coffee cupsNote from Art: application of the ideas in this post has been known to stimulate creativity in some office environments. In a limited number of cases, use of these ideas or concepts has caused distress mostly due to failure to properly follow instructions or, because grumpy bosses just didn’t get it. Use at your own risk. Effects can be habit forming.  Test on a small sample before applying to a larger area. And under penalty of law, do not tear the label off of your office furniture.

There’s a bad case of the “serious” malady running through our society right now, and for just a moment, we all deserve to unclench our jaws, breathe and even form that rare but powerful facial expression, the smile.

Consider this my attempt (albeit a weak one, I’m certain) to take a little of the seriousness out of your day while offering ideas that might just have something to them. Or, they might not, but, I’ll leave that for you to judge.

I spend a great deal of time talking with you about driving change. We’re forever prattling on about developing leaders, developing ourselves, developing strategies that hunt and generally living at the intersection of Noble and Pursuit.  To heck with that (for today).

Let’s focus on where the rubber meets the road or our posteriors meet our desk chairs and contribute some ideas that will help us energize our teams, create a bit more personal energy and maybe, just maybe, send us back tomorrow towards Noble and Pursuit reinvigorated in pursuit of our journeys.

7 Ideas of Varying Quietly to Mix Things Up and Energize Yourself and Your Team:

1. Day filled with meetings? Show up early and remove the chairs from the conference room. Don’t spend anytime explaining why you did this. Conduct your meetings with a renewed sense of energy and enjoy the benefits of oxygen flowing freely to the brains in the room. And the looks on the faces of people as they enter the room are priceless.

2. Need a personal change. Take advice from one of my good friends and mix things up. Drive your spouse’s car to work (for the thrill seeker, do this without telling him/her), park somewhere far away from your usual spot and walk to your desk a different way. Continue your “day of different” by changing as many parts of your normal routine as possible.  Remember to order something completely different for lunch.

3. Turn on your senses. Feeling like you’re just moving blindly through your days. When you get to work, try and remember and write down 10 items or landmarks that you pass every day during your commute. Add 2 items per day for a week to this list.

4. Turn on your senses, part 2. Without cheating, write down your company’s mission, vision and values statements. At last count, only 4 people in the western hemisphere were capable of completing this exercise accurately. Do this for several days and once you get them, start working them into office conversations. Observe how your co-workers react.

5. Cancel 50% of your meetings and try to fill the time with things you’ve been meaning to do. See if anything dire happens by not attending those meetings.

6. Plan ahead to become social anthropologists. Schedule customer visits and instead of a talking head trip, try to work it out with your customer where you will be able to see and hear from the people that use your offerings in their natural setting. Fire up those powers of observation and look/listen for problems and ideas.  Compare notes with team members when you get back and vote on the top three items to pursue.

7. If all else fails, take a lesson from George Castanza and mentally declare it opposite day. This famous character on the sitcom Seinfeld discovered that he had remarkable fortune only when he would do the exact opposite of what his gut told him was the right thing to do.

While this one may prove a bit risky, start small. Change up your lunch choice.  When people ask for decisions, suggest that they make them on their own. If you would normally chair an ops meeting, delegate it to someone else. Skip the brainstorming session and let your team run through it. If you think that social media is a waste of time, ask a group to come up with ideas for using it to compete. If you are used to asking the boss for permission for everything, skip this a few times and just do the work.

(Dedicated Seinfeld viewers may recall that George also found another way to dramatically increase his IQ. He gave up amorous activities. I’m not ready to suggest that one for you at this time, but if you fail to find something creative from this listing, it’s next up in the batter’s box.)

The Bottom-Line for Now:

One of my favorite signs in a great bakery in Mt. Prospect, IL reads, “Life is short, eat dessert first.” While we are all part of some form of regimen in our work and in our lives, there are ample opportunities to mix things up, get the oxygen and blood flowing and add some creativity and fun into our days. If you don’t like my ideas above, generate your own. Just make certain to share them here with our readers!