Play your way to effective leadership
Can you play your way to effective leadership?
The future of work is changing. We’ve seen all the trending terms - “quiet quitting” and “the great resignation.” Regardless of setting, only 33% of employees reported feeling engaged in 2022. Low engagement costs corporations $7.8 trillion dollars globally. Conversely, highly engaged teams can be 21% more profitable*. This fact shouldn't be news to leaders. Leaders are trying everything to improve the employee experience: yoga, ping pong tables, kegs, virtual cooking classes, improv, without success. Team building exercises can be fun but they don’t cause systemic change. When the team is expected to spend more hours outside of work with the work team for something like an escape room, but then are still expected to be in the office and fully productive by 8am the next morning, the disconnect of messaging prevents organizational change. Similar to the (often-scam) of “unlimited PTO,” if the culture doesn’t support the efforts, it’s a waste of time.
Play and flow can systematically improve employee engagement by overhauling workplace culture.
If you haven’t heard of flow, check out Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. For a quick review, flow is “the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement.” Achieving flow at work can be transformational.
What’s so great about flow?
Experiencing flow can result in lower self-consciousness and higher positive emotions. Research has shown that the flow state can increase the ability for self-regulation, improve interpersonal relationships, and a general sense of personal well-being. For employees (and leaders) to achieve flow at work, the environment must be strategically designed to allow the circumstances to align for the optimal flow experience.
Clear Goals.
Too often, leaders and management pass down projects and processes to employees without any background or education about WHAT the project serves to do in the long run and WHY the project is happening. The employees must know the steps of the project and process, but they should also know the reasons behind them. Leaders should provide insight to the bigger picture allowing for more meaningful goals. Intrinsic motivation. This can be tricky at work of course, as any project or assignment from work is dictated by a superior. However, if the clear goals are provided, the employee can find meaning in the work resulting in at least some of the motivation being from within themselves.
Immediate Feedback.
When an artist is painting, and they use the wrong color, they know it immediately. When a skier is cruising down the hill and doesn’t keep their legs together just right, they know it immediately as they are met with a face full of snow. At work, often employees work on projects for days before being given insight on how it’s going.
Enjoyable.
Some people are incessant about how much they enjoy their work, but just as many people often complain the opposite. The concept that “if you enjoy what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” abuses the meaning of the word work. As a society, we’ve come to view work as something to dread or avoid altogether. Work can be fun, even a spreadsheet, when presented and worked on in the right environment.
Distractions must be limited.
This can differ depending on the company. In the book, Chief Joy Officer, Richard Sheridan of Menlo Innovations shares that his employees always work in pairs. Yes, always. Rich, the CEO, doesn’t have a fancy corner office floors above his teams. He works alongside them. Many may think that this concept could be potentially distracting for some employees but if you read his book, it's clear that the entire organization supports the efforts and thus it actually reduces distractions. Pairs of employees are more focused on each project, likely providing easy access to a flow state. Leaders must take a look at their own structures and design to determine what will reduce distractions.
Challenging.
If a project is too easy, the employee will likely be very bored, especially if it's repetitive. If it’s too hard, the team could become frustrated and fall into a fear of failure. It’s crucial that leaders work closely with their teams for this aspect. Leaders need to be open to hidden strengths of team members and look for areas where employees are struggling.
Lack of self-consciousness.
A lack of feeling self-conscious at work really just means not being afraid to fail. The trend of “failure awards” is a great movement towards professionals being more open about failing. The cliche about learning from failure is actually true and incredibly valuable. Employees will try more and innovate more when given the support to potentially fail.
Using play to achieve flow?
So how do we provide those parameters for our employees and get them into flow? Through play. Yep, it’s that simple. Wait, play as in swinging on the playground or two hours of Halo? Yep. Calm down, no one is recommending you allow employees to neglect work outright and play video games for hours. To understand how to add play to your culture, let’s define play and discuss the benefits. Play is
fun
intrinsically motivated
mentally and/or physically active
Play can improve
creativity
collaboration
communication
vulnerability
innovation
integrity
relationships
physical wellbeing
mental flexibility
mental health
Let’s read that list again…it is comprised of the characteristics of a leader as well as metrics that can indicate a good workplace culture. Keeping teams happy and attracting top quality talent can’t be achieved with one-off, boxed or scripted activities even if they are really fun at the time. Play must be incorporated into the overall company culture. Finding flow can bring so many benefits to work. Leaders and team members alike are more often in a positive state of mind. Individuals bring enhanced creativity to teams. Collaboration and communication will improve. The future of work is changing, so our strategic initiatives must also change.
Playing to Flow is an easy and fun way to effect that change.
