The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • “Happy Hour is 9 to 5” e-book is free in Portuguese

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    Happiness at work

    I recently spoke in Portugal at the amazing Talks 2.0 conference on Happiness and Creativity in the Workplace.

    At the event I announced that I would release the Portuguese translation of my first book “Happy Hour is 9 to 5” as a free e-book. Consider this my tiny contribution to workplace happiness and economic recovery in Portugal.

    So here it is – it’s a completely free and unprotected pdf which you may copy and send to as many people as you like.

    > Click here to get the book.

    Feel free to copy it far and wide:

    • Send it to everyone you know who is sad, frustrated or unhappy at work.
    • Send it to every manager who’d like to help create a happier and more successful workplace.
    • Send it to any politicians you know, so that they can help create better conditions for workplace happiness.
    • Send it to any journalists you know so they can help spread the message.

    I’m releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    This means that you may not change the e-book or make money off of it. Apart from that, go wild :o)

    Happy reading – and please let me know how you like it in a comment here.

  • Friday Spoing

    Creativity wins the race. I did NOT see that coming!

    Have a happy weekend :o)

  • The 2011 WorldBlu List has just been announced – and we’re on it. Woohoo!!

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    WorldBlu, an American company dedicated to promote democracy in the workplace, have just released their annual list of the world’s most democratic workplaces – and we’re on it.

    On this year’s list you’ll see companies like Davita, Groupon, Hulu and many other great companies who have based their organizations on freedom and democracy instead of command and control.

    If you scroll through the list, you will find our company sandwiched between WD-40 and Zappos.com. That’s what I call a place of honor :o) You can see the entire list here.

    This marks first year that you’ll find any Danish companies on the list, and you’ll find no less than three! Apart from us, there’s also our good friends at Podio, makers of the coolest collaboration software I know and Valtech, a large IT consulting company.

    The reason why we run our company democratically is simple: Democracy makes people happy and happy people do a better job. Because we run democratically, we are much better at fulfilling our vision of making many more people happy at work around the world.

    I’ll talk more about this at WorldBlu Live in San Francisco in May, where I’ll be speaking along with many fascinating and cool people. I have been to every single one of these and they are the very best business conferences I’ve been to. They even beat the TED conference for the sheer energy, inspiration and cool people you meet. You should sign up for the WorldBlu Live conference right now or you will miss out on something amazing.

    How about you? Is your workplace democratic? Are you involved in making decisions that impact youWould you like it to be?

  • A mind map for Happy Hour is 9 to 5

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    Billy Waters, a loyal reader, composed this mind map of my first book, Happy Hour is 9 to 5:


    Click image for full size

    Thanks Billy – it’s much appreciated :o)

  • Friday Spoing

    It’s amazing to see wild animals engage in a behavior which clearly has no purpose, except that it’s fun. And these otters are a prime example:

    Have a very happy weekend :o)

  • A simple way to focus on the positive at work

    Any job has good and bad things to it. Any job. Yours too. Maybe you kinda like your co-workers, you’re good at what you do and the food rocks – but on the other hand the commute is deadly and your boss is a bit of a jerk.

    Here’s the point: Even though all jobs contain good and bad elements, most people over focus on the bad things. In this 4-minute video I talk about why that is and what you can do about it. Click above to watch it.

    This is the first video in a series of five that we did for Danish enzyme producer Novozymes. They are already a great workplace, and as part of a campaign called “It’s Great to be a Zymer” wanted a simple, fun way to communicate the basic concepts of happiness at work to their employees in Denmark, China, USA and Brazil. So they hired us to do these videos, which their employees can access on the intranet. They have very kindly allowed us to share the videos with a wider audience.

  • Less than 100 tickets left for our conference on May 26 in Copenhagen

    Our annual conference about happiness at work will be held on May 26 in Copenhagen and if you’re thinking of going, you should probably book your tickets soon – there are now less than 100 left. Read all about it and buy tickets here.

    Info in Danish:
    Skal 2011 være jeres gladeste år nogensinde på arbejdspladsen? Vil du skabe mere arbejdsglæde og fremragende resultater i din organisation? Vil I af med højt sygefravær, stress og udbrændthed? Skal I have et ordentligt skud energi og engagement?

    På Arbejdsglæde Live! konferencen den 26. maj 2011 i København, oplever du, hvordan din organisation skaber meget mere arbejdsglæde og overskud.

    Vi har fundet nogle fantastisk inspirerende og engagerede talere til dagen, blandt andre:

    • Peter Mikkelsen – verdens bedste fodbolddommer i 90?erne og nu HR chef i Fona
    • Steve Shapiro – forfatter til Goal-free Living, 24/7 Innovation og Personality Poker
    • Cathy Busani – CEO i firmaet Happy, kåret som bedste arbejdsplads i UK i 2010
    • Den altid fantastiske Thyra Frank er igen klar til at vælte salen
    • Ole Stephensen er konferencier

    Læs mere om konferencen og køb billetter her.

  • I’m speaking in Portugal in May

    I’ve had to keep it secret for a while, but now it’s been announced that I’m the closing keynote speaker at the Talks 2.0 conference in Portugal on May 7.

    The conference is about happiness and creativity in your work life and the program looks absolutely amazing.

    Read all about it and sign up here.

  • Interview in Slovakian

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    I spoke at a conference in Bratislava last year and now there’s an interview with me about happiness at work in a Slovakian magazine. You can read the whole interview here.

  • A question for ya: New boss gets the cold shoulder

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    I’ve written a lot about bad bosses and what you should do if you work for one – but sometimes it’s the other way around.

    I recently got this email from a reader:

    Dear Alexander,

    I hope you don’t mind me off-loading on you, but I could really do with your advice.

    I have just started a new job as the Director of a department that has undergone significant restructuring. I do not have a predecessor as my role is brand new. However, I have inherited a team of 4, all older than me, with clear loyalties to the person who did a similar role before and left in very unpleasant circumstances.

    She had about 50% of my role, but only managed 2 of them. I am now responsible for the over-seeing of all 4 posts. The office that previously was independent is my biggest challenge. I am being given the complete cold shoulder. They don’t speak to me, make conversation, keep me informed and trying to get information from them is like trying to get blood from a stone.

    There are 3 women and 1 man. I am a woman, and my problems are with the women!

    What can I do? I feel miserable and scared I won’t be able to perform. I have the feeling I’m being set up for failure…

    I would really appreciate your advice.

    Interesting question and something I’m sure a lot of new managers face. What would you do?

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