Hack:
Business singing.

By Aleksejs Busarovs - boss ;) at innomaniacs LLC

October 14, 2010 at 7:07am

creativity

organizational learning

choir

singing

Moonshots

Take the work out of work

Summary

To make people more creative and happy at work, I suggest singing choir for all member of stuff.

Problem

We all well know dilemma of balancing work and personal life, finding the right ratio between working and non-working hours, unfortunately in this battle work usually wins. I offer to integrate pleasant part of personal life – singing, in working process. I am talking about singing in choir; it could be compared with team building activities. Well, the answer is yes and no, it does build team spirit very well, but it hasn’t negative aspects of typical team building session, like big budget, unprofessional execution, and too much drinking.

Solution

I think any business tool should be simple and effective, like bullet; one shot, right to the point, nothing excess. My hack, about how to bring work out of work – is to establish choir and conduct singing sessions on regular basis. Choir’s participants are company’s personal, required resources are time and space, since all stuff participate in choir, singing could be arranged in office, there is no one left, to whom choir could disturb working.

Practical Impact

Benefits:

Everyone can participate, even tune deaf people, singing better in choir, than alone, proved on myself J
Better health, study shows, that singing positively influence immune system;
Enhanced creativity and organizational learning, Lithuanian research proves it;
Increased social capital and social engagement;
Genuine friendship is developed between members;
Level of self-esteem and happiness goes up!

First Steps

Determine time and place, find leader and overcome shyness.

Credits

In India, till present are widely spread tradition of kirtan, joint devotional singing, where people feels happy and joyful. There is theory, which link positive emotion from singing with evolution, especially social engagement mechanism, using vocal cord has connection to comforting, things that most of us are lacking in modern life.

Robert Beck (of U. Cal., Irvine) and others called “Choral Singing, Performance Perception, and Immune System Changes in Salivary Immunoglobulin A and Cortisol” (Music Perception, Fall 2000: 18(1):87-106.)

Palmira Juceviciene, "The emergence of learning organization from mastering the organizational creativity", The Future of Innovation, Book of Abstracts, Huizingh K.R.E., Conn, S., Torkkeli, M., Bitran, I. (Eds.)

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