The Case for Integrating Fun and Work Anyone who''s worked with contractors on a building project has a story; usually it''s a horror story. Contractors, these stories go, are a real pain. They tell you one thing and do another; they substitute materials; they move tradespeople arbitrarily from one job to another so there''s no continuity on your project. In short, working with contractors is not fun. Or so the stories go. My experience, however, is 180 different. My contractor story is a fun one and the payoff, the final product, is award-winning. And it''s different because in my story the contractors had fun at work.

It took me two years to find the right space for my new office. For the first five years of my business, I worked from my home (like many entrepreneurs) creating a very successful and profitable change-management consulting practice. Now I wanted to have my own, separate office space -- a space in which I could have employees and clients and fun. My requirements for this space included being downtown on the ground floor with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on trees -- not an easy task in Cleveland, Ohio. But I persevered. The space I eventually found was connected to a city park and had the windows I needed. Inside the space, however, were rooms and walls and doors. Because of the kind of the business I''m in, one that places high value on the free flow of ideas and information, I wanted a special space that would embody those principles.

To me, that meant it had to have no rooms, no offices, no head-of-the-table, no hierarchy. Fortunately, Bill Mason, the architect who was assigned to me by the building owner, understood my ideas and was able to develop my vision into a physical reality. The successful birth of my new office space depended on the creation of a good plan, and the plan that Bill created was perfect. All we needed to be successful now was a good midwife. We needed a contractor. Because this was my first ''real'' office space, and because it was a unique, non-traditional design, and because I''m a naturally involved and enthusiastic person (some even call me a Hokey-Pokey Person but that''s another story), I visited the site twice daily; once in the morning to ask the contractor and tradespeople what was planned for the day, and once in the evening to check on the progress. Because my work with clients deals constantly with organizational 4development, I was acutely aware that everyone works better when someone''s interested in what they''re doing and when they''re praised for their performance and their results. I was prepared to provide that.

At the end of one working day, as the space changed from wires and nails and dust into something that began to resemble the dream I had in my head of my new work home, I found myself really excited with the day''s results. I was filled with exuberance and sudden, uncontrollable energy and, like some character from a Jules Fieffer cartoon, I decided to do ''A Dance of Done Well.'' But instead of just performing this impromptu jig by myself I asked the three contractors present to join me. And somewhat to my surprise, they did. Visualize one blonde lady in a dress, a man wearing paint-spattered bib overalls, and two men in jeans with tool belts around their waists holding hands and dancing in a circle. You now have a picture of ''The Dance of Done Well.'' Over the course of the next several weeks, this impromptu experience developed into a ritual. In the mornings, I would meet with the craftsmen onsite and discuss what they were going to accomplish that day; in the evenings we would celebrate their accomplishments with a dance.

If the day''s project was drywall, for example, in the evening we celebrated with ''The Dance of Drywall Done Well.'' The days that followed became a lot of fun for everyone involved. The work of the day was enthusiastically anticipated by each tradesman and results were at the highest level of accomplishment. Because of these daily dances, each individual contractor and craftsman strove to do their best work -- work that would be worthy of a dance of celebration. The space was becoming my dream. Finally, the office was completed enough for me to move in but, as in many building experiences, there were still a few last-minute details to be handled. On this particular day, two seasoned and highly conservative electricians showed up to install the gallery-style lighting for the sculpture that was commissioned for our office. I explained to them why the sculpture was important to me and our company, what it represented, and how I envisioned this work of art affecting the clients who came into our space.

The two men understood and declared that they''d give the project their utmost attention, and then they said to me, "You aren''t going to make us dance, are you?" I was amazed. In the contracting community in Cleveland, I had apparently become known as ''the lady who makes you dance.'' I smiled and laughed and told them I wouldn''t make them dance but asked them if it was okay if I got excited when they were done. They allowed as that would be all right and went to work. By noon they had finished and I inspected their work and they showed me how the switches worked and how to change the bulbs when they burned out, no easy task in a space with 14-foot ceilings! I thanked them profusely and shook their hands. This was the point at which I expected them to leave. They had performed their best work and they had been praised for it. All the structures and requirements of the work relationship had apparently been fulfilled.

Instead, they stood at the door, silent and expectant, looking alternately at their work and at 5me. After several seconds of this waiting, one of them looked me in the eye and said, "Aren''t you going to ask us to dance?" I had discovered an essential truth about what makes work valuable: Work Needs Fun. If there isn''t fun in work, if there isn''t enjoyment, work doesn''t mean as much to the workers. So, what did we do? We danced. THE FUSION OF WORK AND FUN we experienced while building my new office space created a working relationship which all the members of the process valued highly. Not only was it a peak experience for the individuals involved, but the outcome of our work created a peak result: the space was gorgeous. The reality exceeded my dreams. Together, we had created something greater than the sum of its parts.

The fusion of fun and work also has bottom-line value: our office space was awarded the AIA Ohio Design Award of Honor and the IBD-CID Award of Merit. To my way of thinking, these awards are the visible, tangible, outside confirmation that fun works. And it works well! My new space also allowed me to attract and retain employees and clients whose values were in alignment with mine. Because my workspace so perfectly represented my energy and values, people who entered it for the first time would immediately feel comfortable and energized themselves -- or they wouldn''t! Either way, I now had a first-line screening tool to help me select people who would best improve my business. My contractor story is one example of how when fun and work are successfully integrated both the process and the resultant product are improved. IF WORK AND FUN ARE BEST WHEN integrated, how did we get to the current state where the common perception is that fun is an add-on? That the only time we are allowed to have fun is after work is over; that the only way we can have fun is to earn it through hard work? Work hasn''t always been perceived in this way; work and the perception of work have changed and evolved. As you can see from The Timeline of Work Attitudes, work has evolved from Aristotle''s ''work is for slaves'' to Calvin''s ''work is a commandment;'' from ''work is a virtue'' to ''work is who I am.'' We adopt the attitude toward work that our parents taught us; or we assimilate the attitude currently held by the strongest influence: our peer group or our employer.

For many of us, work has become who we are. It is how we define ourselves. Unfortunately, that often means that work is life without fun, without friends, without family. In The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work, Joanne B. Ciulla says ".work sometimes substitutes for the fulfillment we used to derive from family, friends, religion, and community. One of the first things Americans do when they meet someone new is say, ''What do you do for a living?''" Regardless of where society happens to be on the work-life timeline, it is possible to intentionally adopt individual elements into the current prevailing attitudes. Specifically, it is possible to reintegrate fun into our work.

I say reintegrate because for long periods of time fun and 6 image 7 image 8work co-existed. During the agricultural age, for example, work songs helped turn dreary tasks and repetitive actions into activities that, if not fun, at least contained an element of anticipation and comfort. If they had to work, at least they could sing while they did it. Barn raisings were changed from a task impossible for one or two people into a picnic-style community event during which barns seemed to be born full-grown in a single day. The element of fun turned an impossible task into an anticipated one, one at which friends, family, and neighbors worked side by side for the common good, caught up on old times, and shared food with one another. Vestiges of this behavior can be seen today when groups of people get together on a Saturday to clean up a ball diamond, paint a senior citizen''s house, or build a playground. Throughout history, there are ma.