Work Made Fun Gets Done!

Easy Ways to Boost Energy, Morale, and Results

Bob Nelson, Felix Mario Tamayo, Mario Tamayo

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781523092352
• eBook ISBN:
  9781523092376
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Bob Nelson, author of the multimillion-copy bestseller 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, and human performance expert Mario Tamayo offer hundreds of practical, creative tips for helping employees—and their managers—make work more fun.

According to the employees that work for firms listed in Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work for in America," the most defining characteristic of these organizationsis they are all "fun" places to work.

Fun is the secret sauce every business needs to better engage and motivate its employees today. Work Made Fun Gets Done! gives readers simple, practical ideas for instantly bringing fun into their work and workplace. Based on examples from scores of companies like Zoom, Pinterest, Bank of America, Zappos, Honda, Microsoft, and many more, this book provides clear examples of exactly what managers and employees alike can do to lighten the tone in the work environment and allow employees to have more fun at work.

From AAA's "Dump a Dog" program where workers can pass their least-wanted project on to their manager and Houzz's complimentary office slippers to CARFAX's themed-wardrobe Zoom meetings and Google's company-approved Nerf-gun battles and paper airplane contests, you'll find dozens of ideas you can immediately adapt and implement in your own workplace.

Work and fun have typically been considered polar opposites, but this book proves they can be integrated in ways that produce more motivated workers—and exceptional results.

PART I

Leader-Oriented Fun

Fun at work starts with every individual, initially in how they think about the topic and then in how they apply fun to their everyday work tasks, responsibilities, and interactions with others at work.

If you want your work to be more fun, you need to make that a priority and have a playful, fun-oriented attitude about the topic, look for opportunities, and seek to embed fun in different ways in your daily work activities. By taking responsibility for your own fun at work, you will quickly attract and encourage other like-minded coworkers, which will make it easier to have even more fun!

We believe that any work assignment can be made fun if you put your mind to it. We’ll share personal strategies we and others have for getting through the rote, repetitive, or boring parts of our jobs, and ways you can learn to do the same.

Any change starts with some self-reflection followed by some “baby steps” in trying new behaviors, determining what worked and learning from what didn’t, and then reapplying your efforts accordingly.

The chapters in this section are “Making Your Own Work Fun” and “Surprises, Morale Boosters & Thoughtful Gestures.”

CHAPTER 1

Making Your Own Work Fun

I just go to the office to enjoy myself; work automatically happens.
—JITENDRA ATTRA

Work made fun starts in every job with every individual worker. According to recent research reported by Business News Daily, while fun could be considered a distraction, it actually has the ability to improve employee resilience and optimism, which leads to better attention to tasks. When we make a task fun, we tend to be more eager to dig in and complete it, as opposed to having it be a dreaded activity that we put off doing—maybe even multiple times.

When Bob has a work task or project that for some reason he is dreading, he likes to talk it through with someone—a colleague, a friend, or his wife—to warm up to the task. Often this helps him understand exactly what he’s dreading about the task, and the fear of the unknown evaporates as the task or project is examined. If the work is something he hasn’t done before, talking about it leads to various options that can then be weighed against one another, prioritized, and—suddenly—he’s into the work activity and gets into a flow. If it’s a mundane task, like organizing his desk or balancing his checkbook, he does the activity as a break from a larger project he’s working on. In either large or small tasks, Bob has fun making progress on things he’s trying to achieve. And when someone shares something fun with him—a funny text message, internet meme, funny story, or joke—he makes a point to share that with at least three other people, reliving the humor each time he shares it with someone else.

When Mario is faced with a boring work task to do, he likes to think of the big “why and win” in doing the task. If it’s a big task, he’ll break it up to make it more manageable. Plus he finds ways to reward himself for progress he makes—perhaps taking a break or having a candy bar. If the task takes some discipline, he’ll get up early and focus on “knocking it out.” He also has kept a gratitude log for years, which helps to keep him constantly focused on the positives in his life.

These are just a few of the approaches that we, Bob and Mario, use to make our work more fun. In this chapter we will explore techniques and strategies that have worked for many others and could likely work for you as well. In fact, we were surprised at the extensive range of approaches that people use to make their work fun! It almost seemed that no two people had the same approach to the topic, and it’s encouraging to know there’s no limit to the ways to bring joy to your work.

The more you expand your own strategies for making work fun, the more fun will become a standard approach for getting your work done and the more fun you’ll have. This is important because until you embrace having fun yourself at whatever tasks or job you are doing, you’ll never develop a broader appreciation for the topic.

LEARN TO EMBRACE FUN

A former professor and CEO of several companies, Brad Zehner, Ph.D., located near Austin, Texas, shares his philosophy on fun at work: “Once I earned an MBA, my promise to myself was straightforward, ‘I will never do a job unless it is fun at least 70 percent of the time.’ As the eldest of 14 children, I did every manual labor job there is to earn money to pay for university. Consequently, I was one of the strange individuals who loved the creative challenges of solving management problems of all types. I was never bored.”

________

Ramon Grijalva, Ph.D., vice chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), based in Hollywood, California, says, “So much of life is playing a game with oneself! When I worked with Long Beach [California] government they had forms for everything and it was boring and painful to have to complete those, so I would mentally ‘suit up’ and go into ‘mechanical mode’ to talk myself into the right frame of mind. I’d work around the periphery to set up the work (getting organized, creating an invoice, etc.) and then dig in to the dreaded task to complete it as quickly as possible.”

________

“You must have discipline to have fun.”

—JULIA CHILD

“I think the biggest overarching approach that keeps me engaged and having fun at work is choosing to have a mission-driven career and life,” says Jessica Sims, MD, an emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles, California. “My career mission is to do the things I am able to drive healthcare towards a more reliable, equitable and sustainable industry. My life ‘mission’ is to leave every person and place I interact with happier and better.

“On a day-to-day basis and also during more profound career moments I try to measure my big and small choices against these missions. Even when I find the task at hand falls outside my standard duties or well ‘beneath’ my abilities and qualifications, if it satisfies these missions I still find satisfaction in that work. For example, sometimes I may find myself doing secretarial or nurse work to help a patient. I’m not okay with ignoring the need because ‘that’s not my job,’ although it might also be frustrating to do someone else’s work especially with my own duties, two advanced degrees and 25 years of professional experience.

Fun Things to Do on a 5- to 10-Minute Break

1. 1.Praise someone for something specific.
2. 2.Do something nice for someone else.
3. 3.Look at a favorite app.
4. 4.Tell someone a joke.
5. 5.Meditate.
6. 6.Listen to a favorite song or two.
7. 7.Stretch your large muscle groups.
8. 8.Go for a quick walk outside.
9. 9.Walk up a flight of stairs.
10. 10.Donate to a favorite charity.

“When I realize that these small tasks make a difference and also shows the staff that those things matter, I find it more meaningful than the tasks themselves might be. I also think about a couple of Martin Luther King quotes: ‘It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing’ and ‘If I can’t do great things I’ll do small things in a great way.’”

________

Charlie Chase, president of Genetic Synergy in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, says: “What is fun varies widely from person to person, for example, one person might like to sing or hear music, someone else might get excited about efficiency, while another person is happiest being left alone to work on a project.”

What’s fun for him? Sitting down at the computer and devising an investment strategy: “When you’re happy, you’re more creative and it spills over into all aspects of your life.”

Charlie recommends using ColorCode.com (a 20- minute color code test on the internet) to determine your innate motivation, which involves four colors:

• Reds: Need to look good technically, be right, and be respected. They are strong leaders and love challenges.
• Blues: Need to have integrity and be appreciated. They are focused on quality and creating strong relationships.
• Whites: Need to be accepted and treated with kindness. They are logical, objective, and tolerant of others.
• Yellows: Need to be noticed and have fun. They love life, social connections, and being positive and spontaneous.

“You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.”

—WARREN BEATTY

“You can diagnose others via their words, energy, and timeframe: (1) if they’re more introverted or extroverted, and (2) if they’re more logical or emotional. How you communicate with others is essential: each color preference communicates differently, but everyone can learn to speak everyone else’s preferred language.”

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

Feeling overwhelmed? Katie Sheehan, the marketing manager of Oakland, California—based Berrett-Koehler Publishers, changed her mental outlook when she changed the title of her to-do list to a “fun list.”

________

Sue Burch, senior learning specialist at Insight Enterprises in Sugar Grove, Illinois, says: “Technology is great; however, crumpling paper is more satisfying than deleting. So I often put challenging work on Post-it notes so that I can then destroy the note and throw it in the trash when tasks are complete. If you have a white board, this is a great place for the notes to live.”

________

“The secret to my having more fun at work is to have those precious little ear buds in and some good jazz music playing. It’s common now for managers to allow (even encourage) such activity. They quickly reap the rewards...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: The Era of Workplace Fun
• Part I: Individual-Oriented Fun
• Part II: Leader-Oriented Fun
• Part III: Team-Oriented Fun
• Part IV: Organization-Oriented Fun
• Conclusion & Discussion Guide
• Acknowledgments
• Featured Companies
• About the Authors