The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Book review: Microserfs

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    In Microserfs by Douglas Coupland, a bunch of geeks working at Microsoft (hence the title of the book), decide to change their predictable, stable, profitable yet somehow unfulfilling lives in Seattle for a leap into the unknown, starting their own company in California.

    Some things remain the same: They still work way too much. They’re still geeks. They still obsess about small things, as geeks do. But something starts to change. They get lives. The fundamental isolation made possible by the corporate lifestyle at Microsoft is replaced by confusion, frustration, identity crisis, dating disasters, jealousy – but also by friendship, community, loyalty, trust and most of all love.
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  • Book review: The corrosion of character

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    I disagree with almost everything in Richard Sennett’s book The corrosion of character, and I still think it’s hugely important and very much worth reading. Confused? Read on.

    Sennett looks at the working conditions in the new flexible economy, and he sees a lot of problems. People no longer work at the same company or the same job for long stretches of time. They switch jobs or switch teams or change fields or even become consultants :o). There’s no predictability, no long-term commitment, no long-term relations with co-workers and bosses, no loyalty, more confusion, etc. Most of all, the new work environment makes it more difficult to find and maintain a narrative of your work life. Previously, when people could focus on their careers, you had that as a measure and as the backbone for that narrative. Today, where the fixed path of a career has been replaced with a crazy quilt of job changes that can be up, down, sideways or just plain jumps-into-the-unknown it becomes much more difficult to find meaning and to find yourself in your work.
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  • The next media economy

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how we buy and consume media (music, movies, TV, books, news, video games, sports, etc.) and though it’s a far cry from the regular topics on this blog, and I’m pretty sure that none of this is new, here’s my take.

    You see, it’s a pretty important question. For one thing, the media industry is huge. We spend a LOT of money on entertainment. But even more importantly, media of various kinds is where we get most of our stories. Much of our perception of the world is shaped by the media we access and how we access them. So media matters.

    The big shift that we’re seeing right now is of course due to the internet. All media are increasingly being freed from physical constraints. You no longer need the physical CD, DVD, TV antenna or paper book. You can get it all on one device: Your computer. I know, I know, it’s completely obvious, but bear with me.

    I can’t say exactly what the next media business model will look like, but I still think we can say some things about it. This is kinda like one of those mathematical proofs, where we don’t know the actual solution yet, but we can still say some things about it. So I predict that any future media economy will have to live up to the following criteria in order to achieve success:

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  • Quote

    There is a bright future for complexity, what with one thing always leading to another.

    – E.B. White

  • There is no work-life balance

    LiNE Zine has an interview with Lotte Bailyn of MIT, who is:

    …working with organizations of various kinds to look at the way they do their work. We look at things like their work practices, their work structure, the cultural assumptions surrounding who’s a good worker, and how they evaluate performance. With them we work to rethink those aspects in such a way that employees are able to live up to their highest potential in their work, and are also able to integrate their work with their personal lives. That is what we call the dual agenda.

    That’s interesting work, and one of the most interesting things is that they specifically DO NOT talk about work-life balance, a term I find misleading.

    We specifically do not use the term “balance” because it connotes that these two domains in people’s lives have to be equal; that it’s a balance scale – hence if one goes up, the other goes down. The underlying premise of our work is that this need not necessarily be so. We talk about “the integration of work and personal life” to show that work is also part of life. The term “work-life” implies that somehow the two are different, and of course they are not. Work is obviously an important part of life but shouldn’t be the only part.

    That’s a very good point. Actually, I’d take it one step further. Looking at my own life, I certainly don’t see a work life and a private life. I just see one life, mine, being expressed in different aspects. And these aspects are so mixed and so mutually dependent, that it makes no sense to attempt to separate them. They are already as integrated as they can be, and there seems to be no time where I am 100% at work or 100% off work. I’m always just me, living my life. And it feels good.

  • IT policies at Semco

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    I’ve gotta hit you with one more quote from CIO Insight’s brilliant interview with Ricardo Semler. This one’s about IT policies:

    One of the things I’ve noticed with this security issue is that IT people want to make sure that their systems are intact, private, confidential “blah, blah, blah” but they think nothing whatsoever of invading the e-mail privacy of their own employees. That’s very interesting to me, because it’s not only a double standard, but a violation of constitutional rights. Companies have taken the blind assumption that because the system is theirs, then anything that people do on it has to be available to them. I think it’s a very hypocritical mode, and it deals with fundamental freedom issues that I don’t think people have completely thought through.

    …And what’s most interesting is that we searched far and wide for anybody who could tell us what kind of software or system could be installed on our [server] that would make it impossible for our own IT people to spy on people’s e-mail. We did not find one. We had to customize one.

    Imagine that: A company that actually goes out of it’s way to ENSURE that employees’ emails stay private. That is an immensely powerful statement of faith in people.

  • Common sense at Semco

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    CIO insight has a truly excellent interview with Ricardo Semler, the CEO of Semco. Here’s my favourite bit from the interview:

    When you want somebody hired, let’s say it’s for a leadership position of some kind, you go to the system and you advertise that you think someone is needed. Then on a given day – say, Wednesday at 4 o’clock, meeting room 11 – you say we’re going to discuss this, whoever’s interested. Because of the fundamental tenet that we don’t want anyone involved in anything that they really don’t want to do, all of our meetings are on a voluntary basis, meaning that the meetings are known, and then whoever is interested can and will show up, and should also leave the moment they become uninterested. It is a bit unnerving to watch these things, because people come in, plunk their things down, and then 15 minutes later somebody else says “Bye bye, see you.” But the fact is that whoever is left there has a stake in the decision being made, and the decision is final in the sense that it’s going to be implemented after the meeting.

    All meetings are voluntary. How cool is that? Read the interview, it’s great! Also, for those of us who know Open Space Technology: That’s the law of two feet right there!

  • The happy leader

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    What is it that the best leaders do that gives them their results? How do great leaders motivate and inspire? Why do they do it?

    I’m convinced, that it’s very simple: The best leader is the happy leader. One who sets the happiness of himself and his people above anything else. There are many examples of such leaders, and we’ve written an article about The Happy Leader that describes a few cases both in Denmark and internationally. The article also contains specific tips on how to get the same results for yourself.

    The article is only available in danish, but if there’s demand for it, I’ll translate it into english.

  • Quote

    We are coming to understand health not as the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence (i.e. sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful) and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment.
    -Aaron Antonovsky

    At a recent Happy at Work seminar for a large group of hospital staff, one participant told me to check out Aaron Antonovsky for his views on health – she thought his thoughts matched ours. I think so too :o)

  • The rise of open-source politics

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    Politics today is mostly top-down. The parties/candidates and their advisors define the politics and the message, often not by talking to people but through polls.

    …top-down politics is all about maintaining control. “Think of an established brand with a lot invested in control of its image,” … “The idea of opening that up is scary.”

    But maybe we’re seeing a shift away from that towards open source politics. In an excellent article on the nation, Micah Sifry looks at the rise of open source politics:

    Using open-source coding as a model, it’s not a stretch to believe the same process could make politics more representative and fair. Imagine, for example, how a grassroots network could take over some of the duties normally performed by high-priced consultants who try to shape a campaign message that’s appealing. If the people receiving the message create it, chances are it’s much more likely to stir up passions.

    Here’s my favourite quote from the article:

    In the same way that TV took politics away from the grassroots, the Internet will give it back.

    I’m really fired up by this vision, which melds perfectly with my dream of an open space-based political party. I think the internet can be an excellent medium, especially combined with regular meetings in physical space also. Something happens when people get together in the same room at the same time with a purpose that doesn’t as readily happen on-line.

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