photo credit: Betsssssy

What? Play at work?

It sometimes seems like only the humorless are promoted to positions of power and they expect everyone else to be just as humorless. But play is linked to creativity, and without creativity, we would all be humorless drones.

So tackle your next task with imagination and wonder, and see what fun you can have even with mundane routines.

You might find a new way of doing the same old thing that saves time, produces better results, or saves money. Or all of the above.

(And by the way, if you get those kinds of results and they aren’t appreciated, maybe it’s time to find another job. One where you can work hard and be playful at the same time, get good results, and be appreciated.)

Don’t ever lose your spirit. Happy Monday!

photo credit: Lars Plougmann

It’s a common understanding of how to run a company that you must be market-driven, and be responsive to customer feedback. And as a customer advocate, I would certainly never be one to deny that customer input and market validation are important. But the other side of that coin is that you’re in business not only to make money, but to develop yourself, enjoy the rewards of a job well done, and hopefully leave this world having enjoyed yourself and given enjoyment to others.

To fully live that ideal might mean turning some work down. It might mean making tough decisions about when to leave your current job and start your own company. It might mean passing on certain investors who don’t share your views on how business should be conducted.

But in order to make those tough decisions, you have to really know yourself and your values. Not just personally, although that of course is important too, but as a company. What does your company stand for?

I recently ran across an article at Both Sides of the Table that dealt with this very idea on the way to becoming a more customer-centric organization:

So I started thinking about the ‘Inside Out’ organization. This is the company that lets outsiders have a glimpse of what is going on in the sausage factory. Being transparent about our workload, our struggles, our fund raising, whatever. Letting our customers and the market know that we were a real organization with real people rather than a pre-packaged, pre-processed marketing machine.

It may be scary, but there’s a lot to be said for letting your insides show. You may end up attracting more appropriate customers in the long run.

photo credit: paulswansen

Gossip. Some of us take part more than others, but we all contribute a little from time to time.

In the workplace, gossip can get really mean. A former coworker was recently telling me about attempts to undermine her that came from others in the office who saw that she was away from her desk while her boss was out of town. (The truth was that she’d had a doctor appointment, and had emailed her boss about it in advance.)

But it doesn’t stop there. Office gossip can trump up single instances of a behavior into a gossip-worthy pattern: maybe someone who’s having a tough morning is observed stepping out for a 5-minute fresh air break and suddenly that person is suspected of having a pattern of idling. Or maybe someone is observed taking the last cup of coffee without starting a new pot because he or she is in a hurry to a meeting, and suddenly that person is the culprit whenever the pot is empty.

Whatever the behavior, gossip has a way of turning trivial events into something sinister in the retelling over time. There is also, according to an article in this morning’s New York Times, a tendency for gossip to grow due to the pressure to contribute to it:

The earlier studies found that once someone made a negative comment about a person who wasn’t there, the conversation would get meaner unless someone immediately defended the target. Otherwise, among both adults and teenagers, the insults would keep coming because there was so much social pressure to agree with the others.

You know what our suggestion is: be the one to shut it down. We’ve talked before about how important it is to empathize with others around you; great accomplishments are rarely made without true collaboration, and for true collaboration, you need at least reasonable compassion and empathy for those you’re working with. But nothing breaks down trust and creates barriers to collaboration like gossip. Shut it down. Move on. Foster a culture of empathy and understanding. If something needs to be communicated to someone, talk to the person directly or communicate with his or her manager if need be. But no good will come from spreading gossip around the office.

Besides, you’ll only be making it more likely that one day, office gossip will be spreading about you.

photo credit: LordFerguson

I’m reading Saving The World at Work by Tim Sanders. (Well, when I say I’m “reading” it, I mean I have it out from the library and it’s sitting on my desk. Along with the six other intriguing library books I have out. But I do flip through it once a day or so and I will likely give it quite a thorough skim when I get the final due date reminder email from the library and have to return it in a rush that day. Welcome to my hectic life.)

Anyway, from what I’ve seen so far, the book looks promising, and I’ll be sure to report back when I’ve finished reading (or skimming) it. In the meantime, though, I happened to notice an article at the Canadian publication FP Posted called Sustainability: The Second Business Bottom Line that references the book. Ray B. Williams quotes the book as saying:

“the responsibility revolution has arrived. It demands that companies make a difference to society,” and the ones what don’t participate risk becoming obsolete.

A bold statement, to be sure, and one that should make all but the most cynical of corporate fat cats lean in and at least feign attention. This is a difficult adjustment, after all. In most pockets of corporate culture, we’re just not used to being held accountable for anything but profit to anyone but shareholders. But as Williams wrote in the introduction to that same article:

Business can no longer operate from the perspective of short-term financial gain only. The world has become too complex, and social and environmental concerns now make financial profits at the expense of everything not only short sighted but dangerous. And we need only see the leadership debacles of an Enron, Webcom and the recent Wall Street fiascos to see what selfish financial gain reaps on everyone. There is increasing support for the notion of a business triple bottom line: financial profits, social responsibility and sustainability.

The triple bottom line concept is not new, and indeed we’ve referenced it before. It’s gaining traction… at least in the abstract.

What makes it a tricky sell, though, is the difficulty in accounting for sustainability. It’s all well and good to say businesses should make it a priority to reduce their environmental impact and so forth, but there’s no denying that when it comes to making accountable business decisions, the path of least resistance for the time being is still going to be to use a monetary basis. Cash is the capital everyone is used to measuring business by, and so far it’s just not that easy to account for a business’ use of other types of capital, like water and energy use, or to account for measurable contributions to human development, etc.

As a small business owner, I know this myself: the time I’ve spent with spreadsheets has been concerned with making sure my business has the cash flow it needs to survive. So far I haven’t invested much time at all on developing other non-monetary measures for my business. As the author of this blog, I suppose you’d expect I’d be naturally inclined to do so. It’s not for lack of interest or alignment with the idea of sustainability; it’s just that roughly 99.9% of our societal knowledge about starting and running a business focuses on cash flow and profitability. There’s precious little guidance to be found, for example, about developing a business that supports social growth as well as economic growth. What does exist is largely academic and not distilled for practical application.

So here’s what we need: we need organizations that support new and small businesses, like local chambers of commerce, SCORE, SBA, and others, to start the training early; to educate entrepreneurs about the triple bottom line and how to account for it. Educate mid-level CEOs about other measures besides profit. Help get the business community talking about why we haven’t done more with this before now and how to get started. We won’t have perfect metrics to begin with, but we’ll have a start towards adjusting our collective mindset. And you can’t improve on what you don’t attempt.

photo credit: tyger_lyllie

Most employee handbooks probably don’t forbid being too serious on the job… but maybe they should. Then again, they also probably don’t explicitly forbid humor, unless it’s of the “inappropriate” variety. But a laugh among colleagues can relieve tension, deepen relationships, and make dull days seem brighter.

In short, it can make the workplace fun. And what’s more motivating than a job you actually like doing?

There’s definitely a way of taking it too far. I’m not recommending anything that risks crossing the line into harassment, although I have worked in some environments where there was almost a sense that unless you were risking HR wrath, you weren’t pushing the envelope hard enough. But that isn’t most workplaces, and that isn’t necessary for a healthy release of tension.

And it needn’t be distracting. Spending 15 minutes of every 30 minute meeting cutting up is probably a bit excessive unless you write comedy for TV. But a light comment now and then, a shared laugh with colleagues, or a running gag the whole office is in on can be the kind of thing you wake up in the morning with a smile thinking about, eager to go to work.

Is there much humor in your office? Share a laugh in the comments.

I received an email recently from a friend here in Nashville, who works at a significantly-sized healthcare company. I paste:

“Our CEO sent out a company-wide e-mail saying every employee had to get a flu shot or if for religious reasons we didn’t want to, we’ll have to wear a mask. If we choose not to comply he’s considering that our resignation.”

Say what?

In the midst of the media powervomit and alleged angst about healthcare reform in America – beyond the pissed-off placard slogans and “should Obama be killed?” poll – comes an opportunity to try a little reasoned discourse on a healthcare matter we can all wrap our hankies around. Since most of the government, medical and insurance language surrounding healthcare is impenetrable to even well-read folks, a discussion about the flu, fever and getting poked with a syringe is comforting, in an ass-backwards kind of way. So let’s talk about it.

I’ll withhold my two cents on it until the end (or you can just skip to it here), while we haul this out into the sunlight and take a look at it.

While we all agree that coming into the plant or office (or anywhere you’re breathing my air, buddy) and spreading communicable, bad mojo  is irresponsible, we also all do it. Notwithstanding our temptation to take a day off and watch another Mackenzie Phillips story on tabloid TV, all of us go to work sick. Maybe it’s because of some deadline, maybe it’s because we think, “Oh, it’s just the sniffles,” or maybe we used up our sick days being really sick from too many Hendrick’s martinis – but we’ve all done it. The more thoughtful of us say: “Don’t come too close – *sniffle, hack* – I think I’m dying and I don’t want you to get it,” but there we are, scaring the crap out of our co-workers, sneezing into monitor screens and using the company bathroom.

So let’s stipulate that it’s the responsible thing. Get a flu shot, so you can avoid using sick days, infecting your co-workers (ever notice the asshole who you’d love to imagine hacking his or her vocal chords out never gets sick – only your friends?), and do your part to keep the company ship churning on its merry way.

Fine. On the other side of the gurney, consider: what about all the other irresponsible health choices folks make that affect the company? Like the aforementioned martinis, going out to smoke in 12-degree weather, and eating heaven-knows-what-and-not-exercising until you wheeze on the way to the vending machine? You’re making my health insurance more expensive, mon frere, and the first ittybitty cold virus that flits by is going to kick the daylights out of you. We have a presentation tomorrow! I may have the flu, but I run 15 miles a week, eat tree bark, and I’m healthy as a Budweiser Clysdale the other 51 weeks a year.

From a practical standpoint, there’s also this. Flu shots are a crapshoot. That’s because they only inoculate you against about three strains of flu, which they guess at months in advance. It’s even money that they miss, because flu viruses like to stay alive, just like you. So they mutate faster than teenagers.

And now, the last, obvious point. This healthcare company is pretty much forcing its folks to get pricked.

Boo. It ain’t right. Even if your religion has an injunction against modern medicine, who wants to walk around wearing a mask all day? You think coming back from the bathroom with toilet paper stuck on your heel is embarrassing, try looking like you’re from the cast of Lawrence of Arabia all day. If Bill’s retro Vargas girl calendar is making this a hostile work environment, making Susan wear her religion on her face is even worse. Hey, would you like a really big cross to go with that?

This is America, baby. We invented Vick’s Vapo-Rub, acetaminophen, and sour mash whisky. We work. We don’t tell people what to do with their bodies. We take our sniffles with the sweet. Good to see you, Lenny. Stay the hell away from me and go back to work. Love ya, here’s some Kleenex.

photo credit: monkeyatlarge

I’ve been pretty caught up in a volunteer project lately, helping to put on a tech conference in my local area. We’ve reached that part of the process where everyone’s been working hard and we’re all starting to get a little burned out, just as we’re entering the crunch time where there’s a lot to do and a long way to go.

It’s got me thinking about how volunteering can impact, and at times improve, your life, your professional skills, your world view, and so on.

Apparently I’m not the only one thinking about this, because from the Harvard Business Review comes an article by Sylvia Ann Hewlett about increasing employee engagement by encouraging volunteering:

Simply giving employees access to charitable work through their job is an effective way to amp up engagement. More than a third of the 106,000 employees of BT (formerly British Telecom) already actively volunteer during their off-hours, according to a company internal survey. Another 30 percent would like to. That’s why in April 2009, BT introduced its first coordinated, companywide Volunteer Program.

BT’s vision is to effectively pair work teams and individual executives with productive volunteer opportunities that match their personal interests and career development needs. For example, a division that needs team building may spend a day together erasing graffiti off inner-city walls. One CEO of a BT business unit is volunteering his time mentoring the CEO of a charitable organization.

In some of the companies where I’ve worked, we’ve had organized days for working in a food bank, or perhaps for helping out with a home building project. Does your company provide opportunities for volunteerism? Do you seek out volunteer opportunities outside of work? What benefits have you gotten from volunteering?

Brooks Bell, CEO of Brooks Bell Interactive

Corporate Idealist: Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little, if you would, about how Brooks Bell Interactive came to be and what the company does.

Brooks: Brooks Bell Interactive was founded about 5 years ago, and was spun out of my first company, NovelProjects. At the time, NovelProjects focused on corporate website design and had a considerable amount of success. In 2003, we started to work with AOL on data-driven online marketing rather than website design, and it quickly became our biggest focus. It made sense to spin out another company with a new positioning to maximize our opportunity in online marketing.

Brooks Bell Interactive continues to focus on data-driven online marketing. We do strategy, design and A/B testing for acquisition and retention programs in the online subscription space. Our clients include Chase Bank, Dow Jones and AARP.

Corporate Idealist: I understand you went through a risky process relatively recently of hiring an executive team and “replacing” yourself in running the business. How did you arrive at the decision to do that, and how did you adjust to the change?

Brooks: I had hired several new designers last year, and was also still managing several key accounts, acting as our creative director and also overseeing operations. I was directly managing 14 people, and quickly became overwhelmed. My team wasn’t getting the direction or training they needed, and I had very little time or mental capacity to work on the business rather than in the business. I knew that this status quo was far from sustainable and had to make the choice either to invest in a management layer or to scale back my team. Scaling back the team wasn’t really an option, so it was clear that making the investment in my executive team was a step that I needed to take for the company to really have a shot at long-term success.

Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Our revenue is up 50% this year, stress levels are down, and we are more productive than ever.

Corporate Idealist: You’ve previously talked about the process of defining your core values and culture, and what a challenge that was. What made it so challenging?

Brooks: Defining core values was a challenge at first. We were a simple transactional company in our early years: a new project would come in, we would do it, and get paid, and move on to the next project. I didn’t feel a strong sense of control over where the company was going and couldn’t easily articulate why we were in business. So, core values seemed irrelevant to me.

This perspective changed in 2006 when I did a retreat with two of my early senior employees. We used the later chapters in E-Myth for our retreat and started with the Primary Aim. It was a powerful, eye-opening exercise that helped me dramatically change my point of view on the company. We established our core values to align with my own personal values, and started to use them as a foundation on which to base our future decisions. The company’s culture started to shift almost immediately, and a new, much more motivated and positive company attitude emerged.

Corporate Idealist: How did defining your core values contribute to being able to run a successful company? Has company culture been an important element in your success and maturity as a business?

Brooks: We defined our core values at the same time that we articulated our company purpose and vision. The effect of those three things was somewhat intangible, but it shifted a perception away from ‘I’m working for Brooks’ to working for a deeper, more individually fulfilling vision. It allowed people to buy in to the company’s purpose, spending energy on something that was in line with their own values and more satisfying than just a paycheck.

Core values, purpose and vision have absolutely helped us in our maturity, resulting in a more long-term approach to decision making, as well as more consistent success in recruiting and hiring.

Corporate Idealist: What did the road to maturity as a business owner and business leader look like for you?

Brooks: I would say that I’m still on this road to maturity as a business owner and leader, as I learn ways to improve myself and my leadership skills every day. The road to where I am now has already been quite a journey. My adventure has included incredible winning years, stressful losing years, partner challenges, constant growth, HR headaches, increasingly high standards and a quickly evolving role in it all.

I am currently managing an incredibly smart, capable team, and my new challenge is to stay ahead of them and provide the direction, goals, and accountability framework they need to perform. It’s tougher than you might think; they really keep me on my toes.

Corporate Idealist: What have been some of the stumbling blocks or setbacks you’ve experienced in growing your company?

Brooks: The biggest challenge for us was to manage the evolution of our biggest client, AOL. In 2006, they represented over 70% of our revenue. In 2007, they were around 15%. In 2008, they were an almost negligible percentage of our revenue. AOL was undergoing massive corporate changes in that period, so we suspected that this might be the case. We needed to replace that revenue quickly to maintain our momentum. In addition, we had been accustomed to servicing only 2 or 3 large clients at a time, so we also needed to build the architecture to be able to service a much larger and more diverse client roster.

It was not an easy task. I feel proud of what we’ve accomplished in the last 2 years. We now have a strong, diversified client base, a well-oiled infrastructure and a well-trained team of professionals to ensure a consistently high level of service.

Corporate Idealist: As we talk about Corporate Idealism on this blog, it’s about doing meaningful work, being creative in business, and focusing on the customer. A lot of your company’s history seems to parallel those values. Do you have any words of wisdom for our readers about being a real-world “Corporate Idealist” and business leader?

Brooks: Yes! I was recently reading some notes from a speech I gave to college students when I was a recent graduate myself. I had just started my first company and was just beginning to have a taste of success. I gave some advice back then that I still think is so relevant on many levels. I said “Success is not about our design (some people have questionable taste anyway), it’s not about our technical capabilities (some may not even realize that what we’re doing is as strategic as it is). We are successful only because we do everything we can to make the right people happy.”

I think this is still relevant because the ‘right’ people are often your customers, your client’s customers, your manager, your CEO, and your investors. No matter what business you’re in, success almost always boils back down to making the right people happy.

photo credit: Jacob Bøtter

Recently I stumbled across an older article at HBR.org about cultural transformation within a company through fun and laughter:

We’re a company—maybe like yours—where having fun was long viewed with suspicion. Sure, a lot of start-ups and Silicon Valley companies have wild and crazy cultures, with pillow fights around the foosball table the order of the day. But ours is a traditional, Midwestern manufacturing company, one that didn’t even allow employees to have coffee at their desks until 1989. Although we pride ourselves on our technological innovation, we make industrial signs and other identification products, not PalmPilots or rainbow-colored iMacs. We are an old-line company that has always taken business very seriously—again, maybe like yours.

So perhaps it comes as a surprise that, for the past seven years, we’ve made fun an integral part of the culture at Brady Corporation—not simply as an end in itself but for serious business reasons. We’ve found that getting people to loosen up and enjoy themselves has numerous benefits. It can break down jealously guarded turf boundaries. It can foster an esprit de corps throughout the company and greater camaraderie on teams. It can start the conversations that spark innovation and increase the likelihood that unpleasant tasks will be accomplished. It can help convey important corporate messages to employees in memorable ways. It can relieve stress—and, heaven knows, we can all benefit from that.

And it made me want to ask you, our readers about your work environment: is your company environment fun? Do you laugh a lot at work? Is fun encouraged, or are you sneaking laughs with coworkers behind the bosses’ backs?

photo credit: torres21

For some of us, creativity just spews from our core, touching everything we do, whether we design a newsletter, write a song or paint a bedroom. For others of us, it may come a bit more slowly as we wait for inspiration to strike or a skill to develop.

Whether you work alone, at a small shop or for a big corporation, you’ll often have the chance to collaborate with other people. And, whether that collaboration takes the form of a strategic partnership, a volunteer committee or a special project team, there is an art to making sure that the group inspires action and change, rather than prohibits it.

Sure, group think and stagnation can set in. Or, the collective wisdom and inspiration of a particular assortment of people can raise the level of everyone’s participation and performance.

For example, I recently participated in Nashville’s 48 Hour Film Project. A group of friends and I had just two full days to write, create, shoot, edit and produce a 7-minute film that used a required character name, prop and line of dialog.

Like many things, inertia was key. Things started slowly, but in no time (once the pizza and beer arrived on Friday night), ideas were shared, improved upon and agreed on. Each team member made the others better and come Sunday afternoon, we had a product that we were proud of – and one that was a lot of fun to make.

There’s a difference between making a movie on the weekend and working on something for the boss. But, we’re wondering this weekend: Do you think teams inspire or kill creativity?

Tell us in the comments, or even weigh in on the following questions:

• How do you keep your team creative?
• Are teams better when participation is voluntary, as opposed to required?
• How do you decide when teams are worth using in the creative process?
• When is it time for a team to call it quits?