Fun Isn’t Frivolous: The Business Case for Joy in Experience Design
Three Key Takeaways
- Joy is an employee engagement lever. Not a distraction.
- What people feel determines what they remember.
- Experiences that create shared joy drive better outcomes.
The question caught us all by surprise.
It was the first time a new executive team was on stage together, and they invited their audience — 800 of the company’s leaders — to ask them anything. We knew questions might be hard-hitting. The execs were prepared.
It came from an attendee in the fourth row.
“So, I was wondering…” he began. “What do you all do for fun?”
The 13 leaders on stage expected questions about financials. Strategy. Compensation. AI. Acquisitions. But fun? Fun wasn’t in the talking points.
The executive team rolled with it. One talked about winning. One opened up about their family. Another about their love of carbs (same). Everyone wanted a turn at the mic. Their eyes lit up. They joked. They relaxed.
And the audience was… captivated.
As the meeting’s creative director, the question surprised me, too. But the reaction didn’t.
Why? Because I believe in the strategy of joy.
Even for the most serious of audiences, the most elite leaders, the most professional of professionals, I will pitch ideas designed to make people laugh, connect, sing along, or compete. A mockumentary. A lip sync battle. A funny story about your toddler. The degree and type of fun varies team to team, culture to culture. Context matters. But whatever the form, moments like these help cultivate something deeply powerful: collective joy.
Sometimes clients resist this, and for valid reasons.
We don’t want to distract the team.
We need to be taken seriously.
We’ve got to hit our numbers before any fun is had.
But fun and joy aren’t frivolous. They are a vital part of gatherings that drive productivity, motivation, and culture (not to mention the ROI of your event).
The Neuroscience of Joy: Why It Drives Results
One of the most fascinating studies on this comes from Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock and Joseph Allen. They videotaped hundreds of meetings, analyzed humor patterns, and examined outcomes. Their finding: laughter leads to more productive, goal-oriented meetings and stronger long-term performance.
In his talks and book on humor in leadership, author Adam Christing describes humor as a “shortcut to trust.”
One study even found that employees who watched a comedy clip before working were 10% more productive than those who just… started working.
There’s also neuroscience at play. When you experience fun and joy, your brain releases dopamine, which is tied to motivation and attention. If your people are having fun, they’re more likely to pay attention to business messages and rally behind your calls to action.
Fun doesn’t derail focus; it creates it.
The effect also goes beyond engagement at the event. Emotion is one of the strongest drivers of what the brain retains and recalls. Moments that spark joy are encoded more deeply than neutral or transactional experiences. In practical terms, when we create moments of joy, we’re doing more than capturing attention in the moment. We’re building memories that carry forward long after the meeting ends, and making sure your messages stick.
Perhaps the most powerful benefit is the way shared joy strengthens culture and connection. I think of watching the Chicago Bears’ epic fourth-quarter comebacks with fans at a bar. Laughing out loud with a packed movie theater. Or how the cast of The Traitors bonds so quickly through a shared game experience.
This is collective joy in action. And when you feel it in a ballroom, you know it. It radiates from the leaders on stage. You can sense you’re in the presence of a community that’s connected, energized, and excited to be together. Research backs this up: teams that have fun together are more engaged, collaborative, and creative.
If You Want Better Results, Design an Experience Employees Will Remember
You can’t manufacture collective joy, but you can design for it. Authenticity, cultural alignment, and thoughtful execution all matter. And the better you understand a team, the more effectively you can create the conditions for it to emerge.
Like most companies, our clients are navigating change and high-pressure market dynamics. In-person meetings are significant investments. The instinct is often to sideline fun, games, and human stories in favor of serious business topics.
But the clients who see the strongest results — boosts in performance, belief, engagement, and alignment — are often the ones willing to have a little fun along the way.