Happy Hour is 9 to 5

I used last weeks holiday as an opportunity to read Happy Hour is 9 to 5, I was one of the fortunate ones who got a free copy in the Christmas give away. I was going to read it over the Christmas break, but circumstances overtook.

For anyone not familiar with this book it’s written by Alexander Kjerulf who goes by the job title of: Chief Happiness Officer.

The basic premise of this book is that happiness at work is a good thing for everyone, and that the opposite is also true. The book is a great holiday read without too much detailed analysis of research, but with loads of practical examples and comments.

The book contains a number of exercises to use to assess your own happiness at work and to direct you towards finding greater happiness. It also provides exercises for managers. My current position doesn’t include managing people, but I’m often in situations where I indirectly manage people, and certainly provide their motivation.

I’ve finished reading the book, but I haven’t got the exercise done yet. I need to do the exercise because there will have been little point in reading the book if I don’t.

Even before doing the exercises, though, I am aware that my own attitude needs some work especially if I am going to regain an attitude to work that isn’t “Meh” but is “Yay” (see this section). That means making some changes, which requires some planning and some action. It’s also closely linked to the research on My Brain from last year.

Not sure that the The Order of the Elephant idea translates to UK culture though, will have to think about that one:

“Kjaer Group, a Danish company that sells cars in developing nations, introduced The Order of the Elephant a few years back. It’s a huge plush toy that any employee can award to any other, along with an explanation of why that employee deserves The Order. The praisee gets the elephant for a couple of days, and at two-feet tall it’s hard to overlook if it’s standing on that person’s desk.

Other employees stopping by immediately notice the elephant and go, “Hey, you got the elephant. What’d you do?”, which of course means that the good stories and best practices get told and re-told many times. This is an excellent, simple and cheap way of enhancing learning and happiness at work.”

from the What makes us happy at work? section of the book.

I’ve certainly witnessed the observation on meetings though:

Psychological experiments can be very devious, and this one was certainly no exception. The focus was meetings and the format was simple: Groups of people were asked to reach agreement on a contentious topic.

Here’s the devious bit: Unbeknownst to the other participants, one member of the group was an actor hired by the researchers. The actor was told to speak first in the discussions. In half the experiments he would say something positive, while in the other half he would start by saying something critical. After that he simply participated in the discussion like the other group members.

The experiment showed that when the first thing said in the meeting was positive, the discussion turned out more constructive, and people listened more and were more likely to reach a consensus. When the first statement was critical, the mood became more hostile, people were more argumentative and consensus became less likely.

The researchers concluded that the way a meeting starts has a large impact upon the tone of the discussion and on whether or not the group will eventually reach a consensus.

from the What makes us happy at work? section of the book.