Page 254 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

THE WHY OF WORK

saving the world and disintegrating into an overgrown frat
house, pleasure has a role to play in making work a place
where people feel good about being alive and being at work.
Leaders set an important tone in encouraging, modeling,
participating in, and sometimes toning down or rechannel-
ing pleasure and delight at work so they serve a greater good.

• • Do you know what the primary sources of pleasure at
work are in the preceding categories for each person on
your team?
• • Do you know which departments have the most turn-
over? What are the sources of pleasure at work that
matter most to those who leave? To those who stay?

Humor and Playfulness

Everybody had a favorite teacher at school. Occasionally
these were people who were intellectual giants or deeply car-
ing mentors, but often our favorite teacher was the one who
was funny. Humor and a sense of playfulness can make the
serious work of business more palatable for everyone. John
Kotter at the Harvard Business School is a world expert on
change. He has written a number of important volumes on
the process of change, books that get quoted in academic
articles and look impressive on bookshelves but don’t sell
a lot of copies. Then Kotter decided to write a lighthearted
parable about penguins who realize their iceberg is melting
and something will have to be done. Embedding his mes-
sage about the steps of corporate change in an approachable
and playful little story would not work very well if Kotter
didn’t have something worthwhile to say, but adding humor

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