Did you have an April Fools’ Day trick or joke pulled on you? Possibly you were responsible for pulling a prank on another person or two?
How far do you allow humor, tricks, pranks and these activities to pervade your business or organization? For example, professional speakers for years have been opening up their talk with a humorous story, as they expect this to allow a better connection with their audience. Does the same work in your business, to help develop teamwork and camaraderie?
Where is the line drawn?
Consider a regular behavior that takes place in small and medium sized companies and organizations. The owner, founder, CEO or possibly a few of the leadership team attend a two or three day workshop. This is attended by other senior executives from other small and medium sized companies. Upon their return to the home office, like clockwork, meetings are held and a new method, process, software, you name it, becomes the mantra. Many of the people leave the meeting feeling like they are participating in another cruel April Fools’ Day joke. Unfortunately, this is not the case. This will become the ‘hot’ topic for the next few weeks, until the reality of being back ‘in the office’ fighting the daily fires again, and the materials from the two or three day conference are placed up on the shelf or filed away somewhere, never to be heard from again.
None of these statements or actions are to mean that the content or workshop materials were not of value. What is does mean is something much greater. The leadership team is not prepared to honestly and critically review where they are in their business and where they expect to proceed. The leadership team recognized, when they were removed from the day to day activity, that some action needed to be taken. They may have discussed why the content or materials from this workshop were the solution. The actions they took upon their return were not set up for success. They took an action just like a person telling an April Fools’ Day joke.
The personality of your organization will develop from the leadership team and their personality. Creating this personality should be by design. The same is true for the path you take for your business. It is never a straight line to success. This is not to mean there is not a planned line or course to follow.
