WARP Speed Leadership

EP03 - Should you be having fun at work? what does that even mean?? PLUS Welcome Darryl!!!

• Richard Parton

Share episode

Episode Title: Should we be having fun at work? What does that even mean? PLUS Welcome Darryl!

In this episode of WARP Speed Leadership, hosts Richard Parton, Nikki Tugano, and new co-host Darryl Wright discuss the concept of happiness and fun at work. They explore what it means to create enjoyable and meaningful workplace experiences, drawing on practical examples and research-based insights. The conversation covers innovative approaches to measuring workplace happiness, including happiness check-ins Darryl uses at Organa, and examines the psychological definitions of happiness. The hosts also share strategies for leaders to improve team engagement, motivation, and performance through connection, autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Key Discussion Sections:
00:00:19 Introduction of co-hosts Nikki Takano and new addition Darryl Wright
00:01:33 Darryl’s introduction and vision for helping organizations
00:05:48 Organa’s unique approach to measuring business success through happiness
00:13:08 Nikki’s perspective on different types of happiness at work
00:16:15 Why happiness at work matters
00:20:06 Darryl’s strategies for improving team motivation and engagement
00:23:02 Nikki’s insights on addressing workplace dissatisfaction and stress
00:24:28 Summary of key factors for team motivation and engagement

Recommended Resources:
1. Measuring Workplace Happiness: PERMAH workplace profile, Happiness at work short scale

2. the CRISP DNA Framework

3. Gallup research: ‘the great detachment’, U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low. 

4. Self-Determination Theory and how to use it

Richard:

Hi, and welcome to WARP Speed Leadership, a podcast about everything you need to know to be an incredible leader and enable your team to thrive in this hyper fast world. new world of work. I'm your host Ricky Parton. In this episode, we're looking at the question. What does happiness in work mean? Uh, what does it mean to have fun at work? Do they matter? And so, yeah, we're going to unpack that we're coming to you from Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia. And today I am very excited to be joined by two co hosts. So first up you're first in your bag of. remembered from previous episodes. Nikki Takano is the founder and CEO of Scene culture who. are at the Moneyball for work teams. And we have a new person to introduce, which is Darryl Wright. He is a director. At Organa, he's an organizational agility coach and trainer. I have known Darryl for many years And, that was, is awesome in both his ability to get ideas across and to get organizations and leaders on board he actually has an incredible background, both in science and, as an entrepreneur, but he's also a really lovely person. Sorry to you there a little bit Darryl. Uh, welcome Darryl to the, to the team. We're super excited to have you on board. Um, is there anything, what did I miss? Uh, is there anything else that you, would say to people, how do you introduce yourself at like, a, I don't know. A uh, a barbecue or, um, I don't know, like A meet and greet with a client or something.

Darryl:

Uh, well, thank you, Richard, for that lovely introduction. I'm really excited to be here. I'm Really looking forward. to joining the Warp Speed Leadership podcast. Uh, how I introduce myself to people at a barbecue is very different to a client at a barbecue, I would probably just tend to say, I'm the Tong master, um, so I'm happy to cook. at a client site, I tend to say that, uh, my vision, my guiding purpose is I love to help leaders and teams and organizations to know that they can be both more successful and more humane at the same time. We don't have to give up one to get the other. We can have both. And that's, that's the big thing that I like to do. So I'm really excited. about this.

Richard:

Yeah, yeah, Absolutely. I could not agree more with that with that statement. Well, Well, look, we try to keep these relatively short. So today we picked this one topic, of happiness and fun at work. It is. Totally Darrell's fault. because we were talking about, how do we measure success for this podcast? And, I was saying, look, to begin with. Let's measure it by our our enjoyment. Um, because I think that if we're doing something that we enjoy, hopefully that will be enjoyable to listen to. And other things will flow from that. We might have other metrics down the track. Darrell then asked. A A very, very tiny question. Like, so, uh, how do you measure that? And of course with the background, Nikki's background and mine. We were sort of thinking. Well, we should know how to answer that, but it's actually incredibly difficult. And then, you know, you put yourself in the shoes of, uh, just, you know, Folk at work. These days we're, all supposed to be having fun at work. We sort of hear all this stuff about how it's supposed to be helping us to feel happy. But I think. That's really hard to know. What it means and why we should care If you don't quite know what you're talking about. Um, everybody has slightly different definitions. And you know, From my background, I think about it from, a well being psychology, perspective. and if you ask me on a particular day in a particular context, I might reel off some scientific definitions, around happiness at work, I might point you to. some of the happiness at work scales, um, that have been developed including at the university of Melbourne here. But I have to admit that in reality. I actually take a very different approach. So I work with a lot of teams where, very often. Helping the team to feel. Better. about their work He's actually something that I'd make a core part of the piece. Very often goal is not actually a client saying, I want this team to be happier. They might say, we'd like to improve engagement scores. But more often, they're actually saying we want this team to operate well. And, because the research does point in that direction. One of the foundational elements for me is understanding motivation. And, how people are feeling about their work and. As a general rule, I'm then going, if I can move the dial on those things, then I would expect the team to be improving as well. But I don't use, I tend not to use the scientific measures. There are all sorts of amazing, surveys that you can use. But I tend to just ask people. On a scale of you know, zero to five or zero to 10. You know, how do you feel. Right. And, I might, I would try to ask that over time, like sort of, how you're doing today? And what would take you from wherever you are now to one step up the, the scale. And then, probably I'd ask like a week later or a couple of weeks later so that, we can see whether or not we're moving the dial for people on average. So I know, Daryl, at Organa. You have a particularly interesting orientation to measuring outcomes. At work. do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?

Darryl:

Yeah. I'd love to because I think it's a really interesting and novel and different approach to doing business for most businesses. Their measure of success is financial. You know, are we increasing the amount of revenue Uh, often? Are we decreasing our cost Um, and therefore what's happening to our profit and therefore how much are we paying shareholders and it's it's all financial. Uh, so the Orana business model is actually a, clone, of, a model that arose out of, Europe, uh, a decade or two ago, um, called crisp. They, they made their, their DNA, the way they operate publicly available on GitHub. You can fork off your own copy. Uh, and uh, and that's exactly what we've done. And one of the, the things is that this business model arrived out of a thought experiment, and I'm a massive. fan of thought experiments I'm a, I'm a massive fan of Einstein's approach to sciences. As you said, I'm also a scientist at heart. Um, And this. thought experiment simply some of the best thought experiments are so simple in their premise. The premise was how would a business look any if it was based on the agile mindset, the agile philosophies and values instead of a traditional financial, you know, uh, you know, foundation.

Richard:

Mm.

Darryl:

and out of that thought experiment. came, well, maybe money isn't the only important thing. Maybe it's not even the most important thing. Uh, maybe it would actually be more of a side effect. Uh, and anyone that knows anything about new ways of working, knows that, uh, you know, we live in a world of trade offs now. Uh, things are not just black and white and binary. It's, it's really about, well, if we trade off some of this to get That is that a good trade off in the circumstances and even the agile manifesto itself is expressed in terms of, you know, value statements that are this over that, that, know, there's value in, in planning and documenting things, but there's more value in getting stuff done and into the hands of our customers, uh, and responding and embracing change, that sort of stuff. So so this was very much. the same. It was like, well, maybe. Uh, finances is one. of those things that it's, Um, you know, there's value in that, of course, but maybe that's a side effect. And if it, if it is, what's a side effect of, uh, and so that led to the idea of maybe what we want to measure is fun and happiness and joy and engagement in our people and our customers. And if that. Were the case, then maybe the finances would, would occur, you know, would follow. Yeah. Um, so that's what we do. Um, at Orana we have a, um, a, a, fortnightly check-in, Uh, right. every Friday morning we all come together, uh, and we have a spreadsheet, uh, where we keep track of all of our happiness scores. Um, we ask ourself, we've got a a a, Interestingly enough, exactly what you said on a scale of zero to five. Um, uh, and, and we asked four different questions. How happy are we overall with, uh, Organa? How happy are we with our tasks within So internal. And then how happy are we looking externally with our engagement with our clients, or if we're not. in a client engagement at the moment, then with our bench pipe situation. Um, and then lastly, how equitable does it feel? feel? So thinking about our different community members, you know, we give, And does that all feel fair and, equitable? Um, and so when we measure our happiness across those four different questions, we then average them to get an individual score. And then we average them across every person in the community to get an average score for the whole community. Uh, and then we track that. over time, every fortnight, and we have done for many, many years. Uh, and we graph it, and we look at the overall trend. Is it trending up? Is it trending down? And when we discuss the success of the community, how it's how it's going, that's what we use as our, as uh, as the focus of our, our talking point. Um, not, you know, did we make more money than we made last year? Um, it's are we increasing the happiness of ourselves? And and we've recently. branched out to starting to ask our customers, our clients as well. You know, how happy are you, you know, with the service that we provide? How happy are you that we are providing value for money? You know, how happy? are you with the the relationship that we have between Organa and and the customer. Um, and so, Uh, we're going to be again using that same zero to five scale. Um, That's how we're doing. it internally uh, at Organa. And and we would love to See more people, you know, experiment with this sort of thing because, um, you know, as I said, my personal mission, but, but I think with a lot of people, um, I'm seeing that there is a movement for people looking to not just be more financially successful, but also to be, you. know, better morale levels, better engagement levels, more humanity, more fun, um, at work.

Richard (2):

And

Darryl:

one of the most amazing opportunities or examples, I guess I've seen of this just recently. So I'm a massive game. I love playing games, board games, role playing games, video games, the whole lot. Um, I love them all. And, uh, recently there's been a very, very successful game. Um, I'm going to. call it out here by name, uh, Baldur's Gate 3. And the, um, incredible success of this game, people have been asking them, why? Why is it so successful when so much. of the industry is being laid off? So many studios are folding, Like what's going on. And the, the head of the studio has come out and, you know, quite courageously, I think, called out, this is not hard. guys. You know, why does this message keep getting lost? What are games for? Why do we play games as human beings? We engage in games for one reason. It's fun, right? It's meant to be fun. to play games. That's what they're for. That is their purpose. And so if we want games to be fun when they're played, the people who make them. should be having fun, too, because if they're not making fun? when they're making the game, how is the result going to be fun, right? If they are making a game that they would want to play, they're having fun in creating it. The end result is going to reflect that that's how they were, and so it's going to be fun, and then people are going to enjoy it, and going to be loyal and sticky, and all those great things that that flow on from that. Yeah,

Richard:

you know, that know, in in well. I mean, time I I was actually working on a, uh, it's kind of a finance system. but the teams that were enjoying what they were doing. We're doing well. I was working in particular with one team that were having a quite challenging time. And, the lens I use with them was not so much fun directly. but it was more like working on their strengths. to of help them understand because they were in a bit of a difficult domain. But as they got better at working together as a team. their, their sense of enjoyment of the work increased. And you could see how that was like rocket fuel to their product because they were so they were so frustrated with. How the situation had been, it was a really nice unlock for them. I just want to bring, Nikki in at this point as well. because we've talked a bit there around some of the real world, ways that we might deploy thinking about happiness and fun. opposed to, some of the measures that that's not to say the measures that, not useful. they're super useful, I use them at. Different times, What's your perspective, Nikki, on on both the measure. of fun versus happiness and how they're different and how to make them count the workplace.

Nikki:

Yeah. thanks. Um, before I offer my perspective, um, recognize how cool it was to see Daryl talk about, like fun and happiness at work in terms of how they apply it, but then also actually genuinely see it embodied in the way that he's actually, sharing it. So that was was really cool. Uh, my perspective on this, Um, I will draw upon it. my background in positive psychology, and I know Richard that you're familiar with a lot of this, but Oftentimes. when we think about, uh, these concepts and and why I feel that there is largely a lot of different interpretations as to what this means for people is because, perceive it differently and experience it differently. And and so for me, it comes down to, like, aligning on Well, will, um, what is our is our definition of what this means? now, when we look. at happiness and and I'll use the more scientific lens, there's broadly speaking, there's two these two camps. There's What we would identify. as hedonic happiness. Um, which is specifically A little bit more. focused on like, a pursuit of pleasure, um, and, positive emotions and, um, trying to avoid pain, friction, uh, or any of those those things. And There's this other other camp to as eudaimonic happiness, which is more related to feeling a greater sense of meaning of purpose of growth and of authenticity. And what's interesting is that I feel as though, Um, in a lot of typical landscapes, we tend to refer to happiness more from a hedonic perspective. But But I see it is, uh, it's often Recognize through experiencing some sort of positive emotion. That said, I believe that, um, emotions are fleeting, you know, that they're not stable, and they're not necessarily the thing that engages us to Really. drive, uh, making the most kind of, um, like impact at work. And sometimes it's Those hard times or the hardship and challenges that we experience that that actually drive quite a lot of that, engagement or meaning and purpose. And, uh, and they're the things that I personally, Really. try and, Bring a little bit more attention to. It's not so much as about how do we make sure everyone is feeling good. I'm not, I'm not here to do that. I'm more. here to make sure that you grow. More than I am to make sure you feel good.

Richard:

Yeah. I love it. So, that was a really nice way of connecting. A lot of the underlying. Things that we're referring to before, I think that it also links nicely To the, why does it matter?

Richard (2):

There's a

Richard:

question because, you know sure. Feeling the hedonic. The fleeting emotional sensations, I mean, they're, they're useful. They're great. Um, we. can, We can talk about why they're useful. They have benefits beyond just the moment. that actually, as you say, the things that have deeper resonance and can carry us through. Often the more challenging times. And I don't know about you, but many of the things that I look back on the most fondly. They weren't necessarily like. they they had hard bits. They had, you know, times when you just thought, how on earth are we going to get through? And often it's the overcoming those things that actually makes something feel like, wow, that was actually an achievement. So let's round this off then just by talking a little bit about why does it matter? The. So what, and and I'll just reframe this up a little bit. By talking about a couple of, um, really interesting surveys. by gallop, they put out a couple of papers I'll put the links in the show notes. They put out a couple of, articles recently, from surveys they've been doing. And they they're referring to this moment in time where we're at right now in Early. 2025, As being what they're calling the great detachment. So there are a lot of, people who are feeling a lot more disengaged than previously in their work. Another piece from Gallup was talking about how, engagement, Levels. Particularly in the U S are at a 10 year low at the moment. And there's lots of research, linking engagement to things like productivity, retention, that kind of thing. So there are lots of people out there and probably. Many of the people who would be listening to this. Who that would resonate with where, either they're seeing that their own. sense of Connection to work or the level of engagement is lower, or they're finding that their team members perhaps. Are also you know, just not as connected. So. Why does happiness matter? Like why should we care and what can we do about it? I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to Nikki, first up, because I know that we've spoken about this. A fair bit.

Nikki:

yeah. I feel like there's mutual benefit both at an individual personal level, and then also to, at a commercial and, business outcomes level, and, I feel like Daryl really alluded to this in that if if you have people that. Enjoy the work that they do. They want to be there because they are, having fun that they're because they're really happy because the work that they're doing is meaningful. It's purposeful. They feel like they're growing. Then Ultimately what that's really. unlocking. is people's intrinsic motivation to put energy into the work that they're doing, which. You know, as we've seen, and certainly it's demonstrated in the research, certainly has a positive impact on performance and productivity and So I feel like it goes. There's mutual benefit. you know, both ways to individuals and to organizations.

Richard (2):

Hmm.

Richard:

Yeah. And Daryl. I know that you're definitely one of my go to people as a practitioner in terms of helping workplaces or teams to. To operate in a better way that actually does, does foster that sort of, People feeling good about their work. What are your go to's for like a manager comes to you and says, my team are just really disconnected. and,, motivation's motivations low, I don't know what to do. what would be the things that you would do, you would say like, okay, this is where we start.

Darryl:

Uh, such an awesome question, Richard. some of my absolute starting point go to is there is how do we get the teams into a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious cycle? how do we get them experiencing themselves as a success, which builds confidence, builds a hunger to feel more of that success feeling? That builds them into a virtuous cycle rather than set them up to fail. They experience disappointment and failure that dents their confidence, which makes them more hesitant to commit next time, which sends them into a vicious cycle. Eso that's one of the key things. Second thing is You know, how can we empower the team? How can we give them some autonomy? Delegate to them some decision making, especially around decisions where they've got better up to date local contextual information, which means they're going to make better decisions anyway than someone else making it on their behalf that doesn't have access to that same level of information. So it's actually better for the organization for these people in these teams to make those decisions because they get better outcomes. And it's better for the teams because they then feel like they matter. Uh, and, and they have autonomy and they, they feel, um, more engaged and it gives better outcomes for customers. And, uh, because they've ended up making better decisions because they've had the up to date information. So it's a win, win, win. Um, so that's another big one. for me is that delegation and then how do we give them, a little bit of space, a little bit of time to do something that celebrates their success, it gives them an opportunity to go and You know, throw axes at the wall or shoot each other at paintball or something, you know, where they get to go. Do you know what? We smashed it this week. We got everything done We're supposed to do. Let's go. and celebrate with a drink and get to know each other and form those team cohesion bonds. I believe is going to do more for their longterm improvement and increase in productivity than just doing another piece of work at 4 30 on a Friday afternoon. You know what I mean?

Richard:

Yeah, absolutely. The team that I was working with recently. They were not feeling great in part. because of stress levels., but then when we started talking about how are they managing their work. The philosophy was well, we've got a lot of work to do. We've just got to get things done. And they had gone from, when they could all get together physically. They had fun together as a team, just naturally they would chat, they connected everything, but then as they'd gone more online and the team had grown and. become more, international. Those things that have made things fun got sort of squeezed out and they just weren't making that time. And, not seeing that. Well, actually, there's a productivity game That you'll actually get more done if you make sure that you have those connections and things as well. yeah. What are your of, uh, go tos, Nicky, in terms of getting a team going, with improving. If what they're saying is the team is just not enjoying life. where would you start? for

Nikki:

Me, um, a lot of the of the why people are feeling either dissatisfied or stressed at work largely is because it's a combination of a number of different factors, obviously, but one of the key things is that they don't feel understood, valued or recognized at work.

Richard:

Um,

Nikki:

And, and it really aligns closely to, what's really core to us, that scene culture is to make a culture where people feel seen and, and that doesn't, like I mentioned before, it doesn't necessarily mean making them happy, but

Darryl:

but it.

Nikki:

It makes sure that they feel understood. And so typically, for instance, we

Darryl:

we

Nikki:

all experience quite a lot of stress at work, and that's a huge friction point that tends to stifle us from being able to perform at our best. Now, the reason why we feel stress is because we lack a sense of autonomy and control over the magnitude or the volume of work that's expected of us. Now, if there was a level of acknowledgement, understanding and appreciation for all of that, actually so much of that feeling of stress would dissipate without actually having to remove the

Darryl:

the actual

Nikki:

there. And it's incredible how valuable just an acknowledgement and understanding, of what is on someone's plate can make a difference when it comes to their motivation, confidence and performance at

Darryl:

at work.

Richard:

Yeah. I love that. So I'll just Draw together, a few things that you said there, because you were talking about a couple of elements that are a key part of, one of the main models that I use. I know that you do as well, Nikki. so If I'm trying to understand a team's,, motivation drivers and how to help them move forward, better. I'll often think about these four factors. the model itself uses slightly different terms, but I call them. connection. So connection to people. Autonomy. Uh, mastery as in mastery, both in terms of growth, but also having a sense of the ability at the mastery of my own domain. and then sense of purpose. So having goals and having a meaningful, why so. If people want to learn more about that, it's actually forgive. The name It's self determination theory, is what Those come from there. It's super, super useful. I'll put. I'll put some links in the show notes. With that. we're pretty much at time. So, yeah. Thanks. Darryl and Nikki so much, for, an amazing discussion there. And thanks to you. as listeners. for joining us for another episode of the WARP Speed Leadership podcast. we make this show to help leaders create incredible workplaces in the world. That increasingly feels like it's moving at. WARP Speed. so we hope that you found it useful. Please do like subscribe, leave us a review, share us with your network. do check out the show notes. um, with that. Thanks very much. And, we'll see you next time.