No Fun at All

Computerworld - Have you heard the one about the CIO who made work so much fun that the IT staff actually wanted to show up every day?
Well, it's no joke. In fact, rising above the deadly seriousness that pervades many IT shops these days are several CIOs who are veteran fun-makers. They say their shenanigans have improved morale, retention and, by golly, even the IT services they offer and the businesses they serve.

Dale Sanders, head of IT at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation Inc.

If you think life in IT seems distinctly more serious than it was a decade ago, you're not alone. David Horth, a consultant at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C., blames the lack of levity on the widely held perception that "being busy equals good work." But quite the opposite is true, he says.
Others blame it on the recession that dragged on too long or even the lingering pain of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Dale Sanders, a CIO devoted to bringing fun into the workplace, points to political correctness. "We seem to have washed ourselves clean of the value of diversity in culture and humor," says Sanders, who heads IT at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation Inc. in Chicago.
Sanders also cites the fear factor. "There's so much pressure in American culture to improve," he says. "That pressure causes fear, which excludes humor."
There's too much focus on the wrong things, he adds. "Of all the metrics we fret over in business these days, the most important is the laugh metric," Sanders says. "You can predict the outcome of a business by observing the number of times people laugh in the workplace. You can predict a successful business if you can hear heartfelt laughter 10 to 12 times a day."

John Wade, CIO at Saint Luke's Health System Inc.

Sanders says he has "an obligation as a leader to add some value to people's lives." One way to do that, he says, is through humor. "If people are laughing here at work, they will take it home to their husbands and wives," Sanders adds. "You can make life nightmarish for people -- or meaningful."
Other IT leaders feel the same way, and they say their efforts have made a difference. John Wade, CIO at Saint Luke's Health System Inc. in Kansas City, Mo., suspects that his efforts to make work fun for the IT staff are responsible for holding the turnover rate among his staffers to about 3% over his lifetime as a manager.