The Addams Family: A Workplace

The new musical The Addams Family has opened on Broadway. Based on Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons, it’s also influenced by the TV show which some of us remember. So far, the critics’ reviews have been scathing, but the musical has grossed an impressive $6.5 million in five weeks. The fact that the theatre and film star Nathan Lane plays Gomez can’t have hurt, but it’s the bizarre family led by Gomez and Morticia that keeps selling tickets.

Most Addams Family fans have always entertained this question: Wouldn’t it be glorious to be part of the family? The oddity of it all. The freedom. The fabulous functionality coveted by all dysfunctional families. Like the musical, the TV show and other film versions have always been faulted for veering too much from the original cartoons’ essence. Making workplace comparisons is heretical, indeed.

If most employees are honest, however, they would admit to craving a workplace as different as the Addams family. Most workplaces are alike. They listen to the critics. They have basically the same rules. Look at any handbook. They have turf. They want to be Six Sigma- or Lean-like. They do perfunctory performance evaluations. They conduct canned training. They speak the same language: passion, world class status, paradigm shifts, deliverables, granularity, blah, blah, blah.

As a leader or an HR professional in your organization, taking a new look at the Addams family might be a worthwhile exercise. It’s unlikely that your company will become paranormal, but it could be encouraged to stand out. None of the different, remarkable traits of Addams family members are considered unusual by others in the family but are treated as individual talents that anyone might possess. The differences are celebrated. What a fully-baked sea change that would be.