Leadership Effectiveness (McGraw-Hill; $14.95), Wolf J. Rinke has some simple advice for business owners and senior executives who have yet to discover the value of a fun workplace: “If it’s fun, it gets done.”
“People who have fun don’t really go to work,” says Rinke, president of business consultancy Wolf Rinke Associates Inc. in Clarksville, Maryland. “That’s because if you’re having fun and building on your own strengths, doing what you love to do, and having a good time doing it, it’s really not work.”
Rinke says there are a few steps small businesses can take to start infusing fun into the workplace, and it starts with recruiting three to five volunteers to serve on a fun team. Armed with a small budget, the team will come up with fun stuff to do during and after work. Ask for feedback from employees who participated, whether it was a pizza party, birthday celebration, or an afternoon trip to a local museum, then use that information to plan and tweak future events.