The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Why job descriptions are useless

    , ,

    Job description

    Let’s do a quick reality check on job descriptions. Ask yourself these three questions:

    1. When was the last time you read your job description?
    2. Do you remember what it says?
    3. When was the last time you did something at work that you could not have done without your job description?

    If your answers are 1) When I interviewed for the job, 2) Ehmmmm… not really and 3) I don’t think that has ever happened – then maybe it’s time to rethink the value of job descriptions.

    I say job descriptions as they exist today amount to little more than organizational clutter and could easily be dropped altogether. Here’s why we should lose’em and what to do instead.
    (more…)

  • Comment roundup on secret salaries vs. open

    Everybody hates open salaries

    When I wrote my post on why secret salaries are a baaaaaad idea I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. On most other posts I’ve written, 3 out of 4 commenters agree – in this case 3 out 4 thought that open salaries are a really baaaaaaaad idea. How many a’s are there in baaaad anyway?

    There’s about 60 comments on the post itself, 50 on reddit, 80 on digg and more on other sites, most of which, as mentioned, are dead set against the idea of open salaries.

    Interestingly, the comments from people who have tried open salaries are overwhelmingly in favor of the idea – many cite great benefits. I still think open salaries are a great idea for employees, businesses and the bottom line.

    I’ve summed up the major arguments from the comments against secret salaries and my arguments against these arguments below, not so much because I want the last word (well, that too :o) but mostly because most of the arguments are really good arguments, many of which I hadn’t thought about before.
    (more…)

  • Dilbert: “Reduce employee turnover… Check!”

    ,

    Today’s Dilbert strip is pretty funny :o)

  • The time I learned to say “No” at work

    ,

    Nyet!

    It was only my second job out of university, working as a software developer for a small consulting company in Copenhagen. I was 26 years old, dressed in a suit and tie that still felt like a halloween costume to me, having meetings with the customer’s VP of finance, trying to find out exactly what the IT system we were developing for their new factory should be capable of.
    (more…)

  • The six practices of happy, succesful workplaces

    , ,

    This chapter is not yet finished – but I really need your help, so I’m posting it now.

    Am I on the right track? It kinda feels like the advice here is either too simple or too complex to be useful. I want people to read this chapter and be inspired by what other great companies are doing. To get ideas they can implement themselves.

    Is it working? What do you think?

    How to make your business happy – in practice

    What can a workplace do to make its people want to be happy there? Given that raises, bonuses and perks don’t work what are the things that do? We could start from scratch and invent some methods and tools, but it makes much more sense to learn from the best practices already out there. What is it that the best, happiest and most successful companies do to reach high levels of happiness, excellence and profits? What makes their people consistently choose to be happy at work and lets employees and leaders work together to create great workplaces?

    And let’s not just look at what they do, let’s look at what they do that can readily be stolen implented in your workplace. Let’s focus on practices that are:

    • Generic – so they apply to almost any workplace, big or small, private or government
    • Effective – so they make a real difference
    • Fun – so they make people happy
    • Good for business – so they’ll get you more results

    (more…)

  • Monday tip: Bring a co-worker a cup of coffee

    ,

    The Chief Happiness Officer's monday tipsThis tip is really, really, really simple:

    Bring a co-worker a cup of coffe.

    At some point during the day, without being asked, bring a co-worker a nice cup of hot coffee. Substitute tea, cocoa, a coke, etc. based on your co-workers preference.

    For extra bonus points:

    • Do it for someone who obviously needs a fresh cup of energy
    • Stealthily find out that person’s coffee preference, and bring a cup that’s just right (milk, sugar, etc).
    • Bring someone you don’t talk to much (or even someone you don’t like much) a cup
    • Use the coffee as a chance for a chat with that person

    Once you’ve done it, please report back here and tell us how it went. Did it work or fail miserably? Did you do it exactly as proscribed or improve upon the mission in your own way?

    Share what you did with other people around the world so we can all create more arbejdsglaede together :o)

    Previous monday tips.

  • Weekend videos

    ,

    EuroGELMark Hurst emailed me some apetizers for the upcoming EureGEL conference.

    1. Seth Godin talks about broken things at GEL06.
    2. Jimmy Wales explains Wikipedia at GEL05

    I can’t wait to go – GEL looks excellent!

    Oneopenwindow is a pretty cool project which aims to collect lots of videos of people telling cool stories and sharing their knowledge.

    My absolute favorite video on the site so far is Brad Blanton explaining how to achieve enlightenement in three minutes. Guaranteed. Though the site is in danish, this video is in english and you can find the link at the bottom of the front page. It’s hilarious – check it out!

    You can also find 12 short videos of me telling stories about happy companies (in danish).

    And over on youtube there’s a video of me doing a 6-minute peach-kucha presentation on happiness at work at Reboot8 (in english).

  • The top 10 advantages of low-rent living

    , ,

    Trap

    One of the biggest threats to happiness at work is having too many fixed expenses at home. When you’re completely dependent on bringing home a pay check (or two!) every single month, you’re vulnerable. If work turns out to be unbearable you can’t simply up and leave and take three months without income.

    I’ve chosen low-rent living for myself. At first it was through accident rather than planning but now I would never live any other way. Read on to see how it has made me happy at work – and in life.
    (more…)

  • Five great tips for successful success

    ,

    Guy Kawasaki asks Seth Godin five questions, including “What are the five things that enabled you to be successful?”. Seth answers:

    1. No ulterior motive. I rarely do A as a calculated tactic to get B. I do A because I believe in A, or it excites me or it’s the right thing to do. That’s it. No secret agendas.
    2. I don’t think my audience owes me anything. It’s always their turn.
    3. I’m in a hurry to make mistakes and get feedback and get that next idea out there. I’m not in a hurry, at all, to finish the “bigger??? project, to get to the finish line.
    4. I do things where I actually think I’m right, as opposed to where I think succeeding will make me successful. When you think you’re right, it’s more fun and your passion shows through.
    5. I’ve tried to pare down my day so that the stuff I actually do is pretty well leveraged. That, and I show up. Showing up is underrated.

    I really, really like each of these, and what we have here might as well be the beginnings of a manifest for honest business. What runs through each of Seth’s five points is a certain ego-lessness, a sense that business is not about me or what I can get but about what I can contribute.

    Being in business for the giving rather than the getting is a great approach and a sure path to a happier and more fulfilling work life. And success.

  • Free presentation: Festival In The Workplace

    ,

    EuroGELAs a warm-up event to the EuroGEL conference, Roosevelt Finlayson of the Bahamas and I will be doing a presentation titled Festival In The Workplace.

    Roosevelt has been asking himself two simple questions:

    1. Why is it that many people around the world are demotivated and listless at work but when the time comes for the local carnival they work hard, tirelessly and for no pay to prepare it?
    2. How can we get some of the motivation, energy and happiness of the carnivals into our wokplaces?

    Roosevelt has created a unique business concept called Festival In The Workplace and together we will do a presentation why festivals create happiness and results in businesses. This will be a unique event, giving you insight into the festival traditions of the Caribbean and South America and how they can be applied in the workplace. There will be music and videos from the Bahamas Junkanoo Festival and plenty of real-life case stories.

    The practical details
    The event is thursday august 31st from 4pm to 6pm. It’s at Café Enter, Guldbergsgade 29 in Copenhagen (right next to the movie theatre Empire Bio). It’s in english and it’s free to participate. Send me an email if you’d like to be there but hurry – we only have room for 40 people.

Connect

Get our newsletter

“I can’t believe it – a newsletter actually worth reading!”
– Subscriber

Over 6,000 people subscribe to our newsletter with tons of tips about happiness at work.

Get our books

“It’s very, very good. It’s incredibly well written, full of insights, and there are exercises to improve your own happiness at work. You can’t ask for more than that!”
– David Maister, author of Practice What You Preach

“What an inspiring book. Every leader should read it. This type of leadership has been integral to our success and I know it will boost your results too.“
– Garry Ridge, CEO WD-40 Company

Get Our Free Newsletter

Over 6,000 people already get our free newsletter with useful tips, videos, links and articles about happiness at work.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Top posts last week

Non-inspirational quotesOctober 22, 2003
10 Simple Questions To Make 2026 Your Happiest Year At WorkJanuary 7, 2026
Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplaceAugust 7, 2007
Top 5 reasons why "The customer is Always Right" is wrongMarch 10, 2008
The movie "The Secret" is entirely fakeMarch 15, 2007

recent Posts