What is a Joy Monger - and how to become one (with a bonus DIY team workshop and a self study course included)

What is a Joy Monger?





















This is an article describing what a Joy Monger is. In the article a workshop of approx. 60 minutes is also included, a workshop which anyone can present and carry out. The workshop is serious as well as full of fun. You can also do a 5 minute self study course - read a few lines and accept 4 small challenges.

First the article, which could be a self study course: How to become a Joy Monger who lightens up other peoples day

You can show up for work. This does not make you a Joy Monger.
You can meet on time and leave on time. This does not make you a Joy Monger either.
You can be a valued employee. This does not make you a Joy Monger either.
You can achieve high grades and distinctions. This does not make you a Joy Monger either.
You can understand a system, a language, a machine, a new way of doing things. Surprise. This does not make you a Joy Monger either.

So how do you become a Joy Monger? 

Well, you and only you can make you a Joy Monger. But you can learn to light up people around you. If you choose to. 

First an individual training course you can complete when ever you have the time and wish. It will take you half a cup of coffee. So what is a Joy Monger and how do you become one?

A Joy Monger is a person who spreads energy. This means being there for colleagues, bosses, customers, friends and family. And strangers too. Joy Mongers are good at greeting people, saying HI, smiling, waving, signaling, letting other people in, helping others, holding doors etc. 

A Joy Monger builds connections. Relationships are the goal for a Joy Monger. They know when to offer a glass of water, a cup of coffee, hot soup or a piece of chewing gum. Joy Mongers never overdo things. And they don't expect recognition. They do what they do unconditionally. 

A Joy Monger makes work, meetings and conversations worth remembering. These four practices can be according to your choice:

Be there: Pay attention to people around you. Be there for the other person. Greet the other person with a HI, a GOOD MORNING or a wave with your hand or a friendly smile. 
And now, for a real challenge: Put the phone away - at the dinner table, at the meeting table, at the coffee table. Focus on the person(s) you are with. 

Make their day: Give a compliment. Everybody loves to be seen and heard. Compliment 2 per day. Compliment 5 per day. Compliment 10 per day. Compliment their hair. Their glasses. Their shoes. Their pace. Their way of being.
Challenge: Who will you compliment and for what? Go for it! How about 5 compliments per day? What can you plan ahead (planned spontaneous appreciation)?

Play: Be serious in an entertaining way. Play with words. Start small competitions. Do unexpected things. Wear creasy socks. Wear a remarkable tie or an extraordinary hair band. Help other people. Say HI in new fun ways. When you start looking out for it new fun things will show up. 
Challenge: How can you incorporate play in your daily work? Talk to your colleagues about it.

Choose your attitude: You wake up, look out of the window and see pouring rain. You have two choices: complain about the gloomy weather or embrace it, grab your rain coat, and go splash in some puddles. Same rain, different perspective. The difference? Your attitude.
Choose an attitude that will assist you, be of help to you. When your phone rings you can choose a curious attitude. So whoever is calling be curious. Then you are not childish, angry or disappointed. You are curious. You ask many questions. No one can take you by surprice because you are curious.  
Challenge: Identify your 'Rainy Day' mindset. Write down what you typically see as negative. Find a way to reframe it. If you dread Mondays, turn them into a day of opportunity. Schedule Monday coffee meetings. Wear your favorite Monday outfit, or set a Monday goal. 

Good luck!


And here is The Joy Monger Workshop to be delivered by a 'leader' to a team. What is a Joy Monger,  and how do we as a team become Joy Mongers?

As a leader of your team you should be able to run this workshop all by yourself. 

Outline of workshop:
Introduce yourself and welcome everyone (short - please).
Explain that you will introduce everyone to the term 'Joy Monger': It's a bit like a Fish Monger. A person who trades with fish. So a Joy Monger is a person who trades with joy. A Joy Monger gives joy away and receives joy back. Sometimes the trade is 'good'. And sometimes the trade is 'bad'. Sometimes the Joy Monger does not get anything back. And this is totally OK too.

Ask the group what they think a 'Joy Monger' is.
Write down their suggestions on a flip (or ask a person in the team to write it on the flip).
Now ask the group what they think a 'Sad Monger' (the opposite of a Joy Monger) is. 
Write down their suggestions on another flip (or ask another person in the team to write).

Tell the group that this is a bit black and white. There will be something in the middle.
Ask the group what the middle thing might be.
Write down their suggestions on a third flip (or ask a third person to write).
Now you have three flips on display explaining a 'Sad Monger', a 'Neutral Monger' and a 'Joy Monger'. And you have three persons who wrote it all on the flips. 
Now ask the three persons to suggest:

What's in it for the team and for the recipient being a Sad Monger?
What's in it for the team and for the recipient being a Neutral Monger?
What's in it for the team and for the recipient being a Joy Monger?

What is the advantage, if any, for the recipient? Is this a fact? Do you know this for sure?
Say thank you to the three flip-persons and allow them to return to their seats.

Would you all like to try be Joy Mongers? OK. Here we go!

There are four parts of being a Joy Monger:

1. Be there: You have to pay attention to the people around you. Being a Joy Monger requires you to be there for the other person. You can always greet the other person with a HI, a GOOD MORNING or wave your hand or send a friendly smile. You can't know for sure if it's OK to meet another person with something bigger than this. 
Try this out now. Ask everybody to join you on the floor. Please stand in a big circle. Now turn this circle into two smaller circles by dragging one participant to face her or his neighbor. Ask the rest of the group to move like this. Now you have 2 equal concentric circles. Ask everyone to greeet one another and then move one step to the next participant and greet in a new way: HI, nod, shake hand, do knuckles, hug, hello, smile, dance, jump and so on. 
After a couple of rounds ask the two circles to ask this question: How are you really doing? And then listen to the answer. 
Explain that BEING THERE is essential to being a Joy Monger. A Joy Monger is an expert in sencing other people and their state of mind. This is the first and most essential quality of a Joy Monger.

2. Make their day: When you are being there for another person you are now able to make that persons day, minute or second. 
Try this out: Praise on back. Hand out a pen and a card board in A4 and attach it on every team members back. Allow everyone time to attach the card board. Now the team gets 3 minutes to make written compliments, acknowledgements and praise on as many backs as they can. Remember this is serious fun. Naughty or abusive words are banned. Be ready with your pen held high when I say GO.
During the exercise be ready with your camera and take a lot of pictures (ask for permission before the exercise). Your participants will cue up so backs are lined up. This will happen automatically.
Stop the exercise after 3 minutes and allow everyone to have a look at their own card board. Ask everyone to say THANK YOU in chorus. 
Explain: First and second practise was BE THERE and MAKE THEIR DAY. How do these two fit together? They are interrelated - but how? Ask several times for input.

3. Play: Let us try this 'play' out now. Stand in front of a colleague that has the same shoe type as yourself. Go. Now the task for you is to count to 3. In this way. One say 1. The other one says 2. And the first one says 3. Do it slowly. Go.
Say STOP and now ask them to repeat but this time CLAPPING instead of saying 1. So now its CLAP, 2, 3, CLAP, 2, 3. Continue until I say STOP. 
Say STOP and now ask them to repeat but his time TRAMPLE instead of saying 2. So now its CLAP, TRAMPLE, 3. Continue until I say STOP.
Say STOP and now ask them to repeat but this time say (company name) instead of saying 3. So now its CLAP, TRAMPLE, (company name). Continue until I say STOP.
Ask the group: What did we practice in this exercise? Some might say PLAY. Some might say HAVING FUN. You say: What did we also practice? Imagine our managing director, our CEO steps in the door while we are CLAPPING, TRAMPLING and saying (company name) - and she or he asks: What are you doing and is it really money worth? What will you answer?
Many good suggestions will appear and you ask: Is it money worth?

4. Choose Your Attitude: A performing team needs a sound and healthy attitude, realistic, hopeful, joyful. This includes all the reactions the team has during a working day. When customers misunderstand, when the coffea is cold, when the boss is awkward, when a colleague has too long breaks - be a Joy Monger. This can be done with a little handful of chosen attitudes (write them on a flip):

  1. Aggressive
  2. Alive
  3. Angry
  4. Annoyed
  5. Anxious
  6. Appreciative
  7. Assertive
  8. Attentive
  9. Authentic
  10. Caring


Now ask your participants to choose 3 attitudes each that will be their personal shortlist of attitudes that will assist when needed. When your phone rings you never know what comes. It can be a wonderfull person with a bad message. Or it can be an awfull person with a very positive message. So be ready and don't just react randomly. Remember that you are your own boss. 
There are positive attitudes and there are negative attitudes. Remember that the attitude you choose must be helpful to you.

Ask your participants to find a partner they can discuss their choices with. Use the questions:

What have you chosen?
What are you going to use them for?
What kind of help do you expect them to offer you?

Now we are all ready to go out and test being a Joy Monger. At our next meeting we will examine what actually worked, how it worked and why and why not. Enjoy your joy mongering.



The term Joy Monger was identified by John Christensen. He is the founder and CEO of FISH! and ChartHouse Learning, Minnesota. John was inspired by the term Fish Monger and created this new term Joy Monger. John is a film maker and an advocate for joy. And he is my friend.



Good luck and kind regards
Joy Monger - yes, I am a Joy Monger. And sometimes I am not. When doing my daily walk, I am a Joy Monger. When I ride my bicycle I am a Joy Monger. When I play badminton with the lads, I am a Joy Monger. When behind the steering wheel in my car, I am a Sad Monger. But I am trying to improve. 


Webshop: www.LEADERSwarehouse.COM
☎ +45 71 92 55 63
✉ info@LEADERSwarehouse.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Time to Return to People is Now

Image
The Time to Return to People is Now Article written by John Christensen , Founder & CEO of FISH!, Advocate for Joy, Publisher, Film maker and Servant Leader. The time to return to people is now. After four years of adapting to new norms and reshaping the way we live and work, one thing has become undeniably clear: what we miss most—and what we need most—is each other. The Great Shutdown turned our world inside out, pulling us away from familiar rhythms and forcing us into a world of remote everything—work, school, even weddings. In the midst of the upheaval, many of us clung to the hope of a return to “normal.” But as the dust has settled, it’s clear that things didn’t go back to the way they were. And maybe that’s for the best. Instead of looking backward, we’ve streamlined, adapted, and carried on. We’ve questioned old routines, discarded the unnecessary, and found new ways to reclaim our time. Yet one challenge remains: how will we choose to re-engage with one another as we ...
Read more

Great value DIY exercise: The team T: My job, your job, our job

Image
The team T: My job, your job, our job This exercise is a great way to agree values and responsibilities in a group. No cost. No props. Only a few minutes. I would say: Go for it. Draw a big T and write the words MY JOB over the left column and YOUR JOB over the right column. Now go through MY JOB and the things you have to do: preparing, planning, leading, involving, negotiating, being friendly and curious, say what you do and do what you say etc. Write these in the left column. Now go through their job and write them in the right column: teaming, enjoying, preparing, keeping time, counting, being friendly and curious etc. Go through the two lists and look for similarities. There must be a number of overlaps. Now cross out the two words at the top: MY JOB and YOUR JOB and exchange them with the word OUR JOB . Now you have a list of responsibilities for all of you. Ask everybody what they see. Ask several times: What do you also see? Involve everybody in how you all commit and stick to...
Read more

Try with a very construcitve praise script under your feet

Image
The Team Coaching Mat is a must have:  Build your team with this mat for 1 focus person at a time and up to 10 helpers. It is totally OK to read out loud from a script when you have a focus person in the middle that needs help. With The Team Coaching Mat, you are more likely to get started helping a colleague, both getting to know her or him better, acknowledging and appreciating her or him and then also helping her or him with a problem area.  When the coaching carpet lies there on the floor or on a table and invites you, there is a greater willingness to talk about what may be difficult to talk about. When talking about things, frictions, problems, conflicts, difficulties become halved or in any case smaller. And when problems become smaller, they take up less space and there is more room for actual tasks - the work. It is also nice to know for everyone that help is near. The Team Coaching Mat is right there. You really just have to step into the middle and call for some co...
Read more