One of my realities, as a constant traveler is that it is sometimes difficult to get everything done when I want to. So things pile up , like things I want to read. This past weekend I took some time to catch up on the March-April 2008 issue of Utne Reader. I found an article by Matt Labash reprinted from the Weekly Standard titled, “Are We Having Fun Yet , The infantilization of corporate America. The gist of the article is that there is a new cadre of “consultants called “fun consultants or funsultants or funcilitators who have convinced corporations that the road to success is not about “industriousness, talent, and know-how¦[but] fun. Apparently, there is a body of literature that says that employee retention hinges on creating a fun workplace. Of course, Labash says that the word “literature is used loosely here to “mean a series of often ungrammatical double-spaced sentences put on paper, slapped between festively colored covers, and sold to mouth readers with too much discretionary income. (What a great turn of a phrase.) I would add that this “literature is not research-based, but instead is a case of “if enough people say something is true, then that makes it true, and we (the gullible) are certainly not going to question that.
As most of you know, since 1991, I have been an independent consultant who helps managers and teams get work done through and with others in a way that is both satisfying and effective. I advocate that a sense of humor in the workplace is a healthy thing and that at the end of day performance (that is, the result that we get) matters. I have found that what contributes to employee retention is when employees at any level know what is expected of them, how they are doing, how the boss will consistently relate to them, and what chance they will have for development.
When I have been in organizations (or conferences) where these funsultants put participants through bizarre activities that even the most sympathetic would be hard pressed to see as relevant to the business, I have a number of thoughts:
First, I am usually annoyed. Not everyone has the same idea of fun. The activities these funcilitators introduce are usually embarrassing to many and I do not think public humiliation is a good thing in any context.
Second, rarely if ever does the funsultant or the organization explain “why we are doing these humiliating activities. In other words, like the ropes courses of the 90′s they have no business relevance.
Third, I wonder what in the world the leadership of the organization is thinking. Are they covering something up?
Finally, part of the emphasis on fun is the fear that a lot of organizations have that they will not be a hip place for the twenty-somethings to work. The youngest generation tends to claim that school, work, and anything for that matter needs to be fun. In the last MBA class that I taught, the class ranged in age from 23 to 58. When we talked about expectations on day one, the four twenty somethings (out of a class of 15) told me that the class needed to be fun. When I asked what “fun would look like, they uniformly said no lectures, just games! Because of the well-documented talent shortage many , not all – corporations lack the guts to have the “here’s the deal talk with this youngest generation and explain work expectations. Instead, they opt for the “fun is good approach.
Now lest you think that I am a curmudgeon, I’ll end with a quote from the Southwest Airlines web site:
“More than 37 years ago, Rollin King and Herb Kelleher got together and decided to start a different kind of airline. They began with one simple notion: If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline. And you know what? They were right.
Ah, what a refreshing idea, deliver results AND have fun!