I Found My Mojo - Yeah Baby, Yeah!!!

How many people will get up at x time tomorrow, drive x route, drink x drink, work x plan, have x meeting, drive home at x time, eat supper at x time and go to bed at x time?

Routine kills creativity!

This was a conclusion that my team and I came too several weeks ago. It was right before I was leaving for Recruitfest and I was explaining the non traditional set up and my excitement leading up to the event. One team member says "it will be good for you to be out of the office and get your creative mojo going". Although I am considered a creative type, I must admit, I was in a slump!

Fast forward to the week after Recruitfest. Although the late nights (ok, for me it was midnight and several Red Bulls on the rocks as that is about as crazy as I get) drained me, once I was rested, man did the creative juices flow. We are working on a candidate user experience project (Thank You Gerry Crispin) and taking a closer look at our services offered to candidates we are unable to place (Cheers to Bill Boorman)!

There are several other ideas in the works, but my point is, it's ok to get out of a routine!! Our business needs it and we need it! Our business is about being creative and thinking ahead of the curve. The energy at Recruitfest was unbelievable. I have never left a "conference" and felt like I had made so many friends (and I use this term correctly).

Here are a few suggestions to shake it up for the rest of the week:

1. Work from home in your pj's - if you already do this, get up, get dressed and work from a location other than home.

2. Instead of having a morning req meeting, have a pep rally (be excited not mundane)...Better yet, hold your meeting outside!

3. Hold a putting contest, yes we did this and it took 10 minutes....guess what, we had fun and no productivity was lost :)

4. Go out with a team member for lunch that you normally would not go with or that you do not know very well....you may find you have a lot in common other than work!

Would love to hear any other suggestion! Get out of your routine and see how your mind starts flowing!

Comment by Ryan Leary on September 30, 2009 at 11:20pm: Alex - first it was a pleasure to meet up with you at RecruitFest. Nice article and yeah, it's easy to lose the creative minds we all have. Recruiters are loud, can be obnoxious at times (me included) and for sure creative. One thing I like to do to break the routine and get the juices flowing is to go bowling at my desk...sounds weird but if you line up some cups and keep a tennis ball near by you can have some fun mid day to get things energized. It's a mental break. I'm not a smoker so that's my 5 minute cig. break.

Comment by Alex Putman on October 1, 2009 at 2:46pm: Thanks Ryan, it was great hanging out and meeting you as well! I love the Desk Bowling idea!!

Comment by Nick Lang on October 5, 2009 at 3:17pm: I used to pitch quarters over lunch for kicks! Very competitive and it may pay for lunch!

Comment by Karla Porter on October 18, 2009 at 11:07am: What a Recruitfest testimonial!

I have a treasured stuffed fish (no, not a taxidermied one!) mascot I throw at people once in a while that goes back to my days as a call center manager when we took everyone through Fish Philosophy training to put the fun into what can be a very stressful job. Over the years it has been held for ransom, photographed on vacation, been the guest of honor at important meetings and lent to those having a tough day for comfort.

The way you have implemented your takeaways from Recruitfest and captured the essence of what it was all about are fantastic and exemplary!

Comment by Alex Putman on December 8, 2009 at 1:37pm: I was looking back at this post today. One day prior to the Thanksgiving break I held our company morning meeting at a country style breakfast diner (we are talking like Mel's). We ate grits (some may need to google this one), bacon, sausage and eggs, knocked out our meeting and had a very productive day! Great information shared by everyone above!

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