Fun Works:

Creating Places Where People Love to Work, 2nd Edition

Leslie Yerkes

In Fun Works, Leslie Yerkes profiles 11 different companies that each exemplify one of her principles for creating a place where people love to work. The companies range from the famous, such as Southwest Airlines and Pike Place Fish (of the well-known Fish video and books), to the little known, such as Process Creative Studios and Isle of Capri Casinos.

The introduction starts off with Leslie’s own stories about creating her new office space for her consulting practice, and getting the contractors to dance–literally, dance–with her upon successful completion of the day’s results; the dry walling, the painting, whatever. This story reminds us that any workplace can embrace the notion of creating fun, and the case studies serve to highlight the diversity of people and institutions that use fun in the workplace, even while accomplishing serious objectives–such as designing buildings–and achieving high-financial performance. Each principle is accompanied by a “key” which helps the reader “unlock the principle so that it can be applied individually… [to] increase your ability to employ the specific principles in your life.” In other words, this is not a book just for the VP HR or the CEO; this is a book that can be used by any individual in the organization to start having a little more fun through Yerkes’ principles of capitalizing on the spontaneous, expanding the boundaries, being choiceful, celebrating, and others. The case studies themselves are fun, and give creative inspiration to what readers can potentially create in their own work environments.

Article originally published in Volume 10-5 of Your Workplace magazine