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Summation Push
Auren Hoffman's Summation
Push for the week of October 4, 1999
This issue:
* Fun = Productivity
* Summation Push Pick Links
* Hoffman Reading List
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This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on 10/12/99:
Generation X-led Companies are More Fun AND More Productive
By Auren Hoffman
Generation Xers are no longer the slackers portrayed in Douglas Copeland's
1992 novel "Generation X." Today, people of our generation are
running companies and driving the new economy.
Generation X is the generation that has been responsible for the Internet
boom -- the largest wealth creation of all time. We've done it through hard
work, ingenuity and good sense, but we've also brought something new into the
workplace: fun.
We didn't invent fun. Fun has been around for many millennia. Fun is older
than Pac-Man, Scrabble, football and the whoopee cushion. It probably started
thousands of years ago, when the first caveman invented the game
"telephone" before there even was a telephone.
Companies run by Generation Xers have used fun to create an unprecedented
productivity gain. Most Boomer-led companies have yet to incorporate fun into
their culture (and probably never will) and are therefore suffering from
productivity and ingenuity losses.
At my company, BridgePath.com, we have a good time all the time. At any
moment people might start a squishy-ball fight, a spontaneous game of hockey
in the halls or an elaborate prank pulled on a co-worker. It would be hard to
ask someone to pull an all-nighter on a marketing document or on bug-testing
a new feature if they weren't having fun.
Boomer companies attempt to have fun, but almost everything fun has to be
planned because they feel it will be too "disruptive." Fun is
disruptive -- that's the point! It is important to break up a day with
something unexpected and enjoyable. Even though planned events sometimes make
for a good time, they often turn into scenes from Dilbert.
Boomer companies have cake for co-worker birthday parties, BridgePath.com and
other Gen X companies have a huge pinata attached to the rafters of the
ceiling.
Boomer companies have coffee and tea, Gen X companies have Tang, beer and
Mountain Dew. At BridgePath.com, we make meetings more bearable by building
LEGO structures and making Play-Doh art. Music fills our office and people
dress any way they please. Last week, we spent our lunch painting clay pots
for other co-workers and planting flower seeds to watch them grow during the
next year.
Some activities, like after-work happy hours, still appeal to all
generations. But while Boomer companies have Thank Goodness It's Friday
(TGIF), BridgePath.com has So Happy It's Thursday (the acronym we use is not
appropriate for a family newspaper).
BridgePath.com is not the exception. We're not the only ones that have a
super time while working (though we like to think that we have the most fun).
Many companies led by Generation X managers think of fun as a strategic
weapon -- a way to get more out of employees, get greater productivity and
attract the best talent.
People at Gen X companies work hard because they want to work hard. At
BridgePath.com, our employees work hard, but there is no one forcing them. We
work hard because we enjoy it. No employee is going to stand for
whip-cracking anymore. The job market is too good. If a company is not
enjoyable, today's employee will find a new home. Work is where you spend
most of your waking hours, so it should be enjoyable.
The "strategic advantage" of fun is even apparent when Generation
X-led companies recruit new employees. Remember the job fairs you used to
attend in hotel conference rooms? Boring job fairs attract boring people and
boring companies. Those job fairs are dead --killed by a new type of job fair
promoted by my company. Wiping the slates clean, we produce extreme job fairs
at fun venues like the Exploratorium and at "Day of Decadence,"
Channel 104.9's '80s concert revival. Yeah, a job fair at a concert!
These new events attract new companies and top candidates. But companies
can't just sit behind a booth and attract top talent like they did in the
olden days. These companies must prove to prospective employees that they are
cool. At a Bridgepath.com job fair you will see Entango, a new start-up,
hosting a full wet bar, or Trapezo bringing clowns on stilts and jugglers to
draw attention to their company. Our job fairs feature companies like Topica
(with a live DJ spinning records), GetRelevant (highlighting "It's a
Start-Up" in baby colors), and other firms raffling off $100. Firms even
bring their bean bag chairs to the show, and peg unsuspecting passers- by
with Nerf toys.
Many people think that fun and productivity are inversely proportional.
However, the opposite is true -- there is a direct correlation with fun and
workplace productivity. Generation X-led companies tend to be the most fun
and the most productive. They have generated a greater percentage of wealth
creation than any other type of company over the last four years.
Then there are other industries, and where they fall on the productivity
ladder. As you might expect, prison workers have the least fun and are the
least productive (granted, there are probably other factors that contribute
to this). Government might be a safe place to work, but it is rarely fun and
thus ranks lower on the productivity cycles. Really fun places like
entertainment companies and Generation X-led start-ups lead the pack in
productivity.
There is such a thing as having too much fun, though. If you finger paint and
have nap-time every day like in nursery school, your productivity might go
down a bit (but you might still be more productive than if you are working
for the government or a Fortune 500 company).
However, like any rule, exceptions apply. You don't have to be a Generation
Xer to enjoy a Gen X- led company. Everyone likes to have fun while working.
Some large corporations, such as Southwest Airlines, really get it and have
consistently supplied the best service with high returns while their
employees and customers have a lot of fun.
Gen X managers didn't pioneer fun in the workplace, but they skillfully
adopted it and made it one of their core management values. Some big-name
blue-chip companies were founded on the premise of fun. When Hewlett and
Packard founded HP out of their Palo Alto garage, they made sure to have fun.
Robert Noyce always had a good time at Intel and helped institute a no-doors
policy that exists today (Intel's current CEO, Craig Barrett, works in a
cubicle). Even in the early 1900s, the age of the anti-fun assembly line,
people like Edison and his staff always had a good time.
Though you won't find the "fun quotient" in a McKinsey study or in
a management guru book now, you probably will in a few years. Within the next
two to three years, there will be classes in top business schools focused
solely on fun. Button-down managers from all over the world will be
interviewing triple- pierced Gen X leaders on how to have fun in the
workplace.
The problem is that there is no easy formula for fun. You can't say 1 stereo
+ 2 pinatas + 3 pranks + 4 Atari 2600 games = FUN. By the time Boomers figure
it out, most of them will be in retirement. And the next generation will
develop management styles that will surpass ours.
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Thought: Why is it so easy to get illegal drugs in jail?
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THIS WEEK'S SUMMATION PUSH PICK LINKS:
* Zipple.com (http://www.Zipple.com) - portal for Jewish people (tells you
how to get a bargain, where to find a good bagel, and how to meet a nice
Jewish girl).
* Tree Loot - (http://www.treeloot.com/) -- this is a VERY smart way of
getting ad revenue.
* Get a Free House now! -- (http://www.summation.net/freehouses/)
-- Is free stuff getting ridiculous? Get a free house.
* What am I reading? The Hoffman Reading List (http://www.summation.net/reading.html)
NOTE: Auren Hoffman works
for BridgePath.com but the opinions
expressed herein are solely those of Mr. Hoffman.
NOTE: You may reprint in
full or in part (for free) with permission from author.
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