Fun in the workplace
The guys over at Signal vs Noise have it right. Fun is not at the other end of serious. You can have fun and be serious, creative, engaged, productive. Large companies are the worst offenders.
It’s a false choice, not a real fight. And you accept its premise at your own peril. Fun is all about creativity, innovation, play, experimentation, progress, and seeing real things come to life. If you make fun an enemy of business, you’re judging all these desirable concepts by association.
Having fake fun outlets won’t help either. Goofy Friday outfits or a monthly karaoke night are not a suitable substitutes for letting fun be a part of every day work.
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:
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This is a fascinating topic. It is almost as if we intuitively know workplaces that enjoy themselves perform very well. The Victorian Public Service Continuous Improvement Network (VPSCIN) has been exploring the issue of fun in the workplace and the link to improved HRM and productivity.
To date we’ve run a couple of seminars on Organisational Health and Humour and also workshops in Laughter Yoga.
Judging from the response to date there is fantastic potential here if we can only keep the cynics and black hat thinkers at bay.