| April
16, 2008
Fun In The Workplace
Interview
with Scott Christopher, co-author of The
Levity Effect |
Mike
Carruthers:
The work you do may be serious business but the work environment doesn't have
to be.
Scott
Christopher:
We've found that those who possess a sense of humor
(or at least an ability to appreciate humor) climb the corporate ladder quicker
and they actually end up making a little more money. Scott
Christopher, co-author of the book The
Levity Effect… The
vast majority of people look at levity and they say, "Ooh it has no place
at work - now we're very serious about our mission here at ACME Rivet and Bolt."
The fact of the matter is that most people will never suffer from having too much
fun in their workplace. Obviously
there has to be rules and appropriate behavior but laughter DOES have a place
in the workplace. It's
great for the brain. Your body's more oxygenated - when people are lightened up,
when they're relaxed they tend to do better work. In
his research, Scott looked at the list of the best 100 companies in America to
work for and found that humor and levity play a big part in their success. In
fact they did a little bit of research and they said if you were to take your
retirement funds, (your investment) and put it into the best places to work at
a company over a five year period, you actually get a five times greater return
than if you just left it in the S&P five hundred. So, these companies that
are considered great places to work actually out-perform other companies and a
big factor to that is this sense of levity within the actual workplace.
At somethingyoushouldknow.net
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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