Category: Links

It’s official, happiness at work matters!

Forget salary, location, prospects – happiness is the new weapon in the drive to recruit the best and brightest new workers.

Would the BBC lie to us? I think not!

The article actually deals both with having a happy brand and happy employees, and cites Google and Orange as examples of companies who practice this.

All eschew the sleek corporate image once associated with success, favouring instead cute hand-drawn logos and chatty spiels about the company ethos.

Not only does this seem to appeal to customers, it proves quite a hook for prospective employees. To be in employment is, for most of us, a given. And Britons work the longest hours in Europe. So why not try to make it sound as enjoyable and fulfilling as possible?

I like it, but not everyone agrees. Check out this comment on the article:

What a crock…. I, like almost everyone I have ever met come to work to earn a living to pay for the things they like/need. If they did not need to work they would be sat at home watching the footy…….

Maybe he’s right, and we should all just accept that work is by definition unpleasant and that’s why we get paid to do it :o)

Roger von Oech tells you how to discover your creative style. “Much of our educational system is an elaborate game of “guess what the teacher is thinking,” and we come to believe that the best ideas are in someone else’s head rather than our own. Heraclitus reminds us that there are good ideas within ourselves if we are willing to dig deeply enough.” He gets extra points for bringing Heraclitus into this!

Gifter.org wants to collect million wishes and a million bucks. Go give them a hand!

Trusted advisor says drop your new year’s resolutions and make a new year’s gratitude list. “Resolutions often have a component of dissatisfaction with self. For many, it isn’t just dissatisfaction—it’s self-hatred.” This is also what my friend Stephen Shapiro writes about in his excellent book Goal-Free Living and on his equally excellent blog. (thx Lisa Guinn).

How to overcome the Loss of Motivation that Follows a Surge of Productivity. “How many times have you started a new activity (such as a personal project or exercise routine) with a burst of enthusiasm, only to see that initial momentum evaporate?”

Gretchen Rubin has worked on her happiness project for a year now. “Am I happier? Absolutely.” Some great lessons on happiness there.

Boxes and Arrows magazine interviews Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice. “And when you cross a line (and you are probably going to ask me “where’s the line???? and I’m going to say, ???I don’t know; nobody knows???), choice goes from being beneficial to being paralyzing. So one effect of too many choices is that people can’t choose at all.”

A 45 minute video of Richard Dawkins explaining why it pays to be nice. Prisoner’s dilemma, selfish genes and tragedy of the commons are all explained very well. And, oh, that cultured British accent :o)

A nice story about generosity at Southwest Airlines. “The good news (yes, there is some!) about being as forgetful as I can be is that I’ve had the chance to see, and to experience, generosity from complete strangers.”

Working Podcast, a career podcast for workers, by workers, has relaunched itself as jobacle.com.

The very first episode after the relaunch features an interview with yours truly about happiness at work and my brand new book. I’m on about 10 minutes into the podcast, but listen to the whole thing – it’s worth it. Funny, edgy and very slick!

A great cause needs your support: January 24 is Belly Laugh Day.

I could have some fun with one of Brad Montgomery’s squeakers. Or with some silly string. In fact his whole site is great – check it out.

For those who are not happy at work: Maximize your time away from work with Jobacle’s sick day calendar. Hilarious.

I’m taking a short blogging break over Christmas and will be back at my browser on Wednesday the 28th. If you’re looking for some great reading about happiness at work over the holidays, here are some excellent blogposts.

Bob Sutton has evidence that smiling makes you happy and likable as Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project claimed. It’s one of those “of course it’s true, but it’s still really nice to have studies backing it up” deals.

David Maister tells the story of a truly courageous leader, “Jay Bertram, president of the TBWA office in Toronto, who asked his people to evaluate him and offered to resign if he did not improve how well he performed his role as their leader.”

The Slacker Manager tells us how to write holiday cards to staff. “My ink-stained fingers are evidence of the labor of the last four hours. Only fifteen cards to show for it, but each is different and personal (no “Good job, Bob??? here).” It’s too late for this Christmas (unless you’re a really last-minute kind of person), but there are some great tips there.

The Brazen Careerist thinks financial freedom is outdated and that we should go with optimism instead. “HELLO???? Can everyone standing in line to buy a Lear Jet please get a reality check? You do not need a plane to be happy, you need a plane to go visit the people who make you happy. A jet is not an expression of financial freedom. It’s an expression of your decision to not live near the people who mean the most to you.”

Stephen Shapiro has a great post on allowing yourself to feel the pain in your life. “In college, I made this mix tape, aptly titled “The Depression Tape.??? It had the sappiest, saddest music you could imagine, containing nearly every song performed by Bread, Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful to Me,??? and Elton John’s sadder songs. You get the point.”

Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace interviews some weirdo who calls himself The Chief Happiness Officer. Sheeeeesh, there are some strange people out there.

And here are some great articles about happiness at work:
Kenny Moore Held a Funeral to mark his company’s transition to a new organization. “When it was over, the CFO said to me, “You have some set of balls. Nobody but you could have gotten away with this.” But I didn’t feel like I had been very brave. People are dying to be connected, invited, involved. They don’t like having things shoved down their throats in a formulaic way. They show energy and commitment when they can be players and influence an initiative’s outcome.”

Why we evolved altruism 12.000 years ago. “If an individual defended the group but was killed, any genes that the individual shared with the overall group would still be passed on.”

How economists measure happiness. “Happiness is a big question both for researchers and for policy wonks these days, so it is slightly discomfiting to reflect that people may not even know the answer to the simple question, ‘Are you happy?’”

It’s very heartening to see how many blogs out there have a deep focus on making work a nice experience, instead of something we just do to make a living. Here are some great recent blogposts about happiness at work.

Hidden Mojo on 7 Ways to Make Your Company More Human, Part One. Includes:

• Incentivize Groups, Not Individuals
• Encourage Employees to Blog
• Maximize Work-Life Integration

I like it already, and it’s only part one.

The Hog-blog on letting your career of the leash for a spell.

Since May, I’ve been letting my career rove to and fro. Consciously, I chose to make no plans or goals, do no outreach or inquiry, and instead, simply respond to the clients and opportunities that presented themselves.

This experiment led me to people and places and possibilities that I’d normally never encounter. I became a brand manager for a celebrity, outlined a new book concept, developed two reality TV shows, and created a new kind of speaking program that’s marketing + entertainment. And that was just October.

I’ve done this several times, and I highly recommend it. In fact, that’s how I came to work with happiness at work in the first place.

Slow Leadership on How to Avoid Burnout

If you look at the six major causes of burnout carefully, it’s clear that all of them are choices, either by management or staff or both. That means you can choose not to suffer burnout. The key is putting your personal values before purely material rewards.

Great stuff. Slow Leadership is one of the most consistently interesting, well-written and provocative work-blogs out there.

All Things Workplace on 3 Sure-Fire Steps to Developing Talent

Something counter-productive is happening on the way to developing your workforce.

It’s called Talent Management.

Right. I have sinned. I should know that Talent Management is “what’s happening.”

No it isn’t.

It has become a bloated, navel-gazing, bureaucratic, software-selling non-panacea that substitutes for the real thing.

You tell’em, Steve!

Valuing Happiness at Think Happy Thoughts:

On a scale of 1 to 5 what is your level of commitment to happiness? What actions have you recently taken that demonstrate your commitment to happiness? What would happen if you gave 5% more attention to your goal of achieving happiness?

Exactly – we have to value happiness and give it it’s proper place among our priorities: First.

I got an email from Christian Thompson who wrote:

I’m a big fan of the site, and have given my principal a copy of the draft of “Happy Hour is 9 to 5”. He really seems to be liking it and has actually put a sign up outside of his office that says “Arbejdsglæde” in big letters, and then he has a tiny paper next to it that has a link to your site.

Thanks!

Anyhoo, here is a link to a fantastic article on the ROWE system at Best Buy. It’s quite detailed and shows the pros of flexibility and the possible difficulties in implementing it.

First: Thanks! It’s great to see the concept of arbejdsglæde spreading :o)

Second: I agree on the Best Buy point – that is a great article and a great system that Best Buy are putting in place. From the article:

The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

I’ve always felt that companies that treat their employees like responsible adults, capable of making decisions for themselves are much more likely to make their people happy at work.

After all – who is in a better position to manage your work conditions than you?