Let me cite seven ingredients of successful organisations.

Peace of mind.
Organisations committed to harmony among their people are high-performance organisations. One of my goals for my own company is that "everybody here will be happy," and we will do everything possible to ensure that you are happy. We will reorganize and reschedule if necessary, because we know that if you are happy, you'll interact better, you'll produce more, you'll be absent less.

For example, I have a rule: "Kids come first." I have five people in my office who have young children, and the rule is "kids come first." If ever you have a problem, crisis, or challenge that involves one of your children, kids come first. You can choose not to come in, leave with a moment's notice, or reorganise your schedule. You never have to feel guilty or nervous about providing for a child's situation.

I ask very simple questions: Do we have higher productivity or lower productivity? Higher morale or lower morale? Higher absenteeism or lower absenteeism? People write us letters saying, "This is the best company I've ever worked for in my life." And it's a very small thing. There is some inconvenience involved, but nobody's ever deducted anything for situations that have to do with their kids.

Health and energy.
We also want people to be healthy, have low stress, and take good care of their physical health. We don't want people to come in when they're sick, and we don't make them stay when they're tired. We are very sensitive to their health and well-being and that of their family. We have an excellent health plan, for example. Our being concerned about these things causes people to be much happier, because they know we care. If people have to take time off because of medical reasons, we don't deduct it. If it's an unavoidable situation, a surgery, a child being operated on, or something like that, we give them the day with pay, because we value their health.

Loving relationships.
We're adamant that people get along well with each other. We deal with difficulties through confrontation and open and honest interactions. We're not perfect, but we don't allow gunnysacking, politicking, backbiting, or criticising. We deal directly with situations, because we want everybody to be happy. The test of a good organisation is how much people laugh and have open doors.

One large client company had serious political problems in one of their divisions before they put their people through my program. One executive recently told me that now the doors are all open, everybody laughs together, people talk, they get together, they go out for lunch. And the whole organisation is more productive.

Financial freedom.
Financial freedom means that every company must be organised to maximize revenues and minimize costs. Everybody must see themselves as personally responsible for the financial health of the organisation. So there's a lot of open interaction and sharing of financial data. And we do everything possible to accommodate people's financial needs so that people are not preoccupied with money.