In the 1980s, a researcher named Jaak Panksepp started tickling rats.

He recorded their laughter using ultrasonic microphones, because as it turns out, rat laughter happens at a frequency too high for human ears to pick up. 🤯

(Honestly, when I learned this, I looked at my two dogs and wondered, "Do you guys laugh too?")

Panksepp was after one of the great mysteries of human evolution. Why do humans laugh? And does it occur in other mammals?

He never fully cracked the laughter mystery. But along the way, he discovered something arguably bigger: seven primary emotional systems that every mammal on the planet shares, including us.

Seeking, fear, rage, lust, care, panic, and play.

Six of those activate under threat or pursuit. Your body already knows what to do when something dangerous is coming for you, or when your kid is crying, or when you're staring down a deadline.

Only one of the seven requires safety to switch on, and that one is play.

Play isn't a bonus feature of being human. It's wired in at the same level as fear and care.

So what is it for?

Play is how we rehearse being human without the consequences.

Watch a kid for ten minutes and you'll see it. They try on being a doctor, a villain, a parent, a dragon. And when they play with other kids, they're practicing something even bigger.

It's almost like the things we practice as kids are the same things we still need to practice as adults.

Every team, every company, every culture is built on people agreeing to commit to a shared made-up reality together. Work itself is a game to be played.

So why don't we play more at work, if it's so crucial to how we work?

Well, some organizations do.

Let's look at the Dallas Cowboys, the most valuable football franchise in the world.

Their coach wouldn't prep the team for the big game by showing them a PowerPoint. That sounds ludicrous.

He's getting them on the field running drills, practicing the plays, building the muscle memory together so that when it counts on Sunday, they don't have to think about it. It's already there.

Your team deserves the same practice time; not just an expensive presentation on personality styles, trust building, and having hard conversations. We have enough content as it is.

We need to put in more reps.

Purposeful play, like what we do at Once Upon a Roll, provides a training ground to practice the critical things we need to be a good team, in a low stakes environment. A place where it's safe to mess up, and try again, because the pressure isn't on. And what we practice in game can help prepare us for those real world moments where it matters. Just like the Dallas Cowboys.

Laura

P.S. If you want to give your team a place where that can actually happen, that's what we help teams and leaders do at Once Upon a Roll. Hit reply and let's talk about what your team needs.