The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Interview with Neal Stephenson

    Some of the best books I’ve read recently have been The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, a trilogy set in the 1600’s and 1700’s.

    In this interview on reasononline, Neal talks about many things, including some of his reasons for writing novels set in that period when he normally writes Science Fiction:

    Reason: In the last decade or two, there?s been a surge of fiction set in the 17th century: Tremain?s Restoration, Pears? An Instance of the Fingerpost, Chevalier?s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Is there something about the era that speaks with particular significance to the 21st century?

    Stephenson: The glib answer would be that this is such a broad question that I could only answer it by writing a big fat trilogy set during this era. And if I try to answer this question discursively, that?s what it?s going to turn into. So I?ll fall back on saying that it just feels interesting to me.

    Here are a few specifics. The medieval is still very much alive and well during this period. People are carrying swords around. Military units have archers. Saracens snatch people from European beaches and carry them off to slavery. There are Alchemists and Cabalists. Great countries are ruled by kings who ride into battle wearing armor. Much of the human landscape?the cities and architecture?are medieval. And yet the modern world is present right next to all of this in the form of calculus, joint-stock companies, international financial systems, etc. This can?t but be fascinating to a novelist.

    Incidentally: The Baroque Cycle rocks! Read it, read it, read it!

  • Gross Happiness Product

    Mike pointed me to an article in Wired on how GDP is failing as a national success indicator.

    Since the time of Adam Smith, we’ve used the wealth of nations as a proxy for the well-being of nations. We measure whether life is getting better by checking whether the good numbers (GDP, personal incomes, and so on) are going up and the bad numbers (unemployment, inflation, and so on) are going down. However, over the past half century, something strange has happened. The US’s per capita GDP – the value of all the goods and services a nation produces divided by its population – has nearly tripled, but American well-being hasn’t budged. We’ve grown almost three times richer but not one jot happier. There’s ample evidence that in all postindustrial societies, material wealth and broader happiness are no longer closely in sync.

    Yep!

    I’d actually take it one step further: GDP growth probably causes a decline in happiness, since GDP growth means people are focused on increasing production. And increased production makes noone happier. That takes something else entirely.

  • Storytelling

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    When even the Harvard Business School turns on to storytelling, you know its gone mainstream. Which is entirely a good thing. I’ve been using stories a lot in the work I do, and I really enjoy the way an audience will go quiet and lean forward in their chairs when you say “I’d like to tell you a story…”

    “Here is our company’s biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper.” And you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities. But there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you’re talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you’re trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you’ve done so only on an intellectual basis. That’s not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone.

    And that’s where stories come in, with their ability to talk to the non-rational parts of our minds:

    The other way to persuade people?and ultimately a much more powerful way?is by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story. In a story, you not only weave a lot of information into the telling but you also arouse your listener’s emotions and energy.

    For an excellent introduction to storytelling read The Springboard by Stephen Denning.

  • Should Your Next CEO Be a Philosopher?

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    Technology is still important to a company’s competitive edge, but it seems that most organizations today have the technology down. It’s still important, but it’s more and more becoming a given – which makes it harder to use it to differentiate yourself in the eyes of the customer. So if you can’t use technology to give you an edge, what can you use?

    …according to a Wharton professor and an Israeli venture capitalist, a company?s ability to understand its customers? philosophical outlook may be as vital to its success as R&D and other efforts.

    …although it?s a given that technological assets can determine the progress of an individual, a company or even a nation, the decision to embrace or to reject technology is itself deeply affected by abstract ideas that are embedded in an individual?s (or a nation?s) general life philosophy.

    You can read the entire article here. I agree whole-heartedly. Let’s bring back philosophy as a day-to-day activity, not as an academic discipline. Let’s make room for contemplation of life’s big issues in the work place. It’ll be fun, it’ll be good and it’ll make us better at whatever we do.

  • Constructivism

    Constructivism is the theory that reality is not only an isolated fact outside of us, but something we actively create together. This flies in the face of the more traditional idea that there is an objective reality “out there” which we experience subjectively.

    There are many flavours of constructivism, and while researching this on the net, I stumbled on this site in which Martin Dougiamas gives an introduction to the different aspects of constructivism/constructionism, intermingled with travel stories from Bangkok. I’m not quite sure why, but I like the juxtaposition of these two unrelated themes a lot.

    Constructivism is interesting for many reasons, and especialy because it forms part of the theoretical basis for Appreciative Inquiry.

  • A happy cab driver

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    Few people would put cab driver at the top of the list of “jobs most likely to make me happy”, but there’s one New York cabbie who’s making his own happiness by playing matchmaker to his single customers:

    The 50-year-old Egyptian immigrant sets up blind dates for his single passengers through a free, impromptu matchmaking service he runs out of his yellow cab. He said he finds mates, or at least dates, for about eight people a week.

    “New York is a very tough city for dating,” Ibrahim mused while driving through the West Village recently. “I have heard a lot of crying in this cab, a lot of fighting and a lot of broken hearts.”

    “Sometimes great people were just missing each other by minutes; one would get in my cab just as another had gotten out,” he said.

    It all started by accident:

    “I was joking around with this girl … who said she couldn’t find a boyfriend,” he recalled. Ibrahim took her number.

    Three days later, a man got in his cab and bemoaned his bad luck finding a woman. Ibrahim called the woman and gave her the man’s number. Three weeks later, she called back and said they had gone on a date and were getting along great.

    “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is my new project,”‘ he said.

    How’s that for creating your own (and others’) happiness at work.

  • No need to succeed

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    My main tool in coping with all the stuff going on in the Happy at Work Project right now has been to remind myself, that I don’t need to suceed. Every time I start to stress a little I think “This does not need to work out. It does not need to be a success. It is OK if it fails.”

    I tried it at a workshop with a customer the other day. I had about 30 people there, and it felt like I wasn’t really reaching them. They weren’t complaining or anything, I just felt like there was a huge distance between me and them and that I wasn’t communicating as clearly as I wanted. So I did two things:
    1: As above, I reminded myself, that I don’t have to suceed. What a relief :o)
    2: I consciusly focused my attention on what was going on.

    All our workshops have lots of sessions where the participants work in small groups, and I spent some time not thinking or planning ahead. I simply tried to notice what was happening tight now in as much detail as possible. From that came a sense of calm and a feeling of reconnecting with what was going on in the room at the time. The workshop was a great success. I even stuck in an exercise I’d never tried before, one that’s really designed to be used on one person – I just modified it on the fly to work on 30 people :o)

    The question in my mind is whether I’m honest with myself. I’m telling myself that I don’t need to suceed – to enhance my chances of suceeding. That seems like cheating, somehow. But it works!

  • Living vs. blogging

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    I haven’t been blogging much lately, and the reason is simple: I’m too busy living to write about living :o)

    The happy at work project is going so well, that it’s taking up all my time right now, I could fill page after page with all the good stuff that’s happening for us right now, but in brief:
    * The “happy at work” game is finished – and we immediately sold the first 10 copies.
    * We’ve moved into our new offices – they rock!
    * We’re planning yet another Happy at Work Conference – June 2nd at Basecamp.
    * We’re meeting new friends, partners and customers everywhere we go.
    * We hired Mette Nygaard Olsen to work full time.
    * There’s a new Happy at Work Website coming real soon now.
    * We just agreed on our biggest contract so far with a huge international customer.

    Phew! I think this will be a very interesting year :o)

  • Epicurus

    While I’m recovering from an intense but seemingly short-lived cold, I got out the TV and this morning I stumbled on a british documentary about the greek philosopher Epicurus. He lived from 341-270 BCE on the island of Samos, and did a lot of thinking on the subject of personal happiness, ie. what do we really need to be happy? His thinking is amazingly relevant here 2000 years later.

    One thing he came up with was:

    …the so-called ‘four-part cure’, the Epicurean remedy for the epidemic sickness of human anxiety; as a later Epicurean puts it, “Don’t fear god, don’t worry about death; what’s good is easy to get, and what’s terrible is easy to endure.”

    I like these four principles – following them will keep you safely grounded in the life you’re living right now, and strengthen your ability to believe that “everything will work out just fine”. While this belief may be right or wrong, it does tend to instill people with a confidence and serenity, that better allows them to make things turn out right.

    Epicurus emphasized pleasure – in moderation. Fine foods, sure, but no more than you need. He believed, that we don’t need much to be happy – mostly friends and contemplation (philosophy). There’s an excellent and comprehensive Epicurus reference at epicurus.info.

  • Shared space – in traffic and at work

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    Danish media have been kicking up a storm lately about all the anarchistic bicycle riders (primarily in Copenhagen) who ignore traffic rules. The debate has been founded on an interesting but unstated premise that traffic safety comes from always following the rules. As long as you go by the book, nothin bad can happen to you.

    Well, according to this NYTimes article, dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman has a rather different approach: Throw away the book. He designed:

    a busy intersection in the center of town… Not only was it virtually naked, stripped of all lights, signs and road markings, but there was no division between road and sidewalk. It was, basically, a bare brick square.

    But in spite of the apparently anarchical layout, the traffic, a steady stream of trucks, cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians, moved along fluidly and easily, as if directed by an invisible conductor. When Mr. Monderman, a traffic engineer and the intersection’s proud designer, deliberately failed to check for oncoming traffic before crossing the street, the drivers slowed for him. No one honked or shouted rude words out of the window.

    (more…)

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