Following Socrates and Creating Empowerment

In: BlogDate: Apr 21, 2011By: Henry Stewart

It’s funny when I find myself quoted and it’s a better summary than I’d do myself.

Hi, we are Happy

We are leading a movement to create happy, empowered and productive workplaces.

How can we help you and your people to find joy in at least 80% of your work?

More about Happy

I’m Chair of Governors of my local comprehensive school in Hackney. The headteacher emailed me to say she’d been reading a book on getting more students through GCSEs and found me quoted in the middle of it:

“I soon learnt that you can only create a second class copy of yourself if you manage yourself as a model. What you aim for is for people to feel they own their own job which means you set the principles and you agree the targets. You step back and let the people perform, any way they like, as long as its within the principles and hits the targets. You offer support.”

Intriguingly the authors put it in the context of Socrates’ views. Apparently he said “an essential part of empowerment in any post is a clear sense of what is expected of the post-holder.” I’ve not come across that before but I’d certainly agree with it.

For me the key is to create a clear framework and make sure there is lots of freedom within it for innovation. If you want the full explanation of the principles/targets/support approach do download the draft of my book, The Happy Manifesto. And if you want to find out how to get more students through GCSE, check out this book: Climbing Towards Excellence, John R Rowling and Wyll Willis, Trentham Books.

 

You can find out more about the principles of Henry’s book, the Happy Manifesto.

Related Blogs

Keep informed about happy workplaces

Sign up to Henry's monthly Happy Manifesto newsletter, full of tips and inspiration to help you to create a happy, engaged workplace.

Sign up here

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Download for free

 

Henry Stewart, Founder and Chief Happiness Officer

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. "He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business," explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.

More by Henry

Next Conference: 2025 Happy Workplaces Conference

Our Happy Workplaces Conference is our biggest event of the year, and we'd love for you to join us on Wednesday 25th June!

Our 2024 event was our first ever hybrid event, and so we hope to run next year's in the same way. We will host up to 50 people face-to-face at Happy's HQ in Aldgate, London, and we can host up to 200 people online via Zoom. However you choose to join, there will be interaction, discussion, space for reflection and opportunities to network with others.

Stay tuned for full details of our speakers for next year's event. As always, our speakers share practical, hands-on ideas that you can implement to create happy and engaged workplaces.

Find out more