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After a decade of industry-wide downsizing, companies are finding poor morale to be a serious problem. This book presents a step-by-step programme for building an enthusiastic, high-performance team
Research has shown that when people actually enjoy their jobs they're more creative, more productive, and more committed to doing their job well. Featuring ideas generated by companies around the world that have successfully instilled fun into the workplace, "301 Ways to Have Fun at Work" is a complete resource anyone can use to create a dynamic workplace. Illus.
"I've lived by the motto, `Find something you love to do, and you'll never have to work a day in your life.' The Fun Minute Manager takes that concept to a whole new level in showing the boss how to help employees love what they do and enjoy going to work. If you don't have a `fun epiphany' reading this book, go back and read it again!"---Harvey Mackay, Author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive "Successful organizations have a clear vision of where they are headed. They understand what business they are really in. And, most importantly, they develop a culture that supports the vision and business, just as Southwest Airlines did. We hired attitudes that contained a humor and fun component and developed their skills. The Fun Minute Manager endorses that concept and gives you a flight plan on how to build a fun, productive and profitable culture."---Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, Speaker and Author "Rare indeed is a book a `perfect fit' for the time it is birthed. The authors have managed such a glove-to-hand fit with their thoughtful, penetrating, relevant invitation for every manager to fold in fun when work environments so need to find fun."---Bob Danzig, former CEO of Hearst Newspapers, and Author "In these tough and difficult times, The Fun Minute Manager is a perfect response to build staff morale and effectiveness. Bob Pike is the master of creative solutions that organizations can implement today! He, along with John and Robert, has put that creativity and more into this book. This is a must-read.'---Elliott Masie, Chairman of The Learning Consortium Meet Bob Workman. Bob likes his job. Bob likes his employees. Bob considers himself a good manager but senses low morale among his immediate staff members. In this easy-to-read business fable, a chance encounter transforms Bob's work life as he sets out to discover how fun can revolutionize a worksite and pay big dividends both in morale and return on investment. Bob discovers that a fun work environment---one which lifts people's spirits and reminds them of their value to their managers, their organization, and to each other---is a primary need among employees. He sets off on a quest to find ways to create a fun environment and develops a method to produce convincing evidence that creating a fun work environment is worth the time and effort for the company. While "fun" has not been viewed as a traditional responsibility of the manager, managers who care about their employees and their bottom line will find The Fun Minute Manager a great tool for actively engaging their employees and positively transforming their workplace. This book is concise, timely, and a rich resource of practical ideas.
Fun is the key to success! If you want to be successful, having fun is not an option. It's a necessity. By making fun a top priority—taking meaningful, enjoyable breaks each day, week, month, and year—you'll not only be happier but be more productive, too! Using scientific evidence, real-world case studies, and a healthy dose of wit, bestselling author Dave Crenshaw shows that a regular respite is like a little oasis in your workday. It refreshes and reinvigorates, recharges your batteries—helping you accomplish more with less effort! The Power of Having Fun coaches you through the five-step system thousands of leaders have utilized to boost productivity and propel their careers—all while feeling fantastic! Let Dave Crenshawlower your stress, raise your results, and restore recess to your routine.
From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together
A practical handbook for making management great again Managing for Happiness offers a complete set of practices for more effective management that makes work fun. Work and fun are not polar opposites; they're two sides of the same coin, and making the workplace a pleasant place to be keeps employees motivated and keeps customers coming back for more. It's not about gimmicks or 'perks' that disrupt productivity; it's about finding the passion that drives your business, and making it contagious. This book provides tools, games, and practices that put joy into work, with practical, real-world guidance for empowering workers and delighting customers. These aren't break time exploits or downtime amusements—they're real solutions for common management problems. Define roles and responsibilities, create meaningful team metrics, and replace performance appraisals with something more useful. An organization's culture rests on the back of management, and this book shows you how to create change for the better. Somewhere along the line, people collectively started thinking that work is work and fun is something you do on the weekends. This book shows you how to transform your organization into a place with enthusiastic Monday mornings. Redefine job titles and career paths Motivate workers and measure team performance Change your organization's culture Make management—and work—fun again Modern organizations expect everyone to be servant leaders and systems thinkers, but nobody explains how. To survive in the 21st century, companies need to dig past the obvious and find what works. What keeps top talent? What inspires customer loyalty? The answer is great management, which inspires great employees, who then provide a great customer experience. Managing for Happiness is a practical handbook for achieving organizational greatness.
A guide to gaining personal and professional success by putting the fun back into life - with a few laughs along the way. It addresses both business and personal issues that typically present themselves at home or in the office: stress, health, communication, parenting, conflict, meetings, hobbies, and even death.
Professional success, more often than not, means becoming a manager. Yet nobody prepared you for having to deal with messy tidbits like emotions, conflicts, and personalities—all while achieving ever-greater goals and meeting ever-looming deadlines. Not exactly what you had in mind, is it? Don't panic. Devora Zack has the tools to help you succeed and even thrive as a manager. Drawing on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Zack introduces two primary management styles—thinkers and feelers—and guides you in developing a management style that fits who you really are. She takes you through a host of potentially difficult situations, showing how this new way of understanding yourself and others makes managing less of a stumble in the dark and more of a walk in the park. Her enlightening examples, helpful exercises, and lifesaving tips make this book the new go-to guide for all those managers looking to love their jobs again.
Bob Nelson, author of the multimillion-copy bestseller 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, and human performance expert Mario Tamayo offer hundreds of practical, creative tips for helping employees—and their managers—make work more fun. According to the employees that work for firms listed in Fortune's “100 Best Companies to Work for in America,” the most defining characteristic of these organizations is they are all “fun” places to work. Fun is the secret sauce every business needs to better engage and motivate its employees today. Work Made Fun Gets Done! gives readers simple, practical ideas for instantly bringing fun into their work and workplace. Based on examples from scores of companies like Zoom, Pinterest, Bank of America, Zappos, Honda, Microsoft, and many more, this book provides clear examples of exactly what managers and employees alike can do to lighten the tone in the work environment and allow employees to have more fun at work. From AAA's “Dump a Dog” program where workers can pass their least-wanted project on to their manager and Houzz's complimentary office slippers to CARFAX's themed-wardrobe Zoom meetings and Google's company-approved Nerf-gun battles and paper airplane contests, you'll find dozens of ideas you can immediately adapt and implement in your own workplace. Work and fun have typically been considered polar opposites, but this book proves they can be integrated in ways that produce more motivated workers—and exceptional results.
Discover the latest scientific evidence for the potent and revitalizing value of fun and how to make having fun a habitual and authentic part of your daily life with “this well-researched and impressive guide” (BookPage). Doesn’t it seem that the more we seek happiness, the more elusive it becomes? There is an easy fix: fun is an action you can take here and now, practically anywhere, anytime. Through research and science, we know fun is enormously beneficial to our physical and psychological well-being, yet fun’s absence from our modern lives is striking. Whether you’re a frustrated high-achiever trying to find a better work-life balance or someone who is seeking relief from life’s overwhelming challenges, it is time you gain access to the best medicine available. “A masterful distillation of science and personal experience” (Nir Eyal, author of Hooked), The Fun Habit explains how you can build having fun into an actionable and effortless habit and why doing so will help you become a healthier, more joyful, more productive person. In the vein of Year of Yes, 10% Happier, and Atomic Habits, The Fun Habit features “practical tips, tools, and tactics for bringing fun into our lives starting now” (Dr. Olav Sorenson, UCLA professor of sociology).
