AOL Podcast with Dennis Bakke
This month, we are featuring Dennis Bakke's AOL Coaches Podcast. Listen to the interview.
AOL's Bethanne Patrick: You learned a lot of this from the ground up during your years with a company called AES, an energy giant that eventually had employees in 31 countries and revenues of $8.6 billion. I'm sort of stumbling on that because it's remarkable. So AES is not just where you learned that perhaps people should have more joy at work, but you actually put those principles into practice. Would you tell us a little bit about that?
Dennis Bakke: The book is a story of my journey to try to create the most fun workplace in human history, and what I first found out was that people really, really enjoy work -- they don't work for money, they don't work for parties, they work because they were created to work. We work to serve the needs of others, and along the way meet our own needs.
When you work for a company that is actually -- and I think most companies are like this -- doing something useful for society and it really matters -- whether it's entertainment or a technology that is helping people communicate or providing a digital highway -- whatever it is, there's a huge amount of things that are being done by companies and the people in those companies to improve life in the world, and that can be really rewarding if you get the right purpose. As opposed to -- people do not work well for money; money is not a motivator.
AOL's Bethanne Patrick: Well that's a very important thing about 'Joy at Work' as well because one of your key principles is that it shouldn't just be the bosses and the management who are making decisions. You take the example of your administrative assistant, who is, to use that old word, empowered to make all kinds of decisions in her own way and you think that many employees, if not all employees, should be making decisions.
Dennis Bakke: Yeah, not just the normal decisions that people think about, but I think that every employee should have a chance to make decisions that normally would never be able to be made. For example, a teacher in one of our schools -- I now run a company that does public charter schools and we have about 2,000 teachers in the company -- and in a school, teachers usually don't have anything to say about what the budget is for the whole school. But I've said, 'I don't want the principal making the final decision, or the superintendent.' I want them to pick one of the teachers -- and then change it every year -- to be the one that makes the final decision after getting advice from everyone else on what the final budget is for that school.
In other words, it's not just what they do in the classroom, for example, that is important, but they have to have a chance to take that last shot at the end of the game. When the game is on the line and it's the championship of the world, that is what you want to have a chance to do every once in a while. Everybody has a chance to make a significant decision, use their skills, their gifts -- the thing that is essentially human about us -- the ability to think, to reason and to make a decision, and then hold ourselves responsible for it -- that is what really makes it fun.
AOL's Bethanne Patrick: That's what brings the joy to work.
Dennis Bakke: Exactly. If you think about it, that's why we're leaders -- and I don't like managers -- we manage money, we manage systems, we manage assets -- we lead people.
Listen to the podcast or read excerpts at AOL Coaches
www.DennisBakke.com
"Failure's hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever."
-- Po Bronson, author of "What Should I do with My Life"
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Conventional Approach vs. Joy at Work Approach>
For a quick study of the Joy at Work approach, check out this handy compare/contrast chart. You'll know in just a few minutes how your organization is doing.
Joy at Work Chart
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What metrics do you use to measure your success?
In Chapter 7 of Joy at Work, I outline the performance metrics I believe can/should be used in every organization.
(A) Purpose is to serve a need in society. At AES, success was measured by number of people whose need for clean, safe, reliable electricity we met. At Imagine Schools, it can be measure by the number of children/parents we serve and what our average learning gain is for each student.
(B) Economic Sustainability - Performance is/was measured the same way in both AES and Imagine Schools. To what degree did we have enough revenue to pay suppliers what they deserved, taxes to governments while meeting all environmental and safety standards, interest and principal to lenders, a fair price charged to consumers and in the case of AES, a healthy return to investors.
(C) Adherence to shared values. For both AES and Imagine Schools, the primary tool for measuring our performance on shared values of justice, integrity, and fun is an annual survey of asking every employee numerous questions that help grade the organization's performance in this crucial area.
Note that none of the three areas of performance are given more weight than the others. A simple bottom line may be easier, but it is far less accurate in measuring performance than the complicated tools outlined above.
Thank you for this open forum of questions from your Joy at Work Journal. I work in a casino and thought this [joy at work purpose] could happen by promoting the idea that casinos are in the international development business, not "entertainment." In this way, we would see ourselves as being helpful and would do things differently.
Then I thought if we adopted a "Total Quality Management" approach we would see that we cannot just "use people up and throw them away," but work with our "suppliers" to help them produce a quality product and really do something useful with our
time.
Last year I thought if only a Joy at Work approach were accepted, the "most fun workplace in the history of the world" would have to contribute something helpful to the world society. Now I think our noble purpose will only come about through noble individuals. I see no hope of changing the corporation. We will simply work for miracles here and now.
Do not underestimate entertainment as a noble and redeeming purpose. It is a very important service to society and comes in many wonderful forms from athletic events, drama, TV, etc. I do have some concern about the gambling part at casinos. It is entertainment to a point but past that point it ranks right up there with pornography, prostitution, and cigarette manufacturing as services that cause more harm than good.
The concept of "Total Quality Management" has some redeeming value, but I have found it bureaucratic and stifling in places I have seen it tried.
Every person was created to work to serve others while meeting our own needs. If we do that, I doubt that should classify us as noble. There is something noble, however, about a leader who will do the wonderful thing - restrain the use of his or her power to decide. Why? To allow those being led to reason, make decisions, and hold themselves responsible. In other words, let them be human. That's being "noble."'
Dear Dennis,
I really enjoy your emails. Your philosophy on how work should be is so refreshing. I started very young in what has turned out to be an over 30-year career. 26 years in management, with the last 24 in the same location. The company I worked for does not share your philosophy or mine, so when given the opportunity for early retirement I took it. I left a record
profit year and a well trained employee force with one of them succeeding me.
