Most of us don’t get to play enough at work, and that’s a shame.

Play unleashes and creates energy.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get that playful rush of energy more often in our workday?

Fortunately, we can!

I help people by using my business coaching process. I realized that when I’m coaching, I’m using my PQ Sage power of Innovation, helping people play with “What could be?”

For example, take the business simulation software I use as part of my process for business assessment.

If you’re a business owner, you want your business to succeed and grow. You want to be confident and comfortable that your business is going according to your hopes and plans, making enough money to pay the bills and give you a profit.

That profit doesn’t have to be huge, but it’s what sustains you and your employees and gives you the freedom to decide where to invest more. Or maybe you might choose to use it to get the freedom to spend less time on your business and more time with your family or other interests.

Many of you know that my companion business, LearningSim, has been developing custom learning simulations since 2001. The new AI-enabled simulation software I’m using gives me a chance to play with the business financials with my client, asking “What if we did this…?” questions and exploring a variety of scenarios.

This is backed up by the same, standard figures that go into the profit and loss (P&L) statement. Make a change here, make a change there, and see how that affects the business owner’s profit position.

What does a big change look like? What about a smaller change? What’s reasonable?

This lets us do some creative play-based work on their business!

The key here is that while there are over 40 strategies available, I use only the top 12 “low hanging fruit” strategies in my core simulation. (I don’t want to overwhelm people.) And even with those, I will typically explore just 2-3 with a business owner in a 45-minute demo.

I found something startling: Making improvements of just 5% in 4 areas can DOUBLE the net profit of a business!

From a change management perspective, small changes are more easily found and achieved. This is stuff I can help the business owner implement. And it comes not from the software, but from my coaching process where I’m helping the client explore possibilities and play with “What could we do?”

The specific areas will vary with the unique business, but the numbers behind them are coming from a simulation-based analysis of the P&L. This produces a roadmap for improvement that their accountants would appreciate.

That’s the power of play.

Take this principle and find something in your work to play with!

Three tips to boost play in your workplace:

1. What do you want to be different? What could be better? Activate your Sage and ask the “What could we…?” and “What about…?” questions. Explore and innovate! Make space and acceptance for this on your team.
2. Consider putting just 30 minutes on your weekly schedule to play with improvement ideas.
3. If you are a leader, you can make time and encourage your team to do this, as well. (Contact me if you’d like help implementing this.)

Play unleashes and creates energy. Take advantage of this for yourself and your team.

PLAYTIME: I would love to get you into a play session and demo my profit acceleration simulation with you. Look for a new LearningSim small and medium-sized business (SMB) website coming soon, but for now, just find some time for a 45-minute PAS demo.

Let’s play!

With a grin,
–Steve

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