I’m speaking at an HR conference in Istanbul next month, a leading turkish newspaper wanted to do an interview by email about happiness at work. They sent me some great questions, which I answered as best I could. The best part about great questions is that they leave you and the questioner wiser.
Below are the questions and my answers, which contain some of our basic thoughts on happiness at work.
Really cool quote:
What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn’t have done it. Who was it who said, “Blessed is the man who has found his work”? Whoever it was he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says his work–not somebody else’s work. The work that is really a man’s own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who has found some other man’s work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world. The fellows who groan and sweat under the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do anything great. How can they when their souls are in a ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and brains? The product of slavery, intellectual or physical, can never be great.
– Mark Twain
It’s nice to know, that there’s still time to goof around at Google:
Not long ago, I walked by the desk of software engineer JJ Furman, and saw that he had made an interesting addition to his desk: a large blob of Silly Putty, about the size of a grapefruit. Intrigued, I asked how he’d gotten so much of the stuff. The answer? A bulk order directly from the manufacturer! Of course.
I knew then that I wanted some, and it dawned on me that I probably wasn’t the only one. So I set out to place a really, really big bulk order. An email went out to cohorts. Their orders came in. Three weeks later, I had an eighth of a ton of Silly Putty delivered to my desk.
I honestly believe that this is a sign of a healthy company, when employees have the creativity, freedom and time to do stuff like that.
Of course, this begs the question: What happens if you drop a 25 kg. ball of silly putty from a height of 20 meters. MAN, I love the internet :o)
Solange de Santi’s excellent book Life on the Line about her experience of working under cover (she’s a journalist) for 18 months in a GM van plant gave me the sense that car factories are noisy, dirty, dangerous places.
Apparently they don’t have to be – they can also be amazing, beautiful, friendly, ergonomic and high-tech. Check out these amazing pictures from the Volkswagen plant in Dresden. I think I could live comfortably and in high style inside that building :o)
The first time I heard of the goat problem, a deceptively simple exercise, I flat out refused to believe the solution. A friend and I had been just about to go to a bar, but that plan had to be cancelled in favour of spending 3 hours to prove it to me. See how well you do:
Imagine a TV game show where the winner chooses between 3 doors. Between one door is a car, between each of the other two doors there’s a goat.
The contestant chooses one door, and the host then opens another door behind which there is a goat. This is always possible since there are two goats and one car.
The host will now give the contestant the option of sticking with the door she has already chosen or switching to the one door still unopened. What should the contestant do? There are of course three possible answers:
1: The contestant should stick to the first choice
2: The contestant should switch
3: It doesn’t matter
What do you think? The answer can be found here and it WILL surprise you. I LOVE it when things get counter-intuitive.
A warning though: Bringing this riddle up may cause aggravation. I have seen people flat out refuse to acknowledge the solution and get very frustrated in the process.
UPDATE: Tveskov pointed me to this online version of let’s make a deal, which let’s you try out the game for yourself and keeps track of the stats for you. From the site:
Despite a very clear explanation of this paradox, most students have a difficulty understanding the problem. It is very difficult to conquer the strong intuition which most students have in this case. As a challenge to students who don’t believe the explanation, an instructor may ask the students to actually play the game a number of times by switching and by not switching and to keep track of the relative frequency of wins with each strategy.
The goats have been replaced by donkeys, but don’t let that confuse you.
What is your dangerous idea?
The brilliant minds of The Edge community have been pondering that question and have come up with no less than 117 essays.
Here are a few of my favourites:
Carolyn Porco: The greatest story ever told.
At the heart of every scientific inquiry is a deep spiritual quest – to grasp, to know, to feel connected through an understanding of the secrets of the natural world, to have a sense of one’s part in the greater whole.
…
And we don’t have one god, we have many of them. We find gods in the nucleus of every atom, in the structure of space/time, in the counter-intuitive mechanisms of electromagneticsm. What richness! What consummate beauty!
…
These are reasons enough for jubilation … for riotous, unrestrained, exuberant merry-making.So what are we missing?
Ceremony.
…
We have no loving ministers, guiding and teaching the flocks in the ways of the ‘gods’. We have no fervent missionaries, no loyal apostles. And we lack the all-inclusive ecumenical embrace, the extended invitation to the unwashed masses. Alienation does not warm the heart; communion does.But what if? What if we appropriated the craft, the artistry, the methods of formal religion to get the message across? Imagine ‘Einstein’s Witnesses’ going door to door or TV evangelists passionately espousing the beauty of evolution.
Could it work? Could we create institutions that filled the roles of religion but which were based on science rather than faith? That is one hell of a dangerous idea. Not to mention weird and wonderful.
Philip Zimbardo: The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism
This view implies that any of us could as easily become heroes as perpetrators of evil depending on how we are impacted by situational forces. We then want to discover how to limit, constrain, and prevent those situational and systemic forces that propel some of us toward social pathology.
It is equally important for our society to foster the heroic imagination in our citizens by conveying the message that anyone is a hero-in-waiting who will be counted upon to do the right thing when the time comes to make the heroic decision to act to help or to act to prevent harm.
This is a wonderful shift in thinking: Rather than thinking of people as potential nazis or executioners (common thinking has it, that under the right circumstances all of us could become either), think of people as potential heroes and foster that potential.
Simon Baron-Cohen: A political system based on empathy
What would it be like if our political chambers were based on the principles of empathizing? It is dangerous because it would mean a revolution in how we choose our politicians, how our political chambers govern, and how our politicians think and behave. We have never given such an alternative political process a chance. Might it be better and safer than what we currently have? Since empathy is about keeping in mind the thoughts and feelings of other people (not just your own), and being sensitive to another person’s thoughts and feelings (not just riding rough-shod over them), it is clearly incompatible with notions of “doing battle with the opposition” and “defeating the opposition” in order to win and hold on to power.
Yes! I think more and more these days on how to create a better way of politics. This is an important insight.
Also check out last year’s question: “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”
The trick to writing a comic strip is to cultivate a mental playfulness – a natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. If I keep my eyes open and follow my interests, sooner or later the effort yields questions, thoughts, and ideas – unexpected paths into new territory. Like Calvin, I just head out into the yard in search of weirdness, and with the right attitude, I make discoveries.
– Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin And Hobbes
Roosevelt Finlayson (of the Festival in the Workplace) called me from the Bahamas yesterday to catch up. During our talk we discussed my future plans (among many other things) and he challenged me to document the process I’m currently going through. That’s a great idea and what better place to do it than right here on the blog.
And what better way to start than by telling the story so far. So here it is, the story of the geek who:
I just discovered The Great News Network:
Despite all the negativity broadcasted in news today there is progress being made to better our planet. The Great News Network exists to report it.”
– Ryan Logtenberg, Founder GNN
Some recent headlines:
* Congress presses for torture ban
* A Wide Range of Endangered Animals Given Conservation Boost
* Bangladesh Seizes Rare Wild Birds From Market
* Deforestation rates decrease in the Amazon
Here’s something funny: When I read that last headline, my mind did this trick where it read the first part and then:
1) Assumed that the rest of the headline would be about bad news
2) Started to skip towards other headlines
This tells me, that we (or at least I) have been heavily conditioned to expect bad news in the media. I read half a headline, noticed it was about deforestation in the Amazon and just KNEW that it had to be about a bad situation getting worse.
And the second part of my reaction, the looking away, may explain why people are retreating from many important issues, from rain forest shrinkage to world hunger: The current media coverage has taught us to think, that it’s all bad and getting worse. So why get involved? Why even take an interest – it’ll only depress me.
You could argue, that reporting the bad news leads to increased awareness about the problems. That’s true. But reporting almost exclusively on the bad news leads to a feeling of helplessness that has us giving up BEFORE we ever do anything.
And that’s why we need a new kind of media that is willing to report on the good news. Good news gives us the energy and optimism to do something about the bad news.
“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.
“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
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.
The Chief Happiness Officer Academy is our most in-depth 3-day training where we share everything we know about creating happier workplaces. Get an in-depth background in happiness at work, hear about the latest research in the field and learn how to use this in your own business.
