Are We Having Fun Yet?
They call it work for a reason: It’s drudgery, something to slog through until payday. Or maybe you love your job—work is your passion, your identity and nearly all you do.
Alumna Bree Groff (MSLOC14) offers a third way to think about how we spend five-sevenths of our week: What if work were simply more fun?
In her new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously), Groff argues that life is too short to spend the week pining for Friday. “We deserve to love all our days,” she writes. “Even Mondays. Because one day we will run out.”
Groff earned her master’s degree in learning and organizational change from Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy and credits the program with shaping her human-centered approach to work.
But the book’s real backbone, she says, comes from her parents. Early lessons included hearing her mother come home from teaching kindergarten saying, “I have the best days,” and watching her father laugh and joke with colleagues like old friends.
Later lessons were harder won. Caring for her mother during terminal cancer profoundly changed her relationship to her own days, she says. Caring for her father, who has Alzheimer’s disease, keeps those lessons alive.
In Today Was Fun, Groff, a senior adviser at global consulting firm SY Partners and public speaker, challenges the idea that professionalism requires being buttoned up and overworked. Her seven rules for better days at work include reminders that your brain works whether you’re wearing stretchy pants or a suit—and that “mostly good days” are enough.
“I’m a firm believer that any job can be fun with the right people,” she says.
Blending personal stories with research and humor, Groff offers practical exercises for improving team dynamics and creating workplaces where people feel human and alive. The book, which she considered for five years before writing in six months, was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ best indie books of 2025.
“It’s a hands-on, life-changing book about bringing intent to the way we spend most of our time,” author and entrepreneur Seth Godin wrote in a cover blurb. “We’ve created so many ways to be unhappy with our work. Bree Groff is here to help us change that.”
Before joining SY Partners, Groff was CEO of NOBL, a consultancy focused on new ways of working. She has partnered with C-suite leaders at Pfizer, Microsoft, Calvin Klein, Hilton, Atlassian, Target and Google, among others. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania before moving to Los Angeles, where she pursued acting and taught middle and high school math and physics—experiences that also appear in the book.
Groff recently joined a virtual Master’s in Learning and Organizational Change book talk to discuss favorite concepts from the program. The conversation reflected MSLOC’s approach to learning and leadership: depth, humility and a bit of playfulness.
Below are three approaches Groff recommends for building better workplace relationships—the foundation for having more fun.
Create a Manual of Me:
This document, which Groff says has a 100 percent success rate, helps others understand how to work with you at your best. It includes basics like who matters most in your life and what you need when you’re stressed or stuck—space, conversation, or something else. Instead of guessing or projecting expectations, people can simply say how they work. Getting to know one another as humans, faster, builds empathy and increases the chances that teams will truly understand and like each other.
Check in with a Finger Shoot:
Groff begins meetings by asking everyone how they’re doing on a scale of 1 to 5. On three, participants show their number with their fingers, then take about 30 seconds to explain why. A 5 might mean a birthday weekend; a 2 might mean a bad back and a camera turned off. In just five minutes, judgment gives way to empathy. People feel seen, conversations soften, and teams build real camaraderie.
Create Micro Mischief:
Micro mischief adds lightness and surprise to the workday. Try ordering umbrella picks for coffee or tea, expensed as “team building,” and passing them out at a meeting. Or start a Where’s Waldo–style game by hiding an object in plain sight and rotating the responsibility. For something bolder, schedule a Friday meeting with a serious title—then cancel it on arrival and give everyone the hour back to enjoy their lives.
More tips from Bree:
- Most work, most days, should be fun
- Your brain works whether you’re wearing a suit or stretchy pants
- Shoveling sh*t is fun if you like your co-shovelers
- Make brilliant work—don’t let busyness and conformity sabotage you
- Keep it cool—we’re all in it together
- You are the defender of date nights, crossword puzzles, and your health
- Get good at life, not just work