The Best Bits from the Joy of Work. Bruce Daisley shares the fruits of his discoveries in 30 succinct tips that range across all aspects of 21st-century office life and that combine inspiration, empirically tested insight and down-to-earth practical answers in equal measure. Buy the book here - https://amzn.to/2ZEsV0O
1. THE JOY OF WORK:
30 ways to Fix Your
Work Culture and Fall In
Love With Your Job
Again
The Best Bits
#bookbestbits
2. “Inspiring, witty and practical. The Joy of Work
provides handy tips on how to re-engage your
workforce and your teams. A book you should
ignore at your peril.”
Overview from our reviewer:
Daniele Fiandaca, Co-founder, Utopia
9. Broken into 3 sections, together each building into
a scheme for creating happier environments as
well as providing 30 handy tips:
1. Recharge (your battery)
2. Synch (with others)
3. Buzz (and how to create it)
15. “If we don’t belong we feel no value. We
suggest that belongingness can be almost
as compelling as a need as food and that
human culture is significantly conditioned by
the pressure to provide belonging.”
Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary
16. “Employees do not leave their humanity at
the door. They do not leave their emotion at
the door… not only does it have a place but
companionate love helps employees and
their organisation’s bottom line.”
Professor Sigal Barsade
17. “I realised that idea of culture fit is not a
good thing……. you don’t want to hire people
who are like you. You want to hire people
who are very different to you - and you
bring in a wider range of talent and wider
range of world views.”
Dan Lyons, Author of Disrupted
18. “Intrinsic motivation is conducive to
creativity: extrinsic motivation is
detrimental to creativity.”
Professor Teresa Amabile
19. “People who are in supportive relationships
are less stressed than those who are not. If
there are people around us we trust, they
help us cope: they act as a buffer against
stress.”
Bruce Daisley
20. “The mark of a great leader is a combination of
things that seem contradictory: enough confidence
to be humble. Insecure people, by contrast, ‘can’t
take joy in the achievement of people around them’
and a marker of that balance between confidence
and humility is humour. If you are insecure, you
cannot laugh..”
James Comey, Former FBI Agent
(who has never seen President Trump laugh)
21. “To be a learning organisation, you need to
be open to experiences and perspectives.”
Martin Bromiley
22. “One of the problems about fear is it’s a
huge restriction on imagination because it’s
much much easier to be fired for being
illogical than it is for being unimaginative.”
Rory Sutherland
23. “Teams who are in a buoyant mood and who
also feel free to speak their mind are
unconquerable. Ideas flow. Nothing looks like it
can stand in their way. That is the state of Buzz
- a combination of psychological safety and a
positive effect.”
Bruce Daisley
24. “If you sense that I am being authentic, you are
much more likely to trust me. If you sense I
have real rigour in my logic, you are far likely to
trust me. And if you believe my empathy is
directed towards you, you are far more likely
to trust me.”
Professor Frances Frei
25. “It is hardly possible to overrate the value.… of
placing human beings in contact with persons
dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought
and action unlike those with which they are familiar..
Such communication has always been, and is
peculiarly in the present age, one of the primary
sources of progress.”
Stuart Mill
27. Have a Monk Mode Morning
Recharge 1
Flow is ‘being completely involved in an activity for its
own sake. Time flies. Every action, movement and
thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like
playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re
using your skills to the utmost.’
28. Go for a walking meeting
Recharge 2
81% of participants saw their scores for giving creative
suggestions for up when they were walking rather than
sitting (the average increase was 60%)
29. Get a good night’s sleep
Recharge 11
Sleep makes us live longer, improves our creativity,
enhances our memory, protects us from heart disease,
dementia and cancer, it helps prevent colds, it makes us
considerably happier and makes us more attractive. And
it’s free.
30. Halve your meetings
Sync 3
Meeting for a shorter period of time brings focus to our
discussions - and an urgency that is too often lost when we
slavishly schedule something to last half an hour or an hour.
31. Laugh
Sync 5
‘It’s a sign if people are laughing that they’re not in that
anxious state. It’s a marker that the group are in a good place.’
Laughter in a leader is a sign of openness and willingness to
show vulnerability.
32. Frame work as a problem you’re solving
Buzz 1
If we really want to make progress, our starting point has to
be that we don’t have all the answers and that we need
everyone’s input.
We should openly demonstrate curiosity and encourage
others to do so as well.
33. Admit when you messed up
Buzz 2
In a relentlessly paced world taking a moment to say ‘this is
what just happened and I’m sorry for what I did wrong’ is
incredibly powerful. Sorry is a word that by expressing
vulnerability creates an environment where psychological
safety can take root, with all the advantages that flow from it.