Making Work Fun

Well, I haven't based my consulting on the concept of fun at work it, sort of, fell in my lap, and I think it fell in my lap because it's always been part of my personality, that I work hard, I've raised – been raised by parents who have a really strong work ethic, and want to do things well, but I think there should be some joy/satisfaction/meaning, let alone some fun, derived from the effort called work. Rachel, you and I spend more time at work than any other activity in our lives, and probably more time with our co-workers than we might even with our family and friends, and I figured at a very young age, that if I didn't figure out how to experience some joy or fun while I was working, I might be all work and no play, and that certainly makes for a dull person.

Rachel Salaman: How do you define fun, Leslie?

Well that's the secret that I've found in over ten years of research, you don't attempt to even try to define fun for someone else. What I'm suggesting to organizations is that they help employees create a good understanding of what the right and responsible work is. So, how do we make our contributions, but also encourage them to bring the best of their whole self to work each day, which may include a playful person too. So the challenge is you can't define fun, nor can you mandate it, because if you do, it takes the spirit of what is something very, very natural away.

Rachel Salaman: How does fun fit into the concept of soft science, which is gaining more traction in business circles?

Yes, and this is something that, as I said, it's been cumulative to me that I have been studying healthy work environments, and healthy organizations, and have found that there is a formula for business success, and even individual success, and that is, get the hard science right, right business concept, right financing, right leadership, right execution. But also spend an equal amount of time on the soft science, right people, right values, right climate, right relationships. So for me, soft science really describes the things that are harder to measure, but equal in importance to the delivery of your work product. It is the culture, it is the values; it is the cumulative behavior of everybody involved in the business.

Rachel Salaman: Now you've touched on this a bit, but what exactly, in your experience, makes a place fun to work in? Perhaps you can give us some examples?

Well this was the fun that I had personally, which was the very first book I wrote, 301 Ways To Have Fun At Work, we sent out faxes at that time to companies large and small, for profit and non-profit, throughout the United States and Europe, and asked them, was fun part of the work experience and if so how did they have it? And that first book was an accumulation of all of those great ideas. Because we received such enormous response to our fax, and so many great ideas, I went on to want to study, well does this have a big impact on the wellbeing of the organization? And so I went searching for companies who hold a reputation of having a fun work environment, but also outperform in their business industry, and that's how I arrived at the 11 books featured in Fun Works, and the, kinds of, things that they are doing.

As I said, fun takes a lot of different forms for different people; in America, Scandia, which is a financial services organization, they have, sort of, a work hard, play hard environment. The volume of the calls coming in and the transactions can be very, very high, so when you walk into that environment, there is a wonderful exercise room, there is a terrific cafeteria, there's lots of decorations as people really bring themselves to the workplace. So the environment is very, very strong, and when they have to work hard, there's a conscious and intentional effort when people are working longer hours than they should or perhaps even working on through lunch that all sorts of special things are done for them. So this is an organization that gets the job done, but they know that if they don't have some play in-between, they may not succeed.

Harvard Dining Services, that became one of the best University dining services in the United States, did something to let their employees know that they care and that leaders were humble and approachable. How they, sort of, broke the stereotypical hierarchical autocratic leadership, was they took them on retreats and they performed really funny and silly skits that the employees really enjoyed. So, you know, it takes the form of the personality of the company and the people within; there's no wrong way to approach this thing called fun work.

Rachel Salaman: And what are the benefits of having a fun workplace? Well, you've mentioned the benefits for the individuals, but what about from a business point of view?

From a business point of view, there are infinite benefits, if you have a workplace culture that people respect and enjoy, they will want to come to work. So the first thing in the world is you're going to attract better employees, those employees will be retained for longer. They're going to bring their friends along, so you're going to have an easier way of getting new employees. We found that absenteeism goes down, productivity goes up, ideation and innovation go up, stress is managed a little bit differently, and people who aren't stressed out do better at work. It affects really concrete metrics like safety and quality and even employee health; we find that medical insurance costs go down. So, when people are happy, better things get done. It's, sort of, that whistle while you work.

Rachel Salaman: Is this anecdotal evidence that you're talking about or is there – have there been firm studies on this?

Yeah, they're just beginning. I tend to gather a lot of anecdotal information. As a researcher I tend to be more qualitative in my approach, but we are finding, and I keep uncovering that more and people are studying this, and there is more concrete evidence to show the cost saving of having a workplace where people stay.

Rachel Salaman: Do you know of any other studies that are going on at the moment that might be coming out?

I don't know of any other studies except my own. We're constantly, sort of, scanning the environment to see what else is being done. But as I did Fun Works in a second edition, the original research was done in the year of 2000, and again in 2006, I was very interested to see the 11 companies who I put under a microscope, how six years later they were still performing, and I thought, you know, it's very, very possible in the six years in the passing of time we had a national tragedy in September 11th. One of the companies was affected by a natural disaster: hurricane Katrina blew the company away and their 1,500 employees. We had a Dot Bust in America and several cycles of soft economy. What really told me that this was an important business conversation was that each of these 11 companies, despite all of those difficult challenges in the environment were, outperforming six years later in their industry class. They were alive, they were well, they were thriving; they were growing. So it said to me that the soft science stuff carries you through the good times, but it carries you through the bad times as well, and I think companies' care about that.

Rachel Salaman: Some of the examples of fun you use in your book, Fun Works, could easily be defined as simply good management or good communication, and thinking of making time to celebrate success and encouraging social interaction among colleagues. Does it matter what we call it?

I don't think so and if someone gets hung up over fun, because they too have been raised by parents that said, "Work hard and when you're done, and only if you're deserving, can you stop and enjoy yourself," if they find that fun sounds too silly and maybe not serious enough for them, it is the way we should be relating to each other. Fun is just an extension of joy meaning satisfaction, wellbeing, and so you're right, it – when you look at the behavioral inventory in Fun Works, those behaviors are just behaviors of good management.

Rachel Salaman: Have you had any adverse reactions to your book from people who believe that workplaces are best kept serious?

[Laughs]. Every blue moon there'll be a review of the book on one of the online booksellers or something like this, when someone has to "pooh pooh" the whole concept of, no way does work and play go together. And for me I've studied all sorts of quotes and clichés about fun at work, and people fall into one of two camps, they are the folks that really do know that all work and no play make you dull, and dull to me is burned out. Or there are the individuals who believe when the cat's away the mice will play; they just don't trust that it's possible to do both. So when someone says that, I just know that they haven't yet had the joy of experiencing work as, sort of, a life giving force, and for them I feel a little bit sorry, because too much work and not enough joy really makes life hard.

Rachel Salaman: I don't think many people would argue with that, but I suppose the issue is, should people get paid to have fun at work?

Well, one of the books or one of the companies featured in the book is Southwest Airlines, and Southwest Airlines is the only airline in the United States now operating in the black; it's the only airline that is in a growth phase. They have the best customer service scores in the industry and are highly profitable. So you know what, the folks at Southwest Airlines do something that's a very serious work, they pilot and operate airplanes that transport people, and they are in a highly regulated field with guidelines that they have to follow. They manage all the while to have fun at work, and that's their secret sauce; it's what differentiates them, it's what's kept them strong and vital as an organization. So, people at Southwest Airlines share in the profits of the company, so they do get paid to have fun at work, it's part of their brand. So yes, if the work is getting done and people are having fun, they're certainly earning that salary.

Rachel Salaman: There's quite a subtle difference between having fun and messing around, so how can a manager, or an employer, make it clear to people that they can do one and not the other?

This is the secret and probably one of the most frequently asked questions, which is, what do you do if they're having too much fun? And my answer is, if you hired the right people to begin with, right expertise, right values, and you've communicated to them the context of their work, what is the mission or mandate of what they're doing, what are the values that guide the behaviors of the organization, what is the vision that they're working towards together, what is the organization's goals and their personal goals and how will they be measured, you've given them all the guidelines for how to know if work is right. If you trust those same employees then, with the physical assets of your company and the relationships with their clients and their work, if they understand the context, trust them to use their judgment about maintaining the balance between work and play. If their compensation is attached to performance, if they know that their performance is measured, they'll understand what happens if they take it too far. So it goes back to good employees, and if you've hired the right ones and given them the context and the information they need to do their job and know they're doing their job well, continue to trust, they'll use their judgment.

Rachel Salaman: Is it harder to have fun in some sectors than others? People might think, for example, that filmmaking would always be fun, whereas, say, accounting might not be in the same way?

I understand people's, sort of, mindset to this, but the biggest shift for me in this conversation about fun at work is, fun at work is not the activities that you do, the parties, the dressing up in theme costumes, it's who you're being when you're doing your work, and a very famous humorous said, you know, "Take your work seriously but lighten up on life." Because of that, I believe, regardless of the job and its seriousness, you can bring your personal lightness to this work. So no, I don't think there's a job that can't be lightened up, and one of my best examples is, a lot of my clients are in the field of healthcare and an emergency room can be a very serious place, a very life and death place, but what I know about physicians who are caring about people, they will do the right and responsible thing first, take care of the physical health of that person and the trauma that they've experienced. But when they do this in a way when the emergency is, sort of, waning, that gets the person to smile, to breathe, to laugh a little, to see the situation as having some hope in it, actually the outcome of the medical care are much better. So it is a very, very serious job, but when those people keep their heads and their humors appropriately, it's better for the workplace environment and often better for the outcomes.

Rachel Salaman: Would you say there was ever a time when all fun should be put aside and people should be told to get serious, for whatever reason?

Sure, I think that when you have the right employees, they'll do the right and responsible things first, and figure out how to have the fun too. There's always times when we just need to buckle down, but even when I'm doing something very, very serious, I will keep my, sort of, my lightness, my wellbeing about life with me, and I think that's appreciated, and that's what this fun work fusion is about. It's not about games, or events, it's about who you bring to that work you're doing, and at times you have to buckle down.

Well people's idea of fun, differ, don't they? And in large organizations there's never going to be one prevailing idea of what fun is. How can you engage all the different ideas of fun within the employee group? Well, I think the big thing to do is not approach fun the way we might have approached quality in the 1980s, which is, don't make a Manager of fun, don't make someone in charge of everybody else's fun, simply invite it into your organization. Southwest Airlines has 42,000 in 144 locations throughout the United States and they don't mandate any of this, there's no guidelines, there's no books, there's no telling people what to do. They encourage people to find a way to get their jobs done and bring that, sort of, personality to the work as well. Each location, each of those 144 locations has a culture club and the culture club has conversations about, "What do we want to do? How do we want to spruce things up? There's a holiday coming up do we want to treat it any differently?" Another thing they do to reinforce, sort of, a climate that enjoys itself, is customer letters are all accumulated on a monthly basis and sent in a packet to each and every one of the employees' homes. So once a month they're reading about all the wonderful ways that they have, sort of, entertained and flown their planes safely throughout the United States, and those small ideas are, they just move through the organization with great spontaneity. So it's not about mandating this or creating someone in charge of this, it's about asking your employees, "Can you remember a time when you got the job done, and had some fun too? Well how can we do more of that?" and creating the conversation.

Rachel Salaman: As you mentioned in your book, Fun Works, you outline 11 principles that lead to an effective fusion of work and fun. Let's take a look at just couple of those now, starting with your second principle, which is, challenge your bias, can you explain this?

"Challenge you bias" is that we bring lots of biases to work, and one of the biases that I brought to work, my father who is someone I greatly admire and whose work ethic has guided me through my own career, but he was very much the guy who said, "Work hard, and if and when you're done and only if you're deserving and if the work was your very, very best then and only then can you stop and experience something that's non-work like." Now if I lived like that I would never ever, ever, ever experience any joy, because I don't know about you, but work hard and work until you're done, I don't ever finish, and when you're deserving, I feel like I can always improve on what I'm doing. So this might have worked for him in his career, when the day started at a very definite time and ended at another time, and when he came home he didn't work, he did the work of the household, and the things that he enjoyed, but it doesn't work in the 21st century. So challenge your bias: if I brought that bias to work I might not bring my best self, my joyful self too. We all have biases that get in the way. One of the big biases, if I'm playful or fun it might look silly, and silly in my work environment might be considered as stupid and stupid, unprofessional, oh no, I could never do that, and my challenge is, well are you getting the job done? Will others enjoy it too? So who says fun or playful is silly? We've got a lot of mental model that were imposed upon us by, you know, past work environments, that may not fit the 21st century and where we want to take our relationship with work.

Rachel Salaman: How do you know when you bias needs challenging?

Well, think of challenge your bias is a very popular phrase is, you know, think out of the box, that if a way of approaching work is bleeding the energy out of the work, or fraying the relationship, or not getting the best work outcome, the way you do your work may not be the best way to do the work in the future. So we may have to say that, "We've done it in this way in the past and that's our bias and experience, this is not getting us the best outcome, so we need to change the way we look at how we're approaching it, to get a better outcome, and infuse, sort of, the system with newfound energy.

Rachel Salaman: You've talked a bit already about how important trust is, and that's your fourth principle, trust the process, can you explain a bit more what you mean by this?

Yes, the soft sciences don't work without trust, and fun will not flourish in an environment where trust also isn't extended to others. The opposite of trust is fear, and most of the industrial age we – our management style was to manage through use of intimidation and force and fear, and that's the opposite of fun. When you manage that way, joy doesn't come into the relationship; it doesn't come into the work. So until you let go of those tools, and those strategies, and those effects around kicking and offering carrots, the carrots are just candy-coated force, "If you get this done then and only then will I reward you." Until we abandon the use of force and fear, the lifeblood, the energy called fun, and whatever form that takes, which is the joy that's derived out of the work product, cannot come into the place. So trust is an essential ingredient.

Rachel Salaman: Trust also comes into the equation when you think of a manager trusting their employees to do top quality work when there's a light entertainment atmosphere in the office. How do you get to the point where you can actually trust them to do the work they're supposed to do?

Again, it goes to – I believe in robust hiring processes, hire good people, not only technically skilful but at Southwest Airlines they have a saying which is, "Hire for attitude and train for skill," and their values must also be aligned with yours because those are very, very difficult to influence. So to start with getting the right people, but again be transparent, share the information, if they know what right work looks like, and what right work will be rewarded, and if you develop their skills and abilities to make those contributions, it's all about performance management and where we do good performance management we have people that are performing. So, to have a fun workplace you have to have competent Managers as well, and it goes back to, trust is giving good information, it's giving right tools, it's sharing what's working and what's not working, it's helping others to succeed. So, if you do that well, you know what, this fun thing you won't have to worry about, it will come naturally.

Rachel Salaman: I was also struck by your principle, be authentic, can you explain what you mean by that?

Oh, I think this is what people are searching for today, which is, sort of, an authentic relationship with their co-workers, with their supervisors and even with their customers, which is they can be who they are and be accepted in their work environment. This particular chapter featured a company called Isle of Capri Casinos, and it was in Biloxi, Mississippi, it employed 1,500 employees, until Hurricane Katrina came along, and it blew the casino away and all of those employees. That casino, by the way, was the first to open up back in Biloxi, Mississippi and they paid their employees throughout the entire development time of getting that back up and they retained all of their employees and garnered some new ones from the competing casinos. But what they know about their particular industry is the customer experience is what makes a difference, because a casino is a commodity; they can go next door and do the same things in a similar location. So what makes the difference for that business is how the customer feels and their interaction with the employees. At Isle of Capri Casinos, they encourage people to bring themselves, and their caring nature, and their fun self, it's called Isle Style, or fun at the casino, to the work. It's not just about doing the work well, it's about doing it well with your full self, and making a deep connection with your co-workers, and supporting them, and definitely with their customers, and I think that's what made Isle of Capri so strong and strong today.

Rachel Salaman: But not everyone has a highly developed sense of fun, how can they authentically introduce fun into the workplace, when they don't feel it themselves?

Yeah, we're all different in that way, and we're all different in our approach, whether it's a more extroverted way of doing this, or a more introverted way of doing this, and even the person who is really a ball of fun doesn't always have good days. So mine is – the secret is, just continue to give it permission, continue to try, under difficult situations, to lighten up and my personal secret, because I can be chronically serious, that's one of my hardships is I love my lightness, but my intensity is equal to that, is I surround myself with other people who place a value on joy and play and fun. So on the day that I'm not particular light, I rise because of working with them.

Rachel Salaman: So let's say someone has read the book and is convinced of the value of fun in the office, what are three practical steps they can take to create more fun quickly?

An interesting thing that we're observing in the health of organizations today, is organizations move in the direction of their conversations, so mine is simply to encourage people to talk about this, to start a meeting by simply saying, "Can you remember a time when you did the right and responsible thing, but also experienced a little joy, a little fun, a little play in doing it?" And get people to tell their stories, and then simply ask them after that, "Well, what can we do to do more of that within our work experience?" Ask them open-ended questions like, "What is the relationship you want to have with your co-workers, your customers, and with your work into the future, and how can we bring that to being?" Don't make this too hard, just simply recognize that work and play go hand in hand, and when they do, good things happen. So this is not something you can muscle, just give permission, and leaders need to it by being role models themselves, give permission to this organization that we appreciate the joys that resides in each and every human being.

Rachel Salaman: Leslie Yerkes, thank you very much for joining us today. You can find out more about Leslie's work at her website www.changeisfun.com.

The name of her book again is, Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work. I'll be back next month with another Expert Interview, until then goodbye.