One of the best 360-degree review statements ever written about me describes the earliest days of leading software teams for me. There are chances I’ve written this into a post before because I use this story so many times in coaching situations. I wish I had framed the exact wording on my desk because it is both hilarious and embarrassing.

“I’m not sure how productive we were on Murman’s team, but it was so much fun to be on it.”

Why was I so obsessed with making work fun? I know I’m not the only one. Every form of media has content that attempts to get the most smiles possible from nine to five daily. The crazy part was I knew fun on teams was arbitrary to begin with.

In my youth, I saw the fickle nature of how fun it was to be around me. Like many of us, I saw people would act differently around me one-on-one as opposed to in larger groups. Could that stem from an accrued lack of trust? Perhaps, plus I had an immature view of what trust meant and didn’t see most of the gray areas of life.

Regardless, that was the baggage I brought into leading teams. Lemme tell ya, I wanted to be liked a lot. I also knew the work we did was super meaningful and also very challenging. My feelings were adding as many smiles and giggles to our daily grind was the way to help make our work more rewarding. I also knew I had to produce because if I wasn’t getting stuff done my jokes weren’t that funny to cover my tail.

A more mature version of me knows there are more lasting ways of having “fun.” While I still enjoy making people giggle, I now know there is science and ancient philosophy that just so happens to line up with ways to build this sentiment into teams.

We need each other, especially the dependable ones.

Connection is one of the best parts of enjoying time together regardless of the context. Think back to the fun stories you tell friends. Without knowing your life experiences, I can almost guarantee most of those stories involve other people enjoying the moment with you.

While this rings true for most of us, I’m not sure it is enough to be around others to get the most out of life. There is an inherent need to surround ourselves with those who can be counted on in most situations. At some point, we all put faith in being honest. Showing up to work when we say we will. Deliver on the promises made. Proving you can be relied upon.

That’s not the sexiest way to start a “fun” conversation, but it’s true. While I love so many traits about my life partner, I’m not sure I would have proposed to my wife if I didn’t think she was reliable. That she will love my kids as much as I do. She will contribute in the ways necessary to ensure our lives run well. Of course, she will also have the same faith in me as long as I earn it.

Does this mean trust falls are part of building teams in 2024?

As funny as those are to watch, that can be a bit much in some cultures. It supports activities like personal mapping, supported by the Management 3.0 team. Also, giving teammates easy opportunities to build dependability in the early stages of teams.

There are many ways we can be there for each other in a professional setting. Don’t worry about appearing goofy, once they understand the intent I’ve never had a group refuse to work on our collective authenticity in each other.

Shared drive trumps the individual version always.

Different organizations try to recognize the efforts of their workforce, and I’ve clapped along with others who are individually called out for their extreme amounts of effort. There was such an award at Bottle Rocket that went to someone who went above and beyond the call of duty to give our clients the best we can. Looking back, the individuals who received the award seemed different than the teams who went up together.

The tech industry spent years trying to restructure how projects and teams could be made and delivered in a fully digital world. Companies forced people to look out for number one even to the detriment of our team. We’ve all heard the adage about feeling like a number in large companies, but that cute phrase overshadows the real truth: we are dispensable and can be replaced whenever. I don’t like it, but I have the RIF scars to prove it is true.

Regardless of your age, there is a drive to stand out in all of us somewhere. Our productivity tends to suffer when that individual drive comes at the price of our overall productivity. As cliche as that is, our current industry climate almost eschews teamwork as much as it claims to promote it.

“Fun” teams learn to focus on the overall group getting stuff done instead of gathering lone wolves to plan their individual iterations of work. A collective drive to succeed remarks the distinction of flow. How we can collectively succeed where alone we might not.

You can ship work in lots of ways. Why not do so with a few smiles along the way?

Belief that every pain has a benefit, using humor as its sherpa.

I know, there is a struggle to find the positive angle of experiencing challenges in team delivery. The hilarious review I received was on a team that got a lot done in a super cool fashion. We played YouTube videos in retros. Music was played aloud for the team to dance to on occasion. I giggled so much with those awesome peers who got the Chick-fil-A mobile ordering to customers for the first time.

So many of those days would be described with a single word: painful.

The APIs weren’t what we were hoping they would be. The ordering flow often got clunky, and we had to trial and error so many issues when customers would arrive on site to pick up food. About two-thirds of the way through version one of the project, we were broken and worn out.

I could see their faces dragging during daily scrums. I knew something was going on and I needed to get some of those frowns to turn upside down. So I went to the store and came to work the next morning with donuts, noisemakers, and party hats that turned our morning chat into a party.

If they were asked today, I’m not sure many would remember it nearly a decade later. It was just something I did out of my pocket to be silly and remind teammates that this was supposed to be fun. And that I gave a crap about how they felt.

Sure, we needed to chat about why we were experiencing the pain. Our retrospectives mostly were grips about technical challenges and people not being able to make their mind up. The useful aspect was we ended each of those sessions with a list of things we needed from the client to help us pick back up momentum. That’s also when movie trailers and music videos streaming online started popping up.

Using a bit of whimsy in the normality of our work distracted us from the serious stuff for a moment. It also created one of the longest-running jokes I’ve ever had on a team that I could still text a few of them about. Also, this is crucial, it was an extremely diverse group of men and women who found ways to balance each other out.

It can be tricky to inject more whimsy into your routine given most teams don’t even work in the same city anymore, let alone all go into the office together much. The adage I use today reflects an easy heuristic to focus your attention where it is most needed.

Prize the day; tomorrow is a bonus.

Regardless of the word used to describe fun, there is a mature way of using it in today’s market. The challenge is being present in the moment an seeing the opportunities where they lie.

The ideas shared in this post came from reading The Power of Fun by Catherine Price, and Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life by Emily A. Austin. I believe the Greek philosopher Epicurus might be as misunderstood as Frederick Taylor.