Blowing Up Culture as Usual: Using Play to Re-Imagine Creativity Kathy Klotz-Guest

Kathy Klotz-Guest, founder of Keeping it Human, conversed with David Chislett for her segment of the Playful Creative Summit. Klotz-Guest didn’t offer a “draw a monster” or “have a thumb war” tip. She did speak about business culture, and the measurable fact that older and younger generations of workers and leaders are increasingly disconnected from each other concerning their expectations of corporate life. Concretely, workers (and, by extension, younger managers) increasingly , and rationally, are no longer willing to settle for an all-consuming, always-serious, “seen-but-not-heard ” employee experience which doesn’t allow for work/life balance or a person’s undeniable need to be authentic in all his/her/their environments. Deny those requirements and you lose people. And you stifle their creativity.

That doesn’t mean they want pure license to do anything. Soooo, finding the difficult balance between pointing to an employee’s office and decreeing an employee “Innovate” without defining the term at all, and providing the structure of clearly-communicated deadlines, budgets, hardline can’ts which staffmembers do need for them to realistically engage their creativity requires conversations. Plus risk-taking. Definitely include playfulness – let people have fun at work.

I’m going to extend her observation. How much more productive could your volunteers be? What would happen on the after-school sports teams? Could you keep more long-term members of your professional societies? Just asking.