Play at work is a hot topic at the moment, with big businesses like LEGO® pushing the agenda to prioritise play at work.
And the UN recently announcing on 11 June 2024 the International Day of Play.
The first-ever International Day of Play, to be observed on 11 June 2024, marks a significant milestone in efforts to preserve, promote, and prioritize playing so that all people, especially children, can reap the rewards and thrive to their full potential.
On the other hand, some companies turn their nose up to play at work because it is "immeasurable". What about wellbeing? How is it measured?
Wellbeing isn’t measured via KPI’s or ROI’s, it’s measured through presenteeism and absenteeism, turnover rates and productivity.
Play can, and should, be included in this.
LEGO® set up five of their employees with wearable tech and a chatbot while they played.
The participants reported higher life-skill competency when playing and the day after play, 4 out of 5 scored higher on calm and wellbeing than before the day with play.
Employee wellbeing is paramount to building thriving teams.
Play, and lack of, is undoubtedly a crucial part of our mental health and wellbeing at work.
What is play?
Dr Stuart Brown, world-renowned play researched and the founder of The National Institute for Play, explains that play develops pre-verbally, like our sense of smell. Smell is hard to define, much like it’s hard to define play. There is no clear cognitive definition of play.
Dr Brown says play is voluntary, done for its own sake, pleasurable, non-repetitive, produces a sense of wellbeing and is a fundamental survival drive from the deepest parts of our brain, which fuels action and activity. When we don't play we suffer emotionally, socially and cognitively.
In an interview with the University of Minnesota, Dr Brown explains the neurochemistry of play.
"What establishes our mood? There are certain neurohormones like dopamine for example, dopamine is our reward hormone, dopamine is increased in the anticipation of play. There are other reward systems that are also mediated by certain neurological substrates. Endocanaboinoids and opioids - these are complex chemicals, but when they’re elaborated they produce a sense of wellbeing and motivation to continue what you’re doing and play we know, in animals objectively, releases these substances so that the motivation to continue with action, the pleasure from the action and the continuity of the action is what constitutes the physiology of being playful. Mood is dependent on these neurotransmitters. We’ve heard of serotonin and the presence or lack of it effecting mood. Play is a stabiliser for positive moods."
In 1964, Marion Diamond and her colleagues published a paper about brain growth in rats. The neuroscientists had conducted a landmark experiment, raising some rats in boring, solitary confinement and others in exciting, toy-filled colonies.
When researchers examined the rats’ brains, they discovered that the 'enriched' rats had thicker cerebral cortices than did the 'impoverished' rats.
Subsequent research confirmed the results—rats raised stimulating environments had bigger brains.They were smarter, too--able to find their way through mazes more quickly.
Play and exploration trigger the secretion of BDNF (Brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a substance essential for the growth of brain cells.
Do these benefits of play extend to humans? Ethical considerations prevent us from performing similar experiments on kids. But it seems likely that human brains respond to play and exploration in similar ways.
When play at work fails
So, play makes our brain bigger, sparks our imagination, creates a sense of belonging and meaning, builds empathy and curiosity, and creates a sense of optimism, purpose and mastery.
Who wouldn’t want curious, empathic, connected, joyful, big-brained humans in their organisation!?
Let’s explore how to actually bring play into the workplace. But first, how it fails.
A ping-pong table could be a starting point, but if leadership is not providing permission to actually use it, it’s merely “innovation theatre”.
IDEO partner, Michael Hendrix, was recently interviewed by Fast Company about design thinking and its pitfalls. I look at it from a broader context of how some organisations try to find short cuts and quick fixes when solving problems. Design thinking doesn’t work without play. Thriving cultures don’t happen without play.
"We get a lot of the materials that look like innovation, or look like they make us more creative,” Hendrix says. “That could be anything from getting a bunch of Sharpie markers and Post-its and putting them in rooms for brainstorms, to having new dress codes, to programming play into the week. They all could be good tools to serve up creativity or innovation, they all could be methods of design thinking, but without some kind of history or strategy to tie them together, and track their progress, track their impact, they end up being a theatrical thing that people can point to and say, ‘oh we did that.'"
Playing at work is not the act itself, but the trust that is built around the playing. I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t want to play in a space where I am going to be judged or laughed at. What I find ironic is that the person doing the laughing isn’t actually having fun. When we judge, we are judging ourselves.
Cultures that foster judgement are toxic. Judgement is the number one killer of:
Idea sharing
Authenticity
Connection
Playfulness
Creativity
For companies to be innovative and come up with amazing ideas, coworkers need to feel comfortable sharing ideas - no matter how simple or bold.
Playing devil’s advocate is not playful. The person playing DA is usually trying to be the smartest person in the room and doesn’t have good intentions. Trying to look “cool” is the easiest way to mediocrity.
"Knowing when to bring judgments is important. Cultures that are highly judgey, that have hierarchy, that are rewarding the person who is the smartest person in the room, don’t do well with this kind of methodology," said Hendrix.
At our recent Break Out event, Brendan Boyle, partner at IDEO, explained that if there is a brainstorming happening and he doesn’t hear people laughing, he knows that they aren’t loose and they aren’t going to come up with the best ideas. Brilliant ideas live on the edge of ridiculous ideas.
This leads to my next point on the importance of psychological safety.
Psychological safety
Google did a five year study to explore what makes a highly effective team. Project Aristotle found that psychological safety was by far the most important dynamic of a team's success.
Psychological safety was coined by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmonson. In her book Teaming, she explains,
"Simply put, psychological safety makes it possible to give tough feedback and have difficult conversations without the need to tiptoe around the truth. In psychological safe environments, people believe that if they make a mistake others will not penalise or think less of them for it. They also believe that others will not resent or humiliate them when they ask for help or information."
In Brené Brown's book, Dare to Lead she explains that judgement, interrupting, and unsolicited advice gets in the way of psychological safety.
I believe a positive, playful culture helps fuel psychological safety.
How to actually play at work
Sure we can play at work by playing a game, bringing our dog to work, having casual Friday or having beer and pizza, but that's not the stuff that thriving teams are made of. Yes, those things are fun, but I'm going deep here.
Based on my findings over nearly a decade working with hundreds of leaders and teams, here are six ways to bring a deeper sense of playful wellbeing into your workplace.
1. R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Respect builds trust, acceptance and appreciation. If we want to be playful and creative, we have to feel safe in doing so. No one can be forced to play, it’s an invitation. As mentioned previously, judgment kills our ability to “dare greatly” as Brené Brown would say.
Facilitating creativity and play workshops, I’ve collected information on what holds us back from being creative, and it is fear. Fear of judgment being the number one reason.
Our fear of judgment breeds conformity and nothing magical comes from conforming.
When we don’t feel accepted to bring our authentic selves to work, our fresh perspectives and ideas are censored.
Pamela Meyer’s work explains that without engagement, without creating a space for innovating, learning and changing, the best an organisation can hope for is compliance.
People don’t challenge each other’s ideas or persevere through complex issues out of compliance, they do it out of commitment. Commitment is fostered by engagement and engagement is fostered by creating a safe and playful space of appreciation and acceptance.
Acceptance and appreciation are symbiotically related - as we feel more accepted, we come to appreciate ourselves more, as we appreciate ourselves more our ability to accept ourselves and others increases.
2. PERMISSION
Permission is a powerful concept I learned from both Brené Brown and Pamela Meyer.
"The people who actually learn, innovate and create change everyday get, take and most importantly - give permission to do so. The positive energy, creativity and insights that are usually lost in those workplace norms and routines can be regained with these three simple practices and the good news is that these can be practiced by anyone at any level." - Pamela Meyer, Permission
In order for us to feel inspired, connected or creative, we have got to give ourselves permission to do so.
Meyer explains permission by giving it, taking it and getting it:
Give Permission
The permission-giver is one of the most important roles anyone can play to encourage creativity, significant learning and engagement at work. Instead of just saying you’re going to do something, you actually behave in line with your values. Do you know what your values are? If we want to see change, we must BE the change. Most of us are well trained to follow the rules, so it’s important to give permission to, not only ourselves, but to others to stretch their thinking and challenge assumptions.
Take Permission
People who make shit happen don’t just sit around and wait for permission; they take it. They dive right in and happily lead the way, risking their reputation, to clear the path for those of us who are too timid to speak up or be the first to try something new. Thanks to permission-takers, we now know its okay to challenge, questions and stand up for what we believe in.
Get Permission
The most successful permission-getters don’t leave inspiration to chance: they are intentional and explicit in their search. Some of the most effective change-makers actively seek out provocative examples to give them permission to push beyond their own ideas and preconceptions.
Some of the best ways to introduce permission into our lives is by creating a safe space, being ourselves, getting over ourselves and not taking things too seriously.
By giving ourselves and others permission to bring our whole selves, great ideas and fresh perspectives to each conversation and collaboration at work, things inevitably become more engaging and even more fun.
Now go forth and play the game of permission! You now have permission to:
Listen to your body
Change your point of view
Be silly
Iterate
Be Human
Ask Questions
Ask for what you need
Be enthusiastic
Be quiet
Bring Your Whole Self
Connect
Include
Play
Practice
Celebrate
Make a Mess
Fail
Take a risk
Walk Away
Improvise
Say I don’t know
Rest
Wonder
A great activity to do with your team is to actually write permission slips much like your parents did when you were a kid. In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown explains that permission slips aren't promissory notes, they're for writing down intentions with no consequence if not delivered. They are useful for increasing accountability and support.
When running longer sessions, I explore permission and everyone fills out their own slips. I invite participants to give themselves permission to either "let go of" or "invite more of" something.
3. CROSS POLLINATE
Forget silos, we need to do as the bees do and cross pollinate!
When pollen from a plant is transferred to a different plant, it is called cross-pollination. Cross-pollination produces stronger plants. The plants must be of the same species.
Lucky for us, we are the same species and by cross-pollinating teams, we make our teams stronger.
Sitting the marketing team, innovation team, design team, accounting team, etc. etc. etc. on different floors, in different rooms, in different buildings creates immense separation. Coworkers may be working for the same company for decades without ever speaking to one another, let alone having a conversation.
Innovation Labs and incubators are sexy terms at the moment, but what they do is put the innovation baby in the corner and we all know that, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!”
That’s why I love the idea of Hackathons, where teams can cross pollinate, collaborate and work on big ideas together.
Playing with other roles for a day allows coworkers to understand what each other does in their day-to-day and can bring more empathy across teams.
I often use the LEGO® Serious Play® method to break down silos. Teams are divided into groups where there is a team member represented at each table. They share stories about themselves and their role using LEGO®, which makes for an excellent team building experieince.
Creating shared spaces and giving permission for these shared spaces to be used is a great way to encourage diverse teams.
Which leads me to my next point, ritual.
4. RITUAL
I’m not talking about seances or singing kumbaya around a fire (although, why not!?) Rituals in the workplace are meaningful interventions that break up the everyday mundanities to create a sense of belonging and connection.
IDEO holds a 10-minute “Tea Time” every Wednesday to get employees socialising, an obvious and simple way to create connections, and works far better than your typical HR email introducing a new hire.
An example close to my heart is my cousin who runs a small start-up in Florida with around 12 staff and everyday at 3pm, they play a trivia game on their phones. He told me that a new hire was adverse to playing the game and eventually it became obvious that she wasn’t a good fit. Teams that play together, stay together, for the most part. Could he have avoided spending money on the hiring and on-boarding process had he just asked if she likes trivia??
While that seems trivial (pun intended), perhaps we can begin to explore how to use play in recruitment to ensure candidates are the right fit for a culture that instils a sense of playfulness into their everyday.
A Fast Company article around building workplace rituals interviewed Andy and Ross Chern, leadership consultants, "…bottom-up transformation can be just as potent as top-down corporate initiatives. Ross and Chern recommend that employees look to enact what they call “rituals,” small and tangible improvements to one’s workplace, which, when repeated over and over, will ideally become part of a company culture’s muscle memory. “It’s about redesigning the way people interact,” Ross says, “from an atomic level.”
"If you create a ritual and it doesn’t work, change them. Don’t let a poorly performing ritual become another bad habit ingrained in your company’s culture. Try a bunch out. Perhaps some work, but only for a certain amount of time. 'It doesn’t mean you have to keep them forever—you can throw them out after a week or maybe a few months,' Chern says. “'Rituals are not permanent things.'”
What can you do, without any permission necessary [from higher-ups], that you can just show up and try it with your team tomorrow?
Remember, we also talked about “taking permission” when needed.
5. YES, AND
Building a “Yes, and” culture brings it all together.
The heart of improvisation is making your partner look good and at the very core of that is the concept of “Yes, and” where we build on each other’s ideas.
In Patricia Ryan Madson’s book, Improv Wisdom, she explains not to confuse this with being a “yes man or woman” implying mindless compliance. Saying yes is an act of courage and optimism, it expands our world and allows us to share control. Because we’ve become a little obsessed with control.
When I first came to Australia I heard “Yea nah” a lot and I had no clue what it meant. Is it yes or is it no? I soon learned it is no. And what a terrible way to respond to someone’s idea. How do you feel when someone says “Yea, nah” to you, or more commonly used in the workplace, “Yes but.”? Hear that enough and we keep to ourselves - our bright ideas never to be shared or heard again.
6. REFRAME FAILURE
When failure is stigmatised and demonised, even if its just a temporary set back, we spend a lot of our time in fear.
Failure is outside of our comfort zone because we are not taught how to fail with grace and leaving our comfort zone is a crucial part of being creative or innovative.
To accept failure, we need self-confidence. We have to accept that failing doesn’t define who we are. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves. The only way to make failure acceptable is to celebrate it.
We build a lot of shame around rejection, yet it actually takes more courage to "Give it a go" than it does to avoid it all together. We need to learn how to embrace failure and make it our friend, so we don't miss out on other opportunities.
Buddha tells us that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional, but when it comes to failure, why do we choose suffering? Even after we are rejected or criticised, we continue to pick at our failure wounds.
I love playing the improv game, Zip, Zap, Zop, with clients because, the way I play it is, the object of the game is to lose. I teach the group the clown bow. When you stuff up, you say “Ta Da!” and bow. (Everyone also cheers for you when you fail.) While we won’t be running around the office shouting “Ta Da!” when something goes a mis, the game helps to explore what it feels like to relate to failure in a totally new and different way.
Understand that "I FAILED" is a lot less scary than "I AM A FAILURE".
Whatever we choose to put after the words, "I AM..." will shape our identity. When we wrap failure so tightly around who we are that we feel like we're choking, it's time to reassess how much of ourselves is actually part of the mistake. Of course we want to put our hearts into what we're doing, but that doesn't mean our identity has to be attached to the outcome.
Our greatest teacher is our last mistake.
We need to screw up in order to succeed. How will we ever improve if we don't make mistakes? We can't. We need to fail in order to reflect, assess and learn from our failure. Otherwise, we end up making the same mistake over and over again and pray for a different result; that's actually called insanity. We can change the way we think about failure and it won't hurt so much.
Practice good emotional hygiene.
When we sustain a failure injury, we insist on making ourselves feel 10 times worse in the process. Emotional hygiene is about putting Band-aids on our failure booboos. We can revive our self-esteem by congratulating ourselves on "giving it a go" and reflect on how much we are actually learning.
Celebrate failures. Call me crazy, but it's a whole lot better than kicking ourselves when we're down.
Ditch the engagement surveys
When I first launched my business wanting to spread the joy of play, I was told I was crazy. “Yea, nah” you can’t put play and work together as your web page. I was told by play thought leaders that if I could actually sell play, it would be a miracle.
The sad reality is that we have to sell play. We have to make it outcome driven and useful in order for companies to even begin to consider it.
“Can I attach a number to it? No? Forget it! If it’s immeasurable, it’s useless! I prefer to spend our companies money on engagement surveys to see if our employees are engaged because we need hard numbers to justify spending any money on engagement.”
If you’re spending money on engagement surveys, you’re too late. Instead of KPI’s (Killing People’s Imagination), let’s have Play PI’s! And measure our experiences by the authentic connections and wild ideas that come out of our organisations. Let’s make the process more important than the destination.
Pixar is an incredible example of this. For a company that is under constant pressure to create they provide a daily outlet for their employees known as Pixar University. It gives its people, from all disciplines, the opportunity to mix and appreciate what everyone does through classes like improv, drawing, sculpting, screen writing, yoga and pilates. Pixar University helps reinforce the mind-set that we’re all learning and it’s fun to learn together.
Empower your people to be conscious, creative contributors
The way we’re working isn’t working. And if businesses want to build dynamic, thriving teams who can adapt and respond positively to the unexpected, play is not an option, it’s a necessity.
Culture Hero is here to help make play at work a reality
We have combined experience of 20+ years in applied improvisation, learning and development, coaching, storytelling, mindfulness and event production.
Check out culturehero.co to find out more about our experiential learning programs and events.
Resources
(Books and articles)
Dare to Lead - Brené Brown
From Workplace to Playspace - Pamela Meyer
Permission - Pamela Meyer
Improv Wisdom - Patricia Ryan Madson
Teaming - Amy Edmonson
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