Mandatory Fun

I'm a fun guy. No, seriously, PhDs can be fun people. In the right setting. With the right atmosphere. And the proper phase of the moon.

There are things I like to do, things that keep me relaxed and help to recharge my batteries so that when I come back to work I'm better for it. I can do a better job and be happier about my work if I have something to help me take a break and take my mind off of it.

But what's fun for me isn't necessarily fun for you. And that's where "mandatory fun" can become a problem.

When you're in a leadership position you might feel compelled to come up with fun things for your employees to do. Maybe you want to help people relax, or perhaps you're encouraging team building, or maybe you want to bring everyone's families and significant others together. You might have picnics, ski trips, parties in the office, "rope courses," whitewater rafting, rock climbing, golf tournaments, or something else that you think would be fun. But just because YOU think it's fun doesn't mean anyone else does. And when you make this sort of thing mandatory you can lose a lot of the benefits you're hoping for.

Consider the goal of trying to help people relax and forget about work for a while. How easy is that to do when they're surrounded by other people from work? Even if you're out of the office, all of the office relationships still apply. What happens to that employee who's never picked up a golf club...will he be penalized when his bosses see his skills are more suited to Putt-Putt than to Bushwood Country Club? Probably not, but he can't know that for sure, so instead of helping him relax you're putting extra pressure on him. An office function still has the word "office" in there, so it's hard for people to really relax...even if you pick an event they'd normally enjoy, which isn't always the case. A group of Creatives will have very diverse interests, so finding something everyone finds enjoyable is going to be tricky.

How about team building? That's a good objective, particularly in creative fields like advertising or software development or other places where group work is necessary. But is an out-of-office event the best way to do that? I've always felt that the best way to build teams is to do it where it matters: in the workplace. If you need people to work well together then let them do that through work rather than through some artificial "team building" event. A lot of people resent the suggestion that they aren't professional enough to do what the job requires, so be careful about using some fun event to try to accomplish what you should be accomplishing in the workplace.

One of the favorite reasons for mandatory fun that I've heard in my career is that it provides a chance to get our families involved in our work environment. Well, so what? Is that necessarily a good thing? Is there some reason my kids need to play with my co-workers' kids rather than with the other kids in our neighborhood? (OK, I don't have kids, but if I did, the question would apply) I've met co-workers families and wondered, "what's the point?" If I'm not going to be seeing them regularly, what's the benefit of seeing them now? And if I do want to see them regularly, I don't need my boss to set that up, I'll just hang out with them on my own. Of course, the single employees without a current significant other, the gay employees who aren't yet "out" to everyone and don't feel they can bring their partner, and that employee who's in the middle of an ugly custody battle in an even uglier divorce, are all going to feel excluded, and that's not helpful at all.

None of this is to say that socializing within the workplace is a bad idea, but what IS a bad idea is forcing people to do it. Plenty of the people who work for you will want to spend time socially together, but they can do that on their own without your oversight. Lots of people will want to organize office outings and parties, but it's best to let them do that on their own so that your involvement as the boss doesn't make people feel pressured to participate. Office environments develop their own social culture, and trying to purposely create that culture through required events will advance that development...but possibly in a direction you don't like.