Play to Transform: How Your Inner Child Can Accelerate Change and Rehumanize Business

Avinash Jhangiani

Jul 2023 · Penguin Random House India Private Limited

About this ebook

Change is hard but does it need to be painful? What if there was a more intrinsically motivating and nourishing way to drive change? Play to Transform is a book that challenges the traditional mindset of business leaders and encourages them to tap into their inner child to accelerate transformation with purpose. The book argues that we are all born creative geniuses with an innate ability to empathize deeply with others, but somewhere along the way, we have lost touch with these qualities. In the postpandemic world, leaders need to be more empathetic and agile than ever before, and a conscious shift in mindset is required to achieve this. Drawing on reallife examples, contemporary shift strategies and key implications for organizations, the book demonstrates how play can be used as a catalyst for transformation and innovation. By providing a psychologically safe and cocreative environment that normalizes failure, the book shows how organizations can encourage their employees to express themselves more freely and make the necessary shifts to embrace change and find harmony in chaos. The book challenges the myth that play is frivolous and cannot be used for serious work, offering a fresh perspective on how to conduct business with more heart and soul.

About the author

Dr Avinash Jhangiani is a leadership development coach and innovation culture consultant with more than two decades of work experience in the USA and India. He has served as the managing director and chief innovation officer of a global media company and the chief information officer of a large multinational company. At the forefront of driving disruptive innovation for global brands and businesses, Jhangiani won the Deloitte CEO's Innovation Quest Award in the USA in 2006 for his idea on Enterprise Sustainability Services. Under his leadership, Omnicom Group's agencyPHD Mediawon four Gold Lions along with a Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in 2014. As founder CEO and chief facilitator of Play2Transform Group, Jhangiani currently uses principles of humancentric design and play as a catalyst to accelerate change for organizations such as Amazon, HP, Essar, Deustsche Bank, among others. He also serves as expert faculty at Emeritus' ISB and WileyIIM Lucknow Executive Education Programs, S.P. Jain, NMIMS, among others. He curated India's first Book of Dreams, capturing over 10,000 children's visions of India's future, which now resides in the Rashtrapati Bhavan.