Having Fun vs. "Work Ethic"

This seems so obvious to me, but I keep running across leaders who don’t understand basic human nature. Healthy people will naturally move toward pleasure and fun and away from pain. Anything else doesn’t really make sense to adapt and thrive.

No individual job is a blast every single moment, but “The beatings will continue until morale improves” just doesn’t work as well as it used to. Folks in today’s work force are not as easily shamed into doing things they don’t really want to do by touting the old “work ethic” argument.

I always understood “work ethic” as basically, “Do what I want you to do instead of what you want to do, or I’ll punish you because I have power over your livelihood.”  That’s very different from “Let’s agree to do something that benefits us both. “

Therefore, if you want to optimize sustainable financial performance in your business, then make fun sacred. If you’ve created a team with good basic values, then you’ll get their best efforts.

As a bonus, you can spend more time leading and less time managing—you don’t have to spend your time chasing people with the aforementioned whip. Seriously, who’s going to object to having fun and meeting their individual goals while helping you achieve your business goals?

Don’t be a stranger: (770) 993-1129, tdockery@TheResolveFirm.com