“5,000 deaths per year result from unhappy, disengaged workforces\u2026 If you\u2019re sick, make sure you go to a happy hospital!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry Stewart was invited to speak about the importance of happy and engaged workplaces at the Happiness and Humans Conference in May 2019, hosted by the Happiness Index. Watch his talk here.<\/p>\n
(It is 28 minutes but Henry never talks for more than nine before posing a question to the audience!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,24,26,25],"tags":[],"blog-post-type":[36],"class_list":["post-11387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conference-updates","category-henrys-blog","category-leadership","category-the-happy-manifesto","blog-post-type-blog-with-video"],"acf":{"read_or_watch_time":"Watch: 28 min watch","video_url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/r-LzCABeado","transcripts":"I\u2019m Henry Stewart. I am Chief Happiness Officer at Happy. I hope you all have a Chief Happiness Officer, yes? Somebody asked me how do you become Chief Happiness Officer? You just decide to be it, to make it your title. People I didn\u2019t tell, people at all sorts of places have decided just to do that. I\u2019m going to talk about happy workplaces and my aim, even with this audience, is to challenge you, to make you think again about how organisations should be run, about what management is about, but also to give you some ideas to take away.\r\n\r\nWho\u2019s heard of Happy before this, before you read I was on this? Ok a couple, good. We\u2019re a training business. We\u2019ve been around for 30 years. Initially IT training, helping people enjoy using computers, and now we help people transform into happy workplaces. We were in the best workplace list five years in a row. So what I\u2019m going to be talking about is partly based on our own experience and partly based on some of the fab companies we met there, including Google, and looking at what they had in common, what it was that made a great workplace.\r\n\r\nBut first let me ask you to put your hands up if you agree with our principle. Our core principle is \u201cpeople work best when they feel good about themselves.\u201d Hands up if you agree with that. Ok if that\u2019s the case, what should be the main focus of leadership in an organisation? Making people feel good, making people feel happy. Hands up if you work for an organisation where the main focus of leadership is making feel good. Ok we\u2019ve got some \u2013 excellent.\r\n\r\nI was on a panel with the Chair of one of Britain\u2019s biggest retail companies and when I asked that question he put his hand straight in the air. He said, \u201cYes, at my 80000-strong company, that is the main focus of leadership.\u201d Any guesses which company? John Lewis, absolutely. It wasn\u2019t Sports Direct, I can tell you that. It was John Lewis and he went on to say how at the last board meeting they spent 20 minutes discussing the numbers and three hours discussing people. Do you or does you senior team spend at least five times as much time discussing people as numbers?\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t know if you know the John Lewis story, but it was set up by Spedan Lewis in 1929 as a workers mutual with, at the core of the constitution, the rule that every decision they make should be based on how happy it makes the staff. And that\u2019s how they grew from one haberdashery store on Oxford St to the massively bigger organisation they are now.\r\n\r\nMy first question to you is how would your organisation be different if the main focus of leadership was making people feel good? This is not a debate. I don\u2019t want you to say whether it\u2019s a good idea or a bad idea. I want you to pose that hypothetical; what would your organisation be like, what would it feel like, what would it be like to work for?\r\n\r\nHow would it be different? We\u2019d all be happier? Excellent. Better customer service. Increased productivity. Yes, any more? So a quick show of hands: how many think your organisation would be an even better place to work? How many think it\u2019d be more productive? More innovative? How many of you are going to make sure it happens? This is not just for leadership. We\u2019ve worked with organisations where people do it from the bottom. Everybody can have an impact.\r\n\r\nDo you want to see some evidence that this works? You know the best place to work, this has been running for decades. There\u2019s a guy called Alex Edmans who was at Wharton Business School who wondered, do the best places to work perform better? Good question, yeah?\r\n\r\nTo make the metrics easy, he looked at stock market listed companies and he looked, compared if you\u2019d invested in the best places to work over 25 years, how would you have done compared to the stock market index? And he found that if, say, the pension that you\u2019d invested by the end was worth \u00a3100,000 in the SMP, if instead you\u2019d invested in the great workplaces, which you could\u2019ve done, they were all listed every year, it\u2019d have been worth \u00a3236,000. That\u2019s the hard financial difference that creating a great workplace makes. And if you have a pension make sure you know it\u2019s in that kind of company. It makes a difference.\r\n\r\nHow many here are in a not-for-profit of any sort, public sector, charity? A few. Ok, let\u2019s take the NHS. The King\u2019s Fund did a study looking at engagement in hospitals. All that data is out there. And you won\u2019t be surprised to know that if staff are more engaged, patients are happier. Makes sense. But it is also the case that if staff are happy and engaged, less people die.\r\n\r\nFor every 96 that die in a hospital where staff are highly engaged, 103 die where they\u2019re disengaged and unhappy. You know how many deaths that is? That\u2019s five thousand deaths a year in the UK alone [that] result from unhappy, disengaged workforces. It\u2019s the same, obviously, in wherever \u2013 happy workplaces save lives. And if you\u2019re sick, make sure you go to a happy hospital because it will make a difference.\r\n\r\nI will put one caveat on the happiness thing. We did have one client where they delegated to somebody to make people happy and this guy went out and bought lots of hula hoops and games and made people have fun and measured happiness before and afterwards and it went down. Any idea why it went down? People might have been forced to have fun, yes, and also when I\u2019m talking about happiness, I\u2019m not talking about hedonism. I\u2019m not talking about in the moment, fine glass of wine, nice piece of music, whatever. I\u2019m talking about long term fulfilment. That\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for.\r\n\r\nSo let\u2019s me ask another question. Let me ask you to cast your mind back over your working life and to one particular time where you were really proud of the results you produced. Hopefully you\u2019ve got lots to choose from, but I want you to think of one specific occasion. Nod your head if you\u2019ve got a time in mind. Ok, I\u2019m going to ask you some questions.\r\n\r\nHands up if it was a time when you were really well paid. No one? Not even the Google person? Ok. Hands up if it was a time when communication was particularly good from your manager? Ok, that\u2019s probably a third. Hands up if it was a time you had a great manager? That\u2019s getting on to three quarters. Hands up if it was a time when you were challenged? Ok I\u2019d say that\u2019s 80%. Hands up if it was a time when you were trusted and given freedom to make your own judgement?\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve asked that question to thousands of people from city banks to charities, from directors to front line staff. The answer is always very similar. It\u2019s not about the money, though we all deserve to be well paid. It\u2019s not about communication. Are you challenged? Do you have freedom and trust?\r\n\r\nWould you like a quick tip on how to give people more trust and freedom? How many of you are managers, just out of interest? Ok. How often do you ask somebody to come up with a new idea, a new problem, some kind of solution and ask them to bring it back for approval? I\u2019m going to ask you to miss out the last step. I\u2019m going to ask you to do something called pre-approval, which means you approve the solution before they\u2019ve thought of the solution. Make sense? I\u2019ll explain it a bit. This is our own caf\u00e9 at Happy. We had a 19 year old in charge who said she\u2019d like to improve it. What we didn\u2019t do was say show us a plan or let\u2019s form a committee. What we did do was agree a budget, check she understood the look and feel of Happy and left her to decide for herself what it should be like.\r\n\r\nI saw it for the first time when I walked in. We like thinking we\u2019re a colourful company so it fits very well. But how do you think that 19 year old, three months into her first job felt walking into her caf\u00e9 every day? Elated, motivated, happy. And very different if it was almost her caf\u00e9, but so and so insisted on this and so and so insisted on that. It was her caf\u00e9.\r\n\r\nA trainer sent me an email some years ago saying I love the three things you\u2019ve done to improve things at Happy to make it easier to serve the customer. I looked at the three things and the first thing that shocked me was I had no idea they\u2019d happened, because they hadn\u2019t come across my desk for approval. But then I looked again and spotted if they had come across my desk, I\u2019d have rejected two of them, because I thought up a lot of the ways things happen at Happy. I used my best thinking. I reckon my thinking\u2019s pretty ace.\r\n\r\nSo I am a natural barrier to change, like most managers, because when you\u2019re a manager and somebody gives you an idea, you have improve it, don\u2019t you? That\u2019s your role, isn\u2019t it? How many have put your best idea up to your manager and have them improve it? Not a great experience normally.\r\n\r\nSo let me give you a bigger example. Our website. In the early days of our website, I was very involved. I would say, we need this, we need that, can we take that away and do that? So the person in charge of the website never really felt in charge of the website. Has anybody been in that situation? So we decided we would pre-approve the website. That does not mean saying do whatever you like. I\u2019m going to give you three options here. Do you like to be told what to do? Have complete freedom? Or freedom within guidelines?\r\n\r\nHands up if you like to be told what to do? No surprise, nobody at all. Hands up if you like complete freedom? Yes there\u2019s always a few anarchists around. That\u2019s good, we like them. Hands up if you like freedom within guidelines? Yep. And in a more representative sample it\u2019s probably about 90% at least like the freedom within guidelines.\r\n\r\nSo, on the website we didn\u2019t say do whatever you like. We had a branding exercise so the branding was clear. We agreed the metrics; how many people visited and how much income it generated. Johnny went on the best search engine optimisation training we could find so he had the skills. And we also insisted that he\u2019d be talking to users. We didn\u2019t need to know what they were saying. We just needed to know that dialogue was happening. Those were the guidelines.\r\n\r\nI saw the website for the first time the night before it launched. It either went up or it didn\u2019t go up. And it wasn\u2019t what I was expecting. It absolutely wasn\u2019t what I\u2019d have created, but that\u2019s the point. If you truly delegate you do not get what you would\u2019ve created. You get what they create. But it was completely within the guidelines, so up it went. On all the metrics a couple of months later, business had trebled and income had doubled. Even without the benefit of my expertise.\r\n\r\nSo my question to you is what could you pre-approve on Monday? Discuss again.\r\n\r\nOk let me give you a couple of examples. We\u2019ve got a little client based in Cheltenham who you may have heard of, who really likes pre-approval. And in fact they so like [The Happy Manifesto<\/em>] they\u2019ve got their own GCHQ copy of that. They took pre-approval one step further. GCHQ needs to be at the forefront of technology, so they managed to get \u2013 not the leadership but some people in the middle \u2013 managed to get a million pound budget from directors for innovation. And being geeks they set up a crowd-funding site and they got lots of ideas.\r\n\r\nWho would normally then make the decision on who got the money? Up the chain, the directors, someone like that? What they did at GCHQ was they divided the million pounds into a hundred sets of ten thousand pounds and gave it to the most junior people in the organisation to decide. I\u2019ve got a colleague there who had a ten thousand pound idea for a new piece of technology to improve communication. In the past he would\u2019ve needed five levels of approval and he probably wouldn\u2019t have bothered. Put it on One Shot, the name of the site, it was funded within a week, it was implemented in two weeks.\r\n\r\nNow think about that. You\u2019ve done two things there. First you\u2019ve massively increased the speed of change, and secondly, you\u2019ve changed who does it. Who actually probably knows better about technology, the front line geeks who\u2019ve just joined or the senior directors who\u2019ve been there 40 years? Which is true not just in technology, but in most things. You want to get your decisions as close to the front line as possible.\r\n\r\nWhy are all these approvals happening? There should be somebody owning decisions. At Happy, for instance, one thing that got changed this year was our prices went up. I didn\u2019t discuss it. My management team didn\u2019t discuss it. One person owns that, he decides. He doesn\u2019t take it to any meeting. He can consult if he wants. But as a result of that at Happy I only attend one meeting a month, because we don\u2019t have meetings to discuss decisions and things like that. People are responsible for that. It sweeps away a lot of the bureaucracy.\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s one of the most innovative companies in the world. Who\u2019s heard of Buurtzorg? Yes. Anybody involved in care in any way? You know how it works that you\u2019re a carer, who get a list of who you\u2019ve got to see, half an hour with so and so, five minutes with so and so. Does it work? No it doesn\u2019t. Four nurses in the Netherlands in 2008 decided they wanted to change it. They would decide how much time they spent with the patients. Those four nurses have now grown a little bit. There\u2019s 14,000 people now work for Buurtzorg. Without venture capital, they are a social enterprise. And as one of them said at one of our conferences, \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve got my vocation back.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey\u2019re aren\u2019t any managers at Buurtzorg. There\u2019s a CEO, but they work in teams of 10-12 and they decide together. Now, do you think this method, spending more time with patients, them deciding, it must be more expensive, mustn\u2019t it? A study reckoned it saved Dutch healthcare two billion euros. Why? How can you spend more time with patients and it cost less? They swept away 30% of the cost by getting rid of the management. But also, by spending more time with patients, you spend less time in hospital and so forth.\r\n\r\nSo what is the role of the manager? Are you ready for a quick quiz on this? Ok, this is from Google. Who\u2019s the Google person? Do you know Project Oxygen? We had a conference here ourselves about five years ago and they shared Project Oxygen with us. Basically, being Google, they looked at the data. They wanted to find out what\u2019s the most important behaviour for managers and they looked at the data and they came up with eight. Your task, which are the two most important, ranging from good communication especially listening to express interest in your people to clear vision? 30 seconds, which are the two most important?\r\n\r\nOk I\u2019m going to ask you to put your hands up for two of them. So how many think one of the top two is good communication especially listening? Not many. Expressing interest in your people? Oh lots. Be productive and results orientated? Empower, don\u2019t micromanage? Hey, almost everyone. Help with career development? Key technical skills? Be a good coach? Clear vision? Ok. I think this is the best audience I\u2019ve had. I\u2019ve done this at about over a hundred organisations. So in third place was express interest in your people. In second place was empower, don\u2019t micromanage. And in first place, the single most important behaviour of managers was be a good coach.\r\n\r\nI had one group of Chief Executives where not one of them got be a good coach and even asked afterwards, \u201cwhy is that part of my job?\u201d\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s look at that. Who\u2019s had a coach at some point in their career? What did they do for you, one line? Career development. Ask good questions. Help me sort out loads of shit. Did they tell you what to do? Did they ask you questions? Did they build confidence? Did they help you find your own solution? That\u2019s the role of the manager right? That\u2019s the role.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s say you\u2019re at work, you get a note from your manager saying I want to see you at two o\u2019clock. Do you feel excited? No [audience laughter<\/em>]. We should do. It\u2019s not their fault, they see their role is to be the expert, the decider. The [role of the] manager is not to show how clever I am, it\u2019s to show how clever my people are. That\u2019s the role, to build confidence, ask questions, help people find their own solution.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m going to quickly switch to another point, which is at Happy our aim is that people should have joy in their work 80% of the time. We measure it and it\u2019s 73% at the moment, which isn\u2019t bad particularly as a rather rusty IT system has just gone in. How do you get joy in your work? You have purpose, but particularly you\u2019re doing something you\u2019re good at. Gallop has asked over a million people \u201cdo you get to do every day what you are best at?\u201d Guess what percentage say yes to that simple question? Any guesses? 20, 40, 10. Do you know the answer? It was 17; one in six. But where people do answer in higher proportions, those organisations are 40% more productive.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s say you have an appraisal. Do you have appraisals? Who still has appraisals? Oh no, get rid of them. We had a vote this year, should we keep the appraisal system. 85% said no, get rid of it. So we have obviously the one-to-ones with your coach and then we have a four-monthly check-in, which just is a half page thing. So get rid of appraisals, yes. Anybody here look forward to their appraisal? Oh one or two do, ok. It\u2019s very rare, but there we go.\r\n\r\nWhere was I? Strengths. So say you have an appraisal and you get your strengths, your weaknesses, what do we normally get to work on. [Weaknesses<\/em>]. Yes, what\u2019s the alternative? Yeah, get to build your strengths. Never mind those weaknesses. How many of you are parents? Let\u2019s say little Johnny comes home with A, A, A, C, F. What do we focus on? 82% focus on the F, whereas you could just say, \u201clook at all these things you\u2019re fabulous at.\u201d That\u2019s what we should be doing at work.\r\n\r\nWould you like this summed up in three key points. Ok, number one: get people to do what they are good at. It\u2019s a deeply radical idea which will never catch on, I know. Just that small step, getting people to do what they\u2019re good at. Number two: give them the freedom to do well. And number three: what\u2019s the role of the manager? Coach them to be their best.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m seeking, with the Happiness Index and others, to build a movement of happy workplaces. I know you\u2019re all on board. If you want an electronic copy of my book simply email me at\u00a0henry@happy.co.uk<\/a>\u00a0and you also get on the monthly newsletter. Ok I\u2019ll close there. I\u2019m Henry, I\u2019m happy, I hope you are too."},"yoast_head":"\n