067: How to Make Work Suck Less By Making It Fun with Jeff Harry

Impact Makers

Especially with the pandemic, the great resignation, quiet quitting, and all the dramatic shifts the whole world is currently experiencing, a lot of companies are struggling internally. Left unattended and this could lead to a toxic culture.

Obviously, hard conversations have to be made because you can’t just ignore those issues happening collectively. And one of the ways to address this among many other issues is to ensure a happy, safe, and fun culture – and make work suck less.

In today’s conversation, Jeff Harry talks about how he takes positive psychology and plays to tackle some of the most challenging issues that a lot of companies are currently struggling with so they can make work suck less.

With a mechanical engineering degree, Jeff ended up doing team building and special events for the top tech companies in the world. He realized how people were struggling with having difficult conversations, especially dealing with that one person at work that ruins work for everybody else.

He created Rediscover Your Play as an experiment to explore how we can address issues like toxicity in the workplace, toxic masculinity, and having difficult conversations – through the lens of positive psychology and play.

Show Highlights:

• The two questions to ask your leaders to understand your company culture
• The difference between forced fun and introducing play in the workplace
• Why allowing yourself to get bored is the key to unlocking creativity and innovation
• How to address quiet quitting through play
• Why psychological safety is required before introducing fun or play into the workplace
• The reason why meetings suck, and what you can do to fix it
• How what drove you back when you were a kid can really answer questions like "How do you want to show up in the world?"
• How to cultivate the next great idea
• How to add more play to your grown-up life

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Supporting Resources:

Workplace from Meta

https://www.workplace.com/future

Rediscover Your Play

https://www.rediscoveryourplay.com/

Jeff Harry on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffharryplays

Play-Well TEKnologies - Teaching Engineering to Kids

https://www.play-well.org/

Gary Ware - Breakthrough Play

https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyware

Impact Makers Podcast Episode 67: Building a Culture of Mindfulness and Supporting Employee Mental Health with Headspace CPO Désirée Pascual

https://jennifermcclure.net/2022/10/06/building-a-culture-of-mindfulness-and-supporting-employee-mental-health-with-headspace-cpo-desiree-pascual/

Braver Angels

https://braverangels.org/

Harkness

harkness.ai

Lauren Yee - Cultivator of Curiosity

https://www.cultivatorofcuriosity.com/

Connect with Jennifer:

Send her a message: https://jennifermcclure.net/contact

On LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifermcclure

On Twitter https://twitter.com/JenniferMcClure

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifer_mcclure/

On Facebook http://www.facebook.com/JenniferMcClureSpeaker

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Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com. Let them know I sent you.