I got the idea for this Monday’s Monday tip from my good friend Lars, who specializes in this kind of silliness.
Lars suggests putting a flipchart in place where people pass by often and will see it. On the flipchart, write a question asking for advice, ideas, suggestions – anything really.
Here are some possible questions you can ask:
- I’m buying a birthday present for my seven-year old boy. Got any ideas?
- I need some good quotes about love for a speech at my friend’s wedding. Know any good ones?
- I’m taking my husband to dinner. Can you suggest a nice, romantic restaurant?
- I’m looking for some riddles to confound my children. Write your favorite riddle here.
Remember to put marker pens by the board so people can write their answers. Lars assures me that silliness usually ensues, but that you generally get some good ideas out of it as well. If nothing else, you’ll have something to talk about and you get to know your co-workers a little better.
The Chief Happiness Officer’s Monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.
(getting into the cyberspace after eons =)
Sounds like a good idea… I’ll try it and see what happens.
What do you think about this one?
I brought red and yellow pipe cleaners and gave everyone in the office a few, and let them build whatever they want (the suggestion was something related to Christmas). I don’t know if this will permanently help to the people’s mood, but we had a lot of fun. Somebody even created a Bart’s face and put it right where the “baby Jesus” silhouette was (no offense meant -we removed it later- but the moment was hilarious)
Oh…you mean a blog!
:-)
Jach: What a great idea. Of course some people will say that “There is no place for that kind of fooling around at work.” Well, some people are just plain wrong!!
Chris: Heh, I guess it IS kinda like a an off-line blog. An analog blog. An anablog?
Dear Alex,
I recently started connecting to your blog and have found a lot of provocative ideas… i’ll try to introduce some of these in short term.
i will write some comments about the results.
david (Barcelona-Spain)
Dear David: Thank you – I’m very happy you find the blog useful. Please, please, PLEASE let me know how it works for you! I’m very interested in knowing how all of this plays out in “the real world”.