The Fat Bet
Of all the things I miss about being in the office, and there are few, the thing I miss the most is The Fat Bet.
If you aren’t familiar with a Fat Bet, I will explain. First, this disclaimer: I don’t endorse this as a healthy activity. I’m analyzing it for insights into organizational culture building. There is much here that goes against healthy practices.
Executives and people leaders are wrestling with getting everyone back in the office or continuing with remote and hybrid workforces. Organizations are concerned or convinced they are missing collaboration and culture building that was there when everyone was in the office. Many are desperately looking for ways to have “being in the office” be perceived as highly desirable.
I don’t know the answer, but I know where to look. The first thing that popped into my mind when I thought back to what I missed about being in the office was The Fat Bet.
The Fat Bet is a group challenge for weight loss. It’s a wager. Participants are invited to place a bet that they will lose weight over a defined period like 12 weeks. The rules may be set up to have everyone set a weight loss goal and those who achieve their goal split the pot. The idea is that both the wager and the peer pressure are motivators. There are a variety of ways to set it up available on the internet.
In our office, the Fat Bet rules were set up as a contest to lose the most weight. The First, Second, and Third place winners were awarded money and everyone else lost their wager. Participants did a group “weigh in” on the first and last days of The Fat Bet to determine the top three participants who lost the most weight.
If you are a believer that metrics drive behavior, you will like this story. It’s clear that participants were incentivized to sabotage each other.
Day One of the Fat Bet
Participants ate big breakfasts, drank gallons of water, and dressed in layers.
When weighing in, participants wore heavy boots, coats, watches, jewelry, hats, and carried their phones and rocks in their pockets. Even better if you walked through the rain and your coat and clothes were still wet.
Bets are collected.
Days 2+
Donuts, cookies, candy, and freshly baked breads show up in the office kitchen. (Bystander comments: “What’s going on? Oh! The Fat Bet must have started again.”)
Final Day of the Fat Bet
Participants stop eating and drinking water the day before the weigh in. Some may get a haircut or do a lot of aerobic activity. One participant even stopped to donate blood on the way to the weigh in.
Participants dress in shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops with nothing in their pockets, no watches, no jewelry, no phones.
Everyone weighs in. Ending weights are subtracted from starting weights. Winners are announced and awarded their prize money. Gloating ensues.
As a consultant in team and leadership development, I can tell you that nothing about this should have been okay, with gambling, sabotage, undermining, and poor health habits all exhibited. It should not have yielded positive results. But it did.
Here are the characteristics of the experience:
It arose organically from the group, it wasn’t planned or led by the organization.
Everyone was invited. It was “opt in” and easy to join.
Cross-functional participants from all departments and all levels of the organization took part. Direct and indirect engagement was high.
Participation levels were sustained over time.
The leaders developed and demonstrated skills in planning, organizing, communicating, and galvanizing a team.
Camaraderie and friendly competition fostered cross-functional collaboration and problem-solving. People built relationships at all levels and information sharing increased.
It was fun.
A few participants positively transformed their wellbeing and maintained a healthy lifestyle ongoingly. They gained confidence and respect for their accomplishment.
The experience was emulated in other ways with baby pools, NCAA tournament challenges, fantasy sports leagues, and other informal ways to play together.
The Fat Bet is not something I can recommend implementing, but I find myself pondering it deeply. Was it possible because there was already a positive culture? Yes. Was it easier because we were in a satellite office and not headquarters? Probably.
Is there a model here that can be leveraged? I don’t have clear answers yet, but for me The Fat Bet resulted in teambuilding and connection that made me appreciate being there. In person. And I wasn’t even a participant, I just liked being around it.
To articulate the value of having people working together in an office, we can explore the things people miss. I’m a fan of remote work and teams and I’m experiencing creative collaboration and getting things done without being in the same office. But if you’re tasked with creating experiences that will bring people back to the office, ask what they miss.