Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work [Paperback]

Leslie Yerkes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2001

Yerkes offers tips, examples, and motivation to help readers, their coworkers, and their customers unleash the power of fun in the workplace. Through real-life case studies and interviews with dozens of leading authors and everyday people, the author illustrates 11 principles of what she calls "The Work/Fun Fusion."

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Leslie Yerkes is President of Catalyst Consulting Group, a 10 year old change management consulting firm also based in Cleveland, Ohio. Leslie has devoted a large part of her consulting practice to the needs of start-up organizations, non-profit arts organizations, and fortune 500 companies. For many years Leslie has mixed fun into her consulting and speaking programs where she is known for her juggling. She is coauthor of the bestselling book 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 1 edition (June 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576751546
• ISBN-13: 978-1576751541
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,352,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Leslie's measure of her success as a business leader and consultant is that she applies to herself first all the consulting principles in which she engages her clients. In her work as an organizational development / change management consultant, her goal is not to be positioned as an expert but rather as a trusted advisor.

Her philosophy is simple: People are basically good, well intentioned, courageous, and able to learn. Her job is to provide a framework in which people can draw on their own inner resources to find creative solutions. Her consulting work has supported organizational success in diverse industries and non-profit fields with its focus on organizational change, strategic planning, and, above all, healthy sustainable organizational performance.

Leslie is co-author of the best selling 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work (Berrett-Koehler:1999) and the author of the Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work (Berrett-Koehler:2002;revised 2nd edition 2007) Beans: Four Principles for Running a Business in Good Times or Bad (Jossey-Bass 2003;) They Just Don't Get It, Changing Resistance Into Understanding (Berrett-Koehler: 2005;) and Beyond Kicks and Carrots, Motivation for the 21st Century (Norma Sustenere: 2008.)

As a speaker and facilitator, Leslie has traveled throughout the United States and brought her passionately inspirational, seriously playful sensibilities to memorable presentations, workshops, and speeches.

Leslie's wide-ranging expertise is a product of her unstoppable curiosity and thirst for learning. At the same her expertise has a simple and profound focal point: that a person's work life best serves organizational success when it also sustains the highest purposes of the person. This is why her research and findings about fun and at work have struck a deep chord with clients and audiences. She's onto something important for the health of the workplace today, and tomorrow.

She founded Catalyst Consulting Group, Inc. in 1987. Leslie lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio. She likes to play in Sweden and Europe, but she'll play anywhere. Her list of favorite activities includes reading, fly-fishing, scuba diving, cattle drives, community theater, swimming with dolphins, and time spent with family and friends.

www.changeisfun.com
www.facebook.com/Leslie.Yerkes
www.linkedin.com/in/leslieyerkes

Catalyst Consulting Group, Inc.
12701 Larchmere Boulevard
Suite 4A
Cleveland Ohio 44120
216-791-7802
216791-7860 fax
[e-mail] email
www.changeisfun.com web site

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work, November 2, 2001

By 

Jim Harter/TallySoft (Houston, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work (Paperback)

This is an easy read but it by no means is the fluff that you find in so many of these types of books. Many books on this subject are simply a collection of stories that illustrate random examples where others have brought fun into the workplace.

This book goes deeper. It provides the "Why" as well as the "How" and not just the "What". The book is divided into principles that you can apply to your business that actually work. You decide the outcome you want based on the principle you want to implement and do it. You tailor it to your specific business environment.

In other words, this book can actually help your business!!!

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work, June 1, 2001

By 

Bill Wilkins (Westlake, OH (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work (Paperback)

Why do employees in top performing organizations always seem to enjoy their work? In her second book Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work, Leslie Yerkes lays out 11 principles for creating a Fun/Work Fusion in the workplace. She then examines 11 companies, including Southwest Airlines and Harvard University Dining Services, that have successfully applied these principles to merge fun and work. Leslie offers the keys for unlocking each of the 11 principles for making companies happier and healthier. The book includes a Fun/Work Fusion Inventory of behaviors for measuring the extent to which fun has been allowed to enter any workplace. This easy to read book is loaded with nuggets of information designed to help any organization become a more enjoyable, productive and profitable place to work.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Works Does, June 4, 2001

By 

Joseph Murphy (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work (Paperback)

This new book from Leslie Yerkes uses a case study format to emphasizes key principles of why having fun at work makes business sense. I like how the book is divided into two main sections, one holds rich and thoughtful case studies and the other, tools and actions to help foster the principles of Fun in your workplace. You can read it like a reference book by using the Table of Contents to find what may be of interest to you. This is good user-friendly design.

In each case, a business is highlighted that provides living proof of both the existence and value of a Fun Works principle. I found these examples to be real and full of ideas to build upon. Companies large and small, from coast to coast provide the framework that shouts, Fun enhances the capability of your organization. People feel more compelled to bring their strengths into the workplace when they are allowed and encouraged to express themselves.

Going beyond corporate success stories, Yerkes has captured and shared simple experiments to try, and suggestions to implement that may help you take fun to a new level in your organization. Being able to find and create fun on-the-job seems to make the day feel less like work and more like an adventure.

I recommend the book as a source of inspiration and a resource for benchmarking practices and principles that can unleash creativity and impact employee retention.

Joseph P. Murphy, Senior Consultant SHL

Chairperson, NorthCoast Employment Management Association (EMA)