Bob Nelson - Work Made Fun Gets Done!: Easy Ways to Boost Energy, Morale, and Results

Work Made Fun Gets Done!

Fun is Frivolous, we knowunless you want to attract and keep good employees and customers.
INC. MAGAZINE

Fun is one of the most importantand underrated ingredients in any successful venture.
RICHARD BRANSON

Youve achieved success in your field when you dont know whether what youre doing is work or play.
WARREN BEATTY

I never did a days work in my life. It was all fun.
THOMAS ALVA EDISON

If you take the team out of teamwork, its just work. Now who wants that?
MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER

There is little success where there is little laughter.
ANDREW CARNEGIE

The human race has only one effective weaponand that is laughter.
MARK TWAIN

A good laugh is sunshine in the house!
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKREY

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z.
Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
ELBERT HUBBARD

Work Made Fun Gets Done!

Copyright 2021 by Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo

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First Edition

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-9235-2

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9236-9

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9237-6

Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-9238-3

2021-1

Book producer: BookMatters; copyeditor: Lou Doucette; proofreader: Janet Reed Blake; cover and text designer: Kim Scott, Bumpy Design

To my loving son,
Geoffrey David Tamayo,
who had a lot of fun in his short life
devoted to helping others

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
DALE CARNEGIE

T his book is for anyone who wants to have more fun at work. This pertains to your own work and the tasks and responsibilities that make up your jobespecially boring, rote tasks or large, challenging projects that we often procrastinate about. It also pertains to the work of your immediate team or department members you work with most closely and most oftenas well as the broader culture in which your organization operates.

Work made more fun is universally easier and more enjoyable to completeand results in better performance.

Weve often heard Work is serious business. No company would hire someone just to have fun. Of course they wouldnt. But if we can show that having more fun at work helps to get work done, improves relationships and morale, and better achieves desired results, who would object?

Work and fun have historically been considered polar opposites of each otherit was thought that you could work or you could have fun, but you couldnt do both at the same timeor in the same place. Work is what you do for your paycheck, and fun is what you do on the weekend. Most of us must work to earn money to live, and sometimes enjoying the work we do seems like a luxury we cant afford. Or can we?

For individuals, time at work goes by faster as they become more excited about their work, who they work with, and what they are achieving, which all affect the pride they have in their work, themselves, and the company. The benefits to companies are also substantial, as promoting a fun work environment helps them become an Employer of Choice, which makes it easier to attract high-performing talent because such talent better enjoy their work and, as a result, stay with the organization longer.

Each year, the Great Place to Work Institute asks thousands of employees to rate their experience of workplace factors, including This is a fun place to work. On Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For list, employees in companies that are ranked as great responded overwhelminglyan average of 81 percentthat they are working in a fun environment. The big takeaway: Employees at the best companies are having the most fun. In other words, high performers are having the most fun. And people who are having fun tend to be high performers. Its two sides of the same coin.

At the good companiesthose that apply for inclusion but do not make the top 100only 62 percent of employees say they are having fun. That gap in experience between the great and good companies is, surprisingly, one of the largest in the survey.

This is compelling data that supports the notion that any company should strive to make work more fun for employees in their organization.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

ELBERT HUBBARD

So why dont more people have fun at work? Is it our puritan work ethic that makes us feel guilty if we are having fun? Is it our fear of being judged, ridiculed, or chastised by othersespecially our boss? Do we inherently feel that doing fun things is wasting time when we could be, and are being paid to be, productive? Maybe we each harbor a little of all those concerns.

The reasons we dont have more fun at work are many. But we all do have a choice in the matter.

No matter the reason why youre not having as much fun at work as youd like, this book will show you how to address those concerns and to make fun a natural and ongoing part of how you work going forward. Thats what this book offers to individuals, teams, and companies alike: a collection of simple, easy-to-use, real-life examples, techniques, strategies, and best practices to make work more funfor any worker in any location, on-site or remotelyso work is easier to get done.