Over the top?
When is play appropriate at work or at meetings? When dealing with challenges, encouraging innovation, wanting to celebrate success, or looking for ways to practice new skills, that’s when play is appropriate. Instead, all too often we ignore the playful approaches listed below and instead get even more serious.
Right now I can imagine the hard-nosed executive with the long to-do list and metrics-to-meet reading this with disdain. That’s too bad because play could be just what he and his organization needs.
What do I mean by play at work? Stuart Brown, M.D. wrote a book on play based on his research and his seven characteristics of play are below. But here are some examples of how I’ve seen play contributing to work success both directly and indirectly:
Directly:
Playing with possibilities: One important characteristic of play is that it doesn’t contribute to our survival – it is purposeless in that sense – so it’s okay to fail. Taking a playful attitude toward new improvements allows you to try and fail – first in conversation with wild ideas, then in reality with more prudent ideas. It’s the rapid cycle change idea – try an idea in a small and quick experiment, see if it works, then ditch it if it doesn’t and move on to another idea. I use play in meetings where I ask people to come up with a great quantity of ideas for something odd like used refrigerators and make it a game with prizes (usually candy) pitting one team against another. It gets them thinking of what’s possible, instead of evaluating what’s not. One scientist/inventor was asked for the secret to all his great ideas. “A great big wastebasket,” was his answer.
Costumes & Carving
Imaginative play for new perspectives: When the founders of Intel, Andrew Grove and Gordon Moore had achieved early success manufacturing memory chips and the Japanese started undercutting them, they were stuck with an organization oriented around a failing product. They knew if they didn’t solve the problem they’d be fired and replaced by the board of directors. Apparently Grove looked at Moore and said “Why don’t we do it ourselves?” They imagined themselves as fired, walked out the door, and then walked back in as the new and smarter executives hired to replace them and imagined what they’d do. It gave them the visionary breakthrough they needed to change the direction of the company and make it the success it is today.
Playful environment to encourage creativity in meetings: Recently I facilitated a meeting that needed to result in rapid creative output of new marketing and operational ideas. We rolled newsprint out on the tables and scattered crayons across it for doodling and note taking. Helium balloons decorated the breakout tables. Poppers were available for punctuating great ideas. Small groups were formed by the type of candy they picked from the candy jar. Physical movement was encouraged by moving from the large group table to small group work tables and back. And of course good food was provided. The result was way beyond anyone’s expectations! I also know a marketing firm who designed their whole office to be a playful environment that would stimulate fun and creativity int he staff and visitors.
Play as a way to get comfortable with the unfamiliar: We are wired to enjoy novelty when it is playful, but often resist something new when it’s serious. Play can help people learn a new way of doing things, or a new way of thinking about something. A sales organization is using training in improvisational theater rather than scripting to help their sales people become more effective with new types of clients.
Play as celebration: Hard work without celebration is life without soul. We get all dried up inside when all we are is serious. It’s life in a monotone. We need times of playfulness to get through the tough times. And we need to celebrate hard-earned wins. Little celebrations, bigger parties, kind practical jokes, making fun of ourselves – can lighten our lives. I still smile remembering a sales celebration where the leadership team dressed in wild costumes and did a skit that poked fun at their habits
Indirectly:
Stay and Play
Playtime (like recess from school): One tech group I know has a conference room they transform for 15 or 20 minutes in the afternoon into a ping pong table with a simple suction cup net. The physical break of a game wakes up their bodies and minds from the hours of computer work and makes them more productive when they return.Another leader I know puts on his running clothes when he has a difficult problem to solve and heads to the road. He always comes back refreshed and with a new perspective.
Playing with arts, crafts, and hobbies: A science organization I know is using artists and poets to join with the scientists to explore new ways of articulating the scientific discoveries, and the scientists are using artists to help them figure out new ways of thinking.
We all know play is important for children – the way they learn skills and behaviors, for physical, mental, and interpersonal growth. We shouldn’t leave it for them, though. Play is incredibly important to the successful development of our brains, even as adults, too. This is good news!
Go have some fun today.
For more information:
Stuart Brown, M.D. Play: How It Shape the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
“Respecting our biologically programmed need for play can transform work. It can bring back excitement and newness to our job. Play helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft, and is an essential part of the creative process. Most important, true play that comes from our own inner needs and desires is the only path to finding lasting joy and satisfaction in our work. In the long run, work does not work without play.”
The seven characteristics:
- Apparently purposeless – (no survival or practical value – done for its own sake)
- Voluntary – not required by duty
- Inherent attraction – it’s fun, makes you feel good
- Freedom from time – full engagement – lose sense of the passage of time
- Diminished consciousness of self – stop worrying about whether we’re smart, or stupid, or look good, or awkward
- Improvisational potential – open to serendipity, new ways of doing and being
- Continuation desire – we want to keep doing it or do it again