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Fun is the Icing on the Cake of Business

The Plain Dealer --
By: Leslie Yerkes

Dave Barry says it's the worst song in the world, but "McArthur Park" has an interesting metaphor that I have adapted to the whole concept of fun at work--cake.

You have heard the cliches--You can't have your cake and eat it, too; It's a piece of cake; and Let them eat cake. In my recent speeches and lectures on "301 Ways to Have FUN at Work," I have started to use the cake from McArthurs' Park as a metaphor; only I believe I will have that recipe again and I can use it with great success over and over again as often as I choose.

Every business, like every cake, needs a specific recipe. If you used the same, generic recipe all the time, all cake would taste the same and all businesses would be IBM. Or Joe's Grill, depending on the recipe! But even though the recipes vary, the recipes for a successful business all have the same basic ingredients (like cake has flour, water, and eggs).

In business, the primary ingredients are: Attention to quality, customer service attitude, fiscal responsibility, and creating systems to support success. These are the basic building blocks for creating your business, your cake. Regardless of what you do, these are the elements you need to consider and incorporate to achieve the success you deserve. And once you apply these ingredients in the correct amount, it's time to think about the icing.

If you're like me, you eat cake for the icing. There's nothing better than thick fudge frosting on top of devil's food cake. Nearly every cake in the world tastes even better with icing.

You know icing is important to people. How many times have you seen someone stick a finger in the icing? The downside of this, however, is that nothing but icing can make you sick. There's nothing to support all that sugar.

Fun at work is like icing on the cake. If you add fun to the recipe that makes up your business, you'll soon discover that your employees have much more interest in work than they did before. And that you, too, will find that work "tastes" better.

Like icing, however, too much fun and not enough work can make your business "sick." Moderation in both fun and icing is a requirement.

Like a good cake decorator, the more effort you put into your icing of fun, the more attractive the cake. Here's how to get your business cake frosted with fun:

First, make a good plan. Cake decorators know before they start what the icing will look like. They know if they will be adding roses, what color the icing will be, if they will use piping, and other things like that. Before you start having fun at work, decide what kind of fun would be appropriate, when to have it, and how long it should last.

Should your fun be physical? Should it be mental? Should it happen at a specific time? When? Without a plan, you don't know what kind of cake you're building or what kind of fun you're having. Second, put your plan into action. If you think about fun and you don't actually schedule a fun break or activity and make it happen, that's about as satisfying as thinking about cake with icing and eating Brussels sprouts instead. Like Nike ads say, "Just do it." If you don't do it, who will?

Third, evaluate your plan. This is the part of the process that most people forget about. To maximize your efforts, now and in the future, you have to evaluate what happened. You need to know not only what happened but what you would do differently the next time and what you would do better.

Once you know those things, you can go back to your plan and modify it based on your findings. And then the next time you have planned fun at work, you'll discover that everyone actually enjoyed it better.

And when you get really good at frosting the cake of business with the icing of fun, you'll also discover that you're starting to have really good fun throughout the day without any planning whatsoever.

That's as close as you can get to having your cake and eating it, too!