Innovation Breakthrough: Making Work Feel Like Fun

The Science of Making Work Enjoyable

A few months ago I was invited to co-design and co-facilitate an “Innovation Day” for a team of 20 persons.

The workshop was scheduled to be in person.

How to design an Innovation Day?

I started thinking of what if I were a participant and somebody would tell me: “On x day you are invited to a teambuilding where the goal is to innovate together and be creative.”?

I would probably freak out because on that x day, I would “have” to be creative on demand. And this is soooo hard, right?

How do I come up with the session design? Many steps here, I will share 2 of the most important ones:

• I start with the end in my mind - what is the session goal, why did they book me?

• How would the context make me feel as a participant, what would I expect there? (I usually do one to one interview prior to the session with all participants or at least a survey but in this case, it was not possible because of time pressure)

In this specific case, the “be creative on the spot” was something that I wanted to completely avoid and I did that together with my co-facilitator.

Start the creative juices flow with helicopters….

This is a variation of what I have experimented with within a Bikablo training organized by Charles-Louis de Maere where I was learning how to do visual facilitation and graphical recording. And as a participant, it helped me so much back then to just get started and enjoy creating flow.

So I designed something similar for my participants as well:

🎲I offered Lego Serious Play Exploration Kits to every 2 persons who were forming a team.

🎲 Inviting them to build a Helicopter out of Lego pieces together (as many as they can imagine, and to write the Helicopter's purpose on a sticky note)

🎲 Every time one was built, I invited them to put a line on a poster to count how many we had. I set a “challenge” to a minimum of 20 built by another team:)

Results: They had so much fun together and they were all super enthusiastic to continue with ideas in the ideation section that was following this part of the session.

Why did this activity work so well? What is the neuroscience explanation behind it? 6 reasons why it works!

• Working in pairs of 2 creates an environment of psychologically safe space where you can communicate easier

• Play generates dopamine, happy faces in the whole room, and a positive environment is created

• It is an invitation, not a game, not a competition, they just have fun

• Building together with hands, with Lego something generates a bounding effect, oxytocin is released, another happiness neurotransmitter

• The hand-brain connection while doing kinetic movements activates both brain hemispheres which is a trigger for creativity

• Lego Serious Play creates stimulating experiences. Neuroplasticity (the ability of our brain to develop) happens because the mind is active and the creativity flow works then the momentum for change happens. This brings deeper outcomes that are lived during the session but really afterward as well

Bottom lines:

I put myself in the participant’s shoes when I design a session and create an environment where they feel good, have fun, and become creative thanks to this environment. This Innovation Day in the above example was a success, I let you below the feedback of what participants enjoyed, when even if they worked and created their initiatives for the next 6 months, they said “it felt like a break from work” which is amazing!

Resources:

• Play @ Work = Creativity

• Book “Habits of a happy brain” by L. Graziano Breuning