Why most efforts to bring joy into work fail — and what to do instead.
A few years ago, a group of researchers ran the numbers on decades of team-building exercises. The away days. The workshops. The offsites. All the things companies do to boost morale, bond teams, and lift performance.
The result?
Objectively — in terms of real-world output — team building had little to no effect. In some cases, it even reduced performance. Subjectively — how people felt about their work — there was a small lift. But it faded. The bigger the group and the longer the programme, the weaker the effect became.
So, what’s going on?
Here’s the problem. We’ve separated playfulness from the work.
We’ve made joy the reward after the work is done.
Or a break from the pressure.
Not a way of being in the work itself.
This split — work over here, fun over there — feels normal now. But it’s recent. A product of industrial logic, not human truth. And it’s not helping.
Playfulness is not a perk. It’s not the beanbags or the pizza Fridays or the annual team day with spaghetti towers and reluctant icebreakers.
It’s a state of mind. Curious. Flexible. Engaged. It’s what happens when people feel safe enough to explore ideas, brave enough to ask “what if?”, and energised enough to care.
When playfulness is present, teams move faster. Think better. Connect more deeply. When it disappears, it’s often a sign something’s already broken: fear of mistakes, pressure without purpose, a culture where seriousness is mistaken for value.
That’s why we built The Playfulness Lab.
Not to make work feel like a party.
But to help leaders create the conditions for playfulness within the work — especially when the pressure’s on.
We train leaders to shift the energy of a team.
To use lightness as a lever.
To build performance not by pushing harder, but by removing what blocks people from doing their best work.
The world has changed. Work has changed.
Leadership needs to change too.
Because in disruption, rigid teams break.
But playful ones?
They bend. They adapt. They thrive.
Let’s build those.