By Rob Peck
If you're looking at a continuum with high stress at one end and high zest on the other where would you place yourself? Most of us want to wind up as far from the high stress side as possible...for good reason. All of the stuff that makes work good (and fosters good work) happens at the opposite end. Plus, more zest equals less attrition.
Zest increases both our energy and our enjoyment; heightens our alertness, and improves our concentration. High energy translates into higher productivity. Heightened concentration results in heightened levels of performance.
High stress levels lead to burnout, absenteeism and disloyalty. When workers are over-stressed they under-perform and retention, both in terms of remembering key learning points and employee longevity, heads south in a hurry. Turnover bleeds the bottom-line. According to a recent survey by Lyle Spencer, "The cost to a company to replace and retrain a single employee is the equivalent of his or her full annual salary."
Here's the inescapable question: How can you shift your work environment so you and your colleagues feel less stressed and experience more zest? Part of the answer involves systematically implementing a right brain break into your largely left-brain day.
This can entail anything from deputizing a "joy gang" a la Ben & Jerry's, to hiring a "minister of mirth" like Monster.com, or simply scheduling a regular opportunity to re-energize via some form of outside the briefcase playful activity.
My personal approach is to establish a "zest-zone" in which participants are shown how to lower their stress level by learning to juggle... literally.
But I've also seen and heard of highly effective life-balance programs, which incorporate everything from swapping stories to recreating tribal communication by drum to switching roles in improv theater games.
A common thread that helps get people on board is humor. Anything that encourages more laughter simultaneously decreases stress and increases zest. Once we lighten up, we not only loosen up, we liven up our own and the energy levels of everyone around us.
As I like to say, "Laughter is like leavening. It helps heavy spirits rise!" Or to paraphrase William Shakespeare, "If music be the food of love, laughter is the best dessert"…and it's fat free!
Intuitively, most of us know that we need to lighten up. If the original sin was taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, then surely the most copied sin is the sin of taking ourselves too seriously.
When we sweat the small stuff we short-circuit our capacity to find alternative solutions. Worse, we short-change our imagination's knack for turning something bad into something better than we could have ever planned.
Fallibility is inevitable. But being able to find the flipside of failure and turn adversity into opportunity is a teachable skill. The trick is to retrain our brain to see mistakes less as millstones and more as milestones.
When we invite laughter to help us keep things in perspective, we discover that by staying loose, we also loosen up our creative thinking.
The history of break-through inventions shows a clear link between imperfection and innovation. From the discovery of America to the unexpected profitability of 3M's Post-Its, when fallibility strikes, fortune sparks! In the spirit of staying light, an acronym I like to use for this "happy accident" resourcefulness is W.H.O.O.P.S.
When Humans Overcome Obstacles, Providence Smiles. Or, as I like to imagine the late Jimmy Durante would have put it, "When spontaneity don't....serendipity do!"
Humor doesn't just help us be more resourceful, it helps us be more resilient. Burnout doesn't occur when someone's job allows them to have a healthy balance of focused effort and enjoyable rejuvenation.
To tweak the old truism: Companies that play together.... stay together! By building in ways to consistently ensure people's batteries get a chance to recharge, employers cultivate a workforce that shows up, stays up and hangs tight during hard times.
Instead of a staff that swears by the bumper-sticker "I used up all of my sick days... so I called in dead!" workers who are encouraged to take time in their job for something enjoyable like shared laughter, experience a strong sense of camaraderie. This carries over into feeling and behaving like they're all on the same team.
Challenges and deadlines are embraced by pooling resources and playing to people's strengths. Team spirit characterized by high trust and an empowering climate of mutual support brings out the best in everybody and makes work more pleasant - and more profitable.
Ultimately, the company that laughs together also crafts together a bond of loyalty and a legacy of success.
Rob Peck is the C.E.A. (Creative Education Advocate) of ZESTWORKS, a speaking, training and consulting firm, whose core mission is to help leaders and teams reduce Burnout and regain a better Life Balance.
ZESTWORKS' highly interactive programs on communication and creative team building are individually designed make content come alive by linking lessons with laughter.
Rob Peck loves to remind adults to play. His signature program, “Playing For Keeps,” shows how to use humor as a tool to consistently retain (rather than constantly retrain) key personnel. Rob can be reached at 800-597-5032 or on the web at www.zestworks.com.
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