by Eddie Pipkin

Last week I wrote about Starbucks and “forced joy,” a directive from corporate leadership that employees would express joyful interactions by writing encouraging messaging on customer cups.  It didn’t work, because dictating employee happiness and enthusiasm rarely does.  On the other hand, giving employees – or volunteers – an opportunity to find and cultivate their own joy and choose how to express themselves can pay great dividends.  Such a policy encourages creativity and individuality, carrying the vision of your organization forward in exciting ways by giving people the option of showing what that vision means to them and how they can connect it to those they serve.

In the Starbucks case, the directive from the CEO created angst on the part of overworked baristas who suddenly found themselves laboring with an additional task (without additional compensation, as they most always are!) and the pressure of manufacturing sentiment, expressed whimsically (without offending anyone).  That’s hard work!  It turned off employees, and it disappointed the audience for whom it was intended, since it turned serendipitous surprises into mass-produced, generic, pro forma moments.

Imagine that the boss of bosses had instead launched the following proposal: All baristas shall be encouraged to find unique ways to make customers feel special:

  • Baristas are empowered to get creative in coming up with ways to bring delight to a customer’s day.
  • There is a place to record and share different ideas developed by different baristas.
  • There is a way for customers to interact with their local coffee spots by giving shout-outs to their baristas.
  • Baristas will be celebrated by management and periodically rewarded for some of their best and most inspiring ideas.

Now everyone is excited!  Now baristas are trusted to innovate, to use their own talents, gifts, and interests to further the vision of the company (in this case making customers feel special and appreciated).  Customers on the receiving end of this attention don’t feel like it’s an obligation being exercised by employees, but a true breath of fresh air and fun.  Workers are energized.  Patrons are energized.  The buzz is good.  The whole process lends itself to social media and going viral.  Happiness prevails.  Both sides of the equation feel valued.  That’s a win-win.

Of course, some companies have tried exactly this strategy.  The Walt Disney Company encouraged theme park workers to creatively acknowledge guests in exactly these kinds of ways during a recent anniversary celebration.  Any cast member could take the  initiative to do a little special something for an individual or family in a park on a given day.  I myself was treated to a free, unexpected ice cream on a hot July afternoon!  Pixie dust indeed!  Obviously, employees and managers would communicate extensively about such a project with ideas being traded and questions about appropriate options being asked and answered.  There would be limits.  There would be unexpected complications.  But teams could work through such challenges together – working through such challenges might actually even bolster team spirit, done in the context of making magic happen.  Meanwhile, good vibes prevail.

Local churches can model this kind of unforced joy.

Lots of churches have periods when they stress out about their weak hospitality efforts, and they respond by going into overdrive on drilling congregants in the ways they should welcome visitors.  Make conversation with everyone to your left and right!  Invite new people to lunch!  Shake hands with everyone you pass in the hall!  Wear your name tag!  Address everyone by name!  Those are all fine ideas, but let’s be honest, they terrify the introverts, and done as a required task, they become cumbersome, and they feel fake to the people on the receiving end.

Better perhaps to reinforce general principles of hospitality and give people lots of options for sorting out their own best way of making others feel comfortable and welcome.

Lots of options are a great idea whenever we are trying to get a large group of people to embrace an important principle.  Hospitality, for instance, can take so very man forms, all of them worthwhile.  We are gifted for some forms more than others, so it’s good to know that all the variations are viable and valued.  One person might be gifted at writing notes that acknowledge visitors.  One person might be gifted at starting conversations with strangers.  One person might like making charming gift bags that can be handed out to first timers, but that same person might be completely intimidated by the social act of handing them out.  There’s someone else in the room who loves that social part.  A vibrant community can empower all of those parts and pieces and facilitate their working together in a seamless whole.

Part of this picture is refining the vision of your faith community to move beyond the “generic” core values of all churches everywhere – yes, we should live out love in our communities, but what does that mean for us in our context, for instance – and identify some specific aspects of what makes us us and how we can celebrate that usness with joy.  I was gratified to see a local church in my area that has just completed a vision refinement process, and one of the core values that they settled on was LAUGHTER.  Humor and fun as a value of their faith community: the idea that laughter is part of their identity.  That struck me as delightful.  I’ve rarely heard of local churches overtly embracing, much less actually encouraging, such a value.  It’s easy to see how that might translate into empowering people to be creative agents of joy.  Having that value published in print gives leaders permission to pursue spiritual whimsy and holy playfulness as goals unto themselves, not just as an afterthought or bonus result and not just limited to the usual age groups that we think of when we think of playfulness and whimsy.  Old folks also like to laugh.

So, the goal becomes not “this is how you will communicate joy (or any other worthwhile value) to the people you serve” but an empowering question of “how can you communicate joy (or any other worthwhile value) to the people you serve?”

Empower people to be creative, to be themselves.

Give them ways to share what they come up with as ideas and the stories of those ideas brought to life, so that those stories might inspire others.

Give people who are on the receiving end of those ideas a way to interact and share their own experiences, as well as develop their own unique ways to share and engage others.

A bulletin board in the hall – old school! – is a great way to let people share their joy.  Social media, of course, was built for these moments.  Regular “joy drops” in worship can get people fired up.  So many options.

Turn on the unforced joy spigots and stand back and smile.

How do you and your leadership teams give people the freedom to let joy loose?  How do you build this as a value in your community?  Sure, it can get a little messy and feel a little uncomfortable for those of you who are obsessed with control, but consider the benefits.  What steps can we take to promote this value and keep it directed in positive and healthy ways?