The 2^nd Annual FNB Progress Conference on Happiness@Work | How unconventional business leaders harness the energy and imagination of their people to drive success.

17 September 2013 – Johannesburg

In 2012, we presented the 1^st Annual FNB Progress Conference on happiness@work. Over 400 executives participated in this event and were inspired by Dr Martin Seligman and Professor Dave Ulrich to leverage Positive Psychology and Meaning and Purpose to capitalise on the psychological capital of the people who work for them.

In the opening address of the inaugural happiness@work conference, FNB CEO, Michael Jordaan had this to say, “I am a firm believer that happy staff makes for better business. Given that work is playing an ever-increasing role in our lives, it stands to reason that is it becoming increasingly important for people to get more out of their jobs and to find inspiration and motivation beyond designated workload, salary and time off.”

Deloitte’s recently published Insomnia Index™ – What keeps CEO’s awake at night? – further evidenced the lack of leadership capabilities for innovation within South African companies. FNB has leadership capability with a strategy driving innovations programme which has resulted in 7000 ideas logged across all business units in 2011, 927 innovations being implemented in a six month period in 2011, with 779 in the preceding 12 months. This innovation is rewarded with big pay-outs. The project profoundly drives the way things are done at FNB. Effectively any employee can be an innovator and can change the way business is done.

This inversion of the historical top-down application of corporate strategies is not dissimilar to that of Ricardo Semler’s democratic and participatory management model that amassed SEMCO their fortune. This privately owned company is now worth in excess of 9 billion dollars. Semler also believes in big pay-outs and a bottom-up approach to all decisions in his company.

Ricardo Semler has a deep passion for innovation and an ability to lead the most unusual workplace in the world with great success. Semler believes that companies emulate rather than innovate.

So no surprise, that this year’s speaker line-up includes Ricardo Semler who will share his secrets of success and the lessons learned in creating an unconventional management model which made SEMCO one of the fastest growing companies commencing at a time they were facing bankruptcy.

So what we know is that lack of innovation is keeping some CEO’s awake at night and heaps of innovation is amassing other leaders’ fortunes for their organisations.

If you still remain dubious, then, you can learn from the professor who taught the most popular course at Harvard University on “Positive Psychology” and the 3^rd most popular course on “The Psychology of Leadership.”

Tal Ben-Shahar’s research and findings will evidence how positive emotions heighten innovative thinking. Tal will offer his psychological insights to show you how to stimulate creativity within your organisation. Tal will also provide leadership essentials to build resilience in organisations – a priority for organisations in these difficult economic times.

Jessica Pryce-Jones,

CEO of iOpener Institute will present the latest research findings  in terms of South Africa’s happiness@work rankings on a global scale. iOpener’s work measures the happiness and performance of employees relative to the tangible performance in the workplace.

On the 17^th September 2013, you can get to spend the day with Ricardo Semler, Tal Ben-Shahar and Jessica Pryce-Jones at the 2^nd Annual FNB Progress Conference on happiness@work. In 2013, we plan to take a hard core approach to evidence the positive effect of happiness@work on your organisation’s bottom line and why learning to play golf on Monday’s might be good for your business.

For more information contact Ingrid Ashwin on 083 228 7440 or email Ingrid – ingrid@brg.co.za