The most successful organizations add a healthy dose of play into their daily or weekly routines. In fact, research has shown that when people actually enjoy their jobs they're more creative, more productive, and more committed to doing their jobs well. Companies like the Colorado Health Sciences Center and Southwest Airlines attest to the positive effect of fun at work. Both trace increased job satisfaction and decreased employee downtime to concerted efforts to make fun a part of their corporate identity.
With 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work , Dave Hemsath and Leslie Yerkes offer a complete resource anyone can use to create a dynamic workplace that encourages and inspires fun-and-games camaraderie among employees. It combines thorough research with practical hands-on tools, and features hundreds of ideas real companies have used to lighten up the workplace.
The authors surveyed over 1,500 individuals from organizations around the world and received enthusiastic responses that yielded a broad range of ways to spice up the work day. The suggestions in 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work include humorous training films, dress-up and dress-down days, silly job titles, awards for people who go "above and beyond the call of duty" when a coworker is on vacation, "ritual dances" at the completion of a project, a fashion show when it's time to choose a new uniform-even foam dart fights after meetings.
Hemsath and Yerkes offer ideas for instilling an element of fun into various business functions-from office environment, to meetings, training, communication, hiring, recognition, team building, and "simple acts of fun." In addition to the fun ideas in these chapters, a series of side bars, called "fun facts," "fun quotes," and "fun resources" offer humorous and interesting facts and statements about the effects of fun on workplace performance and job satisfaction, and direct readers to useful sources for products and services to enhance workplace "funativity."
Hemsath and Yerkes show that creating a fun atmosphere in the workplace increases productivity and morale and has a positive effect on the bottom line. Most importantly, they give readers the tools to have more fun at work, no matter where they work, or what position they're in.

• Features over 300 real-life examples of what individuals and companies are doing to create an atmosphere of fun in the workplace
• Illustrations, "fun facts," "fun quotes," and "fun resources" make this book entertaining as well as practical
• Written not just for managers, but for anyone who works in an organization
• Find out more at www.ChangeIsFun.com

In the public and nonprofit arenas, leaders face the unique challenge of protecting the public interest while implementing organizational change initiatives. To succeed, these leaders must build organizations that are “change-centric,” carefully weigh and prepare for the risks of change, and develop a change-oriented leadership style that authors Kee and Newcomer call transformational stewardship.

A comprehensive approach to leading change, Transforming Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Stewardship for Leading Change provides public and nonprofit leaders and students of leadership, management, and organizational change with theoretical knowledge and practical tools for accomplishing change goals while protecting the broader public interest. This insightful and useful guide offers:

An introduction to the change-oriented leadership concept, transformational stewardship
An easy-to-follow model for initiating change in the public interest
Case studies, practical tips, and resources for additional learning
An organizational assessment instrument to gauge readiness for major change
A 360-degree assessment instrument to identify individual leadership strengths and areas for improvement

• Offers ancient solutions to today's workplace problems and provides new perspectives on timeless troubles

• For people seeking to bring spiritual values to work or seeking to discover new beliefs and values through their work

• Co-authored by Buddhist scholar Franz Metcalf and workplace expert BJ Gallagher

Buddhism has for thousands of years provided a spiritual foundation for the daily lives of millions of people around the world. But does Buddhism have anything to offer us-Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike-in today's world of work? Metcalf and Gallagher think it does. Spiritual wisdom, Western or Eastern, inspires and instructs us in living a good life. And that's just as true at work as at home.

Buddha mind-a source of calm, compassion, and insight-exists within each of us, not just the historical Buddha. Being Buddha at Work shows how to embody that mind in the stress and clamor of the workplace-how to tap into the Buddha consciousness so we can relieve daily tensions and greet challenges with awareness, equanimity, and good humor.

The book is divided into three sections. The first, "Becoming a Mindful Worker," covers Buddha's wisdom for our own work; the second, "Cultivating Mindful Work Relationships," focuses on how to work with other people; the third, "Creating a Mindful Workplace," deals with broader organizational topics. There is wisdom here for everyone-from frontline workers and team members, to supervisors and managers, to top executives and organizational leaders.

Essential Guidance for New and Seasoned Supervisors!
Effective supervisors are critical to the future of government. The knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to be an effective supervisor can come only through continuous learning and development.
The Insider's Guide to Supervising Government Employees brings together the experiences of diverse supervisors from all aspects of government to offer a rich resource of lessons learned. Whether you are new to the supervisory role or a seasoned supervisor working to improve your and your staff's performance, this book is your practical, go-to guide.
Starting with a seven-step, 38-item Supervisor Readiness Assessment, The Insider's Guide helps you determine your readiness to supervise and identify areas you would like to learn more about. You can select a single topic that addresses a particular opportunity you are considering or you can read the book cover to cover to get a fuller view of what it means to be an effective supervisor.
As a government supervisor, you have the most important job in all of government. Make the most of it!

Richard Leider and David Shapiro helped hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people discover the true purpose of their lives with their classic bestseller Repacking Your Bags. Now they focus their attention on the second half of life, showing readers how to claim their rightful place as new elders, men and women who, the authors write, "use the second half of life as an empty canvas, a blank page, a hunk of clay to be crafted on purpose." Claiming Your Place at the Fire uses dozens of inspiring and surprising stories of new elders, as well as thought-provoking exercises like the Fireside Chats that conclude each chapter, to help readers address four key questions: Who am I? How do I stoke the wisdom gained in the first half of my life to burn more brightly in the second half? Where do I belong? What makes a place the right place for me in the second half? What do I care about? Where do I want to use my gifts and talents in the second half? What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones? What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones? For the next 12 years, there will be 10,000 people a day in the U.S. alone turning 50. Never before have so many entered into the second half of life so vital, healthy, and free. And never before have so many had such a hunger for direction in how to live this stage of their lives in a purposeful way. Claiming Your Place at the Fire shows how to embrace the lessons that we learn as we age and share these lessons in a manner that is relevant and meaningful to ourselves and the people whose lives we touch.To claim one's place at the fire means to live ones life on purpose. When we claim our place at the fire, we enter into the circle of vital elders who have been the source of wisdom in society since time immemorial. We do this by courageously reexamining and rediscovering who we are, where we belong, what we care about, and what our life's purpose is.
—from the introduction

If you're in, or about to enter, "the second half of life, " this practical guide will show you how to claim your rightful place among the "new elders"—men and women who “use the second half of life as an empty canvas, a blank page, a hunk of clay to be crafted on purpose.” Through inspiring stories and thought-provoking exercises, you'll learn to ask, and answer, four key questions:

Who am I? How do I stoke the wisdom gained in the first half of my life to burn more brightly in the second half?
Where do I belong? What makes a place the right place for me in the second half?
What do I care about? Where do I want to use my gifts and talents in the second half?
What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones?

This book provides a new model for vital aging. It shows you how to age successfully by living on purpose.

• By the authors of the bestselling Repacking Your Bags (over 300,000 copies sold) and Whistle While You Work (over 40,000 copies sold)
• While most related books deal with aging and retirement as decline, this is a new and enlightening approach to what the authors call "vital aging"
• Uses the timeless, primordial metaphor of fire as a powerful organizing device to describe the four key characteristics of "new elders"

Seattle locals and tourists alike flock to Pike Place each day to watch the fish fly. But Pike Place Fish is about more than just crowd-pleasing entertainment --- there is an underlying philosophy at work that has made the market both wildly successful and internationally renowned.

In an unusual combination of oral biography and practical business blueprint, Crother and the fishmongers take you behind the scenes at the famous market to illustrate the PPF philosophy and reveal the underlying assumptions that have made PPF the international phenomenon it is today.

Catch! shows that to be "ordinary" is to be a victim of circumstances, responding to whatever comes one's way. To be "great" is to realize that anyone can live an extraordinary life. At Pike Place Fish, everyone is responsible for transforming themselves from ordinary to great by creating their own reality. The authors explore the issues of goals --- financial, personal and humanitarian --- and intention, showing how the crew itself creates these goals and works towards them in collaboration.

Most importantly, Catch! examines the power of possibility and shows how you can achieve greatness in your own life. Catch! explores such guiding principles as coaching and acknowledgment that are lacking in many businesses, and shows that you, too, can be the prime mover in your own experience.

•    Winner of the 2004 IPPY Award for Best Business Book from the Independent Publishers Association

•    Presents, for the first time, the inside story of what really makes Pike Place Fish tick

•    Offers practical, inspiring advice anyone can use to transform themselves from ordinary to great, both on and off the job

•    Includes numerous real-life stories, told by the fishmongers themselves, that will help people find new ways of dealing with problems and conflicts and pursuing their dreams and aspirations

Seattle locals and tourists alike flock to Pike Place each day to watch the fish fly. But Pike Place Fish is about more than just crowd-pleasing entertainment --- there is an underlying philosophy at work that has made the market both wildly successful and internationally renowned.

In an unusual combination of oral biography and practical business blueprint, Crother and the fishmongers take you behind the scenes at the famous market to illustrate the PPF philosophy and reveal the underlying assumptions that have made PPF the international phenomenon it is today.

Catch! shows that to be "ordinary" is to be a victim of circumstances, responding to whatever comes one's way. To be "great" is to realize that anyone can live an extraordinary life. At Pike Place Fish, everyone is responsible for transforming themselves from ordinary to great by creating their own reality. The authors explore the issues of goals --- financial, personal and humanitarian --- and intention, showing how the crew itself creates these goals and works towards them in collaboration.

Most importantly, Catch! examines the power of possibility and shows how you can achieve greatness in your own life. Catch! explores such guiding principles as coaching and acknowledgment that are lacking in many businesses, and shows that you, too, can be the prime mover in your own experience.