Why is play important in entrepreneurship and business?

Source: Openverse

You may intuitively sense that playfulness generates both innovation and positivity, two key ingredients for entrepreneurial success. Yet, you may not know how to apply this intuition in a way that helps your startup grow. This article includes tips for leveraging the principles of play at every step in your business journey, from strategy and ideation to your reward system.

Background

Society has long seen play as the necessary complement to work - as witnessed by the old saying: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" and the modern corporate mantra "work hard, play hard”. Play is also a learning tool: it develops creativity, empathy, resilience, and problem solving skills. Thus, play prepares one for “real work” and offers a reprieve from it. This article emphasizes the importance of intimately intermeshing play and work, thus going beyond merely alternating them. Play can be the catalyst for success, starting from ideation and strategy, and all the way to execution and organizational health.

The multi-pronged value of play

In his seminal Ted talk, Why play is essential for business, Martin Reeves, Chairman of The BCG Henderson Institute, points out that “reimagination is the new execution”, that in our contemporary business environment creativity holds the key to sustained success.To continually re-imagine, you need to integrate the principles of play in your day-to-day thinking.

Source: Openverse

Source: https://openverse.org/image/92369012-7231-4920-a9c6-c06e26cdff30?q=creativity+word+cloud

Incorporating play into your entrepreneurial journey can lead to a more innovative, resilient, and cohesive culture. Play can help your startup take-off and thrive.

• Play fosters creativity and innovation by encouraging experimentation and unique out-of-the-box solutions
• Play enhances problem-solving skills: Playful environments give entrepreneurs the flexibility to approach problems from different angles, and to navigate business uncertainties.
• Play builds team cohesion by nurturing trust and effective collaboration.
• Play reduces stress and increases resilience by providing relaxation and a welcome outlet. Better mental health equips one to better handle challenges.
• Play encourages experimentation and learning: Trial and error implies the ability to grow from failure and adapt business strategies and tactics .

Playful tools

The principles of play permeate some of the most successful approaches to modern business thinking. You may choose from a growing list of tools that include:

• Blue Ocean Strategy, which expands the realm of the possible by creating new, uncontested, markets.
• Ideation with Disruptive Brainstorming.
• Solving “wicked” problems via Design Thinking.
• Embracing gamification in different scenarios, to increase both employee and customer engagement.

Final thoughts

The mention of play in the context of business evokes ice-breaker games, paintball, Jenga towers, and team-bonding events. It also brings to mind playful high-tech company environments, boasting game rooms, outdoor sports fields, and flexible schedules. Some studies associate collaborative workplace games with significant productivity increases, better retention, and job satisfaction. However, the most powerful benefit of play stems from the boost in creativity and initiative, leading to a quantum leap in performance, not just iterative progress on a few metrics.

As an entrepreneur, be playful from the get-go when you envision and start your business. If you use tools that embrace the principles of play you may just come up with a better idea, one that is more likely to disrupt and create new possibilities, circumventing “red ocean" markets and zero-sum games.