Welcome to the latest in a series of brief interviews with guest experts from KnowledgeBrief’s Innovation Programme, providing a window into the experts’ latest ideas and new advice for executives.
Following the Innovation Day in January, Ana Cueva (AC) from KnowledgeBrief gave us an interview to discuss her latest insights on the benefits of promoting play in the workplace.
KB: What’s the key business challenge that organisations need to address, that your research tackles?
AC: Organisations are constantly looking to be more innovative and foster creativity within the workplace. They now look for people to become more resilient due to our everchanging environment and we expect everyone to have leadership skills to drive an organisation’s vision. For this to be done however, we need to build capabilities within individuals. We can’t foster creative thinking if we have rigid structures that hinder individuals’ development and imaginary capability.
This is why I believe it’s time to bring play to organisations. Playing can provide a safe and alternative environment for individuals to think of different ideas, develop new capabilities and practice skills to solve problems or come up with better strategies. Playful people have the capacity to become great leaders and innovators, as innovation is all about coming up with solutions that are new and useful. More importantly, playfulness brings happiness to work. If we talk about the importance of play for mental health, it can be a useful tool to alleviate the pressures of work, boost resilience and decrease depression and anxiety.
KB: What advice would you give to executives, based on your findings?
AC: Promoting play in the workplace can be a great strategy to develop new ideas and projects
within organisations. For this to be successful we need to focus on the following:
- Developing the right environment. Play will only present itself when individuals feel safe and comfortable to engage with playful behaviours. Play in the work environment is a sign of employee wellbeing, which is why this needs to be ongoing, promoted every day.
- Play can be integrated as part of your employee wellbeing strategies. Gamifying processes is always a useful way to engage people.
- Engage with design thinking as it promotes playful exploration by allowing individuals to explore ideas in and out of your organisation and it engages people in playful building by prototyping and carrying out small experiments that can be easily replicated.
- Try role playing as a way to understand your clients’ needs, expectations and to empathise with your customers.
If you want to promote creativity within your organisation you need to practice it; playing is an easy and safe way to help people step out of their comfort zone to look for different solutions.
KB: What did you learn or take away from meeting with the executives at the KnowledgeBrief Innovation Day?
AC: Meeting the executives at the KnowledgeBrief Innovation Innovation Day was a wonderful opportunity to see how everyone thinks of play and how much everyone enjoys it. We had some amazing examples of play within organisations such as board games to showcase patients’ experience, playful induction processes and even some small elements of play like jokes at the beginning of meetings. It was a wonderful opportunity to see what is happening within organisations and to hear the new ideas that were inspired through roundtable discussions.
With thanks to Ana Cueva, Professional Learning Advisor at KnowledgeBrief.