For the last 8 years we have arranged an annual conference on happiness at work in Copenhagen. The next one is on May 18+19 2017 and for the first time ever we’re making the conference international, so the whole event will be in English.
We want to show you just how energetic, fun and valuable this conference is, so here are five of our favorite speeches from previous years.
David Marquet (2013): Happiness at work on a nuclear submarine
When David Marquet took command of the nuclear submarine the USS Santa Fe, he knew he needed to change a lot of things. It was the worst performing submarine, was never ready for its missions on time and was basically the laughing stock of the US navy.
David came in with a plan to improve the results on the submarine and thereby make its crew happier. By accident, he found that he had to do it the other way around: Make the submarine a happy workplace and results would follow.
The new plan worked, and the USS Santa Fe became the best performing submarine.
In this speech from our 2013 conference, David Marquet explains how he did it and how you can create a happier workplace too.
Srikumar Rao (2009): The two traps that keep us from being happy
One of the highlights of our 2009 conference on happiness at work in Copenhagen was Dr. Srikumar S. Rao’s wonderfully inspiring and funny presentation.
His presentation focused specifically on two traps you must avoid, that keep us from becoming happy.
Dr. Rao is the man behind the pioneering course Creativity and Personal Mastery, the only business school course that has its own alumni association and it has been extensively covered in the media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Times, the Independent, Time, the Financial Times, Fortune, the Guardian, Business Week and dozens of other publications.
The Free Help Guy (2015): Happiness is… helping others.
The Free Help Guy has devoted a large part of his life to helping others – free and anonymously.
He believes in doing what you can for others, that value doesn’t look like coins and notes and that for every problem there is at least one solution.
He also believes in anonymity rather than self promotion and in living by your beliefs, which is why you can’t see his face in the video.
Does your organization help every single employee know their strong sides AND apply them more at work? Do people know and respect their coworkers’ personalities and preferences? Do you know what makes your coworkers happy or unhappy at work?
Steve Shapiro, the author of 24/7 Innovation and Best Practices Are Stupid takes participants at our 2011 conference through a game of Personality Poker, showing the 4 main personalities at work and what makes each of them happy or unhappy.
Henry Stewart (2016): 3 advanced tips for creating a happy workplace
Henry Stewart is the founder of Happy, a company in London that does computer and happiness trainings. They are also (naturally) a very happy workplace.
In this speech, Henry shares 3 advanced tips for creating a happy workplace:
Let employees choose their boss
Give pre-approval on big projects
Let employees set their own goals
Bonus video: The world’s happiest DJ (2015)
This isn’t a speech as such but it is one of our favorite moments from the conferences.
This is a German DJ who became famous on youtube a few years ago for being incredibly happy while playing. He used that as a springboard to quit the day job that he hated and become a full-time DJ.
In this video from our 2015 conference he plays a very short set and then shares his story.
Meet a man who had the courage to go his own way and became world famous for being happy at work.
Here’s a thought experiment for you: Imagine two sales people working for the same company but in different regions.
Johnson slaves away in her area. She does a great job, she’s a professional and accomplished sales rep and she’s always ready to help her clients and colleagues. However, due to circumstances beyond her control she doesn’t reach her sales target this quarter. Maybe her biggest account goes bankrupt or maybe there’s just less economic activity in her region.
Smith, on the other hand, is lazy. He is not very competent and he never bothers to go the extra mile to help his colleagues or his clients. But due to circumstances beyond his control he achieves his sales target nonetheless that quarter. Maybe a big order drops in completely by chance, or maybe the growth in his region is increasing, or maybe his sales target just wasn’t ambitious enough from the start.
Which of the two deserves praise and recognition? Johnson, who does a great job, but performs below target or lazy Smith, who just got lucky this budget year?
To me it’s pretty obvious that it’s both better, more fair and more helpful to the future results of the company to acknowledge and reward the employees who have delivered the bigger effort.
And of course most companies do the opposite and reward only results, partly because results are easier to measure, but also because of we have a systematic bias for underestimating the ‘luck’-factor.
Daniel Kahneman is the only psychologist who’s been awarded a Nobel Prize. However he won it in economics, since there is no Nobel Prize in psychology. He got the prize for his work with identifying how humans make decisions and founding the field of behavioral economics.
One of the intriguing results of his research is that we highly underestimate the impact that luck has in many situations, and we massively overestimate the effects of our own actions. Good results are often due to luck (at least in part), but we choose to take credit for them anyway.
It’s extremely demotivating to those employees who have made an extra effort but don’t get recognition for it, to stand by and see their less competent (but luckier) colleagues receive both accolades and financial rewards.
Some companies try to solve the problem by creating more complicated bonus structures, but that’s rarely a good solution. Experience shows that bonus schemes are either so simple that they’re almost sure to be unfair to somebody, or so complicated that no one can make heads or tails of them. The study also shows that bonus schemes and rewards on the whole lead to poorer results, less motivation and inferior efforts. I’ve blogged about this before in this column.
To me the solution is simple: Leaders must focus just more on the effort of employees than on just their results. We must recognize not only those who reach their goals, but especially those who do an amazing job and even more so those who help others to become better at their job.
One great example if this is the New York-based company Next Jump. Their most important and prestigious employee award is not given based on performance but based on who helps others the most. In this video you can see their 2014 awards ceremony:
It’s not so straightforward, as results tend to be more measurable and visible. Encouraging a great effort will require that we as leaders have more insight and show more interest in our employees’ daily work. However there are three good reasons why we should do it anyway, even if it’s more demanding on us.
Effort is not reliant on luck
While good results may be due to luck, great effort is always due to the employee’s talents and attitude – and those employees who consistently demonstrate and improve skills, should clearly be recognized and celebrated.
A strong effort will – in the long run – always lead to better results
It’s no good if we only optimize for this quarterly result. We are optimizing for the next 20 or 30 quarterly results.
We avoid suboptimization
If we only recognize the employee’s results, we’re creating a culture in which we’ll do anything to obtain results – instead of doing what’s right for the clients and for the long term targets of the company. If I only get rewards for achieving my own sales targets, why on earth should I spend time and effort helping my colleagues?
The upshot
So leaders must encourage and acknowledge effort rather than results. In the long run it will create more fairness, more motivation and – ironically – better results.
Your take
What is valued most in your workplace – results or efforts? What does that approach do for your motivation and engagement? How has it affected you and your coworkers?
We are always looking for cool new ways to create happiness at work, and one of our clients just came up with one that is not only fun but without a doubt the cutest we’ve seen so far.
We got this email from Mikkel from Advice, one of our clients in Denmark:
I work at Advice – a communications company with 120 employees. We recently booked a keynote with Arlette from Woohoo Inc. which gave us a lot of inspiration to increase happiness at work with big and small initiatives throughout the company.
One coworker was particularly inspired by the idea of doing random acts of workplace kindness, so she persuaded her team leader to let her arrange a happiness café one regular grey October afternoon.
Here, coworkers found 8 cute Golden Retriever puppies as well as coffee and a huge cake buffet. Everyone got a chance to pet and play with one of the cute little furballs and the event was “the talk of the town” all over the company.
What a cool and fun idea. Here are some more photos to give you a sense of the event:
Would this work in your workplace? Have you ever done something similar? How do you create happiness at work?
Big news: Every year since 2009 we’ve held a conference on happiness at work in Copenhagen. The events have been incredibly popular but also limited in scope because most of the talks were in Danish.
That’s about to change, because this year’s conference will be international, with all the talks and workshops held in English.
We have a great lineup of speakers and sessions. May 18 is a full conference day and May 19 is in-depth workshops. Check out the full program here.
The conference is for leaders, HR people and others who want valuable knowledge and effective tools that they can apply right away to make their organizations happier and more successful.
So grab this chance to visit the world’s happiest country for a truly unique, fun, valuable and intense conference experience.
To get a sense of the event, watch this video from our 2013 conference:
“My father used to have an expression. He’d say, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community.”
The beginning of a new year is a great time to take stock of your work life. Were you happy or unhappy at work? What would you like to change?
It’s important to evaluate because how you feel at work has such a large influence on you at work AND at home. When you’re happy at work, you have better job performance and more career success. You also have better health and a happier private life.
Unfortunately most people look back and think exclusively in terms of what went wrong. The things they should have done. They goals they ought to have achieved. The progress that didn’t come.
We gain much of our happiness at work (and in life) by appreciating the good things we have and do. Sure, you should also make sure to improve your circumstances and address any problems but it is just as important to be able to appreciate the things that do work.
This is hard. Negativity bias is one of the most well-established psychological phenomena and it means quite simply that our minds devote more mental focus and cognition to the bad than the good. Our thoughts automatically go to problems, annoyances, threats and fears but remembering and appreciating the good in our lives takes effort and focus.
We think you can achieve much more by turning that around 180 degrees, so here’s our suggestion for a little new year’s exercise in happiness at work.
Think back at your work life in 2016 and answer the following 10 questions. It works best, if you take some time to do it and if you write down your answers:
What went really well for you at work in 2016?
What did you do that you were proud of?
Who did you make a difference for at work?
What new skills have you learned professionally?
How have you grown and developed personally at work?
Who has helped you out at work in 2016?
Who have you admired professionally?
Which 5 things from your work life in 2016 would you like more of in 2017?
Which 5 things from your work life in 2016 would you like less of in 2017?
What will you specifically do to become happier at work in 2017?
Most people think that they must work hard to become successful – and that success will make them happy. They’re most likely wrong.
So this year, make happiness at work your #1 career goal – because being happy at work will make you more successful in your career.
“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.
Get our books
“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
Get Our Free Newsletter
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.
