In the digital transformation, changes are happening faster than ever before and will turn large parts of our economy upside down. The change will become the new normal.
From the perspective of evolutionary theory, playing is a successful way to increase individuals’ and groups’ adaptability – free from pressure, defined goals, and constraints.
Organizations that make games an integral part of their culture can respond to change faster and more intuitively than conventional organizations.
If you either want to maintain our economy as a leading technology nation or the market position of an individual innovative company in the long term, during the digital transformation, organizations must change playfully or turn them into a playful system.
On the one hand, because this improves the ability to solve problems creatively as a basis for innovation. On the other hand, because playing enables meaningful employment even in phases when no economically sound work is available. Here too, one could argue economically: In these phases, employees playfully acquire new knowledge and learn cognitive and social skills.
However, play allows people to make the additional free time fulfilling through playful activities if there is less work for everyone. Playful Organizations and Playful Societies are the counter-design to the dystopia of a digitalized society. In this dystopia society will consist of three classes: A precarious lower class that is trapped in an endless loop of digital media, a creative middle class and an upper class that is already financing the digital transformation with its capital and will live even better from it in the future than today.ö