I was recently listening to a podcast with Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant, and they got into a great discussion about having “fun” in your work. They disagreed initially, but as they unpacked it they ended up on the same page. The key was separating “shallow fun” and “deep fun”.
Daniel Coyle explained the difference quite well in this post, saying:
There are two types of engagement. The first type is shallow fun: when employees play games. The second type is deep fun — when employees take ownership of their experience inside the group.
Messing around and having a good time can be great, but won’t last. The key to success for employees (and the business as a whole) is inspiring more deep fun. Ultimately, as Daniel said, it comes down to allowing employees to take ownership of their experience. To me, that means giving more trust.
When it comes to work, I see trust as being the opposite of micro-management. If you trust people to do their jobs, then you can avoid micro-managing and they’ll be more likely to experience a degree of deep fun in what they do. This past year with the pandemic has forced a lot of companies to give more trust to their employees since most were having to work from home, and it seems that overall it’s gone well. It’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out in the coming years, but finding a way to let your employees take some ownership of what they do can lead to some wonderful outcomes.
