Are you where you thought you’d be at this point in your life?
Recent studies from Accenture Research and Deloitte Consulting find employee skill gaps and disengagement in the workplace are increasing.
That is a problem not only for the companies that are experiencing increased skill gaps, but also for the employees themselves.
Nearly half of all companies surveyed (46%) report that skill gaps among their employees cause negative business outcomes. Skill gaps (and the frustration they create) are also found to be one of the main causes of declining employee engagement, which is the top issue facing 87% of HR executives and business leaders.
"Play provides an opening to engage more fully in everything we do and ultimately be more productive," argues Christopher Byrne, author of "Funny Business: Harnessing the Power of Play to Give Your Company a Competitive Advantage."
Play is an immersive process that allows us to ask: "What if?" to break free of the strictures that limit creativity and satisfaction. A look at play: what is it really and how it can be used to change thinking and become transformative.
Byrne examines a way to use the processes that come naturally to us as children, but have been trained out of us, labelled as inappropriate, or otherwise diminished as adults.
The same elements that make a good game also provide the strategic framework for competing in today's marketplace. Games, like business, require a fundamental concept, clear objectives, and a set of rules.
Good games also have three other things in common that are essential to their success:
1. they have clear objectives,
2. are easy to learn, and
3. are different depending on who is playing them.
Whether you're communicating internally or marketing, it's important to know who you're talking to as well as you can.
When a new game emerges - which is really what the online world is - this is when the principles of play matter the most.
Businesses are using the internet effectively to re-examine their business in light of this new information. They are creating new models, for instance, for research and interpreting data. They are monitoring interactions with their consumers and responding to comments online, and they are engaged in a process of re-invention that is the essence of play. They are looking for or, in some cases, creating the new rules to accommodate the new game, and at the same time leveraging and preserving that which has worked in the past. Business models such as Uber, Air BnB are just two examples of this change.
Reference: Christopher Byrne: “Funny Business: Harnessing the Power of Play to Give Your Company a Competitive Advantage”
