The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Why being happy at work matters for people

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    Why happiness at work matters for people

    When I got my first consulting job I worked very hard. I was the picture-perfect, traditional IT consultant working many overtime hours in the name of success. I’d moved to a new city for that job, far away from my friends and family, but that was fine: I didn’t really have time for anything outside of work. Basically, my main goal was success at work!

    But after a year of this I suddenly realized something: I was successful, certainly, and I made good money. But I was not happy. I was in fact feeling lonely and unhappy, because all I ever did was work. I thought about that for a while, and I decided to change my life and to always work in a way that would make me happy. I cut back on work and started spending time exercising and making friends in my new hometown. Over the course of a year, my life transformed completely. Before my evenings consisted of the drive home from work, some fast food and lots of TV. Now I had new friends, interesting hobbies and I was in the best shape of my life from all that exercise. I also lost that extra 20 pound consultant-belly I’d been slowly amassing :o)

    Think about it: You will spend more of your adult life on your job than on anything else, except possibly sleep. Your work will take up more of your time than your family, friends and hobbies combined. Won’t it be nicer if that time is spent at a job that actually makes you happy?
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  • Why being happy at work matters

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    Patricia, an outgoing, engaging, perpetually smiling woman in her early 30’s with a shock of unruly, prematurely grey hair, was really happy to get her first management job. She’d been a secretary, back-office worker and all-round administrative worker previously, but as purchasing manager for a major producer of food additives. she looked forward to really streamlining their purchasing procedures.

    The hiring had gone smoothly. The company needed the position filled quickly and a former colleague of Patricia who now worked there had recommended her. Everything looked great: Nice offices in a wood-land setting: Check! Interesting responsibilities: Check! Nice colleagues: Check! A good salary: Absolutely!

    But as Patricia started on her new job, things turned out to be less idyllic. The mood at the company was very much one of competition rather than collaboration. Her immediate manager was rarely there and never appreciated or even commented on the work she or her colleagues did. In fact nobody seemed to care what anybody else did, it was “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

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  • Thoughts on Open Source Software

    Open KeyBusinesses can learn much from Open Source thinking, both when it comes to increasing corporate efficiency and to making people happy at work. A while back I even wrote about an Open Source project that was optimized for fun (-O fun).

    So if you want to learn a little about the principles behind Open Source Software, here are three good places to look:

    Why Software Should Be Free by Richard Stallman
    Those who benefit from the current system where programs are property offer two arguments in support of their claims to own programs: the emotional argument and the economic argument.

    The emotional argument goes like this: “I put my sweat, my heart, my soul into this program. It comes from me, it’s mine!”

    The economic argument goes like this: “I want to get rich (usually described inaccurately as `making a living’), and if you don’t allow me to get rich by programming, then I won’t program. Everyone else is like me, so nobody will ever program. And then you’ll be stuck with no programs at all!” This threat is usually veiled as friendly advice from the wise.

    This is the standard text behind free software and Stallman is the original guru. Also remember to read up on the difference between free beer and free speech.

    Early Perspectives On Open Source by Dennis Forbes
    At the time, I was a fervent admirer of Microsoft and their Ways — a position that lead to endless accusations that I was a paid astroturfer for the so-called Evil Empire — not to mention that I was, and remain, a true believer in the capacity for financial incentive to encourage innovation and product excellence.
    …
    My opponent, in contrast, was a GPL-embracing, Linux-advocating, Microsoft-hating, Stallmanesque sort. He’d finger through his unkempt beard (where one would expect to find stray noodles from a prior meal), and after trying to convince anyone listening that recompiling one’s kernel with drivers specific for the target environment was an ideal arrangement, he’d tear into the evils of closed source commercial software, passionately arguing that closed source, along with intellectual property hoarding, was a moral sin.

    A very nuanced look from a developer who came from the closed side and moved towards the open source approach.

    Open Source As Much About The People As The Code
    “The code without the people is worth nothing,” according to Phillipe Cases, partner at VC firm Partech International. “A million lines of code is like a million problems that you have to solve. So the risk on any open source investment project is that the 2-3 guys that created it and maintain it could leave. The commitment of the developers is often the IP — not the code itself.”

    Isn’t it always about the people?

  • Translations of how not to lead geeks

    My post on How NOT to lead geeks has been translated into two other languages:

    Thanks guys!

    If you’d like to translate the post into your language you have my permission. Tell me about, and I’ll link to the translation!

    UPDATE: The portuguese translation has already sparked a lively debate with more than 30 comments in two days. Maravilhoso!

  • Steve Forbes doesn’t get it – or why having the world’s highest taxes is a good thing

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    Taxes

    Steve Forbes was in Denmark this week on a European tour, meeting with political and business leaders. His main message was that while Denmark has arguably the strongest economy in Europe right now, the high danish taxes are limiting our economic growth.

    And danish taxes are very high: The highest tax bracket kicks in after only 40.000$ earned, and you pay 60% taxes on everything you earn over that. This money is used to finance a very high level of public services, including free health care, schools and universities for everybody.

    The high tax level also finances what is called the danish flex-security model: In Denmark it’s relatively easy to fire employess (flexibility) but unemployed danes enjoy great benefits (security). Compare this to Sweden where it’s very, very difficult to lay employees off because the unions have enormous influence or to the US where unemployment benefits are not as generous.

    Forbes argues that the economic success Denmark is currently enjoying comes in spite of the high tax levels, and said “just imagine what you could achieve with lower taxes.” His argument goes something like this:

    1. Because taxes are so high, working more doesn’t pay much, therefore people work less
    2. If taxes were lower (say 40% in the top bracket instead of 60%) people would work more
    3. People would also make more money, meaning the state would take in the same amount of money in taxes
    4. People working harder would result in increased economic growth

    I think he’s wrong, wrong, wrong, and I’ll tell you why!
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  • Quote

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    QuoteYou can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
    – Richard Feynman

  • Organizational Democracy primer

    Traci FentonMy good friend Traci Fenton gave a talk at Harvard Law School on Organizational Democracy. You can hear the talk here and David Weinberger live-blogged it. Check it out, it’s a great primer on the concept of democratic organizations.

  • Happy at work in prisons

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    I’m back from the FutureCamp event with the Danish Prison Service and I am exhausted. After 48 gruelling but fun hours, the director of the service could take home an catalogue of a dozen ideas which had been fleshed out and about 50 more that were still hanging in the air.

    The theme was to make the prison service a great place to work. Currently, this is how they see themselves:

    1. People don’t stay long in their jobs
    2. People feeling overworked and stressed
    3. Absenteeism is high
    4. There is little trust and communication between managers and employees
    5. Prison wardens don’t talk to case workers, case workers don’t talk to IT people and nobody talks to the central administration

    Which doesn’t really seem too different from many other workplaces. Of course, working with prisoners does give this workplace some unique challenges, but it also give employees an incentive to stick together and support each other.

    The camp had 40 participants from the prison service, from many different departments and from all levels of the hierarchy. I was called in as an outside expert to participate in the process. Participants were divided into six groups, each of which focused on a specific topic, eg. leadership, relations with inmates, relations with colleagues. I was placed in the group that worked on IT in the prison service, probably because of my background in IT.

    The process itself was quite impressive with illustrators, facilitators, a camera man to film everything and produce movies on the fly and various suprises along the way.

    And what happened was the same things that always happens when you put people together in an inspiring process around an important topic: People got creative. And they got to talking. And they got fired up. I love it when that happens and it’s great to be a part of.

    My favorite part of the whole event happened on the morning of the second day, where they brought in a gospel singer and his keyboard to get everybody up and singing. Now, I’m not much of a singer, but suddenly I found myself hollering with the best of them :o) That was great fun and energized the whole room.

    So what am I taking away from this event:

    1. Give people a chance to talk and magical stuff happens
    2. People ARE creative, anybody saying differently is lying
    3. A lot of ideas can be created and worked on in 48 hours

    I’m also left with a lingering suspicion, that making the event such a huge production makes it more difficult to take home the spirit and the lessons of the event. If it had been more like real work-life, the results would be more easily transferable – which is what we’re really after. *cough* Open Space Technology *cough*.

  • Making Danish prisons a happy place … to work

    I’ll be away from the blog for the rest of the week. I’ve been hired by the Danish Prison and Probation Service to participate in a project to make the prisons a better place to work.

    This is actually pretty cool: They’re working from the assumption that the best way to create better functioning prisons is to make them better workplaces, so people enjoy their work there. I agree :o)

    I’ll let you know how it goes – have a great week and week-end!

  • Happy at work at Motek

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    I met Motek’s CEO Ann Price at the 2006 WorldBlu Forum on democractic organizations, and her story of how they work at Motek was tremendously inspiring.

    Motek make warehouse administration software and here’s some of the great things they do according to this excellent article in American Way Magazine:

      Parasol

    • Price offers her employees a $5,000-a-year travel benefit for flights, tours, cruises, you name it – but only if they take at least a three-week paid vacation. She gives employees another two weeks off for paid holidays throughout the year and leases luxury automobiles for any employee who has worked at the company for at least 10 years. Then there’s the fact that Price sends employees home at five p.m. sans laptop and locks the doors on the weekend.
    • …every Motek employee has a designated backup available to provide cover while they’re out of the office. The only requirement is to check with the backup to make sure he or she is around before the employee leaves.
    • The company keeps a single to-do list… Anyone can enter an item, including customers and vendors. The list can include everything from ordering ink cartridges to customizing a specific function for a customer. Motek divvies up the tasks at meetings and teams don’t pay any attention to who entered particular items.
    • Price doesn’t cut any corners when it comes to bonding with customers. She designates individuals – from top executives to line workers – heroes for their roles in effecting change at a company that uses Motek’s software. Then she sends out a professional photographer who shoots for Fortune magazine – at somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 a shoot – to snap their photo, which she then posts on the Motek website. There, you can read all about the person’s achievements and how they were able to deliver superior results.
    • For Price, the endgame isn’t to earn money at any cost. And it isn’t about ruling the software industry. No, Price has bigger ambitions: She hopes to change the world.

    The result: Happiness and profits. Eighty percent of the technical team has been with the company for at least 10 years, compared to an industry average employment span of 18 months. In 2005, Motek’s revenue per employee topped $217,000. Competing firms’ revenue typically ranges from $150,000 to $200,000.

    This is a wonderful story of great, unconventional leadership focused on making employees and customers happy rather than on growth and profits. With growth and profit as the results.

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