June 29, 2006
Making Fun Work!
My family made a living travelling around Australia’s showgrounds providing fun and entertainment to people. People love fun and entertainment and there should be a corporate culture that encourages fun and entertainment in the workplace.
On the showgrounds we had some sideshows. The first one was the Mighty Atom. This was a Siamese greyhound that had five legs, six feet and two tails. People love to see the unusual and the unnatural and they will always pay to do so.
We also had a horse that we showed as the ‘Tallest Thoroughbred in the World’. His name was Goliath, he was a huge horse and we offered one thousand guineas to anyone who could produce a taller horse. That was a lot of money in those days and fortunately no one was ever able to claim that prize, and I say fortunately because I know my Mum and Dad never had a thousand guineas.
Unfortunately those types of sideshows only last for a couple of years. Like all businesses you have to be coming up with different ideas all the time. People, clients or customers aren’t going to be coming back year after year to see the same show unless it’s an entertaining show and you have left them wanting more.
Such was Selby Moore’s “Touring Boxing Stadium”. People loved the thrill and the excitement of the Boxing Troupe and they came back year after year. That was because they always got value and were left wanting more. He had the catch cry ‘Value Added’ worked out to perfection. He gave people more than value for their money and created an atmosphere that people would remember and want to come back to year after year.
We had a distinct advantage on the showgrounds and that was that people were having fun while they were spending their money. When people are having fun they don’t mind spending their money so much; it just makes it a little easier for them.
Whatever your business is, if you can provide fun while your customers or clients are spending their money they will be coming back to you rather than going to your competitors.
And fun starts with the people that the clients are dealing with, the staff. If they are not having fun at work themselves then they pass that on to the client/customer and then the customers have no enjoyment in doing business with your company. Who would you prefer to do business with?
Y
ou have to know how to get the best out of people. You have to know how to treat them so they feel good about themselves. If you don’t feel good about yourself it makes it hard to feel good about clients.
As we were travelling from one town to another we were camping alongside the road and one night the men were organised to find out, how long it takes to run out of sight on a dark night.
Here were these fellows running up the road as fast as they could with someone timing them. They were all laughing because the fellows
who were Aboriginal had a distinct advantage! The fun and laughter always seemed to make the hard work seem a lot easier.
There was a report in the Australian Financial Review recently where numbers suggested that disengaged employees cost the Australian economy $31.5 billion a year through loss of productivity, sick leave and even sabotage.
An Architect had special surprises for his staff. Just after lunch one day he told everybody to close up and follow him. He took all the staff to a go-cart track for the remainder of the day.
Now do you think that the time he took off that day was made up more than three fold over the next few weeks? People put in that extra effort and his company had a very low staff turnover because people were happy there.
That’s one example of many of how a sense of fun can boost your bottom line.
People who are relaxed and enjoying themselves on the job are more productive, more creative and more committed. They also give greater company loyalty and they are healthier, so there are less sick days and less staff turnover. The easiest way of enjoying your work or your life is to always bring your sense of humour with you where ever you go.
Dennis speaks at conventions and trains organisations on creating a workplace culture of fun and wellbeing for their business and personal lives, through harnessing the Power of Fun for use as a business and personal growth tool.
Email: dennis@moorespeak.com
Other news articles from the same month
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
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