Joy-full Work
Can work be fun? Dennis Bakke presents a radical new perspective on job satisfaction.
Before he became founder and CEO of Applied Energy Services (AES), one of the world�s largest energy corporations, Dennis Bakke and his business partner talked a lot about the elements of a successful organization. That�s when Bakke got an idea � a big idea. �Let�s try to make this company the most fun workplace in the history of the world,� he proposed.
It was the early 1980s, and the then-fledgling company Apple Computers had become famous for hosting Friday afternoon beer parties for its employees. That wasn�t the kind of fun Bakke had in mind for his new company, and neither were workplace morale programs or board games in the break room.
�When I started thinking about fun at work, I thought about the biblical basis of creation,� says Dennis Bakke, whose many family connections with Seattle Pacific University include brother Ray Bakke �65, former Alumnus of the Year. �Work was meant to be an act of worship. It�s all about entering into the master�s joy.�
These are concepts Dennis Bakke tried on for size while building AES from the ground up � concepts that, according to some, contributed to the company�s success.
Twenty years later, Bakke sat down to write Joy at Work. The book, published by Seattle-based PVG in March 2005, has enjoyed accolades from the likes of former
vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp; founder of Prison Fellowship Chuck Colson; and former President Bill Clinton, who called Joy at Work a �book that challenges us to rethink the purpose of business in society.�
If you�re looking for insights into
leadership, Bakke won�t send you to
Fortune or Harvard Business Review. He points to the parable of the talents instead. �It is a story about decentralization,�
he says. �Work is about letting people take risks and try to make something useful happen with their talents, gifts, and resources. And when they come back, you say, �Well-done, good and faithful servant.��
Too many Christians shy away from the business world, asserts Bakke: �They get kind of stuck thinking that the only way they can make a difference is through the church, through ministry.
But most heroes of the Bible didn�t work in the church. Joseph was working for a secular king, and he saved hundreds of thousands
of people from famine. At AES, we met the needs of over a hundred million people by making their electricity. I think that�s significant to God, as is driving a taxi cab or growing wheat.�
Bakke suggests that this might be one of the biggest paradigm shifts for modern-day Christians. �If you�re a restaurant owner, it�s not just about seeing your work as a way to evangelize,� he says. �It�s actually about serving people excellent food, and giving them wonderful service. That is an end in itself. It�s something that God would find significant.� That shift in perspective, he argues, allows any task � even the mundane � to be joy-filled.
On a recent visit to Seattle to speak at a luncheon sponsored by SPU�s School of Business and Economics, Bakke picked up a copy of Seattle magazine. The cover story, a feature on the city�s top 47 companies to work for, caught his eye.
�This is about everything but the work,� he says, rattling off typical workplace incentives like the ones featured in the article: days off for community service, home mortgage assistance,
adoption assistance, company-sponsored gym memberships,
and president�s fireside chats.
�My favorite is �number of paid days off,�� he adds with an ironic laugh. �In other words, the best places to work are supposedly
the ones you don�t have to work at. Since no one believes that work can be fun anymore, the redeeming factor ends up being the cool perks. It�s ludicrous!�
Bakke is the first to admit that some might call his ideas radical. After all, aren�t progressive benefits an essential
part of attracting and retaining quality employees? Jeff Van Duzer, dean of the School of Business and Economics at Seattle Pacific, says both views are valid: �I think benefits do matter. But Bakke�s point, which is a good one, is that you can�t measure a good job by the benefits.�
And the measure of a good company?
Bakke says it has everything to do with the leaders� ability to �let go.� He encourages supervisors to give up �the ball� and give their employees a chance to run with it.
To illustrate this point, he keeps an unusual object in his
briefcase: a rubber ball made of hundreds of rubber bands bound together. �I use it to remind people about what it means to be a team, yet still have independence,� he says.
Though Bakke, who retired from AES in 2003, is now president
of the nonprofit organization Imagine Schools, he simply calls himself an �advisor.� Instead of over-managing, he lets his staff make most of the decisions. Even more unusual, he lets them set their own salaries. In a recent email to his employees, Bakke spelled this out: �I want you all to set your own salaries this year,� he wrote. �Make sure you get advice from others, but you have the final call.�
You�d think this would be like giving people the green light
to inflate their incomes. But that�s not how it worked out. What Bakke found when he implemented this system at AES, and now at Imagine Schools, was quite the contrary. �The employees self-regulated. Very few public companies will try these kinds
of principles because they are just too afraid of their shadows, and they don�t have courageous CEOs.�
Courageous or not, Bakke�s critics see flaws in the principles of Joy at Work. �Bakke has outlined a philosophy of treating employees
that is directionally correct as it focuses on engagement and creating meaningful work for all levels of the organization,� says Michael Erisman �92, a human resources executive who has worked with such companies as General Electric, Pepsico, Qwest, and Microsoft. �However, there are some aspects of his approach that are problematic. He assumes that all employees desire the accountability and responsibility for the bigger-picture decisions and results. This is an approach that focuses on a Western culture of winning that may not fit all employees.�
When it comes to the concept of
finding joy at work, Van Duzer asks some questions that emerge from SPU�s vision for engaging the culture:�Does your work have meaning?
Is it trying to accomplish something
worthy? Are you being the person that God created you to be,
or are you just a cog in a machine?�
Bakke agrees these questions are key. �I think the business school at Seattle Pacific is so much farther ahead of most I�ve seen,� he says. And mere mention of the �cog-in-a-machine�
idea really gets him going.
�That�s not how God intended us to work,� he says. �The American
workplace has so many holdovers from the Industrial Revolution.
There are still bosses out there who treat people like machines.�
Bakke tells a story of a power plant AES acquired in Kazakhstan. �When I first went to visit, the people were so used to a
certain way of working, they wouldn�t even smile,� he recalls. But Bakke kept going back, and eventually things changed. �Three years later, I listened for two hours as people told stories about how their lives had been changed � both at work and at home � because of the concept of joy at work.�
�If people are given a chance to use their skills, they�ll see that the fun is in the work, not the extras,� says Bakke. �It�s life-changing.
And with the right perspective, any job can be joy-filled, even shoveling coal.�
By Sarah Jio
PHOTOS
BY JAMES KEGLEY
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"A ball made of rubber bands. You wouldn�t expect a high-powered CEO to keep such an item in his briefcase � unless that CEO is
Dennis Bakke. The Joy at Work author uses the ball to explain how each person in an
organization is essential to its success.
