The Signs Are Pointing To ... Play

What's play got to do with work?

Actually, quite a lot.

Earlier this week, I was re-reading #Essentialism by Greg McKeown, where he talks about how PLAY is essential to life, and essential to figuring out what's essential. (LOL, no?)

As I ponder how I will design next week's session on Part 2 of Essentialism, it's pretty obvious that I will want to come up with a creative way to play on the topic of play.

Hmm...

Then, this morning, I spent some time going back and listening to some of the videos from the New Rules of Work #IdeationSymposium that just finished up (Thanks Elise Keith and Dave Mastronardi 🤩).

The keynote (which I somehow missed...maybe I was playing...?) was given by Charlie Hoehn and was all about how to unlock creativity through....PLAY!

Yes, play!
Play!
Play!

It seems to be all around me.

One of the joys of my work, or perhaps the whole intention, is to create space in people's busy lives, to connect the ideas from a book, to the reality of their work, in playful and fun ways.

No, boring intellectual conversations about whether you agree or disagree with this idea or that idea.

Let's get our hands dirty, and play with the ideas.

From selling random items on our desks to each other, to lead us into the topic of persuasion, to deciding what kind of birthday cake to make for the boss, to lead us into decision-making, I am always looking for creative ways to connect people to ideas, ideas to ideas, and people to people.

No matter what the book, no matter what the topic, we need to get out of our heads and into our hearts and hands.

Sometimes we can access our hearts through our hands.
Sometimes our hands through our hearts.

(Our heads seem to always want to be on control, don't you think?)

To really take the ideas from a book, to the real world, to create real change, we need to access all three - head, heart, and hands.

What better way than through play.

Do you like to play?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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