Keep Things Fun
Keep things fun: The problems that face us day to day at work are small compared to the challenges facing most of the world. Keep your perspective and don’t take things personally or yourself too seriously. Laugh every day with others.
The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work, approximately one-third of your entire life.
An enlightening statistic, but not necessarily as scary as it first seems. If you are engaged and challenged, time spent working can and should be enjoyable and yes, FUN!Over the span of my career, I have been fortunate to have had many years when I could honestly say I was having fun at work. And a few years when I was absolutely NOT having fun.
What distinguished the fun work from the not-so-much?
I worked for and with people who were engaged; they cared about the company and understood how they could contribute to its success.
People cared about each other; it’s unrealistic to expect that everyone in a company will be friends, but demonstrated compassion makes an enormous difference.
Fun work environments were safe work environments; people felt safe to speak up and to both voice and try new ideas.
We felt heard. Our opinions were solicited and acknowledged.
We were proud of our success and our ability to function as a high-performing team.
Laughter; while serious about our work, people felt comfortable cracking jokes and having fun together.
Momentum coaches have helped hundreds of dysfunctional teams and, though the reasons for the dysfunction varied, none of them were having fun at work.Dale Carnegie’s view: “People rarely succeed unless they have fun at what they’re doing”.
You, as a leader, are responsible for the creation of a fun work environment.
You can’t mandate it, but you can create the optimal conditions for you and your team to enjoy working together. Let’s talk about ways to make that happen!
Joyfully,
