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Happiness@work leadership lessons I have learned from the world’s greatest thinkers

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By Ingrid Ashwin | July 2013. Ingrid Ashwin is the Event Producer for The Progress Conference series.

For 20 years, Ingrid has built personal relations with the world’s top thought-leaders. By staying close to the local business community she has built a very real understanding of the challenges and opportunities required to create and grow value in South African organisations. In response to these requirements she has sought out and secured the participation of the most relevant thought leaders to inspire and develop new management competencies in marketing, leadership, human resources, strategy and finance.

 

Ingrid’s work has afforded her first hand personal insight to the thinking of Tom Peters the “uber-guru”, Professor Robert Kaplan, Harvard Business School, Professor Dave Ulrich, the leading HR authority, the late Steven Covey, Dr Edward de Bono, Philip Kotler, Rudi Giuliani, Richard Koch, Martin Lindstrom, Dr Martin Seligman, the pioneer of positive psychology and others. Most recently she is working with Ricardo Semler, Tal Ben-Shahar and Jessica Pryce-Jones to develop solutions for South African organisations to achieve happiness at work.

 

It is Ingrid’s belief that by refusing to accept the status quo we can achieve progress.

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During a recession we suggest that leaders face some new questions: “What makes work either stressful or engaging, rote or rich with meaning? In either good or bad times where do you and your people find meaning?  How do you foster abundance in people? How do you think the story of your work and your life might become a legacy of meaning for your and for others?” Professor Dave Ulrich.

 

The lessons I have learned from eight of the world’s greatest business thinkers.

 

They are unanimous on one thing. The business leaders most likely to succeed are those that expect and plan towards a business environment that will be very different in a few years’ time, never mind a decade of half century. The 20th century work model is no longer relevant and there is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its workforce and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees.

 

– Leaders DO People and kindness is free.

– Take care of the people. The people take care of the service. The service takes care of the customer. The customer takes care of the profit. The profit takes care of the reinvestment. The reinvestment takes care of the reinvention. The reinvention takes care of the future.

– Celebrate the small wins on your journey to the BIG wins.

– You hire adults – treat them like adults

– Corporate pyramids are the cause of much corporate evil. They emphasise power, promote insecurity, distort communications and make it difficult for the people who plan and the people who execute to move in the same direction.

– The “Seven Day Weekend” is not an elaborate game of hooky. Going AWOL is sometimes necessary. If we want people to do only the company work while they are in the office, shouldn’t we have corporate police to makes sure they are not working on weekends.

– Don’t tell your employees you trust them and then audit and search them when they go home.

– Don’t send your people on a motivational course – change their job and let them choose their own boss.

– Making meaning makes money.

– Put delight at the top of your list of contributors to meaning at work.

– Create tiny moments of appreciation.

– Notice something beautiful.

– Get a kick out of a shared joke.

– Cultivate moments of playfulness. Brainstorm sources of pleasure and fun.

– Build mental toughness, signature strengths and strong relationships.

– If your business involves setbacks. Risky decisions and problems hire optimists.

– For every negative piece of feedback your people need 3 positive inputs. It is 3:1 to sustain positive emotions and in turn resilience.

– When the going gets tough use your signature strengths.

happiness pays!

– Get people to experience positive emotions so they become more engaged in that they do, their creativity levels go up and relationships improve.

– Where there is democracy there is choice and without choice happiness is but impossible to attain.

– Encourage employees to take regular breaks for recovery to recharge their psychological batteries to fulfil their potential for creativity and productivity.

– happiness@work is not a flaky, happy- clappy new religion – it is a science.

– If you’re conscientious you’ll put in the hours, you will work hard at what you do but it may not make you happy. Engagement in isolation does not promote career and business success.

Give people the opportunity to raise issues that are important to them and to voice their perception that they are doing something worthwhile.

– Ask your people if they would be willing to recommend your organisation to a friend?

Gen X and Y people are likely to stay two years longer if they believe they are learning.

Let people do the work that puts them in “flow: – the feeling where the task is almost effortless and time passes by without them noticing.

– If your mind is dull you have no hope of impressing people in any situation. It doesn’t need a high IQ or reams of knowledge. All it needs is creativity, imagination and empathy.

– Life is something to be enjoyed and lived rather than a well of suffering to be endured on the way to better things.

– For 2400 years we have been obsessed with argument as a way of thinking. It has served us well but is ego driven and adversarial. When people think in parallel they look at the matter from the same point of view.

 

With final words of advice from Ricardo Semler, the CEO who leads the most unusual workplace with extraordinary financial success.

 

“The ostrich that buries its head in the sand has a bigger problem than limited vision; its rear end is an enormous target. It’s very simple – the repetition, boredom and aggravation that too many people accept as part of working can be replaces with joy, inspiration and freedom.”

How Leaders Create Value Through Meaning

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By Prof Dave Ulrich (dou@umich.edu)

This morning, people all over the planet got out of bed and got ready for work.  Some headed out before dawn in high-end cars to claim high-rise offices with high-tech computers and high-brow clients.  Some headed out before dawn to walk barefoot, wares on their head, to claim a choice spot in the dirt near the entrance to the village market.  Some people wrestled with the muses to create artistic masterpieces or solve perplexing scientific problems.  Some wrestled with boredom to complete their shifts at cash registers, call centers, or assembly lines.  Some pitched their resumes in business suits, looking for good benefits and a sure path to comfortable retirement.  Some made their pitch in ragged jeans on street corners, looking for someone to rent their muscles for at least the day.

Some people in every one of these and many other categories by which we could define work found abundance – meaning, purpose, even delight in their labor today. Other people in every category found world-weary tedium, frustration, and a sense of despair.

Which were you?

Which were the people you work with?

People find abundance or meaning in many settings – in the privacy of our homes and the expanses of nature, in churches, ballparks, and community centers, in family and friendship circles.  But work takes the lion’s share of our time and our energy.  We spend more time at work than at play, at family gatherings, at religious meetings, or at hobbies.  The organizations in which we labor are thus a primary setting for not only accomplishing assignments but for finding an abiding sense of abundance or meaning in life.  Work is a universal setting in which to fulfill our universal search for meaning.

We describe this as a meaning-making, value-creating, hope-building process for individual employees and for the leaders who coordinate their efforts.  In doing so we hope to structure the private conversations and inform the corporate decisions that shift deficit-driven thinking toward abundance at work.  Meaning or abundance is not only a prerogative for rich people, smart people, prestigious people, successful people.  Meaning or abundance is not only in short supply for poor people, mediocre people, struggling people, hurting people.  Great leaders recognize the vital importance of the search for meaning or abundance to everyone in their organization.  Including themselves.

Leaders have the task of creating a vision for their organizations that is charged with meaning – that resonates with not only the minds and hands but the hearts of those they lead.  Ultimately the crisis of meaning is always becomes a crisis of leadership.

Leaders must not only understand and experience but also institutionalize the creation of meaning at work.

This discussion provokes the following questions:

– How does employee meaning affect business results and leads to important business outcomes of customer service, investor results, and strategy execution.

– What is the role of the leader in creating employee meaning?  What is a clear definition of how leaders can and should create personal meaning in the workplace?

– How can leaders making meaning happen for employees?

– How can meaning be institutionalized in the workplace?  How do HR practices secure and sustain organization results?

Leaders need to move beyond statements about “employees are our most important asset” to showing why employee meaning leads to business results and how to make meaning happen.

How leaders create value through meaning

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By Prof Dave Ulrich (dou@umich.edu)

This morning, people all over the planet got out of bed and got ready for work.  Some headed out before dawn in high-end cars to claim high-rise offices with high-tech computers and high-brow clients.  Some headed out before dawn to walk barefoot, wares on their head, to claim a choice spot in the dirt near the entrance to the village market.  Some people wrestled with the muses to create artistic masterpieces or solve perplexing scientific problems.  Some wrestled with boredom to complete their shifts at cash registers, call centers, or assembly lines.  Some pitched their resumes in business suits, looking for good benefits and a sure path to comfortable retirement.  Some made their pitch in ragged jeans on street corners, looking for someone to rent their muscles for at least the day.

 

Some people in every one of these and many other categories by which we could define work found abundance – meaning, purpose, even delight in their labor today. Other people in every category found world-weary tedium, frustration, and a sense of despair.

 

Which were you?

 

Which were the people you work with?

 

People find abundance or meaning in many settings – in the privacy of our homes and the expanses of nature, in churches, ballparks, and community centers, in family and friendship circles.  But work takes the lion’s share of our time and our energy.  We spend more time at work than at play, at family gatherings, at religious meetings, or at hobbies.  The organizations in which we labor are thus a primary setting for not only accomplishing assignments but for finding an abiding sense of abundance or meaning in life.  Work is a universal setting in which to fulfill our universal search for meaning.

 

We describe this as a meaning-making, value-creating, hope-building process for individual employees and for the leaders who coordinate their efforts.  In doing so we hope to structure the private conversations and inform the corporate decisions that shift deficit-driven thinking toward abundance at work.  Meaning or abundance is not only a prerogative for rich people, smart people, prestigious people, successful people.  Meaning or abundance is not only in short supply for poor people, mediocre people, struggling people, hurting people.  Great leaders recognize the vital importance of the search for meaning or abundance to everyone in their organization.  Including themselves.

 

Leaders have the task of creating a vision for their organizations that is charged with meaning – that resonates with not only the minds and hands but the hearts of those they lead.  Ultimately the crisis of meaning is always becomes a crisis of leadership.

 

Leaders must not only understand and experience but also institutionalize the creation of meaning at work.

 

This discussion provokes the following questions:

– How does employee meaning affect business results and leads to important business outcomes of customer service, investor results, and strategy execution.

– What is the role of the leader in creating employee meaning?  What is a clear definition of how leaders can and should create personal meaning in the workplace?

– How can leaders making meaning happen for employees?

– How can meaning be institutionalized in the workplace?  How do HR practices secure and sustain organization results?

 

Leaders need to move beyond statements about “employees are our most important asset” to showing why employee meaning leads to business results and how to make meaning happen.

 

Ricardo Semler – Maverick or Lateral Thinker?

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By Nicola Tyler | 31 July 2013

“If we have a cardinal strategy that forms the bedrock of all these challenges, it’s “Ask Why?”.    Ask it all the time, and always ask it three times in a row.  This doesn’t come naturally.  People are conditioned to recoil from questioning too much.  First, it’s rude and dangerous.  Second, it may imply we are ignorant or uninformed.  Third, it means everything we think we know may not be correct or true.  Fourth, management is usually frightened by the prospect of employees who question continually.  But, mostly, it means putting aside all the rote or pat answers that have resulted from what I call ‘crystallized’ thinking, the state of mind where ideas have so hardened into inflexible and unquestioned concepts that they are no longer of any use.  Employees must be free to question, to analyze, to investigate, and a company must be flexible enough to listen to the answers.  Those habits are key to longevity, growth and profit. 

We don’t know if Semler ever attended a lateral thinking seminar, but what we do know is that Edward de Bono introduced us to a deliberate lateral thinking tool called Challenge.  A tool that asks the question “why?” – three times!  The challenge tool is brilliant for questioning businesses’ processes and systems, but can be applied to any traditional thinking.

Challenge is designed to question the status quo in a deliberate way but without attacking it.  The technique is simple to learn, yet despite its simplicity, we still tend to give up before the end.  In the de Bono approach, we would list our traditional thinking about a situation, what he terms a “Checklist of Current Thinking”.  Once you have that, you then ask Why in the same style that Semler does, but in a slightly more deliberate manner.

The first approach is to ask Why C?  The C stands for Cut.  Here we are questioning the necessity of something – do we really need it or could this be “cut” out so to speak.  If you consider a chair, you might challenge the legs of the chair.  Can we “cut” the legs?  In my work, I generally find that there are few things people are comfortable cutting:  often the Why C naturally leads the thinker to the next Why in the process.

Why B?  The B stands for Because and is intended to highlight the reasons why something is done in a particular way.  We do this ‘because…’.  Considering the chair example, chairs have legs because they provide support for the seat:  it’s a way of keeping the seat off the ground and creating height for comfort and style.    In the Challenge process, de Bono also encourages us to question the validity of these reasons.  Is style a valid reason?  Perhaps not.  Is a way of creating a height a valid reason?  Yes it is.  If it weren’t for the legs, the chair would be called a cushion.  It would just be a seat on the floor, and if it was a moulded seat, might even be more uncomfortable.

Which bring us to the last Why – Why A?  Here the A stands for Alternatives, and de Bono asks us to question is there another way – is there an alternative to legs, or could we seek to satisfy the reason in a new, different or better way.  The deliberate search for an alternative requires a positive mental attitude, (the basic belief that there may be a better way), as well as deliberate effort.  All too often we don’t even consider alternatives, for the same reasons that Semler states – you may be proven wrong, or perhaps even right.

João Vendramin, our 60-year old director emeritus, once asked a worker if he’d ever considered a different approach to his job.   ‘He answered that his boss told him to do it that way,’ Vendramin remembers.  ‘So I insisted.  He told me that once he had done this job differently, but his boss reprimanded him.  While trying to explain to his boss what happened he said, “I was thinking that….” To which his boss instantly replied, “Thinking?  You are not supposed to think.  I am the one who thinks here.”’

Source: The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler

Want to know more?  Ricardo Semler, Author of The Seven-Day Weekend and Maverick and CEO of Semco, one of Brazil’s top performing, privately owned companies, will be sharing his innovative thinking.  Visit www.theprogressconference.com for more information or call Ingrid on 011 463 9898.

Ricardo Semler – Maverick or Lateral Thinker?

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by Nicola Tyler | 31 July 2013

 

“If we have a cardinal strategy that forms the bedrock of all these challenges, it’s “Ask Why?”.    Ask it all the time, and always ask it three times in a row.  This doesn’t come naturally.  People are conditioned to recoil from questioning too much.  First, it’s rude and dangerous.  Second, it may imply we are ignorant or uninformed.  Third, it means everything we think we know may not be correct or true.  Fourth, management is usually frightened by the prospect of employees who question continually.  But, mostly, it means putting aside all the rote or pat answers that have resulted from what I call ‘crystallized’ thinking, the state of mind where ideas have so hardened into inflexible and unquestioned concepts that they are no longer of any use.  Employees must be free to question, to analyze, to investigate, and a company must be flexible enough to listen to the answers.  Those habits are key to longevity, growth and profit. 

 

We don’t know if Semler ever attended a lateral thinking seminar, but what we do know is that Edward de Bono introduced us to a deliberate lateral thinking tool called Challenge.  A tool that asks the question “why?” – three times!  The challenge tool is brilliant for questioning businesses’ processes and systems, but can be applied to any traditional thinking.

 

Challenge is designed to question the status quo in a deliberate way but without attacking it.  The technique is simple to learn, yet despite its simplicity, we still tend to give up before the end.  In the de Bono approach, we would list our traditional thinking about a situation, what he terms a “Checklist of Current Thinking”.  Once you have that, you then ask Why in the same style that Semler does, but in a slightly more deliberate manner.

 

The first approach is to ask Why C?  The C stands for Cut.  Here we are questioning the necessity of something – do we really need it or could this be “cut” out so to speak.  If you consider a chair, you might challenge the legs of the chair.  Can we “cut” the legs?  In my work, I generally find that there are few things people are comfortable cutting:  often the Why C naturally leads the thinker to the next Why in the process.

 

Why B?  The B stands for Because and is intended to highlight the reasons why something is done in a particular way.  We do this ‘because…’.  Considering the chair example, chairs have legs because they provide support for the seat:  it’s a way of keeping the seat off the ground and creating height for comfort and style.    In the Challenge process, de Bono also encourages us to question the validity of these reasons.  Is style a valid reason?  Perhaps not.  Is a way of creating a height a valid reason?  Yes it is.  If it weren’t for the legs, the chair would be called a cushion.  It would just be a seat on the floor, and if it was a moulded seat, might even be more uncomfortable.

 

Which bring us to the last Why – Why A?  Here the A stands for Alternatives, and de Bono asks us to question is there another way – is there an alternative to legs, or could we seek to satisfy the reason in a new, different or better way.  The deliberate search for an alternative requires a positive mental attitude, (the basic belief that there may be a better way), as well as deliberate effort.  All too often we don’t even consider alternatives, for the same reasons that Semler states – you may be proven wrong, or perhaps even right.

 

João Vendramin, our 60-year old director emeritus, once asked a worker if he’d ever considered a different approach to his job.   ‘He answered that his boss told him to do it that way,’ Vendramin remembers.  ‘So I insisted.  He told me that once he had done this job differently, but his boss reprimanded him.  While trying to explain to his boss what happened he said, “I was thinking that….” To which his boss instantly replied, “Thinking?  You are not supposed to think.  I am the one who thinks here.”’

Source: The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler

 

Want to know more?  Ricardo Semler, Author of The Seven-Day Weekend and Maverick and CEO of Semco, one of Brazil’s top performing, privately owned companies, will be sharing his innovative thinking.  Visit www.theprogressconference.com for more information or call Ingrid on 011 463 9898.

Happiness, Resilience, leadership, entrepreneurship and a better future for the SA economy

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Happiness at work is not a flaky “happy clappy – happy hippy” new religion. Neither is it an invitation to an elaborate game of hooky.

 

For entrepreneur, Ricardo Semler it is very simple. The repetition, boredom and aggravation that too many people accept as an inherent part of working can be replaced with joy, inspiration and freedom. And the bottom line results are evident. They are very rigorous about the numbers and by applying his unconventional participatory model, Semco was rescued from bankruptcy. Despite tough economic times in Brazil, Semco has enjoyed 27% growth for the past 25 years, each year. Making money has been a very nice by-product of a business that is very much on track.

 

It is estimated that South African productivity has hit a 46 year low. A few days ago Leadership Intelligence Bulletin (www.leadershiponline.co.za) published their weekly newsletter.

What was evident was the excruciating intensity of the difficulties facing executives today.

Headline 1: Labour unrest to impact elections

Headline 2: World economy prospects subdued

Headline 3: Government union relationship under scrutiny

Headline 4: Diversification and human capital crucial – SA Economy may miss targets….

“SA continues to face the triple challenge of chronic high unemployment, poverty and inequality”

 

Back in 2011, Tom Peters said, “The future for the South African Economy is reliant on enough entrepreneurs getting out of bed excited to start a new business or build the one they already have.”

Right now, more than ever before, the future of the South African economy is reliant on business and government leaders wanting to get out of bed with excitement to create success. At a time when employee morale could be at an all-time low and businesses need to optimise and leverage their assets, the rising cost of misery for our organisations is a strategic priority. happiness@work is a hard core approach if you believe you need people and excitement to make your organisation succeed. According to Semler, companies can no longer rely on buying the grudging compliance of their people and they need to change the way they do things to enjoy the enterprising participation of their people, committed and confident to make a difference.

 

The mere mention of optimism and happiness@work have traditionally been received with roars of laughter, which is why Jessica Pryce-Jones made it her mission to evidence to the hard-numbered world of business that this “new-agey”, “happy clappy” concept is important if leaders want their talented people to develop and thrive within their organisations.

 

At the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in 2012, Adrian Gore spoke about the massive impact that a few good leaders could have on our economy.

“The exciting thing is that leadership, effective leadership is also “Paretian”. Effective leaders make a massive difference on the system. A small number of people can pull the entire system across. We should never underestimate the exponential effect that great leaders have.

 

Tal Ben-Shahar, the professor who taught the most popular course at Harvard on Positive Psychology and the 3rd most popular course on the Psychology of Leadership has evidenced the significance of positive psychology as a leadership imperative to achieve resilience and innovation in organisations.

According to Tal, most organisational and individual potential is untapped. By creating a positive environment leaders can nurture the inherent potential in themselves and from within their people.

 

We can only hope that a few good leaders will have the courage and resilience to consider a new way of doing business to pull the entire system across in an exponential, “Paretian” way.