You can't force people to have fun
Every Monday we have a whole-team Zoom call where we catch up on what’s going on with the business.
The last one didn't go that well…
I usually chair the meeting in my capacity as head of product (as it tends to lean pretty product-focussed), and I really enjoy being able to see everyone each week, as we all work remotely and it can be a long time between in-person visits.
Last Monday, I wanted to do something a bit different.
The way leave and sickness had worked out over the prior couple of months, we hadn’t actually had a call with all six of us in attendance in a while. As this would be the first time we were all together, I thought it’d be fun to mark the occasion with a bit of pomp and circumstance.
So I devised a short online quiz and surprised everyone with it at the start of the meeting. Let’s just say it didn’t quite go as I’d hoped… 😅
Rather than what I assumed would be unanimous enthusiasm and gratitude, I was met with a mixed bag of responses ranging from tepid to disgruntled.
I blustered my way through the awkward moment with some “it’s only a bit of fun” placations, and we ended up completing the quiz — but it was a bit of a pyrrhic victory. Here’s what I learned from this experience.
1. Don’t put people on the spot
I enjoy spontaneity and surprises. But given I heard the exact phrase “I hate surprises” during this debacle, I’ve come to appreciate that not everyone is comfortable having an activity unexpectedly thrust upon them.
I could have at least given people a heads-up before the meeting that I was planning on doing a quiz, and maybe linked to an example so they could get a feel for how it worked.
2. Give clear instructions
Speaking of which, I was not at all clear about the mechanics of the quiz.
It was a connections-style 4x4 grid (like you may have seen on British cult classic game show Only Connect) where there are four groups of four related words that you have to find, but there are a few tricky words included to throw you off.
To anyone unfamiliar with the format, it doesn’t really look like a “quiz” so much as a cryptic jumble of unrelated words. I definitely now see why some people’s instant response to this was confusion or frustration, and I could have done more here to guide people through the exercise.
3. Make participation optional
There was also some confusion about whether the goal was to work collaboratively or competitively on the quiz, not helped by me saying “do whatever you like” (I was getting a bit flustered myself by this point)!
Really, I should have made it clear from the outset that it was totally optional and no-one had to participate if they didn’t want to, to take the pressure off.
4. Don’t take people’s reactions personally
As I’ve already alluded to, the team’s initial response didn’t quite meet my expectations and my first instinct was to feel embarrassed and a bit wounded.
On reflection I realise that, just as with any interaction in life, there are a lot of factors that influence people’s behaviour: mood, time of day, energy levels, what else we have going on outside of work, our own insecurities being triggered, and so on.
5. Not everyone finds the same things fun**
I’m a huge fan of quizzes and puzzles. I could do them all day long. But if I turned up for a team visit at our headquarters in Dublin and found out they’d set up an elaborate Sports Day course, I’d die a little inside.
This is to say, we all have our own definitions of fun, and different activities we find enjoyable. And this is definitely something I’ll consider more carefully next time I think of doing a group activity.
At the end of the day, as much as it was a slightly embarrassing moment for me (and probably others in the team), we were able to laugh about it together.
I won't stop trying to find fun ways for the team to have bonding moments that don’t revolve entirely around our work, but I will try to be more mindful going forward about how to actually make it enjoyable, rather than something that feels high-pressure.
And if you’d like to see what all the fuss was about, you can take the quiz for yourself here.