entrenched fun as one of their 10 core
values (No. 3: Create fun and a little
weirdness). Tony Tsieh, founder of
Zappos, spent a year creating their
core values so he’d never have to
work with someone he wouldn’t enjoy
having a beer with. All their core values
are enforceable and employees or
applicants who don’t fit don’t get hired
or don’t last. It must have worked for
Zappos because it’s harder to get a
job there than it is to get accepted at
Harvard!
MAKE IT OK AND ENCOURAGE
PEOPLE TO LAUGH AT WORK.
As Jack Welch, former chairman of
GE said, “Never let your company
take itself too seriously.” Contrary to
his public persona of gruffness and
bluntness, he looked for the attributes
of informality and a sense of humour
when hiring or promoting managers
and leaders. Furthermore, Jack
advocated getting rid of everything that
makes people less excited about going
to work. This includes streamlining
processes to eliminate boring, useless
steps (this desire fuelled the famous
GE Work Out and Six Sigma programs)
and getting rid of people who don’t fit
the culture.
ENSURE PEOPLE HAVE THE
CHANCE TO EXPERIENCE
WINNING.
Winning is fun. Get them working on
interesting things, new projects or
special “stretch” assignments. It’s fun
to learn and acquire new skills and
experience. It’s fun to take on the
competition and win. Business is about
the fun of doing great work, making
an impact and creating something
bigger or better. However, do your
best to avoid allocating all your tough
or thankless projects or customers
exclusively to a few people. For your
people, tough projects and customers
can be the opposite of fun. Find a way
to help them see the bigger picture and
support them through a tough situation.
GET THE TEAM INVOLVED
When fun activities are chosen and
mandated by management, they fail and
people mock them. The most successful
fun activities in the workplace are
those developed and implemented by
employees themselves – not by their
bosses. Leadership’s role is to sponsor
it. Encourage them to have fun. Leave
the details to the employees.
mechanism is appropriate; shout-outs
at your daily huddle, weekly progress
celebrations, parties, and open houses
all are fun, energizing, and memorable.
At Enerflex, customer open houses
were focused on ensuring people
had fun and the employees had a lot
of fun preparing them. Warren Buffet
is renowned for making Berkshire
Hathaway’s annual meeting a fun and
memorable event for attendees. u
COMMUNICATE YOUR QUARTERLY
GOALS VIA A FUN GAME AND
THEME.
Making a game of things introduces an
element of competition and fun. That’s
why “gamification” is so successful.
This technique worked for Jack Stack,
CEO of SRC holdings and author of
the book The Great Game of Business.
In a turnaround few have matched,
he used mini-games and fun to take
SRC Holdings from a heavily indebted
spinoff of International Harvester to one
of America’s most successful growth
companies with superior financial
returns. SRC has created more than
50 subsidiary companies, all led by
leaders they’d developed inside SRC.
Jack Stack proved that playing games,
competing, achieving goals, and
winning are all fun.
RECOGNIZE AND CELEBRATE
YOUR PROGRESS AND SUCCESS.
Capture and recognize people’s
progress and improvement by whatever
Richard (Rick) Holbrook is a Trainer and Certified Coach
with Gazelles International. He works with CEO’s to help
them create an executable growth strategy that everyone
in their company understands and is aligned with. Rick
has worked with more than 70 companies in Western
Canada since leaving the corporate world in 2004.
LEARN MORE AT:
GROWTHSTRATAGEMS.COM
403-255-3613
FALL 2017
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