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  • Why do we take ourselves so seriously?

    Posted on January 26th, 2010 by Robbin and currently 12 commenting.

    I love this TED video from Tim Brown at IDEO. I seriously have a business crush on the man.

    After Tim asks his audience to sketch their neighbor in thirty seconds (geez, I wish I had thought of that one) he realizes that upon revealing their neighbor’s pictures in this group of adults there’s a lot of “I’m sorry” going around the room.

    He goes on to say that we fear the judgment of our peers. We’re embarrassed to show our ideas to our peers and this is what makes us conservative.

    Don’t you love that?

    He quotes his partner and one of the founders of IDEO, David Kelly, as saying “I set out to start a company of best friends. Friendship is a short cut to play. It allows us to trust.”

    Trust is good for a company’s soul.

    I have been thinking about that lately. Brains on Fire is a company of best friends. We love together, fight together and play together.

    But more importantly we trust each other.

    And we are lucky to work with clients who get this. I can often feel in the very first phone introduction if a company feels relaxed with each other.

    Spike and I had a call the other day and when we entered the call the tone was set as we listened to this group joke about the wii fit someone had just gotten for the holidays. They laughed when we realized they didn’t even notice we had joined the call. But no one apologized. We all just laughed. It was a nice way to start a relationship. At play. Trusting each other. No one taking themselves too seriously.

    What can you do today to help break our adult habits?

    Hmmmm….

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12 Responses to “Why do we take ourselves so seriously?”

  1. John Coates January 26th, 2010 at 5:48 am

    The link to Tim Brown is broken. http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html

    But excellent post!!! Something I have been thinking about recently.

    My only thought is that a company should be team/friend focused as you suggest, but it should not go too far that it becomes a family focused as then you can technically never dismiss a disruptive member (something you can do with friends). You always have to love family no matter what.

  2. Robbin January 26th, 2010 at 6:19 am

    Point well taken John. I agree 100% on that.

    Fixed that link!

  3. TransitionalTee (Teresa Basich) January 26th, 2010 at 9:32 am

    Twitter Comment


    Why Do We Take Ourselves So Seriously? | Awesomeness from @RobbinPhillips at @BrainsOnFire: [link to post]

    - Posted using Chat Catcher

  4. Alyssa Gardina January 26th, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    The most productive companies are the ones where coworkers trust each other implicitly. It’s a lot easier to be creative if you’re not taking yourself too seriously and when you know that your coworkers are doing the same. Some of the best ideas are born out of laughter and ridiculous comments.

    Thanks for the post - it’s always good to have someone remind you to stop taking yourself (and others!) so darn seriously!

  5. BennettBeats (Michelle Bennett) January 26th, 2010 at 7:19 pm

    Twitter Comment


    Great post by @BrainsOnFire [link to post] . Spot on.

    - Posted using Chat Catcher

  6. DJ Waldow January 26th, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    Robbin -

    This post really made me smile. I’m a big advocate for smiling and laughing EVERY SINGLE DAY (yeah, caps intentional on this one as I was yelling - ha ha).

    I do think that having a “company of best friends” starts to become harder as you grow beyond 50 or so. How many employees at BOF right now? I experienced this first hand at my last employer - Bronto Software - based out of Durham, NC. I was employee #12 or so. We were all very tight. Best friends might be a stretch, but we worked hard and had a ton of fun. It helped that a great pub was right below our offices. As we grew to >50 we started hiring more and more people who were “not like us” and it became harder to maintain the camaraderie.

    Fast forward to 7 months ago. I moved to Salt Lake City (wife’s job) and took at gig as the Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory - an Email Service Provider based in Baltimore (and a Bronto competitor!). We also have grown quite a bit in the past year: from 20 to 31 or so. The best friend thing is again getting tougher.

    That’s a long way of asking - how do you maintain it as you grow?

    DJ Waldow
    Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
    @djwaldow

    Oh yeah…I met Spike at a recent conference. Good people.

  7. postello (Leif Rehnström) January 27th, 2010 at 12:39 am

    Twitter Comment


    Why do we take ourselves so seriously? Great post from Brains On Fire: [link to post] #strategy #creativity

    - Posted using Chat Catcher

  8. Robbin January 27th, 2010 at 6:14 am

    @ john. You are right there has to be some boundries. For sure.

    @ DJ. Good question. We are still <20.

    I have seen companies who are very large do it. USAA is an example. I am sure they have their issues. But they seem to have fun as an organization. Everyone I have met there is lighthearted, yet whip smart. And they believe they are doing good work in the world. Feeling a part of a higher purpose in my mind connects best friends on some levels..

  9. devseo (Alex Hall) January 30th, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    Twitter Comment


    [link to post] - This is good: Why do we take ourselves so seriously?

    - Posted using Chat Catcher

  10. Matt McFadden January 31st, 2010 at 6:50 pm

    Digg the post. Thanks for sharing the video.

  11. DR. WHAW? – February 1, 2010 « One true sentence. February 1st, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    [...] Why do we take ourselves so seriously? — This is a great, short piece from a few days ago that I just got to read today on the Brains on Fire blog. In a world where so many people and companies take themselves alarmingly seriously, this post was a refreshing breath of fresh air. It’s always nice to be reminded that people like to interact and work with folks that can laugh at themselves and have a good time. These laughs and fun moments will likely translate into trust and a positive experience. [...]

  12. gsherman (Gary Sherman) February 2nd, 2010 at 9:10 am

    Twitter Comment


    Dig this: “Trust is good for a company’s soul.” Taken from a @BrainsOnFire blog post: [link to post]

    - Posted using Chat Catcher

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