Play with Reality: Personally and in the Organization

“The real problem is not the problem. The problem is the way we perceive the problem.”

Want to play a cool game? There is a special prize waiting for every winner.

Here are the instructions:

Attached is a list of situations from the workplace. If you have never experienced even one of these situations, you win the grand prize!

Ready? Let’s go. If you work in HR or OD, you have seen how these situations quietly drive burnout, slow decision making, and turn change initiatives into an expensive adventure.

Here are the situations:

·       Rumors are running around about an upcoming round of layoffs. Fear shows up: “I’m next.”

·       You sent an important email and there was no reply for two days. A thought pops up: “Someone is ghosting me! %^%$#@”.

·       You got a small comment from your manager. A discomfort appears: “I’m a failure.”

·       A change initiative launches and everyone nods, then nothing happens. A certainty arises: "People here resist change."

·       A major strategic client sends a short email: “We need to talk.” Panic pops up: “We lost them. This is a disaster.”

·       The manager suddenly removed a task from your project and gave it to someone else “because we need to move fast.” You feel offended: “They don’t trust me.”

·       A colleague you respect gives you a compliment. Suspicion arises: “They’re just saying that. They probably want something.”

·       In a team meeting you raise a real, important issue and the manager says, “We’ll come back to it later,” and never does. Frustration comes up: “This organization is not interested in dealing with what actually matters.”

·       A top talent starts to disengage. A thought comes up: "They’ve become unmotivated and are looking for their next job."

So…did you win? Congratulations! The prize is on its way to you!!!

Really wanted to win but you tripped on one of the items?

Don't worry. We all lose at this game.

Why does this happen?

Because of one of the most basic human patterns: we tell ourselves stories about what is happening, then we believe them and live them as if they are reality, even when they are not. Our brain is a story-making machine disguised as a fact machine: Our thoughts, beliefs, fears, and patterns are all stories. They create the prison, the "matrix," we live inside, and keep us spending our lives with feelings like "I’m a failure," "I’m not good enough," "It should be different," and so on.

Organizations live inside stories, too: "That’s how we do things around here," "That’s what the market wants," "This feature doesn’t fit," "Leadership will never approve it," and so on. Stories like these block us from seeing new solutions, prevent innovation and change, lock conflicts in place, burn out great people, and lead to decisions that simply do not work.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

Because reality is not fixed as we might think – It's fluid, and each of us sees it differently:

·       In a team, what a manager sees as disrespect and noncompliance, an employee may see as autonomy and initiative.

·       In project work, the designer sees things differently than the developer, who sees things differently than marketing.

·       In innovation, a phone with lots of buttons looked great to BlackBerry engineers, and like a major disadvantage to Apple engineers.

·       And so on.

Reality is a huge space of possibilities. Most of it, we don't see. And with that reality, we can play and discover new solutions and perspectives for the challenges that occupy us. We can navigate complex changes, create deeper engagement and more meaningful interactions at work, and more.

A simple shift can help us break the spell:

1.     Identify the stories / interpretations we tell ourselves and act upon.

2.     Play with different other interpretations and expand our view of what other solutions are possible.

3.     Choose one small experiment that can create a new way of action.

Meet LilA: a simple, deep, and unique tool for organizational and leadership development. It helps people play with reality and with the stories that run us, build a shared language, and create movement: from reactive thinking to strategic thinking, from fixation to possibilities, and from avoidance to action, quickly and with ease.

Using a proven methodology that combines principles from playfulness, psychology, and mindfulness, organizations use LilA to:

·       Develop teams and reduce friction

·       Accelerate innovation and problem solving in complex situations

·       Develop leadership, communication, and influence

·       Strengthen trust, engagement, and meaning

·       Make better decisions

·       Create personal and professional breakthroughs that translate into performance

·       And more

In one leadership team, a single session eliminated a recurring conflict by turning  the story "they don’t care about goals" into a shared set of new perspectives, followed by two small and practical experiments. Within two weeks, the new project has launched.

LilA isn't a tool for "Fun Making" – it's here to produce outcomes: a shift in perception that leads to a shift in behavior, at the level of the individual, the team, and the organization.

Free yourself and your organization from the stories that limit you, and come play with us.