The Chief Happiness Officer
Make Yourself and Your Business Happy At Work
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Christmas special: Get my book for only $12.99
I want to celebrate the incredible success I’ve been having this year AND to celebrate the upcoming holidays, so I’ve reduced the price of my book Happy Hour is 9 to 5 from $29 to $12.99. I’ve also reduced the price of the pdf e-book to from $19 to $5.99. This offer is good only until Christmas - click here to get it. The book has been doing very well. The Danish translation is a huge hit - it’s on the top 10 list of management books. It is also out in Dutch and Spanish... |
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Finding your calling - The Youngest Grocer In America
This inspired the heck out of me: According to Amy Wrzesniewski, an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Yale School of Management, there are three ways you can approach your work. A job - You do it for the money. A career - You do it to advance and get ahead. A calling - You do it because it gives you a sense of fulfilment. Want to take a guess how the young man in the video above sees his work? |
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WorldBlu Live: The Best Business Conference EVER
This year’s WorldBlu Live 2008 conference was without any doubt the best business conference I have ever attended. First of all, the topic itself is ground-breaking. The world needs democracy at work. We need workplaces that are more open, inclusive, democratic and positive. Secondly, the content at this event was unique. You will not hear this stuff at any other conference. Finally, the people were amazing. The place was overrun with smart, nice, passionate people. Karl Staib (who I finally... |
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I’m getting married :o)
Today’s big news has nothing to do with happiness at work and everything to do with happiness in life: This weekend I proposed to my wonderful girlfriend Patricia and she said yes. Here are some pictures. Yes, I’m wearing an Elvis costume - it was a Vegas party :o) We will marry October 1st. 2009 - in Las Vegas. Woooo-hoooooooooooooooo :o) |
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May the happiest candidate win
Politics aside, last night the most positive of the two US presidential candidates won. This is no coincidence, as research by Martin Seligman shows: Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania have measured what they call the level of pessimism in the nomination acceptance speeches by candidates in 1948 and in every succeeding Presidential campaign. They found that, with one exception, the more optimistic candidate won. It is not clear, however, whether a hopeful message alone leads to victory... |
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Lots and lots (and lots) of links about happiness at work
Today we’re launching yet another resource for happiness at work (in addition to our Facebook app and our Twitter account): The Happy at Work Link Collection. It’s based on the popular link sharing site reddit (where I waste waaaaaay too much time), and this is where we’ll be posting all the cool, interesting and funny links we find about happiness at work. You can of course read all those stories, but if you sign up as a user on reddit (which is free) you can also vote stories... |
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Author cites happiness as crucial to successful and profitable workplace
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... |
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Great job ad
I’ve often said that a company’s job ads are a great way of showing what kind of business you’re running and of attracting the right kind of people. This ad does it brilliantly: Click for a larger version . The “Mr. Stabby” line alone is priceless :o) What do you think - do job ads with personality attract or repulse you? |
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WorldBlu Live 2008: This year’s most exciting business conference
I’ll be speaking at WorldBlu Live 2008 (October 16+17 in New York), the best and most exciting business conference I know. The theme is Democratic Organizations, i.e. organizations that believe in and practice freedom, openness, transparency and engagement instead of top-down, command-and-control management. There will be some GREAT speakers there - I particularly look forward to hearing Bill Taylor, Tim Sanders and Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, Co-authors of the best-selling Why Work... |
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Yet another happy company: Pret A Manger
Samantha Wood interviews Pret A Manger’s Head of Communications, Jay Chapman, and she is more than happy to divulge some of their secrets of success. I especially love the opening: She tells me she’d love to have a scary sounding formula to impress people with, but in her mind it’s all pretty simple stuff: “If you treat your employees well and involve them in the decisions that will affect them, they’re much more likely to be engaged in carrying out the effects of those decisions.” There’s... |
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Change with a smile
Why must change in organizations be so hard? No company can thrive and survive if it can’t adapt and innovate and yet there’s an almost universal cry going up today that “change is tough and takes too much time and energy!” You’ll have upper management on one side pushing for innovation, employees on the other side clinging to the old ways and middle managers caught (where else?) in the middle trying to actually get stuff done. Sound familiar? My work with organizations... |
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Happiness on The Daily Show
I am away on another week of vacation in EuroDisney, Paris and Nice. Yes, it sucks to be me :o) While I’m gone please enjoy this great interview from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart with Tal Ben-Shahar, the author of Happier. |