What Happy Companies Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Company for the Better

What Happy Companies Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Company for the Better

by Ph.D. Dan Baker, Ph.D. Cathy Greenberg, MA Collins Hemingway
Released May 2006
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 9780131858572

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Book description

Happy companies are winning companies. Well-adjusted, psychologically healthy companies collaborate better. They innovate more effectively. They change faster. They see reality with exceptional clarity, but they know how to address it positively. They uncover opportunities where others fixate on obstacles and blame. What Happy Companies Know reveals the five crucial elements that happy companies share in common... and shows how to lead any company to happiness! This book reflects the experiences of the world's best companies, as well as the latest scientific research. Drawing on case studies from dozens of great businesses and exceptional leaders, this book's authors offer a complete blueprint, practical tools, and proven best practices for achieving organizational happiness and breakthrough performance. This book shows readers how to build a company where individuals at every level can apply their diverse strengths towards shared goals that are meaningful, positive, and profitable.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. Praise for What Happy Companies Know
  3. Acknowledgments
    1. From Dan Baker
    2. From Cathy Greenberg
    3. From Collins Hemingway
    4. From the team
  4. Other Resources and Further References
  5. About the Authors
  6. Foreword
  7. 1. The Naked Ape Dons the Designer Suit
    1. Cooking the Books a Common but Deadly Recipe
    2. Other Expressions of Damaging Unhappiness
    3. How a Happy Company Would Operate
  8. 2. What Is a Happy Company and Why Do I want One?
    1. When to React, When to Think
    2. Going to the Source for Ethics
  9. 3. The Nerd from the Mists
    1. Wiring That Protects, Wiring That Serves
    2. Hardwired for Hard Times
    3. The Irrationality of Logic
    4. Stepping Beyond Fear
    5. The Dance of Intentionality and Emotion
  10. 4. Scarcity Behavior in the Modern Tribe
    1. Tribes: The Best and Worst of Human Organizations
    2. Dominance, Backstabbing, and Other Scarcity Behaviors
    3. Fight, Freeze, or Flee: The Only Fear Behaviors
    4. Social Path Follows Biological Path
  11. 5. Aggression, Target Fixation, and the Crashes They Cause
    1. Cain and Abel: The Worst Story Ever Told
    2. The Problem with Problem Solving
    3. Bad News, or Good Communication?
    4. The Catastrophe of the Competitive Inverse
    5. The Lows Created by Adrenaline Highs
    6. The Land of Opportunity, Not Problems
  12. 6. The Lesson of the Salmon, or Why Happiness Beats Going Belly Up
    1. Mind, Body Look to Fear First
    2. Stressed-Out Organizations, a.k.a. Unhappy Companies
    3. How Not to End Belly Up
  13. 7. What’s a Body to Do? Personal and Corporate Strategies for Health
    1. Step One: Personal Mastery of Stress
    2. Step Two: Programs to Bolster Health and Well-Being
    3. Step Three: Tools to Improve Resilience
    4. Connections That Are Physical, Psychological
    5. Benefits of Managing Health, Stress
  14. 8. Humility, the Most Courageous Form of Leadership
    1. What it Takes to Be HAPIE: First, Humility
    2. Ego Satisfaction Through Results
    3. Management by Mobile Empathy
    4. Empathy Enables Merger of Cultures
    5. Why Humility, Empathy, and Inclusion Work
  15. 9. From Gut to Sight to Heart, the Role of Visionaries
    1. Seeing and Acting on the Patterns
    2. Inspiration Completes the Picture
    3. Seeing Is Making Others Believe
  16. 10. Organizing for Innovation
    1. The Team That Sits Together Invents Together
    2. See It. Understand It. Do It. Fix It.
    3. Brainstorm More Than Once in a Blue Moon
    4. Raise Visibility for Innovation
    5. Do Not “Ghetto-ize” Creativity, and Make Your Employees Smile
  17. 11. Only the Emotionally Intelligent Need Apply
    1. When It is Not Good to VERB-alize
    2. Build Emotional Intelligence as Part of Strategy
    3. Personality Profiles and Behavior
    4. Base All Changes on Strengths
  18. 12. Return on People
    1. Creating a Return on People
    2. Measuring Human Factors
    3. Emotional Intelligence by the Numbers
    4. New Measures Grapple with Intangibles
    5. Return on Intangibles Is Tangible
  19. 13. Engage with People
    1. When in Doubt, Over-Communicate
    2. Using a Balanced Scorecard
    3. Making Appreciative Inquiries
    4. Rewards and Recognition
  20. 14. Doing Well and Doing Good
    1. Becoming a Community Citizen
    2. Taking Corporate Social Responsibility
    3. Begin with Values, Interests
    4. What Goes Around, Comes Around
    5. Stimulating the Biology of Hope
  21. 15. Tools for Building Constructive Culture
    1. The Step-by-Step Way to Prosperity
    2. Energy, Cultural Assessments Provide Guidance
    3. Change Process Helps Integrate Distrustful Group
    4. Changing Climate Quickly, Culture Slowly
  22. 16. Happy Companies Are All Alike and Yet Unique
    1. Positive Company Requires Intentional, Sustained Effort
    2. Keep Your Eye on the Target, Not the Ball
    3. The Choice, the Whole Choice, and Nothing but the Choice
    4. It Takes More Than Money to Move the Troops
    5. A Happy Company Is Unique as Each Creative Person Is Unique

Product information

  • Title: What Happy Companies Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Company for the Better
  • Author(s): Ph.D. Dan Baker, Ph.D. Cathy Greenberg, MA Collins Hemingway
  • Release date: May 2006
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 9780131858572