We’ve all walked into rooms that felt heavy before a word was spoken. And others that felt alive with possibility. Same people. Same agenda. Different vibe.
The space we work in – physically, emotionally, relationally – isn’t neutral. It shapes the way we think, engage, and make decisions. If we want better thinking, more inclusive dialogue, bolder creativity, or even just less burnout… we need to pay attention to the environments we’re creating and inhabiting.
And no, this isn’t about scented candles or beanbags. It’s about something much more fundamental: how safe and open people feel to bring their real, thinking, feeling selves to the work.
Playfulness research (yes, the real kind—not the foosball-table kind) shows that people do their best thinking and relating when they feel safe enough to be curious, creative, and connected. That’s not a nice-to-have. That’s the precondition for good work.
We can think of playfulness as “the state humans enter when they feel safe, energised, and open to possibility.” It’s that mental and emotional flexibility we need to see new angles, shift stuck patterns, and meet uncertainty without freezing.
But that state doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It emerges from context. And context is something we can create – or accidentally crush.
We often think of performance as individual. But that’s a leftover idea from industrial-era management: humans as cogs, output as the only measure of success. What if we took a more ecological lens? What if we saw the room itself – its atmosphere, dynamics, even its unspoken norms – as part of the performance system?
In my research research with high-pressure teams, playfulness emerged not just as an individual trait, but as a relational property – something that rises or withers depending on the team climate, particularly the presence of psychological safety.
In other words, the space isn’t just where the work happens. It is the work.
Here’s a myth worth retiring: that “playful” means silly or unserious. In reality, playful spaces can be strategic. Tender. Gritty. They are places where it’s okay to experiment, to not know, to try something before it’s perfect. That’s not frivolity. That’s how transformation happens.
As Stela Lupushor puts it: we need to stop designing workplaces like supply chains, and start designing them for human experience – with all its unpredictability, variation, and potential.
Because when we create space for humans to be human, we unlock the intelligence, creativity, and energy we’ve been trying to squeeze out through metrics and mandates.
So how do you create one?
This isn’t a checklist – it’s more like tuning an instrument. But here are a few prompts leaders, facilitators, or even meeting-holders can play with:
What’s the emotional tone of the room? If it’s tight or flat, don’t fake cheer. Try acknowledging it. That’s the first move toward shift.
What signals are you sending about safety? Are people punished for raising hard questions? Does humour land, or die on impact?
How much flexibility is in the room? Not just in the agenda, but in the unspoken rules of who gets to speak, interrupt, or say “I don’t know.”
Is the space protecting certainty or enabling exploration? Sometimes we create order when what’s needed is curiosity.
And here’s the uncomfortable part (and the gift): if the room is tense, stuck, or quiet… we might need to check our own state before blaming the team.
Are we open? Curious? Willing to risk a little lightness? Our nervous system shapes the room just as much as the slides do. That’s not pressure—it’s power. And an invitation.
As I often put it to leaders: “Your state is contagious. If you access playful presence, others will often follow without instruction.”
You don’t need to rebuild the building or run a retreat. Sometimes, the smallest tweaks to how a space feels – what you ask, how you open a meeting, what you model—are enough to tip the balance.
Because once playfulness enters the room, everything changes.
Not because the space looks different.
But because we do.