As you may know, my first book Happy Hour is 9 to 5 has just been republished in English.
I’m currently looking to get as many reviews for it on Amazon in the next 24 hours as possible, so if you’ve read it, could you possibly go on there and review it? That would be awesome!
And if you could even repeat that on Amazon UK, that would be even better :)
Link to the book on Amazon.
Link to the book on Amazon UK.
THANKS – you rock!
Woohoo – it’s Monday. What 3 things are you looking forward to at work this week?
I’ll go first:
1: I’m giving a speech tomorrow at Danish wind turbine company Vestas
2: Thursday and Friday we’re taking a group of Danish managers to London to visit some of the best UK workplaces
3: Saturday I fly to Antigua where I’m giving to speeches next week
What about you? Leave a comment!
This is hilarious. Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation explains how he prefers to create workplace relationships:
“We still never talk sometimes” cracks me up every time.
I’m famous :-) This commercial is currently running on Danish TV and so far I’ve been recognized from it twice.
The ad is for a Danish union called Krifa, who distinguish themselves by focusing more on creating great work lives for their members and less on creating an adversarial relationship with employers.
Translation for non-Danes: “Our work lives change constantly, and we should be happy all along. In association with krifa, I’ve created podcasts, trainings, an ebook and a film that you can use to create more happiness and better results. See the film on krifa.dk.”
I recently had a chance to visit PEER1 hosting in Southampton in southern England and talk to their CEO Dominic Monkhouse about their culture.
PEER1 does hosting for big web sites and have around 120 employees in the UK. They have a very clear vision for creating customer happiness, and have realized that this is only possible when you have happy employees.
There are many cool aspects of their culture (here’s an excellent video where Dom explains it), but the most visible is how cool their office space is. First of all, it’s on the docks in Southampton with beautiful views over the water – but they’ve also gone out of their way to introduce many great-looking, fun and functional elements.
Here are my photos from a seeeeeriously cool workplace.
We’ve shared lots of ways to create more happiness at work – but now it’s your turn to get creative.
Your mission this Monday is to:
All clear? Awesome. Go!
The articles on this blog have been viewed more than 10,000,000 times. I can hardly believe it. Here are the 10 most popular of all time.
10: Top 5 reasons why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong
The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909. Ironically it often leads to unhappy employees and bad customer service. Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.
9: Ten seeeeeeriously cool workplaces
Physical space matters. It’s easier to be productive, creative and happy at work in a colourful, organic, playful environment than in a grey, linear, boring one. Take a tour of 10 really cool, beautiful workplaces.
8: How NOT to lead geeks
The main reason IT people are unhappy at work is bad relations with management, often because geeks and managers have fundamentally different personalities, professional backgrounds and ambitions. See the top 10 mistakes IT managers make.
7: Secret salaries are a baaaaaad idea
It’s a golden rule in most businesses that salaries must be kept secret. Except for a few heretics, it is almost universally accepted that mayhem would ensue in the workplace if people knew what their co-workers, their managers or – gasp – the CEO was making. Making salaries open inside a company instead seems like a wild idea sure, but it makes a lot of sense and brings advantages for both the workplace and for its people.
6: Top five business maxims that need to go
Much well-known business advice is sadly obsolete but can still be found in articles, business books and, not least, in daily use in the workplace. The worst of these old maxims are not only wrong, they’re bad for people and bad for business. Here’s my pick of the top 5 business maxims in serious need of an update – with a replacement for each.
5: Rewards don’t motivate. No, really, they don’t.
Many people don’t feel motivated at work, and there’s a very simple explanation for this: The motivational techniques used by most managers don’t work.
4: Top ten bad excuses for staying in a job you hate
If you’re unhappy at work, I’m sure that the thought “Man, I really should quit!” crosses your mind occasionally. So why don’t you? Here are 10 of the most common bad excuses for staying in a crappy job.
3: 12 ways to pimp your office
I’m not going to claim that a fancy desk or a weird chair is going to magically improve your creativity and productivity – but I am damn sure, that all that sameness and eternal corporate grayness, does nothing good for your ability to come up with great new ideas. Here are some ways to spruce up a workplace that may actually inject some color and fun into your work environment.
2: Top ten signs you’re unhappy at work
How do you know that you’re unhappy at work? In my work, I talk to a lot of people who are not happy with their jobs. Here are the top ten symptoms of unhappiness at work that I’ve observed. How many apply to you?
1: Don’t let The Cult of Overwork ruin your life
I know it’s normal to view people working constant overtime as heroes of the organization. But still I think they would be more efficient and enjoy life more if they cut down their time at work. They may find that they become more open, less stressed, have more fun AND are better role models for their employees. This cult of overwork has got to stop.
I’ll be keynoting at the People Innovation Summit in Moscow on May 19-21.
In preparation for that, I did a short video interview with them, where I talk about the link between happiness and business success. Check it out – it summarizes the idea of happiness at work from a business perspective quite well.
I’ve written a lot about the obsession companies have with tracking and increasing employees’ working hours – based on the myth that working more hours leads to better results.
But the clearest and most concise commentary on this comes from Zach Holman of American software company GitHub, who puts it like this:
Hours are bullshit!
I could not agree more. Stop focusing on hours worked and start focusing on results delivered. And realize that there is not a linear relationship between the two.
Read more about what makes GitHub an awesome workplace here.
There are boring offfices, cool offices and offices that just take your breath away!
In December we got a tour of dPOP in Detroit and what we saw there blew us away completely.
This is hardly surprising – dPOP’s business is to design office spaces for their clients – but still, this space was beyond awesome.
Here are a few of the pics we took at one seeeeeeriously cool office.
Why NOT have a space suit in your lobby?
The office is in an old bank vault and the vault doors are still there.
Inside the vault is this amazing meeting room.
This meeting table spins like one of those playground carousels.
Besides your desk, there are many other places to meet and work.
Another vault door.
Behind which is another meeting room.
They’ve kept all the safe deposit boxes, many of which are still locked.
These shelves contain objects found during the renovation, arranged by two local artists.
This mural was chiseled into the concrete wall by an artist.
Another meeting space.
Not only is dPOP’s own HQ cool, the spaces they’ve designed for their clients are just amazing. You can see some of their work here.
I’m not going to claim that redecorating the office space is a surefire way to create a happy workplace. I’ve seen some very unhappy workplaces, that had beautiful bright airy office spaces but completely toxic cultures. I’ve also seen incredibly happy workplaces, whose offices look like crap.
But I still think that office design matters. And on a more fundamental level, why does every workplace have to look the same? Why does every office or meeting room inside a company have to look the same? We know that our minds thrive on variety and I think you can let the office design reflect that.
What do you think of dPOP’s office? How does the look compare to your office? What are some things you love about the design of your workplace? What are some things that just don’t work?
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