How Serious Play Leads To Breakthrough Innovation
IN CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE, BRUCE NUSSBAUM ARGUES THAT BUILDING A SPACE AWAY FROM NORMAL ACTIVITY, WHERE PEOPLE TRUST EACH OTHER AND AGREE TO BEHAVE BY A DIFFERENT SET OF RITUALS, IS KEY TO ENHANCING A TEAM’S CREATIVE CAPABILITY.
Fastcodesign published an excerpt from Creative Intelligence by Bruce Nussbaum (HarperBusiness), which is focusing on theimportance of ‘play’ in the process of designing new products. It gives an interesting perspective on how play can be used as a design tool. The power and value of playfulness and playing in the context of business has its own name: ‘gamification’. The ILF is delighted to count (at least) two firms specialising in this area amongst the ILF Wider Community: MJV (with its home in Brazil and a dependence in London) and Continue to Grow (based in Portugal). And if you are interested in the ‘gamification’ it is one of the topics covered at our next Innovators Anonymous meeting 24.September 2015.
Below you can find our favourite excerpts and you can read the full article through the link at the bottom.
For centuries, musicians, painters, and dancers have utilized the strategies of play to create masterpieces. In a recentHarvard Business Review article, the sculptor Richard Serra, known for his huge installations of sheet metal bent into spirals, ellipses, and arcs, explained his process: “In play you don’t foresee an end product. It allows you to suspend judgment. Often the solution to one problem sparks a possibility for another set of problems. . . . In the actual building of something you see connections you could not possibly have foreseen on that scale unless you were physically there.”
In serious play there are rules, there is competition, there are winners and losers. Above all, there is learning, the kind of learning that allows you to navigate unknown areas, make unusual connections, and achieve new goals in unforeseen ways.