happy people

Henry Stewart, Founder and Chief Happiness Officer

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. "He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business," explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.

Get in touch

020 7375 7300

Send us a message

hello@happy.co.uk

Wigan Council: Empowering the Workforce, Empowering the Citizens
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Donna Hall, the ex-Chief Executive of Wigan Council, will be speaking at the Happy Workplaces Conference on 12th May. Hers is an inspirational story. According to the Financial Times, Wigan Council faced the third worst austerity cuts in the country as the Coalition government slashed local government spending. Yet, over Donna’s time in charge, they managed to improve resident satisfaction by 59% and saw healthy life expectancy rise by 7 years in the most deprived wards.
Teach For All: A Global Self-Managing Organisation
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Five years ago staff at Teach For All came together and proposed dismantling the senior team, changing the role of managers and exploring new ways of working. "The senior team was abolished on the spot!" explains Marwa Farouq, Global Head of Operations. Marwa will be speaking at the Happy Workplace conference on May 12th about Teach for All's journey towards self-management. It is a remarkable story with a lot to learn from.
Creating a Happy Workplace at Heart of Kent Hospice
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Here are some ideas for creating a great culture from Sarah Pugh, now Chief Executive of Whizz Kidz, about her time as CEO at Heart of Kent Hospice.
How Helen Sanderson MBE Has Created People-Centric Workplaces
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Helen Sanderson originally set up Wellbeing Teams in 2016 with the aim of radically changing the way health and social care is delivered. Inspired by the Dutch care company Buurtzorg, Wellbeing Teams are small, neighbourhood self-managed care teams. They have coaches, but no managers. Find out how Helen created Wellbeing Teams as a self-managing organisation that is focused on letting team members be human with each other in Henry's blog.
Tom Peters: A Leadership Guru Ahead of His Time
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Tom Peters is the ultimate management guru. Thinkers50, the list of the top 50 management thinkers, has rated him in the top 10 in multiple years and awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award, one of only six people to achieve the honour, in 2017. "Charismatic, passionate, and insightful, Tom virtually invented the modern thought leadership industry," explained Thinkers50 co-founder Des Dearlove. "He co-authored In Search of Excellence, which helped create the business book industry." Find out more about Tom Peters in this blog by Henry Stewart.
Jaipur Rugs: Art That You Can Walk On
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Nand Kishore Chaudhary (known as NKC) has been called 'the Gandhi of the rug industry.' Jaipur Rugs, which he founded, has 700 employees and works with 40,000 artisans from among the poorest of the poor. He set it up in 1978 with just 2 looms and 9 artisans. The weavers come from the Untouchable class. "All my family tried to stop me," explained NKC. "But I can’t see the difference, how these people are untouchable."
Make work more fun
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Make Work More Fun. That’s the title of the inspirational book from Corporate Rebels, published in 2020. The rebels, Joost Minnaar and Pim De Morree, gave up their jobs five years ago to tour the world visiting the most exciting organisations on the planet. The book tells the story of what they found. In this blog, Henry Stewart unpacks a number of the book's key arguments, which can help you discover a different way of organising companies, one that is more fulfilling for its people and more productive for the organisation.
Liberating Structures: Giving Everybody an Equal Voice
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Imagine if every meeting or event that you attended gave every participant the chance to speak and to express their views. That is what is made possible by Liberating Structures, 33 methods that avoid one person dominating and instead give everybody a voice. If you want your online events to be truly interactive, this could be the place to start. In this blog, Henry Stewart offers a summary of 8 different Liberating Structures.
Happy Workplaces are More Successful
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
The research has been done and the evidence is in: there is a clear link, shown in many studies, confirming that companies with great workplaces are more successful commercially. In this blog, Henry Stewart provides the evidence that happy workplaces simply perform better.
Let’s Give Everybody an Equal Voice
In: BlogsBy: Henry StewartRead length: 5 min read
Imagine at your events if everybody got to speak equally. Imagine the most senior people did not get to dominate the discussion. Imagine the loudest voices weren’t the ones who carried the decisions. In this blog, Henry Stewart goes through nine Liberating Structures, which make it so everybody has an equal voice.