Joy is a Business Strategy

It has often been said that innovation and ideas are the currency of modern organizations. Without being able to take information and assemble and reassemble it to reach new conclusions, businesses can't hope to gain the strategic advantage that comes with a completely fresh and compelling take on an old problem. Often left unsaid is how innovation occurs.

But one genuine parallel to innovation, I think, is improvisation. While reading professional facilitator and improv'ateur Johnnie Moore recently, it occurred to me that his take on Everything's an Offer contained an important insight into how innovation occurs. This was trenchant:

I'm currently reading Everything's an Offer, by Rob Poynton. He is probably the most articulate thinker about the value of improvisation in organisations. His book is a real treat.

When I met Rob a few years ago, he said something that lodged deeply in my mind. He repeats in in his book (my emphasis):

People laugh at improvisation not because it is funny, per se, but because it is joyful. If you go to an improv show and watch the audience rather than the players, what you will see is that they aren't laughing at jokes.

Poynton points out that bad, or even, banal, jokes can bring delight because the audience instinctively responds, not to the punch line, but to the interplay between the actors that produced that awful joke.

Could joy be a business strategy?

Wayne

Comments

[Kevin D. Washburn]

Great insight! Dr. Robert Brooks talks about teachers "from whom kids gain energy." I think our interactions--those that bring us joy also give us energy. And that energy gives us something to "spend" on creativity and innovation. We feel good about ourselves and our world, and that motivates and generates possibility thinking. I love the idea of improv bringing joy; it fits with our experiences with people we truly enjoy.

[Wayne]

Thanks, Kevin. There's a deep connection between joy and happiness and group goals such as those that might drive a business.

That connection is also apparent in what Jane McGonigal said at the last festival in September about the parallels between gaming, happiness and problem solving. Delight contributes to clearer thinking and, just as importantly, an understanding of other people that makes achievement possible.

[Johnnie Moore]

Thanks for the linklove Kevin and I love the label "improv'ateur" which to me has shades of entrepreneur and provocateur! I may have to update my facebook/twitter profiles!

[Wayne]

"Improv'ateur" is free to a good home, Johnnie - and thanks for the thoughtful post!

[Robert Poynton]

I think joy could indeed be a strategy, or an important part of one. As I say in my book (the one Johnnie Moore was quoting):

"Uncertainty, not control, opens the door to surprise, discovery and delight. The fresh thought, the new insight, the unlooked-for caress—all require some measure of doubt, ambiguity or unpredictability."

Creating the conditions where people are experiencing joy in their relationships with each other, i.e. enJOYing themselves, the chances that they will be much more effective.