Here is the secret to surviving a bad workplace:
You have to be deeply passionate about your work but not give a crap about your job.
Category: Happy At Work
How to be happy at work
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Why do we accept bad bosses?
A journalist once asked me why employees put up with bad bosses.
Without thinking about it I blurted out “Stockholm syndrome.”
I later realized I may have been right.
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What makes Zappos a happy workplace?
I’ve previously written about US online retailer Zappos and what makes them such a happy workplace.
In this video I talk to their Director of HR Hollie Delaney and Jamie Naughton who is Speaker of the House and we especially focus on the Zappos culture which permeates every aspect of running the company.
I also ask them how weird they are – but there’s a point to that :-)
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Going green at Google
Data centers like the ones run by Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others consume huge amounts of energy and Google is taking the lead in making sure that the energy is renewable:“Google is the most aggressive [tech company] in advancing a clean energy agenda, analysts say. Google has made 15 wind and solar investments totalling more than $1 billion.”
About 34 percent of Google’s operations are powered by renewable power.
“That’s through a combination of renewable resources that are in the utility areas that we operate, as well as the direct power procurements that we’ve done,” he said. “Our goal is to be 100 percent renewable powered.”
I respect Google greatly for this attitude. I also think that it’s one way for a company to make their employees a little happier at work. If you know that your workplace is actively working to minimize their ecological footprint or even to make the world a better place, that can bring a sense of pride and meaning to your work.
The poster boy in this area is of course Patagonia, who have committed their entire operation to improving the environment and donate 10% of their profits to environmental causes every year.
Related Posts
- The Top 5 Reasons Why Green Workplaces Make their Employees Happier.
- Let my People Surf – a great speech by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.
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Conference in Copenhagen May 22
We just announced or 6th annual conference about happiness at work in Copenhagen – this year it’s on May 22 and we have the most amazing speakers lined up.
Read all about it (in Danish).
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Secret
Saw this at a client’s office :o)
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I screwed up yesterday. Woohoo!
Yesterday I made a massive mistake that was both awkward, stupid and painful.I had a really important meeting with a large group of people from a client – and somehow that meeting wasn’t in my calendar. The meeting was at 1 o’clock, which I found out when one of them called me at 1:05 to ask where I was.
And this is not only a big client, this was the kick-off meeting for that project, and I forgot to go. I felt awful.
But then I remembered my own advice about celebrating mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes at work. But rather than hide them and be embarassed, it is much better to celebrate your mistakes with others.
So let me reframe that: WOOHOO – I forgot a meeting.
This is not to say that I take forgetting my commitments lightly or that I plan to miss more meetings.
This is simply to say that mistakes are inevitable – the key thing is to learn from your mistakes, so you don’t have to make the same ones over and over. Instead, you can move on to make bigger and better mistakes.
As Samuel Beckett put it:
Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.I have rescheduled the meetings with the client who took it very nicely and I do plan to be there this time. I may even bring cake to celebrate my mistake :-)
Got a mistake you’d like to celebrate? Share it in the comments.
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See my awesome interview with London Real TV
In January I was in London to promote the UK release of the updated version of my first book (Happy Hour is 9 to 5).
I had many great talks and interviews but by far the best and the most interesting was the hour I spent with Brian Rose at London Real TV. You can see the whole no-holds-barred interview above. Watch it!
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Kill the suggestion box – there’s a much better way
Almost every company talks about empowering their employees, but few actually do it an any meaningful way. In many cases it becomes a sham process, where employees are encouraged to voice their opinions and those opinions are then promptly ignored.
And the best (or is that worst) symbol of fake empowerment is the suggestion box. Many workplaces have one hanging on a wall somewhere. You can stick in your idea, but then what? Who (if anyone) will read it? Will it ever be acted upon? If not, why not? If it is, who will take credit?
It’s time to kill off the suggestions box and the coolest way I’ve seen to do this comes from marketing agency Quirk based in Cape Town, Johannesburg and the UK.
They have created a process that let’s anyone in the company suggest ideas, gather support for them and then have them implemented (or not). When I visited their Cape Town HQ I had a chance to see it for myself, and I think every workplace who wants to give their employees a voice should do something similar.
This flowchart shows how it works:
The first step is to post your idea to a board that hangs in a prominent spot in the office and get 12 of your coworkers to also sign on. If you like an idea, you show your support in a very low-tech way: you put a sticker on it.
Some ideas die at this stage – there’s just not enough energy or support behind the proposal. All ideas that don’t make it for one reason or another are displayed in The Graveyard:
Here you can see each idea that failed and why.
If an idea does get the necessary support, the person behind it writes a one-page proposal which is then submitted to Quirk’s EXCO, which is basically their top leadership team.
If they approve it, the idea goes ahead immediately and is placed on the “Ideas in motion” section of the board:
Ideas that were previously approved are shown on the “It’s happening” section.
Of course, the leadership group can turn the idea down, and if they do, they must carefully explain why they don’t think it’s a good idea. They can’t just say “No” or “Maybe later.”
But as you can see from the flow chart above, even if the leadership group turns an idea down, that need not be the end of it. If a person feels that this idea is still to good to ignore, it can be put to a debate and subsequent vote inside the company. If the idea is voted through, this overrides the EXCO’s decision and the idea goes ahead anyway.
Another thing they do on the board is highlight the costs of previous ideas, so employees know how much things end up costing.
I think this process is absolutely brilliant for 5 reasons:
1: It’s visual
It’s not just a bunch of documents or lines in a spreadsheet – this is highly visual which gives you a great overview. It’s also well-designed and looks pretty, which probably helps a little too.2: It’s low-tech
This could also be done on the intranet or in an app, but I kinda like that it’s on paper and cork board and you vote with stickers. This also makes it very flexible. Also, a page or an app is on demand – that means that people need to be proactive to access their democracy (and apathy is a killer). This board is a sort of dynamic wallpaper – it sits in front of your eyes while you butter your toast in the kitchen – you can be as passive as you like – the democracy comes to you.3: It’s fast
The process is fast. The leadership group have committed to addressing each idea at their next meeting and this means that ideas can get acted on while the energy is still there.4: It has memory
The board is a great record of previous failed ideas (so you don’t have to deal with the same proposals once every 6 months from different people and it also highlights ideas that were implemented, so you can see that this actually works.5: It’s transparent
This takes most of the politics out of these ideas. Getting your idea implemented is not about who you know or how well you can lobby for it, it’s about gaining support for good suggestions.There is zero doubt that autonomy and control over our own situation makes us happy. The more we can meaningfully contribute to things we care about at work, the prouder and happier we feel. And that way the company can also better tap into the creativity of its employees and become more efficient.
So simply put:
Fake empowerment = frustration and cynicism.
Real empowerment = trust and happiness.
Your take
Does your workplace empower its employees? For real or in a fake way? If you have a really good idea, do you know where to go with it?
Related posts
- Is your workplace a democracy or a dictatorship?
- Meet the company that has no meetings, no emails, no fear and no bosses.
Photo credits: The awesome picture above of the suggestion box is from a train station in Moshi, Tanzania and was originally shown here. All other photos are courtesy of Quirk.
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Olympic equality
Discrimination of any kind is a barrier to happiness at work and in life and we would like to make this very clear: We are for equal treatment of everyone regardless of sexual orientation – at work, in sports and in life.
The Olympic charter says that “The practice of sport is a human right,” but more than that being yourself is a human right.
We would like to wish all the participants at the Winter Olympic games a great competition. We hope they have a lot of fun training and competing.
Hat tip to our friends at Symbiotisk for inspiring us and cooking up the rainbow version of our logo.
