Humor in the Workplace
Wherever you turn, there are prolific naysayers and doomsday makers telling us how bad things are today. Not only are things dismal now, they are going to get worse in the future. If you took all you hear about how bad things are seriously, you’d get seriously depressed. Don’t go there. There’s no payoff for wallowing in despair. Instead, exercise your choice. Choose a positive approach and look for the humor in your situation.
Make it fun. The people left on the front lines have survived the worst recession in modern times. They are burned out. They are tired of doing more, with less, for the good of the company. They have given their all, are grateful for the job, but enough is enough. Morale is down.
While you don’t have any control over marketplace factors that impact your workplace, you do have control over how you react to them. Look for the humor in even the most difficult circumstances. Fun, humor and laughter make work more enjoyable by reducing stress and improving morale. They not only help the team deal with the frustrations in a positive manner, they help put challenges into perspective. While we can’t control the stressors, we can control how we react to them.
Using humor and laughter in the workplace helps achieve the following positive outcomes:
Filed under: Peter's Blog on November 7th, 2011 1 Comment »
Vacation. There, I said it. Many US workers treat this term as a bad word that must be avoided. What most people don’t realize is that long hours at work and mountains of unused vacation time are not synonymous with results. In fact, it is safe to say that the exact opposite is true. 
To be a successful leader, it is equally important to know when to say ‘yes,’ as it is when to say ‘no.’ In life, there are times when you have to successfully tell people ‘no’ in a way that builds a relationship even stronger. The challenge is that for some managers, the word ‘no’ is the equivalent of a four letter word. The managers who don’t like the word ‘no’ believe that telling someone a resounding ‘no’ could cause the relationship to deteriorate to the point that others on the team or in the organization will not like or support her as a leader. 
We live in exciting times. The speed of innovation is moving so fast that no one can afford to be complacent. Sitting on the sidelines will guarantee only one thing . . . obsolescence. To keep your business at the forefront, thriving amongst a sea of competitors, you need creative, innovative team members.
For nearly thirty years, executives, managers and employees alike have marveled at Steve Jobs’ ability to innovate. After all, Jobs did not only foresee the future of technology (and music, and animation), he created it. It’s clear that Jobs was one of the most visionary leaders of our times. But, what most people don’t realize is that if it were not for his dedication to communication, the way we interact with technology today would be vastly different. His excitement when introducing new products mesmerized customers. His commitment to specifically communicating what he envisioned motivated employees at all levels and made revolutionary products and services possible.
As a leader, you have two important goals. First, you need to build relationships where people want to follow you and help you accomplish the mission, vision and goals of your team or organization. Second, you want to develop future leaders. 
Seth Godin says it best: “You can’t stand out if you fit in all the way.”
Managing multiple priorities, taming the email beast, and achieving work-life balance are all contemporary buzz terms for learning how to stay on top of our demanding jobs and schedules. Whatever you call the approach, the aim is always to help us improve our efficiency, achieve our goals, and feel good about ourselves and the outcome. In this Quest, we are going to tackle just one aspect of time management… how to stay on top of your email.
If you are a leader, chances are good that you have had at least one employee in your career who has caused you to lose sleep. Maybe the employee is frequently late, is participating in gossip or is making reoccurring mistakes. Our advice for difficult behaviors in employees is to train them, coach them and if that still doesn’t work, share them with a competitor.
There is no such thing as organizational change. Organizations don’t change. The only thing that does change in an organization are the people within it: when enough people have bought into the change, we then see the changes happening. 
Today’s successful organizations are led by talented leaders who have high expectations for their organization, their employees and most importantly, for themselves. In many cases, long before they received their title, these leaders were demonstrating their leadership capacity by leading themselves. What do we mean when we talk about leading yourself? When you are a successful self-leader, you typically achieve the following:
Depending on which business analysts you listen to and believe, the recession is over (or not) and business projections for the coming year are improving, (or not). Although the experts cannot agree on the future of our global economy, there is no disagreement that most businesses and industries have experienced significant blows to what was business as usual. 
Great leaders have the confidence to hire smart talent and then get out of the way, letting people do what they do best. They surround themselves with people who not only have the necessary technical expertise, but are as passionate and excited about the success of the business as they are.
We have spent the last 20 years identifying the traits that make leaders successful. This has led us to strongly believe that there is a significant difference between leaders and managers. Managers always have a title and a formal position on the organizational chart. Leaders may or may not have a title but they always have a relationship with people who make a conscious decision to follow them.
Think about a great team of which you either are currently a member, or have been a member in the past. Typically, great teams have similar characteristics:
Globalization, dazzling advances in technology and increased customer demands drive organizational change. To remain competitive, your organization and its people must be willing to adapt, or even completely reinvent, to stay relevant.
It’s a basic fact of employment… you can choose your friends, but not your co-workers. If you’ve worked for any length of time, you’ve probably come to realize these two simple premises about workplace relationships:
What is a distinguishing characteristic of a great leader?