Category: Speaking

We’ve received some more follow-up material on the happy-at-work conference. Suna Christensen is an anthropologist who participated, and has now written a short report on the conference. It’s fascinating reading, and here’s one of my favourite bits:
Work life and private, personal life is traditionally two separate worlds. But through inclusion of being human on the job this conference created a connection where human life as such stretched beyond the known borders. In me an experience was created which means, that it no longer makes sense to speak of work environment as terms or conditions under which we work. In stead, we must search for (new) words and concepts that – as the conference did in practice – kan represent the (contradictory) conditions under which we work.

Music to my ears :o) You can find the whole report here – in danish only, though.

Merete Klussman also participated, and she wrote a personal account of her day at the conference. Her article is an excellent description of the day and what participants could get out of the conference. Read Meretes story here.

We had the happy at work conference yesterday, and it was a great experience. All our planning and desing efforts paid of, and everybody involved had a great day. Here’s some of the feedback we got:
Best conference I’ve attended in Denmark…

Fun to be part of, very inspiring. See you in 2005…

I can safely say, that we succeded in creating a space and a mood where people could explore happiness at work from many angles. All day long the participants were happy, energetic, smiling, enthusiastic and positive. And I think the key is to create an environment where people have to take charge of their own learning. This was not a day that we created for them – they had to make their own day.

For example: As soon as the participants arrived and were registered, they had to make their own badge. Instead of those boring preprinted badges with your name, title and company on’em, we had a large tabe with paper and pens in every conceivable colour, and everybody made their own badge, exactly as they wanted it. Some people got really creative :o)

The conference only had 5 speakers, who spoke for 30 minutes each. The topics were very different, and each had their own individual style, that added immensely to the conference. Each of them did a great job.

We had the CEO of Denmarks best workplace, Mads Kjaer, who spoke toegether with Malene Nilsson of Kjaer Group (their people manager) on what they’ve done to create their success story. We had a doctor, Claus Hyldahl, who spoke of the significance and practice of health in the workplace. We had Jesper Bove-Nielsen, the author of Corporate Kindergarten, who talked about play and innovation at work. John Bern talked about a simple model for happiness at work, and finally the well known danish actor Jens Arentzen talked about his take on happiness, in his very own style. All of this – and it wasn’t even noon yet.

Then we had workshops. Lots of workshops. Coaching, appreciative inquiry, conversation circles, juggling, meditation, massage, health checkups and much, much more. And the participants seemed to throw themselves into it with abandon – especially the impro theater workshop seemed to generat a lot of fun and initiative.

One very nice thing we did was to invite some professional storytellers to tell stories. One right after lunch, and one at the end of the conference. This was a great touch, which added a lot of fun to the proceedings.

After the workshops, we gave each participant a chance to formulate a plan for their own happiness at work, and to discuss it with the other participants. Then it was almost 6PM, and we closed the day.

Right now I feel happy and very, very tired. Every single gamble we took paid off. Every weird idea that we put into practice work. And put together, all of it created a day that was almost magical. We rock!

Inspired by an ancient MAD Magazine article, I did this declaration of content, for the “happy at work” conference:

How does that sound?

I’m very proud to announce the happy at work conference on May 27 in Copenhagen.

We have a great program for the day, with more action and less talk than most conferences. And in a novel twist, we’re making the day a “Powerpoint free zone”. There are many great ways to use Powerpoint – and many bad ones. We thought we’d try and see what happens when you can’t use it for a whole day.

We have some great speakers, including Mads Kjaer, the CEO of Denmarks best workplace, and Jesper Bove-Nielsen, the author of Corporate Kindergarten.

Here are a couple of banners you can use, if you’d like to help us advertise the conference:

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!

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!!