The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Leadership

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    Last tuesday I hosted a conversation circle on leadership at Arena, and as always it was a great experience. We were a very diverse group, and we had a deep, meaningful conversation on the nature and challenges of leadership.

    One question I was particularly interested in exploring was the role of leadership. What is it that leadership does in organizations and in the world? What is that happens beacuse of leaders, that would not otherwise have happened. In short, “Leadership, what is good for?”. This question is interesting to me, because it examines leadership from the outside. It’s not about trying to understand leaders, or about defining good or bad leadership. It’s an examination of the role that leadership plays. If you have any ideas on this, or any references to information, I’d love to hear about it.

    After this conversation, I was particularly pleased to see that Fast Company have yet another excellent article on leadership, this time by Ronald Heifetz of Harvard.
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  • Disney and creativity

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    This article has a brief outline of the Disney-method for evaluating and developing ideas. The method is inspired by the fact, that Walt Disney could play three different roles, when ideas were tossed around the Disney offices: He could be the dreamer, the critic or the realist. And all three roles are vital when new ideas are developed, but ideally you need them in the right order.

    If you criticize an idea to soon, it’s too easy to kill it off. You need to build the idea up a little first, then become critical. However, if you don’t think critically about your idea, you have no idea of whether it will stand up. Finally, you need to be realistic: Is there something good in this idea.

    I have a principle that I try to stick to: Whenever I hear of a new idea for the first time, I always say that it’s a good idea, and try to find the reasons why it’s good. I may off-hand be able to think of a hundred reasons why it’s a bad idea, but I save those for later. Build the idea up first – then try to shoot it down.

  • Quote

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    When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

    – R. Buckminster Fuller

  • Seven Lotus Sevens

    Saturday I was riding my motorcycle to Svendborg. At the toll plaza for the Great Belt bridge, I noticed a Lotus Seven in front of me. And another one. And two more in the next lane! They got through before me, so I floored it across the bridge to try and catch them to get a closer look. (Fortunately for me the speed trap was on the other side of the road.)

    I passed them a little later, and there were seven of them in all. Read, blue, green, yellow and silver ones, from different scandinavian countries. It was a beautiful sight. Anyway, I turned off the bridge towards Svendborg – and they followed, so that for the next 20 km or so, I was leading a convoy of Lotus Sevens. That felt pretty good.

  • The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online

    I took a spin on the net looking for material on hosting, which was made kinda difficult by the fact that in an internet context, hosting most often means the technical hosting of an application or a site on a server somewhere. Anyway, one interesting link I did find was an article by Howard Rheingold called The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online.

    This fits extremely well with the ideas on hosting that I’m trying to develop, and almost all the points made apply to both online and offline hosting. Excellent stuff!

  • Go Reboot

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    If you’re interested in the borderland between technology and society, the Reboot 6.0 conference is definitely the place to be on June 20. The speaker lineup this year is unbelievable, and they ‘ll continue and improve on the interactive conference format they introduced last year.

    “What interactive format is that, Alexander?” I hear you ask… Why, it’s Open Space Technology of course. So hurry up and sign up, there are only a very limited number of seats available this year.

  • Book review: Freedom and accountability at work

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    Can the business world learn anything from existential philosophy? Do concepts such as freedom, good and evil, accountability and anxiety have any meaning in a corporate setting?

    After reading this book by Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block, I have no doubt whatsoever that the answer is a resounding yes. The subtitle “Applying philosophical insight to the real world” is beautifully realized throughout the book.
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  • Happy birthday to me

    Today’s my birthday, and the flags are up all over town – not just for me though, it also happens to be the birthday of the crown prince. Anyway, I think that todays Over The Hedge strip was especially fitting. And in case you’re wondering: The crown prince and I turn 35 today.

  • Interpersonal relations at work

    If you think that all these modern, “soft” management theories of organizational democracy, including people in the decisions and being open comes from a few addle-headed idealists, you should read this article.

    Among other subjects, it talks about W.E. Deming, who “was a hard-headed scientist who arrived at a position that focused on the importance of respect for everyone in the organization and of good communication among them all.” The point being of course, that he was was a theoretician not known for his warmth or gentleness, and he arrived at his conclusions using hard-core scientific and statistical methods. So there!

  • Hosting

    Having just spent three days in Slovenia exploring the art of hosting, I thought I’d write a little about what hosting means to me.

    Basically, every time you invite somebody to be a part of something, you’re assuming the role of host. Whether it’s a meeting, a conference, a project, a party, a lecture or a night out with the boys: Any time you gather people, you assume the role of host. So what makes the concept of hosting so interesting?
    (more…)

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