Cambridge Business Association
Joy, Inc.
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Joy, Inc.

How We Built a Workplace People Love

Richard Sheridan
Portfolio, 2015
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Menlo Innovations, an Ann Arbor, Michigan, company that designs and builds custom software, has won six Inc. magazine revenue awards and nine Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility. Its software “factory” is an award-winning work environment. Menlo has no separate offices or cubicles. Every “Menlonian” works in a bright, wide-open, collaborative workspace with high ceilings and industrial-chic decor. Menlo is known for contented employees, high productivity, popular software products and impressive profits. Richard Sheridan, Menlo’s CEO and co-founder, explains how you, too, can create a “joyous” work environment. Although it is openly and joyfully promotional, his manual has much to offer. getAbstract recommends Sheridan’s corporate biography to leaders who want to energize their companies by improving their workplaces and fostering collaborative practices.

Summary

Joy at Work

The word “joy” connotes bliss, euphoria and jubilation. Employees and customers all report that they experience joy at Menlo Innovations, a groundbreaking custom software design and development firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Author Richard Sheridan, Menlo’s CEO and co-founder, explains, “I desperately wanted to work in a joyful place with joyful people achieving joyful outcomes.” Today, thousands of people visit Menlo every year to learn the operating methods it uses to inculcate joy.

Most computer programming work environments are tense and deadline-driven. Many programmers go through periods when they work late into the night, many nights in a row. Sheridan was a beleaguered participant on many such nights. He found that such pressured, draining projects often end up being unexpectedly cancelled – not a joyful outcome.

On the other hand, joy turns out to be a potent factor at work, because employees who are pleased produce more, engage more readily and collaborate more effectively. When people are happy, they execute to a higher standard and feel more vested in the results of their efforts. And their customers come to feel a sense of affection for...

About the Author

Richard Sheridan is CEO and co-founder of Menlo Innovations, an Ann Arbor, Michigan, company that designs and builds custom software. It has won six Inc. magazine revenue awards and multiple Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility.

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