Alysa Liu, the gold-medal-winning Olympic American figure skater, is known now as much for her joyousness on the ice as her precision and excellence. This was not always the case. After early success as a young teenager, she retired and explored the world beyond skating. In the process, it sounds like she discovered the power of living a joy-first life. She realized she wanted to return to figure skating, but with a different, joy-first perspective. It sounds like she didn’t want to approach this challenging sport as a task or chore, but as something first and foremost to enjoy.
The results of this change in perspective were obvious to anyone who watched her skate. She was more relaxed than any of her competitors and seemed to radiate happiness and excitement versus stress and dread.
Remembering to Include Fun
Thinking back over my career, I realize that Liu’s change in perspective can easily apply to the corporate world.
I have long believed in approaching work both as a responsibility, as well as an opportunity to bring potential joy into my life.
For me, that has meant saying, “Yes,” as often as possible when at conferences to spending time socially with my colleagues and business contacts. I try to never decline any dinner or offer of cocktail-hour drinks or outings such as a visit with a work friend to an aquarium or a walk through a famous tourist district in whatever city we happen to be in. It also means taking time for serendipitous fun. When I was in New Orleans for the first time for a conference in 2019, our event coincided with the start of Mardi Gras. The hotel where we stayed was along one of the parade routes. For a small fee, the hotel provided access to a terrace overlooking one of the early parades. I came home with more than just leads on new business associates and work ideas; I brought home a bag filled with beads; a peculiar, though adorable, stuffed animal; and quite a few mementos from the “Krewe of Cleopatra.”
“Divide and Conquer” or Spend Time Together?
When you’re at a business conference, a work group often gets a multitude of invitations for meetings and events.
One perspective is to “divide and conquer.” You split up the invitations and go to events separately to provide as much coverage as possible. There is logic and pragmatism to this. But what you miss is a chance to bond with colleagues at the same event and have a shared experience.
A compromise is to send a few people to the same event, and if it’s a special event with significant opportunities for enjoyment, to go as a team.
There also is value to carving one afternoon or one night out of a multiday conference for a team lunch or dinner. Cocktail hours can be a great way to not just unwind but to get to know your colleagues better, forging the kinds of relationships that make working together productively and smoothly much easier.
Part of “work” is appreciating your colleagues as human beings, and taking enjoyment in each other’s company, not just as work collaborators but as fellow human beings sharing experiences together.
When Barbara Bush died, I remember reading a quote from her that at the end of your life what you remember most won’t be the professional accolades or other business/life “accomplishments,” but the time you spent with other people. In the quote, she focuses on the importance of time spent with family. For me, that essential time spent with others includes my work colleagues.
Pursue Passion Projects
When an employee approaches their manager with what some might consider a zany idea, such as participating in a program where horses teach people to be better managers, a manager should be open-minded enough to let them discuss their idea and then pursue it if it makes sense both as something the employee would enjoy and something the business could benefit from. Training Publisher and Editor Lorri Freifeld did this for me many years ago, and I have never forgotten it!
I have experienced other perspectives in the workforce in my career that were not as open-minded to incorporating joy. In fact, I have experienced the opposite—a suspicion when an employee appears to be having too much fun or is too keen to do a project.
When nurturing employees and managers, you have to decide as an organization whether you want a culture that prioritizes joy and passion—in addition to precision and excellence—or whether you want the corporate version of skaters who are so tense and stressed out that they lack agility and fail to make their jumps.
What culture lessons do you think your organization can take from the perspective of an Olympic champion such as Alysa Liu?