Why experts say you need play at work

You know the feeling. You can’t solve a work problem. But the moment you’re at leisure – when you’re out for a jog or relaxing in the garden  – something clicks and suddenly you’ve found the answer. The same thing can happen to you when you are at play.
 
In this issue of The Playground, you’ll learn how play and imagination can actually be one of your most important tools at work. At first glance, all this emphasis on play may seem incongruous. Most people view play as the very opposite of work, as something frivolous, as an activity to fill the leisure time when we are not attending to our more serious concerns. Indeed, the very term “SERIOUS PLAY” may seem like an oxymoron.

We'll leave it up to you to decide, but read on to learn why "play" expert Pat Kane says you need play at work.
 
Play well,
Jesper Just Jensen

NEWS - LSP gets serious HR recognition

On July 6, 2007, the LEGO Group was awarded the Leading HR Practice Award in the category of HR & Management Consultancy Service Provider for its LEGO SERIOUS PLAY creative thinking tool. The annual award was given to LEGO SERIOUS PLAY by the Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) for offering a way to help organizations think strategically and tap into the full potential in the their human resources. You can read the press release here
 
Back to Table of Contents 

What comes after the work ethic? The play ethic!

- 7 ways to capitalize on 21st century opportunities

By Pat Kane, author, play expert and consultant

In a networked, globalized world, where accelerated change is a given, we need to be players, not workers, to make the most of our 21st century opportunities. With the help of two centuries of the Protestant work ethic, we have forgotten how much we still need play in our adult lives. We burden ourselves with responsibility, but we should also be making space to develop our 'response abilities.'  A serious approach to play helps us maintain those response abilities, and get more out of every work situation.

In my book, The Play Ethic, I use a framework (adapted from the great play theorist Brian Sutton-Smith). I've found that these seven categories of play are very useful in helping people to think about play in a much broader sense than simply 'fun' and 'diversion'.

 
The seven rhetorics of play

The kinds of play you might not want at work
From a traditional business perspective, play is often understood in only two of its possible modes: play-as-personal-freedom and  play-as-triviality.

1) Play-as-personal-freedom, within the workplace, can often seem a negative phenomenon – it highlights issues like absenteeism, slacking, or people becoming alienated from their job roles.

2) Play-as-triviality stretches from (often ineffective) attempts by management to make the workplace 'fun' to darker phenomena like pranks and black humor.

These are the kinds of play that the Protestant work ethic can relate to most easily - either as something disruptive to be effectively clamped down on, or unimportant and thus easy to ignore.

More significant types of play
Play is more than just egoism and wackiness. It is also a way for people to come together to achieve a result, to sharpen their capacities and performance, even to attain some wisdom and patience about the direction of their working lives. In short, a way of developing their 'response abilities' regarding the challenges of business and society.

3) Play-as-identity is recognized by most smart companies as an effective tendency. This includes those common rituals, festivals and celebrations that make people feel good about being part of the 'community' within the organization.

4) Play-as-power-and-contest is another effective category, which has to do with what you do with your healthy company identity when you're in the marketplace. Play-as-power can be affected by play-as-identity – too much internal competitiveness and the organization flies apart, too little and complacency results.

Forms of play you may not relate to your business – but should
There are three other 'rhetorics', or values, of play which high-
performing businesses should be aware of.

5) Play-as-imagination, the creative and experimental use of the mind and talents, often comes under the categories of 'R&D', 'brainstoming,' or even the suggestion box.

6) Play-as-development is the function that play has in the evolution and progress of our talents, not just as children but as adults also. Play is how we start out 'adapting' to our environment, and it keeps us adaptable throughout our lives.

Companies that attend to the well-being of their employees, through training, mentorship and support services, are giving them the best platform upon which to become the dynamic players of the previous rhetorics.

7) Play-as-fate-and-chaos is the final rhetoric. As old as religion and gambling, and as new as a market derivative –it brings with it a more philosophical perspective. This is an awareness that there will always be unpredictability in our lives, a fundamental openness to chance that we cannot rule out. But one that can bring positive as well as negative opportunities for business, if we can remain essentially 'response -able' as players.

 
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™  as a medium for the power of play

I'm sure that LSP practitioners have seen all these rhetorics of play operate throughout their sessions and engagements with companies. Indeed the flexibility and expressiveness of LEGO is a perfect medium to explore what the  identity of a company might be.

The crucial point about the play rhetorics is that they actually describe the modern, information-driven, performance-driven, culture-driven organization much better than the old 'work rhetorics' could ever do.
Re-visioning your organization as a playground, or 'ground of play', may enable you to get much more done with your employees and colleagues.

My core definition of play, distilled from many sources, means 'to take reality lightly'. Not to ignore reality, or to live a fantasy life – but to presume there is creative potential in every situation, if you can only see the possibilities in it. What company wouldn't want such a playful attitude as their dominant mindset?
 

Pat Kane is a musician, writer, consultant and activist. He is author of The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living (www.theplayethic.com), and one half of Hue and Cry (www.hueandcry.co.uk). He was a keynote speaker at LEGO conference "Play to Learn. Play to Create. Play to Innovate" conference in Billund, Denmark, April 19th.

Back to Table of Contents 
We want your comments and feedback

Mind Boggler

How many LEGO elements have been molded since 1949?
 
a) 400.000.000
b) 4.000.000.000
c) 400.000.000.000


You can find the answer at the bottom of the page
 
Back to Table of Contents

Do you have strategic imagination?

Original strategy results from the unpredictable and rich interaction among three kinds of imagination: descriptive, creative and challenging. Which companies would you guess use each of the three different types of Imagination? What kind of strategic imagination do you feel most comfortable with in your own development of strategy?
Strategic imagination is a process that emerges from the complex interplay among the three kinds of imagination described below. 

Descriptive imagination: Making sense out of chaos
Typically used to bring to mind (or describe) the complex and confusing world "out there," this kind of imagination is used all the time in business.

Examples are diagrams such as a value chain, 2-by-2 matrices, and flowcharts. These types of models repeat patterns, or show similar things in different ways allowing us to:

• Make sense of what’s going on in front of us
• Discover patterns and see things in a new way
• See new possibilities within an often complicated, dynamic group of information

Creative imagination: Can you see what isn’t there?
Whereas descriptive imagination enables us to see what is there in a new way, creative imagination allows us to see what isn't there. To create something really new, something totally different.

Creative imagination is associated with innovative strategies where companies seek to make their competitors irrelevant rather than just beating them at their own game. The opportunity lies in the dissatisfaction people feel with current choices.

Many management concepts and techniques, like TQM, stimulate managers to innovate “new ways of being” that are better than the current state.

Often cloaked in mystery, the creative imagination is sometimes described by such terms as “thunder bolts,” “God-given talent,” or “genius.” 

However, more sober minds realize that, far from being mystical, creativity results from a lot of experience and analysis work, including market, competitive, and profitability analyses. Creative Imagination was at work when:

• Michael Dell developed the strategy of make-to-order mass production for PCs
• Jeff Bezos made Amazon.com one of  the first major businesses to sell its wares over the Internet
• Companies like Victorinox, Harley Davidson, and Nike extended their brands to new markets and new products.

Challenging imagination: Start from scratch and assume nothing
Challenging imagination overturns all the rules and wipes the slate clean. It goes beyond creative imagination in that it does not merely add on a new element to what's already there.

Challenging Imagination was necessary at Nokia when the company left behind its tradition of wood products and rubber boots to become a telecom innovator and in the reinvention of such companies as IBM, Phillips, and Alcatel.

Deconstruction is one methods of challenging imagination. An example of deconstruction is Michael Hammer’s notion of “re-engineering.”

The whole idea of re-engineering – an idea frequently misunderstood – is not about improving existing practices. Rather, it is about “throwing it away and starting all over; beginning with the proverbial clean slate and reinventing how you do your work.” (See Hammer, M. The Reengineering Revolution.)

Deconstruction in this context is often paired with sarcasm. Sarcasm is the recognition that there is no such sacred thing as “Truth.” One popular demonstration of this approach is the comic strip “Dilbert.” Scott Adam’s sarcasm and parody of the business world has become a vital force within conversations among strategy makers across industries throughout the world.
 
Do you recognize your own type of strategic imagination?
All three types of imagination have their strengths, but they also have their weaknesses. Descriptive imagination is necessary to function, but on its own, it won’t help you capitalize on new opportunities.
 
Creative imagination has its place, too, but it must be linked to business strategy, rather than thinking different just for the sake of being different. Finally, challenging imagination is an important element to have present, but one can take it too far and negate and reject everything, leaving yourself empty-handed.

Different organizations excel at different types of creativity. However, the ideal is to aim for an environment where there is a healthy dynamics between the different types of communication. An interplay that allows you to construct and share knowledge gathered from experience, and capitalize on opportunities by assimilating the new knowledge and transforming your identity. 
 
Back to Table of Contents
We want your comments and feedback

Did you know?

 
What's the best way to remember what you read?
People learn main ideas more effectively from summaries of textbook chapters than from reading the chapters themselves…
 
Our brains contain approximately 10,000 billion neurons that can be combined in more ways than there are atoms in the known universe. Yet we are only capable of taking in about seven things at any one time.

Princeton University, research showed the number of new brain cells produced per day more than doubled (to 7,000) in adult monkeys who regularly participated in exercises that used motor and decision-making skills.

Source: Discovery Health Channel
Back to Table of Contents

c) 400.000.000.000 is the number of LEGO elements that have been moulded since 1949.