Book Review -- Joy, Inc.: How We Built A Workplace People Love

Most of my programming knowledge is constrained to my days of learning Basic on Apple machines and writing choose-your-own-adventure stories. But I do use software and have been a "client" of programmers in the past, so I was not lost in the programming references made by Richard Sheridan, cofounder and CEO, Menlo Innovations, in his book Joy, Inc: How We Built a Workplace People Love. Sheridan is also remarkably good at keeping his descriptions of the actual work programmers do completely understandable for the "stupid user."

The fascinating part of this book is how Sheridan took a business model that wasn't working, completely shut it down and built it back up in a way that worked for his team and allowed them to focus on the joy of working, instead of all the compromises most employees need to make to get to the part of the job that they love.

After digesting the book, I've tried to figure out what it is that's at the crux of how he created this environment for joy. I think that's it's by using true teamwork to get rid of fear. In other words, entirely eliminating competition and creating an organization that truly works together for one goal.

How does he do it in practice? He uses a concept he calls "pairing", meaning that absolutely no work -- I'm not kidding -- is done on an individual basis. Every programmer works in a team, on one computer, and the teams are shuffled around on a constant basis, so no one becomes a "tower of knowledge." The advantage of working this way is better problem solving and also a flexible work force -- everyone can cover for each other, meaning people can take holiday whenever they want.

Another concept that plays a strong role in his company's philosophy is failing early. Making mistakes fast. Something else that you can only happen once you get rid of fear. 

There is much more to it of course, and I did struggle to see how the work that I do could be structured in a similar way, but it's an interesting concept and could have applications for all groups of people trying to accomplish something.

Transforming the way people -- and organizations -- work isn't easy. The resistance to change is a powerful force. I know lots of people whose companies went to hot desking (having no specific assigned workspace) and it caused significant distress -- I can only imagine how people would feel about having to share a computer at first.

But it clearly works for Menlo Innovations -- more than works. I think what I got most out of this read is that it's important to think about the way to structure work in general to accomplish your goals and not be afraid to completely tear down something that isn't working. And this is always to meet the higher goal of joy. In order do the meaningful work that you love, you have to come up with solutions that give you that space. You can't necessarily get rid of the annoying bits, but how can you structure your work so you have time to focus on the part of it that you enjoy?

I don't have all the answers yet, but at least knowing that someone else has managed it makes me think it's at least possible.

For more recommendations and links to all my book reviews, check out my resources page.

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Expansion

I'm sure this isn't technically true, but at the moment it seems this way: my training as a journalist and my current job as a researcher/writer is very poor training for writing a book. The first time I read my attempt at writing a novel (that I tried to do in one month via NaNoWriMo), I was shocked by how much information I packed into each paragraph and sentence. It was as if I had to get the main character's whole life story into the first page.

It's not that journalists don't try to tell a story -- it's just that they do it as succinctly as possible. They know they only have so much time to keep someone's attention, so it's necessary to boil it down to the bare essentials. And the more complex the story or situation, the tougher this is. What's the key thing you have to convey? What's really going on? 

But this doesn't seem to work when you're writing a novel or narrative non-fiction. For the writing projects I'm working on now, I spend so much time re-reading what I've written and realizing how short it is and how much I'm rushing to get the story out. I am having trouble slowing down, expanding on things. It's almost as if I don't want to bother the reader with too much detail, too much explanation. I don't want to waste anyone's time.

At least I'm aware of what I'm doing wrong (I think). I'm about 3,000 words into an essay that is an experiment into how it might work to write a narrative non-fiction book about living as an American ex-pat in the U.K. And although parts of the essay are starting to sound narrative, a lot just sounds like this blog. Which doesn't work at all.

And so I am literally drafting and then going back and forcing myself to add in sentences and dialogue and expand, expand, expand. It's incredibly painful, but must be done. I might just be the only person who "edits" something by adding to it. 

As a kid I was always writing stories and they were very narrative in nature -- usually painfully so. But this has been drummed out of me as an adult. At least I'm learning, which is helping me focus on the process and not the result -- which is essential for this type of project.

Related Posts:

• More Of The Same?
• Heading For The Finishing Line

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Book Review: The Skeleton Cupboard

I am a big advocate of discussing mental health in the open -- it is something that has or will touch all of us in our lifetimes. And the sooner we can get rid of the shame associated with it the better, and more healthy, we will all be.

For a long time I flirted with the idea of becoming a psychologist, but now I'm pretty sure it's not the career for me. However, as I am absolutely drawn to reading and writing about psychology, I couldn't resist buying Tanya Byron's book The Skeleton Cupboard: The Making of a Clinical Psychologist.

At first I didn't realize it wasn't a memoir -- it is, in fact, fiction, based on Byron's 25 years of work in clinical psychology. The characters are inspired by her experience, but not actually based on real-life cases, which would risk the principle essential to her profession of confidence. This actually annoyed me at first and made me wonder how good it could actually be, but I should have had more faith in Byron (I have been a big fan of Byron's since the series she did with Claudia Winkleman on BBC Three called The House of Tiny Tearaways, where Byron was the therapist for families with children with behavioral problems. These types of shows are like catnip to me.)  

It would seem that the part of the book written in memoir is the perspective of her training as a therapist. Her time was split between her formal training at University College London and her series of six-month placements with supervision. And this is what is so interesting about the book: while telling the stories of her patients she also speaks about her own feelings and struggles around defining not only the mental health of her patients, but her own. 

Through narrative, Byron makes the point that it is not often clear where sanity ends and insanity begins. From my own experience, and from observing those around me, I would agree with Byron's conclusion in the epilogue, that some of us are just lucky enough to manage the challenges life presents, either through nurture, with supportive families and networks, or through nature, with less of a predisposition to mental health vulnerability. I also believe that the influence of these normalizing factors may change over time, and certain situations may result in those with no mental health issues in the past, suddenly finding themselves on the brink.  

As she puts it:

I'd forgotten how anxious I was, how arrogant I could be and how naive. I often had no more clarity of thought than the people I was meant to be treating. I owe a huge debt to them for providing me an opportunity to become a skilled practitioner and perhaps, a better person. 

I suppose some may find the book a tough read as even though the stories she tells are fictional, they are based on her clinical work. And certainly from what we know from reading the newspapers, the situations are believable, and very harrowing. But I think there's great hope in the telling of stories like these, in making all of us feel that we are not alone in our struggles as humans and through connection, there is some hope for healing.

For more book recommendations and links to all my book reviews, check out my resources page.

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