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| © Courtesy of Sam Nelson Sam Nelson |
I'm a pretty reserved guy. I dress in typical ways,
with no desire to stand out. I do my job, then drive home to my wife
and kid. I'm the last person you'd expect to suddenly show up one day
with shocking, neon blue hair.
But I had no choice. I'd made a promise.
I oversee a team of sales representatives at Outreach,
a tech company based in Seattle. Thanks to new technologies, we've
found that we can hire people straight out of college or from other
fields, and get them trained quickly.
In June, I had a team of
five brand new recruits who had never been in tech sales. We also had an
ambitious goal: to beat all previous first-month sales records.
This
required some kind of special incentive. But I had no idea how to
wrangle budgets to get prizes like trips or tickets. I needed to come up
with something free, but still powerful enough to motivate them.
An
idea popped into my mind, so I just went with it. I told them that if
we beat the record, I'd dye my hair blue — and not just for a day.
Permanent dye to last until it grew out.
My team laughed, and asked whether I was serious. When I said yes, their eyes lit up.
They
ended up blasting the previous record out of the water. And while there
are many reasons — they worked hard and we built a great process — they
made clear that getting me to look like an anime character or Stanley Tucci from 'The Hunger Games' was part of what drove them.
Humor relieves stress and builds teams
There
are a few reasons this idea worked. First, injecting some humor and
playfulness into the atmosphere of a high-stress job can be very
helpful.
Sales in particular can be very tough, since it means facing constant rejection. It's one of the careers with high rates of
depression. When things got tough for our team during that first month,
someone would crack a joke about my future look. We'd laugh, and the
team would push forward.
The willingness to do silly things can
also help build a sense of teamwork, that we're all in this together.
Richard Branson discussed this in the book "The Mind of the CEO",
saying that as the top executive, "you've got to be the first into the
swimming pool with your clothes on or whatever, the first to let your
hair down, first to make a fool out of yourself on the stage singing
karaoke, to break the ice so that everybody else knows how far they can
go to have fun."
Risking embarrassment can inspire
There's
also something more to it. I wasn't just offering something fun, I was
offering to humiliate myself in a way that would last months.
That
speaks to a philosophy I've developed about work in general. I've found
that many people are willing to work hard, but few are willing to risk
personal embarrassment to achieve a goal. When someone is willing, other
people admire that as a form of courage. And they want to see it play
out.
This helps explain why a United Way chapter and SignUpGenius
have recommended fundraiser incentives like "Get the Boss" or
"Embarrass the Boss." Options include dunking them in a tank of water,
getting them to shave their head or doing an old fashioned
pie-in-the-face. The desire to see people willing to make fools of
themselves for a good cause is also the thinking behind the viral ice bucket challenge that helped raise money for ALS research.
Pulling through
When
our sales results came in, our team celebrated. No one brought up my
hair, and some of them weren't sure whether I would do it.
But
that weekend, I found a stylist who spent hours putting together a
concoction. He bleached my brown hair bright white to get rid of any
color, then used a unique mixture to make it the most obnoxious, bright
blue he could muster. It took hours and cost $250.
Heading to work
that Monday, I was self-conscious and very nervous. But I decided to
own it. Everyone who saw me laughed — but also loved it.
I also posted about it on LinkedIn. Soon, my new photo
and post explaining the hair got thousands of views. It's a kind of
attention I wasn't used to getting, but have found it to be a good
opportunity to share ideas. In fact, I've decided to keep my hair crazy
blue for the time being.
I wear it as a badge of honor. As a sign
to my employees that I will pull through for them, no matter what, if
they give it their all. And as a message to everyone: It isn't easy to
make a fool of yourself. But if you can cross that line, one very few
people are willing to cross, there is a lot of opportunity on the other
side.
