The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Leadership

Leadership is an insanely important discipline. Here you’ll find the thought, tools and tricks of the trade of great leaders.

  • Business – New school

    David Heinemeier Hansson is one of the hottest names in IT right now. He’s been developing something called Ruby on Rails, which is a tool for developing web applications. Now Denmark has become too small for David, and he’s left for Chicago, better to work with his compatriots at 37signals, one of the most admired software shops right now.

    The evening before he left, he gave a presentation in Copenhagen to a small crowd of techies, bloggers, business people and others. I was there and I was blown away by this guy. Not only is he a good developer, he also has an amazing sense for how a business can also be designed. And he’s 26 years old. Interestingly, his software design principles are the same as his business design principles, making his philosophy consistent and credible. Here are the main points I took away from his presentation:

    Solve the next problem
    Whether you’re working on software or building a business, this means that you should tackle the issues that matter right now. Don’t solve the problems you think will appear in 6 months – they probably won’t, you see. Solve the next problem, and then the next. In six months time, you will have plenty of stuff to work on, but it won’t be what you thought six months ago.

    Solve your own problems
    When you work on something that you yourself need, you’re much more efficient. Rather than working on something that some remote client will use, attack issues that are important to you.

    Do as little as possible – or slightly less
    The complexity of any system does not grow proportianl to the size of the system – it grows exponentially. Making a system twice as large makes it waaay more that twise as complex. Therefore, make your system as simple as possible, or maybe even a little simpler.

    And if I may be allowed to brag for a moment here: This is exactly how we work on the Happy At Work Project. Here are a few of our maxims, that I might add:

    Try stuff
    Rather than analyzing a given choice to death, make a quick decision and try it out. If it doesn’t work, try something else.

    Relax
    It’ll all work out. Don’t beat yourself up and don’t work too hard. Take plenty of breaks and do lots of different stuff to stimulate your mind.

    The best of luck to David in Chicago – I’m sure he’ll do famously.

  • Quote

    Each individual should work for himself. People will not sacrifice themselves for the company. They come to work at the company to enjoy themselves.
    – Soichiro Honda, founder of (surprise) Honda

    Via Metacool via Mike Wagner.

  • Democratic leadership

    Democratic organizations need leaders too – the main difference is that in a democratic organization leadership is dynamic and distributed. In a traditional organization leadership is static and centralized.

    A common misconception is that democracy entails a lack of strong leadership, but this is only true of dysfunctional democracies. Healthy democracies have many leaders, who step up whenever interest, passion, energy, motivation and organizational needs dictate.

    You may see different people taking leadership in different areas, or you may see people taking leadership in the same area at different times. But note that leadership in a democratic organization is something you actively seek out – whereas in a traditional organization it “comes with the job”.

  • Quote

    If an organization is narrow in the images that it directs toward its own actions, then when it examines what it has said, it will see only bland displays. This means in turn that the organization won’t be able to make much interesting sense of what’s going on or of its place in it. That’s not a trivial outcome, because the kind of sense that an organization makes of its thoughts and of itself has an effect on its ability to deal with change. An organization that continually sees itself in novel images, images that are permeated with diverse skills and sensitivities, thereby is equipped to deal with altered surroundings when they appear.
    – Karl Weick

  • Quote

    The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

    – Niels Bohr

  • Ethical balance sheet

    Bank manager Hans Erik Brønserud explains the reasoning behind the ethical balance sheet his bank does in addition to the normal balance sheet:

    First and foremost this has given us a tool, which gives us a unique opportunity to sense how our stakeholders view us and what we do. Every year we get specific feedback on whether we are in agreement with our customers, employees and community, and the tables and graphs instantly show us if we’re slacking in any area.

    But all of this knowledge makes no difference if we in management don’t take in the signals and correct the things that aren’t working optimally, and this we’ve chosen to do since the very first ethical balance sheet.

    BTW, I’m thrilled by their mission statement:

    1) We must treat our customers in a way that keeps them coming back and makes them mention on favourably to people who aren’t yet customers with us.

    2) We must treat our employees in a way that makes them look forward to coming to work every day and be proud to mention where they work.

    3) We must make enough money to keep fulfilling the first 2

    Read the entire article (in danish)

  • Quote

    In every substantive sense, employees of a company carry more risks than do the shareholders. Also, their contributions of knowledge, skills and entrepreneurship are typically more important than the contributions of capital by shareholders, a pure commodity that is perhaps in excess supply.

    – Sumantra Ghoshal

  • Pay by ethics

    There’s a new trend in rewarding senior executives, namely to decide their pay based not only on financial performance but also on other “softer” measures. Here’s an example:

    Calvert, the nation’s [USA’s] largest family of socially responsible mutual funds, is trying a new proxy tactic. It has filed resolutions pressing four companies to begin rewarding executives according to how well they meet the firm’s own social goals, as well as financial ones. This could mean pay hikes for executives who oversee a surge in employee satisfaction or a drop in toxic emissions, to name a couple of possibilities. Response has been encouraging, the mutual-fund company says. Dollar General and Xerox have agreed to link incentives to their firms’ social goals…

    Very interesting. The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent article on new trends in executive pay, which also mentions Ben & Jerry’s policy of the average executive making no more than 5 times as much as the average factory worker. Cool!

  • American Airlines make money – by listening to employees

    American Airlines turned a profit last quarter, because of a new management style which works with employees to cut costs rather than treating employees and unions as its enemies. A few examples:

    Two American Airlines mechanics didn’t like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts – a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project – and built “Thumping Ralph.” It’s essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year.

    And it was a group of pilots who realized that they could taxi just as safely with one engine as with two. That was instituted as policy has helped cut American’s fuel consumption even as prices have continued to rise to record levels.

    And now they’ve posted a profit (albeit a small one) for the first time in 5 years. Read the whole story.

  • Chief Happiness Officer

    Just as every company needs a CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, etc., I believe every company should have a CHO – a Chief Happiness Officer. Most businesses today are not competitive if they can’t keep their employees happy since happy people tend to:

    • Work more efficiently
    • Learn faster
    • Give better service
    • Produce better quality
    • Take fewer sick days
    • Function better in teams

    In fact, I challenge you to name just one area in which unhappy employees outperform happy ones. One!

    The economy is critical to the business, so the CFO is in charge of that. Information systems are too, hence the CIO. So put a CHO in charge of happiness. Somebody who cares for people and recognizes that work today is one of the most important factors contributing to (or detracting from) people’s happiness.