Going to the office every day can be:
Behind Door #1: Fun, exciting, special and fast-paced.
Behind Door #2: Sluggish, tedious, repetitive and boring.
Behind Door #3: Somewhere in between – kind of lack luster, ordinary, neither bad nor good.
Getting out of bed in the morning and looking forward into your day, would you choose Door #1, #2 or #3? We’ll presume you answered Door #1 for obvious reasons. So, the question begs, “How do you create that fun, exciting, special, fast-paced atmosphere?”
First things first
One of the underlying difficulties behind Door #1 could be staff that are just plain “Debbie Downers” … no fun in them and just plain boring. However, that could also be because they have never been encouraged to be otherwise, and on top of that, the job and dealing with difficult patients, etc. may have worn them down. Therefore, do not let them discourage you and the team from having fun and making the office fun, exciting, special and fast-paced. They will start to get the hang of it as things go forward.
Creating the atmosphere
As a team, you could meet and work out what those words (fun, exciting, special, fast-paced) mean to them. Get ideas and put one person in charge of getting the ideas implemented. Obviously, you have to consider being appropriate in front of patients or clients. However, they would rather come to a practice that zings and is having fun than a dour, dull, boring practice … wouldn’t you too?
Special days
One idea is to have a special day each month and a different staff member assigned to it (in a small office with one staff member, you can alternate between practice owner and staff member). The staff member of the month has the task of creating a surprise day for the team (and they can pick the day and keep it a surprise too).
Create-create-create!!!
Imagination goes into action here. How about buying 50 yellow helium filled balloons and hanging them all over the practice. Or making an incredible cake that everyone would like and having a little lunch celebration. Or writing a beautiful little poem to each staff member about their special qualities. Or bringing in a 15 minute thigh slapper video to play on the TV or sending to each person by Messenger if you have a social media-oriented team. Or having a clown come in at lunch time to hand out ice cream lollipops.
There are many other ways to make work more fun but we are leaving that to your own creativeness and imagination. You can do the same sort of thing for patients and clients as well.
The element of positive surprises is always welcome!
