Consider this video above to be an announcement that I’m going to make a whole bunch more videos! If you hadn’t yet heard, my first-ever book, Happywork, hits the streets on February 17, 2015. I’m excited, nervous, scared, humbled, but mostly just eager to get it in your hands. Pre-order here on Amazon.
In Happywork, I write about a company called Vunorri Inc., which is on the brink of foreclosure. As a last ditch effort, the President of Vunorri brings in a turnaround specialist, Sam Maslow. Sam is utterly talented; he never fails, and among the tools in his toolbox are layoffs. However, Vunorri Inc. is a different kind of company – perhaps the worst company in the world to work for. The place is a nightmare – terrible people, apathy, evil management, three rounds of layoffs in the last five years, and a few surprises I don’t want to give away. Trust me, I had to use every ounce of my imagination to make this place as horrible as it is.
While my book is a fictional account, almost all of you are going to read it and say, “Oh yeah, I had a job like that once.” That’s the problem. We all have! My goal is to show my readers what happens when you put good people into toxic environments. And I hope to make the point that happiness at work really does matter, so much so that we should make it our number one priority.
Vunorri, Inc. needs to make some changes very quickly in order to survive, and perhaps the most important change is to make it a kinder, nicer place to work. That way, the good ones will stay, the knuckleheads will leave, and they’ll have a chance to create a powerful, cohesive team. To shoehorn happiness into the business, they create a sort of work code of conduct – a list of commitments that employers are going to make to their employees, a list of commitments that employees are going to make back to their employers, and a list of commitments that they will make together. There are 46 commitments in all.
Their hope (and mine as well) is that by committing to each other, walls can be broken down. Old biases and bottlenecks can be eliminated. And we can find a way to respect each other, get along with each other, and team up to make great things happen. Our shared purpose can be one of being happy together. THEN, we can go create new products, open new stores, sell more stuff, improve our margins … all of those awesome business tactics are as important as ever, and they’ll all be waiting for us once we’ve constructed a respectful, happy place to work.
So I’m starting what I’ll call Happywork TV. To begin with, I’m going to record 46 videos, one for each commitment in the book. I’ve noticed that, for me, the most robust conversations happen on Facebook, so I’ll be posting these videos on Facebook in the hope that you’ll chime in with your thoughts, and perhaps work stories of your own. After those 46 videos, I’ll be shifting gears and creating videos thanking the people who helped make this book possible. And if I’m still having fun making videos, I’ll make more. From what I’ve noticed, the corporate world provides a never-ending stream of unfortunate business and employment news to illuminate and discuss.
As I mention in the video, I am going to need ALL of your support in order to spread this message far and wide. Selfishly, I have many books to sell, but more than anything, I hope we can change the way business works. I hope you’ll tune in to this video series. Thank you for watching, and thank you for ordering your copy of Happywork!
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