Happy Hour is 9 to 5 (7 page)

Some jobs require your presence at certain times, but many others are much more flexible. If you can take this into account you can design your working week so that you get more out of your time both at work and outside of it.

It all depends on how you work best. Is eight hours a day optimal for you? Or do you prefer to work ten hours a day for four days a week and take Friday off?

Of course, this can only happen if the company you work for recognises that employees are adults capable of making these decisions on their own. At Motek, every employee has a designated back-up available to provide cover while they’re out of the office. Employees can leave for the day or for a week whenever they want, as long as they first check with their backup to make sure he or she is around before they leave.

Semco lets each and every employee choose their own working hours. Some prefer to get in really early to avoid the hideous rush-hour traffic in São Paulo. Some are late risers and are more efficient if they get in shortly before lunch. Each employee gets to decide for themself. When this approach was introduced, some people were deeply worried. A factory line can only operate when all the people are present, so what would happen if some people decided to come in early and some late?

What happened was simple. The employees look at each other and went “Want to start at 6.30 tomorrow?” followed by “Yeah, 6:30 sounds good!” Problem solved.

Open to-do list

Motek, located in California, makes warehouse management software and have implemented openness in a very interesting way. They have an internal, company-wide to-do list of all ongoing projects, a list that all employees have access to. This open sharing of information means that Motek’s employees can get the information they need in order to make better decisions, resulting in happier, more motivated people.

Motek’s customers and suppliers also have access to the same to-do list, and customers and suppliers regularly offer to help with an item on the list. Any Motek employee can take on any item on the to-do list and set a deadline for it. If the employee completes the task inside the deadline, they receive $100 towards their next vacation. If they do not complete the task, but say so and ask for help to meet the deadline, they still get the $100. This is a great way of stimulating the right behaviour — it’s OK not to meet your deadlines if you take responsibility and ask for help.

Open books

Ricardo Semler is my business idol. I’ve read his books and followed his work and I’m a fan. Completely and without reservation, probably in the same way that 14-year old girls are fans of Justin Bieber. If he ever comes to Copenhagen to give a speech, I’ll be in the front row, screaming my little lungs out!

Ahem. Let me rephrase that...

I deeply admire Ricardo Semler. His vision of leadership has been the driving force behind an organisation so different, so innovative and so successful that the business world has been forced to sit up and pay attention.

When Ricardo Semler took over leadership of Semco, a small company of 100 employees based in São Paulo, Brazil, he was the quintessential tough, old-school manager. He worked long hours, chewed people out for the smallest mistakes, and focused only on profits.

Then one day, Ricardo collapsed from overwork and was told by doctors that he was heading straight for a heart attack — no mean feat for a 21-year-old. This became a turning point, and since then Ricardo has led Semco on an uncompromising quest to make it the best possible place to work. They now employ 3,000 people in a number of businesses, from internet development to facility management, and are happier than ever
⁵
.

One thing Semco practises is openness. They want their employees to know as much as possible about the company, so they publish their financial statements for all employees to read, along with a guide to what the numbers mean. This offers employees deep insight into the company’s present situation. They have also made board meetings public, so any employee who wants to can sit in and see how major decisions in the company are made.

The result? Employees make better, more responsible decisions because they know how those decisions affect the company’s health, and they feel valued because they are “in the know”.

Find meaning

A traveller walks down a dusty road. The sun is shining down mercilessly from a clear sky and the heat is almost unbearable. As he pauses for a sip of water, he notices three men sitting by the side of the road, chopping up stones. The first one clearly has the look of a man wishing he was anywhere else. No wonder — it’s hot, hard, unpleasant labour after all. The traveller asks him, “What are you doing?” “Cutting stones,” the man replies.

The second man looks fairly happy with what he’s doing despite the hot weather and hard work. “What are you doing?” the traveller asks him. “I’m cutting stones to make money to support my family,” the man replies.

The third stonecutter has a look that verges on blissful. He’s giving the stones his full attention, precisely and powerfully cutting them into smaller rocks. When he stops for a moment, the traveller asks him, “What are you doing?” In a proud voice he replies, “I’m building a cathedral.”

There are three levels of meaning you can find at work:

1. No meaning. Your work makes no sense to you.
   
2. Your work has meaning because it supports you and your family.
   
3. Your work has meaning in itself because you’re contributing to something great or making the world a better place.
   

This is not to say that every job has meaning, or even that your job has meaning. Some jobs do, some jobs don’t. What matters is that some people understand the meaning of their work, whereas others don’t.

It’s much easier to be happy if your job has meaning to you, and you keep that meaning in mind. Knowing how your work contributes to the company’s success, to your local community, or even to making a better world makes you proud of what you do.

Almost any job has meaning:

• You clean at a hospital? Without efficient cleaning, hospital patients are at risk of death from serious illnesses like MRSA.
  
• You’re a teacher? You’re shaping your country’s next generation.
  
• You write software? You’re helping your customers become more efficient.
  
• You’re a secretary? You’re making your co-workers more efficient and productive.
  

It’s difficult to find meaning for some jobs. For example, if your company produces landmines, it may be difficult to find meaning in that. And that makes it harder to be happy at work.

The following are ways to discover or create meaning at work.

Where are you contributing?

We all want to make a difference, and we all love to get results. We all want to know that what we do at work has contributed somehow — that it has meaning.

To discover meaning in your job, if it’s not already clear to you, ask yourself:

1. Who am I making happy in the company?
   
2. Who am I making happy outside the company through my work?
   
3. Who is the company making happy? How am I contributing to this?
   

George Bernard Shaw had the right idea when he said:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Finding your purpose at work, one you recognise as mighty, is a great way to become happier at work. To paraphrase Shaw, “This is the true joy in work”.

Make your results visible

Achieving results makes us proud and gives work meaning. Imagine going to work every day and never really having anything to show for it.

It’s important to make results visible so that you can see what you’ve achieved. Here are some ways to do it:

• Keep a to-do list so that you can tick off completed tasks and see how much work you’ve done every day or every week.
  
• Print out a list of finished tasks and hang the list on the department bulletin board. The list showcases everyone’s progress and accomplishments.
  
• Write results on a whiteboard for everyone to see.
  
• Publish statistics on the company intranet.
  
• Hang a bell in the office and ring it every time someone closes a case.
  

To any managers who still think that happy employees don’t work hard — you’ve got it exactly backwards. Most people are happy only when they do good work and get great results.

In September 2006 I asked the readers of my blog what made them happy at work. The top scorer by far was getting results. Here are some of the things mentioned:

• Seeing something through to completion.
  
• Seeing positive change.
  
• Getting a complex problem to solve.
  
• Creating simple solutions to problems that were believed to be impossible/hard.
  
• Getting things done (finally).
  
• Fixing problems and helping people.
  
• Noticing how my proposals produce positive change once implemented.
  

Contribute outside the company

Great Harvest is a US bakery franchise whose goals are, “Be loose and have fun, Bake phenomenal bread, Run fast to help customers, Create strong, exciting bakeries, and Give generously to others.” They tell the following story on their website:

“When the devastating tsunami struck Southeast Asia in December of 2004, Great Harvest Bread Co. owners Dee and Bernie O’Connor (Lansing, Michigan) decided they needed to do something to help. In less than one week, the O’Connors organized a benefit to aid the survivors of the tsunami, enlisting the help of their crew, their community, and neighbor Drew Kloven, owner of the downtown Lansing Great Harvest Bread Co.

They didn’t know what to expect. While word of their fundraiser had spread and the holiday spirit was still strong, the weather was unpredictable and people’s pocketbooks were drained from the holidays. So when six inches of heavy snow fell on the morning of their event, the O’Connors worried no one would show up.

But at 5:30 a.m. that morning, a stranger pulled into the little shopping strip where the bakery is located. In an act of generosity that would set the tone for the day, he plowed the area in front of Great Harvest, just in time for their 6 a.m. opening. Customers poured in and by the end of the day, the two Lansing bakeries ended up raising more than $5,500. Every penny that went into the registers that day — whether for bread, cookies, or coffee — went directly to tsunami relief efforts. “We’re just a small company,” says Dee, “but it sure makes us feel good knowing we can make a difference in other people’s lives.”

The O’Connors credit their crew, who worked for free all day, and their customers for the tremendous show of support. “There was a great camaraderie and sense of significance over this event,” says Bernie. “We couldn’t have done it without them.”

One of the best ways to find meaning is to contribute to something other than yourself. You can use work as a springboard to help the community, a charity, the environment, society, developing nations — anything that makes sense to you.

Knowing that you have helped others through your work is a tremendous source of meaning. It is direct evidence that you are making the world a better place and helping people out. It’s also immensely satisfying, and a great way to get happy at work.

Go green

In the excellent documentary The Corporation, the late Ray Anderson, at the time the CEO of Interface, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer, explains his rude awakening to the fact that his company could not continue to waste natural resources: