Play at Work? Yes, Please!

Play can defuse conflicts, stimulate innovation, improve well-being, nurture leaders and promote meaningful DEI.

A four-letter word for work. If this were “Jeopardy,” my response would be, “What is Play?”

After all, it’s often said that “if you find a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve done in my 37-year career, but I did hit a mental roadblock 11 years ago. I had just left a job and felt lost. Day after day I would sit alone on Sunset Beach thinking that maybe my best workdays were behind me.

Then two kids asked me to play. We danced in the waves and built what they thought was an epic sandcastle. That experience changed everything, and my empty tank was now full. I wondered: Can what just happened to me help others in the workplace?

Yes, it can and I’ve seen it happen over and over. Like you, I have faced the challenges posed by unhappy, unengaged employees. Play can help them love their job, interact better with co-workers and turn them into employees worth retaining.

Playfulness at work spawns innovation, develops future leaders, improves mental wellbeing and raises the level of social awareness among employees, which promotes balanced and meaningful diversity, equity and inclusion.

I’ve coached over 450 business leaders and the testimonials they’ve shared after experimenting with play are amazing. Let’s run through a few.

Have you ever been in a boardroom where conflicts run so deep you could cut the tension with a knife? That’s what conditions were like at a trades company on O‘ahu that sought our help. We gave everyone puppets to represent their best selves. Through those puppets – and using playful acting and kindness – employees talked about the conflicts at the company. Forty-five minutes later the conflict was resolved and didn’t come back.

The chief HR officer of a Fortune 100 company became known as the puppet master for his use of puppets to resolve challenges playfully and efficiently. Everyone at the office would at some point pick up a puppet and share their grievances.

We asked the leaders of a company with 17 department heads to define their superhero powers and share how they would create a team of Avengers to deal with the inter-departmental challenges that had plagued their workplace. Within 60 days all departments were operating at greater efficiency.

And we worked with a company that had tragically lost its founder and CEO during the pandemic. We brought together the remaining 11 team members and asked each to create a triumphant story about how the company would go on – written like a children’s story. While each employee foresaw a different path forward, all the stories had similar outcomes. Those stories became the baseline for a strategic plan to lead the company back to success. After all, anything is possible when seen through the eyes of a child.

Writing a children’s story, playing with puppets or summoning the superhero within are just a few ways that play can save the day in your workplace. I double dog dare you to give it a try.

This Month’s Expert:

Steve Rix, Chief Experience Officer at PlayLab