Smaller companies do fun better. We got that straight from the skating matador and dozens of his CEO colleagues.
George Kase's 2007 new year's resolution sounded self-indulgent, like giving up dieting for Lent. "I will have more fun with my employees," pledged Kase, president of CCFC Advertising, a $20 million Chicago company. (That's him to the left, with the bird, surrounded by some of the people who work for him.)
He wasn't being frivolous. Kase, who co-founded CCFC 20 years ago, assumed the top slot in 2005 when one of his partners moved into strategic planning. The previous leader, who Kase describes as "a very business-by-the-book guy," had presided over a work-hard-play-hardly culture. Kase worried that employees were keeping late hours, rarely glancing up from their computer screens.
First things first: He enlisted freelance help and insisted the overburdened talk to him about getting relief. Second things second: He made serious plans to inject good times into the job. "I thought, we have to put fun on the agenda," says Kase. "I can't leave it to happen organically because it won't."
So Kase brought in some rubber chickens and a bag of plastic dinosaurs. He took the staff to a racetrack, held a winetasting and a potluck with exotic foreign dishes and chili dogs. He started asking everyone: What should we do? Where should we go? "I am thinking we might institute a duty roster where folks get to create and execute the fun on a rotating basis," says Kase. "Requirements would be that everybody gets to have the fun, it can't cost a lot, and it cannot impair the senses--too much--or be illegal."
Kase is not the only leader trying to reverse a fun deficit. Many companies start out fun, but the carefree ethos is tough to sustain through growth, hard times, and the constant flux of personalities. Too often, fun becomes something employees have everywhere but here. When once a year the leader pops out of her office and hollers "Frisbee toss!" the effort feels forced.
Some companies, however, do manage to keep the good times rolling beyond the holiday party, the summer outing, and the occasional carton of Krispy Kremes. To find out how, we surveyed close to 300 executives and interviewed many others. We found that business owners with (and this is admittedly subjective) fun workplaces have thought seriously about how play plays out in their businesses. We offer some of their thinking below.
Fun Like Me
Companies reflect their founders' ambitions, their values, and their personal styles. Not surprisingly, many also reflect their founders' senses of fun. More than three-quarters of the executives we surveyed said their personal tastes and humor influence the company's entertainment agenda.
That's as it should be--as long as the boss isn't oppressive. ("Bowl, damn you! Bowl!") So movie buffs run Oscar pools, rehash the weekend's releases every Monday, and occasionally lead an excursion to the cineplex. Outdoor enthusiasts take workers skiing or mountain biking and often locate their businesses accordingly.
That model works well in smaller businesses, where everyone knows the CEO and employees sign on to a leader as much as to a company. For example, it's hard to imagine that anyone interviewing at CGL, a $50 million logistics company in Downers Grove, Illinois, doesn't know exactly what he's walking into. CEO Dan Para loves golf, games, and gambling, and he loves them loudly. His three partners share those enthusiasms. The office game room boasts a 12-place customized card table emblazoned with the CGL logo; more than two dozen people may show up for Texas hold 'em on Friday afternoons (for money, of course). Signed photographs of Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus hang in offices, and the company hosts its own singles and doubles golf tournaments with trophies that migrate from one winner's office to the next.
Para's the kind of guy who talks a lot about butt-kicking; the politically correct gene isn't part of his code. CGL hosts a Fat Boy Open, in which its heftiest contractors take on a home team on the golf course; this year the four-man opposition weighed a cumulative 1,180 pounds. Some people must be offended, right? "Are you kidding? Here? No," says Para. "We play for $100 a hole and give the money to our family foundation. This year the fat boys lost $380." But Para has a sweet gene as well. Recently, on the spur of the moment, he asked the staff to vote on which employee they thought was nicest and most admirable. When the receptionist won, Para ran out and got her a $1,000 bond.
Someone Make This Place Fun--Stat!
Shockingly, not all CEOs are founts of levity. "I'm not an especially fun person," concedes Marv Shetler, founder and CEO of Blazer Industries, a $35 million maker of modular buildings in Aumsville, Oregon. "I participate. But I'm not the best person to plan things."
CEOs of a serious nature often rely on a "cruise director" (our term) to either formally arrange activities or informally stir things up. Close to a third of survey respondents reported that a life-of-the-party-type employee performs this role; only 3 percent said there was no such person at the company. At Blazer, for example, Kendra Cox--a project manager who is also Marv Shetler's daughter--organizes the holiday party, the summer party, and regular pizza soirees, among other activities. Cox is also an ambassador for fun, taking candid photos of her colleagues for display and personally inviting every one of Blazer's 220 employees to events. She distributes candy or customized magnets she has had made up as reminders.
George Kase certainly relies on contributions from his cruise directors. But he would rather see CCFC's wallflowers drive the new agenda. "Fun people are easily amused, so they're a slam dunk," says Kase. "If someone who is reticent socially has an idea, they're more likely to participate. If it's not stellar, maybe a fun person can riff on it and come up with something unexpected."
