The latest edition of our free Happy at Work Newsletter just went out with these headlines:
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“We all want to live in a democratic country. None of us would accept living under totalitarian rule. So why do we accept that many workplaces are run like dictatorships?”
Traci Fenton is the founder and CEO of WorldBlu, an organization that helps workplaces around the world become more democratic and less based on “command and control”.
WorldBlu also publishes an annual list of the world’s most democratic workplaces. The 2010 list was announced in Las Vegas in June and we were there for the event, where some of the companies that made the list presented. It was incredibly inspiring to hear from companies like Davita and Zappos how they practice democracy.
From our standpoint it’s also interesting to see that democratic workplaces are also invariably happy workplaces. We are much happier at work when we feel that we are part of creating the future of the company, rather than just footsoldiers who must always follow orders.
Traci gave a great talk at our annual conference on happiness at work in Copenhagen in 2009. Click on the video above to watch Traci’s entire talk (17 minutes). In it she:
If you’d like to put your organization on the path to democracy, you can become a member – and eventually even apply to be on the WorldBlu list.
Is your workplace a democracy or a dictatorship? Are you in on vital information and important decisions or are you kept in the dark? Do you even want democracy in the workplace, or is it easier when a few people make all of the decisions? Please write a comment, I’d love to know your take.
I’m now back from Vegas and the WorldBlu Award celebrating the world’s most democratic companies (it was fantastic – more later) and it’s now time for this week’s Friday Spoing:
Have a happy weekend!
We have a new partner in crime! Or rather in happiness :o)
We’ve been emailing with Karl Staib for a while now, and we finally got a chance to meet him at the WorldBlu conference in New York in October ’08.
Here’s a short piece that Karl wrote to introduce himself. If you need a US-based speaker on happiness at work, Karl’s your man! Karl will also be guest blogging here over the next couple of weeks while I’m om vacation snowboarding in Whistler!!.
Karl of Work Happy Now
Alex asked me to introduce myself because I’ve been helping spread the work happiness message. I’ve learned a lot from talking to Alex and reading his book and blog. He introduced me to the concept of happiness at work and the importance of creating an atmosphere that encourages great work and fun at the same time.
I’ve struggled with working happy at most of my jobs. It’s why I started Work Happy Now. I knew there was a better way to work instead of enduring the torture I had been through. I researched books, websites, and online video (before YouTube kicked in).
I found Alex’s site and was floored by the content. I literally fell back in my chair. There was a likeminded person who was actually making a difference within organizations! I got up out of my seat and did a little happy dance. I found my passion. I wanted to help people work happier. It wasn’t that quick and easy to find my passion, but just know that Alex lit the fuse.
So after years of research (business books, personal development books, interviews and my own internal discoveries) I created “Work Happy Now” over a year ago and have been going strong ever since.
I’ve committed to going out and helping people who struggle at work like I had done. Work happiness should be available to all of us. There are so many tools at our disposal. We are living in a golden age of work. Managers can’t just tell us to shut up and do our work. Well they can, but most managers take our feelings into account.
There are companies like Google, Southwest airlines, and Starbucks that are leading the employee revolution. They know that a happy employee will produce better results, stay at their job longer, and care about the success of the company.
According to Alex, and I agree, we need to focus on two main themes when trying to improve our working environment:
Results
Relationships
When we have a chance to accomplish great work and do it with people we like, our work becomes more enjoyable.
Alex has a brilliant quote in is his presentation:
“Each individual should work for himself. No one wants to sacrifice himself for the company. People come to work in the company to enjoy themselves.”
– Soichiro Honda
Companies can truly thrive when they can start caring about their employees’ emotional needs, and stop the faulty thinking that as long as they pay their employees they will work hard.
I will be giving work happiness presentations using Alex’s time tested techniques. I’ve made his presentation my own, changing a few things here and there, but never veering off from the core concepts.
If you are interested in hiring me to come to your company, please visit my “Hire Me” page and let me help your company improve its happiness and productivity.
Alex has been a huge help in guiding me through the beginning phases of getting my speaking career off the ground. So if you want to hire me while I’m still a bargain, you should act now. My rates won’t stay low for very long.
For those of you who are not quite ready to bring me in to your organization, you can always check out Work Happy Now and sign up for email updates. That way you can stay updated on the latest ideas (my blog has a different twist than Alex’s blog) and improve your work happiness from additional angles.
2008 for me has been the best year ever. So much interesting stuff has been happening that to even start to summarise it here is almost meaningless. Suffice it to say, that 2008 seemed to zoom by because so many cool things were always going on but now that I look back on it, it seems like a loooong year indeed.
Here are just a few highlights:
I have taken less time for blogging than I’d like and will prioritize it more in 2009! Blogging is seriously one of the most inspiring, productive, fun and useful things I do – particularly because so many nice people read along and take time to give feedback.
Now I’m off to some Christmas celebrations (yes, Christmas is on the 24th. in Denmark) and then on to a week of snowboarding in the French Alps. In the meantime, you might enjoy some of my previous favourite posts on the blog or maybe some of the quickly growing number of links in the happy at work link collection.
But most importantly: I wish you and your loved ones a very happy Christmas and a spectacular new year.
I got this in an email today:
You know, if we all lived in a comic book, your super power would be making people happy. You really do have a knack.
Thanks Greg, that would be my super power of choice :o)
Interestingly, though I am a comic book fan, I can’t think of a single superhero or -villain who has that particular power. There are plenty that can generate fear – but none that have happiness as their primary talent.
Maybe the time has come for… Happyman!
Another email came in from Rodney North from Equal Exchange who also spoke at the best business conference ever (WorldBlu Live in New York):
I just wanted you to know that one, good thing that I definitely got from the WorldBlu conference was your talk. More specifically it was the importance of making eye contact, and maybe a touch, and saying — and really meaning — “good morning” to my colleagues.
It has, of course, made a positive difference for me, and I think to others, too.
It’s like I always say: Happiness at work is not rocket science. It doesn’t come from reports, strategies, policies or white papers – it comes from the little things that you and I do here and now. Of course stuff like saying good morning and making eye contact is banal – that’s why it works!
I’m is quoted in this article as saying that:
a happy work environment is no longer a luxury – but essential to creating a successful and profitable workplace.
The concept is simple but challenging for many workplaces, which still buy into a “protestant work ethic,” according to Kjerulf, who is an international speaker and business consultant on the subject.
“There is a pervasive sense that work is tough, hard and unpleasant – and that’s why you get paid to work.”
The article is released in the run-up to the WorldBlu Live 2008 conference in New York on October 16+17 where I’ll be speaking. If you haven’t signed up yet, go do it now – it’s this year’s best and most inspiring business conference.
I have some very interesting gigs coming up – including some international ones.
Here are the ones I look forward to the most:
May 21st: Personal Innovation, Copenhagen
I’m putting on a half-day conference right here in Copenhagen about being innovative on a personal level. I will speak and so will Steven Shapiro, Gareth Garvey and Lotte Heise.
Read all about it and sign up here.
June 16+17: Festival In The Workplace, Nassau
This conference is about introducing the experiences, methods and energy of the world’s festivals (like carnivals) into the workplace.
See their brochure and sign-up info here: page 1, page 2.
Yes – my work forces me to go the Bahamas. I have it tough :o)
October 16+17: WorldBlu Live, New York
This one is going to be amazing! It’s all about making our organizations democratic and freedom-based rather than command-and-control and fear-based.
The WorldBlu conference two years ago is still one of the best business events I’ve ever attended!
Read all about this year’s conference and sign up here.
November 5: Thoughts on Happiness Symposium, Baarn, The Netherlands
Some of the premier European happiness researchers and advocates are speaking at this event and I can’t wait to be a part of it. It’s going to be fairly intimate with only room for 120 participants, which always improves a conference.
Read all about it and sign up here.
… and now the hint
And finally the vague hint: On Monday I will release a brand-new tool that is cool, fun and even (gasp!) potentially useful. Stay tuned! Further hinting: Facebook!
Over at the WorldBlu blog, Traci Fenton has another great post – this one on how we design our organizations.
Traci does amazing work in creating democratic workplaces, and she increasingly sees companies introducing democracy in the workplaces:
…entrepreneurs and business leaders take note — you need to spend as much energy and time thinking about the design of your employee experience as you do about your next big idea.
When I talk about good workplace design I’m not talking about open floor plans in offices or traditional this-is-what-makes-a-great-place-to-work programs. I’m talking about designing an employee experience that engages people body and soul in meaningful interactions and meaningful work. The traditional design of business — call it command-and-control, authoritarian, hierarchal, etc. – can’t, by design, achieve this goal. But workplace democracy does, which is why I believe democratically designed organizations are future of work.
Democracy at work! I love it! If democracy is so great in society, then why are many businesses still run like third-world dictatorships?
But what is democracy at work? Here’s a quote from Traci’s recent op-ed article in the Christian Science Monitor:
What is a democratic workplace? It’s one that uses freedom rather than fear, peer-to-peer relationships rather than paternalism, engagement rather than estrangement. Beyond giving employees a vote, it’s about giving them a real voice in the decisions that impact their job and the organization.
This isn’t some keep-your-fingers-crossed-and-hope- they-make-the-right-choice way of working; it’s understanding that democracy is the way you tap the full creative potential of your employees to solve the problems you created your organization to fix. It’s understanding that the traditional hierarchical workplace structures that operated on disengagement and the delusion of control are now a recipe for defeat in today’s collaborative world.
Go check out WorldBlu some more and seriously consider whether your company should be on the WorldBlu list of democratic workplaces.
Sally Hogshead has a great post called How to be an anarchist that opens with these words:
They’re lighting the town square ablaze, running amok through the embassies, yanking down statues and looting the stores.
Who? Your consumers. And if you’re smart, you’ll grab a torch and join them.
Sally’s post is mostly about anarchy in media – about:
…the power shift from established forms of information to consumer-directed content. From encyclopedias to Wikipedia. From publishing to blogs. From movie theaters to iPod screens. From retail locations to pop-up stores. And in case you hadn’t noticed, from traditional paid media to all those new forms of digital media spawning like bunnies.
But I believe business anarchy has a much wider scope, and that it’s time for us to break away from the old mental model that defines a company as a way to control employees.
The time has come for the radical company.
What does that mean? To paraphrase Paolo Freire:
The radical company, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a “circle of certainty” within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the company is, the more fully it enters into reality so that, knowing it better, the company can better transform it.
This company is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This company is not afraid to meet the people or enter into dialogue with them. This company does not consider itself the proprietor of history of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but it does commit … to fight at their side.
Freire was talking about the radical human – I’ve rewritten his quote to talk about the radical business and it still makes perfect sense. To make a company happy you must be willing to be radical, to commit the company to the employees’ freedom.
Also, you must be willing to do this against business tradition and against the advice and recommendations of people who just don’t get it.
My good friends at WorldBlu make a living teaching organizations to be more democratic and they recently published their 2007 list of most democratic companies. This list shows that companies that are run democratically, with few remnants of the old, military-style, hierarchical, command and control structures perform better and more efficiently today.
They’re also happier workplaces because we like freedom. We like being able to take responsibility, make decisions and grow into leadership as fits us. On the other hand, we hate being stuck in bureaucracy, red tape, meaningless rules and endless power struggles.
A horrible case: Alabama A&M University who has this policy in case of a death in an employee’s family:
Staff members shall, upon request, be granted up to three (3) days annually of bereavement leave for the death of a parent, spouse, child, brother or sister, grand parents [sic], grand parents-in-law, grandchild, son or daughter-in-law, mother-in law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, step children, children-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and first and second cousins. Other relationships are excluded unless there is a guardian relationship. Such leave is non-accumulative, and the total amount of bereavement leave will not exceed three days within any fiscal year. If additional days of absences are necessary, employees may request sick or annual leave, after providing an explanation of extenuating circumstances.
(Via Gruntled Employees, who has some pointed words about this case :o)
A good case: Nordstrom’s, who only give their employees one rule:
Rule #1: In all situations, use your good judgement
In the excellent book The Second Cycle – Winning the War Against Bureaucracy, Lars Kolind wrote about how easy it is for companies to get stuck in a bureaucratic, controlling mindset – especially as they grow older, bigger or more successful. He also outlines his recipe for breaking out of this mindset, which includes A Collaborative Organization, i.e. one where leadership is distributed as much as possible.
Luckily, more and more companies are starting to realize that command and control style leadership:
My favorite example of a radical organization is still Semco in Brazil where (just to mention a few examples):
Radical companies give their employees more freedom and find that people become happy at work, and consequently are more engaged and productive. This also makes the company more profitable, which Semco has certainly found.
So making your company radical is not only fun it’s also good business.
And there has never been a better time for it. We’re richer, more educated and better informed than ever before in the history of mankind. We have the knowledge, the means, the tools and the drive to finally change business for good.
Our reward will be companies that are:
And to anyone who thinks “yeah, nice idea sure. Too bad it’s impossible” I refer you to this quote.
What do you think – would you like to work in a radical company? Have you tried it already? What was it like?
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