How to enjoy your job without killing your career

As I was setting up for a client workshop recently, plenty of team members walked past the meeting room stopped, looked in and said something like:

'Gee that looks creative'

'Wow, that's gonna be a fun session'

'Oh I wish I was in THIS session, not the dull one next door'. 

What secret creative things were in my workshop? Coloured pieces of paper and markers. That's it! That's all it took to make a space look and feel creative. It made people want to be in the room.

Some workspaces can be bland, uninteresting and crowded with workified clutter that they're not inspiring us to be innovative, creative or game changing. 

Our future career success depends on what we do now, how we approach challenges
and handle problem solving.  

We may not have the option of bringing bean bags and table tennis tables into our workspaces but we can make our own space creative. Especially the space between our ears!

You don't need much to get away from dull and duller, bland and boring, stacks of white paper and clinical walls and spaces. Even a few bricks of Lego can be a great start.

The booming popularity of the colourful blocks and the Lego Serious Play method shows people want to find new, creative and engaging ways to do things. 

 

The fact is, you can do better work
when you use play.

 

Ellen Grove presented a session on using Lego at a conference I attended and I share my visual notes from that session above. Ellen outlined how to get creative and playful using Lego, for the sometimes dull task of gathering information for a project. The four steps she presented are:

1. Constructing: make something with those blocks
2. Give meaning: explain what it is, what it means
3. Make a story: create and share a story about what you've made, what it means
4. Reflect & Incubate: think about what you've created, and what's next, how can you action this?

That workshop session was the busiest, loudest, most collaborative, laughter-filled room at the conference!
People went WILD for it!

If you think 'we couldn't do that at our workplace', have a read of David Gauntlett's contribution to the book 'Lego Studies'; here's the chapter he wrote on using Lego as a tool for thinking, creativity and changing the world.

You can enjoy your job, be creative, play, contribute to innovative solutions and 'bring it', without killing your career. In fact your career depends on you finding ways to tackle the challenges in front of you. 

See what you can build. You'll know the impact just one tiny creative toy block can have if you've ever stepped on one in bare feet!