"I certainly wish that every company I work with would take these ideas and run with them. It seems like a natural assumption that companies that create fun workplaces have happier, more creative employees, better products and services, happier customers and, ultimately, more success. Aren't those the kinds of companies that everyone wants to work for and do business with?"

What would you say if someone told you that fun at work, more than being just a nice thing to do, is an essential ingredient for creating highly effective and successful organizations? Maybe you would laugh. Well, that's a good start!

But let's get serious because Catalyst's Leslie Yerkes, together with Dave Hemsath, has published 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work in order to help readers realize that in many ways fun is serious business. In fact, the authors surveyed over 4,000 businesspeople around the world, discovering how fun -- and the energy it creates -- is a powerful strategic weapon for achieving extraordinary results in all areas of corporate life, ranging from training sessions to meetings to hiring practices and more.

Written to be used by anyone who works, from line employees to managers, from contract workers to senior executives, this book is designed so that you can open it to any page and find valuable ideas to use immediately. To facilitate your finding a fun idea to suit your particular work situation or need, 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work is organized into seven sections:

The Work Environment: Presents ideas for how you can change the tangible and intangible features of your workplace to foster high energy, employee self-esteem and motivation, and team spirit.

Communication: Shows how to communicate in a memorable, effective and sensitive way that will grab the attention of your audience, engage their interest and enliven their willingness to act

Training: Reveals ways fun can be integrated into training to energize people so they want to learn, improve their skills, and keep coming back for more.

Meetings: Provides ways to relieve meeting tedium, enliven presentations with humor, and level the hierarchical playing field to create an atmosphere that encourages honest dialogue, risk taking, and sharing of ideas.

Recognition: Outlines ideas for unleashing the energy and enthusiasm that turns challenges into achievement by recognizing accomplishment through fun-loving, memorable, and even zany acts of recognition.

Team Building: Offers ways to help foster good relationships between individuals on teams, develop the trust necessary for high-performance teamwork, and soothe the natural tensions that arise when people work together.

Simple Acts of Fun: Outlines quick and easy ways to get people to take a sanity break, stop and laugh, and so energize themselves and coworkers. Great ideas for jumpstarting the level of fun in the workplace.

And...to help readers see where to begin in transforming their workplaces and work lives, the authors provide a Twelve-Step Method to Fun, complete with illustrations, ideas, and quotes that will inspire, entertain, and help everyone start to have fun at work.

To order 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work from Amazon.com, click here.