No, Playful Leaders Don’t Wear Rose-Tinted Glasses
The fear is understandable. When we talk about playful leadership, most managers picture chaos. Jokes instead of judgment. A team high on silliness and low on results. Or worse — a sugar-coated culture where no one’s allowed to be real. But here’s what the science says: that’s not what playfulness is. In a 2025 study […]
You Don’t Need Another Team Building Day
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 — […]
How Playfulness Fuels High-Pressure Performance
Turning Stress into Focus, Creativity, and Better Decisions When the stakes are sky-high, most people think the answer is to “get serious” and grit their teeth. We hear phrases like “Dig deep,” “Stay strong,” and “Push through.” The problem? Under extreme stress, your brain isn’t inspired by motivational slogans—it’s bracing for survival. Leaders, athletes, surgeons, […]
The Serious Business of Playfulness
Why the most adaptable, high-performing teams aren’t the most serious ones Seriousness gets mistaken for competence all the time. We straighten our posture, drop our voices a tone lower, and wear our “I’m across it” face. But here’s the paradox: the teams that thrive in uncertainty aren’t the ones who look the most serious – […]
Playfulness and Crisis: Turning Dangerous Moments into Growth Opportunities
Playfulness and crisis? Really? At the Playfulness Lab, we’re obsessed with rethinking the moments that shape us. Crisis is one of them. Not just the big, catastrophic ones, but the slow-burn crises too—the ones that creep into our teams, our cultures, and our internal landscapes. If we zoom out, there’s a fascinating concept embedded in […]
Why We Ask Leaders to Write Down 3 Playful Things a Day
(And why it works better than you’d expect.) Most adults treat play like a childhood relic.Something we were meant to grow out of.Like nap time. Or glitter. But at The Playfulness Lab, we see something different—especially when it comes to leadership. We see playfulness not as an escape from work, but as a way of […]
Playfulness at Work Isn’t a Luxury.
In the serious world of business – where metrics rule and pressure is permanent – playfulness at work can feel like a luxury.A distraction. A nice-to-have. But what if we’ve misunderstood it entirely? What if playfulness isn’t the opposite of productivity- but the very thing that keeps it alive? We Don’t Outgrow Play – We […]