How to be happy at work
I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness…
– The Dalai Lama, quoted in The art of happiness
I could not agree more. Our nature is to be happy and peaceful and to work together for mutual benefit.
I believe, that the ability to tell a good story is one of the most important tools available to leaders (and remember: We’re all leaders). Stories have the ability to bring a point across without forcing the issue. Where rational arguments fail, stories can contain boths sides of a dilemma and can illuminate an interesting paradox without having to solve it. You might argue that stories open, where facts close.
“The story factor” by Annette Simmons is the best book on storytelling that I’ve read. It contains all the reasons why stories are good tools as well as a list of situations where you can use stories effectively (and how). Finally there’s a lot of info on how to find the good stories and how to tell them. And of course the book itself contains loads of stories, most of which are highly entertaining, and useful for many situations.
As an example, here’s a story that I heard recently, and immediately incorporated into the “happy at work” workshops. It’s the story of the ostrich who learned to fly. Normally ostriches can’t, and this ostrich wanted to share his new knowledge with all the other ostriches, so he arranged a flying conference in Africa. Other ostriches walked in from all over Africa, and over the course of a couple of days, he taught all of them to fly. Then on the last day, he stood and watched, as all the ostriches walked home.
I use this story to illustrate the gap between learning and action, and it illustrates the point in a funny and interesting way, without browbeating people about how difficult it is to translate learning into doing. It sets the stage perfectly for the “planning the future” part of the workshop.
Compared to one of the seminal works on storytelling, Stephen Denning’s “The Springboard”, Annette Simmons’ book is much more useful and contains more tips that will get you started as a storyteller. If you’re at all interested in the potential and practice of storytelling, this is the book for you.
2003 has been a wonderful year for me. Here’s a list of some of the things that I’m really grateful for in 2003, in no particular order:
* The company of the wonderful and innovative people at Arena. Thomas, Ole, David, Valdemar, Peter, Tine, Guan, Niels and many more. We rock!
* Moving to an appartment on the 7th. floor. Great sunsets!
* Meeting Traci, Justin, Christine, Mike and the other wonderful people at the World Dynamics CEO round table.
* Seeing Seattle with Pam.
* Seeing the happy at work project take off like it has, and being able to make people happy.
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For those of you who read danish, I wrote this summary of the “Happy at work” project in 2003.
The short version in english: It’s been one hell of a year. In january it was just me and a few loose ideas, and none of the methods had been tested. Now, there are lots of interesting, skilled and dedicated people working on it, we’ve proven that our methods work, and there are lots of exciting projects coming out of it.
A HUGE thank you to everyone who participated. I can’t wait to see what we’ll do in 2004, I KNOW it will be wild.
I just saw one of those “on the set” TV specials about the latest Lord of the rings movie and the director Peter Jackson said something very interesting about the casting for the movies. It turns out that when they were looking for actors they went by three main criteria:
1: They wanted people who could bring the characters from the book to life, who could give you the feeling that Frodo or Gandalf had stepped out of the book.
2: They wanted good actors, but they avoided any really big stars. For instance, Orlando Bloom who plays Legolas was hired just before he finished acting school.
3: And then there was one final criterion, one that really interested me: Peter Jackson only wanted actors who were nice people. After all, they would be spending over a year shooting the movie, so they might as well have a good time.
The TV show showed some of the actors interacting, and it’s obvious that they like each other and had a great time. This is also witnessed by the fact, that the nine actors comprising the “Fellowship of the ring” all went out and got tattoos of the elvish number “9”. This stands in sharp contrast to the many Hollywood stars who are known more for the extravagant demands they can make on a movie production than for their easy-going natures.
Seen in the context of my “Happy at work” project this is very interesting, and it mirrors precisely the attitude at Rosenbluth International (one of the world largest business travel agencies) who “hire for personality and train for skill”. To them it matters more that a potential new employee be a nice person than highly qualified, as described in the book Put the customer second.
PS.
Please don’t watch any of those “behind the scenes” TV shows before seeing “Return of the king”, it will give away way too much of the experience.
I’m currently reading “Built to Last” by Jim Collins, which examines 15 really great companies and compares them to 15 good (but not legendary) companies to find the practices that separates great from good.
At one point, the book mentions Nordstroms personnel handbook. Where other companies have inch-thick employee handbooks, Nordstroms is a 5″ by 8″ card that says something like “Welcome to Nordstroms, we’re glad to have you with us.” It the goes to say:
Nordstrom Rules
Rule #1: In all situations, use your good judgement.
There will be no additional rules.
I really, REALLY like that.
I’ve had the chance to speak about two different topics over the last week. Yesterday I presented Appreciative Inquiry to a team of social workers from a danish municipality, and a week ago I spoke at a conference on motivation and happiness at work in call centers.
And today I realized how similar the two subjects are. Many key insights apply to both and many of the key assumptions are the same. This reflects in part the fact, that much of our thinking in happiness at work is indeed inspired by appreciative inquiry but I also think that there is a deeper connection. That AI and Happiness at Work are two different expressions of the same values and outlook on life. An outlook that bases itself on:
* The positive
* What I can do
* What we can do togehter
* Dialogue as a way of thinking together
* Our individual, basic freedom
In the end, the good life is the one where you focus on the good stuff, start with yourself and work with others to do good.
These are good times for the happiness at work project. Yesterday I spoke at a conference om motivation and employee satisfaction in call centers, and I was a hit. I attended the whole day and was the last speaker, and while the day had been good with some interesting topics and good speakers, all day long it had been the typical format we all know: One speaker, lots of powerpoint slides and an audience sitting in rows looking up at the speaker. When my turn came, I got rid of the tables and made everybody sit in a half-circle. I used talking stick and some open questions to get a dialogue going and it worked really well. Makes me wonder why we even have the old school kinds of meetings and conferences any more.
Today I had a meeting with some people from a danish municipality, and they ordered a workshop in january. Just the meeting itself (which was basically a sales meeting) generated a lot of positivity, and they were really excited about the workshop. Woohoo!
The title of Peter Blocks latest book reads a little strange at first: “The answer to how is yes“, but in it he makes a very important point, one that every decision maker, project worker, consultant, change agent or just plain anybody who works for anything that matters should know: That sometimes “how?” isn’t the important question, and that asking “How?” can actually be a defense against getting an effort started, a defense against change.
What every important project needs is less focus on “How?” and more focus on “Yes!”, on the affirmation that this (whatever “this” is) is a worthwhile pursuit. That affirmation strengthens the will to do it, whereas continually asking “how?” saps your strength. Saying yes focuses on the goal you want to achieve, asking how focuses on all the obstacles.
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The december issue of the online magazine the CEO Refresher has an article I wrote in it. It’s about the art of hosting, and the editor called it a brilliant insight into leadership… one of the most creative insights I have seen. You’ll have to imagine me strutting around a hotel room in DC (I was at the World Dynamics round table), my arms raised above my head when I recieved that mail :o)
The article is based on my experiences at a conference in Slovenia which i wrote about here.
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