Damn!  I don’t think that’s the way most people experience their jobs, but I do think that most people expect far too little from their workday.  If we want to be happy, let’s set out to be happy. And if we think our colleagues feel the same way, then let’s make it a corporate goal along with making money.

I had a lot of fun at my first job, which lasted five years.  Interviewing at headquarters for my second job with Weston Solutions, I answered the “so what would you like to know about Weston?” question with a question of my own, “who’s the funniest person around here?”  My question cracked up the interviewer, who sent me down the hall to talk with the resident wiseacre, who was also a top notch project manager and engineer.

————–

*not his real name.  His real name was… Hey, you didn’t think I was going to actually tell you, do you?

Businesses can run for a long time just making money, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that if they want to make more money, they also have to create both fun and good.  Global corporations are increasingly adopting the triple bottom line of Profit, People and Planet.  That’s the “Make Money” part and the “Do Good” part (or at least, “Do no harm”.)  I’d wager that the better ones are realizing that they can max out the money and the good if they also work on the fun.

Human beings have a triple bottom line for survival: we need to Sleep, to Eat and to Exercise.  Without those three things, we die.  For a large fraction of the 20th century, many of us didn’t realize how much we needed that third element — Exercise.  Thank goodness we’re finally catching on!  Here’s hoping businesses will soon do the same with Have Fun

In general, I think that business owners are running a deficit on daily time spent:

• dreaming (the imagining kind more than the daydreaming kind, though that part is also useful,
• conversing (talking with other people, which involves a lot of listening), and
• doing the simple math that’s needed for setting priorities and making good decisions on anything from which customers to chase, what equipment to purchase, where to spend staff time, and how to price products and services.

– Robert Rosen, PhD in Just Enough Anxiety — The Hidden Driver of Business Success

I recommend this book for a skim or a deep read.  Issues addressed include self-leadership, organizational leadership, and numerous self-assessment tests to help you see whether you’re in balance or leaning too far (by Rosen’s standards) toward chaos or complacency.  I like that Rosen is a PhD psychologist who studies business leaders and runs a fair-sized organization to help corporations.  It gives him more cred than the average business writer. Available at the Durham County Library as soon as I return it this week.

But Work isn’t the problem for most people I know. Most people I know are perfectly willing to do the work. The more frequent challenge I see is the need to focus what they’re working on so that they’ll get the results they want.

My third year Latin teacher gave me a pin that said (in Latin) “he who chases two leopards catches neither.” She knew what she was talking about (and as testimony to the gift’s aptness, I had to ask her to translate the pin for me.) Chase one leopard at a time and you may soon have a cage full of them. Chase two at a time and you’ll have none.

By the way, this lesson does not apply if your business model is to chase after things like grubs and bugs that you can pick up by hand in quantities sufficient to keep your belly full. If that’s your business model, you don’t need much focus at all. It’s not a very exciting business model (to me) but you’ll survive. On the other hand, if you want to do more than survive — if you want to build something sustainable and interesting — you’re going to be chasing leopards, and that requires focus.

Discipline is remembering what you want.
Discipline is remembering what you want.
Discipline is remembering what you want.

And, of course, doing what it takes to get what you want.

These are the things on my scorecard, and the first among them is all three.

Today I was talking with some business friends including one fellow who’s trying to decide what to do with the valuable remnants of a business that recently collapsed.  He had many ideas, any of which could be a viable re-configuration of the original idea.  But which ones would be the best for him?

“What do you want?”, I asked him.

“That’s a deep question,” he replied.

I told him what I want from my business.  I want to have fun, do good, and make money.

Turns out that he wants the same thing, along with everyone else around the table.  Fortunately, there’s an ample and ever-growing supply of each.

…unsustainable situations usually go on longer than most economists think possible. But they always end, and when they do, it’s often painful.

– Paul Krugman

The quote, above, has been around for a while but now seems like a good time to mention it.  Krugman has long been a critic of the Bush Administration’s economic policies.  And this morning, Krugman was announced winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics.  In his comments, he briefly addressed the current financial crisis:

“Praising world leaders’ efforts to staunch the financial bleeding, he added: “I’m slightly less terrified today than I was on Friday.” World policy makers met at the weekend, after a black Friday on financial markets, to agree radical measures to rescue banks, revive liquidity and tackle the risk of a global recession.

– Reuters

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

- James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)