How Nonprofit Learning and Development Leaders Can Use Play to Create Organizational Change
If your nonprofit or association is undergoing organizational change, you know that it can feel heavy and overwhelming. That's where play comes in. As nonprofit learning and development leaders, we can use play to bring curiosity and fun back to the workplace – and improve communication, empathy, and collaboration. I'm so excited to have play expert, Acey Holmes, on this week’s episode of Learning For Good to explore how we can do just that.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
03:23 Acey’s winding career journey and where her passion for play started
05:41 Why play is relevant and important for adults
08:43 The benefits of using play in the workplace
13:35 How other nonprofit learning and development leaders can use play to support big organizational changes
16:09 One thing that an L&D leader can do today to be more playful
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How Nonprofit Learning and Development Leaders Can Use Play to Create Organizational Change
I want you to grab something that's in front of you. Maybe it's a pen on your desk, your car keys, or a bottle of water. Whatever it is, pick it up and take a moment just to play with it. Use it in a way that it isn't intended to be used.
Ask questions about it. What if this were different? What if I used it this way? What if I did this?
If your nonprofit or association is undergoing organizational change, you know that it can feel heavy and overwhelming. That's where play comes in. As nonprofit learning and development leaders, we can use play to bring curiosity and fun back to the workplace.
Acey Holmes believes that adults deserve and need more play. As a former speech and language pathologist Acey has decades of experience studying the effects of play and flow on the brain and behavior. Her passion for empowering adults to rediscover the joy of play has led to transformative success for both individuals and organizations. This innovative approach incorporates the latest research on the brain and the benefits of play and flow to create effective and enjoyable strategies for personal and professional growth. She helps organizations implement playful work designed to access these benefits across teams. Through her efforts, she is transforming the future of work.
Today, we’re discussing just how and why you should introduce play into your workplace:
We have so much going on in our world, our organizations, and as individuals, and play just seems like a great opportunity to bring some of that curiosity and fun back into the workplace.
1) Acey’s Passion For Play
Even before Acey was a speech and language pathologist, she was a teacher of the deaf. In the transition from being a teacher of the deaf into speech and language pathology, the type of work she was able to do with kids in both of those fields, was a lot of play-based work in a clinical setting. All her clinical work and educational work was based in play.
According to Acey, the way children learn language and really anything is best done through play.
That's where her passion for play started.
Acey now does consulting and facilitation for organizations based in the neuroscience of play for employee engagement and retention, but also for overall well-being.
2) Why Should a Nonprofit L&D Leader Care About Play?
When you hear the word play, what generally comes up is kids, imagination, and toys. But according to Acey, the concept of play goes much deeper than that – especially when we start to think about how play is applicable to adults.
“There is a great wealth of neuroscientific research on what happens in the brain when we play. For adults, it becomes important because when we look at what's happening in the brain, we find out that play and playful type activities and even just playful attitudes during activities, start to trigger some neurochemistry. That is the basis for all neuroplasticity” - Acey Holmes
Neuroplasticity is our ability to grow and learn and develop in our brain. It's what any individual, child or adult, needs to learn anything new, create new relationships, or deepen a knowledge base. This all comes from a neurochemical cocktail as Acey describes it.
“When we're playing, and when we're in flow, that neurochemical cocktail is ultimate. Your brain turns into this craft mixologist and it is pouring you this exact, wonderful drink of dopamine, anandamide, brain-derived neurotrophic factors, endorphins, and oxytocin. We get just the right dosages when we're playing.” - Acey Holmes
This applies to ALL adults.
As Acey says, in the nonprofit space things can get quite hectic and at times chaotic. There’s a lot of change and a lot of new people on a regular basis. Taking the benefits from all that neurochemistry and applying it in those kinds of workspaces can be really powerful.
3) The Benefits of Using Play in the Workplace
Other than staff engagement and staff retention there are many other benefits that Acey is seeing from using play in the workplace.
“When we take play, and playful situations and apply them to heavy or difficult tasks at work, we're able to tap into this level of neurochemistry that opens us up for better communication, better collaboration, better empathy, and even vulnerability.” - Acey Holmes
Acey’s favorite definition of playful comes from a researcher named René Proyer, “it is the ability to frame or reframe a situation to be interesting, entertaining, or stimulating.” Acey likes to use that definition of playfulness when bringing play into the workspace.
In this way, rather than thinking of play and work as two separate things, we can actually think of them together.
For example, if you have a difficult problem at work, you can reframe it as an interesting problem to solve. You can then address that problem as a team which opens up so many more opportunities.
4) How L&D Leaders Can Introduce Play into their Workplaces
Acey emphasizes the importance of doing some sort of traditional play regularly.
Play is a practice.
She also uses the example of mindfulness. If you do mindful breathing or meditation, generally, once you have a good practice of that, you find yourself using those skills in stressful situations, not just when you're sitting on your comfortable cushion.
Play is exactly the same.
You need to practice play and playful behaviors in low-stakes situations to use it in more stressful situations.
Some of the neurochemicals we get during play are actually responsible for slowing down our heart rate and regulating blood pressure and breathing. As Acey explains, by making play a regular part of your routine, you can actually access those responses during stressful situations.
If you want more ideas to help you bring more play to the workplace, you should check out episodes 5 and 7 of Learning for Good.
Episode 5: Three Must-Haves in Any Virtual Training
5) How to Use Play to Support Big Organizational Changes
Acey says it's all about flexibility and curiosity.
“We need to be asking questions. We need to be wondering ‘what if?’ and then we need to be listening to our team's answers.” -Acey Holmes
A big piece that’s often forgotten is listening to the answers. Acey highlights that by applying continued curiosity through flexibility you end up with a lot of new opportunities. These end up being very playful.
Play is personal. It’s different for everyone.
That is why it is so important to listen to other people and allow them to add their own ideas.
“The only consistent thing that I am seeing across the board is that flexibility is what's working, even for the basics. If you can apply that flexibility, that curiosity, and that playful attitude towards anything else in your workspace, you're gonna see improved outcomes across the board.” - Acey Holmes
Listening is such a big part of making good decisions and implementing anything new within organizations. So taking the time to listen, and to create something that works for everyone is going to be worth it.
6) Two Things an L&D Leader Can Do Today to Be More Playful
1. Acey wants to encourage leaders to add a play break or a group play activity into their schedules. And make sure you communicate with your team why you are making this decision.
“Help them identify what types of play are best for them that are going to help them reach their goals and their outcomes.” - Acey Holmes
2. One thing that Acey facilitates for groups on a larger scale is called the failure awards. You can implement these on a smaller scale just within a team.
“A big topic these days is how failure is important. We are human, literally everyone fails. It's something that we all know. But generally, when it comes to work situations, there's shame involved, there's fear of discipline or just poor reactions to a mistake.” - Acey Holmes
Make a practice to bring your team together and to start talking about failure on a regular basis.
Acey admits that doing this does require quite a bit of vulnerability.
A solution she gives is to spin it into a conversation about a real or fake problem that is a common theme in your industry. Then, you as a team can brainstorm and toss out ideas about the worst possible response to that problem. Generally, they're funny but there's the potential for people to admit mistakes they have made previously and for team bonding.
It's in a situation where failure is not looming over them but they can still have the opportunity to talk about it and learn from it.
There are so many pressing issues or challenges that Learning and Development teams are facing right now. So it could be cool to bring in one of those that we're seeing in the industry and talk about how you could fail.
To hear the full conversation I had with Acey Holmes on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 36.
The Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective
Do you wish you could connect with other nonprofit learning and development leaders?
I know what it feels like to want someone to bounce ideas off of and to learn from, someone who really understands you and your work. Imagine if you could have a simple way to meet people in the field, ask questions, and share information.
That's why I created the Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective – so nonprofit L&D, talent management, and DEI leaders can connect with each other quickly and easily in a virtual space.
When you join this community, you will walk away with a new, diverse, and powerful network – and a sounding board for your staff development needs.
So if you're ready to exchange ideas and collaborate with your peers, come join the Nonprofit L&D Collective.
