By the way – if you have half a chance, you should absolutely go to this conference. I’ve been to every single one of the WorldBlu events and they are the best business conferences I know of anywhere in the world.
They’re about creating workplaces that are based on freedom instead of control and the speakers always blow my mind. Also, the other participants are incredibly interesting and inspiring people.
A few weeks ago I did a workshop for a pharmaceutical company in Iceland called Medis as part of their 30 year anniversary and strategy kick-off. As you can see, they kinda liked it :) The guy in the front row in the blue suit is their CEO Valur Ragnarsson.
Now, as we all know a workshop itself changes nothing so we always work with our clients to come up with a plan that will actually make a difference in the workplace. As part of that plan, I challenged Valur to come up with something he could do that would be fun, easy and visible – just to show people that he is committed to creating a happy workplace.
And a few days later he sent me these pics where he’s making fresh waffles and pancakes for his employees:
What an awesome idea :)
I asked Valur how he liked the experience and here’s what he said:
I thoroughly enjoyed it – the biggest joy I actually got out of observing the reaction of the colleagues !
FYI we did not announce anything but simply showed up in the corridor without notice and took people pleasantly bysurprise….. now it will boil down to a plan and team supporting this (which we have in place already btw).
The only problem was that the smoke alarm kept going off, so they had to temporarily disable it :)
Well done, Valur!
Just to be clear: We’re not saying that you can turn an unhappy workplace into a happy one, by having the CEO make pancakes :)
What we’re saying is that upper management can support the process of creating a happy workplace by doing something fun and unexpected that shows employees that they are committed to the goal and willing to go a little bit outside of their comfort zone.
Here’s an excerpt from a speech I did in London where I focused on creating world class customer service by making your employees happy.
The video text is in Danish but the video itself is in English :)
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants.
The question is what are we busy about?”
– Henry David Thoreau
Get the slides right here.
Are people in your workplace busy? Dumb question, right – everyone is these days.
Here are the results of one US study from 2005:
And this was 10 years ago – indications are that it’s only gotten worse since.
This constant busyness is not only making us unhappy and stressed at work, it’s also hurting performance and keeping us form doing our best possible work.
Join our next free webinar to learn what we can do about it. Topics include:
Date and time: Wednesday March 4th at noon US East coast time / 9am pacific time / 5pm GMT / 6pm Central European time.
Music makes some people happy at work – and this cop is definitely one of them :)
I especially like how he has to look serious whenever he passes someone – and then busts lose right after!
Over the years I’ve been getting countless emails from people all over the world saying essentially the same thing:
“I love what you’re doing – is there any way I can be part of it?”
So far the answer has always been “Sorry, no” but starting today the answer is “HELL YEAH!” because the Woohoo Partner Program is now open for business!
The basic idea is simple: You can get access to all of the materials that we have created and refined over the years with clients like LEGO, Microsoft, IKEA and Shell and use them to go create happy workplaces.
You can use all of these materials as an external consultant with your clients or you can use them internally with employees, managers and teams inside your organization to make it a happier workplace.
We’re already working with our first partners in Istanbul to help them make Turkish workplaces happier.
Here’s a short video introducing the program:
I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about this. Our dream is to have hundreds of partners all over the world united in a vibrant, generous, passionate community working towards the vision of a world where happiness at work is the rule and not the exception.
Read all about the Woohoo Partner Program here and let me know if you have any questions.
UPDATE: We announced the program 2 days ago and we already have applications from potential partners in Denmark, Norway, USA, Australia, Argentina, Turkey and South Africa. Keep’em coming – we want more partners from these countries and all over the world!
We are days away from launching our partnership program – we call it Woohoo Partners.
If I write a short e-book about quitting your job, what should I call it?
Here are the best ideas from when I asked the same question on Facebook:
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