For anyone who has known me for any length of time, they
know that I am a camp person. I come
from a long line of camp people, going all the way back to my grandmother who
went to camp almost one hundred years ago.
I have spent 16 summers at camp, first as a camper and later as a
counselor. That does not include the
many years in between when I was a camp parent as my two children were campers
and then counselors. So this camp thing
runs very deep for me.
If you have been lucky enough to go to camp and have brought
some of your camp experience to your workplace, I’d love to hear about it. Share your stories with me. I might just put
them in a book.
This summer after a 15-year hiatus, I returned to my camp (Aloha
Hive) in VT as a counselor, heading up the performing arts department. It was a blast. It was hard work with plenty of
challenges and abundant rewards. And
since for most of the last 15+ years, I have toiled at a range of companies, I
spent a lot of time thinking about how organizations run, how they inspire (or
not) their people. I mostly pondered how
the principles that guide building a camp community could apply to
companies.
I marveled as I watched the camp community come
together. I observed the power of simple
living, of hard work and pitching in, of silliness and fun, of being present in
the moment and appreciating the beauty around us. I was astonished to watch the counselor staff
become confident young women and commit to bringing their best selves to their
work at camp. I was inspired by their
hard work and their adventuresome spirit and by their great sense of fun.
There was a moment towards the end of the summer that
crystallized for me the spirit of the place.
By the end of the summer, the staff was pretty well spent. They’d devoted their entire lives over 8
weeks to a group of kids and to each other as members of the community. Before everyone could say their goodbyes and head
home to their “other life”, we had to close up camp and do a series of work
projects, many of which were not very glamorous. I was given the task of dolling out these
projects. One counselor, when asked to
clean the “dungeon”, the area below the kitchen that is dark and dank and
riddled with spiders, looked at me with a smile and said, “I am the luckiest
person alive!”
How often does that happen at companies? Not often enough. In many companies,
employees become expert at dodging the unpleasant tasks. So how do we inspire our people to bring more
of themselves, to commit more, to truly share the best version of themselves? My camp has a core mission statement- to
create fine people. Imagine if more
companies, as part of their corporate mission statement had “creating fine
people” on the list.
Each company that I have worked at over my career has had
their own set of practices that are intended to create loyalty and company
spirit. One company stands out for me- Eons,
founded by Jeff Taylor (founder of Monster.com) Jeff is not only an
extraordinary entrepreneur but he is an inspired leader. At Eons, Jeff believed in creating memorable
moments and rituals. The company spent every Wednesday night working late,
eating dinner together, celebrating individual and team accomplishments and
often having fun. He inaugurated an
annual “Leap” into Boston Harbor. This
typically happened in the early fall, when the water was still relatively
warm. The entire company would walk down
the pier from our offices and take a leap into the harbor. Apart from just being a wacky and fun thing
to do, there was a lot that was unspoken about this ritual. It was a leap of faith, a leap of solidarity,
a leap of shared celebration.
While Eons did not succeed, the esprit de corps was
remarkable and the things that bound us together reflect many of the principles
that are at play at camp.
When I was interviewing to join my last company,
BiddingForGood, I told the CEO, that apart from my skills and experience, I was
really a camp counselor at heart. At
that moment in the life of the company, that resonated with him. He hoped that having a “camp counselor” join
the company would go a long way towards uniting the employees and would help bring
out the best in them. I’m proud to say
that I think we did that. Our holiday videos became an annual ritual that has
been immortalized on YouTube. While not
everyone was enthusiastic about participating, most people did. We were silly. We sang and we danced and we laughed at ourselves.
And our customers loved it.
There is much that has been published and disseminated on
creating a positive company culture. It
is my sincere belief that if more companies were more like camp, we would make
the world a better place. So herewith is my checklist of simple things you can
do at your organization:
1.
Spend time together away from technology. Have meetings with no phones and no
computers.
2.
Eat meals together.
3.
Be silly. Allow time for laughter.
4. Do skits. Instead of long boring memos on new company policies, demonstrate through skits.
5.
Celebrate creativity with costume parties, holiday
videos.
6.
Take recess.
Get outdoors. Do walking
meetings.
7.
Sing. For
birthdays, for holidays, for fun.
8.
Have rituals. Leap into Boston Harbor.
9.
Set lofty goals. To create fine people.
