{"id":4885,"date":"2020-09-03T13:16:45","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T05:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/?p=4885"},"modified":"2023-05-29T10:25:43","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T02:25:43","slug":"are-you-having-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/are-you-having-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you having fun?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.4.1″ width=”100%” max_width=”100%” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”0px||0px|||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.1″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/smiling_balloons.jpeg” title_text=”smiling_balloons” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.5.7″ custom_padding=”||0px|||”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.3″ width=”90%” width_tablet=”” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.1″][et_pb_post_title comments=”off” featured_image=”off” _builder_version=”4.4.1″ title_line_height=”1.2em” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false”][\/et_pb_post_title][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.3″ width=”90%” width_tablet=”” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.1″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.5.7″ text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.75em”]Has work become a bit more of a drag for you recently? Are you feeling a loss of purpose and engagement?\n\nI\u2019ve been hearing about this a lot from people recently – both coaching clients and in groups. You will be familiar with the context. Many of us are working from home and juggling multiple priorities like never before. In some parts of the world (Singapore) we are unable to travel and so are at home day in day out. Holidays are \u2018staycations\u2019 and getting variety seems hard.\n\nWe also have masks on and it is so hard to see people smiling behind a mask. 2020 is a serious year!\n\nAt the beginning of Covid, when everyone was working from home, teams put extra effort into having informal time together, but even that seems to be waning. The energy needed to organise virtual drinks seems so much more than a quick \u2018who wants to go for lunch?\u2019 when we are in the office.\n\nWe have become very task focused and seem to be losing the fun. I think this is a big problem. I am sure there is research (I\u2019d love to hear about it) that shows that having fun is good for productivity. We know it intuitively right? I even heard a senior leader recently justify keeping a person in the team because that team member made everyone laugh. This was worth paying for.\n\nOn our coaching programme<\/a> we teach \u2018Transactional Analysis\u2019. It is a model exploring how we \u2018transact\u2019 with ourselves and others. Developed by Eric Berne, he describes ego states, or states of mind. These are Parent, Adult and Child. We all function from these states at different times.\n\nPart of the model talks about our \u2018Free Child\u2019. Words which describe this state are \u2018open, spontaneous, bold, intuitive, creative, playful, joyful, vulnerable.\u2019 These words are powerful. They embody energy and enjoyment. In teams they are words that suggest innovation and collaboration.\n\nFor us to function well as humans, we need to spend time in our Free Child state. I think at the moment we are spending too much time in Adult or Parent and not enough time in our free child.\n\nWhilst writing this I am thinking of a leader I know in Singapore (I won\u2019t name her for fear of embarrassment). Whenever I interact with her or any of her team there is laughter, fun. This team wins awards for their successful delivery – and they also have a lot of fun. Perhaps the fun is supporting their innovation and wide recognition as delivery high quality.\n\nIt\u2019s time for us to reignite our free child. Let\u2019s do this for both for ourselves and our teams.\n\n

What can we do?<\/h3>\n\nWe can look for ways to be open, spontaneous, bold, intuitive, creative, playful, joyful and vulnerable.\n\nFor me, since I had this \u2018aha moment\u2019 I\u2019ve been much more aware of this for myself. I can take myself very seriously and programme every minute of my time away from work with self help and self improvement activities. On Sunday I watched a terrible romantic comedy and did the ironing. This might not sound like your idea of fun, but just giving myself permission to watch something I enjoyed was refreshing. Reading a novel, cooking something fun or taking time to mess around with the kids.\n\nIn teams we can set challenges. One team I know have had a baking competition using cake mix. At the moment they can\u2019t share the cake – but they can get family to give it marks out of 10. We can do virtual karaoke (as long as no-one in my team gets any ideas about this!). We can read poems, go for virtual walks together. We can brainstorm crazy solutions to an existing problem.\n\nAnd what else? How do you have fun at work and in your team? Let\u2019s share and give each other ideas.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#f1f1f1″ custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” global_module=”5225″][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Jean-Balfour-Web-profile.jpg” alt=”Jean Balfour ICF Accredited Professional Coach and Managing Director of Bailey Balfour” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ width=”150px” max_width=”150px” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false” border_radii=”on|100px|100px|100px|100px” locked=”off”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_team_member name=”Jean Balfour” position=”Founder & Programmes Director” icon_color=”#cc6a7c” _builder_version=”4.9.10″ text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||true|false” border_radii_image=”on|50%|50%|50%|50%” locked=”off”]

Singapore<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a><\/p>[\/et_pb_team_member][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.10″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”20px|20px|20px|20px|true|true”]

About the Author<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Jean Balfour<\/span><\/a> is Managing Director of Bailey Balfour and Programme Director of our ICF Accredited Coach Training Programmes (ACTP). Jean is passionate about helping people to have good conversations both at work and at home. She believes that coaching is a life skill and that you never regret learning to coach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Has work become a bit more of a drag for you recently? Are you feeling a loss of purpose and engagement? I\u2019ve been hearing about this a lot from people recently – both coaching clients and in groups. You will be familiar with the context. Many of us are working from home and juggling multiple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Having Fun at Work - Coaching Leadership | Bailey Balfour ","_seopress_titles_desc":"Read Bailey Balfour\u2019s latest professional coaching blog on leadership and teams. Learn about Transactional Analysis and the Free Child model. ","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,27,52],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6965,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions\/6965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileybalfour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}