Thursday Break-up: Why Having Fun is So Important

I thought I would continue the Thursday “break-ups” since the topic is an interesting one.  This post will talk about why having fun is so important.

Can you think of a time, a project, a company, or any other organization where you actually had a blast working?  Too bad for those who can’t think of an occasion, but in all honesty, there has to be a situation where everyone had fun.  One of the things I hear about in companies today is that everyone has to do the job of two or three (and maybe even more) people.  In that case, it is easy to see how having fun would be a challenge.

When I am talking about fun, I don’t mean hanging out in the break room playing foosball (I don’t know if they really play this anymore) but when people are engaged in work that has a purpose (think of the dream big circle above).  When people immerse themselves in activities that use their skills and talents, there is a large amount of satisfaction.

When I teach a class and one of my students has the “aha” and really gets it, then for me that’s having fun.  Helping others succeed is having fun.  Contributing on a high performance team is having fun.  I have been fortunate to be on many high performing teams over my career.  The thing you remember is how hard you worked to make seemingly impossible targets, but when you achieved the goals you had a sense of accomplishment.   Looking back, you could see you enjoyed the work.

Running a small consulting business, I get to work on a lot of different types of interesting projects.  I can say that for the most part, I really enjoy working with my clients to get stuff done.  Helping the chemist see a new way to put a formulation together,  finding the root cause of the manufacturing problem that caused “the wheels to fall off,” or identifying a new application or market to allow a client to get more profitable business, they all are fun projects. It also helps that I can choose the types of clients I work for.  That’s right, the three circles at the beginning of the post.

So where are you having fun?