The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

  • Insight

    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.

  • Well, I’M happy

    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!

  • Book review: The answer to how is yes

    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.
    (more…)

  • I’m featured in the CEO refresher

    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.

  • Quote

    The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a “circle of certainty” within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit … to fight at their side.

    – Paolo Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed

    I’m a radical and I didn’t even know it. I especially like the part about “committed to human liberation”. To me, this goes beyond liberating people from external oppression, and includes bringing people to the realization of their own, basic human freedom.

    The “happiness at work” project expresses this. We believe that if you want to be happy at work, you must first choose to be so. That choice will not make you happy, it’s not that easy, but if you do not start with that choice, no external factor (not even a good boss, nice colleagues and a fat pay check) can make you happy. And that choice is the first step to taking your happiness and your freedom into your own hands. The first step towards realizing, that all change must start with you and be based on what you can do, rather than on waiting for “them” to fix what’s wrong.

  • Happy social workers

    Today Mette and I facilitated a “happiness at work” workshop for 25 social workers from all over Denmark. It went extremely well, and in just five short hours people whose stories of the workplace are mostly dominated by bad management, stress, too much work and changing laws, suddenly remembered that they actually do good work, and that they have many good stories to tell also. Yeah!!

  • Denmarks best workplaces

    I spent today at a conference that accompanies the announcement of Denmarks best workplaces, arranged by the greatplacetowork institute of Denmark. This year the winner is Kjaer group from my hometown Svendborg who sell cars to developing countries. Their motto is “Love cars, love people, love life”. You gotta love that.

    The day was fairly interesting, though I have to admit that once you get used to the efficiency, spirit and energy of open space meetings, more traditional conferences such as this one seem a waste of time. I did manage to get in some good conversations with other participants, though tellingsly enough, these all happened in the breaks.

    The keynote speaker was Robert Levering of the original great place to work institute. He set an international context by telling some stories from other such events in the rest of the worlds. Nice to know that the focus on creating good work places is growing all over the world. He also announced that the institute will focus more on the “how” of good workplaces; so far it’s only been about measuring the current status.

    The next couple of events were moslty forgettable with a few interesting highlights. This includes the panel debates; my life is too short for panel debates, though a good side effect seems to be, that while I’m thoruoghly bored by what’s being said I seem to get a lot of good ideas.

    The day ended with Peter Aalbaek of Zentropa, who has some very interesting ideas about how to run a company. Among other things he:
    * Once walked into the accounting department with a straight face and no pants (or underwear) on and asked for some invoice
    * Demands that people work menial and gruelling tasks for six months for free, before hiring them for real
    * Insists that contracts for employees are merely a sign that you expect trouble
    * Claims that it is the job of the workplace to save employees from their otherwise meaningless and boring existence.

  • Quote

    Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.

    – Harold Whitman

  • Simplicity – complexity – simplicity

    I posted an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote a while ago:

    I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

    Sandy Wilder of Communico used this quote in his presentation at the CEO round table, and that got me thinking. I’d say that the first simplicity comes from thinking you understand any given system. Yep, we’ve got it figured – we know how the system will react in most situations, and we can manage that.

    The complexity comes when you realize, that you don’t understand the system. An example: You give you salesforce bonuses to make them sell more. It works for a while, but suddenly sales drop. More bonuses help, but not as much as the first time. What’s going on? Apparently the system is more complex than we thought. The specific reasons, why additional bonuses don’t make much of an impact can vary. Maybe the first round of bonuses motivated the sales people to close a lot of easy sales, and now there are only the “hard” cases left. Maybt it has fostered strong internal competition, so they actually undercut each others work to get the bonus. The point is, that the system was apparently more complicated than we thought – and in truth, most systems are.

    The “simplicity on the other side of complexity” does not come, however, from understanding the system. Most systems in a business setting are so complex, that we won’t ever be able to predict them. Trying to understand the system is, in all probability, ultimately futile.

    However, trying to develop your values and principles, so that they align with your goals is certainly a worthwhile pursuit. And that is the simplicity on the other side of complexity. That simplicity comes from knowing yourself and your values, and living by them. It comes from the belief or faith that, as long as we work in the right way and stick to our principles, it will turn out right. And that’s a crucial distinction.

  • Incentives do not work

    If you want your employees to perform well, conventional wisdom says that you must give them lots of incentives. Stuff like free phone calls, company cars, gold stars, employee of the month awards are necessary, right? Wrong! Incentives, and the ensuing competition, actually make matters worse, and remove peoples attention from their work. This makes employees less motivated about their work.

    According to this article by Alfie Kohn, you should in stead:
    * Pay people well.
    * Pay people fairly.
    * Then do everything possible to take money off people’s minds.

    Notice that incentives, bonuses, pay-for-performance plans, and other reward systems violate the last principle by their very nature.

    I could not agree more. The whole notion that you can motivate anybody is wrong, and money is certainly not the way. People can motivate themselves, and businesses can create environments in which it is easy or hard for them to do so. Incentives make it harder!