Izzmo reviewed Joy at Work by Dennis W. Bakke
Review of 'Joy at Work' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Dennis Bakke gives a great take on how to transform your old industrial-age business to a modern, decentralized, employee-driven one where people actually fun (yes, FUN!) at work. His account of how he created and transformed his business in the energy industry with his company AES is very informative. If you work in the software industry then you will probably draw a lot of parallels to how your business and teams are ran and how he was trying to do this back in the 1980s.
Ultimately, what you should take from this book as a business leader is that you want to stop the "manager-employee" relationship and instead step back and let your employees make all of the tough decisions. It's not easy! You have to give up power, you have to be more transparent and actually give the employees the tools they need to make those decisions. It's a …
Dennis Bakke gives a great take on how to transform your old industrial-age business to a modern, decentralized, employee-driven one where people actually fun (yes, FUN!) at work. His account of how he created and transformed his business in the energy industry with his company AES is very informative. If you work in the software industry then you will probably draw a lot of parallels to how your business and teams are ran and how he was trying to do this back in the 1980s.
Ultimately, what you should take from this book as a business leader is that you want to stop the "manager-employee" relationship and instead step back and let your employees make all of the tough decisions. It's not easy! You have to give up power, you have to be more transparent and actually give the employees the tools they need to make those decisions. It's a crazy thought for some, but if you do this, more often than not, you'll create your business' next generation of leaders as well as making people love your company and the work they do.
P.S.
Some reviewers have noted that Bakke is a religious man. This is true and he does make some mentions of it, but it's not suffocating. You can respect that a lot of his decisions in life and this book were driven from the morals he gained from his religion and then you can move past it.