An Introduction to Play at Work: A play in One Act
CUSTOMER (it you🫵 ): Oi! Playgrounded, nice website, but what problem are you solving?
PLAYGROUNDED: Thanks, websites are a whole big thing. We’re lucky we had help from a pro. So, you might have noticed that the world of work has drastically changed. You aren’t imagining things, shit is DIFF👏-ER👏-ENT👏. AND THE DIFFERENCE HAS A NAME! It’s called the digital revolution and it is related to the previous work revolution, you know, the industrial one. I’m telling you this, customer friend, because we seem to get that when we shifted the world of industry from ‘stuff we made in people's homes’ to ‘stuff we made in a factory’, that was a big deal and did a heeeeeeeeap of things to work, business, the family, government, society and all the things. What's weird is that the digital revolution is just as big a disruption to the world of work but we don’t seem to be clocking that in real time. We need to change the way we approach work to reflect the realities we live with everyday.
CUSTOMER: Wow, that sounds like a lot of nerd and you still haven’t told me the problem you are solving
PLAYGROUNDED: Sorry about that, we are super into this stuff, massive group dynamic nerds and deeply into the research and academia in a BIG way, we do tend to get carried away. Here’s the problem: Currently Collaboration is key, Creativity Kicks ass, Communication is our Co-Pilot and Companies that Catch-on and Communicate the Creative Collaboration WIN. BUT old concepts of corporate command and control, outdated beliefs around leadership and status and the inflexible mental models of work born in the industrial revolution are fucking all this up. The market is making workplaces where no one can get shit done because we cannot play in the group to serve our central task
CUSTOMER: Nice alliteration, but what do you mean by ‘play in the group to serve our central task’? We are talking about work, not play, yeah?
PLAYGROUNDED: That’s the thing right there! Something went wrong a while ago, we started to think that play was the opposite of work. Weirdly, play is a mechanism through which work can happen. From a systems-psychodynamic* framework, play is not an action, but a space that is created between a leader and individuals in a group that can contain awesome things like creativity, candour, engagement, joy, feelings, process, achievement, learning and a whole bunch of stuff that makes groups super awesome. Also, I’ll tell you what play isn’t, it’s NOT: enforced fun, casual Fridays, wearing a ‘funky tie’, doing trust falls, buying a ping-pong table or bean bags at work. Play is serious business because it’s been hard wired into our brain via evolution and our primate need for the group. If an organisation can master how it plays, they win.
CUSTOMER: Oh wow Playgrounded, you’ve convinced me - no wondered my team doesn’t collaborate well!!! So, what do I do now??
PLAYGROUNDED: Well, no one has cracked how to take the science of play into workplaces to help companies get shit done. We are working on figuring this out and making an impact. But, we can’t do that without you; we wanna play and we can’t play alone. So, we are going to get a bit weird, make a bunch of content to get you thinking about play in your workplace AND if you wanna get us in to co-create some play solutions to ‘people things’ in your organisation, reach out and let's chat.
CUSTOMER: Great, I’m going to follow you on Linkedin and instagram so I can see the weird and think about how you might be able to come in and do fun things. Thanks legend!
[CUSTOMER and PLAYGROUNDED do a little dance and exit stage left]
*Systems Psychodynamics is an awesome academic study that looks at the individual, their place in the group, the groups impact on the system and the systems impact on other systems. It’s legit an awesome thing for anyone interested in organisation success.
