Notas y revelaciones Centinela Ltda

You hear that tired old cliché all the time—don’t mix business with pleasure. Well, it’s so tired it needs to be retired. Work and

fun shouldn’t be considered antonyms. We think of them as

synonyms.

When people are happy and having fun, they’re much more productive. And it’s an infectious feeling. Steve Anderson, a friend of mine who heads Total Patient Service, a consultant to dental practices, is a big proponent of happy associates, and he likes to share his beliefs on his Web site. He mentioned re- cently: “Scientists have discovered how quickly we adopt the emotional state of those around us by measuring the physiol- ogy, heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, et cetera, of two people sharing a conversation. As the conversation gets started, the vital signs of the two bodies are different. But after fifteen minutes, the physiological profiles of the two bodies 46

47 Work Is Play, It’s Fun

become very similar.” So there you have it, he says—scientific proof! One associate’s happiness becomes the other associate’s happiness.

And yet at many companies (how about yours?) associates often feel downright guilty if they’re having a good time. You know the scenario: a cluster of associates are chuckling over something when the big boss arrives and everyone immediately adopts a somber face and scurries to their desk to look like they’re “working.” Colleen Kenny told me how a previous boss once told her: “No small talk during work hours. I don’t care what you watched on TV last night. I don’t care what joke you heard on Leno. I don’t care what trick your dog learned. You’re here to work.”

Well, in a Niceness Culture the boss joins in the laughter. We want people to bring their real selves to work, not some artificial “business self.” And so when I walked into Richards the other day about a half hour before the store officially opened, I loved it that associates were smiling and chuckling, and absolutely thrilled to see Rocco dancing with Edit. They love to dance. I felt like cutting in but instead started singing, and suddenly every- one around us was cheering and having fun. If you want to dance at work, dance! Sing, go for it, sing—as Oscar often encourages me to do when he says he thinks my singing is intoxicating.

The reason I always make a point of asking associates, espe- cially during an interview, “What do you do for fun?” is that I want to signal from the top that it’s okay to have fun at work.

My colleague Pamela once said to me, “You know, Jack, many people say work is a four-letter word!” And I said back to

her, “Work actually is a four-letter word, and the way you spell it is p-l-a-y.”

I’ve always looked at work as play. When Linda says to me, “Jack, I’ve got some plans for you today, could you go outside and dig up twenty-five holes for the trees and flowers I want to plant,” well, that’s work! I’ll do it, because I love Linda, but I’d rather be playing tennis or, better yet, going to Mitchells.

Because we want people to have fun at work, our managers are always looking for new ways to do just that. Once, led by poker enthusiast Todd Mitchell, we invited our associates to the store for an evening of Texas hold ’em, the hottest game in poker. It was loads of fun, won in fact by Jill Olson, who had never before played the game. Several brand-new associates at- tended and it sent a big message to them. For one thing, it demonstrated that everyone plays on an equal playing field and that we are fashionable in the way that we hug all our huggers. Best of all, it showed that we like to have fun together.

When we first merged with Richards, we hired a bus and went to Foxwoods Resort and Casino, playing cards all the way up and back, and when we got there we had dinner and gam- bled. There was great bonding, hugging, and lots of laughter. Some of us even won a few bucks.

I even heard that some people went up on the bus with us, but they took their $25 gambling voucher we had given them and instead had a nice Italian dinner, got to know one another a little bit more, and had a ton of fun!

Don’t get the wrong idea: we’re not all one step away from Gamblers Anonymous. We have a good time in myriad ways.

49 Work Is Play, It’s Fun

One day, a bunch of our sellers and buyers, and a few others, visited with some executives from Ermenegildo Zegna at their New York showrooms to get an overview of the spring collec- tion. Afterward everyone, including the Zegna folks, went bowl- ing. Zegna outfitted us with colorful T-shirts and we filled ten lanes. Everyone learned a lot and everyone had great fun. Bill likes to say, “Bowling is the great equalizer.” And it sure was that day. It was such a hoot that the other night Chris Mitchell in- vited all the associates at Marshs out to the lanes and continued the bowling spirit!

I love to play games with words and letters, and I regularly in- vite others to join in. The basic idea is to come up with positive words. We’ll have a meeting and I’ll say, “Let’s try to think of positive words that start with P.” And people will volunteer words: profit, praise, pride. My favorites, of course, are my new three P ’s: positive, passionate, and personalization. We’ll write them down—sometimes there are dozens—and then share them in my CEO letter that goes out to everyone. Then I’ll ask for more words. Then I’ll ask for stories behind pride or behind passion. The whole thing has really caught on. Once we exhaust one let- ter, we move on and do it with others.

I call it the Power of Positive Words.

What’s great about this game is that using positive words has a very intoxicating effect. Positive words will stick in people’s subconscious and they’ll find themselves using them when they interact with one another.

Almost every Saturday morning at the Richards women asso- ciates meetings, run by Scott Mitchell, my nephew, he’ll kick

things off by dreaming up questions like “What is one word that describes you?” Or “If your great-aunt died and left you more money than Bill Gates, what would you do with it?”

Then he’ll go around and let people answer. It’s a really fun exchange, and it’s amazing what you can learn about your col- leagues. For the money question, it was nice to hear that most said they would give a lot of the money away to improve the world. The best part of this game is that it temporarily extracts the “business” from the meeting and injects a nice warm atmosphere of sharing, personalizing relationships among the huggers.

FOLLOW MR. FUN

Bob Mitchell, my son, is known at our stores as Mr. Fun, because he’s always “preaching” about the importance of fun. He incor- porates the thought whenever he addresses a meeting. In the be- ginning, the middle, and at the end of any discussion, he makes a point of weaving in the message “Let’s have fun doing this.”

The more urgent or serious the discussion, the more crucial it is to remind people to have fun. So he might be winding up a talk about pumping up sales and urging everyone, “Let’s all make twenty customer calls today,” and then immediately soften that with, “And let’s have fun doing it.”

And he likes to jump up and down when he says it to really drive home the point.

When voice mail first came about, my son Russell began to personalize his outgoing message with the date and his loca- tion. I copied the idea, and updated my message each day with

51 Work Is Play, It’s Fun

what store I was going to be at, or when I was out and when I would return. But I’ve gone the next step and always try to give my message a little enthusiasm and energy, and maybe even a little something like, “Come down and see me in Timbuktu.” When associates leave messages for me, I often hear them chuckling in the background. I imagine they’re thinking, “What an upbeat and unusual message!”

You can also spice things up with fun challenges. Not long ago, Trish and Claire decided it was time to shed some winter weight. And so they wanted to have some fun with that. They announced a weigh-in. Everyone would contribute a modest sum to a pool and whoever achieved the largest percentage weight loss over a month’s time would claim the money—and hopefully not use it to go out for a six-course meal.

I love the story about Jack Kahl, when he was president of Manco, the duct tape maker that’s now part of the Henkel Group. He began an annual challenge that if the sales force hit its target, he would swim the width of the duck pond outside the company’s Ohio headquarters—and do it on a brisk day to boot. If the salespeople came up short, then they had to plunge into the water. Jack did the swim the first year, and didn’t mind it one bit. He was having fun, and so was everyone else.

So go for it! Work is play. So go play today! Have fun!