There is no shortage of blog posts, articles, (and other collections of vowels and consonants) that attempt to tie a current event (celebrity death, or a movie release….) to some sort of business problem as if this random event can solve the problem.
The headline is usually along the lines of this format:
What Star Wars (Yogi Berra, Leonard Nimoy…) Can Teach Us About Commodities Trading (Integrated Marketing, Employee Retention, Student Engagement…)
There are so many articles of this type, with their faint whiff of click bait, that I hesitated to even think about that format. Yet this morning, I was pondering alternative meeting formats when I read of the death of Meadowlark Lemon, who for a generation (and then some) was the face of the Harlem Globetrotters.
I am not going to pretend that my feelings on the death of a basketball/comedic icon somehow has significant relevance in the solution of your organization’s challenges.
However, I think we all agree these two universal truths: everybody likes the Globetrotters, nobody like meetings. This begs the question:, wouldn’t employee meetings be more fun if they began with a Magic Circle?
Don’t forget golden-throated announcer with introductions: “And now……your Chief Executive Officer…..” Even better if your C-level executives had nicknames like “Slingshot” “Spider” and “Buckets.”
And of course, somebody whistling “Sweet Georgia Brown” in the background is a welcome bonus.
In the past few years, there has been a mad-dash to gamify everything. Though these attempts rarely seem fun. How about for 2016, we strive for funnification? It’s what Meadowlark would want.
Happy New Year and may all your hook shots in 2016 be nothing but net.
I worked for a startup in my mid 20s. They had a good business model, that was often overshadowed by hare-brained ideas and and unrealistic revenue streams (they weren’t charging enough), and unnecessary purchases.
In about the fifth month, my paychecks started to bounce. The owner promptly fixed the first few of these. Then came delays and promises. And the normalization of not getting paid, at least not getting a check from an account with money.
A Friday ritual was to get a paycheck with assurance it “will be good on Monday.” Sometimes that was true, sometimes not.
What made things even worse about 15 months into my tenure at was that he hired a local artist to paint a two-story mural on all four walls of our office’s entrance way.
Let’s just say that the commission to which the artist agreed was roughly equal to the amount of 10 of my paychecks.
My checks started bouncing at an accelerated pace.
A Friday in March, when I was already down 6 paychecks, I was given a new check with the expected, and meaningless promise that it would be good on Monday. The few seconds that it took to put my hand out for the piece of paper, then nod at the weekly promise was especially exhausting that.
I began mulling over my departure, and continued to do so over the weekend. Sunday evening, I decided that if my check wasn’t good, I would be done.
Though moments later I began to doubt that I would do that. I decided that I would delay my arrival until after 9, when the my boss’s bank opened and I could check on the available funds.
Before the bank opened, my friend, then in grad school and on spring break, called and said “Tigers v. Red Sox in Lakeland (Florida), let’s go!”
I told him I’d call him back. I then called the bank and found out the check wouldn’t clear.
Lucky 7.
I realized at the point, that I was under no obligation to go to work that day.
I called my friend back and said, “Batter up!” Soon we were on Interstate 75 (southbound).
We had misread the schedule, and the Tigers game was actually a night game. Thus, we headed to Sarasota for a Phillies game but learned it was sold out.
We decided to hang out in the area until the Tigers game started. We got home really late. I thought of heading to work Tuesday. I was bloody tired, but that never stopped me before.
What did stop me was a 9 am call to the bank to find out that my check would not clear. I went back to sleep.
I never went back to work for the company, but I told the founder I was going to keep the office key so I could use their computers, and laser printer because until he paid me off I was a partial owner of the organization.
He agreed.
We trusted each other in many areas. Though I could no longer trust him to pay me, and he finally understood that it was unreasonable to expect my services when there was no compensation in return.