The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Ask the CHO: How do you run a business without managers

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    Dilbert bossRobert asked this question in a comment on a previous post:

    If I remember correctly Alexander, I read on your site here that one of your companies did not have any managers? Do you elaborate on that anywhere and if not could you?

    It seems that a lot of the problems seem to come from low to middle management and as someone who is looking to start my own software company I don’t want this to happen in my organization. A no managers approach seems pretty appealing.

    You’re right Robert. In Enterprise Systems, the IT company I co-founded back in 1997, we decided not to have any managers. We wanted plenty of leadership, but we wanted dynamic leadership that could change as the situation warranted.

    So rather than have presidents, vice presidents and managers, all employees had an equal say in running the company. This was backed up by the fact that all employees were also co-owners, every new hire being offered a stake in the company after six months on the job. While I and my two co-founders retained a majority of the shares, this gave us no greater power in making day-to-day decisions.

    So how did we make decisions? We had two major structures in place:
    Areas of responsibility
    We sat down and made a list of all the categories of tasks we had in the company. Sales, finance, intranet, our website, personnel, etc. There were around 20 in all. Then instead of appointing managers responsible for each of these, we asked who in the company would like to do it, and let people choose for themselves where they wanted to be involved. Interestingly, everyone signed up for at least a couple of these and every single task got at least one person assigned to it.

    The result was that all these tasks were done by people who liked doing it – and who therefore invariably did a great job.

    The people who took on such an area of responsibility were responsible for making a lost of all tasks, for making a budget if required and for making sure that everything worked as it should.

    Company meetings
    Every two weeks we had a company meeting for all employees. This was also important because many of us didn’t work out of the office but at a customer’s site. At these meetings, we made larger decisions or any decisions that didn’t readily fall under one of the established areas of responsibility. When we voted, it was one man, one vote, regardless of seniority or number of shares.

    So how did this work in practice? Here’s an example: When it looked like we needed a new and larger office, we raised the issue at a company meeting. Did we need new offices? Yes! What were our preferences for size, price, location, etc.? Discussion ensued.

    We then appointed a task force and asked them to go look at offices and return with some options. Who was in the task force? The people who volunteered to be, of course. The group came back with some ideas, and we all voted on which one we preferred. We had ourselves a new office. The task force went on to find us a designer to spruce up the place and some cool furniture. This being a major(!) expense, the budget was approved at another company meeting.

    The advantages of this model are:

    • Ownership. Everyone is as involved as they want to be. No one is sulking because a decision was made over their head.
    • Motivation. People are insanely motivated, because they’re a part of running the company – they don’t just work there.
    • Implementing decisions. Because people are involved in making decisions, it becomes much easier to implement them. You don’t have to sell decisions to reluctant employees.

    The disadvantages are:

    • Time. Sometimes it takes time to arrive at a decision. This was never a problem for us, but if your business climate requires constant quick leaderhip decisions, this may not be the right model.
    • Petty discussions. If you’re not careful, meetings can devolve into endless, petty talk about mindless minutiae. In this case it’s important to stop and delegate or to trust someone who cares to make a good decision.

    The proudest moment for our model came in the company’s darkest hour. We were never a dotcom company, but when that era ended, we were in trouble too. Suddenly about half our customers were no longer buying from us, and we were in deep trouble. Basically we were out of money and it didn’t look like new customers were coming in.

    In a traditional company this is where the CEO steps in and makes the tough decisions needed, and I have to tell you, we were sorely tempted to offload this decision onto one person who could then call the shots. Luckily we held onto our process and in a series of company meetings that ranged from playful to painful we talked about how we would handle it.

    We narrowed it down to two choices: Taking a 25% pay cut or firing 5 people. Discussions raged. I, for one, held out for the pay cuts. That became a unanimous decision. And a good one too – just 6 months later we had signed new customers, and every single consultant was back in business. If we had fired people back then, we would have missed them sorely.

    I realize that this experiment worked for an IT company of just 20 people and that you can’t possibly generalize from that to larger companies in other fields. And yet I believe that this is certainly a viable way to go. That what companies really need is leadership that is dynamic, distributed and entirely voluntary. Leadership that switches from person to person, depending on who has the will and the energy, rather than what it says on somebody’s business card.

    Here’s some more reading on the topic:

  • The value of a happy good morning

    Good morningYesterday, David left a comment with this wonderful story:

    I would like to share a practice i started when my company moved the office to a new building a couple of years ago.

    When i first arrived in the building i met a serious security gard that looked me like asking: “Who are you? and Where are you going????… I said good morning and entered the elevator…. Next day i planned and started playing an experiment to see how a smile would change the reaction of the man.

    When I entered the building I looked at the man and wished him a good morning with a sincere big smile, in fact I meant that… and that made him change his serious face to a grin.. and wished me back a good morning…

    I have been doing “the big smile experiment??? ever since and has become and anchor….. every time i get to my office i enter the building wishing Good Morning! with a sincere big smile.. and that makes me start the day with smile in my face.. and in my heart..

    And the relation with the security guard is great.. we chat for a moment when we run into each other….. making my day, and i hope his, more enjoyable.

    As the result was so good.. i have added this practice to my every day life.. and try to give away sincere smiles to whom ever I found…

    Good Morning!! :-)))

    That rocks, David! I previously blogged about saying a friendly good morning, and I still believe it’s one very simple, but sadly overlooked way to make yourself and others happier at work.

    How about you? Don’t you hate it, when you come in in the morning, and no one even acknlowledges your presence? How do you greet others in the morning?

  • Fast food, slow reactions

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    Healthy foodIn an interesting Danish study from 2005, two groups of truck drivers were given a controlled diet for two days. One group had healthy food, focused on stabilizing thir blood sugar levels. The other group ate junk food. Yes, the sacrifices some people make in the name of science.

    The drivers were then placed in a truck simulator that tested their driving. The study found that the drivers who lived on junk food had slower reactions. When going 70 kph. on a highway, they needed 30 meters more to notice a traffic block and stop the truck than the drivers eating healthy food. Source (In Danish).

    Who knew that burgers could be a traffic hazard…

    Question: If junk food slows down the reaction times of truck drivers, do you think it might make other kinds of workers grumpy, tired, irritable and less creative? What’s your take?

  • Monday Tip: Share something funny

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    The Chief Happiness Officer's monday tipsToday’s Monday tip comes from Nimmy from Bangalore, who wrote a very nice review of my book, and then went on to add some ideas for making your work day a little happier.

    One of her suggestions is to read something funny every day and share it with your colleagues.

    Try to go beyond Dilbert and the usual list of 200 blonde jokes :o)

    Nirmala suggests Calvin & Hobbes or PG Wodehouse.

    I would add Over the Hedge, Cute Overload or Snopes. And if you’re among geeks: Player vs.player or User Friendly.

    Find something funny and share it. Print it out and pass it around or hang it on the bulletin board.

    Thanks Nimmy!

    What about you: How do you get your giggles during the work day?

    The Chief Happiness Officer’s Monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

    Previous monday tips.

  • Jobacle re-launches with an interview with… Me!

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    PodcastWorking 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!

  • Ask the CHO: Motivation for production workers?

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    HappinessAs I wrote about previously, my post on motivation was translated into Chinese by Robin at lifebang.com. Even the diagram is in Chinese :o)

    Robin then emailed me with the following question:

    From my point of view, your thinking about the motivation is exactly what I am seeking in my job. I believe that most of the companies using the false ways for motivation is also true in China. To understand the need of their employee costs much more effort of managers. Managers are human so they tend to use the most simply ways even they only work in short term.

    Someone left a comment on the post and mentioned that the positive and intrinsic way for motivation is more suitable for brain intensive work than labor intensive work. What do you think of it?

    That is a great question. Is motivation only for creative types and less suitable for blue collar workers? Let me tell you a story.

    Solange de Santis is a journalist who’d never held a blue collar job in her life. She wondered what it would be like, so she took a job as a factory worker at a GM van plant. For a year and a half! Now that’s commitment.

    She wrote about her experience in the excellent book Life on the Line and the major lesson I take from that book, is that the stereotypical view of factory workers as wage slaves is dead wrong.

    Many of the people she met at the plant were dedicated, hard working, highly skilled and creative. But the way they worked offered them no opportunity to use those sides of themselves. They were locked in a tight battle between management and unions that actually had them cheering whenever mistakes caused production to stop, giving them an unexpected break. This is not what they’re naturally like – it’s a reaction instilled in them by an inhuman system.

    If the company had listened to these people, it would have discovered that they’re innovative, skilled individuals that have many ideas to offer to make production more efficient. But as things are, they end up using all their considerable creativity to cut corners and cheat the system instead.

    American Airlines discovered this a while back:

    Two mechanics didn’t like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts – a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project – and built “Thumping Ralph.??? It’s essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year.

    Another organization that gets this right, is the Brazilian company Semco which has a large proportion of blue collar workers. They give their workers an unusually large degree of freedom and responsibility, including letting them plan production, set their own work hours and choose the sites and designs for the factories they work in. As a result they’re very profitable, workers regularly develop and implement ideas for new products or for improving existing processes and annual employee turnover hovers around 1%. You can read more about Semco in the excellent book The Seven-Day Weekend.

    So just to make it perfectly clear, my point is that:

    1. Blue collar workers shouldn’t be treated as mere wage slaves – they can be motivated and happy at work.
    2. When they are, the company can expect higher productivity, more innovation, higher quality and better worker relations. In short, the company will make more money!

    How does that sound? What is your experience? Do you agree that production workers can be motivated and happy and that this makes a difference to the bottom line?

  • First review of my book on lulu.com

    Happy Hour is 9 to 5My book has gotten it’s first review on lulu.com where it’s for sale. Can I brag for a second. Can I? Pleeeease?

    The review says:

    I browsed through the book and ordered a copy for my boss after telling her how good it is!

    She LOVED it! She’s tried to keep as professional and fun of an atmosphere at work as possible, and now it’s even better!

    If you are management, BUY THIS BOOK
    If you are an employee, BUY THIS BOOK

    You cannot go wrong!

    If that ain’t praise, I don’t know what is :o) Woo-hooooooo!!

    If you’ve read the book, you can do me a great favor by giving me your completely honest opinion. I really want to know what you think of it. You can rate or review it on lulu.com or here on the blog.

  • Journey into leadership: Tough decisions

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    New leaderThis post is part of a series that follows A.M. Starkin, a young manager taking his first major steps into leadership. Starkin writes here to share his experiences and to get input from others, so please share with him your thoughts and ideas.

    If you have forgotten me completely – or if this is the first post of mine you read, I have recently been given my first profit/loss responsibility – in the task of turning a round a badly managed, loss-giving, small company with low morale. You can find the back story here.

    I started by giving away my authority to each individual employee – a thing which paid off very well on the motivation scale – and I was and am still hoping for the rest to follow. My personal problem is time constraints – I am allowed only 1 day per week on this task as I have plenty of other priorities.

    The whole of December I did not post – here is what happened:
    I usually don’t agree with people who make the manager’s job difficult. I tend to believe that managing is only difficult if you are an authoritarian control-freak, because in that case you more or less have to do all the thinking of your whole team – which is really difficult.

    Normally I think the really difficult thing in a manager’s job is everything that does not pertain to being a people manager, but which pertains to business mechanics, operational processes, building client relations etc.

    But December has been tough. Luckily I just began following some martial arts training which gives me quite a morale and energy boost – otherwise this post would have featured a worn out Starkin ready to be thrown on the scrap heap. The manager is often an employee himself, and this employee here became sick and tired of working for other than myself.

    My boss disallowed me more time for the small company I am trying to save – the subject of this series – and I felt so unable to help, since most of the urgencies I simply have to leave as they are with the time I have available. It might be a wise decision for some greater good, but having to leave a house burning because I am trying to build another is a strange feeling.

    + I tried to get help from the mother company on HR, Finance and legal issues but got nothing but trouble out of that.

    And our new malfunctioning IT system created a vicious spiral of frustration which made our recent success seem vanished. [insert ad-lib whining here].

    Then I remembered: This is the environment in which I have to create my successes! To me that is a golden thought when motivation is low. Last month definitely showed me that a manager has to manage himself too and take some important inner decisions in order to stay motivated about his job.

    January began with two things:
    Number one: A nice graph showing me that we modestly surpassed our budget, with our sales surging the last few months of the year. I would like to think that it is due to what we did during the fall.

    In order to make that curve keep rising I need to begin doing some manual sales myself – as mentioned before our corporate sales will not deliver. I don’t have any time though, so luckily I have been able to hire a trainee from this month, and time will show whether she is woman enough to run fast enough to help me there.

    Number two: A report that my deputy reported sick while I was away on holiday – a report which implied that she was cheating. As you might recall, she has been strongly disloyal but greatly improving since last. My superiors are regularly asking me whether we should fire her.

    This will be my call, and there is both business and ego at stake here: I have invested a lot of time in her and seen results, so I want to keep believing that I am doing the right thing by coaching her. But I seem to be the only person on the planet who believe in her, and how much can my credibility afford to suffer here?

    A third thing I need to work with is my ops manager. After we recently took a session to define his job, he has been holding my hand tightly, and I have been pushing him to gradually begin taking decisions, analyzing and coming up with new ideas. I am sure and certain that he has the potential, but he is simply brought up in the company with a handicapping respect for authorities.

    I will have a meeting with him this week to see how far he has advanced a plan we made to trim the workflow a little, use our systems in a better way, etc.

    So: Should I keep believing in my unpopular deputy? Will I be able to sell anything? Never tried. And will my operations manager finally begin taking initiative?

    This is what I am looking forward to finding out after my well-deserved Christmas vacation. Do you have some advice for me? Write a comment here.

    AM Starkin

    Previous posts by A.M. Starkin.

  • Quote

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    Best BuyIf you’re going to turn on an innovation engine, a lot depends on whether managers listen for the brilliance in their employees’ ideas that they can then help test, or whether they listen for what’s wrong and why it won’t work.

    – Shari Ballard, Executive vice president of human resources and legal for Best Buy. Source.

  • Interview with Sheldon Cooke

    InterviewSheldon Cooke is a customer service professional and regular reader of this blog who’s recently become manager of a team in a dot-com startup. I asked Sheldon to do an email interview to get his ideas and tips for creating a happy department.

    When I wrote the questions I knew that Sheldon has a strong commitment to happiness at work, but I didn’t know how strong or the personal reasons behind it. It all comes out in Sheldon’s amazing story below, along with some great ways to create a happy workplace.

    Q: Sheldon, could you start by telling us a little about yourself and your work?
    Well, I have recently entered a leadership position in a retail dot com startup in the Support team. I’ve worked all my career (getting close to a decade!) in customer contact centers, some world class, some not so. I consider myself a customer service professional, rare in an industry with a very high burn-out rate.

    Q: What were your expectations and goals going into that position?
    I wasn’t completely sure what to expect – I was warned that I had a department consisting of one person, a gigantic backlog of work that was discovered after the employee responsible for it had quit, plus outdated workflow and backlog of general support inquiries.

    Sounds scary, right? But the opportunity was too good to pass up – I knew that I was more than capable for the task, and I knew the business model was more than sound. I guess my expectations were that I would get in there and dive right in and demonstrate that this wasn’t an insurmountable task for me or my department.

    I did feel very intimidated about it, before I started. I was wondering what I could do to immediately boost morale and productivity, and get the ball rolling to a better functioning department.

    Then, one day, I was surfing a friends’ blog. It led me to another blog, and that’s where I discovered a link to positivesharing.com. It was followed by a flurry of bookmarking posts (I still haven’t had a chance to go through them all in detail!), and I knew what my goal was – to instill a culture of happiness!

    Q: I know that happiness at work matters a lot to you personally? Why is that?
    Happiness is my first and foremost goal in life. Let me relate to you a very personal story as to why.

    Just about two years ago, I sat in shock in my doctor’s office as he told me I had type 2 bipolar disorder – a disorder that is characterized by long bouts of depression followed by mild periods of mania (hypomania). A very hard mood disorder to diagnose (as it is often mistaken for depression), I had been functional, but not particularly happy or motivated. I was mired in dead-end, entry level jobs and a dissatisfying personal life. I had resorted to finally talking about it after a devastating event in my personal life, and had a friend recommend this doctor to me.

    With the help of my doctor, who was one of the few locally who had experience with this disorder, I immediately began a treatment of a mood stabilizer and an anti-depressant. It was a dangerous treatment (the mood stabilizer has the potential to be highly toxic), but it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

    Within weeks, I started feeling the most exceptional thing – a certain feeling of normalcy. My self-esteem started to grow, and motivation entered my life. With some work, and some adjustments to my anti-depressants, I also started feeling something that I thought I understood, but it was then clear to me that I truly was beginning to understand it – happiness.

    Now, although sometimes I get down in the dumps or a bit too hyper for my own good, I am more than just functional, I am highly productive. I have accomplished more in the past two years than most people do in a decade. Things have been falling into place – the efforts of a year ago are now paying off in spades. My friends continually tell me how proud they are of me and what I’ve done.

    Some days I feel like I’m on top of the world.

    I have a better understanding of what happiness is and I don’t take it for granted – and since I spend 40-50 hours a week at work, why should I be miserable there? My life goal is to be happy in all aspects of my life – and work is just one aspect of it.

    Q: What makes you happy at work?
    -Accomplishing goals

    -Hearing my boss tell me that I’m on the right path and doing a great job

    -Laughing with my employees

    -Getting customer compliments

    -Hearing that the CEO has been saying some very nice things about you

    -Being comfortable in my space – I spend more awake time here than at home, why should it be sterile?

    -Being able to create a culture from scratch

    Q: Going into this job, what were some of your greatest challenges?
    This is my first leadership role, and I am still fighting trying to be Mr. Nice Guy all the time. Unfortunately, there are times where as much as you try to promote happiness, there will be incidents where lack of respect for the culture or the leader leads to conflicts and must be handled in a less than ideal manner. I try to keep it as positive as possible, but sometimes you have to be firm and clear to resolve differences.

    Some other things? Realizing that people pay far more attention to a team lead (I can be introverted at times). Being far more organized than I’m used to. Oh, and being more of a morning person. I love to sleep in.

    Q: You’ve been following this site for a while. What ideas and tools have you been able to take away and how have you used them? (Yes, this question is wholly gratuitous :o)
    -Environment is key – I loved your post on the top 10 cool workplaces. Our office was dingy and cluttered with old broken desks and other miscellaneous items. it’s much more productive now that it’s cleaned up, we all have ergonomic workstations, there are some things on the walls, and we even decorated for Christmas! I’ve been trying to get my guys to decorate a bit, to some success, but I’ve threatened them with Ricky Martin posters by their desks if they didn’t put something up! (They are lucky I can’t find any Ricky Martin posters).

    -Having a sense of humour is key. Laugh. Lots. There’s a lot of dialog and banter in our team, and it’s all light hearted and I even get good natured ribbing from the gang. It’s all in fun, and we keep it in line

    -Finding key attributes that will help us all identify with each other – we all love video games, and we’re saving up for a Wii for the team by handling the recycling at work! It’s an identifiable goal for all of us, something fun, and we are looking forward to having one to play with on our breaks!

    -Productivity is linked hand in hand with happiness – you say it again and again, and as things improve here and we are not dealing with angry and upset customers anymore now that our backlog is gone, we are even more productive!

    I have so many other things to try, and now that our holiday rush is over, I look forward to taking some time to further engage my gang in workshops and other tidbits that I’ve picked up and will continue pick up from you!

    Q: What has worked best and what results did it get you and your people?
    -Well, our Wii fund is up to $75 (I’ve tossed in a few bucks here and there as incentive), and we are all very excited about it! We still have about $200 to go, but we are already due for another trip to the recycling depot.

    -The change in environment not only helped our team, but it was noticed throughout the company and people were commenting on the renewed energy and positivity in our team in less than a month of me arriving.

    Q: Based on your experiences, what are your major tips to other new leaders?
    -Be prepared to make mistakes. In fact, your success depends upon learning from your mistakes, so embrace the opportunity they present. No one is perfect. (and if you aren’t making mistakes, then (although this sounds like an oxymoron) you’re doing something wrong)

    -Although there is a line between a manager/leader and his/her employees, it doesn’t mean that the leader stands apart from the team. The team cannot survive without a leader; the leader cannot survive without a team. The old paradigm where a leader is an authoritarian “dictator” is dead and should remain that way. A truly effective team is one where the division between leader and team isn’t pronounced, but blurred

    -Always have a basic understanding of specific functions. Not knowing how something is done, or at least not demonstrating a willingness to learn, is a key way to lose respect and effectiveness as a leader. It is the best way to demonstrate empathy for your team

    A great big thank you to Sheldon for agreeing to do the interview and for sharing his personal story and ideas.

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