• Update on saying no to customers

    No!

    About a week ago, Pixel Peony (no, that’s not her real name) asked me what to do about really difficult customers. My advice was to dare to say “No!” to those customers that just don’t make you happy at work.

    That advice was repeated and fleshed out in all the great comments on that post. Thanks people!

    Well, Pixel Peony not only read that advice, she dared to take it, and here’s how things went:

    Here’s an update on my work situation. I was honest, but not rude, with my “difficult” client. Ultimately, she wrote back a very angry, vitriolic email and I decided it was for the best not to continue working with her. We haven’t been in touch since her email, but the work relationship is definitely over.

    At first I was worried about it, but now I am elated! It’s a big relief to not have to deal with her anger and the general difficulties of working with someone who doesn’t listen, or appreciate my feedback. By contrast, my other main client, at the moment, is open, we communicate well, they are knowledgeable and basically terrific. I am eager to hear their ideas, because we are actually having a two-way discussion. I want to make this client happy and I am happy as a result.

    Yes! I love it!

    If something at work makes you unhappy, do something about it. And, yes, this includes customers. No one should continue to work with a customer who will not treat them fairly and politely.


  • The world’s most democratic workplaces

    Democratic workplaces

    For the last year the great folks at WorldBlu have been on the hunt for companies that practice organizational democracy and they’ve found many great examples. The very best ones are companies that dare to be different, dare to include employees in the decisions being made … and interestingly they also tend to be very happy workplaces.

    The awards list includes companies like Berret-Koehler Publishers, GE Aviation, Threadless and Linden Labs (who make Second Life).

    And who tops the list? What is the most democratic company? You may be surprised, but I ain’t tellin’ – head on over to WorldBlu.com to find out.


  • Pooooooooowder

    Capuccino

    This week I’m snowboarding in the alps with my wonderful girlfriend, so I won’t be around to blog much. Just to keep things active around here, I’ve set up a few blog posts that will run during the week (including a very important announcement on Tuesday), but apart from that, all the action is at the Happy at work link site.

    There are lots of interesting stories and links on there, and you can add your own and vote for the ones you like.

    Check out the most recent stories or the highest rated stories.


  • Tagged: Five reasons why I blog

    My Office
    My “office” – a friendly, neighborhood, wifi-enabled café where I sit and blog most mornings.

    Dave over at the excellent The Disquiet blog has asked me why I blog. And that is a great question.

    I started blogging 4 years ago, have written over 1000 posts, and the blog became insanely popular last year in May. At the outset, I had no plans or goals with blogging, and I blogged about both personal and business themes.

    Since the blog became I hit, I’ve tightened the focus, and now I only blog about happiness at work. I feel I wouldn’t be serving my readers properly, if I suddenly started writing about the movie I saw last night or the latest episode of Lost :o)

    Anyway, here are my five main reasons for blogging.

    1: It makes me happy
    Blogging makes me happy for many reasons. First of all, the pride of having written a great blogpost. That feels goooooood. I always blog in café (here’s a picture of my “office”), and many are the times I’ve left the place after a good morning’s writing, totally high on having created something I’m proud of.

    Then there’s the pleasure of giving. Knowing that I can help people all over the world out, and give them ideas and inspiration. That’s the one thing I like the most about blogging – that it’s very much a gift economy. And that the more each of us give, the more we get.

    2: My blog is my spare brain
    Increasingly, my blog is my spare brain. When I find a great quote, blogpost, article, idea I post it to the blog or to my link collection. And I often search my own blog for “you know, that article where that guy said that thing about that company.”

    3: To sell by giving
    My blog is also my professional website. This is how companies find me and hire me to speak and consult. And MAN does that ever work.

    4: To find playmates
    Here’s a funny story. Way back in 2003, Fast Company mentioned this woman called Traci Fenton who works with organizational democracy. I wrote this blogpost about it. Some weeks later Traci Googled herself, found my blogpost and contacted me. We found that organizational democracy and happiness at work are intimately connected and that we work for almost exactly the same things in the workplace. I’ve since spoken at two of her conferences in Washington DC, Traci has visited me in Copenhagen and we’ve become great friends.

    And stuff like that happens more and more.

    As a kid, I could just leave the house, go out on the street and instantly find playmates. As an adult, it’s not quite that easy. The blog is a great way to find playmates.

    5: To make people happy at work
    Well, duh! :o)


  • Helping Africa through business

    AfricaI recently wrote a blog post asking for information on happy workplaces in Africa.

    I got some great tips, showing that even in poor countries it’s still possible to be happy at work.

    Now I can finally announce the reason why i ask. A company has been launched that has a simple but breath-taking goal: To eradicate poverty in Africa through business.

    The company is called C4, and the idea is based on micro-financing ala Grameen Bank – with a focus on helping African businesses.

    The idea is this:

    1. People in rich countries can create an account with C4 and put money into it.
    2. Africans can create accounts asking for investments.
    3. C4 account holders can decide which projects to invest in.

    Note that you’re not giving the money as aid – you’re investing in a number of projects and can expect to get your money back with interest.

    The advantages are clear:

    • You get direct influence over which projects you support.
    • Instead of giving aid, we’re helping people help themselves.

    I know the people behind this, and I know their commitment, skill and energy will carry them on to great results. I have also been giving them a hand here and there :o)

    Now they’re looking for the first group of people to start test-driving the site. They’re looking for 2,015 people to be specific (why that number? See if you can figure it out :o)

    I urge you to sign up for this. It’s a great opportunity to be a part of something fun, that has the potential to make the world a better place.

    I will certainly be participating, with a specific focus on spreading happiness at work in African businesses.


  • My book is being translated to two other languages

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5Here’s some really exciting news: My book is being translated into two other languages.

    Cesar Cardozo is putting together a team to translate it into Portuguese. If you want to help him out, please contact him.

    Also Erno Hannink is getting it translated to Dutch.

    What can I say but WOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!! :o)


  • Happy at work at Nixon McInnes

    GreenAfter I wrote on my blog that I’m a huge fan of Ricardo Semler, I got an email from another avowed fan, namely Tom Nixon who is a director at Nixon McInnes a web design agency in Brighton, England.

    He’s been telling me a little about how they run things, and here are som highlights:

    Everyone sets their own working hours
    This works really well for us. We had an almost tearful moment at our ‘review of the year’ meeting before xmas when a relatively new member of staff said that her highlight of the year was being able to see her kids in their school nativity play, which had been possible for the first time this year because of our flexible working arrangements.

    Open book accounting
    Everyone knows what everyone else earns, and I also like to show staff our bank statements now and again so they get a feel for what comes in and goes out. Sometimes we have awkward conversations about pay because salaries are public, but it’s so much better getting it all out in the open – people usually find out eventually anyway.

    Voting on key issues
    We had a chance to move into some really nice offices about a year ago, but the team voted against it in the end because it was just too expensive. We were all a bit bummed by not getting to work in the new place but because everyone had a say in it there was no
    complaining.

    Their company culture also includes things like “People wear the clothes that they feel are appropriate” and “We believe that businesses need not be only about money.”

    YES! Way to go! It’s all very Semler-ish and perfectly in tune with my previous posts on why secret salaries are a bad idea and the cult of overwork.

    I like the openness and participation that this encourages and the fact that these are not just internal policies, but are mentioned right on the website. Kudos!

    PS. They’re hiring!


  • Five reasons to forget about money and focus on what makes you happy at work

    I'm rich. But am I happy?

    The constant hunt for more money, eternally chasing the next raise, measuring yourself against the number on your pay check is no way to run a career, and no way to live a work life.

    Using money as your yardstick is seductive because it’s one of the few objective measures of progress in a career. If you made 100,000 last year and 150,000 this year you must be doing better, right?

    Wrong. Your salary, no matter how large, can never make you happy at work. Sacrificing happiness at work for more money is a terrible trade – one that you will end up regretting.

    Here’s five reasons why.

    1: More money does not make you happier

    Most people think that having a higher income would make them happier. They’re wrong!

    That is the conclusion of a study by Two Princeton professors, economist Alan B. Krueger and psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, who say that:

    The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory. People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities.

    The problem is that people still act on their mistaken belief that making more money makes them happier:

    Despite the weak relationship between income and global life satisfaction or experienced happiness, many people are highly motivated to increase their income. In some cases, this focusing illusion may lead to a misallocation of time, from accepting lengthy commutes (which are among the worst moments of the day) to sacrificing time spent socializing (which are among the best moments of the day).

    Which is just a fancy way of saying that you may think that switching jobs to get a 25% raise in return for a 2-hour commute or a 70-hour work week or ten days a month of business travel is a good deal. You’re wrong. You’d be happier with a lower salary, a more fun job and more time with your friends and family.

    2: Always thinking of money is bad for you

    “Money pushes people into a state where they become focused on achieving their own goals without help of others,” says researcher Kathleen Vohs, assistant marketing professor at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota.

    They performed a series of experiments where subjects were asked to solve a difficult puzzle and told they could ask for help. Some of the subjects were subliminally primed to think of money, eg. by placing a pile of monopoly money in their field of vision or by giving them a warm-up exercise where they had to de-scramble sentences related to money. (source)

    The experiment showed that thinking of money had a significant, negative effect on the subjects:

    • They became less likely to ask for help
    • They became more reluctant to help others
    • They became less generous
    • They isolated themselves more from others

    So if your success depends on you working well with others, on being able to help others and ask for help, thinking of money (even in a subtle and subconscious way) makes you less effective. On the other hand, if your success depends on you being selfish and isolated – go right ahead, make money your only goal :o)

    One group of people who are particularly at risk are those who think that “time is money”. Bob Sutton, author of the excellent book The No Asshole Rule, has a great post on how the billable hour affects people. This constant focus on money even means that “lawyers watching their kids play soccer admitted to mentally ticking away lost income for each minute they stood on the sidelines.??? Ouch.

    3: The actual amount doesn’t matter – fairness does

    Try this experiment: Get a bunch of Capuchin monkeys, and train them to give you a small, polished granite rock in exchange for a slice of cucumber. Capuchins are pretty clever, and soon the monkeys learn that when they hand over the rock, they get their treat.

    Then try something new: Get two of these monkeys together, and give one of them a better treat. Capuchin monkeys like cucumber fine, but they like grapes even better because they’re sweeter. When one capuchin sees you paying another one in grapes, it refuses to cooperate, and will no longer hand over the rock in exchange for cucumber. “Listen, buster,??? it seems to say, “you’re paying that guy in grapes and my work is at least as good. I want grapes too, or I’m going on strike.” (source)

    In another experiment using brain-scanning equipment, this time on humans, researchers found a center in our brains that lights up whenever we believe we’re being treated unfairly. It seems that fairness is not just a nice ideal to strive for—we have a biological need to be treated fairly (source).

    So we humans have a built-in desire for fairness that even seems to be present in other species close to us. If you feel that your salary is unfair, this will make you unhappy!

    4: It’s not getting what you want – it’s wanting what you get

    Stephen Shapiro, author of the excellent book Goal Free Living, writes about a German study that shows that what really matters is the gap between your current income and your desired income. When people wish for more money than they have, they tend to be unhappy.

    There are of course two ways to close this gap, the traditional one being to make more money. The downside of this approach is, that very often, more isn’t enough and the more people have, the more they want.

    The other approach is much more sustainable, and it is to want what you have. To realize that once your most basic needs are met, more money, a bigger house, a larger car and flat-screen TVs in every room will not make you any happier than you are today!

    But being happy with what you have, will.

    5: Your salary can make you unhappy – but not happy

    Herzberg’s motivational theory divides motivational factors in two categories: Hygiene and motivational.

    The hygiene factors can make us unhappy when they’re not present, but their presence can’t make us happy. The motivational factors can actually make us happy. Salary falls squarely in the “hygiene” category, meaning that getting paid well can remove dissatisfaction – but it can’t create satisfaction.

    What to do instead: cultivate a healthy attitude towards money

    I want to make this very clear: I’m not against money. I looooooove money. Money is fun. There is nothing wrong with making tons of it.

    And I’m not saying you should ignore money completely and just accept whatever your workplace is willing to pay you.

    I’m also not saying that you have to choose – that it can only ever be money or happiness. You can have both. But the way to get it is to cultivate a healthy attitude towards money. Which is this:

    Your salary makes it possible for you to come to work. It’s not what motivates you or makes you happy. It’s a means, not an end.

    An unfair salary has the power to make you unhappy – a fair one can’t make you happy.

    Never sacrifice your happiness at work for money.

    If you make all your career decisions based on money you will always be chasing the next, larger paycheck, never stopping to think if you like what you do in pursuit of that next raise.

    If you instead decide based on what will make you happy at work, there’s a much bigger chance that you will be. You will probably also make more money.

    You should make an effort to be paid what you’re worth – to get what is fair considering how much value you create and what other people in the company and in similar positions elsewhere are getting. Then forget about money and focus on enjoying your job.

    And you know what: This is pretty hard. I’m doing well financially, and I still dream of all the great stuff more money could by me. It’s damn hard to let go of. But I know that the main reason I’m happy today is not that I make more money than before – it’s that I enjoy what I have and that I live squarely within my means.

    THAT is true wealth, and I’m not exactly the first to say so (by a long shot):

    “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty???
    – Socrates

    “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”
    – Frederic Koenig

    “There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.
    – Swami Sivananda

    And what about you? How important is your salary to you? What matters the most to you – money or happiness at work? How have you chosen in your career? Write a comment, I’d really like to know.

    Related posts:


  • Quote

    Warren BuffettReally, getting to do what you love to do every day, that’s the ultimate luxury. And particularly when you can do it with terrific people around you.
    – Warren Buffett

    From this interview which demonstrates very clearly, that the reason Warren Buffett has made so much money is that he doesn’t care much about money :o)


  • Interview with Bernie deKoven

    Bernie deKovenIs there room for play in you job? Do games, fun and general silliness have a role in your workplace – or are they just frivolous excuses for not doing your job?

    There is no doubt in my mind, that healthy, happy workplaces are full of fun play. And I know Bernie deKoven agrees. Bernie pursues the Playful Path, professionally. He blogs at deepfun.com. He calls himself Major Fun. Seriously (or not!), the man knows play :o)

    Here’s an interview with Bernie about play and how it can be introduced to the workplace.

    Bernie, your area of expertise is play. How did you come to be engaged in this?
    My father and I used to play word games. I think basically my father did this to keep me quiet. But it worked. He even invented his own variations. I remember especially a game he called “SuperDuperGhost.” It’s a variation of a spelling game called Ghost. That’s the game where players take turns, each one adding a letter, until one player is forced to complete a word or gets challenged and doesn’t have a word that uses the letters he specified. SuperGhost is like Ghost, except you can add letters to the beginning or end of the word. And SuperDuperGhost? I’ll let you guess how that was played. For me, the exciting thing about playing with my father like this was the connection between us during the game. That was the key. We were playing together, for that short time, as if we were equals.

    I think the next big event for me was in school, in high school, actually. I was already active in theater and in journalism and was writing a humor column in the school paper. I had a class in physics. It was an experimental class, in every sense of the word. We made all our own equipment out of junk – micrometers using two mirrored slides, a toothpick and rubber band, for example. The whole class was play. O, there were exams. And I didn’t do well on most of them. But that wasn’t the point for me. It was the fun-physics connection, that I could actually have fun, playing around with stuff, and learn about the world.

    Then there was a theater class I took in college. Improvisational theater. The person who taught us never sad anything negative to anyone. We literally played. Lots of theater games. Lots of games with character. And, all the time, just by underscoring the things we did particularly well, and by nurturing the fun of it, we were developing our craft. Though I later went on to get a Masters degree in theater and wrote and directed plays, it was this experience that remained central.

    Then I was hired to develop a curriculum in theater for elementary school children of a very urban persuasion. I quickly perceived that these kids already had their own form of theater, and a very profound one at that – only they called it “games.” So for the next 4 years, they taught me their games, I taught them games I could find in theater books and in collections from around the world, and I eventually wrote a curriculum, not in theater, but in kids social games – 5 volumes, over 1000 games – based on the discovery that if you let kids play together, and give them a safe place to do it in, they begin to master very complex social and intellectual skills, learning how to lead and follow, how to read and understand rules, how to make up their own.

    Then I started teaching this curriculum to teachers, and I discovered how adults were even more in need of the opportunity to play together, to play with rules and with each other, than kids. It was amazing how profound our conversations became after a half hour of playing Duck-Duck-Goose or Captain May I.

    Which led me to opening up my own retreat center, called “The Games Preserve”, where I conducted workshops, exploring everything I could learn about the phenomenon of games and play. I started exploring board and table games as well. Integrating every play form I could acquire into the exploration. We held amazing sessions, some for kids, most for adults. I particularly remember sessions I ran for people who worked in the prison system. Such profound discussions about rules and freedom. Such deep play. One day, a couple people from California dropped by. They wanted to experience my sessions because they were part of an organization called the New Games Foundation. They had run a few very successful, large scale play events, and needed to learn how to teach people to lead games. The next thing I knew, I had joined the Foundation and led the effort to create the New Games Training program.

    Play

    In many regards, play is seen as something frivolous, wasteful, silly and childish. What do you say to people who have this attitude?
    Generally, I start playing with them. And then talk about it. If I try it the other way around, it simply doesn’t work. I choose games that are in deed frivolous, but not threatening. Then, rather than talk about play, I talk about fun. What was fun in the games? Which leads to exploring what is fun in everything. And maybe what it would be like to live without fun. I think, in general, fun is an easier word to use. Sure, it’s trivial, and self-trivializing. But it’s less threatening than play. Even seriously grown-up people can acknowledge that they like having fun, and wouldn’t mind having more of it.

    You work with different kinds of organizations, to get them to play. I have a feeling that play at work can definitely increase happiness at work. Would you agree? Why does playing makes us happier?
    Again, I find the word “fun” more useful. The fun-happiness connection is a lot easier for people to draw. Play seems to have a lot of negative connotations, or perhaps over-spiritual, or too many connections to childhood. Playing is a good way to have fun. It’s fast, easy, almost guaranteed. It makes us happier because it allows us to have fun together. Now, when you start asking why, why does playing make us happier, or why even does fun make us happier, I think it is because we are most thoroughly ourselves when we are playing, because we experience our health, emotionally, physically, socially. I learned somewhere that people who study animals, especially herd animals, can immediately judge the health of the herd by noticing how many of the animals are at play. I think the same is true for people – when we feel safe enough, we naturally play. When we play, we are at our fullest, our best. Hence, happier.

    Play

    How can play be integrated in our workplaces? What are some good day-to-day ways of playing at work?
    There are a lot of games we can bring into the workplace. A lot of wonderful toys. A lot of rituals, celebrations. But I think it’s playfulness, rather than play itself, that has the highest payoff for people at work. I believe work is inherently fun – when we are challenged, engaged, given the freedom to learn, to experiment, to discover. It’s fun working with other people who are having fun. So, for me, it’s not so much integrating play into work as it is removing the obstacles to playfulness. Which begins, of course, by acknowledging the fun of it all, the excitement, the challenge. By stressing the equality of all players. By demonstrating respect for them as individuals. By focusing on their competencies, on what the players like to do, and do best. By helping to make things clear – rules, goals, expectations – in the same way we do in games. Using the word “fun” and “play” to describe work (“let’s play with this together” “this meeting was fun”) is also a great help.

    What’s your favorite story of play in a workplace?
    Well, it was during a brainstorming session, naturally. I got very interested in meetings. Of all the times in the work environment when play is actually nourished, it seems it’s in meetings – especially in meetings that are held for the purpose of producing something – a plan, a list of alternatives, a collection of new ideas. As the facilitator, I had brought a bunch of sticky toys – you know, those jellylike things that you can squeeze and stretch and can stick to each other. I actually already wrote this story, now that I think about it – this is how it ends: “While I was introducing the next game, someone discovered yet another property of the Glue Thing. It turns out that if you throw it onto the ceiling, it actually sticks there for awhile. Within three minutes of this discovery, it began raining Glue Things.

    In sum, we had spontaneously arrived at a new game, one that I hadn’t planned for, one that brought the group together, and kept them together for the rest of the evening, and throughout the next day, until the very end of the two-day brainstorm, when somebody finally figured out how to remove the rest of the Glue Things from the ceiling.”

    What happens to people when they play? What does play do for us?
    I think I might have already answered this question above. Here are some additional thoughts. 1) embodiment. I think play embodies us. Puts us back in our bodies. And because we find ourselves in our bodies again, we feel more whole. 2) intimacy. I think play allows us a certain amount of intimacy that we can’t achieve, without great effort and excuses and boundary-making, otherwise. Safe physical contact (because we are more embodied). A sense of being part of a larger body – the community of players. 3) safety. For the time of the play experience, if it is correctly framed and facilitated, we feel safe with each other and with ourselves, unthreatened, nonjudgmental, open – physically, socially, emotionally. So we feel free. So we become more whole. Healthier.

    I know that you advocate the open-ended games where people are free to change the rules as they play. Where this is even part of the game. What is your favorite game?
    The one that people make up together.

    Bernie: Thank you for some great answers!

    And how about you dear readers – How do you play at work? Is there room for fun in your job?

    And if you need some inspiration to play, go read Bernie’s blog.



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