When was the last time you let your people play? Not throwing a ball around the car park or the games we all get on our computers and mobiles nowadays, but serious play.
Play is the essence of innovation and idea creation. It requires freedom from constraints and freedom from conditions.. Watch the kid in the school yard with his/her tractor. Complete absorption in the activity, unadulterated imagination and clear determination is at work.
Play is critical, it’s serious stuff and it encourages us to look at things differently. With your team look at something mundane in your customer process or consider that boring waste management project. Play with it, modify it, destroy it, build it up again. Completely go wild, break it open and come up with 10 new ideas and see where that takes you!
As Joesph Chilton Pearce said “Play is the only way the highest intelligence of mankind can unfold.” Not a bad quote really.