“When people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good work.”
— David Ogilvy

Mergers and acquisitions aren’t exactly an arena most folks associate with creative thinking. And yet, they’re fraught with obstacles, barriers, and unforeseen challenges. In short, they’re just the sort of environment where creative thinking shines. But few appreciate how it shines.

With the largest technology acquisition in history hanging in the balance, Michael Dell gathered his most trusted collaborators for a strategic dinner discussion prior to “what was arguably the biggest meeting of my professional life,” with the Board of EMC. Over the course of the dinner, an idea — “The Idea,” as Dell calls it — emerged which fundamentally changed the profile of the deal. “Am I misremembering, or did (we) all really break into spontaneous applause (when The Idea emerged)? What I know for sure is that all of us were smiling.”

How do radical, game-changing ideas emerge in the fog of uncertainty? In his fantastic memoir, Play Nice But Win, Dell speculates, “Serious business was coming the next day, but that night the atmosphere around our table was friendly and fun. Maybe that’s what allowed The Idea to surface.”

We take fun way less seriously than we should. As Ogilvy asserts, contrary to popular opinion, fun isn’t the opposite of good work; rather, good work is often the byproduct of a collegial environment. So what are the key elements of an environment that’s conducive to new ideas?

Isaac Asimov said it much more eloquently than I could in his landmark reflections in MIT Technology Review, How Do People Get New Ideas?: “First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t object…

For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. joviality, the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.”

Does that describe the meetings where you’re trying to break through? Me neither.

But if we learn to value fun rightly, perhaps we can affect a change in our little circles of the world. I found myself just the other day, in a tense idea generation session (a paradox, right???), saying, “I wish for more smiling, folks.”

I wish for more fun.

Related: Involve Yourself In Folly

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