MORE FUN = MORE $$$
A
More Fun = More $$$
fter he’d removed the
previous leadership team
and stepped back into the
CEO role, P. John Aldred, the
founder of Enerflex Systems,
lamented to me that for weeks he’d
looked in vain to find someone, anyone,
who was having fun in their job. John’s
belief was that business had to be fun
for the people who worked there and
only after they were having fun, would
good results follow. An experienced and
practical leader, he attributed Enerflex’s
poor performance over the previous
couple of years to a culture that wasn’t
fun. His belief was proven right because
after he successfully improved the
culture, Enerflex started growing again.
Interestingly, John’s belief in the role
fun plays in the workplace has been
validated by more than two decades of
research. This research shows that when
companies make their workplace fun,
they create happier employees who, in
turn, are better at their jobs. Surprisingly,
workplace fun has been linked to higher
productivity and task performance, sort
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of the opposite of what many leaders
expect. Less surprising is that having
fun enhances employee motivation,
reduces stress, and creates higher job
satisfaction. The research shows that
there are significant benefits to having
a fun workplace, and that fun and
productivity are not opposites; they can
and do go together.
Also interesting is that John worked to
restore the culture as a necessary first
step to improving the business results.
He didn’t demand good results with
the intention of improving the culture
once he got the results. He understood
the difference between results and the
drivers of results, and that a company
needed to work on the drivers before
expecting to achieve the results. His
belief that a positive culture is a driver
of positive results has been proven in
many studies.
So, given the research linking workplace
fun with productivity and positive
financial outcomes, why don’t more
companies intentionally create a fun
work environment? One reason is that
leaders often see work as serious, and
workplace fun as frivolous and therefore
the opposite of what work is. They think
fun in the workplace means foosball
tables and goofing off. But fun means
more than such a narrow, simplistic
definition. People also have fun when
they’re doing great work, when they’re
succeeding and having an impact on
something they care about. In fact, the
hope they could do great work and have
fun is why they chose to work at your
company. From the leaders of traditional
companies like GE to the leaders of
high tech companies like Google and
Amazon, all recognize workplace fun
as important. They simply adapt their
tactics according to what they feel will
work for them.
So, with that broader definition
of workplace fun, here are some
suggestions on how you can inject it
into your company.
MAKE HAVING FUN A CORE BELIEF
OF THE COMPANY.
Zappos is famous for having