Newsflash: There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Model to Happiness At Work Happiness at work is hot. People and organizations all across the world are eagerly trying to improve the way we work. Not just to improve the lives of the large number of disengaged employees, but also to make companies, NGOs, hospitals and schools more successful, effective, and productive. And there’s a good reason for it: there is a huge amount of untapped potential within organizations since only a tiny part of the workforce is truly engaged with their work. The fact that happiness at work is trending seems to be a good thing, but the way most companies are trying to “implement it” is fundamentally flawed. In an effort to create a better workplace, lots of companies believe that there is a fixed model available that will solve their problems instantly: implement this magic model and a “happy company” is guaranteed. Unfortunately, this ain’t true for a bit. Because, if such a model did actually exist, a lot more than the current 13% of the world’s workforce would be engaged. While the intention of increasing happiness at work is a good thing, the way it’s executed is often doomed to fail. Let’s summarize some of the lessons we’ve learned during our research. Read the whole article on Corporate Rebels   Enregistrer

Brilliant people schedules Alas, there are but 24 hours in a day. And when you have a seemingly insurmountable load of work, it can be a quite a challenge to even know where to start. But remember that history’s most legendary figures — from Beethoven to Beyonce — had just as little (or just as much) time as you have. Using the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, RJ Andrews at Info We Trust designed some enlightening visualizations of how history’s most creative and influential figures structured their days. Unfortunately, there is no common prescription for the perfect schedule, and each person had a very different set of rituals. Read the whole article on Huffington Post

The neuroscience of trust Companies are twisting themselves into knots to empower and challenge their employees. They’re anxious about the sad state of engagement, and rightly so, given the value they’re losing. Consider Gallup’s meta-analysis of decades’ worth of data: It shows that high engagement—defined largely as having a strong connection with one’s work and colleagues, feeling like a real contributor, and enjoying ample chances to learn—consistently leads to positive outcomes for both individuals and organizations. The rewards include higher productivity, better-quality products, and increased profitability. So it’s clear that creating an employee-centric culture can be good for business. But how do you do that effectively? Culture is typically designed in an ad hoc way around random perks like gourmet meals or “karaoke Fridays,” often in thrall to some psychological fad. And despite the evidence that you can’t buy higher job satisfaction, organizations still use golden handcuffs to keep good employees in place. While such efforts might boost workplace happiness in the short term, they fail to have any lasting effect on talent retention or performance. Read the whole article on Harvard Business Review  

Cultivating Collaboration: Don’t Be So Defensive! / Jim Tamm Ever see red? It’s called being defensive, and turns out, it is the single greatest inhibitor to true collaboration. Jim Tamm shares years of experience in getting out of the red zone and cultivating a „green zone” attitude. Jim Tamm is a former law professor and senior administrative law judge for the state of California. He mediated nearly 2,000 employment disputes and handed down legal decisions that impacted national labor policy. He’s worked for 40 years in the field of alliance building and conflict resolution, and is an expert in building collaborative workplace environments. He’s the author of “Radical Collaboration,” published in 2005. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Safety–management / leadership I teach leadership for a global corporation that starts each day with a “Safety Moment.” The exercise is designed to decrease physical accidents. When I try to teach these leaders to engage in conversations that might trigger emotions and prompt opinions contrary to their own, they claim a lack of time and value. Leaders often don’t connect the need for psychological safety to physical safety. Dr. Amy Edmondson, a Harvard business professor, says. “Psychological safety describes the individuals’ perceptions about the consequences of interpersonal risk in their work environment. It consists of taken-for-granted beliefs about how others will respond when one puts oneself on the line, such as by asking a question, seeking feedback, reporting a mistake, or proposing a new idea.” Since the brain’s primary purpose is to protect, it will filter what people say or stop them from speaking if there is any indication—real or not—that they will be embarrassed or hurt. This is an automatic response that happens before logic can assess the situation. Most people will justify their silence or negative reactions. Read the whole article on Outsmart your brain Enregistrer