Sometimes you and your team need to put in the extra time to get a product release done, or meet another deadline. However, when everyone is working long hours for a long time, the stress levels build and burn-out is a likely result. What's a manager to do?
One of my colleagues, Sam, worked for a large nonprofit in New York, where he was CIO and later the COO. One of the things he did from time to time was hold an executive carnival, with events for front-line employees and managers, who were the sponsors of the games.[1]
For example, on St. Patrick's Day they had a cabbage bowling event, The large heads of cabbage were the bowling balls, and the pins were empty beer bottles (no doubt from the last event.) Managers were in charge of setting up the "pins" and returning the "balls." Everyone laughed and had fun together.
Not only did it relieve the stress in their workplace, it built a stronger sense of being on the same team. It was a bonding event that people would talk about often, saying "remember when we...".
So when you're going through a tough time, the challenge is to think about what are the things you can do to increase the positive atmosphere. You don't want to be artificial and you want to acknowledge that you all may be going through a tough time. But you want to communicate that this is a good place to work, this is a place where people care, people do things together. And they know how to have fun. |