Politics aside, last night the most positive of the two US presidential candidates won. This is no coincidence, as research by Martin Seligman shows:

Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania have measured what they call the level of pessimism in the nomination acceptance speeches by candidates in 1948 and in every succeeding Presidential campaign. They found that, with one exception, the more optimistic candidate won.

It is not clear, however, whether a hopeful message alone leads to victory or if it is merely a powerful signal of factors that voters find appealing.

The candidate who offered the greater message of hope won 9 of the 10 elections studied, according to Harold Zullow and Martin Seligman, psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania. And even in the exception, the 1968 race, the ebullient Hubert H. Humphrey came from 14 points behind in the polls to within one percentage point of defeating Richard M. Nixon.

More here. Mind you, this study is from waaaay before Obama and his platform of hope. The study is also referenced in Seligman’s book Learned Optimism (read my review), which is one of my all-time favorite books about happiness.

“Yes we can” is not just a slogan for the ages, it’s the optimist’s fundamental creed. Optimists don’t deny that bad things happen, they just believe that they can cope with them which of course means that they cope much better than pessimists.

Today we’re launching yet another resource for happiness at work (in addition to our Facebook app and our Twitter account): The Happy at Work Link Collection.

It’s based on the popular link sharing site reddit (where I waste waaaaaay too much time), and this is where we’ll be posting all the cool, interesting and funny links we find about happiness at work.

You can of course read all those stories, but if you sign up as a user on reddit (which is free) you can also vote stories up or down and even submit links yourself.

Go check out the happy at work link collection on reddit.

More resources

• Our facebook application: Do you make others happy or unhappy at work.
• Our twitter account: Get quotes, thoughts and exercises about happiness at work.
• The Happy at Work Manifesto.

I’m is quoted in this article as saying that:

a happy work environment is no longer a luxury – but essential to creating a successful and profitable workplace.

The concept is simple but challenging for many workplaces, which still buy into a “protestant work ethic,” according to Kjerulf, who is an international speaker and business consultant on the subject.

“There is a pervasive sense that work is tough, hard and unpleasant – and that’s why you get paid to work.”

The article is released in the run-up to the WorldBlu Live 2008 conference in New York on October 16+17 where I’ll be speaking. If you haven’t signed up yet, go do it now – it’s this year’s best and most inspiring business conference.

I’ll be speaking at WorldBlu Live 2008 (October 16+17 in New York), the best and most exciting business conference I know. The theme is Democratic Organizations, i.e. organizations that believe in and practice freedom, openness, transparency and engagement instead of top-down, command-and-control management.

There will be some GREAT speakers there – I particularly look forward to hearing Bill Taylor, Tim Sanders and Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, Co-authors of the best-selling Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It.

Another major treat is the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, who have won Grammy awards despite the fact (or because of it) that they have no conductor.

But the most interesting thing will be to hear from CEOs who practice organizational democracy on a day-to-day basis and learn from organizations who know how to do it and achieve success through it.

Check out this short video invitation from WorldBlu:

The last WorldBlu conference in Washington DC was one of the most inspiring business conferences I have ever attended – I have never seen so many cool, fascinating and fun people gathered in one place. If this sounds interesting to you, check out the web site and go sign up.

I also have upcoming gigs in the UK and France, so there’s some serious travel in my future :o)

Samantha Wood interviews Pret A Manger’s Head of Communications, Jay Chapman, and she is more than happy to divulge some of their secrets of success.

I especially love the opening:

She tells me she’d love to have a scary sounding formula to impress people with, but in her mind it’s all pretty simple stuff:

“If you treat your employees well and involve them in the decisions that will affect them, they’re much more likely to be engaged in carrying out the effects of those decisions.”

There’s another gem when they talk recruitment:

“You can’t hire someone who can make sandwiches and teach them to be happy,” says Jay, “So we hire happy people and teach them to make sandwiches”.

If you don’t know Pret A Manger, they make coffee, sandwiches and other great food. It’s sort of like the British Starbucks – only better!

What I’ve always liked about them (apart from the outstanding quality of their products and the great service you get) is their passion. It’s obvious that this company cares deeply about what they do – and that’s huge to me.

Go read the whole thing – it’s excellent!

Why must change in organizations be so hard?

No company can thrive and survive if it can’t adapt and innovate and yet there’s an almost universal cry going up today that “change is tough and takes too much time and energy!”

You’ll have upper management on one side pushing for innovation, employees on the other side clinging to the old ways and middle managers caught (where else?) in the middle trying to actually get stuff done. Sound familiar?

My work with organizations all over the world has shown me that there is one vital factor that is being overlooked practically everywhere. One factor that can not only help companies change more rapidly and effectively but which contributes massively to the bottom line. That factor is happiness at work.

Here are the top three reasons why happy companies change more effectively and painlessly.

1: Happy people get more ideas
In times of change, companies cannot rely on the old ways of doing business and thus need new ideas. Preferably lots of them. And a fascinating study by Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School shows that creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety. In other words, happy employees generate more ideas.

2: Happy people buy into new ideas.
It’s not enough to generate lots of ideas, you also need people to believe enough in them to actually want to implement them. Many managers work from a belief that change comes from dissatisfaction, pain and unhappiness, but psychological research proves them wrong. It turns out that what a business needs is optimists. Optimistic employees believe that change projects will pay off and are thus much more likely to commit. Unhappy, pessimistic employees only see all the ways a project can fail and often only go along on the surface – offering compliance rather than commitment.

3: Happy people implement new ideas.
And finally, once you have the ideas and people buy into them, you need to have the motivation to actually do something about it. And once again research shows that happy, satisfied employees are much more motivated. In fact, while managers must constantly work help dissatisfied employees find their motivation, happy employees motivate themselves. If you like the company you work for, you want the company to succeed – if you hate your workplace, you don’t give a damn.

In short, happy companies change willingly and effectively, while their unhappy competitors cling to business as usual and throw up massive resistance to all things new and uncertain.

And it doesn’t stop there. Additional research shows that happy workplaces are more productive, have happier customers and (most importantly) make more money! Unhappy workplaces on the other hand waste huge sums on high absenteeism and employee turnover rates. One Danish company reduced their absenteeism from around 20% to less than 1% and their annual employee turnover from 25% to almost nothing – simply by becoming a happy workplace. It’s incredibly easy (but potentially depressing) to calculate how much money similar improvements could save your company every single month.

In fact, studies indicate that happiness at work is the most important success factor for businesses today. Don’t just take my word for it. Richard Branson of Virgin says that “More than anything, fun is the secret behind Virgin’s success” and Apple CEO Steve Jobs says that “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Many other hugely successful companies like Google, Disney Southwest Airlines and SAS Institute also focus relentlessly on employee happiness – because it helps them change and grow and make more money.

And the good news is that happiness at work ain’t rocket science. Any company, big or small, public or private, can do it, provided it is willing to engage both managers and employees in efforts to create a happy workplace, where people actually enjoy themselves and look forward to coming, rather than one where they show up reluctantly to do as little as they can get away with.

This piece was originally written for the South African management magazine Strictly Business.

I am away on another week of vacation in EuroDisney, Paris and Nice. Yes, it sucks to be me :o)

While I’m gone please enjoy this great interview from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart with Tal Ben-Shahar, the author of Happier.

Aaaahhh… Summer vacation. Depending on your fancy it’s time to lie on the beach with a good book, wear out your shoe soles exploring a strange city or scream your head off skydiving or in some other adrenaline-driven pursuit.

But invariably the vacation ends and you go back to work, and that transition can be a little rough.

Do you know that feeling? You come back to work happy and full of energy – but by the end of the first work day, you’re already feeling tired an unhappy. It’s almost like you didn’t have a vacation at all.

So here are a five tips to help you stay happy when you get back to work.

1: While you’re away, get away

Don’t take the company mobile and laptop on vacation. Don’t check your voice mail and email.

The point of a vacation is to get away and go to a different mental space, and if you’re preoccupied with work, chances are you’ll both enjoy your vacation less and get less relaxation out of it.

2: Let yourself get behind

When you get back from your vacation, you will invariably have fallen behind and have a lot of work to catch up on. There will be a ton of voice mails, emails and tasks that need your attention. THAT’S FINE!!! It’s unavoidable and it’s not your fault.

Look at it this way: If you can leave the company for two weeks and there’s no work waiting for you, you’re not really needed there.

So don’t expect to have a clear desk on your first day back – allow yourself to be behind and to catch up steadily.

3: Start with some easy tasks

When you get back to work, don’t immediately throw yourself at the toughest, hairiest most complicated tasks you have. Ease into work by doing something easy and simple – something you know you can do. Once you’re back in full swing you can go at the tough tasks.

4: Don’t overwork to catch up

It can be really tempting to work long hours to catch up after your vacation. DON’T!!! Work regular hours and stick to point 2 above.

5: Ask for help if you need it

If you find it difficult to catch up, don’t be afraid to ask your co-workers or manager for help. It’s important for you to be aware of any outstanding tasks that may have become critically late in your absence, and if you could use some help – it’s your responsibility to ask for it! It also greatly increases the chance that you will actually get help.

If you use these tips, you may find that your vacations feel more like vacations and that you can be even happier at work.

But on a fundamental level, there is something wrong with the idea that work drains you of energy and weekends and vacations recharge you. I know that this is how most people feel – but that’s not how it should be.

If work typically drains you of energy – if every week ends up draining you of life so you barely make it to Friday afternoon where you can finally relax – then something’s wrong. Don’t accept that state of affairs just because everyone else does.

When you’re happy at work, work can actually be a regenerative activity that leaves you with more energy so you leave the workplace with a spring in your step most days!

And THAT is the ultimate way to beat the post-vacation blues: Have a job you actually like!

Your take

Do you ever get the post-vacation blues? What do you do to beat’em? Have you also noticed that vacations these days seem to be more tiring than work (as this article says)?

Related posts

• Find your quitting point
• How to find a job you’ll love
• Never stay in a bad job. Fix it or leave.

Psychological studies point out one more reason why long meetings are no fun and get less done:

Imagine, for a moment, that you are facing a very difficult decision about which of two job offers to accept. One position offers good pay and job security, but is pretty mundane, whereas the other job is really interesting and offers reasonable pay, but has questionable job security.

Clearly you can go about resolving this dilemma in many ways. Few people, however, would say that your decision should be affected or influenced by whether or not you resisted the urge to eat cookies prior to contemplating the job offers.

A decade of psychology research suggests otherwise. Unrelated activities that tax the executive function have important lingering effects, and may disrupt your ability to make such an important decision. In other words, you might choose the wrong job because you didn’t eat a cookie.

Research by University of Minnesota psychologist Kathleen Vohs and colleagues indicates that we have a limited amount of what they call executive resources. Once they start to get depleted, we make bad choices.

And how do you consume your executive resources? In three ways. You use them every time you:

1. Exercise commitment (as in not eating that cookie you really wanted because you’re on a diet)
2. Focus your attention (as in listening to someone speaking, though you’d rather check email on your Blackberry)
3. Make a decision (as in choosing which of two possible projects to approve)

A-HA!!!!!

Business meetings require participants to commit, focus and make decisions – with no acknowledgment of the fact that in doing so they’re consuming a finite resource. Once this resource runs out, people make worse decisions!!!

Suddenly those three-hour project meetings aren’t looking so smart, are they? Not that they ever really did, but you know what I mean.

The article left me with a few questions:

• How do we recharge our executive resources?
• Can we increase our executive resources over time by exercising them? The way physical exercise makes you tired right now but increases your fitness over time.
• How quickly can they be recharged? Once they’re gone, are they gone for the day? The week? Or can they be recharged in time for the next meeting?

If you know the answer to any of these questions, I’d love to hear it!

Your take

What do you think? Have you noticed this kind of thing in meetings? What do you think is the cut-off point beyond which meetings just devolve into pointlessness and no good decisions can be made? An hour? Two? 15 minutes?

Related posts

• 5 simple ways to shut up in meetings.
• 5 weeeeeeird tips for great meetings.
• How to get people to arrive on time for meetings.