Interview with APQC 2023 Conference Keynote Speaker Dr. Shimi Kang. Learn more about APQC’s 2023 Conference and register today to hear more insights from Dr. Shimi Kang and delve more deeply into people, process, and knowledge.
At first glance, concepts like play and self-care may feel like frivolous distractions that have no place in business. However, according to Dr. Shimi Kang—neuroscientist, global social entrepreneur, bestselling author, and keynote speaker for APQC’s 2023 Conference—they are the key to surviving and thriving in a world marked by constant change.
In an interview with APQC’s Cindy Hubert, Kang discussed the value of play, the importance of collaboration, the urgent need for self-care in today’s workplaces, the possibilities and dangers of technology, and more.
Your research looks at behaviors. How do you bridge that into workplace culture and dynamics?
Play is a very sophisticated science, so it helps to start by defining play for a moment. Play could be body movement, storytelling, music, or what we call ‘object play’ using our hands. It could be social play. There’s also imaginary play, which has to do with visualization. We know that there are at least seven specific forms of play, and each one activates a different part of our brains.
All of those describe the activity part of play. But play is also a mindset of approaching life with an attitude of being comfortable with trial and error. The scientific method of trial and error—trying something, seeing how it works, and iterating—is actually play. Children do this naturally. They’re constantly trying things, making mistakes, being messy, falling down, and getting back up. At some point in our lives, we start to lose the mindset that it is okay to make mistakes and to be comfortable with uncertainty.
In a world that is rapidly changing and highly disruptive—a world that has no manual for things like a pandemic or climate change—we need this mindset more than ever. If we want to solve the small and big problems in our lives, we have to try and learn, and try and learn again. That’s also true collectively as a society. We need to be more comfortable with mistakes. It’s through the play mindset that we ultimately adapt, pivot and innovate.
Play is also a powerful antidepressant. For example, during the pandemic, your first Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting could have been approached with a stress mindset, thinking: “I don’t know how to do this,” or “this is a disaster.” In this mindset, your brain is firing cortisol and adrenaline, which are toxic to our body. It’s much better to approach your first meeting with a play mindset that says, “let’s see what happens. I don’t know what I’m doing, but no one else does either. It could go terribly wrong, but I have to start somewhere.” That mindset will not reduce adrenaline and cortisol, but it will help your brain get some serotonin and dopamine. Our brain likes a challenge and trying new things, and that’s where play comes in.
How do you introduce ideas like play and fun without making them seem frivolous to people?
I have a talk called “Play or Die” where I tell a story about a group of scientists who had two groups of rats. One group of rats was allowed to play freely, while the other group was inhibited from any play behaviors. Scientists then introduced the smell of danger by placing a cat’s collar into their environment. All of the rats ran into a hole, but the rats that were allowed to play eventually came out, sniffed around, realized there was no danger, and went on to live happy rat lives. The other group stayed in the hole until they died. They didn’t know how to play, which also meant that they didn’t know how to adapt or take risks.
Play is not frivolous at all. These stories and the science behind them are so important because we’ve stigmatized play as something that lazy people do. I think what makes play feel frivolous is that we all have a neural fingerprint and what lights one person up may not do anything for another person. We all have play personalities that make us resonate with different forms of play, so we have to understand that imposing our own play personality on others may not be very appealing to them.
Can you describe the basic principles for engaging people in the workforce of the future?
The modern day workforce and school system began around 200 to 300 years ago out of the industrial revolution and was based on a factory model. In that model, the left brain skills of technical knowledge, memorization, and application logic were really important because if you wanted knowledge, you either had to go to a book or a mentor. That’s where the whole IQ concept came from. And you could be exhausted or stressed and still work on that assembly line, because you were punching the clock.
Technology changed the world and made knowledge accessible to everyone. At that point, we started to hear the term ‘EQ’ (emotional quotient), which describes right brain thinking and empathy, looking at the big picture, and social skills.
CQ (consciousness quotient) describes a 21st century or future-ready form of intelligence that includes both hemispheres of the brain as well as our body’s intelligence like the neurons in our gut and in our heart. It’s made up of five Cs that describe many of the things we’re looking for when we hire someone:
1. communication: the ability to communicate in diverse ways with diverse people;
2. collaboration with global and diverse groups;
3. critical thinking, which doesn’t mean knowing the right answer but knowing how to ask the right questions;
4. creativity: the ability to generate new and original ideas in a world with high levels of disruption and change; and
5. contribution—in a world of automation, AI, and robotics, your ability to be on a team and the value you bring as a human is going to be key.
Those are the five Cs of CQ. They are evidence-based and are key skills that will help us head into the future.
What can people do today that will prepare them for the workplace of tomorrow?
There are three things that we need to do in response to three major trends that we’re seeing. The first trend to work against is stress and burnout. Stress is the number one health epidemic, according to the WHO, and the next major health epidemic predicted is one of loneliness and disconnection. Both of these trends are paradoxes because we’ve never been so connected or had so many conveniences, yet we’ve never had such high levels of stress and disconnection.
The third trend is perfectionism, which is on the rise for all kinds of reasons like social media and a culture that values the external image versus the internal. Perfectionism is linked to anxiety, depression, and lower life achievement.
There are three daily activities that will help mitigate these trends. The first is self-care or downtime. This is a daily practice that comes from the recognition that we are humans—we need to do things like sleep and drink water. In fact, the biggest distraction in the workplace today is not technology or devices, but a lack of self-care.
When we haven’t slept enough or haven’t relaxed our brain with a walk, then we’re constantly just firing adrenaline. We’re constantly looking for dopamine. That’s what leads us to eat sugar, check our phones, and multitask. Self-care practices include things like getting regular sleep, exercising, healthy eating, mindfulness, doing one thing at a time versus multitasking—there’s a whole list of prescriptions.
The second activity is connection. Whether it’s at the water cooler or a coffee shop, we should be looking at each other instead of our phones, or picking up the phone and using audio instead of texting. We need to work towards more human connection.
The third thing is the play mindset. With your teams, it’s really important to foster a mindset of being comfortable with mistakes and learning through trial and error. If there’s a new project, don’t give your team instructions—ask them how they would do it. If they get stuck, give them hints but not the solution.
Those three practices are the antidote to rising levels of stress, loneliness, and perfectionism that we’re seeing.
We live in a technology-enabled world, both in business and in our personal lives. Is there any advice you would give to help hone in using technology to enable people, process, and knowledge?
My first piece of advice is that we really have to understand the power of technology. In my book, The Tech Solution, I give the analogy of fire. There was a moment in human history where our ancestors learned to effectively harness the power of fire, and those that didn’t got burned or burned down their village. The devices in our hands are the ‘fire’ of our time. If we learn to use them well, we will go further and further. If we don’t use them well, we’ll get burned and burn down our villages too. These devices are linked to anxiety, depression, and addiction. We’re seeing an increase in hate, and we’re seeing cyber bullying go up. So step one is really understanding the importance and significance of something that seems so mundane.
To manage it, we have to go to what I call the “tech diet.” There’s nothing inherently good or bad about tech—it’s how we consume it that is good or bad for us. For example, tech can be toxic not only when it is connected to hate and bullying but also sleep deprivation and prolonged sitting. There’s also what I call ‘junk food tech,’ which is a lot like snack food. A little bit of sugar is okay in our diet, but too much will harm us. We want to try to consume healthy tech that promotes self-care, connection, and creativity.
Ultimately it’s a choice, just like food. The sugar is everywhere, and it takes work and effort to consume the healthy tech. But if we understand it as a choice of what to consume, we have a framework for moving forward.
Learn more about APQC’s 2023 conference and register today to hear more insights from Dr. Shimi Kang and delve more deeply into people, process, and knowledge.