.

    Jaworski argues that when you live life in this way, it feels like the world is constantly conspiring to help you along, and I can’t help but agree. I’ve taken a very similar approach to my work on the “Happy at work” project, and highly skilled and wonderfully nice people are constantly coming out of the woodwork to help. It’s a great feeling to be reliant on the world to help you, and to see that the world does.

    The book is an easy and enjoyable read, and the story of Jaworskis gradual unfolding from slave to a job to servant of a purpose is well told and very inspiring. I recommend it highly.

  • Nonviolent communication

    Nonviolent communication (nvc) is an excellent tool, especially for communicating in difficult situations. Like telling an employee he’s fired, criticizing someones work or reprimanding a child.

    The Center for nonviolent communication have an excellent overview of nvc.

    Marshall B. Rosenberg, the man behind nvc says in an interview:
    We call the language that we teach ?giraffe language,? though its official name is ?Nonviolent Communication.? I use the image of a giraffe because it?s a language of the heart, and a giraffe has the largest heart of any land animal.

    Unfortunately for myself, I was taught to speak ?jackal language.? You see, a jackal is closer to the ground. They get so preoccupied with getting their needs met that they just can?t see into the future like the tall giraffe. Jackals speak in ways that block compassionate communication, because they?re motivated out of fear, shame, and guilt.

  • I’m a clown

    Yep, this sunday (feb. 29) the “happy at work project” arranged a clown course for some people, and I’m now a certified, first grade clown.

    The story is this: Back in november, Lise Egeberg who is a hospital clown, asked around for contributions to a trip she wanted to take to Jamaica to visit schools, hospitals and orphanages and clown for the children there. It’s not like we’re swimming in money, but we decided to give her 1000$, and in return she gave us this training, and it was a lot of fun.

    Starting from a simple warm-up, she soon had everybody tripping over invisible wires, giving gifts in the clown manner and making fools of ourselves in many other ways. It was great!

    One exercise that made a great impression on me was about personal space. Take two people one walks towards the other, and the person standing still says stop, when he feels his personal space being invaded. When we did this normally, my personal space was a little less than a meter. But with the clown nose on, I had no personal space. I was not only comfortable with people getting really close to me – I was enjoying it. That was a powerful demonstration of the barriers we build around ourselves every day, and how clowning around and being more childlike can tear the barriers down.

    And today after the course, I feel more open, more spontaneous and more alive. There’s a great power in clowning. Here’s a picture of the graduates.

  • Interesting times

    These are really exciting times for the happy at work project. We’re meeting lots of interesting people and good things just eem to keep happening to us. I love it! That’s also why I haven’t been posting for a few days.

    Here’s just a few of the good things that have come up recently:

    New members
    Some new people have joined the project, each of whom brings some very interesting skills with them. I really enjoy the boost that comes from the energy and ideas that new members bring to the project. Welcome, guys!

    Prison
    I visited Denmarks biggest prison the other day in preparation for a workshop we’re doing with some of their employees (mostly prison guards) in march. This gave me an insight into a workplace that is not like most others. A workplace where more is at stake. Where the difference between a good and a bad day means more than just running out of coffee. A bad day in this job can put you in the hospital. And as a consequence, people are there for each other. If you need the help of your colleagues, you get it, sometimes without even asking for it.

    Conference
    We’re just finalizing our conference, which will be the first conference on happiness at work in Denmark (possibly in the world), and we have a very interesting and untraditional day planned. This will be more than just an endless lineup of speakers talking at a passive audience. This will be an event to inspire, energize and to spark action.

    Book
    Our book on happiness at work is also coming along nicely. We had a meeting yesterday with a publisher who would like to publish it (YAAAAY!), but we’re still thinking that maybe we should publish it ourselves. That way we keep all the rights and flexibility, and if we suddenly decide to offer it for free downloads on the net, we can.

    And here’s the kicker: All of this stuff happened within the last ten days. Interesting times, huh?

  • Linkshare

    A few interesting links:

    World Database of happiness – An ongoing register of scientific research on subjective appreciation of life.

    Learn improv – Lots of improv exercises for all occasions.

    Using moral imagination for irreplicable strategic advantage – It pays to be moral according to this paper.

    Happiness Is a Stochastic Phenomenon – The statistics of happiness.

  • Posters

    The latest idea from the Happy At Work project is a set of posters with some of our slogans on them. The posters are free of any copyrights, you can do with them whatever you want. Mail them to others, put them on your website, hang them in your office or whatever else you can think of.

    There are 10 different posters, and they’re available as pdf files, jpg images, a Powerpoint presentation or even as a Windows screensaver. You can find them here. They’re in danish, but if anyone wants it, I could create a set in english..?

    I made the screensaver using a nifty little piece of software called xatshow from xat.com.

  • Festival in the workplace

    I had the pleasure yesterday of speaking with Roosevelt Finlayson and Michael Diggiss who are working in the Bahamas on something they call the Festival In The Workplace. It arises from the question of:

    How is it that many persons who are going at half pace or less on the job, get involved in more creative activities outside of the workplace, such as the annual Junkanoo festival, and become transformed, passionate and highly productive individuals?

    In other words, how can you bring the dedication and spirit that people display when they work on eg. the Junkanoo festival or the Rio Carnival to the job? You can read their introduction to the project, it certainly brought a smile to my lips.

    Talking to Roosevelt and Michael was a pleasure, and it was wonderful to discover that we share many of the same ideas and dreams. I admire their vision and dedication, and I find the mere idea of the Festival In The Workplace to be intriguing and inspiring.

    The contact was made when Roosevelt happened to surf by this site and discovered that we are working on similar projects, which once again proves the value of this internet thing. I personally think it’s here to stay :o)