Last month I worked with a wonderful NFP doing beyond-amazing work in the support services space.
The work I was engaged to do was around understanding the emotional culture this organisation needed to thrive in a tough sector and the behaviours that enabled that culture as it grew.
Using one of my favourite tools, the Emotional Culture Deck, we explored at an individual level the five emotions people want to feel at work to be successful, ranked in order of importance to each person.
When it came time to debrief, I first asked the group what they noticed. After a few people talked about the importance of reflecting on their individual emotions, the CEO expressed surprise at her neighbour, who had chosen Playful as something she needs to feel each day to feel as though she were successful at work. The CEO went on to say that she would never have chosen that for herself as she considered herself quite a serious person. Upon further discussion, another person shared that they also chose Playful, and the group discussion took off in a direction toward what that meant in this particular workplace, and how it showed up in ways that hadn’t been obvious.
When it came to the collective emotions the group wanted to feel, the discussion about being playful had an obvious impact and Playful found its way into the top five for what the group believed people need to feel for the organisation to be successful. Through this open and somewhat vulnerable conversation, the CEO could see the value of collaborating to create a playful emotional culture, and the ways in which bringing some lightness to the work could have profound impacts on the team.
It was a beautiful example of why co-creating culture with your people matters. It’s the act of providing space and reflection, talking about the organisation instead of just working in it and giving people a voice.
And that’s why when we Assemble, we do it with intention and attention.
If playfulness is something you want more of in your workday, have some fun with this TED talk where Tim Brown shows us the simple ways you can bring lightness and creativity into your workday to create playfulness! It is an oldie (from 2008!) but a goodie, it has been watched over 2 million times for a good reason 😉
Time to Assemble your team with intention and attention?
Let’s find out if playful is an emotion your team wants to feel at work! Let’s chat if it’s time for you to co-create something magical.
