Henry Stewart Speaking at the 2014 Happy Workplaces Conference

So, a theme for the conference is Think Big. I don't know, some of you were here last year, and last year, Yvonne, I hope I'm not stealing what she's saying this afternoon, commented on how she went to the Google board with proposed on slight increase in healthcare, budget, and Google's response was, Can't you just fix the US healthcare system?

You know? And she didn't fix the US healthcare system, but it does. But that's the typical response you get here and which has made me ever since think what's the big picture? So at the end of today, you will fill out a postcard with two actions, which we will post back to you afterwards, and I want you to be thinking about what will be really a big thing, a transformational thing.

So going beyond having a nice social on a Friday or saying hello to people, which is good. But they're going to be along those compensated things, things which actually change the nature of the workplace. So let me tell you, give you an example of how it's not about fun. Well, it is a bit about fun. And we're going to, I hope they have lots of fun today and do some interesting things.

But one of the people I've worked with is a guy called Stuart Jones from, Carillion, who are a huge facilities management company. And he decided that he would try and create a happy workplace. So somebody got tasked with measuring happiness and making it happy. And so this guy brought in lots of hula hoops and games and they had lots of fun and they measured happiness before and after.

And happiness went down. Because that's not what it's about. It's not about the trivial stuff. It's about, I would, since then, what he's been doing is he's been working on meaning and he's been working on strengths. So getting people to play to their strengths. All of you who know the Happy Manifesto off by heart will know that that's one of the ten principles.

Get people to play to their strengths. And let me, let me ask you the question. How many, what percentage do you think, when asked? Did you do what you were best at today? Say, yes when Gallup asks them. Any guesses? What percentage? 20? You've read the book. What's interesting about this question, what is very sad about this question, is nobody ever gives a big figure.

In asking thousands of people, nobody has ever said, oh, I think 80 percent. Do what they're good at, or 90 percent do what they're good at. No, I'd be thinking maybe if I asked Google it'd be different, but, that's the answer is always normally 5%. That's the answer I normally get. People know that at work every day, people are not doing what they're best at.

So, Stuart then has had talks with everyone in his group, I think it's about 90 strong. Some people have left. One of them's gone off to teach English in Eastern Europe, because that's what she wants to do. So a couple of people have gone to completely different jobs. But everybody is now playing to their strengths and, and, happiness is steadily rising.

So, not about the trivial, about the big things is the big picture I want to give you. And one of the questions was, when have you worked at your best? So, I want you to think about that question now, and I want you to have a particular time in mind when you've worked at your best.

Has everybody got a time in mind? Yeah, nod or something or show, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let me ask you some questions. Hands up if it was a time when you were particularly well paid. I think I've got two, two there, okay, three. Okay, hands up if it was a time when communication from management was particularly strong.

Okay, that's about 20%. Hands up if it was a time when you were challenged. That's about 90%. And hands up if it was a time when you were trusted and given the freedom to do it your way. Okay, that's at least 95%. And again, that's a question I'd love to ask. Some of you I will have asked it of before. What makes the difference is trust and autonomy.

What may, every, when people talk about when they worked at their best, it's about having that trust and autonomy. One of my favorite stories is from, God, I've forgotten which book it was, Thomas Waterman's book after In Search of Excellence, Frontiers of Excellence. He writes about a chemical company in the States, where the manager joins fresh from his MBA, very enthusiastic and after doing his job for a few months, notice that the, oh this is in the book, you might have heard this story, but that the productivity on the day shift, was half the level of the night shift. Why?

Less managers around than night shift. There's no, he was very helpful going around. He was asking people, what can I do to help? How can we get together to talk about this? And actually, was just getting in the way of people that knew how to do their job. He spotted that, got out of the way, and got the productivity of the day shift up to those levels.

Or another example is, A company we worked with, oh, I'm going to skip that one. That, yeah, that slide was that's the question I want you to ask. Actually, no, that is the question I want you to do at your tables. Okay? Excuse the slight confusion there. What I want you to think about then, if we're thinking big, if we're really making a difference, what would real transformation look like?

Talk to your neighbor this time, not the whole table. Talk to your neighbor. If we're going beyond the compensation, we're going beyond the simple stuff. What would it look like to make transformational change in your organization into somewhere based on trust and autonomy? Two minutes talking to your neighbor.

Okay.

I'm not gonna take any feedback from that, but this day there's gonna be a lot of chance for you to talk 'cause I'd love conferences where there's interaction and not just endless, endless looking at, at the speaker. So, I hope, hope you're with me on that. If you're not, you're probably at the wrong conference, but there we go.

So trust and autonomy. That I believe is a key focus. And I'm going to give you a story of one of the companies we worked with, which was Able and Coal. Who knows Able and Coal? Excellent. Organic box delivery. We worked with them as they grew from 3 million to 10, to 20 million turnover.

And their main employees are drivers, the people who deliver the boxes. And how it used to work is every, every day the driver would be given their schedule, the time they have to arrive, their route which had been carefully planned by an expert route planner. I said that every driver had their separate route and they went off on these.

So what would it mean to just add trust into there? What we did, what, well, what Ella did who was running the company was put the driver in the drivers in charge of their routes. A very it's actually not a massive change, but the effect was huge. The drivers then decided how they did their routes.

Because actually, the drivers who drove those roads every day knew much better than the planner working from whatever clever software they've got. It meant the drivers decided when they did the job. Some of them actually get up at three in the morning now. Because if you want to deliver in London, that's the best time to get the job done.

Some of them are swapped deliveries. Because, you know, they say, well actually it makes more sense for me to do that and you to do that. Some of the in fact, it ended up with Abel and Cole changed the whole way it delivered. So that, the whole of North East London was on one day, North West London another day, to enable people to swap and, the, the end result was much happier drivers, much greater efficiency, and better service to the customer, who genuinely, who often now got their, got their box on their doorstep when they woke up.

And that isn't a massive, it actually isn't the massive transformational change that Pat was talking about, but just switching From one idea, one way of doing it to another, the expert doing it for you. to the real expert, the frontline member of staff doing it instead. And that, just if you think about where you can make that switch, that alone can have a transformation effect in organizations.

It's little things like that that I love it when we work with clients and get to do. So, today is partly about trust and autonomy, but it's also about well being, which is a particular focus of the day in the, in the, in the workshop. You've got a chance to do meditation, you've got a chance to do, healthy eating and building up your energy.

Yvonne is going to be talking about well being at Google later today. But I'll give a personal example. Last year, I went Oh, again, I've forgotten the order, but there we go. Good job, we believe in celebrating mistakes, I'm happy. I'm going to come back to that one. Last year, I took a sabbatical.

This is Costa Rica, this is the beach I was staying on. For five weeks I cut off completely. No laptop, no work email, no nothing. Five weeks away and then three weeks after that back away from the office where I, I did do stuff online and so on. It's long been a belief at Happy that everybody should take a sabbatical.

Everyone gets a month's sabbatical after every six years but I've been a bit slow in taking mine. Because, you know, there's, I'm busy and there's so much to do and all that kind of thing. Anybody have that feeling? One interesting thing when, when I got back from the sabbatical, just before the sabbatical, we'd hired a camera crew to do a video of how to create happy workplaces.

And we're very excited about distributing it. And when I got back, Nicky, rang me and said, Henry, there's a problem with the video. And he said, you look miserable. You look miserable throughout the video. You don't smile once. And, that's not me, I hope. Yeah, really. But I was overworked and stressed, and actually, I wasn't working very well.

As a result of taking that sabbatical, and it makes me want to take one every year now actually I'm much more relaxed, I'm much more focused, and what I've noticed in my work is I've stopped getting bogged down in the detail, and I'm much more able to see the strategy. And so, since then, we've come up with some big strategies, which I believe will work.

We'll transform our company. So, the question at your table is, what is your, what would be your sabbatical? And that might be five weeks, might not, might be something in the week. Kathy will be talking more about this, this afternoon, and how you, you detach and do this kind of thing. But yet again, a couple of minutes at your table.

If any of you are feeling the least bit overworked, or a little bit stressed, or a little bit stuck, at any point in your work week, I'm sure anybody feels, I'm sure there's nobody feeling like that just a couple of minutes, what would be your sabbatical to take you out of that? A couple of minutes on that.

Okay!

Okay! Now there's a key link, which my colleague Nikki pointed out yesterday, between trust and autonomy and well being. And that is the concept of control. Actually, we are happiest in our job, and you already said that, isn't it? Happiest in our jobs, and most effective when we're in control.

Because if you ask people by profession how happy they are, guess which profession's come top? Absolutely, it is. Is it florists? Who else? I don't think artists were included in the list, but probably would. That's it. Hairdressers. Hairdressers. Yes. It, these are spot on. Oh my back. Can you send it back?

Four slides. Plumbers is right as well. Who said that? These you. And guess what? Guess who's bottom? I did. Bankers are bottom Yes bankers and then it technicians are, are bottom. And I'd say that is about control. You know, if you're a florist, you're, I mean, florists, you know, hey, you get to create great flower arrangements and things, but plumbers, you know, I wouldn't have thought that was a fun job myself, you know, what you have to deal with, but they're in control.

They're in control of the job. Grant, here we go. There's your florists, your plumbers, and your hairdressers. So spot on. You either read the survey very well or are very good at guessing. So, that's the question. How do you give your people that control? And that's what for me today is about. It's about really thinking how you can transform, whether you're in the middle of the organization, like Stuart Jones was at Carillion.

You know, when he went to his finance manager with his, he called it Project Happy. And the finance manager said he hated it. It was a ridiculous name. Nobody's going to take it seriously. It doesn't sound professional. But Stuart said, look, just give me a shot. Yes, I won't go over budget. Give me a shot at it.

It's my department. Just let me try. And the finance department, I wouldn't say he's one, finance manager, wouldn't say he's one round, but he has recognized the service is better, the results are better, the department's growing in terms of the customers and so on. So even if you're in the middle of some huge bureaucracy, you know, think today about how you can change it.

And let me just close with a bit of evidence, because some of you said what you wanted was evidence that this works. So I will. How many know the research by Alex Edmonds? Anyone? Julian does it because he works with him at the London Business School. So you can tell me whether I quote it right or not.

Alex decided that the Great Place to Work service had been going for 25 years. So, you could actually look back and say, well, how would happen if you invested in the stock market, in the companies, in the listed companies that were in that list every year for 25 years? And then compare it to the standard stock market.

Guess what, guess, guess which did better? The ones in the Great Place to Work survey had a four factor alpha of 3. 5%. Now does anybody apart from Julian know what that means? No? What it means is you do, did 3. 5 percent better than the average. And when I've given that stat to financial people, they're, wow, that is a big amount.

What it means is if you've been investing your pension in the standard stock market and it reached 100, 000 at the end of the 25 years. If instead, you'd invested in the great places to work, it would have reached 233, 000. That's the hard financial difference. That creating a great workplace makes. And that's the one to show to your, your, your finance directors and so on.

That's on my blog. If you search my blog, you'll find a reference to it or just search, search Alex Edmonds. So I've come to a close there, but what I want to encourage you is think transformational. Think big. How can you boost trust and autonomy? Because we want to create a world, we want to create a movement for happy workplaces, a world where a happy workplace is the norm and not the exception.

Who's with me on that? Okay, thank you very much