I knew I was in for a treat, musically speaking, when I began to see last week the Netflix documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin. What I did not expect was to see how much joy the members of the rock band Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page (guitar), John Bonham (drums), John Paul Jones (bass guitar), and Robert Plant (vocals), experienced when they made music together. In the film, Page describes the excitement of finding musicians who could realize ideas that existed only in his head. He describes the chemistry between the four of them and how they inspired each other.
This rock band’s experience teaches us a few things:
- Joy is not the opposite of hard work. The band worked harder than ever when they saw how their own ideas were transformed by the others in practice sessions. They rehearsed relentlessly, toured constantly, and pushed themselves creatively.
- Work can provide energy. When Bonham played an unexpected rhythm, Page responded. When Plant improvised a vocal line, Jones adjusted his bass. Ideas bounced continuously among the four musicians. There is no doubt in my mind that Led Zeppelin became greater than the sum of its parts.
- Collaboration happens when everyone contributes. Page, the most experienced and de facto leader of the band, did not try to dominate the others. Jones's arranging and keyboard work, Bonham's drumming, Plant's lyrics and vocal melodies all shaped the material rather than being dictated top-down.
- Collaboration can be an emotional experience too. Despite their reputation for excess and superstardom, they looked like four people who genuinely enjoyed making music together. Their enjoyment wasn't incidental; it was part of what made them exceptional.
- The band’s threee surviving members (Bonham died in 1980) talked about their work, not their record record sales numbers.
Many organizations view collaboration as a process, something that happens through meetings, shared documents, workflows and approvals. The best business teams go further; they see collaboration through the lens of outcomes such as solving a difficult customer problem, designing an innovative product, or brainstorming until a breakthrough emerges. Their satisfaction comes from making a collective discovery. Individual contributors find joy in their work when they see progress, excel at what they do, solve interesting problems, and see the impact their work has on others.
Teams that enjoy working together communicate more openly, receive feedback in a positive way, recover from setbacks more quickly, share ideas more freely, and persist through difficult problems. There is greater engagement and less churn. Your team members won't remember every meeting or target. They will remember whether their work felt meaningful, whether they learned from talented colleagues, whether they laughed, whether they grew, and whether they felt part of something larger than themselves.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to ensure there is joy in your team:
- Is my team merely completing work together or are they creating something together?
- Are contributions noticed and valued? Do we welcome and celebrate bold, new ideas?
- Do I make sure that no one person occupies centre stage all the time?
- Do we have moments of laughter and play, or is it all deadlines and delivery?
- Do people work on things that excite them, at least some of the time?
- Do I encourage autonomy in my team?
- Do people have opportunities to grow and learn?
A word of caution: joy in work isn't the same as constant happiness, and treating it as a requirement rather than a bonus can backfire. It can make people feel like something is wrong with them (or their job) during the inevitable stretches of routine or difficult work that every role has.
How do you create a work environment that makes Mondays look just as good as Fridays? I’d love to hear from you.