In today’s times, sometimes it is difficult to have fun at work. Here are 3 tips to help out.
1. Recognize accomplishment. When something good happens, you get an order, or solve a problem, announce it and celebrate it. When I worked in the cell phone business, when someone, either us or a competitor found a creative way to improve a product, that accomplishment was celebrated. Then in a competitive situation, we challenged ourselves to do better. Caution, don’t let someone else’s accomplishment, turn into accusation.
2. Enjoy being in your working group. Create a regular process of getting together and having a good time. The most successful collaborative efforts create events to enjoy just working together. I worked on a project with a customer, internal people, and suppliers. Every month, we’d get together in another location do a business review and have a nice dinner. One of my colleagues stated that “you can’t be too upset with someone you eat with”. Caution: don’t let the celebration become dominated by one person or group. You don’t want to turn it into a coronation.
3. Announce that one of the goals of the group is to have fun. Just saying it gets you half way there. Caution: if you say it, you need to do it. See points 1 & 2.
Mark E Goodman 