The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Speaking

My speaking gigs

  • Home again

    Gee but it’s great to be back home
    Home is where I want to be boy
    I’ve been on the road for so long my friend
    And if you came along I know you wouldn’t disagree
    – Paul Simon, keep the customer satisfied

    I’m now home after my trip to the states, and it’s been a wonderful trip. It’s been all about interesting conversations, wonderful people and exciting new thoughts – I live for this kind of thing.

    And it’s equally great to be back home. I may even have tricked the jetlag in one day. I arrived sunday at 1PM, went home and unpacked (mentally and physically) and then Patricia and I went to the movies (Finding Nemo and and Matrix revolutions, they both rock) the evening to keep me awake until a suitable hour, following all of which I woke up refreshed and ready this morning.

  • Laughing at the Practice of Peace

    You may not know this, but I am in fact a certified laughter instructor. It’s not often I get a chance to practice it, so I offered to do some laughter exercises at the Practice of Peace conference, and it went extremely well. The evening started with playback theatre, or as our coach called it, playbak thee-AY-ter. It’s a form of improv where we did a very simple exercise that we’d tried earlier in the day called living statues. Practicing it in a small group was nerve-wracking enough and doing it in front of an audience of 40 people was downright scary. Fortunately people were very appreciative and it went quite well. After that this amazingly talented guy called Martin did juggling and comedy, and he was good and funny.

    Finally we got to the laughter exercises. I’d kinda expected this crowd to go for it, and they LOVED it. We started with a simple warm-up, progressed to some basic laughter exercises, and before long people were laughing up a storm. It was great to see people hugging and laughing or arguing and laughing (two of the exercises).

    The exercises are based on the principle that by pretending to laugh, essentially faking laughter, you’re getting the same physical results that you would if you were actually laughing. Of course what usually happens is that you feel so silly faking laughter that you end up laughing for real – without anything to laugh at. It feels really good and it’s lots of fun. You can read more about it at laughteryoga.org. People kept coming up to me the rest of the conference and thanking me for it, and that tells me that laughter is probably a large part of the practice of peace.

  • Practice of peace – part 2

    We’re coming up on the end of day 2 here at the practice of peace conference. If you’re interested in what’s going on, all meeting transcripts are coming online here.

    We had a really funny experience today, during a talk about “How to bear it when you realize it’s all your fault?”. The guy who was taking notes was doing it on a computer, and towards the end of the meeting, he suddenly says “I have a message from a person who’s not here.” We’re thinking “Is he channeling the spirit of a dead ancestor, or what?”. It turns out, that as we were talking and he was writing, he got an email from a friend in Ecuador, sent her the transcript, she read it and sent a comment back, which he then read to us, the comment being perfectly on topic, by the way. How “Smart Mobs” is that?

    I’ve also done impro theatre in a session, confirming my knowledge that I’ll have to take that up soon. There is so much to learn from the exercises and practices in impro theatre. Tonight I’ve offered to do laughter exercises after dinner – more on that later.

  • Practice of peace – part 1

    You know, when I planned my trip to the US and planned to fly from DC to Seattle, I was kinda thinking “OK, domestic flight, how long can it be – 2-3 hours?” Well, flying across the US takes five and a half hours!

    I’m now at the Practice of Peace conference, and it’s quite a far cry from the CEO round table. The round table was at a fancy Marriott hotel – here I share a room with two other guys one of whom snores constantly, though fortunately not very loudly. The round table meetings were in your traditional windowless conference room, here it’s this grand hall with windows, wooden beams and skylights. But notice, that where the luxury hotel had wired internet access in the rooms at $9.95 a day, this place has free wi-fi. Woohoo!

    The conference is just taking off, but I think I may have overextended myself, and I’m afraid I’m all conferenced out. Let’s see what happens. Oh, I talked briefly to Harrison Owen – seems like a very nice person.

  • 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.

  • Democratic CEO round table, part 2

    The round table is now over, and it’s been an amazing ride. Some of the highlights were:
    * Hearing real-life stories of organizational democracy – the ups AND the downs
    * Meeting some wonderful, courageuos people
    * Exploring the link between political democracy and organizational democracy. Fredo Arias-King gave a fascinating presentation on the transition to democracy in eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet countries and why some succeeded and others didn’t. Key factor: People! The countries that completely got rid of the old guard (the Nomenklatura) succeeded.
    * Seeing Traci Fenton and her team in action. Relaxed, creative and on the ball
    * “Singing in the rain” with Victor Aspengren of Schafer Systems

    I’m jetting of to Seattle in a few hours, and I’m looking forward to just chilling on the flight. Then the Practice of Peace conference starts tonight.

  • Democratic CEO round table, part 1

    I’m now in Washington DC, and the first 24 hours of the World Dynamics round table for democratic CEO’s has been fantastic. There are some great people here, who can tell some amazing stories. There’s an incredible level of experience, openness and curiosity present – and it’s just plain fun.

    The conference started thursday evening Mart Laar, the first prime minister of Estonia. He talked about democracy and about values and principles he beliveves are necessary to practice democracy. And he should know: Under him, Estonia went from a hopeless ex-soviet backwater, to a modern, fast-developing economy. His speech was very inspiring and moving, and his down-to-earth authentic and slightly underplayed style was wonderful.

    Today several of the participants have had a chance to present, and I talked briefly about the principles behind Enterprise Systems (my old IT company). In the afternoon we did a short open space session, which seemed to go over really well with this crowd – as I’d hoped it would. If there’s one tool that can promote organizational democracy, I believe it’s Open Space meetings.

    The day ended with a wonderful dinner with everybody in really high spirits. My mind is still racing from all the input and all the incredible stories I’ve heard today, and I hope tomorrow will be just as interesting.

  • Flying

    Blogging from the airport, an hour before my plane leaves for DC. I’d promised myself not to be a chicken and check in two hours before – all that gets you is a long wait in the airport, but in the end I was there with everybody else. I’m sure it’s just a ploy to get people to do more airport shopping :o)

    Anyway: DC today, Seattle on the 9th., back in Copenhagen on the 16th. See ya, and I will try to blog on the road.

  • Conference coming up

    We’re hosting Denmarks (the worlds?) first conference on happiness at work. We’ve been working on it for a while now, generating ideas, lining up speakers, preparing the material, and here are the basic facts:
    * Thursday January 29, 9-6
    * Held in N?rrebrohallen
    * 4 speakers before lunch
    * Lots of workshops after lunch
    * 300 participants

    This will be a fun, inspiring, energetic and innovative day, focused on why happiness in the workplace is a benefit to both organizations and employees, and how to do something about it. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll be sure to inform you when the conference website is up.

  • blogforum.dk

    I’ll be at blogforum. How about you?