We’ve asked experts around the globe about their top 5 tips, books, best posts, or videos on happiness at work. In this post Michal Šrajer from the Czech Republic who has given up his job to learn more about Happiness at Work. He travels (along with his family) around the world and visit inspiring people and businesses to hear their views on Happiness at Work.

In one of his podcast he talks to Gea Peper (founder of HappinessBureau) and Fennande van der Meulen (co-founder of Happy Office).

He recommendations for the top 5 books are:

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

This fascinating tour into human mind, written by the Nobel prize laureate, explains what is actually happening inside our heads. Although we may think we are very rational beings making decisions based on facts, the opposite is often true. Different (and much faster) part of the brain often influences how we react and what we think. And there is also a big difference between how we evaluate our well-being and how happy we actually feel.

2. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization – Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey and others.

On the example of three real companies from very different businesses authors show that
strongly focusing on people growth may be the best strategy company can choose. If the culture of transparency and honesty is built, people can finally focus on their real job and everything changes. While in traditional company, being expert means to be stuck on the current position forever, in DDOs (Deliberately Developmental Organizations) it’s the best time for the change, new challenge and growth.

3. Leaders Eat Last – Simon Sinek

The way our brain works was developed for thousands of years. But many companies in last decades are trying to force people to work differently. To forget about importance of human relationships and trust between peers. In his second book, Simon explains the nature of many of our behaviors. Why it feels so good to finish a task? How is it possible we feel better when we just see other two people hugging? It’s all caused by hormones in our brains – dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. They have a major influence on what we do and how we feel.

4. The puzzle of motivation – Dan Pink (video)

To make the list more interesting, let me add this video by Dan Pink. But If you like it, you
should definitely dive deeper into the topic in Dan’s book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”. It’s a must read for anyone who works with people. On many studies, Dan shows how actually our motivation works. Many companies still work on bonuses and salary raises but the truth is, these don’t work in the long term. We have to focus on completely different things to motivate people (or to let them be motivated).

5. The Seven-Day Weekend – Ricardo Semler

Ricardo Semler is famous Brazilian entrepreneur who built truly democratic company – Semco. His story was nicely presented in his first book – Maveric. In this second book Ricardo goes deeper into daily operations of Semco. He is convinced all decisions in company can be done by employees. You just have to them as adults – giving them freedom and trust to actually decide. He illustrates on many real examples from Semco it can work very well. Not only when everything is great, but especially in the hard times.