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Hello, Gamestormers!
Client engagements & seven Expeditions in five months have yielded plenty of learnings and insight; we just haven't had the time to write about them! I hope we’re falling into a sustainable
cadence with our recent newsletter production. Keep an eye on your inboxes.
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Regardless of our consulting client or Expeditioner, nearly everyone we work with brings up this curiosity:
How can I bring more games, drawing and creativity to work? How can I sell this to my clients and colleagues?
Their hurdle? Those that consider empathy maps, drawing and post-it notes to be less than professional. This cosmetic objection prevents ever considering how useful these activities are. If you’re familiar with workshops, design thinking and how valuable drawing-at-work can be, you need no convincing; but it’s often difficult to express what you already know to someone who has never attended a well-run Gamestorming (or the like) workshop.
Short of dragging the uninitiated into your next workshop, here are a few pieces of data you might offer for their consideration.
Design-Led Firms Win the Business Advantage
This 2016 Adobe commissioned Forrester Thought Leadership Paper concludes that design led and
collaborative practices placed throughout an organization lead to a better bottom line. From Forrester:
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Companies that do leverage design practices to align the customer journey and all its touchpoints are empathizing more with customers, telling a more consistent brand story, and investing in talent and capabilities that promote a culture of collaboration and
shared identity/vision.
And when it comes to the bottom line, these practices are paying off.
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Creative employees -> Happy employees -> Productive employees
As employees, we want to express more agency and creativity in our work.
This Robert Half study found that employees in creative positions had the highest job satisfaction
and interest in their work compared to employees in accounting and finance, administrative, legal and tech fields.
To be clear, we believe every field offers opportunities to be creative - Gamestorming is about democratizing the creative process.
As per Forrester’s conclusion, the further collaboration reaches, the more successful the company becomes. That may be, in part, due to the relationship between employee happiness and productivity.
According to this University of Warwick study, we will work harder if we are happier.
And we’ll be better leaders. And more collaborative. And more loyal.
People buy into what they help create
The best stakeholder management plan involves their co-creating the change you need them to
endorse! From Forbes:
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Real buy-in involves at least some element of co-creation. It invites discussion, debate, and allows everyone to feel even more vested in the outcome.
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| When we discuss selling Gamestorming internally, these are the talking points we cover; they’re usually enough to move a skeptic to take a chance.
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| What other insights or research should we add to the list? What objections do you face in bringing more creativity to work? What has worked for you in overcoming them?
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Have you given thought to bringing serious fun to work? Our Expeditions in April, May and June are great way to start.
An Expedition is our 18-hour, six-sessions-over-two-weeks, packed with creative and collaborative visual thinking to help you become a change maker and a rule breaker training course. And we have a few seats remaining
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