Intentional Fun Delivers Profitable Creative Innovation
Have you ever walked into a conference room where an icebreaker/energizer was taking place and see about half the participants looking like they would rather be somewhere else? I hear about those happening more often than I would like to admit. Some people are open to those and enjoy them, while others see them as pointless.
The individuals that see those as pointless, well, have a point. Often those types of activities are supposed to build some level of comradery. The amount of forethought put into them is usually about five minutes before the meeting or is something that the organizer finds entertaining.
Given all the things you already have to do, this might sound like something you can skip. That thinking is exactly why teams aren’t gaining the power of having fun together to bring out the best of everyone.
If you want people to be engaged in having fun to be their best, you must make it intentional. You will need to give it real consideration and have it related to what you are trying to accomplish in the meeting. Planning the activity needs to be part of preparing for the meeting itself. As these activities tend to happen first, they need to indicate what will be coming during the later discussion in a very connected way.
Everyone knows how to have fun with their friends. The challenge is how we have fun with people who may have vastly different definitions of fun than we do. The easiest is by indicating at the start of the meeting what you are working on, then diving into the energizer. The first time you do this, you may not get the reaction you want, but that is because people need to get used to the change you are bringing.
A few examples:
1. If you are trying to expand ideas, use an energizer like Bigger, Bigger, Bigger that requires people to give an imaginary gift to each other that keeps getting bigger.
2. If you are trying to show how important communication is in person, use a game like Silent Organization. It restricts all talking and writing but requires everyone to be in a predetermined sequence.
3. If you are holding a production meeting, something like Pass Along can demonstrate how teamwork goes faster. Instead of passing a ball to touch everyone’s hands, you connect everyone’s hands in a cascade and let the ball go.
Using energizers during more routine meetings should be a little more random and spontaneous. That might seem contradictory to intentional fun, and it is at face value. The difference is that when practicing purposeful fun, you will master drawing it out, even when spontaneous fun is needed. This truly is where the power of deliberate fun will deliver creative innovation.
When people are having fun, they will naturally be more creative. That creativity will spread and become part of the culture. That is when true innovation, be it internally or externally, will flourish naturally, delivering higher profits. The order of magnitude is usually about ten times higher because of the truly innovative nature of the solutions taken to the market.