The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Is Arena a lap?

    One of the many fascinationg people I’ve met at the Practice of Peace conference is Max Gail, who runs an organization called lap. This is based on the metaphor of a lap. We all have one, and it is, among other things, wher our kids sit to hear a story or to feel safe.

    So what is a community lap? According to Max, it’s a computer-empowered, creativity inspiring, consensus building community communication center or network. Does that sound like Arena? It does to me: Imagine a lap for small businesses, where people can network, innovate, hear and tell stories, learn and recharge their batteries. That could be Arena, and I think it ties in nicely with the idea of a third place, outside of home and work.

  • Muddling through

    Harrison Owen just finished his opening talk here at the Practice of Peace conference, and todays topic centered around “muddling through” – the idea that for 14 billion years the universe has moved towards higher and higher levels of complexity with no central planning involved. It’s not perfect, but it’s amazing that we’re around to complaing about how bad it all is.

    And that got me thinking about something I’ve heard people saying previously, namely that “the good is the enemy of the perfect.” In other words, that accepting a good solution prevents you from finding the perfect solution. Frankly, that’s just not right. It’s the other way around: The search for the perfect solution often keeps us from achieving a good solution. Instead of perfection, we could go for perfectly allright.

    Researching this on the net, I just discovered that Voltaire is with me on this one :o) Here’s to muddling through, 14 billion years of it so far.

  • Practice of peace – part 1

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    You know, when I planned my trip to the US and planned to fly from DC to Seattle, I was kinda thinking “OK, domestic flight, how long can it be – 2-3 hours?” Well, flying across the US takes five and a half hours!

    I’m now at the Practice of Peace conference, and it’s quite a far cry from the CEO round table. The round table was at a fancy Marriott hotel – here I share a room with two other guys one of whom snores constantly, though fortunately not very loudly. The round table meetings were in your traditional windowless conference room, here it’s this grand hall with windows, wooden beams and skylights. But notice, that where the luxury hotel had wired internet access in the rooms at $9.95 a day, this place has free wi-fi. Woohoo!

    The conference is just taking off, but I think I may have overextended myself, and I’m afraid I’m all conferenced out. Let’s see what happens. Oh, I talked briefly to Harrison Owen – seems like a very nice person.

  • Simplicity – complexity – simplicity

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    I posted an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote a while ago:

    I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

    Sandy Wilder of Communico used this quote in his presentation at the CEO round table, and that got me thinking. I’d say that the first simplicity comes from thinking you understand any given system. Yep, we’ve got it figured – we know how the system will react in most situations, and we can manage that.

    The complexity comes when you realize, that you don’t understand the system. An example: You give you salesforce bonuses to make them sell more. It works for a while, but suddenly sales drop. More bonuses help, but not as much as the first time. What’s going on? Apparently the system is more complex than we thought. The specific reasons, why additional bonuses don’t make much of an impact can vary. Maybe the first round of bonuses motivated the sales people to close a lot of easy sales, and now there are only the “hard” cases left. Maybt it has fostered strong internal competition, so they actually undercut each others work to get the bonus. The point is, that the system was apparently more complicated than we thought – and in truth, most systems are.

    The “simplicity on the other side of complexity” does not come, however, from understanding the system. Most systems in a business setting are so complex, that we won’t ever be able to predict them. Trying to understand the system is, in all probability, ultimately futile.

    However, trying to develop your values and principles, so that they align with your goals is certainly a worthwhile pursuit. And that is the simplicity on the other side of complexity. That simplicity comes from knowing yourself and your values, and living by them. It comes from the belief or faith that, as long as we work in the right way and stick to our principles, it will turn out right. And that’s a crucial distinction.

  • Democratic CEO round table, part 2

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    The round table is now over, and it’s been an amazing ride. Some of the highlights were:
    * Hearing real-life stories of organizational democracy – the ups AND the downs
    * Meeting some wonderful, courageuos people
    * Exploring the link between political democracy and organizational democracy. Fredo Arias-King gave a fascinating presentation on the transition to democracy in eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet countries and why some succeeded and others didn’t. Key factor: People! The countries that completely got rid of the old guard (the Nomenklatura) succeeded.
    * Seeing Traci Fenton and her team in action. Relaxed, creative and on the ball
    * “Singing in the rain” with Victor Aspengren of Schafer Systems

    I’m jetting of to Seattle in a few hours, and I’m looking forward to just chilling on the flight. Then the Practice of Peace conference starts tonight.

  • Democratic CEO round table, part 1

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    I’m now in Washington DC, and the first 24 hours of the World Dynamics round table for democratic CEO’s has been fantastic. There are some great people here, who can tell some amazing stories. There’s an incredible level of experience, openness and curiosity present – and it’s just plain fun.

    The conference started thursday evening Mart Laar, the first prime minister of Estonia. He talked about democracy and about values and principles he beliveves are necessary to practice democracy. And he should know: Under him, Estonia went from a hopeless ex-soviet backwater, to a modern, fast-developing economy. His speech was very inspiring and moving, and his down-to-earth authentic and slightly underplayed style was wonderful.

    Today several of the participants have had a chance to present, and I talked briefly about the principles behind Enterprise Systems (my old IT company). In the afternoon we did a short open space session, which seemed to go over really well with this crowd – as I’d hoped it would. If there’s one tool that can promote organizational democracy, I believe it’s Open Space meetings.

    The day ended with a wonderful dinner with everybody in really high spirits. My mind is still racing from all the input and all the incredible stories I’ve heard today, and I hope tomorrow will be just as interesting.

  • Flying

    Blogging from the airport, an hour before my plane leaves for DC. I’d promised myself not to be a chicken and check in two hours before – all that gets you is a long wait in the airport, but in the end I was there with everybody else. I’m sure it’s just a ploy to get people to do more airport shopping :o)

    Anyway: DC today, Seattle on the 9th., back in Copenhagen on the 16th. See ya, and I will try to blog on the road.

  • Luck school

    Down on your luck? Go to luck school.

    Relates to a previous post.

  • Incentives do not work

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    If you want your employees to perform well, conventional wisdom says that you must give them lots of incentives. Stuff like free phone calls, company cars, gold stars, employee of the month awards are necessary, right? Wrong! Incentives, and the ensuing competition, actually make matters worse, and remove peoples attention from their work. This makes employees less motivated about their work.

    According to this article by Alfie Kohn, you should in stead:
    * Pay people well.
    * Pay people fairly.
    * Then do everything possible to take money off people’s minds.

    Notice that incentives, bonuses, pay-for-performance plans, and other reward systems violate the last principle by their very nature.

    I could not agree more. The whole notion that you can motivate anybody is wrong, and money is certainly not the way. People can motivate themselves, and businesses can create environments in which it is easy or hard for them to do so. Incentives make it harder!

  • Dust devils

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    I found this quote from my favourite book, Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, on Chris Corrigans website.

    Randy spent plenty of time chasing and carrying out impromptu experiements on dust devils while walking to and from school, to the point of getting bounced of the grille of a shrieking Buick once when he chased a roughly shopping-cart-sized one into the street in an attempt to climb into the centre of it. He knew they were both fragile and tenacious. You could just stomp down on one of them and sometimes it would just dodge your foot, or swirl around it, and keep going. Other times, like if you tried to catch one in your hands, it would vanish — but then you’d look up and see another one just like it twenty feet away, running away from you. The whole concept of matter spontaneously organizing itself into grotesquely improbable and yet indisputably self-perpetuating and fairly robust systems sort of gave Randy the willies later on, when he began to learn about physics.

    (more…)

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