Lessons from the Front Yard Wiffle Ball Game

 A message from Erin...

I love those organic moments in life where you get a beautiful opportunity to merge your personal and professional lives, drawing parallels that bring so much joy and sense-making of every day moments.  

We bought a house with a wraparound porch, which is a dream come true (now if I can just get the library with the ladder so I can swing about like Belle in Beauty and the Beast...but I digress...). Most evenings, you’ll find me in a rocking chair, our dog Burt Reynolds sprawled nearby like he owns the place (because he kind of does), watching my kids run around the yard. 

Their obsession is wiffle ball. Which makes sense - baseball basically is our life. Five nights a week at the ballpark, weekends spent at tournaments, and a TV that seems permanently tuned to whatever game happens to be on. So when spring evenings started stretching a little longer, it didn’t take much: one bat, one wiffle ball, and a patch of grass (or in our dirt, because it's a work in progress...). 

And then something kind of magical happened. 

I looked up and saw at least 11 neighborhood kids and 4 dads in our front yard playing a heated game of wiffle ball. 

No planning. No invites. No group text thread. 

Just…a game.  

Bikes and electric scooters were abandoned mid-driveway. Kids rotated in and out of our house like a revolving door of chaos - grabbing water bottles from the fridge, snacks from the pantry, random toys that somehow became part of the game. There were arguments about whether that was definitely a strike, laughter that echoed down the street, neighbors throwing balls back from over their fence, and the kind of joyful noise that feels like spring itself. 

It was messy. Loud. A little disorganized. 

And it was perfect. 

Because underneath all of it was something deeper: connection. Belonging. A shared experience people wanted to be part of. 

And sitting there, rocking back and forth, I couldn’t help but think: this is what we’re all trying to build at work. 

Not wiffle ball, necessarily (though… don’t rule it out). But this feeling. 

So how do we bring that front-yard energy into the workplace? 

1. Make It Easy to Join the Game 

No one needed a formal invitation to show up in our yard. There wasn’t a sign-up sheet or a structured start time. The barrier to entry was basically zero. 

At work, we often do the opposite. We unintentionally create cultures where people feel like they need permission, a title, or the “right moment” to contribute. 

But the best cultures feel more like that wiffle ball game: 

- You can jump in. 

- You can take a swing. 

- You don't have to be perfect to belong. 

When people feel like participation is simple and safe, engagement skyrockets. Not because they have to be there, but because they want to be. 

2. Let It Be a Little Messy 

That game was not efficient. There were no teams drafted with strategic precision. The rules changed depending on who was arguing loudest. At one point, I’m fairly certain a scooter became second base. 

And yet… everyone was fully in. 

Work culture doesn’t thrive because everything is perfectly optimized. It thrives when people feel freedom to experiment, laugh, and even fail a little without it becoming a whole thing. 

If every interaction is overly structured or overly serious, you lose the spark. 

The workplaces people love aren’t the ones that feel like a perfectly run machine, they’re the ones that feel human: 

- A little unpredictable 

- A little loud 

- Full of personality 

Because that’s where creativity and connection actually live. 

3. Build a Culture Where People Root for Each Other 

Here’s what stood out most: even in the middle of the chaos, people were cheering each other on. 

Big hit by the 4 year-old? Everyone celebrates.
Missed swing? Someone hands you the bat and says, “You’ve got the next one.” 

It was competitive, but in the best way. The kind that makes everyone better, not smaller. 

That’s the secret. 

The strongest cultures don’t eliminate competition, they reframe it. It’s not about winning at someone else’s expense. It’s about raising the level of the entire game. 

When people feel supported, seen, and encouraged: 

- They take bigger swings. 

- They recover faster from misses. 

- They invest more in the success of others. 

And suddenly, it’s not just a workplace - it’s a team people are proud to be on. 

I didn’t set out to learn anything about business culture sitting on my porch that night. 

But watching a group of kids (and a few dads who took it way too seriously) turn a simple game into something joyful and magnetic...it felt like a reminder we all need: 

People don’t just want to work. 

They want to belong.
They want to contribute.
They want to be part of something that feels alive. 

So maybe the question isn’t “How do we improve culture?” 

Maybe it’s: 

How do we make work feel a little more like that front yard?

A place where people show up, jump in, cheer each other on, and can’t wait to come back tomorrow to play again.