Joy Inc. summary

Chapter 1: Joy as Workplace Motivation

Joy Inc. by Rich Sheridan. Rich Sheridan details how to build a highly collaborative, productive, and joyful workplace culture by putting human happiness at the center of business. How We Built a Workplace People Love.

Who doesn't want more joy in life? Unless you're the Grinch or prefer gloom to glee, Joy is an emotion that lifts our spirits and fuels our inspiration. So imagine just how great it would be if you could be joyful in every aspect of your life. Not just on weekends, but at work too.

You might enjoy your daily commute and find working hard feels instead like playtime. Such a situation doesn't have to exist only in your imagination. Based on the practices of the highly innovative and successful software company Menlo Innovations, this summary will show you how to turn any workplace into a joyful center where employees thrive.

Chapter 2: Open Layout and Collaboration

Joy motivates employees, but customer joy is the ultimate goal. Unless you're the grumpy Scrooge of Dickensian fame, Joy is an emotion you crave and enjoy. Being happy and full of life is better than being miserable and gloomy, isn't it? So why don't we incorporate more positive feelings, such as joy into our workplaces?

Joy drives people to seek a higher purpose and leave a lasting impact on the world. And joy can be a valuable motivator in the business world, where it manifests as a desire to work on something larger than yourself and belong to a supportive community. You'll find that joyful people work longer and harder than ever before to achieve such goals. Consider the difference between the Wright brothers and Samuel Pierpont Langley.

While both Langley and the Wrights were striving to create the first-ever airplane, their motivations for doing so diverged. Langley wanted fame and fortune. The Wright brothers wanted to experience the joy of flight, and it was the pursuit of joy that inspired the Wright brothers to not only win, but soar. Another benefit of bringing joy to the business world is that joy serves as a base for your company's culture, which helps you unite and shape your team of employees.

When the author invites clients to a software company Menlo Innovations, he asks, if half of his employees express joy for their work and the other half doesn't, which employees would the client prefer to work with? Of course, the answer is always the joyful ones. As it turns out, Menlo's clients implicitly understand that joyful employees are more productive and engaged in their work, which leads to better results. However, Sheridan emphasizes that employee joy is only the means to the ultimate end, which is joy for the customer.

The ultimate mission of Menlo Innovations is to end human suffering in technology. True joy for employees is realized when they see their products bring genuine joy and ease to the end users who rely on them. So we've learned that employee joy is the essential fuel to deliver exceptional joy to the customer. But what does a joyful company actually look like?

Keep reading to find out.