March 31st is International Quit Your Crappy Job Day 30 Mar 11:15 PM (3 days ago)
Today is International Quit Your Crappy Job Day. If you’re unhappy at work you should go to the website and do three things:
- Test yourself to see if it’s time to quit!
- Read stories of inspiring quitters
- Watch our video on when to quit your job
Check out the website here: internationalquityourcrappyjobday.com/.
We started International Quit Your Crappy Job Day 10 years ago and it is spreading!!! Here’s today’s task from a brain puzzle app:
Free Webinar: How To Keep Remote Workers Happy And Productive 24 Mar 6:00 AM (10 days ago)
How do we make remote work work? What are the specific, effective ways to ensure that employees can still do great work and connect with each other even though they’re not in the office in person all the time?
And how do we convince company leadership that remote work is good for business in a time where many companies are forcing people back to the office? We’ll reveal all about that in our next free webinar. Content includes:
- The most relevant research around remote work and employee happiness and productivity
- How to define and preserve the company culture when people are not in the office full time
- 5 innovative tips that make remote work work
- Great examples from happy remote workplaces from around the world
Time: Wednesday April 2nd 2025, 3PM CET / 9AM ET.
We’ll keep the whole thing snappy, informative and fun and be done in just half an hour. Read more and sign up here.
Some interesting customer feedback 11 Mar 11:56 PM (22 days ago)
After every talk I give, I ask the organizer to rate us. Here’s the most recent rating from a talk I gave last week.
This is why I get up in the morning – it’s for the chance to spread some concepts and tools that make workplaces happier! It makes me really proud when the message resonates with both employees and leadership.
All Remote Work Haters Ignore One Crucial Point 6 Mar 12:34 AM (28 days ago)
Jamie Dimon became the latest billionaire to CEO to rail against remote work and seek to force employees back into the office full time.
He went on an angry rant in a JPMorgan Chase town hall meeting where he claimed that being together in the office is the ONLY way to be creative and productive because there you can communicate and collaborate in person.
He also rejected a petition signed by thousands of his employees looking to preserve hybrid work, saying that he didn’t care how many people signed it and adding this:
Now, you have a choice. You don’t have to work at JP Morgan. So the people of you who don’t want to work at the company, that’s fine with me. I’m not mad at you. Don’t be mad at me. It’s a free country.
But here’s what Jamie’s ignoring: While there are definitely some advantages to in-office work he’s completely forgetting that even when employees are physically present in the office, most coordination and collaboration still happens over virtual channels like email, chat, phone calls, discord, slack, zoom or whatever.
You don’t go to a coworker’s desk and interrupt their workflow every time you need help with something. You don’t call a meeting every time you have a question. You don’t go to your manager’s office every time you need to make a decision. Or at least, I really, really hope you don’t!
So when some people rail against remote work arguing that there’s just no way people can collaborate well and be productive, they’re completely ignoring just how virtual the physical office already is.
The most hilarious part of Dimon’s rant is that he has since apologized for it. Not for maligning his remote workers. Not for claiming that they’re all slacking when they work from home. No – he apologized for cursing.
Jamie, Jamie, Jamie… the problem was not you dropping some F-bombs. The problem was your complete inability to trust your employees and to recognize that there are more ways of working effectively than just yours.
The Chief Happiness Officer Academy Is Back! 27 Feb 3:13 AM (last month)
Do you want to become a Certified Chief Happiness Officer?
After a long hiatus we are now back with two dates for our most in-depth 3-day training taught by the world’s leading expert and first Chief Happiness Officer.
Join us in Copenhagen (one of the nicest and most livable cities in the world) and get all the tools you need to create happier workplaces.
This training is for:
- External consultants who want to build a business delivering happiness trainings to clients
- HR staff, managers and internal facilitators who want to get the knowledge and tools to make their organization happier
Read all about it and sign up here.
Book Review: Any Dumbass Can Do It by Garry Ridge 11 Feb 4:24 AM (last month)
What does it say about me that out of the (literally) hundreds of business books I’ve read, two of my all-time favorites have the word “ass” in the title?
Do I just have a juvenile sense of humor? Do I tend to enjoy profanity? Do I like it when people are brave enough to stick out from the crowd? Guilty on all counts!
Almost 20 years ago Stanford professor Bob Sutton wrote “The No Asshole Rule” and in March Garry Ridge’s new book “Any Dumbass Can Do It” is coming out and I was lucky enough to get to read an advance copy.
In some ways these two books are polar opposites. The No Asshole rule looks at bad management from a research-based perspective and reveals all the ways toxic bosses hurt us and gives tips on how to deal with them.
“Any Dumbass Can Do It” on the other hand is a practical real-life guide to how to be a good leader from a man who has done it himself for decades with spectacular results.
Garry was CEO and president of WD-40 Company for over 25 years, and is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego, where he teaches the principles and practices of corporate culture in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership program.
I probably don’t need to talk too much about the company. I’m willing to bet that somewhere in your home there is a blue and yellow can of WD-40 – I know exactly where mine is! But with Garry at the helm it grew to a multibillion-dollar company while maintaining a culture where 97% of employees say they love to work.
I have a special insight when reviewing this book because I have seen the results first hand. Garry and I first met 20 years ago and have since then spoken at the same events many times. I invited him to speak at one of my conferences and he brought me in to present to his leadership class. I also got to tour the WD-40 facilities and see for myself all of the amazing initiatives that build and sustain their culture.
Watch Garry’s amazing speech at my conference.
When you read “Any Dumbass Can Do It” (and you absolutely should) you will get access to so many of Garry’s ideas and tools that you can apply in your own leadership. He has been there and generously shares exactly how you can do it for yourself. You’ll get ideas both for building a better culture in your own organization and for how to connect better to your customers’ needs and build an inspiring external brand.
All of these ideas are gold but for me, the deepest value of this book comes from its most foundational message: That we are all just here in this world to make each other happy and if we can build a business based on that, then employees will be happier and the company will be much more successful.
It’s a rare business book that explicitly uses the H-word (Happy) but in this book it shines through every page. The book is also highly readable and at times hilarious, which only makes me like it even more.
The management guru Warren Bennis once said this:
The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born — that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not.
That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
I could not agree more. Any leader willing to put in the effort can turn their organization into a happy and successful culture. And using all the many many fantastic tips in Garry’s book means that even a dumbass can do it.
The book comes out in March 2025 and you can preorder it here.
The 5 Worst Kinds Of Career Advice 10 Nov 2024 10:44 PM (4 months ago)
I just made a new video!!! There is SO MUCH bad career advice out there. If you listen to it, it can hurt your health, your productivity and, ironically, even your career.
Learn to recognize the 5 worst kinds of people who peddle this nonsense and why they are so spectacularly wrong.
How Companies Keep Getting Motivation All Wrong 3 Oct 2024 12:35 AM (6 months ago)
Research Reveals The Surprising Links Between Compensation And Happiness 12 Sep 2024 1:06 AM (6 months ago)
How exactly does compensation affect employee happiness? I covered that in my latest webinar… where I also proposed something HIGHLY controversial 😲
Watch the full webinar and get my slides and other materials here.
10 proven tips for creating positive workplace relationships 29 Aug 2024 2:57 AM (7 months ago)
Companies tend to?massively?undervalue the importance of good workplace relationships. That?s a mistake because the research?clearly?shows that organizations that foster good relationships get better results, because people like each other, trust each other, work better together and communicate better.
Watch my latest webinar?and get 10 tips for how to avoid this and how to keep all your happiness initiatives going strong. Content includes:
- The most relevant research on workplace relationships
- All the business advantages of good workplace relations
- How to create and maintain them ? including what both executives, managers and employees can do
- Great examples from some of the world?s happiest workplaces
Watch the webinar now – you can also get my slides and additional links and materials.