In the past three weeks I’ve had loads of talks and lectures around our country (mainly in universities). The topic was “Your money or your life?” or why do we work for money if we could work, live and make money at the same time? The more I study the reasons the more I see it is an absolute Matrix. After about ten years of trying to dismantle it, I finally started to see the basic components of the system. I believe, one of the key parts was people’s or citizen’s conversion into “consumers”, into the creatures believing the happiness is for sale. Into the human beings who buy more than they need, actually much, much more. Into the people trying to “Keep up with the Joneses“ thinking that mainly possessions of material goods will make them respected members of the human society. Into the Sheeple whose “modus operandi” Fight Club‘s Tyler Durden described beautifully: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.

Perhaps that is the reason why there has been so much buzz about freedom at work in our region. We’ve been trying to learn from the freedom based companies from all over, there’s been a lot of enthusiasm from people involved, yet working examples in the Czech Republic can be still counted easily. We believe that all there is to get it going on a big scale is to bring the critical mass together. One day, one venue, two parties, dozen great speakers, companies open to change, lots of networking and a bit of international touch is what we hope to make a switching mechanism for the boom of freedom at work in Czech Republic, Slovakia and perhaps the reagion as a whole.

Tania Le Moigne, CEO of Google Czech, Petr Vítek, co-founder of the coworking pioneer The Hub, Isaac Getz, the leading figure on innovation in management and co-author of besteselling Freedom Inc. or Martin Černohorský, CEO of EtNetera one of the top regional employers are just some of the people on stage. In the audience – companies who embrace innovation, freedom at work pioneers, freelancers, corporate linchpins and status quo ignorants ready to go back home, spread the word and start some change.

The conference will take place on 10th November 2011 in the unforgettable art deco surroundings of one of the oldest cinemas of Prague - Vzlet. (By the way what a great name for a venue where a movement is expected to ‘take off’, isn’t it? :) You are welcome to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Language of the event will be Czech, Slovak and English. Not translated.

It is often like a slap into my face to observe my two little kids do what I do. Just look at Valerie (see the photo below). As I find myself  staring at a computer screen a lot, for her a computer has been a magnet. If I ask what she does, she says: “I am sending out e-mails.” Or I hear her mentoring her dolls or the younger sister, supposedly the way I do it. And you know my theory… Being a child is our first job. The family is our first employer. The father or the mother is our first boss, the siblings are the first colleagues, the neighbor may be the first competition :-).

It makes me think that to see more freedom based businesses we need to see more freedom based families first. Things are changing here in Central Europe where I reside. But is the change fast enough? I doubt it. The last five years I go to children’s playgrounds, the main thing I hear from the parents is the popular command and control, carrot and sticking and contempt. And after we send our kids to school? The same thing just goes on…

On the other hand I am often overwhelmed by the number of people who are trying to reform the way we bring up our kids be it at home or at school. It makes me very optimistic. I often think we should unite all the reform movements because the home, the school and the work are the same thing. Perhaps just the vocabulary is different. But the principles are the same.

Children follow. And not only them. We need more examples of freedom based families, schools as well as businesses so we could follow them. And as I said business can learn from (= follow) how we run our schools or how families deal with power and communication. On the other hand parents and teachers can learn a great deal from some of the teachers. What do you think?

“Why?” is a great question! It may be the most important question in life. It enables one to plumb the depths, open new horizons, look at old realities with new eyes, to really understand and reach a higher level. But it appears that there are two sides to every coin. In the case of “Why?”, the new horizons disturb old “truths”. If we all started to ask questions (the way small children do), no stone would be left unturned. For example why do we still have MANDATORY school attendance in 2010? Or why do we still have summer holidays, which we may have had justification for in our agrarian past, but today they only cause havoc on roads and at resorts? Why do we work from Monday to Friday? Why are the heads of companies and high political offices, in principle, only men? Why does the media bombard us with so much negative news? Why do we so often study things we don’t like, just so we can get a piece of paper? Why do we try to build a career instead of finding a calling? We would come to the realization that many of the things we’re used to no longer have a basis and that some things not only don’t make sense, but even possibly do a lot of harm.

If we followed the example of small children and we all began to ask “why?”, it would cause a revolution. Life would be changed beyond recognition.

If we followed the example of small children and we all began to ask “why?”, it would cause a revolution. Life would be changed beyond recognition.
I would say that we know this very well somewhere deep in our subconscious, but probably the fear of losing the old stability forces us into permanent opposition and defense. It’s like playing volleyball with children. Whenever the ball flies over from them (= the question “why?”), we jump up to block it. With a single objective. Don’t let even one ball reach our side. Win the game. Don’t allow debate. Here are a few examples of some of our most successful well-known notorious blockers that Czech/Slovak parents love to use against the whys:

“Just because!”

“Enough of these silly questions!”

“There’s no time for silly questions!”

“This is not a discussion!”

“What? You don’t know?!”

“Because I said so!”

“Are you going to do it, or am I going to have to make you do it?”

“Curiosity killed the cat!”

“You’ll regret asking that question!”

“No one here is interested in talking about that!”

“No one here is interested in you!”

“One more question and I will give you a reason to ask why!”

“I do not like curious kids!” (miss Cassandra in The Adventures of Maya  the Bee)

When we are around five or six years old, we begin unconsciously leaving the world of “Why?”. Who would enjoy hitting the ball into the hands of their opponents and constantly losing, right!? And then one morning we wake up in the world of “How?” Everything seems to be clear to us. We no longer ask why… Even if somewhere inside us we’re interested, we don’t ask. We heard it a thousand times during our childhood that we shouldn’t be interested. Moreover, we learned the art of blocking from our parents, just as they learned it years ago from their parents. We no longer try to serve the ball over the net. Instead we sit on the sidelines, or sometimes we become a blocker.

It’s like playing volleyball with children. Whenever the ball flies over from them (= the question “why?”), we jump up to block it. With a single objective. Don’t let even one ball reach our side. Win the game. Don’t allow debate.

In this state, with this mind set, we sit in schools that have been mandatory for quite a long time, in which most of the time one person speaks and the rest write it down, and where you spend time trying to remember something in which we’re not the least bit interested and we’re never going to need. Most of the time it never even occurs to us to ask ourselves why we HAVE TO go to school, why do I have to take this particular course, why learn in this specific way, why with this teacher? And then others simply explain to us that that’s the way we do things around here… We give up. We decide to serve out our prison sentence until we’re adults, and then we hope to set free. Then we will finally be able to make decisions about our own lives. Then the adults will no longer tell us what we have to do and how to do it. A damned seventeen to twenty years of our lives! (Most of the time we don’t see it this way, or at least I didn’t see it that way.) 

But whoa. We leave the schoolroom and if we don’t choose to be freelancers, start up our own business, or choose a life of a homeless person, we most likely get an employment. Suddenly, it’s as if we’ve gone all the way back to the beginning – like when we were seven years old and in our first year of elementary school. Only in pale blue fashion. Moreover, in school it was clear who the boss was. We didn’t pretend to be anything. The teacher was respected. When we behaved in a way the teacher didn’t like, she wrote a note that we had to take to our parents, and that was it. However, at work it’s not clear at all. “When they try to catch a bird, they call to it nicely”, and so often we hear about all the opportunities we can expect in the new company, and about the plans the company has for us. But once the cage is closed, weird things begin to happen. The boss or an HR person tell us how to behave properly within the company. What to wear, when to go to staff meetings, how to fill out forms… Loads of directives, regulations, procedures, plans, and budgets. The main thing is to understand the system – how not to get lost in it. Welcome back to the world of “How?”!

Increasing number of companies start asking “Why?”. The basic question at this kind of company is: “Why are you doing what you are doing? “. They begin to leave “how” to its people.

Luckily there are also “Why Companies” that leave the how question up to employees and rather focus on the “why?”.  Not surprisingly, the motivation and results of their employees seem like from another world. Do you still wonder why 80% of new eager recruits begin ignoring the company within six months, or even hate it (according to Gallup)? Not me. 

Jean-Francois Zobrist, former-CEO of the French automotive components manufacturer FAVI nicely gave it a name. He says that there are two types of companies – “Pourquoi?” and “Comment?” – “Why?” and “How?” companies. (source: Freedom Inc.) “How Companies” are those most of us know: those that make the decisions for their employees. “Why Companies” are those that not only don’t ban the question “why?”, they even ask for it. The basic question at this kind of company is: “Why are you doing what you are doing? “.

To a large extent they leave the decisions over how things will be done to their people. They focus on results. And everybody in the company comes to the primary agreement what the results should look like. And if the employees manage to get those results from their own living room, and while in their pajamas, that’s up to them (with some slight exaggeration). Different companies, of course, differ in the extent of freedom they allow their employees. From companies where the employees themselves decide how much they will take, whether they will go to work or who will be their boss, to companies that require working hours or the aid of directives determining the proper attire (dress code). I, personally, am glad that elements of freedom are appearing at most of the conventionally directed international firms. And that is also why I think the future looks bright.

This was an ingenious example proving the widespread stereotypical knowledge that women are focused on relationships and care giving, and are better at listening and communication in general. That’s also why they prefer cooperation to competition. Typical men, on the other hand, need to compete and prove which one is better. Instead of relationships they tend to focus on games in which they can win and beat others. Instead of listening they focus on speaking. When they are small, it’s stuff like football and other competitive games. When they grow up and start working, they replace their ball for PowerPoint and their toy car for a decent Audi. In many parts of the world in politics, instead of using toy guns they use the real thing.

The need to compete, win, and beat others is in the nature of a typical male. Women tend to prefer harmony and relationships. Unless we get rid of the pyramidal business structure that encourages competition, female executives in companies and other sectors of society will always be as rare as honest men in parliament.

When I think about it, I’m not surprised at all by the results of the study carried out by Malcolm Gladwell when working on his book Blink. He had decided to contact half of the Fortune 500 companies in order to gather data regarding the height, gender, and race of the companies’ CEOs. What conclusion did he come to? The chief executives of the world’s largest companies are exclusively white men (women, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are absolute exceptions). It is also unusually common that they are over six feet tall (1.83 meters), while the average American is 1.78 meters tall. A typical CEO is then 7.5 cm taller than the average population. Interestingly enough, according to Gladwell only 14% of American men are mostly over six foot tall. However, this applies to 58% of the CEOs within Fortune 500. It’s generally true that the higher a person’s position is, the more they earn. So Gladwell took the time and effort and worked out how much added worth one inch (2.54 cm) is for a person. He quotes the sum of 789 USD per year. It’s as if the fact that someone is 1) tall, 2) white and 3) a male also equals the assumption that he can lead others. This is actually the case. Throughout our history as hunters and gatherers, a tall strong man usually had a better chance of protecting his group. And so, as a matter of fact, we’ve always looked up to taller, well-built and hairy guys. A man shorter than 1.70 meters who is bald and has a belly finds it just as hard to achieve something in a male pack as a woman.

Men’s need to compare themselves with one another, compete, and win has also given us, to a large extent, something beneficial though – the progress that we have achieved as mankind. Nevertheless, living in a man’s world for a long period of time is more sorrow than joy. Conflicts increase in number, communication is sluggish, and as a result relationships suffer and people are overworked and tired.

If you read Gottman’s study, then Gladwell’s results cannot surprise you at all. The traditional corporate world is built on competition, where the main goal is to win. Corporate life and politics are thus stuffed with testosterone, sizing one another other up, of monologues, coalition battles, and other efforts to get as far up the hierarchy as possible. It is interesting to look at the organizational structure of many large corporations or even educational institutions. At the bottom of the pyramid you can very often find only women. And the higher you go, the fewer women you see. When you reach the top, women have often completely disappeared. Let’s take an example from our educational system. At the pre-school level there are over twenty thousand teachers in the Czech Republic. Out of whom only 22 are men. At universities, however, you basically don’t hear about female professors. And we wonder why we don’t have more women closer to the top of the pyramid.
 Do we really think that a typical woman, whose genes seek harmony, will feel comfortable in an environment where the main thing is to compare, compete and win?

My Russian friend Petrovič  says: “V kazdom muzscine soldat!” There’s a soldier in every man!“. I think he makes a point.

There are not as many pushy women with iron guts and a desire to defeat the next guy. Therefore we can’t be surprised that quotas for the number of women (in many countries) in politics and government aren’t helping either.

In order to be successful in a man’s world, a woman does not necessarily need a battery of penises. But if a woman’s not tough, pushy, able to maintain long monologues, and doesn’t have the desire to beat the rest, it will be almost impossible for her to be really successful in today’s world.

Unless we begin getting rid of symbols of power, we won’t pull the pyramid down. And no quotas can make this dramatically any better. I guess we just have to accept the fact that “men” at the top of the pyramid will make the decisions about what’s going on and women “at the bottom of the pyramid” will only follow whatever the people “above” come up with. But then the idea of living in harmony, satisfaction, having good relationships, and a world without wars will thus remain but a dream. And that’s a little sad, isn’t it?

The bigger the chaos and also a lack of trust in our society, the bigger the challenge to grasp a concept of freedom in a workplace. Just two years ago, it felt like I came from Mars trying to share the ideas with some of the local businesses. Last year we decided to take three of the best books (in our view) on the topic of workplace freedom, translate them into our language and publish them in the Czech republic and Slovakia (The languages are so similar, meaning the book published in one of the them can easily be distributed in the other country) in a hope to spread the idea to a much larger audience.

First of the books is Maverick! written back in the nineties as a story of the “world’s weirdest workplace”, Brazilian Semco. It is a fantastic story of turning around an old industrial company into the world’s freest workplace that has been serving as a role model to businesses from all over the world. Then there is a current bestselling story of Zappos and its CEO Tony Hsieh. If Semco is a turnaround, then Zappos is a story of a greenfield operation that grew from nothing to over a billion in sales in just ten years. And guess what!? Zappos is not one of the Silicon Valley miracles, nor has a patent for a rare drug. It sells shoes! Actually, it sells happiness. Hence the book title: Delivering Happiness. And finally, there is Freedom Inc., a book that puts it all together. A piece of work that gives a big picture and explains how about twenty or so businesses from around the globe went about introducing freedom into their workplaces.

So, this week one of my dreams came through. We have the books on our hands now. This Tuesday we had a party to celebrate the project in Prague’s HUB. Let us now hope the books will end up in the right hands and we will not have to wait long for some Czech Semcos and Zapposes to show up.

Here are the books: Podivín (Maverick!), Štěstí doručeno (Happiness delivered) and Svoboda v práci (Freedom Inc.) available for sale here.

1. Democracy 3.0 – The roots of the word come from Greek – “Demos” (people) and “Cratos” (power), i.e. people government and it was first tried back in the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece. After many years of trial and error, the concept then took off at large in the 20th century as a way to govern states. Only by the end of the century democracy started finding its way to other sectors of the society like family, educational system or business. And I liked what Traci labeled it – “Democracy 1.0″ (Ancient Greece), “Democracy 2.0″ (Politics) and a “Democracy 3.0″ (Organizational, Educational system, Families, Business,…). And needless to say, if democracy is a tool, then freedom is a result.

2. Purpose and vision – Another point coming from Traci… One of the ten principles of freedom at work that the Worldblu defined, the Purpose and vision” serves as riverbanks for the water to flow in. Without the riverbanks there are usually floods and the water is everywhere and flows nowhere. With the riverbanks firmly in place, people can spend much more time in a state called flow (just like the water).

3. Not smart enough to lead autocratically – I loved what Razor Suleman had to say on why he founded a democratic company (ILoveRewards). He basically said he started two companies prior to ILoveRewards and both went broke. So he came to realize he is simply not smart enough to tell people what to do. Instead he started asking them: “What do you think?“. And it actually started working!

4. Master plan – Razor said the only thing he does as a CEO is that he tries to put together a so-called “master plan” which is a huge sheet of paper with various goals for the whole organization. He does it purely democratically by asking everybody a question: “What is the most important thing we need to do next year?” When it is done he simply tries to follow up on the goals by asking the rest of the company how are they doing.

5. Rotating leadership – Many freedom based companies do this. I was amazed to hear a story of a conductor-less orchestra from New York City called Orpheus. Ayden Adler explained that there is no set leadership structure. Everybody is invited into leadership roles. Either leading the group in rehearsal and performance as a concertmaster, or by leading one of the orchestra’s many different formal or informal teams. Be sure, to check them out (video) or The Story.

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. Three buckets of Happiness – oh, I love this idea! Will McInnes of NixonMcInnes mentioned the three buckets that everyone bumps into when coming to work. One is filled with tennis balls. The second has an “unhappy face” post-it on. The third a “happy face”. People are then encouraged to take a ball and throw it into one of the baskets depending on how they feel the particular day. The company then tries to track the happiness level and tries to correlate it with what is going on inside. What a cool happiness research!

7. Salary setting – Radical idea for a mainstream corporate world even though it is becoming quite normal for organizations practicing freedom. NixonMcInnes belongs among the companies where people set their own salaries. I liked the four parameters which they use to set the right level. They do it basically by asking the following questions: “Is it fair?“, “Is it attractive?”, “Is it equitable?” and “Is it affordable?”

8. Salary setting II. - Shareef Bishay from Bettermeans.com explained their beautiful software enabling democratic collaboration. Awesome! What I loved perhaps the most was the way they share income. Basically every team member has a chance to give credits to all the other members. Pure peer to peer management. Check out the video that explains the details:

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. “Working from home is the new cool” - Matt Zemon of American support described the ways his company leads its employees working from home. “It is no longer a technology challenge. It is a leadership challenge.” he said. How do you align people along common objectives when you don’t even see them, when you can’t just grab them for a cup of coffee? Still, they are damn successful! Be sure to check them out.

10. Hire slowly. Fire quickly – I know, this is a well known mantra of countless HR gurus. Still, I think it is worth of repeating as most of the companies do it the other way around and they mess up as a result. “Right people on the bus, wrong people off the bus.” is what Jim Collins says. Jamie Naughton and Rob Richman of Zappos say their experience is is just this.

11. Transparency – In my view, there are not many companies more transparent than Zappos. Three examples for all: 1. Supposedly 500 – 600 Zappos employees are active on Twitter,  live and unedited. 2. Anyone at Zappos can ask anything and actually get an answer. 3. And of course there are the famous tours when anyone (including press) can come and take pictures and video of almost anything (see 18 Observations from Zappos). And their secret recipe? “Be real and you have nothing to fear!”

12. Whishez program – One of the super cool things of Zappos. Anyone at Zappos can express a wish and somebody else may take it and fulfill it. See the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

13. Graduation party – I don’t remember who was mentioning this one but the thing is that the company is throwing a so called “graduation party” for the employees who are leaving.I like the idea of looking at a company as at “Alma mater”. Logically a farewell party then becomes a “Graduation”. Ex-employees are then alumnus supporting their ex-company.

14. Culture = Cult – The word “culture” has its roots in a word “cult”.” Thus organizations are cults expressing its belonging to the group by using the same language and behavior. What we see in organizations then is a chronic sameness. Which,  from the efficiency perspective, is cool“, said Stephen Shapiro. What an interesting observation! Definitely one of the points worth digging into in a lot more details.

15. Da Vita Village – I noticed many freedom based companies take the language we use as citizens into their company. The best example I heard about  at the Worldblu was Da Vita. They call themselves a “village”, have a “town hall”, the “mayor”, the “citizens”, the “elections”. Zappos and many other companies use the name “Family” instead and all  say: “Community first, company second.” Or “Employees first. Customers second.” That is, ladies and gentleman, a R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N!

16. TEDx@work – Mitch Thrower of BUMP.com introduced and amazing concept of their company. Based in La Jolla, California, among other things they encourage their people to bike to work, they have splendid offices overlooking ocean, they organize yoga classes at lunch,… But what I loved perhaps the most is that employees took the idea of TED and organized and independent TEDx event at work. What an inspiration!

17. Employee owned company – Again, many companies do it. There is a large coop movement but still it is a major, major revolution. One of the examples at the Worldblu was a company called Dreamhost presented by their HR person Art Elizarov.

18. Ricardo “The Grandfather” – Few people mentioned Ricardo Semler and his Semco as the door to freedom and democracy at a workplace. The same reactions I hear from loads of people reading Semler’s book Maverick! that we published this year in the Czech republic – Podivín.

19. Gratitude log - Vishen Lakhiani of of Mind Valley introduced a so called “Gratitude log” that some of you may be using already since it has thousands of registered users from all over the globe. It is built on an assumption that stopping once a day for a few minutes, reflecting on what has happened in the past 24 hours and actually writing it down makes us significantly happier. It is also a great way to appreciate one another in a company. See the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

20. Cool offices – Countless companies seem to be converting sterile cubicles into often super cool environments. Why do that? Vishen thinks that offices of tomorrow need to be better looking and more comfortable so that an average employee actually wants to be there rather than staying in his or her living room. That makes sense, right!? Look at Mind Valley’s interiors:

Click here to view the embedded video.

21. The awesomeness report – Perhaps the coolest thing from the Mind Valley. Every week an e-mail is being sent to all employees 24 hours before everybody in the company meets for a mutual meeting. The e-mail is asking for anything awesome that has happened in the past week. See the video explaining the whole thing. Isn’t that cool?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Okay, those are my 21 thoughts. The list could obviously go on. Of course not all points are major. Some are just funny or somehow interesting. What matters perhaps the most is that  these two days in San Francisco give hope. It shows that the idea of freedom at work actually works and in many places it is quite normal way of life. So, spread the word!

1. Pick up – There was a complimentary shuttle waiting for us in the airport in the morning. Jerry, “the mayor” of Zappos came to look for us and it felt like an old friend is picking us up. What a friendly and joyful guy! Thanks a lot Jerry! It was great meeting you.

2. Free tour – The fact of the free tours where the company brings you in, shows you almost everything inside out while you may take pictures or videos of anything you like is just amazing. By the way this applies for visitors from press too. They can come and talk to anyone about anything. What a contrast with most companies out there that “do not allow tours” even to its employees!?

3. Giving Library - I love the Zappos’ concept of a giving library. Any guest gets a copy of Tony’s Delivering Happiness and/or a Culture book. You could even grab one of their other books (They have about fifty other books on happiness, leadership, entrepreneurship,… in their library). Actually anyone at Zappos can “borrow” a book without anybody controlling it. What a cool way to spread the philosophy!

4. Culture book – Talking about a Culture book, Zappos has been writing one every year since 2004, I believe. It is filled with pictures of the culture in action as well as Zappos’ people views on it. Unedited (for errors only). Fantastic tool to really work on a culture of an organization. By the way, anyone can get a free copy!

5. Values all around – “What you see is what you get”, right!? They understand this piece of wisdom at Zappos beautifully. At least this is how it feels when you see their values being reminded wherever you turn. Literally, the walls, the desks, up in the air (above the desks), on the floor, even in the bathroom.

6. From bore to passion – For me, perhaps the most amazing realization is how on earth could somebody turn the most boring job (that is what many people think of  a “call center operator”) into a fascinating mission. What an inspiration to all other companies that outsource it either to call centers overseas or to machines. Awesome!

7. Clean desk policy – At my ex-employer (GE) we had a policy that was called: “Two personal objects on each desk only!” At Zappos I found the following sign: “If your company has a clean desk policy, the company is nuts and you are nuts to stay there”. And being true to this motto the desks at Zappos were everything but clean :-).

8. Nap room – I know countless companies do it. But it is always fun to bump into one of those, sort of a dark rooms, filled with sofas and couches. We actually woke up a fellow. Sorry, man!

9. Meeting rooms – Coming from Prague I am used to pretty sterile working interiors. The more excited I got after peeking into so many cool meeting rooms here at Vegas. You name it! Children’s room, chateau like room, Chinese style room, room filled with skateboards. You name it.

10. Let’s celebrate! – Cruising through the headquarters’ corridors it often seems like Zappos does nothing but celebrates. Traces of it you find virtually everywhere you look – t-shirts, photos, toys, trophies, diplomas, certificates, flowers,…

11. Hierarchy – I always loved coming to IKEA offices in Prague with absolutely no clue who the CEO or a junior assistant is. The same here. It seems there are no visible symbols of hierarchy. For example the CEO, Tony Hsieh as well as the other top guys have their desks in the call center in the open space and I did not hear about any other typical corporate privileges.

12. Dress code - It felt great watching all the styles, colors, tatoos, bare feet or jewelry that Zappos’ people wear…  Not a long time ago a friend of mine, a top executive in one of the Czech banks complained about tightening a dress code in their company. She can’t wear slippers anymore, she said.

13. All hands meeting – there is a meeting held four times a year for all employees to go. That is the only time that no one takes the calls. Otherwise the Zappos’ call center operates 24/7. The interesting thing is everybody (all over the globe) can log in and be at the meeting – see live stream All hands meeting. Zappos’ transparency is simply killing.

14. Top 10 facts – I noticed there is a sheet of paper above some desks stating the person’s top talents and/or facts. Looks like an interesting way to let others know what your key features are, isn’t it?

15. On-site services – This may not be too unusual but I loved it anyway. The company tries to organize certain services for the people (see the photo). Actually it is not a company that organizes it. It is the people who do it for themselves. Most of the services are not available for free but for a discounted price. The biggest benefit is the service itself (saving time).

16. Free lunches – “There is nothing like a free lunch.” the saying goes. Well it seems in Zappos, there is. Some food and beverages are paid for by the company. I know, some other companies do it. Still it is not that usual.

17. 10-20% time – Team leaders are encouraged to spend up to 20 percent of the time (up to a day a week) with their people outside of office. This logically help relationships, communication and collaboration.

18. Throne – Supposedly every new employee shows up in the “coaches’ office” where (among other things) they have a throne. Sitting in there (and taking a photo) shall symbolize that everybody is a king or queen (very important person) of his or her life. At the same time he or she is a part of the Zappos Family. The same applies to visitors.

Needless to say I was super-excited in Zappos. After hearing all their stories, after a year of working on Tony’s book finally coming here was a treat. These 18 points are just a superficial observation with no context. Still, I think they are worth mentioning.

It feels like Zappos understands some of the best kept secrets of humanity and succeeded to built its business model around it. We’re living in a world believing in “go-getters”. Zappos seems to believe in “go-givers”. The people here understand that what we share with others, stays with us. What we keep to ourselves, eventually disappears. Google them and see how much they are sharing with world! Their business is booming. A known fact is in ten years of existence they groew from zero to over a billion dollars in sales revenue a year. An interesting fact to realize is that Zappos is not siting on some rare patent neither it is one the Silicon Valley technology stars. It sells shoes… It comes as no surprise that countless executives from conventionally run businesses are lining up to see this weird Disneyland-like company in Vegas. And that is a grand hope! Hope that more people will be free to do what they are good at, free to do what they love. A hope that even more people will live happier and more fulfilling lives.

Why just the last ten years? Because for me it was a period of the most intense searching of my life. At the turn of the century I decided to make a living doing something I had only a tentative clue about. I’d apparently always been good at leadership so I thought that I could teach that. It never occurred to me, however, that doing something and teaching something were two COMPLETELY different things. I got burned a few times before I realized that I didn’t know what I was doing. And the first thing I did was dive down into books, and for some five years I literally shut myself in with them in an effort to understand managing people, the operations of a business, and basically an independent life. During that time I went through hundreds of books, studies and research papers. Some were better, some worse. Here is a list of those eleven exceptional works (for me when I chanced upon them):

1. Happiness – by Richard Layard. This was perhaps my first book on the topic of happiness from a Western scientist. Among many other things, I understood for the first time why feelings of happiness have been stagnating in our world for a long time, even though things are getting better and better.

2. Flow – by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly. I started with Finding Flow and right after that I bought everything this man had written. I love his ability to describe the context and the connections and how he captures the essence of a state in which a person literally loses himself in what he’s doing. In all probability, it’s thanks to him that I got rid of many of the stupid feelings I got from activities that I didn’t used to enjoy and I haven’t been able to look at “work” the same way again.

3. Our Inner Ape – by Frans de Waal – My first work from the field of primate studies. If I hadn’t come across that one, I would probably have lacked the fundamental links in terms of the organization of human groups, the foundation of hierarchy, interpersonal relationships, and leadership. Aside from that, I understood what’s going on in politics and the way we humans view sex :-).

4. Guns, Germs and Steel - by Jared Diamond. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had first bought his book “Collapse” while in Florence and I was so impressed by it that I immediately ordered all of his other works, including this best-seller of his. I was in Wales in a tent – I had caught some kind of virus there – and instead of hiking through the hills I devoured this book. The sub-title of the book is “The Fates of Human Societies”. I got a very, very valuable connection from him… Yep, and this year Santa brought me his latest book, which I haven’t read yet: “Why is sex fun?” Thanks, Santa!

5. Awareness – by Anthony de Mello – Yeah, this man really made it clear for me! His metaphors, short stories and candor lead to the uncovering of life and show it the way it is, whether from the perspective of joy or relationships. Thanks a lot, Martin!

6. Krishnamurti – I can’t really tell you what the title of this amazing book is because I was so captivated by it that I can’t even remember what it was. I found my way to this book through deMello, and like him, he reached me through his ability to name the essence of a free life and, possibly most of all, to address the problems associated with cultural programming.

7. Break All the Rules - by Marcus Buckingham – it’s been a long time since I read this book, but I can still remember the “Ahaaaah” when I got to the twelve key factors in retaining star employees. On the basis of this I then read everything Gallup has published and I was a long time promoter of their approach to life at work in the Czech Republic.

8. The Dark Side of the Light Chasers – by Debbie Ford – it’s here that I first understood why I admire some people and dislike others. Why do we humans have a need to judge and/or bad mouth others. It helped me connect some things in terms of human nature and integrity. I understood better the foundations of good and evil in each of us, as well as what the shadow is and that it’s not possible to escape the shadow. And that where there’s shadow there’s always light…

9. The Power of Now – by Eckhart Tolle – how easily this man was able to name what Krishnamurti talked about so complicatedly! And I admired Krishnamurti because of his ability to capture the essence! In reading his books, I became familiar with a number of things and I gained a better way to find answers to the question “Who am I?” and perhaps also why it’s necessary to look into the future and the past.

10. Karaoke Capitalism – by Ridderstrale and Nordstom. This book took my breath away back then. It was something completely different than I had previously read. It really connected with my attempts at that time to find the nature of freedom in the maze of cultural practices, as well as in the context of business and entrepreneurship. I think that was the point where I stopped reading so-called “classic managerial literature”.

11. Maverick! – perhaps my last huge “mega-ahah”. Thanks to Semler, a new world was opened to me. A world of free companies where people can do whatever they like in a way that suits them. This book sparked my quest to find the nature of free companies. Our project for workplace revolutions is the first milestone on this path. The next one is coming.

Those are my eleven books. If I hadn’t come across those, I’d probably be somewhere else. And I find the realization of just how much power we get from our thoughts absolutely fascinating. The realization of how limited our options were until 1989, when it would have been impossible to get most of the things on my list. By the way I’m continuing to read, of course, but I’m no longer racing. I no longer have the urge to get to the bottom of this matter. For a while now I’ve had the feeling that I’ve already reached it. Now I’m trying to grasp it and understand it better.

If I hadn’t come across those books so many years ago, I would be somewhere else (perhaps completely somewhere else). It’s very probable that I would do different things with different people. It really gets me when I realize how much a good book can influence my life…

In conclusion, I cannot fail to mention that I have been noticing something about myself for a looong time. The more I know, the more I don’t know. And I’m especially beginning to realize that I’m missing many historical, cultural, and religious connections, as well. And thus there are titles appearing in the list of literary titles I’m getting ready to read which would have never occurred to me before. I’ve ready many of them, but they left nothing behind in my head. Really. Nothing. Here are a few of those I plan to read: Adam Smith – The Wealth of Nations, Winston Taylor – Scientific Management, Dante – The Divine Comedy; Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment; Nicolo Machiaveli – The Prince; A Book for Nursery School Teachers by Comenius or Sun Tzu – The Art of War.

How about your books?

It has been a little over twenty  years we have lived in a so called “free society” here in the Czech republic. The other day I was explaining to my friends visiting from Australia what it meant to get all this freedom after more than forty years of communism.

I probably would never find a better way to explain this then by pulling out the scene from the movie Shawshank redemption. You have probably seen it, so just briefly.  “Shawshank State Penitentiary” belongs among the heaviest jail houses in the States. People with life and other heavy sentences get locked here. Letting prisoners out is very rare in this place. If it happens at all, it is most likely because of the old age of the person, often after thirty or forty years of prison.  And that was the case of Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore), prison librarian/trustee and one of the oldest convicts at Shawshank. Upon his release, he finds free life too hard to live and commits a suicide (…this is what Wikipedia says about the film).

Whenever I talk about freedom with people and retell the story, they usually tend to nod in understanding and agreement. Especially in a post-dictatorship country like ours. Till 1989 we were told what to do in so many areas of our lives. Work was obligatory. We could not leave the country without a permission. We were assigned a medical care. It was decided for us what school our children will go to. Life was just like the one of Brooks. We did what other people decided for us. And of course we slowly unlearned the ability to make decisions. It was like long untrained muscles. Still existent but super-weak.

Since November 1989 it was suddenly all up to us. We could stay or we could leave. We did not have to work anymore. Very soon there were hundreds kinds of yoghurt, bread or milk to choose from. To most of us a totally new world. Literally overnight. Weak, long untrained muscles suddenly in a gym.

It hurt. Brooks gave up. Many Czechs gave up too. Homelessness and begging – not heard off before 1989 is now common in many cities. Violence and crime have become an issue. Divorce rate is sky high – more that every other marriage falls apart now. Crowds of people are becoming insolvent and go bankrupt. Many Czechs (similarly like Americans or fellow Europeans) report on increased levels of stress, anxiety and depression.

I think the corporate world in a search of freedom could learn a lot from the states that went through the a transition from a dictatorship to a democracy. Weak muscles with close to zero chance to practice need time to adjust and learn to make decisions on their own. And for sure, not everybody will make it. Just as Brooks didn’t.

My friend who himself has set up and led several business said: “I would be either a reform communist or I would emigrate.”.
Frankly, I find these “what if” games entertaining and thought provoking. Especially those that focus on the system. It makes me realize how much our lives are being shaped by the people around us, by what we consider “normal”, accepted behavior or simply by what the others let us do.

If Czechoslovakia was still run like North Korea is being run today, I would most likely not have discovered my passion to write or I would not be able to speak on freedom at work. I would definitely not have traveled the world and learned what I learned. I would never even dream of doing what I love.

Having lived under both state and corporate dictatorships (see Communist Czechoslovakia vs. Modern Corporation) I just can’t wait to see the changes in most of the people’s lives once the corporate Berlin Wall collapses. Once Freedom at work becomes a regular way to run our businesses. After these companies will abandon hierarchy with carrot and sticking, I wonder what that will mean for other sectors of our societies like schools, health care, army or government. Things will never be the same, I believe.

My parents were born in 1948 and 1949. My grandparents in the years 1921-1928. And my great-grandparents between the years 1895 and 1905. Great-grandpa Hajzler was a baker and great-grandma was a maid. Great-grandpa and great-grandma Jelínek were a boilermaker and a housekeeper. Grandpa Vomáčka was a builder and grandma was a teacher. Grandpa and grandma Hajzler were a policeman and a clerk. My dad was a foreman in a production company and my mom was a clerk.

Whether it was the First or Second World War, or the Communist experiment, there was always something to prevent my ancestors from studying at university and from “getting very far” in life. I was born in 1971 as the first child from among my parents and their siblings and I was thus destined to fulfill the ambitions of all the previous generations of my family. It had been decided! It was May 26, 1971 in Lanškroun that the first to run the rat race was born to our family. All my life I’ve heard from all sides, that I have to study so that I don’t end up a garbage man or working with horses, and most of all so that I get far in life. (My parents were logically scared because between the ages of 14 and 18 I hardly ever went home because of my love for horses. Fortunately, I was “rescued” from a career with horses by a doctor’s diagnosis that I have severe allergies from the dust from horse hair.)

I was told that I first had to go to high school, then university, and (preferably) abroad. “Learn foreign languages, you’ll need them!”, they told me. It was mostly grandma Vomáčková and my mom that kept saying how important it is to study and to make it far. These two women were absolutely vital to my further development.

I spent a chunk of my childhood in a hospital and was involuntarily forced to the front ranks of the absentees at Klement Gottwald Elementary School (which we called “Gottwaldovka”) in my home town of Lanškroun. Perhaps that’s why there was no shortage of Cs in my report cards. When I got an A, it was rather the exception. In the eighth grade our homeroom teacher Comrade Eva Kopřivová once asked us what type of school we would go to next (yes, under Communism we really had to call our teachers “Comrade”.). I said that I would go to high school (what else!?). The Comrade bent her head down to see me better. Through the gap between her glasses and her eyebrows she looked me over from head to toe, swallowed, and said these words, which became lodged in my memory: “Hajzler, forget it. You don’t have what it takes to go to high school!”

Comrade Kopřivová, my teacher, said: “Hajzler, you don’t have what it takes to go to high school!” This sentence influenced my future more than I can admit.

My family began cutting black cloth for funeral clothing. And then that huge mountain of unfulfilled ambition began to be shifted to my brother’s and my cousins’ shoulders…

In the meantime, I had no idea how this statement would affect my path for the rest of my life. It was as if those few words had drained away all of the unfulfilled dreams of my grandmother and mother – dreams that I had been destined to fulfill. And their effect didn’t fully manifest until a few years later.

A few months had passed since that memorable sentence from Comrade Kopřivová and the entrance exams for the next step in the educational system had arrived. I don’t know if it was due to my father’s contacts, luck, or just an accident, but after the end of summer vacation I wasn’t sitting in a two-year vocational school (as the Comrade had predicted), but in high school. And because she told me that I don’t have what it takes, I decided that I would show her just how wrong she was. Aside from horses, I only lived for textbooks at that time (then came girls, but not until my third year…). And wonder of wonders! My report cards came in with straight As, and for two years my picture hung on the bulletin board of the best students at the school. That didn’t matter much to me, but I had a nice group of friends there and, in the end, I received that important piece of paper: my high school diploma – and valedictorian to boot!

That had never happened before in my life! The mourning clothes that my family had put on when I almost didn’t complete elementary school had already been eaten by moths. My mom and my grandmother opened the champagne. Comrade Kopřivová had no idea.

And I went on to pursue my goal. The next logical step was university. And according to the instructions of two women in my life, not just any university. It had to be a foreign one. But because this was being decided in 1988 and I was head over heels in love with Sandra at that time, there were only two options – GDR (East Germany) or the Soviet Union (now Russia). And since my German was significantly weaker than my Russian, it was decided. I passed the entrance exams to a university in Russia. And Sandra? This beautiful red-coated mare with whom I had spent so much of my free time? If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have gone to study what I finally did. Horse Husbandry = Animal Husbandry. And therefore I could study nothing other than animal husbandry, which was offered only in Germany and Russia. So that’s how it was.

I chose the school in Russia and that was a school of hard knocks. Our school year began in August 1989. At that time the Internet didn’t exist, my parents didn’t have a phone and it took about a month for a letter to make it to its destination (after it had been approved by the snooping KGB agents – no joking!; it was common to get letters that had already been opened). And it wasn’t until some time before Christmas that I learned that some sort of revolution had happened in Czechoslovakia. Maybe it was because Comrade Kopřivová, my grandmother, and my mother were still somehow present in my mind that I continued to spend my days drowning in my books and studying. It was clear that I had to get that diploma no matter what and prove to them that I could do it.

And just to make sure that my task was even greater, I started learning English and French (as a self-learner). As the old regime collapsed it was finally possible to go anywhere abroad you wanted, so I spent that first summer in Paris and the following one in New York City. And because of those travels I made pretty good progress in mastering both languages. I knew I would need them for my future career.

The career I had dreamed about, of course, began to change little by little. I had a meeting with some ministry of something or other before heading out to study in the Soviet Union where I was told something like this: “Comrade, once you return from your studies we’ll place you in the position of some comrade…” I can’t remember what the actual offer was anymore. But at the age of 18 it sounded good to me, and it was probably something that also made me increase my pace even more, and work hard on both myself and on getting all those pieces of paper from all those schools and courses I had yet to complete. The year 1991 was a disaster in Moscow. There was nothing to eat and even the vodka ran out. Not even the taxi drivers could get any. And that was something. Our Chechnian classmates were terrifying. Staying outside after dusk almost certainly meant getting beat up. I had to get my eyebrow stitched up once, and then another time someone hit me with a bottle of vodka. The final straw for me was a fist right in my face on a side street (why did I even go there!?) not far from the Red Square. And then I’d had enough! I was going home. I did the necessary paperwork (it went surprisingly smoothly – the new system was in favor of communist students coming back home) and I managed to transfer my studies to the University of Agriculture in Prague.

And that gave me a new outlook on my future career. Suddenly, everything was different. I started to hate the idea of a career as an agricultural official. The people around me were starting to go into business. And I had spent two years going back and forth between Prague and Moscow as a smuggler – gaining some interesting experience (perhaps now that twenty years are between then and now I can afford to rat on myself). But I still had two more years ahead of me if I was to be the first in my family to get that all-important paper and finally prove that Comrade Kopřivová was completely wrong. But I began to be interested in business and animal husbandry no longer made much sense to me. But I really needed that paper, so I decided to complete my animal studies and also enroll in as many courses at the Faculty of Economics as I could (fortunately, the possibility existed). And so aside from having to pass sixteen equivalency exams (after transferring from Moscow) and taking all the courses required for my course studies, I also added ten more courses at the Faculty of Economics. My friends were chasing after girls, drinking beer (and harder stuff), and having fun. I lay immersed in books, filling my head with things I basically wasn’t interested in but what was supposed to ensure that I would get that magic ticket that would take me further. It’s probable that even the immortal Comrade Kopřivová was still playing her unique motivational role.

An opportunity came along in 1993 to jump into a full bachelor’s of business program at a Dutch university. Success! Another paper – “Bachelor of Science in Business.” Let’s open the champagne and take some pictures! No, seriously. My parents and grandmother were able to come to my first graduation ceremony. That was a big deal! We took pictures with another piece of paper and there was more to boast about. Tomáš Hajzler, Bc. I took great pleasure in that!

After returning, I put my nose to the grindstone again, completed a Czech university and got another valuable piece of paper. And valedictorian too – along with another piece of paper that was labeled “Certificate of Merit” due to the fact that I was, perhaps, some kind of wonder boy. Ing. Tomáš Hajzler, Bc. I took great pleasure in that! This one would definitely make Comrade Kopřivová fall back in her chair in shock.

I had proved my mettle. I wrote a wonderful CV for myself and, in 1994, armed with two excellent pieces of paper and documents showing several trips abroad and state exams from Russian and English I jumped into the real rat race. With my (weak) knowledge of Dutch I was able to make an impression on Albert van Gelder, the head of Douwe Egberts in Prague at that time. They took me on in the position of “Junior Product Manager – coffee”. That’s some job title, huh? To this day I still recall that with pride. I got business cards. My mother and grandmother were happy. Their son/grandson had seriously made it far in life! Woooooow!

And for me it was obviously just the beginning. I still had no idea where fate would take me…

After “Junior Product Manager” I became “Product Manager”, and then “Senior Product Manager” (all in English, of course!”) and I began to head the department. I got involved in international projects, I began going to meetings in London, Amsterdam, and Vienna. Albert told me that I was what he called “high potential”. Afterwards, things started to happen: training course followed training course (most of them came with a piece of paper – wow – more for my collection!), one trip abroad followed another…

But some gaps in my self-confidence propelled me forward. My mind began to get obsessed with the thought that I wouldn’t get very far without an MBA. And so I began to race for another piece of paper. I passed the TOEFL exam (that time with a respectable 650 points) and the GMAT (it was weaker) and entered the so-called “Executive MBA program” (= for the hot shots) of the University of Pittsburgh with a branch at CMC. This was followed by three years of bitter despair trying to balance a career at Douwe Egberts, study hard to get an MBA (every weekend), and attempts at some kind of extra life. I was somewhere around twenty-five and was only dealing with a few circles under my eyes – and I kept on giving as much as I could. And I succeeded. At work, I climbed up to higher levels of the pyramid, my salary grew, and I discovered my first interesting “benefits” (a company car, among other things).

Three universities! The boy had really come a long way. It was really something to be proud of.

In 1996 something odd happened to me. I fell madly in love with Thea. She was from San Francisco and, at that time when I met her in Prague, she had four months till she had to leave for good. It was the kind of relationship that you give your fullest, because you know it’s going to end. You don’t want to admit that it’s going to end. If you’ve ever seen the film Before Sunrise or experienced it yourself, you know what I mean. Because I knew that, I was able to live each moment of that relationship fully. Moreover, an intimate relationship with a foreigner usually influences and changes a person. Four months flew by, Thea left for Tokyo (and from there to California), and I went to see a friend of mine in Mali for the first time. And maybe because of what I was going through at that time, I saw things in Africa that I probably would never have seen otherwise. Most of all I saw a completely different world than the one I had been used to. Gone were the gleaming air-conditioned offices full of people in suits and business attire who have higher annual salaries than the GDP of the average African country. There was a completely different kind of energy. There’s ever-present death on one hand, and on the other hand there’s the joy of existence. Even happiness. As if no one here was trying to get far in life. As if people were able to make do with what they had. As if they weren’t stressed out at all over what they didn’t have. As if all of those pieces of paper I had fought so hard for were completely pointless. I don’t know how much of that was due to Thea, but aside from her I was also in love with Africa.

So the year 1996 brought me two loves – Thea and Africa. Those two things pretty much shattered my view on why and how I should love. I started to look at life differently. I stopped wearing a tie.
But, of course, it wasn’t as quick and easy as that – not by far. The difficult part was yet to come.

I had gone to Mali, in particular, to visit a classmate from school named Papa. To my surprise, not even a piece of paper from a prestigious Soviet school had helped him land a solid job in his impoverished country. He was working at a breeding station at that time, where he weighed sheep for next to no money. So I wondered if there was any way for me to help him out. Papa and I thought about this together until we came up with a plan that would take up another four years of my life. It occurred to us to import African art to Europe. Papa moved to Dakar where it was easier to buy and ship all of the statues, masks, paintings, and clothing. I opened a shop on Rytířská Street in Prague and another later on on Karlová Street by the name of Baobab, which was subsequently renamed Marabu. If anyone’s into Africa, maybe you remember us. It had quite a name for itself in its time.

But … I was working at Douwe Egberts, then at Vitana, I was still working on my MBA, and then I had those two shops on top of that. I have no idea how I did it… I just remember that Vitana didn’t suit me and I didn’t suit Vitana, so I  joined GE (with a considerable amount of bruised self-confidence), I interrupted my MBA studies, and I added more people to Marabu, (mainly my mom).

Looking back on it today, I realize that Africa affected me quite a lot, but that my basic nature hadn’t changed. I continued on in that famous rat race, whose purpose is to take us as far as possible, to earn as much as possible so that we can buy the things that we basically don’t need, so that we can keep up with (or stay ahead of) “the Joneses”. If we happen to enjoy what we’re doing, it’s just incidental. And so I was completely immersed in a promising career at GE. I began to gradually back away from Marabu. Although I practically almost never wore a tie, I still carried on like I did at Douwe Egberts – glossy titles, a company car, fat salary, foreign training, butt-kissing… I even started to get the feeling that I should go ahead and finish my MBA (even though I did not enjoy it at all). And so I dove in again and I got myself another valuable piece of paper. Another superb milestone on the way to the winner’s circle of the rate race: Ing. Tomáš Hajzler, Bc., MBA. Awesome. Another graduation, more champagne, more photos with a valuable piece of paper (one of those at the top at the beginning of this confession). My mom and grandma shed tears of happiness over how far their son/grandchild had come. Comrade Kopřivová, who very likely doesn’t even remember me, would probably pass out in shock due to the fact that I not only managed to graduate valedictorian from high school, but from three universities as well. Sounds like something from a dumb movie, doesn’t it!?

If you’ve ever worked for a large company, you may have noticed that employees are divided into those of lower and higher status. When pigeonholing, companies come up with all sorts of names for such groups e.g. levels, classes, zones… Thus they try to separate the peasants from the nobility, the wheat from the chaff, or ordinary employees from the key ones. Whatever the case is, this caste system puts things in some sort of order. In GE I managed to reach level 4 out of five possible (5 was the general manager). Awesome. Another rat success. Mom was happy. And so was I. My grandmother stopped caring as much any more at that time. She was the only one in our family who began to worry about me since she saw I wasn’t doing anything but working and that the load was getting to be too much.

Right, I was pushing thirty and began to feel really tired. The circles under my eyes were not going away, even though I usually managed to sleep in over the weekends. My friend Patrick, an American, used to tell me: “You have nice bags under your eyes!” The truth is that they weren’t bags, but huge sacks. During my visits to the doctor I kept complaining about fatigue. Those poor guys didn’t know what to do with me. After undergoing all sorts of overpriced examinations (I had special managerial care at a private medical facility – we successful rats know what we like!) they usually just shook their heads and babbled something like this: “Hmmm, you’re a manager. You work a lot, don’t you? You should take it easy.”

I was pushing thirty and I was beginning to feel tired. Those circles under my eyes actually turned into bags. I didn’t complain about anything else at the doctor’s but fatigue.

One morning I just couldn’t go on, and instead of going to work I decided to go see the doctor again. This time they did a more detailed analysis, and afterwards the doctor said: “You probably have something that we call chronic fatigue syndrome, or burnout syndrome. You’ve simply overdone it. And we’ve also ascertained that you have Lyme disease.” That was a wake-up call. But I think this is exactly what I needed. It scared me!

I had made it far in life. I had spent 26 years in schools in five countries. I had racked up about fifty pieces of paper (and I had been photographed with many of them). The business cards my employers had had printed for me flashed with lofty titles in English. The awards I had won from my employers for running the rat race were just as lofty. But that pace was not meant for me. My body no longer had the energy for it. Moreover, many things had possibly stopped being that interesting. I certainly didn’t see any real sense in them. My goal had been to make it far in life, not to do anything meaningful. I was doing extremely well in the rat race. I had a nice pile of papers, a bunch of photos, and even some money (thanks to which I didn’t get stuck with a mortgage). I wasn’t one of the top rats, but I was running very well. I think. But mainly I realized that even if I was a gold-medal rat, I’d still be just a rat. And that made me nauseous.

The Lyme disease was treated with antibiotics, but the fatigue syndrome (or whatever it is) is still with me. I get tired quickly, and most of all it takes me longer to get rested. I carry it within me as a kind of memento mori. And, in a way, I’m sort of grateful for that. I left the rat race, wandered for half a year through Latin America, and upon my return I got started with PeopleComm. Fear of failure drove me back to the rat race several times, but I knew that I wouldn’t manage it again.

Instead of participating in this race, I started studying it. And the more I understand it, the more it fascinates me. I left it so that I could get closer to myself. And with my current outlook, it’s fascinating to do basically just those things that interest and fulfill me, and with people I get along with. I may have paid a high price in order to achieve this outlook; I didn’t do what I enjoyed, I didn’t live in the “now” but rather planned where I was going and how I was going to get there, and I didn’t devote enough time to my friends and family. But I probably wouldn’t have reached this state otherwise. I was born into a family that was waiting for someone to fulfill their aspirations. And Comrade Kopřivová was just doing her job. And I think I needed all those lessons in order to find my place in life. And this is maybe why I am where I am. And I’m glad. I have no regrets. It was a good school of life. God knows where I would have ended up if it were not.

Well, if you’ve managed to read this far, my hat’s off to you. You have my admiration. Thanks.

Not many people (at least here in Europe) know that the inventor of Gore-Tex (and tons of other cool stuff) belongs among the freest workplaces in the world. As many other freedom based companies it abandoned formal hierarchy, job descriptions, work titles, carrot & sticking and other tools typical for businesses of the twentieth century. It has been in business from 1950‘s exercising freedom from day one. Therefore many people consider W.L.Gore & Associates The Success to learn from. Just listen to Terri Kelly, it’s CEO and get the feel for what they are about.

I consider it useful to compile a similar list. I tried to find out if anyone had already made a list of “Ten Commandments” for the field of business, but I couldn’t find any. Years ago, back in 2003, I wrote what I called the “Sixteen Managerial Sins”, which managed to get circulated around among people for quite a while, much to my surprise. Unfortunately they haven’t passed the test of time. So I’ve decided to compile this list anew – now just “twelve”  Something that some (HR) managers may be able to grab and possibly apply to the running in their companies.

I’m basing this on the most recent research on human nature, especially on motivation and, of course, from my own experience with free companies. It’s therefore likely that some of the items from these twelve commandments will seem pointless to someone from an average conventionally managed company. What’s necessary, I believe, is to have an example one can follow in their own particular environment and time.

1. Thou shalt not turn people into resources! – Today’s personnel managers call their field “Human Resources”. They refer to themselves as “HR people” or simply use the abbreviation “HR”. A person in a company basically becomes a “resource”. But resources are fought over. We try to exploit resources. If we’re trying to exploit a person, he’s certainly not going to be putting his heart into his work. Person is simply a person – with all the emotions, worries, joys and, first and foremost, needs. For this reason let’s view him/her as such.

2. Thou shalt not pigeonhole people! – A century ago Henry Ford wanted merely the hands of his workers. And that’s what he founded his philosophy of business management upon. We have unconsciously accepted this philosophy and even today we use it to base the way we lead and manage people and businesses as a whole. We therefore don’t take into consideration the whole of it – individuality and different needs and styles of individual people. Instead we shove them into pigeon-holed positions, salaries, statuses and company perks. And we deal with people according to this. Clean out the pigeon coop!

3. Thou shalt not try to motivate people! – It is a widespread myth that people can be motivated. Research into human motivation has gone through dramatic development in the last hundred years, and it has taken a relatively long time for the academic community to begin leaning toward the view that humans cannot be motivated. That the only thing possible is to create an environment in which a person will motivate himself/herself. Let’s end the various systems of cashless rewards and benefits, as well as the systems of penalties. Let’s try to understand the essence of natural motivation and apply ourselves to creating an environment that enables people to find their own reasons for doing this or that – their own motivation.

4. Thou shalt not play Big Brother! If you consider other people as lazy and as thieves, they will actually do nothing at work and eventually even steal things. And vice versa. Already Pygmalion understood this. One of the biggest sins you can commit, I believe, is to consider your employees as thieves and thus check their bags, e-mail, phone calls, Internet activities and types of monitoring based on this way of thinking. You either simply trust people and they trust you in return – and they keep going. Or you don’t trust them, you monitor them, and as a result they don’t trust you. They’ll be more concerned with comparing negative feelings and dealing with conflicts than with work. Rather than passion, their working lives will be governed by fear. Let’s refrain from monitoring people.

5. Thou shalt not act superior! - Any badge of power, any attempt to show that one person is higher and another is lower creates fear and is quite demotivating. The basic principles of the most functional and most productive teams in the world are justice and fairness. So let’s stop acting superior to others and let’s create a sense of justice and equality instead. Adding to that, let’s lower ourselves!

6. Thou shalt stop growing only for the sake of growth! – It’s a sin to grow for the sake of growth. Growing just so you can sell more than last year. So that you can be first or second, better than the competition. Yes, in nature it’s true that living things grow. But it’s a given that natural growth isn’t fueled by ego, greed or the need to beat the competition and show other people what a super-stud I am. The growth is organic. It doesn’t come from acquisitions, cuts and shady accounting practices. It comes from the mutual growth of the individual entities that, together, make up the body of the organism – of the company. Let’s stop pushing for growth and let’s focus on creating a culture that allows people to grow naturally. Then the growth will come by itself.

7. Thou shalt not B.S.! – “Our people are the most valuable thing we have!” How many similar empty phrases have you come across in today’s corporate world? It only takes a minute to see through all that and begin having the obsessive feeling that you’re sitting in one big Potemkin village, where one thing is said and something else is done. Let’s stop talking crap and let’s do it! What we do (not what we say) decides whether others believe us. Let’s focus on the facts and leave out empty corporate bon mots.

8. Thou shalt stop regulating everything! – Attempts to improve the running of an organization by describing each step of every activity and then assessing people by how the individual steps are followed is about as effective as trying to improve someone’s health by eating at Mc Donald’s. By turning people into steps in a procedure you’re going to get, at the most, just twenty percent of what they’re capable of. Wherever it’s the least bit possible, let’s focus on the results and leave the process up to the people.

9. Thou shalt not undervalue the talent – The widespread myth goes that people are divided into the “talented” and “talentless”. There are companies that divide their employees into those “with potential” and the rest. In the meantime, modern science has revealed that these kinds of managers cannot be further from the truth. In short, the level of talent determines the strength of the individual synapses (the connections between neurons) which we all have. This is not an issue over who has talent, but over what kind of talent. Let’s understand what real talent is and organize things accordingly.

10. Thou shalt not use cookie cutters! – It has become a trend to describe the ideal employee/manager as a “Robocop” and then evaluate everyone in the company on the basis of this ideal. The unintentional goal of competency efforts is to create as many clones of the aforementioned Robocop as possible. Let’s put aside obsolete “competency olympics” and let’s look instead for ways to best exploit the strengths of each of the people in the company.

11. Thou shalt not plan your career! – Only 17% of employees state that they spend most of their working time doing what they truly enjoy. It is a sin to plan what will move employees up the career ladder instead of discussing what he’s good at, what interests him and, most importantly, what he finds fulfilling.

12. Thou shalt not give people black marks – It’s a sin to treat employees like they are residents of a juvenile detention center – or any other kind of correctional facility. Terms such as “discipline” or “warning” might still be found in Labour Codes of majority of the countries around the globe. But I think, this kind of language and thinking in a modern 21st century company is extremely embarrassing. For that matter, writing warning letters and awarding black marks are also archaic. Let’s do away with systems of threats, admonishments and punishments. Let’s leave the responsibility for “proper” behavior up to the people.

What do you think?

Dan Pink seems to be one of the revolutionaries of the corporate world today. If you are into a new ways of work I am sure you have bumped into some of his books or speeches. I think, he has this rare gift of being able to translate often obscure language of science into easily digestible facts. And that is, I believe exactly what one needs to be understood in much of the today’s corporate world.

Many businesses still look at people at work as resources. Resources that are to be hired, managed, motivated, controlled, used, evaluated and eventually fired. Any efforts at better understanding human nature are then often considered a waste of time. It is widely accepted that management is the right way for a modern business to thrive.

Is management really the right way to run a 21st century business? Isn’t self-management better?

To many of the corporate leaders, the idea of self-management, autonomy and freedom then resembles either anarchy a socialist experiment. Therefore I am so grateful to people like Dan who provide us with digestible facts like these (check out the animation). I believe that more people will see that to manage others brings compliance whereas self-management brings engagement. Is it not what many of the businesses in the West need? Isn’t that a fundamental thing for anyone who tries to do any kind of creative work? I believe it is.

Enjoy the animation. And if you haven’t seen Dan at Ted, check-out his talk as well.

It was back in early eighties when Ricardo Semler took over Semco, the traditional pump manufacturer located in São Paulo, Brasil. He started making some radical changes to the way the company operated.  After just a few years it became totally different place. Some people today even call it “The World’s most unusual workplace”.

Luckily Ricardo likes to share things and is quite good at both talking and writing. So the world got to know Semco. It started some time in late 1980‘s with an article called Managing without managers. Then there was Maverick! – “The success story behind the world’s most unusual workplace” and later The Seven Day Weekend – “Changing the way work works”. Both bestsellers.

I started with Maverick! and must say, my world changed. It was actually this book that opened the world of freedom at work to me. It was almost twenty years ago when Ricardo wrote it but in 2010 it is as up to date as it was back in 1990. That is the reason why we decided to translate and publish it in Czech republic and Slovakia (coming out in spring 2011).

Check out this short video to get a feel for what is Semco about. And if you like it there is another one – here.

At this point in the discussion I generally have the urge to quit. This topic is so banal that I sometimes feel embarrassed that I’ve been writing about it for years – and that I even get paid for it. I think, all you need to do is observe any small child for a while and mimic them – do what they do. And maybe we don’t have to mention the fact that we’ve all experienced it – we were all, whether a long or short time ago, children and we practically did only what we loved doing.

For some of us it’s been so long that we’ve completely forgotten about this part of our nature. You probably know that most workplace research has shown that less than twenty percent of people spend most of their time doing what they truly love.

To me this is a disaster!

Just pause for a minute and think back on the last time you did something that you really didn’t enjoy doing. What was it? A staff meeting, a report, a chart or graph, paperwork, waiting, some kind of mandatory task? How did you feel? Try to name it, please. Sucked dry, time dragged on, you couldn’t concentrate, frustration, pressure, “how long is this going to take?”, boredom, “why can’t someone else do this?”… possibly? Something like that at least is going on in my head when I do what I hate.

Now try the opposite! Recall the last time you did something that really took your breath away. What absorbed you and really entertained you. A presentation? Counting? Drawing? A debate? Some kind of creative activity? Sport? Making love? And how did you feel this time? Self-confident? Natural? At ease? Enthusiastic? Was it easy? Great? Did others praise you?

Two Worlds. Black and white. Day and night. Very few of us would voluntarily choose the first.

And yet, as I said, more than eighty percent do so. Yes, you might say, but that’s because of the system. We unlearn what is natural to us through so-called “compulsory education”. It instead forces us to spend time doing things that “we have to do” and doing what most students (and surprisingly even parents and teachers) see as making little sense. Thus we learn perfectly to do what MUST be done, until we are finally left with no time to do what we WANT. Yes, we can blame it on the system. We can also look for other culprits, or just say, “that’s the way it is, so why keep harping at it?” (which is also a popular strategy).

I’ve tried a different way, and some other people with me as well. And we’ve realized that it works.

“How do you do it?” is both a simple and difficult question, depending on how you look at it. But perhaps more important is to first really understand why it’s so important to spend at least three quarters of our waking time doing what we really enjoy (occupational hygienists advise that we stay above this level over the long term, otherwise fatigue, grumpiness and other unhappy sad effects will occur).
The more I do what I enjoy, the more likely it is that I’m good at it. The more I do what I’m good at, the more likely it is that I have outstanding results. And outstanding results usually reap more money than average results.

So why? Here are thirteen reasons that I can see. Of course this is not a definitive list, so I’ll be overjoyed if more show up in the comments section. So why should we do what we truly enjoy most of the time?

1. It’s a blast! Plain as day – doing what we enjoy is simply awesome. The chemistry of the body is similar to the influence of drugs. What else can I say? See Kofola – nothing else matters.

2. You are here and now. Usually, when you’re in the present, you lose track of time, have no need to look at your watch, you want to be where you are, and that’s truly wonderful!

3. Others praise you. Yeah, that’s clear. When things go great, you smile and others are usually happy as well.

4. You don’t even feel like cheating and stealing. If what we do fulfills us, we don’t need to kill time or compensate for the time lost while sitting on our butts at work by stealing a bit of the company’s coffee or some lengths of toilet paper.

5. You’ve got energy. Think about the last time you were in love. People in love are so pumped up with it that they don’t even need to sleep.

6. You supposedly build on your talent. When you do what you enjoy, it is very likely that you use your innate abilities.

7. You do not need the advice, tips and tricks of other people because you build on what you have inside. You don’t have to copy anyone else.

8. You learn. People tend to be more inquisitive, are interested in the broader context, are eager to know more and, by doing this, they logically learn.

9. You need less. The more we enjoy something, the less we need to be rewarded, encouraged, checked, or praised. The joy of what we’re doing is simply enough to make us happy.

10. You have results. It is more than likely that if you do something you enjoy, you’re good at it. In other words, there are some visible results.

11. You have money. Very likely if you have results, in time you will also have money. A standard saying goes: “Imagine a job that you would be happy to do even for free. Try to do your job so well that people are actually happy to pay you for it. ”

12. You have self-confidence. When you are doing well and others praise you, it is a certainty that it will be reflected in your feelings of security and confidence.

13. Don’t take most things personally. If you are sure about yourself, you have a healthy self-confidence and won’t be affected by other people’s criticism.

To sum it all up, doing what one enjoys (as we do in childhood before we’re forced to got through the slave-school system), is a train ticket to a balanced and happy life. It’s enough to remind ourselves about how we feel when we do what we enjoy and compare it to how we feel when we do things we don’t like. The difference is huge. It’s so huge there’s no way that someone wouldn’t get it.

In short, this is what it’s about: The more I do what I enjoy, the more likely it is that I’m good at it. The more I do what I’m good at, the more likely it is that I have outstanding results. And outstanding results usually reap more money than average results.

And that’s the economic side of the equation. The emotional one is that when I have no track of time, nothing bothers me and as a result I may not even have to eat, is probably even more important. To me, anyway. What about you? Test yourselves and share your findings. Thanks.

Coming from Central Europe and not being a huge climbing or surfing fan it is perhaps not surprising I never heard of  Yvon Chouinard or Patagonia before. It was only a few years back I bumped into his bestselling book “Let my people go surfing”. I had to read it. It was love at a first sight.  What a joy to buy my first pair of shoes in Patagonia outlet while visiting Seattle some time later…

Discovering the Patagonia story was one of the first times I heard about people not having to come to work. About the people who are free to surf whenever the waves are right. Not when the shift is over. About the workers who manage themselves rather then somebody else managing them.

I highly recommend listening to what Yvon Chouinard has to say. There is loads wisdom not only on how to run a free business but also on how to co-exist with the Earth more sustainably. Enjoy the talk!

Not much else is popping out, really. Yes, there are few sites dealing with the first two levels of famous Maslow’s hierarchy like the “right to work”, “right to strike” or the “health and safety” of work.

I find it little sad considering this was what workers fought for already back in Henry’s Ford era. We’re now almost hundred years ahead and in many parts of the world we enjoy unprecedented freedoms. But many of the workplaces still feel like early twentieth century. While at home we elect our politicians, choose schools for our kids or travel freely, at work we usually can’t choose what meeting to go to, when to go on vacation or even what to wear.

But something is sure going on. New freedom-based companies are entering the scene, books are being published,  people meet at conferences. This is what Brian Carney and Isaac Getz, authors of my favorite book Freedom Inc. say:  “This is the most important corporate movement of the last two decades, a movement that has been quietly transforming the fortunes of dozens of businesses and the lives of thousands of employees by using a source of benefits neglected by most—complete freedom and responsibility for employees to take actions they, not their bosses, decide are best.”

It sure is a powerful movement though still nonexistent for much of the mainstream management audience. At least here, in Central Europe, whenever I speak about the topic, I get the most bewildered looks and comments:  “Oh yes, been there, seen it – another communist experiment!” It was this Wednesday I spoke in Bratislava in an HR conference with Traci Fenton of WorldBlue and sure we both got some interesting reactions. Actually Traci’s Worldblue is the only Freedom at work movement I currently know about.

But the more I study the topic and the more I talk about it, the more people seem to get it. Perhaps we just need to wait for the hundredth monkey to see the real change. Maybe then the Nazi slogan will get where it belongs – to the past and its room will be taken over by new examples of workplace freedom. What do you think?

A school movie from eighties’ and freedom at work? What does that have to do together?, you may want to ask…
Well, it seems it is at home and then at school where we learn to lead, follow and cooperate. It is where we pick up our key attitudes towards work. It is where we learn many of the skills we will later use at a workplace. It is at home and at school we learn (or rather unlearn) to do what we love. It is where we learn “to do as somebody else says” (you know the “Do as I say!” thing). It is where we learn to wait for doing what we love after we retire. Sadly, eight out of ten adults in the developed world seem to sort of “get the work done” and not care whether they love it or not.

The more I enjoy The Dead Poets Society (and other films of this kind). Especially the scenes where Robin Williams as Mr. Keating (the newly appointed teacher) is reminding the students what the life is really about. So many lines have been just sitting in my memory ever since I saw it for the first time…

“There is a powerful play going on in the world and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”;
“When reading, do not just think what the author thinks.“;
“In my class you will learn to think for yourself again.”;
“Always when I think I know something I need to look at it from a different perspective.”

In my view, today’s businesses as well as schools are in a desperate need of more Mr. Keatings. Luckily there is already quite a line of them to learn from. Just few examples of those I am trying to learn from: David Kelley of IDEO, Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA, Ricardo Semler of Semco, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Bill Gore of W.L.Gore or Liisa Joronen of SOL. So it seems Mr. Keatings of today’s corporate world may not feel as lonely and as weird as Robin Williams did in the movie. Nevertheless I find the movie a great inspiration that I could watch over and over again and always learn something new.

Before we look at that vision itself, let’s take a look back in history. I consider this necessary so that we can fully understand where we are today. There’s no need to go back too far. We can actually start in the 19th century. At that time most businesses were organized in a relatively intuitive, uncomplicated way. There was a simple structure of the crafts industries containing a master and his journeymen – and it all worked fine. Not super productive but the people seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

Then Henry Ford came along with his idea of the assembly line. He fell for the theory of so-called “Scientific Management”, which was thought up by the management guru of those times, Winston Taylor. Based on Taylor’s theory, Ford divided the labor, which had all previously been done by the craftsman himself, into a few smaller and repetitive tasks. He then used workers to do the very same repetitive tasks at the assembly line. The productivity skyrocketed. A scene from Chaplin’s Modern Times illustrates this perfectly.

However, this logically brought several problems with it. The mind-numbing tasks, inability to influence the final outcome, limited job positions, long unsocial working hours and, last but not least, unhealthy working environment began causing tension and conflict among the workers. Those times also witnessed a quote Henry Ford became famous for: “Why is it that I always get the whole person hen what I really want is a pair of hands?” Gradually, such tensions and conflicts brought about the need for leaders, supervisors, inspectors, managers,… and all the bureaucratic machinery with which we are familiar in the current corporate world. And it’s so common that we actually consider it to be normal. Due to the growing conflict among the workers, Henry Ford carried out an idea to establish a so-called “Sociology Department” whose task was to deal with the tension resulting from Taylor’s method of organizing labor. It’s worth mentioning here that the very first HR manager in the world was a former head of the Detroit police department. Just this bit of information is enough to foreshadow the missions and visions of the world’s first “HR Department”, i.e. a legacy that even today’s field of HR is based upon.

Within the last hundred years the HR field hasn’t gone through much change. The changes it has gone through are pretty much as significant as the changes the automobile has gone through.

So much for history. Now let’s “fast forward” back to the present.

Within the last hundred years the HR field hasn’t seen much change. The changes it has gone through are pretty much as significant as the changes the automobile has gone through. Since Ford’s Model T, the car has kept its four wheels, steering wheel, clutch, internal-combustion engine, carburetor… The changes are basically cosmetic. They don’t involve any change of the system and structure. Many of today’s HR departments claim to be partners, consultants, coaches… But, in my opinion, the foundation is still the same as it was in Detroit in 1908. We still build on the heritage of Mr. Taylor. Most of our time is still wasted on creating, managing, amending and controlling (HR) processes, instead of creating and developing an environment where everyone can do what they enjoy in a way that suits them.

I have devoted the last few years to studying companies that have taken a step forward in their development. Companies that are sometimes referred to as those where the basic management philosophy is democracy. Companies often referred to as those that have freed their employees. We often hear about places where people can do what they want in a way they like. Examining such places and leaders who see things this way has made me stop to think several times about which direction “Human Resources” is heading as a discipline.

I have personally noticed that companies where employees have gained the right to make their own decisions about their lives have even closed their HR departments. At its extreme they simply don’t exist any more. There are companies which shut down the department and hold on to only one to one or few “HR” people. These businesses are in a way returning to the customs of pre-industrial management and don’t feel the need for an HR department any more. Another important trend is the fact that companies have stopped looking at people as resources. And that completely changes the mission of the company. When people are no longer resources, most of what today’s HR departments do is no longer needed.

Just as many modern schools hire psychologists, companies in the future will also have their own specialists in human nature. This is where I see the future of HR. Those who manage “resources” today will in the future become those who help people in the company truly blossom.

My vision of HR in 2020 is that they will become real experts on human nature. Corporate psychologists, in other words. Just as many modern schools hire psychologists, companies in the future will also have their own specialists in human nature. These people will no longer design and manage processes. These things will be completely left up to the people working in the company. They will stop trying to motivate people with an assortment of benefits, because they will understand that people can’t really be motivated externally. The main thing they will be focused on will be creating a unique corporate culture. An environment in which all employees will be able to do what they enjoy and where they will be able to make their own decisions on how to proceed in the tasks and responsibilities they are assigned. This is my dream.

It is possible that in 2020 those companies that fulfill this vision will still be a minority. But I do believe that this minority will grow till a day when it actually overturns things, then it will finally be normal to do virtually anything we want at work. There are examples of companies worldwide that have proven that this is possible. This blog is (or will be) full of their examples.

That seems logical when talking about eating, but let’s look at it as a metaphor. Imagine that the soup symbolizes the trust that exists between people and that the urine is what destroys that trust. Trust is the basic bond that holds people together. If we trust each other, we can relax, stop being afraid of each other, start working together and enjoy life. A truly independent business (just as with any organization) only functions when there’s trust.

Life is hard without trust. We’re afraid to let our children go outside, leave our car on the street overnight, say out loud what we truly think… At work we’re afraid to let people make independent decisions, even about such trivial matters like what they should wear at work, when to come to work, to which appointments they should go, or what they may or may not look at on their computer. And what about all the time and money that’s spent on making directives, contracts, inspections, and other forms of “making sure”?! It’s hard to imagine just how much, but it’s probably A WHOLE LOT.

I now talk abundantly to a close friend of mine – a manager – about why the people in his company don’t trust him. About why they don’t like their jobs and why they leave the company at a higher rate than is healthy. And about why he then has to sit there from Monday to Friday making sure that every little thing keeps running smoothly.

And what conclusion have we come up with?

Specifically that even a single drop of pee in the soup is way too much.

Maybe you’re also one of those who go by the philosophy of “it doesn’t hurt to promise“, or maybe you’re simply afraid to refuse something and end up agreeing to most of the demands made upon your time. Logically, not everything is within your power and you sometimes fail to deliver. At other times you, perhaps, say something other than how you truly feel – you simply hold back a little. Or even lie. Or you even say something about the person behind their back that eventually gets back to them. Maybe something has made you angry and you simply criticize them. Does that sound like your life? Do you also pee in other people’s soup?

“Trust is what bonds people together. Where there is no trust you will find directives, regulations and inspections.”

It seems clear enough at the theoretical level. I often try to play it cool and also sometimes end up leaving a drop in someone else’s soup. But I find it necessary to place this one bowl into context. So, please, allow me to offer one more metaphor.
If we look at people as bricks, then trust is the mortar that holds them together. If I pee into the soup, the mortar starts to crumble and the wall begins to fall apart. Instead of improving the foundation and working really hard to make the mortar better  – most of us begin to build various props, struts and form-work… so that the wall doesn’t collapse. In the corporate world, in particular, we could “learn”. What happens when the mortar begins to crumble and the wall starts to tilt is that…

1. They set off for “team building” exercises.
2. Consultants are requested and projects are launched for the creation/improvement of the corporate culture.
3. New and even better directives are written.
4. Key employees are sent on training courses on topics such as “corporate culture”, “motivation”, “leadership” and “communication”.
5. Organizational charts are drawn up, job titles are described, better objectives and systems of evaluation are defined.
6. Some kind of audit is ordered – a popular ISO, for example.
7. Everything is put into bettering the system of benefits and evaluation.
8. Rebels and other disrupting entities are fired and calm and compliant people are hired….

According to many studies, my own experience, and even common sense, most of these tricks and techniques are just another splash of urine in the soup. The vast majority of corporate walls are hardly able to hold up without all of these reinforcements. Even though it wouldn’t take much to change it. How about if we start promising less and delivering more!? Or begin communicating more directly and, at the same time, more considerately? Or work on the mentality of abundance, i.e. stop competing with others and start being happy for them. I personally consider these three things as the best way to improve the mortar. Three things that, when a person manages to stick to them (no matter how hard that is to imagine), will make the urine evaporate from the soup over time.

Zappos is definitely a business to learn from. It grew from almost zero sales in 1999 to over a billion US dollars ten years later. Its employees belong among the happiest and most engaged workforce. The same counts for the customers.

And Tony Hsieh, its CEO? Little weird but definitely one of the masterminds behind the unprecedented success. Just one example for all. He loves to read what scientists discover on science of happiness and he asks: “What if you spend just ten percent of your time studying happiness? What effect would that have on your life?

Just check out his talk at Google and be sure to find loads of interesting insights into Zappos culture. Enjoy!

You know, I became a little obsessed with human potential, talent and freedom, so I am naturally fascinated by examples like these. I simply find these two trees a great metaphor. Be it larches, cats or people, we are all born with certain predispositions. With humans, we learned to call them talents and passions. With trees, it is pretty obvious that the potential gets utilized if the environment allows. It is just visible. But with humans it is not that easy. We know how to pretend. Most of us also learned to bury our dreams and talents under pressures and worries of our everyday lives, right?

But still all living organisms, whether they’re larches, dogs or humans, have this in common. If we are given room to show what’s inside of us, we perform. We reach up to our potential. If, on the other hand, something or somebody does not let us breathe freely, if we are refused fundamental rights to choose what, when and how do it, we stumble. Two meters (four percent of the potential) compared to fifteen meters (thirty percent) is a gigantic difference.

Loads of research on workplace engagement and productivity confirm that people in companies that adopted freedom as its fundamental philosophy are full of the tall larches. It makes sense. How come free or “liberated” companies are still in the minority??

Life was calm. Predictable. There are even a few things I miss! The nature was unspoiled (relatively) , there were no cars, no advertising, no consumerism. And because there was not much to do (I sure don’t miss that part) we were together with our family and friends a lot (and that I sure miss).

On the other hand, there were plenty of things limiting our freedoms. Of course I took it for granted back then. Only after seeing some other places did I start seeing how bad the system really was. But after years of studying and working in the modern corporate world, I can not help seeing very interesting similarities between how my country was run back in the 1980s and how today’s typical corporation is managed.

Just check out a few examples:

1. Be a party member. My parents had to be party members in order to get a decent job. Most of today’s workers have to conform with what the management – “the ruling party” says. Without conformity, there is very often no decent job.

2. No travel. Stay home. We were not allowed to travel. Yes, we could go to Eastern Germany or Romania. Perhaps to Russia (that was reserved for party members, though). But that was it. Are today’s employees allowed to leave the company whenever they feel like it? Are you crazy? They must be at work!

3. Obligatory meetings. The party meetings were obligatory. Is participation in the meetings at work optional? Can people choose what meeting they will attend? In many place they are “must go” and “must stay”.

4. No information. One who has information has power, right!? Our communist comrades knew this piece of wisdom well. The majority of today’s management knows it too.

5. Search the bags. It was legal to search or even confiscate citizens’ property. It is legal in many companies to search employee’s bags when coming to or leaving work.

6. I am the boss. We were not given the choice to elect our leaders. It is the same in the world of business. The bosses in conventionally run companies get appointed, not elected.

7. Spy on them. We were being spied on. That’s a known fact for the communist country, right? Our letters were read. Our phones were tapped. People were called to the police. The same with the employees today. Their calls are being monitored for “improved quality”. Often their e-mail or web searches are being checked as well. Often they are being called in by the company’s compliance person for not complying with the norms and procedures.

8. Uniforms. Often we were told what to wear. It was in no way as strict as in Mao’s China but for example, in my school T-shirts with signs were banned, and boys were not allowed to grow hair below the bottom of their ears. Dress codes in today’s corporations are abundant.

9. Enemies are after us. This is a “Manipulation technique 101″. Focusing on external threats will sure scare people off. They become easier to manage. A mutual enemy usually also unites the people. In some companies, we hear about our nasty competitors that are constantly out to get us.

10. Yes men & Yes women. Of course we could not speak our voice. We had to have one opinion. If it differed from the mainstream, we were first called to a meeting with a party official/police and if things did not improve, we would be punished in one way or another. Isn’t that pretty much the same at work?

11. Benefits for the party members. Communist societies in principle are supposed to be classless. No way!!! It was the same old hierarchy as everywhere. The “rank and file citizens”, lower-class party members and so-called “aparatchiks” at the top. At work? Rank and file employees and then all the lower, middle, junior, senior, executive and whatever else management…

12. Mandatory attendance courses. The party was obsessed with educating its members. It designed tons of training courses that people had to go to. Actually they were sent there by their companies. Today’s employees are sent to training sessions by their HR managers in the same manner.

13. Identity cards. Everyone had to have one with them at all times in case they got checked by the police. It’s the same with employees today – the name badge has become a standard. You have to wear it, and you have to wear it right.

14. Obligatory work. You had to have your employer’s stamp embossed in your identity card. Everyone had to work. It was one of the proclaimed positives of the system – Everyone has work! The thing was you could not choose not to work.

No way this is the final list. Feel free to add other items.

What struck me though is how similar the authoritarian states and companies are run..by exactly the same principles, same processes, same behaviors, and same chemistry. It is almost as though the leaders of Togo and Wallmart went to the same MBA program. Maybe they did!?

Orwell would laugh!

Those of you flying Southwest may have met the guy. Or you just saw some of his YouTube videos as I did. Or you may have experienced some other Southwest people on the job. What a difference to what most of us are used to while flying! What a breath of fresh air!

Let people do what they want and wait to see the wonders…

Southwest people are free to choose what to do at their jobs as long as it fun and safe for the passengers. There are no written procedures, step-by-step manuals or carrot-and-stick wielding that we know from conventional companies.

If this is not a proof that freedom at work works, what is?

P.S.: No wonder Southwest has become the largest airline in the world in terms of the number of passengers carried per year (as of 2009).

First the eye-opening research on Flow conducted by Mihaly Csikszentmihályi’s team which shows that the majority of people find activities we call “work” more fulfilling than those we learned to call “free time”.

Or the father of psychoanalysis Zigmund Freud who was once asked to give his recipe for happiness. What he said were two words: “Lieben und Arbeiten”. Love and work. Plenty of other modern scientists stand by this. It seems that those who manage their relationships with other people and know how to work in an enjoyable and fulfilling fashion feel the happiest.

So I started believing Dr. Charles Mayo, the founder of the famous Mayo clinic, who said: “There’s no fun like work“. I can’t help but agree. Unless you do something you really hate, there is no reason not to feel fulfilled and happy at work.

So it seems a crowd of big-shots are saying work is cool. Still, most people would rather see their dentist then to go to work. But why?
Perhaps there are reasons to write a few books on the topic, right?! But there is one reason I am consistently bumping into in my quest to understand the world of work. And that is what Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi once called the “Curse of Adam”.

Just read this excerpt from Genesis 3:17
“Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “ Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it. All the days of your life.” So it seems our Judeo-Christian tradition made us believe that work is hard and something to be avoided at all costs. Who knows where it all started?

Being a father of two kids, I listen closely to what we say to small children about work. In my country we love this kind of stuff: “First, clean up your room, then you can play. You must do the dishes! Just wait and see when you go to school. They will make you do it. You have to work.” Or this old Czech saying: There are no cookies without work.” The list goes on and on and on. It just seems we tell our kids what our parents told us. And our parents told us what their parents told them,… You know, the cycle…

It may be interesting to dig into the roots. What matters more though is what we can do with what the science keeps telling us. Could we perhaps  stop teaching our kids to hate work? Can we unlearn the distaste? What do you think?

Juan Antonio: “My father is a poet.”

Viki: “Perhaps I could read your father’s work…?”

Juan Antonio: “But my father does not publish.”

Viki: “Tell me why wouldn’t your father publish his poems!?”

Juan Antonio: “He hates the world. That is his way of getting back at it.”

To create beautiful works and then deny them to the public. It just hit me. I hugged the friend in an epiphany!! I realized so many of us do exactly what Juan Antonio’s father does. We may not hate the world and we may not even do it consciously. For years, The Gallup has been asking millions of employees all over the world a simple question: “At work, do you have a chance to do what you are best at?”. The answers have been sadly consistent. Only about twenty percent say “definitely yes”.

Thank you for the scene, Woody! Thanks for chatting at the party, Honza! What a great way to express what eight out of ten of us do. By not using our talents, not doing what we love, we are “getting back at the world” exactly as Juan-Antonio’s father. Not giving the best of what is inside of us, we do not punish just ourselves, but the rest of the world as well. And where’s the purpose then?