When April Fool's Goes Sideways

April 1, 2026

I USED to love April Fool's.

I love pranks, I love silliness.

Managing, then leading teams, then that soul-sucking sound that can happen when companies get rigid and inflexible? It happens. People lose the daily levity. We should all be silly.I f you are reconnecting with your fun, joyful, silly self - great. 100% support it.

And we all need to reconnect with that side.

It used to be fun.

Remember that?! Genuine fun where customers and employees laughed because it wasn't a just a stunt for PR.

We need fun in companies to be real. NOT FUn.

WHAT I DISLIKE: companies who don't care about employees doing 'pranks' on customers and employees.

Employees don't like not being heard and seen and then, BAM! April Fools comes around and they're expected to laugh and lighten up - BUT JUST FOR ONE DAY. And sure, the marketing to customers makes me smile.... sometimes.

Then I think....wait a minute!! How about the employees?!!

And back to a grind.

Here's a fun oldie....BAG SOLUTIONS FOR LADiES

People WANT

• Authentic, organic, not mandated fun
• to decide with fun looks like for them and their group
• appropriate fun of course
• when fun and levity are baked in as a value all year and leadership nurtures it ALL YEAR. It's not Santa, or (insert your holiday here) AND IT shouldn't show up once a year and people are EXPECTED to like it, participate and not feel annoyed by it

IT MATTERS - because fun and levity baked into culture means more

• creativity and innovation
• better communications
• better collaboration
• more connection

4 Reasons People Don't Care (and what to do about it)

1. A company ignores genuine concerns all year with culture, equity and psychological safety. When employees aren't treated well all year, April Fool's is a bandaid on a hemorrhage. At best. And that isn't helping - it's actually adding salt to the head wound. When a culture treats people well all year, then employees care with real emotional bandwidth about things like April Fool's. This leads to the next point. DO: Nurture it all year.
2. Low-trust and low morale can't be fixed easily with bare minimum 'happy fun time.' Fun requires trust and Social proof. Without that, it means little. DO: Leaders, show up and prove it in your teams and culture that it's encouraged. LIVE it. REWARD it. PROVE it.
3. A company tries to 'mandate' fun. Fun is a genuine value that cannot be forced. It is practiced consistently. DO: Make sure fun is organic and employees decide and can opt in or out instead of being forced into it, then fun can mean something. And fun isn't what management decides it is; it's what employees decide. Every group is different. As I've written about many times, genuine efforts 'shouldn't put the "F U" in fun.'
4. A company turns it into a PR stunt. Fun is again organic and if we're vying for who had the 'best' viral marketing from it; we're again signaling what really matters is PR cycles and ROI, not genuine morale. And if you treat customers better than your employees, that's backwards. DO: have fun with customers, and let customers know how you are having fun with employees. AND how employees are making their own fun with HR out of the way.

Fun is a HUMAN Value All Year That Lets People Take Risks, Learn, Grow

That encourages people to screw up, fail, learn, grow, take risks to create and innovate. To be bolder communicators and braver creators and move the company and people forward in human ways.

The true power in FUN is in how people feel, how they can express it THEIR way, not the company's, and what it means to be able to create a culture of fun, safety and experimentation. I think that's the real value of April Fool's - that it's not just once a year.

Fun isn't an afterthought.

It's baked in. Done right, a culture of respectful fun where employees are treated well is a powerful, happier, innovative culture.

It's culture value to be practiced ALL year.

YOUR TURN

How does your company or a company you admire make sure culture is genuinely fun by providing support for organic efforts?

Anything genuinely fun at your company - for employees and customers?

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