Really, getting to do what you love to do every day, that’s the ultimate luxury. And particularly when you can do it with terrific people around you.
– Warren Buffett
From this interview which demonstrates very clearly, that the reason Warren Buffett has made so much money is that he doesn’t care much about money :o)
Is there room for play in you job? Do games, fun and general silliness have a role in your workplace – or are they just frivolous excuses for not doing your job?
There is no doubt in my mind, that healthy, happy workplaces are full of fun play. And I know Bernie deKoven agrees. Bernie pursues the Playful Path, professionally. He blogs at deepfun.com. He calls himself Major Fun. Seriously (or not!), the man knows play :o)
Here’s an interview with Bernie about play and how it can be introduced to the workplace.
Bernie, your area of expertise is play. How did you come to be engaged in this?
My father and I used to play word games. I think basically my father did this to keep me quiet. But it worked. He even invented his own variations. I remember especially a game he called “SuperDuperGhost.” It’s a variation of a spelling game called Ghost. That’s the game where players take turns, each one adding a letter, until one player is forced to complete a word or gets challenged and doesn’t have a word that uses the letters he specified. SuperGhost is like Ghost, except you can add letters to the beginning or end of the word. And SuperDuperGhost? I’ll let you guess how that was played. For me, the exciting thing about playing with my father like this was the connection between us during the game. That was the key. We were playing together, for that short time, as if we were equals.
I think the next big event for me was in school, in high school, actually. I was already active in theater and in journalism and was writing a humor column in the school paper. I had a class in physics. It was an experimental class, in every sense of the word. We made all our own equipment out of junk – micrometers using two mirrored slides, a toothpick and rubber band, for example. The whole class was play. O, there were exams. And I didn’t do well on most of them. But that wasn’t the point for me. It was the fun-physics connection, that I could actually have fun, playing around with stuff, and learn about the world.
Then there was a theater class I took in college. Improvisational theater. The person who taught us never sad anything negative to anyone. We literally played. Lots of theater games. Lots of games with character. And, all the time, just by underscoring the things we did particularly well, and by nurturing the fun of it, we were developing our craft. Though I later went on to get a Masters degree in theater and wrote and directed plays, it was this experience that remained central.
Then I was hired to develop a curriculum in theater for elementary school children of a very urban persuasion. I quickly perceived that these kids already had their own form of theater, and a very profound one at that – only they called it “games.” So for the next 4 years, they taught me their games, I taught them games I could find in theater books and in collections from around the world, and I eventually wrote a curriculum, not in theater, but in kids social games – 5 volumes, over 1000 games – based on the discovery that if you let kids play together, and give them a safe place to do it in, they begin to master very complex social and intellectual skills, learning how to lead and follow, how to read and understand rules, how to make up their own.
Then I started teaching this curriculum to teachers, and I discovered how adults were even more in need of the opportunity to play together, to play with rules and with each other, than kids. It was amazing how profound our conversations became after a half hour of playing Duck-Duck-Goose or Captain May I.
Which led me to opening up my own retreat center, called “The Games Preserve”, where I conducted workshops, exploring everything I could learn about the phenomenon of games and play. I started exploring board and table games as well. Integrating every play form I could acquire into the exploration. We held amazing sessions, some for kids, most for adults. I particularly remember sessions I ran for people who worked in the prison system. Such profound discussions about rules and freedom. Such deep play. One day, a couple people from California dropped by. They wanted to experience my sessions because they were part of an organization called the New Games Foundation. They had run a few very successful, large scale play events, and needed to learn how to teach people to lead games. The next thing I knew, I had joined the Foundation and led the effort to create the New Games Training program.
In many regards, play is seen as something frivolous, wasteful, silly and childish. What do you say to people who have this attitude?
Generally, I start playing with them. And then talk about it. If I try it the other way around, it simply doesn’t work. I choose games that are in deed frivolous, but not threatening. Then, rather than talk about play, I talk about fun. What was fun in the games? Which leads to exploring what is fun in everything. And maybe what it would be like to live without fun. I think, in general, fun is an easier word to use. Sure, it’s trivial, and self-trivializing. But it’s less threatening than play. Even seriously grown-up people can acknowledge that they like having fun, and wouldn’t mind having more of it.
You work with different kinds of organizations, to get them to play. I have a feeling that play at work can definitely increase happiness at work. Would you agree? Why does playing makes us happier?
Again, I find the word “fun” more useful. The fun-happiness connection is a lot easier for people to draw. Play seems to have a lot of negative connotations, or perhaps over-spiritual, or too many connections to childhood. Playing is a good way to have fun. It’s fast, easy, almost guaranteed. It makes us happier because it allows us to have fun together. Now, when you start asking why, why does playing make us happier, or why even does fun make us happier, I think it is because we are most thoroughly ourselves when we are playing, because we experience our health, emotionally, physically, socially. I learned somewhere that people who study animals, especially herd animals, can immediately judge the health of the herd by noticing how many of the animals are at play. I think the same is true for people – when we feel safe enough, we naturally play. When we play, we are at our fullest, our best. Hence, happier.
How can play be integrated in our workplaces? What are some good day-to-day ways of playing at work?
There are a lot of games we can bring into the workplace. A lot of wonderful toys. A lot of rituals, celebrations. But I think it’s playfulness, rather than play itself, that has the highest payoff for people at work. I believe work is inherently fun – when we are challenged, engaged, given the freedom to learn, to experiment, to discover. It’s fun working with other people who are having fun. So, for me, it’s not so much integrating play into work as it is removing the obstacles to playfulness. Which begins, of course, by acknowledging the fun of it all, the excitement, the challenge. By stressing the equality of all players. By demonstrating respect for them as individuals. By focusing on their competencies, on what the players like to do, and do best. By helping to make things clear – rules, goals, expectations – in the same way we do in games. Using the word “fun” and “play” to describe work (“let’s play with this together” “this meeting was fun”) is also a great help.
What’s your favorite story of play in a workplace?
Well, it was during a brainstorming session, naturally. I got very interested in meetings. Of all the times in the work environment when play is actually nourished, it seems it’s in meetings – especially in meetings that are held for the purpose of producing something – a plan, a list of alternatives, a collection of new ideas. As the facilitator, I had brought a bunch of sticky toys – you know, those jellylike things that you can squeeze and stretch and can stick to each other. I actually already wrote this story, now that I think about it – this is how it ends: “While I was introducing the next game, someone discovered yet another property of the Glue Thing. It turns out that if you throw it onto the ceiling, it actually sticks there for awhile. Within three minutes of this discovery, it began raining Glue Things.
In sum, we had spontaneously arrived at a new game, one that I hadn’t planned for, one that brought the group together, and kept them together for the rest of the evening, and throughout the next day, until the very end of the two-day brainstorm, when somebody finally figured out how to remove the rest of the Glue Things from the ceiling.”
What happens to people when they play? What does play do for us?
I think I might have already answered this question above. Here are some additional thoughts. 1) embodiment. I think play embodies us. Puts us back in our bodies. And because we find ourselves in our bodies again, we feel more whole. 2) intimacy. I think play allows us a certain amount of intimacy that we can’t achieve, without great effort and excuses and boundary-making, otherwise. Safe physical contact (because we are more embodied). A sense of being part of a larger body – the community of players. 3) safety. For the time of the play experience, if it is correctly framed and facilitated, we feel safe with each other and with ourselves, unthreatened, nonjudgmental, open – physically, socially, emotionally. So we feel free. So we become more whole. Healthier.
I know that you advocate the open-ended games where people are free to change the rules as they play. Where this is even part of the game. What is your favorite game?
The one that people make up together.
Bernie: Thank you for some great answers!
And how about you dear readers – How do you play at work? Is there room for fun in your job?
And if you need some inspiration to play, go read Bernie’s blog.
Many of us are trying almost desperately to hold on to the belief that bringing more toys into the workplace will make things more fun.
It seems to me, however, that bringing more toys into the workplace to make work more fun is like bringing more canaries into the mine to make the mine safer. If the environment is toxic, it’s time to get out of the mine.
– Bernie deKoven (source)
Right on, Bernie!
And may I add that if the environment is toxic, bringing in motivational speakers, inspirational posters or just about any other gimmick you can think of is useless. Or worse than useless, because it will be seen as an attempt to distract people from the real problems.
An anonymous reader sent me this question:
I’m struggling with my work/happiness situation. I want to be return to graphic design as a career, but I realize that in order to be successful at it, I will have to find a way to become a better diplomat when I come across very difficult clients: clients who think they know better, belittle the importance of the work (“it’s so easy I could do it”), are experts at everything and generally make the creative process hell.
Most people are not like this, but I would like some pointers on the difficult side of pleasing people, while still trying to maintain happiness at work.
Excellent question.
There is one realization that I think every independent worker and startup company needs to arrive at:
I know that as a fledgling company you may worry about making ends meet and consequently think that every customer is a good customer.
But the fact of the matter is, that some customers are more trouble than they’re worth. They make you fight to convince them of the value of your work, they make every meeting a battle of wills and they demand subservience before they will grant you their business…
Their money may be good – their company, however, is toxic.
I previously wrote two blog posts that touch on this. One is about why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong, and shows that some customers are not only wrong, they’re wrong for your business.
In another blog post I wrote about how I learned to say “No!” to customers. How some of the toughest most demanding customers may actually come around and respect your work, providing you tell them “No!” when they make unreasonable demands.
So my advice to any contract worker, startup company, independent consultant or is this:
Yes, you will lose out on some business here and now, but consider the cost of accepting a bad customer’s business. The constant struggle will make you tired, annoyed, depressed, demotivated and much less able to go out and find nice, fun customers.
Working with happy customers, on the other hand, will make you happy. This will increase your energy and motivation. You will do better work. You will get more referrals and more repeat business. You will have more confidence in your own abilities and therefore do better in your sales meetings, getting you even more happy customers.
What’s your take? Have you tried saying “No!” to a difficult customer? What happened? How do you treat difficult customers?
Meetings aren’t exactly the most popular workplace activity, as illustrated by this passage from the book jPod by Douglas Coupland:
Here’s my theory about meetings and life; the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic—they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.
One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say, “Mmmmmmm. Interesting.??? If pressed, they’ll add, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.??? Then they don’t say anything else.
Web company 37signals consider meetings harmful because:
- They break your working day into small, incoherent pieces on a schedule incompatible with the natural breaks in your flow
- They are normally all about words and abstract concepts, not real things (like a piece of code or a screen of design)
- They usually contain an abysmal low amount of information conveyed per minute
- They often contain at least one moron that inevitably get his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense
- They drift off subject easier than a rear-wheel driven Chicago cab in heavy snow
- They frequently have agendas so vague nobody is really sure what its about
- They require thorough preparation that people rarely do anyway
I kinda agree. That is certainly how meetings are in many companies. The weekly department meeting, the project status meeting and the monthly division meeting are all seen as boring, a waste of time, painful and something that simply keeps people from getting real work done.
Last year, The Guardian mentioned a study that showed that meetings make people very unhappy at work, and that the more meetings one has to attend and the more time one spends in meetings, the greater the negative effects. This becomes especially depressing in the face of the fact that overall time spent in meetings is rising in most countries, and that some people, especially managers, spend most of their work day in meetings.
Now, while having fewer meetings is definitely the way to go in many workplaces, eliminating all meetings is not an option in today’s team-based work environment. This means that having good meetings become essential.
So what is a good meeting? They are:
The usual tips you’ll hear for managing meetings are kinda OK. You know, stuff like “have an agenda and distribute it in time”, “make sure to have the right people present”, “make sure to start and end on time” and “only have a meeting when necessary”. All good advice, but it does not address the goals above. This means that though most companies and teams follow this typical advice, many meetings still suck.
If we really want open, fun, creative, participative meetings we need to go beyond the standard advice and venture into slightly-weird-land. Here are five easy ways to do it.
Psychological experiments have shown that the way a meeting starts, sets the tone for the whole meeting. Start the meeting with complaints, problems and mutual blame, and that’s what you’ll get.
But if you start out with something positive, the rest of the meeting is more likely to be more fun. The best way to start a meeting positively, is to ask each participant to briefly (= less than 30 seconds) share something positive. Here are some ideas:
This sets a much better tone for the rest of the meeting – and it’s also a lot more fun than opening with an endless litany of complaints and problems.
I know you want to make the most of your meeting time – and that makes it tempting to think that “MAN, we have a long agenda today – let’s skip the breaks and get more done.” Only thing is, it doesn’t work that way.
You need to interrupt the flow of the meeting regularly. This keeps people’s minds focused and it makes the whole thing more fun and relaxed. Here’s how.
First of all: A five-minute break every hour is not an option, it’s mandatory! You can’t have a productive meeting if half the people present are seriously in need of a restroom visit.
Secondly: Every half hour, do a quick two-minute creative break of some kind. You can: Get people to stand up and stretch, have a quick rock-paper-scissor tournament, ask everyone to tell their neighbor a riddle or a joke, whatever. Make it something fun and light-hearted that activates people in some way.
So if you have a two-hour meeting starting at 1PM, include these breaks:
1 PM: Meeting starts
1:30 PM: Two-minute creative break
2 PM: Five minute break
2:30 PM: Two-minute creative break
3 PM: Meeting ends
Bring a kitchen timer and set it to 30 minutes, to make sure you remember the creative breaks.
What purpose do tables really serve at a meeting, except to give you a place to put down your coffee cup and to keep your head from hitting the floor when you fall asleep?
There are many advantages to table-less meetings:
So instead of meeting around a table, simply put the required number of chairs in a circle with nothing in the middle. If you’re going to be looking at a lot of plans or papers, hang them on the wall and arrange the chairs in a semi-circle in front of them.
Your body is not good at sitting still for extended periods of time. The longer you sit still, the more stiff and tired the body gets. And when the body is tired and stiff, so is the mind.
A very simple thing to do is to get people to stand up and stretch. It only takes a minute to:
You can do it at the beginning of the meeting, after every break or whenever you sense that people are zoning out and losing focus.
Try this one day in a meeting, and you will discover that once you’ve stretched your body, your mind will feel fresher, more flexible and more creative.
This is probably the one thing you find in no meetings. I mean – the purpose of meetings is to talk, right. Silence kinda defeats that purpose, doesn’t it?
No. The purpose of meetings is not to talk – the purpose of meetings is to arrive at ideas, solutions, plans and decisions in such a way that:
And in this respect, silence can be a great tool. Because while some people can think while they’re talking – most can’t.
A well-placed two-minute silent break is a great chance for people to stop and think. To figure out what the deeper issues are. To see the solution that is not immediately obvious. To find out how they feel about the issues being discussed.
Here are some ways to use it:
The way you do it is that at the appropriate time, you announce a two-minute silence, and you keep track of time and let people know when the two minutes have passed.
And let me warn you right away: It feels very strange the first few times. It’s funny that silence should be so threatening, but because most meetings are all about the talking, and we’ve come to think that silence is awkward. That if no one’s talking, something is wrong. After you’ve done it a few times, it becomes a lot easier, and it can even be very pleasant to take a break from all the talking!
Time spent in meetings is constantly increasing. Bad meetings suck the life force out of people, leaving them tired and unhappy at work. Bad meetings also lead to bad decisions, reduced motivation and conflicts.
If we really want fun, positive meetings, where all participants can speak their mind, where new ideas are generated and developed and where the time is used as efficiently as possible, we need to go beyond the usual advice and try something slightly weird. This blogpost presents some ways you can do that.
Yes, adding these things to a meeting will take a little time out of the schedule, but I think we all know that the problem with bad meetings is not how much time we spend in them – it’s the quality of that time. It’s whether we spend that time being energized, creative and having fun – or whether we spend it wishing we could be back at our desks doing some real work.
What about you? What unusual methods do you use to make meetings fun, creative and efficient? How do good or bad meetings affect your energy and motivation? Have you tried any of the tips mentioned here? Write a comment, I’d really like to know your take.
Related:
Back in December, Anna Farmery of the Engaging Brand blog and I did a conversational podcast on “Emotions at work” that turned out quite well, if we do say so ourselves :o)
We’re looking to do another podcast – and we’re wondering if you have any ideas for our next topic? Write a comment if there’s something you’d like to hear us talk about – all suggestions are welcome.
Related links:
The Feel Factor – Why no workplace can afford to ignore what people feel
Here are this week’s highest rated links and stories from the Happy at Work Link Collection.
Stress kills. Though rarely this literally. (thx Lars).
Ricardo Semler: granddaddy of the democratic workplace. “Ricardo Semler’s employees set their hours, determine their salaries and choose their bosses. Meet the Brazilian businessman who does everything differently.” (thx Kareem).
The Danes are the happiest workers in Europe. Yaaaaaay! At the bottom of the list: Hungary, Russia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. And Japan.
How listening saved a company. “Dave began meeting with a different crew for an hour every Tuesday afternoon. Dave and his HR manager were there, but none of the managers or supervisors between him and the crew. Dave simply asked, “What do you want to talk about?” and then waited.”
A valentine’s day story of love at work. A sweet story from Southwest Airlines.
You can find many more links, vote on the ones you like and submit your own stories, articles or blogposts at the link collection.
I’ve been interviewed a few more times around the web recently.
John Wesley of the excellent Pick the Brain blog interviewed me, and asked questions like “What would you say to someone who finds the work they do, of even the entire industry, to be terribly dull?” and “What is the hardest part of standing in front of a large group of employees and telling them they should be happy at work?”.
And I’m this mont’s guru at Oddpodz. Abe Sauer asked stuff like “If there is one pragmatic piece of advice everyone should know about being happy at and with work, what would it be?” and “How did you get into the profession of helping people be happier?”
Also, 2 weeks ago, I was the guest on a radio program on national Danish radio. A panel consisting of three members of parliament and yours truly had a discussion on workplace stress and bad management, based on two of my previous posts, namely 5 myths about workplace stress and How to deal with a bad boss.
That was a lot of fun, partly because the three parliament members are outspoken, smart, media-savvy people – but particularly because the three have wildly varying political opinions. Ellen Trane Nørby is from a right-wing party (by Danish standards), Margrethe Vestager is from a centrist party and Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil is from a party called the Red-Green Alliance which was formed by merging the Left Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Denmark and the Socialist Workers Party and independent socialists.
That is pretty much a guarantee of a lively debate right there :o) You can hear the entire radio program here – in Danish, I’m afraid.
And continuing my recent media exposure, a journalist wrote this piece about making room for emotions at work, based on my blogpost on the same topic.
Btw: If you’d like to interview me for your blog, I’m game. Email me some questions, and I’ll shoot the answers right back to you.
Some of the world’s most successful business leaders believe strongly in having fun and being happy at work.
Check out these quotes:
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
– Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple
“Work should always be fun for all colleagues. We all only have one life. A third of life is work. Without desire and fun, work becomes hell.”
– Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA
“Each individual should work for himself. People will not sacrifice themselves for the company. They come to work at the company to enjoy themselves.???
– Soichiro Honda, founder of (surprise!) Honda
“Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been the key to everything I’ve done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin’s success.???
– Richard Branson, founder of Virgin
Saaaaaay… maybe there’s something to this happiness at work thing after all :o)
I’m having a reception to celebrate my brand new book at Café Enter today Thursday February 15th from 4PM-6PM, and you’re invited.
Read all about it. I hope to see you there!
“I can’t believe it – a newsletter actually worth reading!”
– Subscriber
Over 6,000 people subscribe to our newsletter with tons of tips about happiness at work.
“It’s very, very good. It’s incredibly well written, full of insights, and there are exercises to improve your own happiness at work. You can’t ask for more than that!”
– David Maister, author of Practice What You Preach
“What an inspiring book. Every leader should read it. This type of leadership has been integral to our success and I know it will boost your results too.“
– Garry Ridge, CEO WD-40 Company
Over 6,000 people already get our free newsletter with useful tips, videos, links and articles about happiness at work.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
The Chief Happiness Officer Academy is our most in-depth 3-day training where we share everything we know about creating happier workplaces. Get an in-depth background in happiness at work, hear about the latest research in the field and learn how to use this in your own business.
