Image courtesy of Stoonn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Image courtesy of Stoonn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I was struck last week by how constrained our lives have become, and how it is affecting our intrinsic motivation and tendency toward innovation.  Why?  Well, I read this article about playgrounds, and the effects that the “safe” playgrounds that currently dominate public children’s play areas in the US (and apparently elsewhere) have on kids.  I thought it was fascinating . . . and a few hours later saw an example of what the article was talking about.  My son had been on a playdate with a friend after school, and I went after work to relieve (rescue?) the mom who had been supervising the two five year old boys for two hours.  But when I got there, they weren’t anywhere to be found on the playground.  So I looked around and found all three of them playing soccer in a field nearby.  According to the mom, the boys had gotten bored of the playground, so had gone off in search of something more interesting.  Well, the boys quickly became tired of kicking the ball, and instead decided to climb a nearby hill covered in scrub while the other mom and I talked.  And she and I watched the boys spend a perfectly happy 90 minutes running up and down the hill, poking in holes, building mounds out of sand and scrub, and generally using their imaginations and repurposing whatever they found for their play.  They were substantially more engaged than I typically observe them being, even at age-appropriate parks.

Watching this caused me to 1) conclude that from now on I should take the boys to play in arroyos and natural spaces near home instead of to playgrounds, and 2) wonder how much the safety and uniformity of the workplace represses both our intrinsic motivation and our desire to innovate (yes, for me life is one long busman’s holiday).  Like playgrounds, organizations work to reduce risk.  They want everyone to play nicely with little to no chance of anyone getting hurt.  And if the structure can be sunk in cement for everyone to use over and over again, so much the better because it requires less maintenance and less thought and is therefore more economical for the organization.  But at what expense?  If everything is always the same, how much time can you really spend playing – unless you’re happy doing the same thing over and over again?  If everything is perfectly safe, and nothing can fall down, how do we learn what we can do, or what we need to do differently?  In other words, how can we learn?  If structures are rooted in cement, how can we create truly new innovations and find new ways of using what we have which could provide a benefit to us, to our organizations, and to the clients we serve?

If organizations and leaders are really interested in innovation, perhaps they should provide space (mental, physical, and process) that allows for more variability in work and more options in implementation.  Of course the safe, unmovable, and economical structures will remain in some places, but perhaps providing some space that is reminiscent of the playground discussed in this article would result in more innovation.  If nothing else, it will likely result in more intrinsic motivation and people trying new things because there is more scope for the imagination.  And if all else fails, I’d recommend finding your own version of a scrub-covered hillside . . . I’m planning to spend more time on one myself!