Because creativity is such an important factor of success in business today, play should be part of every CEO’s mandate, and companies should be rated according to the level of playfulness in their culture in the same way as they are rated as a great place to work or as a socially responsible organization. A number of practical steps can be followed to navigate this cultural shift towards play.
Think about what play looks like. It is personal, engaging, and interactive. It is often exuberant and messy. It is filled with light, color, and sound. When you think about play, you may instinctively think about a children’s playground or children’s toys. Now, think about corporate offices, or, more specifically, corporate boardrooms. There are lots of straight lines in boardrooms, (or perhaps an artistically, elegantly curved accent wall); there is typically an imposing table made from fine polished wood or sleek metal. That table likely suggests a hierarchical seating arrangement that people intuitively understand: the boss will sit at the head of the table and the chief advisor will sit next to the boss or perhaps will anchor the other end. The rest of the employees will fill in the sides of the table. So, before the meeting even starts, everyone knows his or her relative importance. And everyone knows that polite behavior is expected: sit up straight, papers stacked neatly in front of you, a pen at the ready, smartphone close by in case of an emergency.
These rigid boardrooms are where major strategic decisions are being made about innovation and the future of our organizations. They represent a very logical environment geared toward conscious conversations that will unfold in a very linear and efficient way. They appeal to the 20 percent of our intelligence that lives in our conscious mind with its wealth of creative ideas, and the intelligence that we can reach through play.
Dr. Marian Cleeves Diamond, one of the world’s foremost neuro-anatomists, advocates the establishment of “playful environments.” I too believe that we need to create offices, boardrooms, and activities that engage our playful nature—a corporate sandbox or playground. We are playful by nature and efficient by necessity. So let’s embrace our nature, and less effort will be needed for the same, or better, results. When we do this we can break through the mental barriers that are keeping us stuck. Certain corporations are already doing this.
Three key things that you can do to create a play-friendly atmosphere include:
– Allocating significant time in which employees are explicitly encouraged to play
– Creating, or giving employees access to, physical spaces that are conducive to play
– Giving employees implicit and explicit permission to “fail” or be “unproductive” in their pursuit of innovation.
Try these and notice how the implicit culture change affects your employees’ levels of creativity and innovation.