Ordering up ‘Happy’-ness

My tummy is finally famous. My big round belly, which no one ever thought would be up to any good, was one of the stars of a video that’s gone (somewhat) viral over the past few weeks, and is now the cause of lots of palpitations in corporate boardrooms all over town. What am I talking about?

A few weeks ago, my colleague Larry Madowo decided it would be a good idea if he brought in a really loud stereo system to the office and made everyone dance to a goofy song. The song in question – ‘Happy’ by the hip hop musician Pharrell Williams – is the theme to the animated movie ‘Despicable Me 2’, and was nominated for an Academy Award. It lost out, but became the theme to the Awards ceremony when many of the stars danced to it (our own Lupita Nyong’o was the first out of the blocks, twirling merrily to it a few minutes before she won her Oscar).

The song became a viral hit, especially when Pharrell helped to make what he called the first 24-hour music video, which consisted of crowds dancing along to the song for (you guessed it) twenty four hours. The nature of the video meant that many people the world over decided to do their version of the ‘happy dance’, and upload the results onto the internet (there are now thousands of versions out there).

To cut a long story short, the wave hit our shores, which is how we ended up with a very loud newsroom and people dusting off their rarely-used dancing skills. As far as I can tell, the NTV version was the second one in Kenya (Safaricom had done theirs two days before), but soon, everyone wanted in on it.

Why am I bringing all this up? A few days ago, I happened upon a conversation about how corporations are ordering up their own versions of the ‘happy dance’, in the hope that it will inject some vim and hipness to their (often) stodgy image. There is an unstated hope that the videos, once uploaded, will go viral, and finally help some crack the oft-stated desire to be ‘digital’.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with an organisation wanting to be ‘with it’. Especially in this digital age, with all its fads, inevitable trends will pop up with annoying regularity, and there often is some social pressure to get with the programme. Or some version of it anyway. It can be argued that this started with the Macarena around 1996, and has progressed through last year’s obsession with the Harlem Shake (if you don’t know what that is, don’t bother).

The problem with the corporate version of the viral trend is that it sounds exactly as pathetic as it actually is. You cannot order up a ‘happy’ moment. Your organisation is simply a ‘happy’ one, or it isn’t. When a company orders up choreographers to synchronise what should be a spontaneous set of interactions, it looks forced and pitiful. Workplace chemistry is a difficult thing to pin down (and consultants are paid millions to supposedly deliver it), but it either happens or it doesn’t – there are few shortcuts.

The other thing is that the ‘happy dance’s’ moment has passed. The viral trends nowadays are so ephemeral that trying to re-create a ‘happy dance’ in late April looks like an attempt to pull off a haircut that was trendy ten years ago. You may think you look hip in your middle age, but you have to wonder why everyone is looking at you a bit funnily. You have to catch the wave in its moment, or else give up and wait for the next one. Which leads to yet another problem, when an organisation (or its leaders) tries to catch every trend. A few years ago it was putting together vision and mission statements (and plastering them everywhere), and now it is ‘happy dances’ and Twitter handles. Even the most staid, backward companies assume that coming up with a Twitter address will make them look trendy, when in point of fact many of them don’t actually have any clue how to use it. This then leads to frustrated customers who do not get the quick interaction they crave (and the Kenyan Twitter crowd can be a vicious one if they get on your case).


So here’s my advice: forget Pharrell Williams and the ‘happy dance’. If your organisation did not do it when it was the ‘in-thing’, then don’t bother doing it now (so please stop stressing your communications people). But if you insist that you must, then we’re available to be consulted on exactly how to do it. Larry Madowo will show you how to be energetic. Ephy Mwangi is a genius with a computer, and will put a brilliant video together (he’s the gent right at the end of our video). And my (now famous) tummy can be hired to give your video the touch of magic.

Also published in the Business Daily on 22 April 2014 at http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion-and-Analysis/Why-firms-should-always-catch-a-wave-in-its-moment/-/539548/2287922/-/item/0/-/f8hq5g/-/index.html

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