Would you hire these guys? Maybe you should.
The stooges would make any business interesting. Think about it, Larry could be your VP of Sales, Moe could be your VP of Technology and Curly could be your sexual harassment compliance officer. If you are under 45, no amount of explanation could make this last sentence funny. However if you were raised on the stooges like me, you can fill in your own punch lines. In today’sbusiness environment there could never be the 3 stooges. The first time they whacked each other on the head twelve law suits would be filed and your door would be closed by next Monday. I am not suggesting that you encourage your employees to start to crush craniums with blunt force objects. I am suggesting that you lighten up a little and bring humor into the work place.
I am the president and founder of a small business that provides computer solutions for independent retailers. My business, LPA Retail System, Inc. is entering its 17th year. We have 20 employees and we mostly service small to mid-sized retailers in the Midwest. We like to believe that we provide these independent business people with the tools and ideas required to take on the big box retailers. Think of us as legal arms dealers to the independent retailer. We arm our customers with the weaponry to wage guerrilla warfare on the monoliths of the retail industry. If that image doesn’t work you just can consider us point of sale vendors.
I spent the first 15 years of my business career as both a computer peddler and as a manager of peddlers for the IBM corporation. On the fun meter measured1 to 10, with 10 being, “this place is a laugh riot” to 1 being, “please let me die in my sleep tonight” IBM was a 3. IBM had its moments. It hired arrogant and assertive young people convinced that they could conquer the world. Put these folk together in a highly competitive environment, isolate them in a remote location for 5 weeks and then introduce alcohol to the equation and you have the makings of some funny situations. When I state that IBM hired young, arrogant and assertive people I mean no disrespect to IBM. I was one of them. Heck, I thought I would become the standard of sales excellence that all sales people in the future would be measured against. It turned out that I may have over-estimated my abilities.
The problem with IBM was that it took its image and itselfso seriously that humor became the rarest of commodities. Now there was plenty of laughing, but yuking it up over your bosses insanely clever anecdote doesn’t qualify as funny, it qualifies as trying to move up the corporate ladder. Think about the funniest people that you ever met. Their humor is often times on the edge. They take risks. Corporate America has become so risk averse and politically correct that any attempt at humor is so predictable, tame and juvinille that it just isn’t funny. Good humor can inspire and create an environment for creativity and productivity, bad humor is just bad.
In the computer business most of your day is spent solving peoples problems. Sometimes these problems are very annoying to the customer and cause the customer to get rather irate. Computer and software often time do devious actions like stopping or giving off the wrong answer. There is no shortage of stress in the computer business. The stress is highest with the smaller business. To them it is often times a mystery that the products don’t ALWAYS work just as designed. In this environment humor is critical. Your employees need a release and sometime so does your customer.
Take your business seriously but don’t take yourself seriously. So how does Mr. big shot humor boss use humor in his work place? I am glad you asked. Today we honored the ladies in the office by creating a formal declaration honoring the Estrogen American Society of LPA Retail Systems. I sent them off to a baseball game and had the Estrogen American Society group displayed on the scoreboard at the Minnesota Twins baseball game. The ladies loved it. They are already planning for their next event. We are going to do a Testosterone Americanday for the men in the office. The GEs, IBMs and Walmarts of the world would never dare to have such irreverent events but the small business can and should play by different rules. Being a small business gives you certain flexibilities and liberties that the giants could only dream about. My guess is that major corporations don’t really dream. They probably gather consultants and focus groups together, take notes and then think with their eyes closed and consider themselves dreaming.
If you are not funny don’t try to be. But I bet that you have a child or another employee that is. Bring out the humor in your work place and find ways to make them laugh. They will appreciate the effort.
Tim Lano
President
LPA Retail Systems, Inc.
