Recently I read two books that had interesting points of intersection. The first was The Power of Fun by Catherine Price, and the second was Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes. On a fundamental level, both books look at how you spend your time. Both books are working to present a new way of thinking about time management and “productivity.” Neither are explicitly business books, but we can learn a lot from applying these individualized approaches to staff training, development, and retention. With “quiet quitting” being a hot business topic, I think leaders could gain much insight from these two books.
Employees are looking for a work culture where they feel valued and respected. Most would argue that adequate compensation for their work is the most important thing. Still, another important factor is whether or not a place of work supports healthy boundaries and the ability to care for both your physical and mental health. I hope you will consider reading these books for yourself, but here is what I got from each of them that would be valuable takeaways for managers and leaders seeking better to provide these less tangible benefits to their teams.
The Power of Fun
The number one takeaway from Catherine Price’s book “The Power of Fun” is that genuine fun combines playfulness, connection, and flow, resulting in improved well-being, health, joy, creativity, and stronger relationships. The second was that what we think is fun – bingeing on television, doom-scrolling the news, or posting photos to social media – isn’t always fun and instead has been sold to us as fun but is more along the lines of passive consumption. Getting clear on what is truly “active” fun and what is merely something that we have been taught is fun is vital to living a fun life.
A significant shift in the workforce is happening where people realize what a large portion of their life is spent working or passively consuming content on their various screens. Employees are becoming more vocal about wanting work to be fun and trying to monitor passive screen time.
When discussing fun in the workplace, many often picture the lounge rooms of startup companies filled with ping-pong tables and all-you-care-to-eat snack bars. Instead, I genuinely believe that people are looking for authentic connection with others, the ability to work in a flow state, and playfulness, which comes from the ability to feel vulnerable and take risks with peers. With these things in mind, you might not need a big staff barbeque or a lounge filled with toys, but rather, you should invest in your ability for people to work collaboratively and ways they can get work done in a flow state where distractions are minimized. I think this quote by Price speaks well to her thesis and why we as leaders should nurture fun in the workplace:
“If you use True Fun as your compass, you will be happier and healthier. You will be more productive, less resentful, and less stressed. You will have more energy. You will find community and a sense of purpose. You will stop languishing and start flourishing. And best of all? You’ll enjoy the process.”
Catherine Price’s book “The Power of Fun”
Happier Hour
After reading The Power of Fun, I read Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes. I hoped that it would have more insight into how I can structure my life to allow for more fun. Many of the concepts were similar. Our most precious resource isn’t money. It’s time. We are allotted twenty-four hours a day and live in a culture that keeps us feeling “time-poor.” The book was born from the concepts that t UCLA Professor Cassie Holmes demonstrates in her popular MBA class. She illustrates to the reader through concrete actions how to immediately improve our lives by changing how we perceive and invest our time.
What I loved about this book is that she weives together personal stories with empirically based insights. I also enjoyed how Holmes can provide easy-to-implement tools. As a business leader, knowing that many seek to spend their hours optimally and feel confident in those choices is helpful to know. They want to sidestep distractions, create and savor moments of joy, design a purposeful schedule, and ultimately look back on their years without regrets. Supporting employees explicitly in working toward these goals will lead to less job dissatisfaction, less quiet quitting, and greater employee retention.
If you are ready to invest in staff training and development that supports the larger goals of your employees on how they use their time, please reach out and schedule a free exploration call with me.