Need problem solvers? Use humor!
The very word “problem” doesn’t normally bring humor to mind. Problem-solving evokes images of late night work sessions – guys with their ties loosened and shirt sleeves rolled up and women with their uncomfortable dress shoes kicked off, all gathered around a conference table looking tense and wondering how to resolve whatever issue they’re working on.
Think how different that scene would be if those very same people were relaxed around that table, tossing soft toy balls to each other, making things out of pipe cleaners (remember pipe cleaners?), or squeezing squishy toys and laughing.
In the first example, their minds are totally focused on the problem. They think they are there to find a solution but it’s hard to get creative ideas when you are tired and stressed out. It’s one of the reasons brilliant ideas come to us in the middle of the night when we’re not actively working on them. Our creativity can finally reach us in our sleep!
Laughter is a gift from the Creativity Gods and a boon to Employee Engagement. That’s not just my opinion, scientists tell us that the more they research the benefits of laughter, the stronger the case for using it in work situations, especially those requiring problem solving. A study out of Wharton, for example found that laughter resulted in individuals demonstrating more creative decision-making and greater flexibility. According to the article Leading with Laughter by Eric Tytslin laughter “clears the mind and improves focus.”
So think about how you can make the problem-solving meetings at work more fun. Ideas could include:
- Have an air guitar contest
- Do a 10-minute icebreaker. Example: without showing it to them, tape to each person’s back the name of a cartoon character and get them to guess who they are by asking questions, “Am I male or female?” “Animal or human?” etc.
- Before the meeting is officially started, show one of the thousands of short YouTube videos that evoke contagious laughter
- Hold a “stupid human tricks” contest where everyone displays one of their unique talents
None of these require a lot of time but 5-10 minutes invested in frivolity at the front end will pay off handsomely when the meeting moves into problem-solving mode.
Laugh to Build an Engaging Culture
Humor is no laughing matter. There are numerous compelling studies from such lofty organizations as Wharton, Stanford University and MIT that point to a variety of benefits to organizations that make humor a key component of their culture. These benefits include:
- Increased productivity
- Increased talent retention
- Improved customer care
- More employee engagement
- The ability to attract good talent – word gets out quickly if you’re a desirable place to work
- A decrease in the use of employee benefits – laughter decreases stress and increases health
- Increased growth – research done by the organization Great Place to Work shows, time and again, that organizations with a thriving workplace culture tend to grow significantly faster than peer organizations
So what are some ways to introduce humor into your culture? In my last blog, I mentioned posting funny signs in a central area every day. Here is another idea that will bowl you over when you see its impact on your culture:
Start a Company Laughter Club
Laughter Clubs trace their roots to India where, in the 1990’s people gathered at assigned times in public parks where they would look at each other and laugh for 5-10 minutes. Then they would leave and go about their days. Can you imagine what life would be like if you started your day with laughter?
And can you imagine the impact on your company culture if each department or division had 5-10 minute laughter sessions every day?
The key, of course, is to get executives involved. If there is no buy-in from a senior level, then employees will understandably wonder if participation will be looked down upon. After all, if the execs don’t think it’s important enough to engage in, what must they think of the employees who do? In case you need convincing to get you (yes, you!) and your senior level people involved, look at the bulleted list of benefits above. This is a SHORT list! If you want your senior people to do their best work, get them laughing!
For more information about laughter in the workplace, give me a call. The years I’ve spent doing stand-up can surely benefit your company.
Humor and Employee Engagement
Last week I delivered my keynote address, Lighten Up & Lead! to the Utah Healthcare Association. While preparing for it, I ran across this very compelling argument for introducing humor into your workplace:
A study conducted at Canadian financial institutions found that managers who most frequently used humor also had the highest level of employee performance which translates into employee engagement.
Please note that this study was done at financial institutions—often the most serious of workplaces. And yet, facts are facts.
What usually happens when employee performance is not up to the needs of the organization is that things get very serious very quickly. That is completely under-standable and yet, increased stress rarely produces the desired results. If anything, employees become less productive beginning a never-ending cycle of, “Produce more!” → “We can’t; we’re too stressed.”
What might happen if these same organizations introduced humor into the equation? If we were to believe the Canadian study, then employee performance would increase.
But wait! There’s more! Studies show that laughter has numerous benefits:
- Engages the whole brain making us sharper
- Lightens the load
- Fosters a positive work environment
- Helps workers re-charge
- Makes people happy at work
- Reduces stress
- Connects people building trust and resulting in better customer service and team spirit
A Wharton study found that laughter promotes creativity and greater analytical precision. So, not only are your employees inspired to perform, they actually perform better.
This is the start of a series of blogs devoted to humor in the workplace. In future offerings, I will outline ways to introduce it in your organization. As a beginning, you may want to consider posting a new funny sign in the employee lounge or, lacking a lounge, post one by the coffee pot. It would be preferable to change it every day but at the very least, once a week. There are many places you can find these funny items:
- Readers Digest
- Do an Internet search for “funny quotes.” This should give you an endless supply.
- Assign the task to a different employee or department for the week or month.
You may from time to time hear someone say during a stressful time, “Some day we’ll laugh about this.” I say – why wait? Introduce laughter into your workplace and watch what happens to your productivity levels.
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One Question; INCREDIBLE Impact on Employee Engagement
It seems Einstein was correct about the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
If you are in a leadership position you’ve no doubt come to realize that inspiring others to improve is not dissimilar to Einstein’s experiments with perhaps one notable exception: we seem to continually do the same thing over and over resigned to achieving the same results.
I read an article* today about Employee Engagement wherein they told a story about one software sales executive who asked his employees every week, “How happy are you at work this week and how can we make things better?” He said he could predict the next week’s sales based on the feedback received.
If you’re not in management, how does this question apply to you?
- Ask yourself, “How happy are you at work and how can you make things better?”
- Query your immediate supervisor, “How happy are you with my work and how can I improve’?
- Ask co-workers, “Is there anything I can do that would help you with your work?”
Engagement is as much about listening as perhaps anything else. Listening begins with asking good questions. This question is among the best because it delivers a number of underlying messages:
- We care about your happiness.
- We want to know how we can make things better.
- It’s up to you to tell us what you need.
Roots of “insanity”
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. – Albert Einstein
Getting the same results over and over start with the questions we pose. Our brains are problem-solving mechanisms and designed to answer whatever questions are posed.
If you have people reporting to you and you continually wonder, “What is WRONG with these people? Why can’t they just do what I ask of them?” your mind will come up with multiple answers (none of them pleasant) to those questions. If instead you think, “I know they want to do good work. What can I do to help them get there?” your mind will come up with multiple answers that are significantly more hopeful and productive. If you then ask each team member, “How happy are you at work this week and how can we make things better?” you will have not only your mind working on finding solutions but also multiple minds and that can only result in solutions for improvement.
Experiment – try something new
“How happy are you at work this week and how can we make things better?”
Stop what you’re doing for a moment and consider what a difference this question might make in your organization.
Your team knows what they need and they have good ideas. Why not create an environment where they can share them with you and with each other to support a team goal of improving the work, the organization and the team’s satisfaction?
Your challenge: for the next three months carve out time every week to ask your team (or yourself) this question. Friday seems like a good day but that’s up to you. Watch what happens. Track what happens. See if there are tangible results in terms of productivity or accuracy. Look also for less measurable signs like employee morale and teamwork.
If you want to know what your team wants and needs to do their best work, try something new – ask them!
How to Turn Your Employees into Partners
Do all your employees understand what they have to do with your Mission?
I have often marveled at the endless hours and thousands of dollars an organization will spend on crafting a mission statement that even the CEO can’t recite from memory.
If you are an executive leader you should be able to recite the Mission Statement if woken up from a dead sleep and asked to do so. If you cannot, your organization is in deeper trouble than you can imagine.
Years ago I read Peak Performers, a book by Dr. Charles Garfield inspired by what he witnessed while working on the Apollo 11 mission to put a man on the moon. Garfield saw mediocre workers turn into extraordinary ones because the mission ignited them. He also saw them return to mediocrity when the mission was accomplished.
Intrigued, Garfield set about on his own 20-year mission: to discover what separates peak performers from everyone else. He found 6 unique characteristics. Today we will discuss the first:
THEY HAVE A MOTIVATING MISSION
What is your organization’s Mission? Don’t know? Look it up on the Internet. I’ll bet it’s there on your fancy website! Is that how your employees need to find it? Do they need to dig for it?
It is critical that every single one of your employees, you, and the Directors on your Board know the Mission Statement. Ideally, every meeting would start with a recitation of the Mission Statement. Every strategy and every project plan would clearly delineate how it helps to accomplish the Mission. Every company email would have the Mission Statement at the bottom. To quote master coach Tony Robbins, “Repetition is the mother of mastery.”
The Law of Attraction dictates that you get more of what you focus on. It is imperative that every team member is regularly focused on your Mission.
If you want more employee engagement, if you want your employees to partner with you the next step is for them to clearly identify and be able to articulate what role they play in achieving the Mission. Does the receptionist think he is only there to answer phones? Does the mailroom clerk think she’s only delivering mail? Or do they clearly understand, because it has been repeatedly reinforced, that without their contribution, the Mission could not be accomplished?
Although this would all work best if it were being modeled from the top down, it doesn’t need to be. If you are a manager or supervisor, you can begin this work in your own department. Start with your role and what it has to do with accomplishing the Mission. Then work with your team to identify the same for themselves. Then make the organization’s Mission central to your department’s culture. Make sure each team member understands that his or her contribution means something.
Countless hours and significant dollars were spent developing your company’s Mission Statement because it is important for every one on board to know what it is you are attempting to accomplish.
Remember the Apollo 11 Mission. Even if your company is not out to achieve something quite that exciting, what you do is important and when each team member fully understands his role in achieving it you will find Employee Engagement will increase.
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