The Levity Effect E-Book

Adrian Gostick

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 275

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The Levity Effect uses serious science to reveal the remarkable power of humor and fun in business. Science proves it?fun is good for business! Based on ten years of extensive research, the authors argue against business tradition to reveal the powerful bottom-line benefits of leading with levity. With interviews, exercises, and case studies, the book reveals how humor in the workplace will help you communicate messages, build camaraderie, and encourage creativity for a better workplace and bigger profits.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

PART I - THE CASE FOR LEVITY

CHATTERING TEETH AND A KAZOO BAND?

AND AWAY WE GO

CHAPTER ONE - Levity Is a Funny Thing

THE PATH TO ‘GREAT’NESS

THE ‘BODY ’ OF EVIDENCE

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

HUMOR IS A FUNNY THING

ALTRUISM ASIDE, WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

CHAPTER TWO - Levity Effect—Communication

THE THESIS AND ANTITHESIS OF LAUGHTER

JAW CLENCHERS AND BROW KNITTERS

MORE EFFICIENT MEETINGS

INFORMAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH EMPLOYEES

REMARKABLE PRESENTATIONS

TRAINING THAT SIZZLES

HUMOROUS COMMUNICATION

CHAPTER THREE - Levity Effect—Innovation

MAKE WORK MORE FUN AND CREATIVE

GETTING SERIOUSAHOLICS TO BE MORE CREATIVE

HIRE PEOPLE WHO ARE MORE CREATIVE

CHAPTER FOUR - Levity Effect—Respect

HUMOR EARNS SOME RESPECT

NINE-TO-FIVE ADVERSARIES

CHAPTER FIVE - Levity Effect—Health

SHARED MEANING

HEALTHIER HOMES

HEALTHIER CULTURES

CHAPTER SIX - Levity Effect—Wealth

LEVITY LOWERS TURNOVER

LEVITY RECHARGES BATTERIES

HUMOR INCREASES PERSONAL SUCCESS

HUMOR MAKES YOU EMPLOYABLE

PART II - GETTING LIGHTER

CHAPTER SEVEN - 142 Ways to Have Fun at Work

CHAPTER EIGHT - Overcoming Objections to Levity

FUN AT WORK

CHAPTER NINE - Levity for Life

LIGHTEN UP AT HOME

LIGHTEN UP IN PUBLIC

LIGHTEN UP IN RESTAURANTS

LIGHTEN UP IN PRIVATE (SO TO SPEAK)

CONCLUSION

NOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

LEARN MORE AT LEVITYEFFECT.COM

Praise for

The Levity Effect

The Levity Effect is no laughing matter. It’s a serious work of nonfiction about the powerful influence of laughter and lightness on organizational performance and personal health. While authors Gostick and Christopher entertain us with humorous anecdotes, they also educate us with research, evidence, real-life examples, and practical applications. The Levity Effect will have a lasting impact on how you lead.

—Jim Kouzes, author ofThe Leadership Challenge

I absolutely loved this book; as I work with teams around the globe, I have found that this is truly a universal message. Levity is common sense that is uncommonly practiced. This book has been needed for years.

—Stephan Mardyks, President, International, Franklin Covey

A book that proves the theory that you can work hard, reach impressive goals, and still have fun doing it. A humorous, practical guide, filled with real-life examples of what works and what doesn’t. And told in a way that grabs you from page one, makes you laugh along the way, and teaches at the same time.

—Eric J. Lange, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, The Nielsen Company

What may be the most valuable business book of the year. From the benefits of chattering teeth awards to the negative effects of jaw clenchers and brow knitters, The Levity Effect can change the way you look at corporate culture. Gostick and Christopher have done us all a great service by writing this wonderful book about the power of laughter in the workplace.

—Joe Calloway, author ofWork Like You’re Showing Off!

These are serious times. That’s why the message of The Levity Effect is much needed. The skills for using levity appropriately, and the benefits for doing so, are clearly explained in this enjoyable book. It will help you and your team better enjoy the journey.

—Mark Sanborn, author of The Fred Factor

Wow! The funniest, most original business book in ages. With persuasive research and case studies from the least likely businesses, Gostick and Christopher show how any leader can create a competitive advantage by becoming more fun and engaging.

—Chester Elton, New York Times best selling author of The Invisible Employee

Lighten up leaders! Work can be fun and enjoyable. In fact, it should be. Engaging your employees in a positive environment is the secret to good (and profitable) business.

—Jon Gordon, author of The Energy Bus

Copyright © 2008 by Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Gostick, Adrian Robert.

The levity effect : why it pays to lighten up / Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-19588-8 (cloth)

1. Humor in the workplace. I. Christopher, Scott, 1967- II. Title. HF5549.5.H85G.4’5—dc22

2007051424

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book began with a premise but was made credible with research. We owe our first and largest debt of gratitude to Amy Lyman, chair and cofounder of the Great Place to Work Institute, for her enthusiasm for this topic, the access she provided to her organization’s research, and the many wonderful case studies she supplied. We also wish to thank partners, Nancy Costopoulos and Tim Keiningham, at Ipsos North America for the proprietary research they conducted on our behalf to prove these concepts.

Special thanks are due to our editors at John Wiley and Sons: Laurie Harting who had the initial vision for this work and Shannon Vargo who fleshed out the idea in vigorous form. We also wish to thank the entire Wiley marketing, sales, and publicity teams, including Kim Dayman, as well as Larry Alexander and the senior leadership group for their excitement about the project. We also wish to thank our researchers and critical readers, Glen Nelson, Christie Giles, and Jeff Birk for their valuable work. And we owe a debt to our amazing publicist Mark Fortier.

We wish to thank all of those quoted here and the many we spoke with but weren’t able to include. We especially appreciate those who allowed us to watch them in action and put up with us loitering in the back of meeting rooms with clipboards in hand.

For their support and enthusiasm about this project, we thank our colleagues Chester Elton, Kent Murdock, Dave Petersen, and the rest of the Carrot Culture team. We would, of course, be remiss if we neglected to thank James Cameron and the entire production team of Titanic, for obvious reasons.

And finally, we wish to thank our families for their tireless love, support, and good humor during an exhausting research and writing process. To Jennifer and Tony; to Liz, Christian, Josh, Matt, Scott, and John. To them this book is dedicated.

PART I

THE CASE FOR LEVITY

Levity has an image problem.

For such a seemingly whimsical concept, it’s amazing what a steaming mound of criticism it engenders in the business world. In the training we conduct with corporate groups and the coaching we perform with executives on this subject, we can’t seem to get past the opening hellos before someone feverishly brings up the dark side of fun:

“ You can get too much of a good thing, you know.”

“People won’t take their jobs seriously.”

“Mandatory fun is no fun at all.”

“My boss tries to be funny, but it’s embarrassing.”

“I’m not humorous, and I’m never going to be.”

After a few minutes of furrowed brows and increasingly volatile verbal exchanges, we arrive at the conclusion that we are either dead wrong about levity or we’ve accidentally been booked to speak at the annual meeting of death row clergymen.

For many, it may seem that there are a thousand reasons not to write about, read about, or even think about this subject. After all, what does levity really have to do with business? And just as we’re ready to surrender our mission to scoffs, derision, and upturned schnozzes, we discover the best excuses to continue pursuing the topic: the converted.

These loyal levity believers swim upstream through the flow of conference attendees exiting after we have concluded our presentations, nodding their heads, and shaking our hands as if we’re the handle on the last water pump in the Sahara. “Thank goodness you came, that was fantastic,” they’ll say. “My colleagues really needed to hear this message; we’re so bad at this stuff.”

As champions of fun at work, they are among the growing number of people who choose to lead with the Levity Effect. And thankfully for us, they aren’t just a few nuts relegated to back-office jobs or Human Resources. They are usually some of the most successful, trusted, innovative people in their organizations. They are the living proof that levity is a real, positive, and valuable business practice.

And here’s what they’ve discovered: With low unemployment rates and fierce competition for great talent, fun at work can provide a competitive advantage, help attract and retain employees, and provide the spark to jump-start creativity. Sure, it may be hard to measure the return on investment of go-cart outings, dress-up contests, or a perfectly timed punch line, but the leaders profiled in this book will attest that fun is an essential component of their people, business, and innovation strategies. In short, people tend to remain with, stay committed to, and give more energy to an organization where good times are injected into work.

Not only that, but managers who lead with levity benefit from higher levels of employee engagement and overall success. Chances are excellent that you’ve known a leader like this at some point in your career. Maybe you had a boss who was genuinely funny, cracking a hilarious comment now and then to loosen everyone up. Or maybe, and more likely, you had a boss who wasn’t that much of a punster or a quick-quip artist, but she encouraged the group to get a little silly once in a while. In other words, she may not have been Paula Poundstone, but she was authentic, genuine, and lighthearted and she let people be themselves.

And at its core, that’s what levity is about. It’s not only about having fun at work, though we show you how great organizations do just that. It’s not just about being humorous, though we discuss how to discover your innate wit and humor. It’s not so much about being funny, it’s about being fun.

CHATTERING TEETH AND A KAZOO BAND?

Perhaps you need some persuading to convince you that levity is indeed a virtue (and hopefully we won’t have to resort to violence). We have plenty of real-life tales and analogies to share. Here’s a quick example that happened a few years ago at the corporate offices of the world’s largest restaurant chain. Like many organizations, its core values included such things as “customer focus” and “belief in people,” but surprisingly, the values list also included “fun.”

At the company, when someone walked the talk, in other words when they exemplified one or more of the corporate values, the chairman presented a Walk-the-Talk award, a novelty store set of 39-cent chattering teeth. That got our attention. It might seem like a silly prize from a chairman, but nothing could have been further from the truth. As we toured the organization’s cubicle maze, we noticed the chattering teeth were everywhere, always in positions of honor. One employee had even attached dramatic lighting to the cube wall to illuminate her three sets of teeth.

The company also had what they called a “fun band,” composed of bongo drummers, a host of kazooists, and even a sousaphone player. When a Walk-the-Talk award was presented, the band marched throughout the cubicle maze at corporate headquarters. It was their version of a ticker-tape parade. Several employees told us that they had unsuccessfully fought back tears of joy when first paid a visit by the chairman and the fun band.

We know you might be thinking: “Okay, they’re a bit eccentric over there, but no harm done. It’s not exactly professional behavior; I mean, that would never fly at my office.”

The plot thickens.

One day, into this jolly environment came a new senior executive. The new manager first heard the boisterous band one afternoon while on a conference call with Wall Street. He was mortified. “How utterly unprofessional,” he thought. He slammed his door shut and sat in his office for hours afterward, fuming.

At the next leadership meeting, the chairman asked if anyone had any other business for the quorum. The new executive cleared his throat and began. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a kazoo and bongo group that marches around here. I was on the phone with an analyst last week. We’re discussing a million-dollar stock purchase, and this goofy band marches by. It was embarrassing.”

The room fell silent. People squirmed in their seats. Finally the chairman rose. He spoke not unkindly, but with strength. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed our list of values posted on the walls everywhere, but one of the values is ‘fun’ and another is, ‘walk the talk.’ I guess you didn’t see that I was at the head of that marching band presenting a Walk-the-Talk award in what we think is a really fun way. We can’t pay Wall Street salaries here. We may not offer our people company cars or a lot of stock options. But we keep employees because we have fun and we live our values.”

Then, the chairman added, “And if you don’t get that, maybe you are in the wrong place.”

As it turned out, the new executive was in the wrong place. About two months later, he decided to walk. He found a place without kazoos and chattering teeth. That’s the thing about the Levity Effect at work: It attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones.

AND AWAY WE GO

So what is levity? In short, it means being light, buoyant even. The problem is, buoyancy doesn’t sound very desirable in the business world. After all, who wants a lightweight, bouncy goof-off handling finances, piloting the plane, or dealing with upset customers? It’s no wonder that fun gets a bad rap.

But levity doesn’t mean silly or inane. It doesn’t mean distracting. Levity is a way to improve a workplace, a presentation, or a relationship in ways that can change our work and our lives for the better.

The word itself is derived from Latin, levitas, the same root for the word levitate. And that’s the secret to levity. It raises things. While in a business setting, some people may distrust it, but when things get tense, drab, slow, stressful, and boring, a fork-full of levity can mean the difference between working cohesively toward a goal and being hindered by contention.

Of course, we make no claims that levity will fix a toxic culture, make up for poor pay practices, improve your products, or make your workplace safe. If you lack any of those basics, read some other important leadership books first. A few suggestions include the best-selling Some Employees Are People Too, The Importance of Paying People Actual Money Rather than Produce, and the pretty-good-selling Here, You Should Probably Wear this Hard Hat if You’re Going to Unload that Train Car Full of Nuclear Waste. Start there. The good news is that most of the organizations we visit have the basics down. They are simply looking for something more to give them the competitive advantage—something that provides a differentiator in today’s competitive markets. They’re looking for an edge.

In the following pages, we’ll show you how to create that edge and how to benefit from the effects of levity.

So if you’re ready, let’s lighten up.

CHAPTER ONE

Levity Is a Funny Thing

If They’re Busting a Gut, They’ll Bust Their Butts

Two guys walk into a bar . . .

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can’t start a serious business management book with a line like that. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Harrumph, grumble, grumble.

Well, you can relax. This is no joke.

Two guys walk into a bar. They’re both leaders at the same company. One has a big, infectious smile and is laughing as he opens the door. The guy at his side hasn’t actually cracked a smile since Laugh-In. Quick test of your judgment skills: Which one’s better at his job?

You’re going to need a little more info, right? Nope. It’s a simple call, and current research backs it up: The guy who’s laughing and enjoying himself is better. He’s considerably more likely to be more productive, inspiring, engaging, committed, efficient, secure, and trusted—overall a better leader.

Likeable sure, but why is he better?

For one thing, look at it from the point of view of the people who work with him or for him. How would you rather spend your days? Working with a buttoned-down stiff whose idea of fun at work is rolling up his sleeves or for someone who allows you to let loose every now and then—like the employees at Lego America who zip around campus on scooters, or at Principal Financial Group where employees have set up mini golf courses in their offices, or at Google with its annual employee ski trip, or at Ben & Jerry’s where factory workers take home a couple of pints of ice cream a week, or at Sports Illustrated where employees creating the “Swimsuit Edition” . . . well, we don’t know exactly what they do for fun, but we’re pretty sure it’s not buttoned-down.

If people are having fun, they’re going to work harder, stay longer, maintain their composure in a crisis, and take better care of the organization.

Here’s one example.

An excited Kirt Womack of the Thiokol factory in Utah sprinted into his manager’s office on the first day of spring and asked if the folks on the factory floor could do something fun—say, head outside and fly paper airplanes—if they met their quota two hours early. The manager wrinkled his brow and vetoed the idea. Kirt persisted, “Well, then, what if we exceed our quota by 50 percent?” Figuring he had nothing to lose, the manager finally gave in.

Later that day, at 1:30, the manager checked on things and found that his employees had reached 110 percent of their quota. By 3 PM, they ’d surpassed 150 percent. The airplanes were launched, laughter rang out, and people frolicked (funny word, frolicked).

This tale is no big deal, right? Sure, except for the fact that a 50 percent increase isn’t exactly insignificant. While this tale illustrates the benefits of levity at work, it also underscores the dire need to enlighten management. You should know what the supervisor’s initial reaction was to his workers’ hitting the 150 percent production goal by 3 PM. Rather than connecting the dots and seeing the link between the promise of fun and working harder, he instead commented, “Imagine what you guys could have accomplished if you hadn’t taken two hours off to screw around!”

The manager’s initial ignorance did little to dissuade the workers. The kind of joyous, playful, break-the-tension fun they engaged in is taking place all around the world in organizations that care about performance, retention, and profitability. Motivated purely by the opportunity to have a little fun at work, the aviation workers increased their performance dramatically. The next week they negotiated for a volleyball game on the factory floor as a reward and again hit record production levels. Each week, they continued to request fun rewards and turned in astounding production numbers. By the third week, when they had earned a trip offsite for ice cream cones, the manager finally got it.

That, in a waffle cone, is the power of the Levity Effect at work.

An increasing body of research demonstrates that when leaders lighten up and create a fun workplace, there is a significant increase in the level of employee trust, creativity, and communication—leading to lower turnover, higher morale, and a stronger bottom line.

The research also shows that managers who have taught themselves to be funnier are more effective communicators and better salespeople, have more engaged employees, earn a lot more than their peers, and are much thinner. Okay, maybe not the last one.

The following pages include experiences of real businesspeople we’ve studied across a spectrum of real industries—high tech, manufacturing, services, retail, financial services, health care, and so on. Some of these leaders didn’t start out as fun-loving souls; in fact, many spent years in gray suits, brow knitting in conference rooms with their colleagues. But they all learned to shed some of their seriousness, break away from the pack of the mirthless, and carve successful, enjoyable, rewarding career paths. And a lot of their secrets to success aren’t listed in the company handbook. They are the product of innovation and creativity. Few corporate manuals exist, if any, that recommend paper airplane flying in aeronautical factories or require incorporating a rap song into a memo on new commission plans. Wise leaders learn to discover for themselves the tricks of the levity trade. But, you might not believe us if we simply gave you a few examples and said, “Go. Have some fun.” Instead, we’ll prove to you the connection between the punch line and the bottom line through a variety of interviews with CEOs, business leaders, salespeople, ad executives, business owners, and individuals from many other walks of life. All share some similar traits, which we will explore here, and all have learned to lighten up for real, tangible results.

How they did it is what this book is all about. You’ll discover how to master the Levity Effect to impact your career and your life.

THE PATH TO ‘GREAT’NESS

First, the proof. Grab your spoon; here comes the pudding.

It’s hard to believe that a warm and fuzzy subject such as fun could impact an organization’s success. But the remarkable case for levity at work is growing, with the most convincing numbers culled from more than a decade of research by the Great Place to Work® Institute. Data from the organization’s one-million-person research database reveals that “Great” companies consistently earn significantly higher marks for “fun.”

Each year, the Great Place to Work® Institute asks tens of thousands of employees to rate their experience of workplace factors including, “This is a fun place to work.” On Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, produced by the Great Place to Work® Institute, employees in companies that are denoted as “great” responded overwhelmingly—an average of 81 percent—that they are working in a “fun” environment. That’s a compelling statistic: Employees at the best companies are also having the best time. At the “good” companies—those that apply for inclusion but do not make the top 100—only 62 employees out of 100 say they are having fun. That gap in experience is, surprisingly, one of the largest in the survey.

Now, a skeptic will ask, “Are successful companies just more fun to be in, since they are winning and profitable, or does fun create success?” It’s the old, “which came first, the chicken or the egg” question. As we met with Amy Lyman, chair of the board and cofounder of the Institute, she explained that fun and success go hand in hand. And, all companies should be wondering how to have more fun.

“It’s absolutely a question companies should be asking themselves because it is something that happens in great workplaces,” she said. “In fact, it would be very unusual for a company to be among the ‘100 Best’ and not score well on the fun question.”

Wow. In case you didn’t catch that, let us repeat it. It would be rare to be one of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and not score well on the fun question.

Correlations to fun on the 57-question survey are all “very high, very positive,” Lyman added. In fact, employees who strongly agree with that statement are extremely likely—a rock solid 0.61 correlation—to also reply positively to the statement, “Taking everything into account, I would say this is a great place to work.”

Lyman explained to us that as a company moves on its journey from being lousy to good to great, they must first address basic issues such as physical safety and even friendliness. But to compare, the percentage increase from the good companies up to the best on the friendliness question is just 11¼ percent. On the fun question, the gap is 29 percent.

“In other words, when companies make the leap from good to great, they must start addressing sophisticated trust issues. One corollary to developing strong bonds of trust is that people are able to also have a great deal of fun at work,” Lyman says.

“If you are interested in increasing the opportunities for fun across an organization, and people genuinely engage and have fun, then that is an indication to me of a strong workplace culture that people will want to commit to. You would see a correlation between fun and reduced turnover, better recruiting, greater camaraderie . . . all those positive things you see happen in great workplaces. You can also see the exact same thing happen within a work group.

“Many people are taught that business is sterile and numbers oriented, with the human element secondary to all else,” she explained. “This hard-nosed mentality goes back to a time when people were thought of as cogs in the machinery, as opposed to now, where people are seen as contributors and producers of work. Fun is part of life. When leaders see people as human beings who are more productive when they are having fun, it makes all the difference.”

In fact, fun was one factor that was considered when the Great Place to Work® survey was developed. The survey statements were compiled by listening to employees’ opinions on what makes an engaging workplace. As employees told their stories it was clear that the “100 Best” companies enjoyed a high level of trust. Another point that came through very clearly in employees’ stories was that in the great workplaces employees were allowed to have fun on the job.

Now, organizations create fun in a hundred different ways. Intuit has a fun committee that rotates personnel every quarter and creates low-budget activities for all to participate in—everything from potluck breakfasts to Jeopardy games. AstraZeneca has a fun department that brings funsters to the company, singing, distributing toys, telling jokes, and doing dances to set the mood as part of their health and wellness series. Valero has volunteer bands that play at community and employee events. The list goes on and on and is detailed in later chapters.

The only rule Lyman points out is that the fun in great companies is natural, organic.

She explains, “A few years ago, one of our clients was experiencing low levels of camaraderie among employees. They decided to have an ice cream social at the end of the month with the idea that this would help with their camaraderie opportunity. As the leaders were explaining it, we realized their goal was to appease the critics. The organizers said, ‘Employees complain we don’t have enough fun, so we’ll show them. We’ll give them ice cream.’ ”

Through a discussion with the leaders about their intentions and the potential consequences—that employees would probably be able to see the real reason for the ice cream social—Lyman suggested that it might be more meaningful if the ice cream celebration was linked to a work achievement. The company had received a recent grant, and the employees had all contributed to this accomplishment. The lights went on for the leaders—seeing the link between fun and the celebration of an accomplishment—and the event was a lot more successful. This was a small start for this company, yet it had a big impact.

One of Lyman’s favorite examples of real fun happens daily in one of the product design work groups at software giant Microsoft. As reported in their “Culture Audit” submission to the Institute, “Each day, one person signs up to blast a song across the room at three o’clock. Everyone is dragging by that point and needs a break. Some people get up and dance. Everyone claps when the song is done.”

How do you create that kind of real fun? It works because there is a sense that people are all working together toward a common goal. People enjoy each other’s spirit. The relationship comes before the fun, which makes the fun real and acceptable. Another company could try this, and people might get ticked off.

Lyman is quick to point out that at great companies, fun goes hand in hand with trust. “Fun benefits from high trust and vice versa,” she says. “Since people are trusting, they aren’t afraid to make fools of themselves and take more risks. And in turn, trust is reinforced and benefits from the fun experiences people have.”

This scenario was played out at a university we studied that wanted to lighten up the dour environment. When the president asked maintenance to do something about an ugly new satellite dish on the top of a building, the crew manager gave employees the assignment and asked them to be creative in their approach. They took his request literally. Since it was fall, they painted a giant jack-o-lantern on the dish. The president and student body loved it. Now the dish is painted seasonally, and employees in the typically low-profile maintenance group can’t wait for their turn to express themselves in a high-profile, fun way. That never would have happened if the employees hadn’t felt enough trust in their manager to take a risk.

As will be evident in the following pages, trust gradually develops as managers show their employees that they can laugh at themselves and can use levity to diffuse tense situations. These managers come across as more approachable, which also fosters rapport and eases stressful times. They understand that levity at work doesn’t just mean fun and games; sometimes it’s as simple as unfurrowing a brow or relaxing clenched jaws.

No one knows this better than Jim Olson and Vern Wardle. They’ve worked together for decades at Harman Management Corporation, the world’s first and one of the largest and most profitable Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. Jim is the president, Vern the COO of this chain of 350 restaurants.

As background and a personal insight, Vern and his wife have long shared a secret signal: Three of anything means “I love you.” It could be three honks of a horn as his wife returns home or a kitchen light flashing on and off three times before Vern leaves for an early morning flight.

One day at the office, after a heated disagreement, Vern and Jim each stormed to their adjoining offices. After a few minutes Vern was sitting at his desk, still fuming over Jim’s pig-headedness, when he heard three slow, distinct knocks on the wall. He shook his head a little and grinned. Jim had used Vern’s own secret message to apologize. Laughing a little to himself, Vern rapped the code back: One, two, three. “I love you, too, buddy.”

Is there just a trace of a smile on your face? There were certainly grins on Jim’s and Vern’s faces that day. In fact, for a long time, they’ve been laughing all the way to the bank. That’s because from a corporate perspective, managing with levity affects the bottom line. It certainly has for Harman Management and many others you’ll read about.

Lyman cited a number of research studies that have linked the strong positive cultures of the “100 Best” companies with strong financial performance. If you had invested your beloved dough in the “100 Best” companies to work for over the past decade, you would have earned almost two times the return to the S&P 500 (Figure 1.1)—indicating that great workplaces produce outstanding returns for their shareholders.

Figure 1.1 Annual Returns of Fortune’s “100 Best” versus the Stock Market, 1998-2006. Source: Russell Investment Group.