by Dayna Gilchrist

Corporate culture is extremely important to any business but I take enormous pride in the culture Hype has created in our offices. We are always evolving, keeping it fresh, and we recently implemented Hype Happies! Every morning in April- no matter where you were working from- we met, checked in and shared 3 “Happies”.

As a business owner, I am always looking for ways to strengthen our tribe, learn from each other and build our team. I recently finished reading: “Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work” by Piyush Patel and this was one of my favorite takeaways. He implemented with his team as a way to check in with them since it is not always easy to get a sense of how everyone is doing all the time.

Here’s how we did it:

• Each morning in April, we came into the office or started our days in our respective locations by grabbing a large, bright colored post-it and hand wrote our Happies. Two of them were work-related and one of them was personal.
• The Happies had to have happened in the last 24 hours (and didn’t need to be overthought, just something that made you smile).
• In the East Coast office, we would meet in the Activation Room in a circle, assign a team lead to run the meeting and read them out loud.

What I learned:

• The first one was the hardest. There was this preconceived notion it needed to be really deep or a huge accomplishment. Once we all read our first round of Happies out loud, all the pressure went away and everyone loved the ritual.
• Everyone has something they are proud of, and are excited to share with the team.
• It created a sense of belonging.
• Most of the time people shared a “Happy” connected to another co-worker without them knowing it. For example, Steph would say one of her Work Happies “was working with Alex on the ROS for an upcoming program” and when it came to Alex’s turn she would say, “One of my Happies was having Steph help put the ROS together!” I loved when that would happen.
• It created teamwork and encouragement. Other team members happiness was important to the larger organization.

I am totally hoping we keep this going and I would suggest this for anyone else looking to gain valuable insight into the inner workings of your company and employees.

(And if you’re wondering what B.A.M. means: belonging, affirmation and meaning…all necessary ingredients for positive company culture!)