Nobody wakes up the on the first day of a new job thinking, “I hope my new coworkers and I work mechanically in silos.”  While that method may have its time and place, most companies value effective collaboration, and they want employees to feel connected to each other and to the company.  Blodgett made sure that Bare took this idea seriously and responded by using humor.  Blodgett knows humor is a powerful tool for creating a culture that promotes that type of bonding and trust.  She explains:

She adds that companies, including Bare, attract people who intuitively feel that they fit in. 

And even though Blodgett regularly danced on tables, she was still the CEO, and employees were often intimidated or nervous when meeting her for the first time.  Her solution?  She Invited them to her office alone and showed them personal objects and photos of her family.  She would take her shoes off (as we now know is her signature move).  She would then find a way to bring humor and levity to the meeting, even when faced with a decidedly non-humorous topic like new FDA regulations, presented by a woman from the least-humorous department: legal.  “It’s not a bad thing to have the legal team be more serious than the rest of the company, but we needed to take it down a notch.  I took her pad and pen out of her hand and drew a big smiley face.”

FDA regulations aside, in a crowded cosmetics field, Bare Escentuals needed to be creative in product and message to compete.  That is why Blodgett used humor during creative sessions to get better results, faster – even if people came to meetings preoccupied:

And Blodgett’s recipe for preparing for a creative meeting was… you are going to guess dancing again, and you would be absolutely... not even close.  Actually, she describes it as similar to prepping for a boxing match; hopping from one foot to the other to get the blood flowing and maybe doing push-ups.  Then Blodgett did the surprise move that boxers traditionally did - asking everyone why they chose their outfits.  “This is unexpected and allows everyone to practice articulating in an improvised way.”

The creativity that came out of these meetings fed directly into another critical goal: Getting customers to laugh too.

In fact, Blodgett argues that’s how you can tell that humor is solidly part of the company’s DNA.  “The best way to measure the impact: listen for laughing.”

Up Next: Connecting with Customers