LEADING THOUGHTS

Fun is in the eye of the beholder. So it is with workplace fun and the growing efforts by organizations to engage employees with games-playing and other officially-sanctioned hijinks.

Researchers are now turning their attention to measuring when workplace fun initiatives have a positive influence and when they are counterproductive. Eric Lamm and Michael D. Meeks (San Francisco State U), for example, conducted a study to find out whether or not there are generational differences in how workplace fun is viewed, and if there are different outcomes depending on generation.

In the journal Employee Relations, the authors write that, based on generational theory, we would expect to see these attitudes:

Baby boomers (born between 1941 ad 1960): “Boomers’ win-at-all-cost perspective and reliance on success as a measure of self worth likely results in a perception that workplace fun is counterproductive to their competitive edge.”

Gen Xers (born between 1961 and 1980): “Since Xers have a preference for fun and embrace balance in their lives, planned organisational fun activities may engage these sometimes disengaged workers and more fulsomely direct their energy toward the organisation instead of individual, non-work pursuits.”

Millennials (born between 1981 and 2000): “Unlike Boomers, who may oppose workplace fun, and Xers, who may be indifferent to workplace fun, Millennials are likely to regard fun in the workplace not as a benefit, but a requirement.”

Armed with this background, Lamm and Meeks surveyed 701 individuals from all three generational groups. They found that indeed there are measurable generational differences in how workplace fun is regarded.

Millennials, for example, showed stronger links between workplace fun and organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction, task performance, and “organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB).”

Surprisingly, though, the authors found that baby boomers were not as negative about workplace fun as originally thought. “This has large implications because Boomers, with a reputation of ‘achievers at any cost’ and thus regarded as likely impediments to the successful implementation of planned workplace fun, may in fact not only benefit from workplace fun, but may be supportive, whether as a participant employee or facilitating manager.”

“Workplace fun: the moderating effects of generational differences,” by Eric Lamm and Michael D. Meeks, Employee Relations (Vol. 31 No. 6, 2009, pp. 613-631)

If you cannot find this journal is your local library, email me for a copy of the article at Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: inf3ktion

Tomorrow at 10 a.m., report to the staff meeting room for one hour of fun.

Sounds preposterous, no? Actually, this is not far from what is happening in many organizations desperate to boost employee engagement. There are ‘wacky Fridays’, karaoke competitions, laughter workshops, and countless variations on the theme. Here is the equation: organized and packaged fun means happy employees means more satisfied, creative, motivated employees means increased corporate performance. But can you actually connect the paint dots from increased fun to increased productivity?

Writing in a special “fun” issue of the journal Employee Relations, Sharon C. Bolton (Strathclyde U Business School, Glasgow) and Maeve Houlihan (University College Dublin) take a critical view. They say that for a great many employees, enforced fun is like enforced pain and that there is very little proof that such initiatives actually make for more engaged staff.

In the past, sociologists identified laughter and game playing in the workplace as either a way to tame the “beast of boredom” or to subversively make fun of management. In turn managers have been portrayed as seeing such hijinks as a disruptive influence that needed to be discouraged.

How far we’ve come. Now it’s the manager instigating the games and the employee who is cluck-clucking. “The informal rules of workplace fun appear to have been repackaged on management’s terms with the express purpose of furthering organisational goals,” Bolton and Houlihan write. “Put simply, ‘fun is not frivolous anymore.’”

The authors have identified “shades of engagement” as people enjoy, endure, or escape organizational-sponsored game playing.

According to Bolton and Houlihan, “Official fun has some striking features in the way it presumes that fun will be on managerial terms and that there will be benefits for all; in the way it excludes those who are unable (or choose not) to party all weekend; in the way it imposes formal reward mechanisms, and it demands macho work-hard, play-hard rules; and, in the process, it often reinforces unreconstructed stereotypes around what is considered fun and who may be made fun of; and it confuses as the boundaries around what is and is not sanctioned continually shift.”

The authors argue for more research in the area. I say, bring on the bongos.

“Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun and engagement,” by Sharon C. Bolton and Maeve Houlihan; Employee Relations (Vol. 31 No. 6, 2009; pp. 556-568)

If you cannot find this journal is your local library, email me for a copy of the article at Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: Troy McClure SF

I often wonder why some management theories seem to have great legs and others can’t get out of the stable. How do paradigms shift?

To find out, Nick Oliver of University of Edinburgh studied the adoption of Japanese “lean” manufacturing methods in the UK, in a couple of unconventional ways. First, he was a participant-observer in a one-day seminar by lean guru Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt. Second, he studied the response of the UK engineering community to the publication of a report questioning the financial benefits of lean manufacturing methods.

Oliver found in these two cases that the language used to discuss lean ideas sounded a lot like the language used in religious conversions, and the responses to criticism of the methods were similar to responses to religious blasphemy. So much for rationality.
Oliver concluded that factors such as the aesthetics of ideas, their intuitive appeal, the method by which they’re delivered, and the characteristics of their promoters all influence their acceptance at least as much as hard evidence of their efficacy.

There is a payoff for change management practitioners. If the author is to be believed, purveyors of new ideas (such as org change) should project “expertness”, trustworthiness, and personal dynamism. As for the ideas themselves, there should be local demonstrations of applicability and they should somehow predict events and/or solve problems previously considered to be intractable.

Rational choice or leap of faith? The creation and defence of a management orthodoxy; Nick Oliver; The Learning Organization Journal (2008, vol. 15, no. 5, 373-387)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: systemsrelaunch