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Key Management Development Secrets - Making Fun Part of The Culture

Guest post by: Martin Haworth

Article Overview: As you manage your people - how much fun are you having? The workplace can be such a serious place and yet the experience your people have can make or break your success. It's that important...

Key Management Development Secrets - Making Fun Part of The Culture

The experience that your employees have when they work with you is worth thinking about, because it's a topic that isn't so high on the agenda of the activities you undertake as a manager. Since all of them are important, it's also good to show that you are human too. Having some fun is a vital component of showing that, in the main, you are just like the people that you manage and lead.

Life - and especially business - can be way too serious. As managers we have a lot on our plates and not just related to the people who we have in our teams.

We have our own lives to lead as well, so the pressures to remain positive - and even have some fun - are easy to forget and put on the back-burner.

Employees only see a part of the challenges any organization faces, from the smallest to the largest - and for us as managers, it's so easy to get locked within ourselves and our thoughts.

And then we leave ourselves open to the perception of our people that we are a bit distant from them because we are so engrossed in our world. We can even be described as elitist or uncaring too - both of which most often, are unfair to the care we really do show.

So, it's worth making sure that when the opportunity presents itself, you lighten up and take part in any of the fun that's on offer, within reason.

It never hurts to be prepared to stand up and let them see you want to be involved and as long as you are able to appreciate and maintain that fine line that still enables you to manage effectively whilst being a real, live member of the team, you will be on a winner.

It's worth being careful that, as a manager, you don't do too much pushing of activities that are 'fun' in your workplace yourself. Your personal comfort-zone might be encouraging others to come up with an idea and support them with funding and time - and your attendance, if asked - rather than drive it yourself.

A manager's ideas of fun are not always the same as everyone else's, so by tagging along rather than risking the potential of being there on your own because no-one else liked your idea might be the safer bet!

They say that laughter is one of the best ways to build relationships, so by being open to your people - and you, of course - having fun together, it's a great step in the right direction.

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Article Tags: business culture, employee relationships, fun at work, management development, team, workplace culture



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