Late one unremarkable Tuesday afternoon, the HR head at The Garrigan Lyman Group sent out an email informing staff that senior leadership would be attending an off-site leadership seminar. As an afterthought, she added, “Until then, Cliff is in charge.” Pretty funny, right? But what do they say about gift horses?

That night, I created a blog entitled Cliff McCloe is in charge today-Lisa said so) and a corresponding Twitter account. In my first post, I promoted myself to CEO and asked staff to apply for ridiculous leadership positions. I renamed the company The McGarrigan Cloeman Group, emailed the link to the staff, and went to sleep.

The next morning I dressed like this and parked myself at one of our big boss’s desk. The company quickly bowed to my will. The Twitter and blog comments sections went wild—and I responded to every post. Leadership positions filled up quickly. I issued pronouncements throughout the day. But it was the rest of the team that really brought “Cliff is in Charge” day to life.

People got on board. Designers made photoshopped photos of me for the blog. Our newly appointed Mayor of Funkytown created a Funkytown playlist to share with the whole team. When a PM (with the initials LK) took initiative to rename the area by his desk the LK Lounge, we made it so. Even the absent senior leaders engaged throughout the day.

At the end of the day, I reluctantly relinquished my power. But the lessons of the day were not lost. Rebecca Lyman, one of our principals, had this to say: “Every time we had a break in our strategy session, we’d pull out our phones to see what we were missing. We were TALKING about leadership but the team spent the day DOING it.”