Dennis W. Bakke, co-founder of AES Corporation and author of 'Joy at Work,' spoke with AOL's Book Maven Bethanne Patrick. Here are excerpts of that interview:

Bethanne Patrick: Your book is a huge hit and it's struck a chord, obviously, with many people. It's titled 'Joy at Work' not 'Fun at Work' -- let's explain why that is.

Dennis Bakke: I think a lot of people think that 'fun' is 'play' -- games, parties, things like that. Some people think that you have fun by having good relationships at work and all that, but joy is a much deeper thing from my perspective, and that's why I did it that way. Joy at work comes from very different kinds of actions.

Bethanne Patrick: There are lots of parts to this, of course. But one of the things that 'joy at work' means is feeling engaged and responsible, and as if you're really part of things -- is that correct?

Dennis Bakke: It's partly that. There are really two things that I found. First of all, I found that most people in workplaces don't like their work or they think it's something they have to do, and that's really since the industrial revolution. So most of the organizations that we have are designed with line and staff operations and leaders making all the decisions, basically built around that model, and people aren't having fun. The only people having fun are the bosses.

Bethanne Patrick: Or at least people think the bosses are having fun.

Dennis Bakke: No, the bosses always have fun. You know how I know?

Bethanne Patrick: You are one.

Dennis Bakke: I am one and it is fun to be a boss, because when I looked into it, I realized that the only thing that really matters in creating a fun workplace is you have to think that you are doing something useful -- that goes back to your point. You have to think and understand that what you do matters in the world, that you're using your skill to make a difference out there, that you can actually do something that is useful for society.

Bethanne Patrick: And there are two things in your book to that point that are important to point out to people. One is, you have an example that you sort of put together from years of reading about the industrial revolution -- of this fellow in Wales two hundred years ago, Colin, who goes to work for -- I can't remember if it's a mine or a factory ...

Dennis Bakke: It's a textile mill.

Bethanne Patrick: A textile manufactory. And he quickly realizes, or at least his wife wisely realizes, that whereas he was really engaged and felt that his worked mattered when he was on the family farm, now he feels that he's a cog in the machine ...

Dennis Bakke: Even though he's making money

Bethanne Patrick: But he's making money. And this is kind of the crux here because I do want to point out, not only is the book not called 'fun at work,' this is not a self-help book with lots of little tidbits of information about how to be more fulfilled on the job. This is actually, as the subtitle says, a revolutionary approach to fun on the job -- but what that means is it is it's not about just management. It's about everyone taking a new approach to fundamental things at work -- everything from changing hourly wages to salaries to different kinds of staff structures.