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The People Gardener Podcast with Rhonda Delaney
The People Gardener Podcast with Rhonda Delaney
Transform Your Workplace with Fun!
Ever thought spontaneous fun could revolutionize your work culture? Join me on the People Gardener podcast where I reveal how a flash mob at a recent conference sparked insights into integrating joy into daily work life. As I reflect on a year filled with exciting milestones, including buying a retirement home in Arizona and partnering with my daughter to design it, I share creative strategies for fostering a more engaging and stress-free workplace. With ideas like a Monday morning joke jar and a mystery meme contest, you'll discover how a little humor can transform your office environment.
As the year winds down, I also highlight the invaluable resources available through the Raving Fans Society app. Whether you're a small business owner or an aspiring leader, our platform offers everything from a comprehensive library to group coaching sessions, all designed to bolster your leadership skills. By harnessing the power of community and continuous learning, you'll be better equipped to find gratitude in everyday moments and support personal growth. Tune in for an episode brimming with inspiration and practical tools to make your professional journey more rewarding.
Well, hey there, welcome to the People Gardener podcast. I'm Rhonda Delaney, your host, also known as the People Gardener, thrilled to put this podcast together to help small business owners, new business owners, frustrated business owners and aspiring leaders, whether they're inside business or outside. Each week, we bring you some actionable steps so that you can actually improve your skill as a leader. That's what we're about. We're here to help you become a better leader by giving you access to lots of different perspectives. By giving you access to lots of different perspectives. The guests are varied. We're thrilled to have them. Get out your pen, get out your paper and be ready to learn Every single episode. You're going to be able to take something away that you can implement. Are you ready? Let's get to work. Well, hey there. Welcome back to the People Gardener podcast. I'm Rhonda Delaney, your host, happy to have you here. This is officially the last podcast for 2024 for the People Gardener.
Speaker 1:It's been a great year. Lots of exciting things have happened in my life and in my business, in Hubby's business yeah, just really. I think the most fun thing is that Trev and I bought our retirement property 40 acres in Arizona and it's been so much fun planning and dreaming and getting this all to happen. I've mentioned on a previous podcast, we spent a lot of time, a lot of hours, a lot of miles driven, a lot of properties looked at before we found this one. It's home. It's going to be so neat and we've designed our house with the help of our daughter, who is an interior designer. We got that done so that we can start doing what's necessary for the planning permits and all the rest of it. We're going to head down in March. We're going to go down there in our motorhome and we'll be there for four or five days and hoping to get the well drilled and installed. So yeah, things are moving, moving along.
Speaker 1:So what's been happening in your world? Have you ever sat down and just kind of made a list of all of the things that happened in your life Milestones, good things, bad things, not so good or bad, the in-between? It's a great time of year just to reflect. It's not like you have to spend hours and days, but just think about there's so, so much to be thankful for. I mentioned being at a conference earlier in the month. James, my business coach, life is so much fun for him. He just has fun when he's working and he has fun when he's playing.
Speaker 1:So I did something there I danced in a flash mob. When I first heard and they first gave us the invitation, I put my hand up right away because I knew if I thought about it I probably wouldn't. And then going, it sounds like it would be fun, because I watch flash mobs and it's so fun to watch them happening and it's like, well, it'd be fun to be part of it. Well, I was all great. And then you get the video with the dance mutes and the music, the choreography, and it's like, oh, good grief, what have I got myself into? So I'm practicing this before the event and then we get down there and the registration night we have an hour I think it was an hour and a half where everybody that was in the flash mob we were all doing it together. I have to tell you as much as I am not a dancer I've got a fused ankle and I'm, yeah, I just, I just don't. It was so much fun. Yeah, did I do it perfectly? No, none of us did. Well, I think there were a few dancer dancers in there that were really into it and they had all their steps, but me, yeah, kind of bumbled through a few of them, but it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:That's what I want to talk about today is incorporating fun into your work culture, into your workplace. I suck at it as a kid. It was when you work, you work. When you play, you play, and the two didn't mix and I think I've pretty much gone through life feeling that it's not like I'm this total Debbie Downer. I have fun, but it's just, it's not that first inclination and it's me maybe not really embracing it or pushing it. When it does pop into my head, oh well, that'd be fun. Fun makes it less stressful. It makes it less stressful, it makes it more interesting. So something that I did for fun because I'm still learning chat GPT, still learning AI, and I thought, okay, this would be a really good exercise to go into. I went into chat, gpt andT and said, okay, this is what we want to do. We want to incorporate more fun in our work culture and give me some activities ideas. So what I'm going to share with you is this came back from ChatGPT. So if you're not using an AI helper in any parts of your business, that might be a fun thing for you to add and see what happens.
Speaker 1:Some of these things it's like whoa, I don't know. That could get really dicey in certain situations. So the first one is the Monday morning joke jar. So they submit their jokes anonymously into a jar and then on Friday afternoons, well, actually, you put it out and then on Monday morning in a team meeting if you've got a meeting in the beginning of the the week or just kind of, everybody is at the same place at any particular time. On the money, you want the the jokes to be lighthearted or workplace, and you know some of the favorite jokes. Most favorite jokes are the dad jokes, the ones that everybody laughs and groans at the same time. It's just to start the week with a laugh and some positive energy.
Speaker 1:Another one I came up with is a mystery meme of the week where contest? The contest where employees submit a meme anonymously related to the workplace or industry, employees email or drop memes in the designated folder by Thursday and then a random selection is shared in Friday's email or pinned to a communal board and there's a reward for the funniest meme, you know, with a small prize. Maybe a coffee gift card could be, you know, giving them half an hour off work paid or something like that. What you're doing here is you're promoting creativity and relatable humor Casual dress with a twist Themed casual dress day, like Ugly Tie Tuesday or Pajama Friday your kids if you have children, they love this because they do this at school all the time. So it's just to lighten the mood. Have some fun outfits and just encourage participation, offer a little incentive of some kind, random acts of fun, a surprise mini games or challenges during the day. It's like, okay, everybody stop. We're doing this Trivia question in a mid-morning email. The first correct answer wins a small prize. Our host of five.
Speaker 1:I love this one. Paper airplane competition right, everybody gets into it. It's just something that they can do. Get up out of their desk and have fun. Desk swap challenge. This one sounded really interesting. You create an office mascot that evolves over time and you start with a plush toy or figurine and each week a different employee dresses up or customizes the mascot and gives it a new name or persona and shares its adventures in a photo or email. Again, the creativity and the bonding. Let's see what else we have.
Speaker 1:Office bingo, a bingo game tailored to the office. Create bingo cards with office-related phrases, actions, scenarios right, every company has their own lingo, so I think it only makes sense to the people that work there. Oh, I like this one theme song of the week, so it's a fun team-selected song that represents the week. So you let employees nominate songs on Monday, play the chosen song during meetings, breaks or a Friday afternoon. It's a way for everybody to be involved in when they hear this song. Hey, this is us, this is our team. Oh, this is too true. Sent a lie board. So you'd have to have a big bulletin board and it's a guessing game employees put up anonymously. They're too too true. Sent a lie. Each person tries and figure out who it is. Let's see.
Speaker 1:For those of you that use slack, there's the dedicated channels for sharing memes, jokes, jokes or funny stories. So you could have a Slack channel for that, which again is a place for people to go for a pick me up and just like hey, I'm just going to check in here and see how I can find some fun and some energy and some levity in my day. So you could have a specific Slack channel for that. It's a way to incorporate levity, incorporate lightness. Laughter is such good medicine. The more we laugh, the more relaxed we are. The more creative we are, the more open we are. So when you can bring fun into it so this was just chat, gpt threw it in there you could do the same. Talk to your employees. Lots of them will have ideas on ways that you can incorporate fun, because when somebody knows walking into the building, that it's already going to be a good day, because it's a fun place to work. It's a place that invites people to use their sense of humor and their creativity.
Speaker 1:I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year and lots of wonderful time with everything and everyone who is special in your life. We're going to have all of our kids home for Christmas, so the three girls and their men and all of the kiddos, so we'll have eight grandchildren here. The house is going to be loud, guaranteed. There'll be some chaos. We're all going to go bowling, so that is going to be interesting. I took the grandkids a few weeks ago and, oh, they just had so much, so much fun.
Speaker 1:Something I'd like you to think about doing is saving the date in your calendar for January 30th, 2 pm, pacific Standard Time. I've got something that's going to be happening that day. I'll be sharing more of that in my weekly email. You can join me if you go to rondadelaneycom. There'll be a pop-up that you can subscribe to my email, which would be awesome. I'd love to have you there each week.
Speaker 1:So I guess the message this week for closing out this year is lighten up, have some fun, incorporate fun into your own way of being inside your business and outside as well, but inside your business specifically and let your team bring their senses of humor and fun into the workplace as well.
Speaker 1:That's it for this week. We'll talk to you again next week. Well, thanks for joining me today. Just a quick reminder if you were not on my email list, go to my website, rondadelaneycom, and there's a place there that you can subscribe, keep you up to date on all things people, gardening and leadership. And also a reminder that the Raving Fans Society app is available on the Apple Store and the Google Store. I do have a free membership in there that you'll be able to access some of my material, and then there's also a paid membership, and right now it's $49 a month and you will receive access to all of my material, all of the teaching content, including a resource library. That will really help you along, as well as group coaching every month and then quarterly bringing in guests that will talk on topics that pertain to small business owners and leadership. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you again next week.