You’ve heard the saying “the family that plays together stays together.” That’s not an old wives’ tale. Research shows that playing as a child taught us a huge spectrum of skills, which in turn helped us become happy, smart adults.
But recently, the compounding stresses of life, work and responsibility press on us – hard. In offices, there’s an all-consuming focus on productivity and quota-making. We find ourselves mired in the confines of business. Our smart and happy adult selves now boxed-in and tense.
Sounds like fun.
Rather it sounds like it’s TIME FOR FUN!
Years ago the team at KJA Communications Group recognized the importance of play in the creative process. We’ve learned that ideas come from relaxed minds, not from the hot lights of “we want it NOW” burning down on our brains. But we can’t say enough about the need for finding a place for fun in EVERY workplace.
The Halloween season provided us a perfect opportunity to infuse a bit of neighborly frivolity into the workplace. We sponored a building-wide Carve-a-Lantern punkin’ carving competition. Employees from 5 different businesses gathered round a big conference room, armed with assorted tools, decorations and templates and dug in. For a couple hours that Friday afternoon they were focused on something other than to-do lists. These realtors, home health workers, media representatives, insurance adjusters and a few ad agency types carved away some of the tension and stress from their work week.
Sounds like fun.
Playing at work creates a spirit of joyfulness and fun. This is a good thing, you want people to enjoy the place they spend most of their day. And, despite your misconceptions, research tells us clearly that offices where people actually LAUGH, tend to have people who are more productive.
As children, we formed relationships with our buddies at play in the sandbox. Apply that to a business setting and see how play can help us build communications skills, learn personalities and strengthen relationships.
Sitting around, sculpting goofy faces in vegetables stretched our funny bones. Who can’t laugh at a pumpkin with green onions sticking out of its “head”? We hee-hawed, we kibitzed, we got to know one another better. We learned that inside those big ol’ punkins… it’s really gross. And that if you put cinnamon inside a jack-o-lantern, it lasts longer.
When all was said and done, we returned to our respective desks, one last cookie in hand…as happy, smart adults. THAT sounds like fun.
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