A Little Levity Goes a Long Way

How do you incorporate play into your office culture?  And why would you do such a thing?

The most playful place I ever worked was in the development office of a children’s museum.  Sounds obvious, but it wasn’t the setting that made it playful.  It was the personality of the Executive Director.  One might argue that children’s museums attract playful Executive Directors.  You’ll get no argument from me.

Photo by roboM8 on Flickr.com

Every time he took a business trip, he brought back a toy or two.  Small gadgets, probably cost $5-10 in the gift shop or airport.  There was one of those old fashioned wooden ball and cup toys, and we kept a running total on the dry erase board with each person’s record of consecutive catches.

On a stressful day, or after receiving bad news, we had this ridiculous loon call, it looked like a giant button mounted on strings with pull handles on either side.  It never failed to put a smile on everyone’s face.  And we always wrapped up our staff meetings with a silly trivia fact.

They say one of the keys to a strong and long lasting marriage is to always keep your sense of humor.  I think the same can be said for work relationships.  You will have days where you disagree with your boss or have a misunderstanding with a colleague.  Maybe you ask a donor for a large gift and they say no.  Those are the days when having a culture that allows for playfulness can really help alleviate the stress and lighten the mood. 

In order to take hold, this playful spirit needs to come from the top and be infused in everything you do.  It doesn’t need to cost a lot of money and doesn’t take a lot of time.  As a leader, you don’t have to be silly if it makes you uncomfortable, you just have to be open and encourage silliness in others.  Be willing to put yourself in playful situations.  Recruit others to advance your silly mission.  A little levity goes a long way.

What are some of the ways you can envision bringing playfulness into the workplace?  If you are not a playful sort of person, can you enlist a staff member or two to help?  Take the team to a playful environment (like a children’s museum)?  Organize a bake-off?  Go canoeing?

Humor and playfulness increase resilience and shore us up as we’re doing the difficult work of raising money to support our important missions.