Laughter seems to be closely linked to innovation. When teams are solving problems, when individuals are able to overcome their fears and create solutions – more often than not, they are laughing. Breakthroughs and laughter often seem to go hand-in-hand. And when no one is laughing - innovation seems to slow down as well.
When Brian Marshall of the Alliance for Strategic Alliance ran a technology company in the '90's, his engineers, “worked 12, 16, 18 hours a day, sleeping in their offices…and they were high-fiving each other, telling jokes, having a good time. We just gave them a deadline, near impossible objectives, some t-shirts, beer on Friday nights and an unlimited amount of free soda pop – and they were in heaven.”
And they delivered innovation. Without the laughter, very little risk taking, developing, or building takes place. According to Patrick Lamb, Founding Member of Valorem Law Group, “you know when people are in survival mode when they aren’t laughing.”
David Johnson, CIO of Jones Lang LaSalle sees tangible risk to this loss of fun in his development teams, “It is hard to hold on to your best people when they’ve been so demoralized by cost cutting, project cancellations, and an ever increasing load of administrative work. As the markets improve, they will be tempted by new jobs in new companies that let them innovate. For this type of employee, change is a good thing.”
But maintaining a sense of humor may be a good place to start mitigating that risk. According to Buckley Brinkman, innovation consultant of Launchpad Partners, “the fun thing is trying to figure out how to get people engaged even when things are tough. The ship is burning; we’re five miles from shore, its taking on water, but stay anyway.”
Fun and laughter can be managed, and even encouraged. According to Patrick Lamb, “The people who run things need to be out there walking, talking and joking. Take a fair amount of time doing stuff that gets people comfortable. If you make it easier for people to laugh, they will laugh.” If they are laughing, they can start to solve problems.
According to Kevin Conlon, president of Conlon Public Strategies, “the intangibles of values and culture with our team and our clients make a big difference when times are difficult. We’ve even had to say no to client opportunities that didn’t fit – but staying true to our shared values and chemistry helps us weather the difficult times.”
John Ahlber, president of technology consulting firm, Waident, always tries to figure out if a candidate enjoyed his colleagues’ sense of humor, by getting people together over a meal and allowing everyone to joke around a bit in the presence of the candidate. If the prospect laughed or even joined in with their goofiness, it was a leading indicator that there may be a strong cultural fit. Laughter, for Waident is almost a requirement for collaboration.
Shared values, fun and laughter can help promote more innovative teams, but it can also indicate when people are starting to work on the problem instead of being paralyzed by it. As we begin the second half of 2009, more and more business leaders seem to be joking about how difficult business is – instead of just complaining about it or worse yet, denying that there might be a problem. This may suggest that the economy will be able to improve in the second half of 2009.
Are you laughing yet? Maybe it's time to start.
(This blog post is the final of three excerpts from a Branson Powers, Inc. B2B Executive Innovation Roundtable that was held on June 19th, 2009. If you are interested in reading the full report, you can view the pdf file. If you are interested in participating in future roundtables, please contact Gunnar at gbranson@bransonpowers.com.)
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