Managing for Happiness: Jurgen Appelo at TEDxLille (Full Transcript)

Jurgen Appelo – TRANSCRIPT

They are seen as untrustworthy, narcissistic, inauthentic bullies and they drive you all completely nuts —  The managers.

Let’s say your manager is Bill. You want to negotiate for a higher fee or salary but Bill said that, sadly, there was no budget left, after he received his raise or bonus. Am I right? Or you ask for a better computer or work phone that he didn’t give you, and he emails his rejection from his glass fiber titanium case nuclear power station. Correct? Silly Billy.

I know these stories well because, I’m afraid to admit, I was a manager like Bill. In my defense I was actually a software developer. But I may have been so bad at programming that my teammates begged our CEO to promote me away into management. And like other managers, I had no clue how to work with people. I drove the business like a machine.

For me, software developers were computers on legs with hair. I sucked as a manager. And bad management means bad performance. Every company I worked for, collapsed. But somehow, everything has changed. Now people ask me for advice on how to run their businesses. And I travel the world sharing stories and practices. It all comes down to this: manage the system for happiness and offer products with meaning. We need companies to be purposeful. We want more Apples and Teslas and Amazons. Not to have your next smart watch delivered to you by smart drone while you’re driving your smart car.

Who cares? What we want are organizations that make lives worth living. We want businesses to offer us nanobots, solar power, gene therapy, quantum computing, medical virtual reality. Because all these innovations can be turned into meaningful products and services. But someone has got to manage this. And the purpose of management is making organizations valuable to people and planet. Sadly there is no single silver bullet to achieve this.

But I changed from a bad manager to a not-so-bad manager with seven silver bullets. Let me give you some examples. Let’s say that your manager is Taffy. Taffy wants to organize corporate lunch meetings where she feeds everyone pizzas and PowerPoints in the hope that afterwards all the employees would feel engaged. But none of your colleagues said: “Those slides full of bullet points were so inspiring!” And none of your colleagues said: “When is the next event scheduled in my free time?” Let’s do a quick scientific test, if you know managers like Taffy, organizing such meetings, at the count of 3, I want you all to say: “Daffy Taffy”. Ok? Here we go: 1, 2, 3!

Audience: Daffy Taffy!

Oh my god! 73.4 % of the audience knows someone — I’m good at that, I’m good at counting — knows someone like Taffy. I organized such large meetings as well, I admit. But I did something else recently. I know that change is easier when people share food. So I invited colleagues to my house for dinner. It was random people such as two programmers, an account manager, a project manager, a system administrator, and the senior vice president of pencils and paper clips. The day before they arrived I found myself some easy-to-make recipes, that means: not French. I fetched the groceries, prepared the kitchen.

When the guests arrived I told them: “And now you do the cooking, surprise!” After they had recovered from the shock, they figured out what to do. They started cooking and I stood there watching the hard-working people; a typical management role. I did this 6 or 7 times and it was always a success.

Notice that I didn’t manage the people, I managed the system around them. They self-organized in my kitchen and they strengthened ties across departments. They baked lasagna in my favorite salad bowl. But at least for a few hours, there was happiness of employees. I’ll give you another example. Let’s say your manager is Jim. Jim wants to celebrate a big new sales contract, maybe with a Moulin Rouge-style party.

But he sort of forgot to ask the production team if the new delivery deadline was even theoretically possible and something worth celebrating. Another scientific test: If you know managers like Jim, promising these things to customers, at the count of three say: “Swimmy Jimmy”. Here we go: 1, 2, 3!

Audience: Swimmy Jimmy!

Wow! 89.2 % of the audience knows people like Jim. There is nothing wrong with celebrating sales if the rest of the company is happy as well. I once discussed it with my CEO and I said: “I think it is good to help our team celebrate things, maybe help them to make a bit of noise.”