Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 47 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Work is play, it’s fun
— From Hug Your People: The Proven Way to Hire, Inspire, and Recognize Your Employees and Achieve Remarkable Results by Jack Mitchell
Do you remember Jack Mitchell talking about hugging as a mindset? Jack is the chairman of the Mitchell’s stores and a renowned personality in the field of extraordinary customer service. His second book, Hug Your People, talks about creating a Niceness Culture to inspire, empower, recognize and reward associates.
We’ve all heard that we shouldn’t mix business with pleasure. Mitchell says that the opposite is true, “Work and fun shouldn’t be considered antonyms. We think of them as synonyms.” And he points out that, “Scientists have discovered how quickly we adopt the emotional state of those around us by measuring the physiology, heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, etc., of two people sharing a conversation. As the conversation gets started, the vital signs of the two bodies are different. But after fifteen minutes, the physiological profiles of the two bodies become very similar.”
This point is incredibly important because “one associate’s happiness becomes the other associate’s happiness.” Mitchell says that in many companies, people feel guilty if they’re having a good time. It goes like this: “associates are chuckling over something when the big boss arrives and everyone immediately adopts a somber face and scurries to their desk to look like they’re ‘working.’ ”
When you have a Niceness Culture and this scenario happens, the boss joins in the laughter. Mitchell continues, “we want people to bring their real selves to work, not some artificial ‘business self.’ ” And he practices what he preaches: he joins in the laughter, the dancing, the singing and the overall cheering. But it doesn’t stop there.
Mitchell makes a point of fostering the fun in all he and his associates do. He will close the store for an evening and invite the associates to play poker. Or he will take all associates bowling. And he will also do it in smaller ways: at meetings he’ll ask everyone to think of positive words that start with a letter, write them down and share them in his CEO letter that goes out to everyone. Or some of his associates will kick off meetings by asking questions like, “What is one word that describes you?” Or “If your great-aunt died and left you more money than Bill Gates, what would you do with it?”
The sky is the limit in terms of what small or big actions you can take to have fun yourself and make your team have fun too. You can even start your own holidays! Work is such an important part of our lives that we should do something that we like and enjoy it fully!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw
ACTION
TODAY: How can you imbue some fun in the things you do? Think of small and big ways to do it. Can you record a fun message in your voice mail so that every caller that goes to voice mail gets a chuckle? Can you start a meeting in a fun way, such as “tell us something few people know about you” and then go around the room? Can you plan to go bowling or plan an ice-skating escapade during winter? Your imagination will lead you to come up with many fun ways to spice up your work and your business culture.
FUTURE: Commit to have more fun from now on. Think about fun “traditions” that you can establish either at work or at home, or both. Could you do an annual picnic? I once went to a “picnic” held at an office conference room where the organizers had set a red and white checkered table cloth and had sprinkled plastic ants all over it. It really was a fun touch and everyone had fun with the ants! One of my favorite invented “traditions” with my family in Spain—since we see each other once a year—is to celebrate all birthdays at the same time by adding the amount of years we will turn or have turned that year. Thus, last year we celebrated our 599 birthday! (Below is the picture of our cake). Could you do something similar at work, perhaps on a monthly basis? For example, “the September babies are turning 349 this year!” Think of fun and creative ways to celebrate and enjoy life.
Know someone who could use more fun in his or her life? Send this post to that person! You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
599 Years Birthday Cake