Years ago, I worked at a company where we had a quote board. It was a whole section of the wall in our office wing, and it was covered in completely conversational snippets things like:
‘There’s nothing at that URL.’
‘That’s because you typed lickmyballs.com. Try lickmynuts.com.’
That line is from the actual board, and on a scale of “mildly inappropriate” to “OMFG this conversation is not actually happening in a work setting,” this would have placed somewhere in the middle.
When our General Counsel saw the wall, he thought maybe it should come down. Then, in a display of courage and big picture thinking that I still appreciate to this day, he thought about it.
Ultimately, he decided that the board wasn’t so much a unique risk factor as it was evidence of our daily lives, and he let it slide.
He was uneasy about it, but he figured his job was to mitigate risk, and he trusted himself enough not to feel compelled to try to eliminate all risk.
In the end, he concluded that the considerable pros of the board outweighed the considerable cons.
Now, I don’t imagine corporate cultures today are quite as free form as our dot-com was, but I do hope his way of thinking still exists in those places where lines are being drawn.
It takes a good amount of courage to recognize that not every risk is bad.
How much of that spirit is alive at your organization?
How much of it is alive within you?
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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I find this culture much more present at non-profits. We are much more free to take cultural risks like the quote board because we all know those things improve morale in a situation where budgets are low and demands are high.
We have a “beer fridge” at our biotech manufacturing site – it’s located in one of the outbuildings, away from actual production, in a lounge/break area. In fact, to my knowledge, all of our 20+ locations around the world regularly have wine/beer on site. Any time I tell my fellow HR colleagues this, they ask – “how do you allow that? aren’t you afraid of someone taking advantage of it or getting into an accident on the way home? do the senior HR leaders know about it?”
I always respond that if a couple of people want to kick back together and have a beer after their shift – then so be it, and it certainly makes it more convenient for our monthly and sometimes weekly happy hours. One of our only policies is “act like an adult and we’ll treat you like one”. It works. And yes, the senior HR leaders not only know about it, they encourage it.
I love the “quote board” idea and am thinking about designating one of our many public white boards as such now!
@Michael—It’s amazing how access to a budge can kill creativity. Thanks for sharing that!
@Jennifer—So true: People rise or fall to the level of your expectations.