AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF
Jason S. Adams for the degree of Honors Baccalaureate of Science in Business
Administration presented May 25, 2001. Title: The Utility of Playfulness in Terms of
Innovation and Productivity for Business and a Life of Learning
Abstract approved:
________________________________________________________
Henry Sayre
The purpose of this project was to investigate play and our cultural assumptions
as to its usefulness or lack there of. The concepts of hard work versus hard play were
explored in order to discover when human beings are operating at their best. In terms of
innovation and productivity in the business world and life, the utility of being playful was
the focus of this thesis. The method for writing the paper was to conduct secondary
research of a variety of materials including books, magazines, articles, papers, videos,
and interviews. A diversity of references provided a vast foundation for this project. The
major findings included the nature of optimal experiences being spontaneous, the
foundations of learning being play, and the effectiveness of using intrinsic rewards to
develop innovative and productive employees. The project revealed that play is the state
of being when humans operate at full capacity without interference along with the
tensions between work and play within systems of interaction. The strongest conclusion
of this project was that play occurs within structures where the various frameworks of
societies, businesses, and other relationships join to do the work and labor of life that
define and contrast the moments of free play. Without the limits of work, play could not
be recognized. This paper helped the author and its readers to understand the interactions
in order not to be slaves to the structures but rather to see them as games.
Copyright by Jason S. Adams
May 25, 2001
All Rights Reserved
The Utility of Playfulness
in Terms of Innovation and Productivity
for Business and a Life of Learning
by
Jason S. Adams
A PROJECT
submitted to
Oregon State University
University Honors College
in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Honors Bachelors of Science in Business Administration (Honors Scholar)
Presented May 25, 2001
Commencement June 2001
Honors Bachelor of Science in Business Administration project of Jason S. Adams
presented on May 25, 2001.
APPROVED:
Mentor, Henry Sayre, representing Art
Committee Member, Jonathan King, representing Business Administration
Committee Member, Jack Drexler, representing Business Administration
Dean of the University Honors College, Joe Hendricks
I understand that my project will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon
State University, University Honors College. My signature below authorizes release of
my project to any reader upon request.
Jason S. Adams, Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the Hogan family of Chuck, Shelly, Taylor, and Miakoda for
reopening the world of play to me. Their unconditional encouragement and support have
given me a safe bond from to explore this new world. I am forever grateful for the
playful model for being human that they have demonstrated and shown me and for
allowing me to be a part of their family of life. I cannot completely reference all of the
material in this paper that Chuck has supplied me, because I recognize that he is a part of
who I am.
I would also like to thank my parents, Howard Adams and Priscilla Martin, for their
financial, emotional, physical, and spiritual support in college and the prior eighteen
years of my life. A son cannot ask for more wonderful and supportive parents. I am very
appreciative of their continual acceptance and openness for the fresh life of play that I am
now living. I am amazed at their willingness to enter the world of play in their second
half of life. Special thanks go out to the rest of my family including Donna, Katrina,
Matt and Taylor Adams and Steve Martin for all of their warm hearts and loving support
throughout the journey of my life.
For this thesis, I would like to thank Professors Henry Sayre, Jonathan King, and Jack
Drexler for taking time in their busy schedules to help me with this project. Their
meetings, advice, criticisms, ideas, and questions have challenged me to gain many new
insights. I appreciate their diversity of honest beliefs.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE………………………………………………………………………... 1
INTRODUCTION: For What are We Created?…………….…………………... 5
PART I: The Human Being at Play
Chapter 1: History of Play…………………………………………………..... 9
Interlude: A Land Before Time (and Work)……………………….…….. 13
Chapter 2: End of Childhood Play…………………………………..……….. 14
Interlude: Never-Ending Dream…………………………………………. 17
Chapter 3: Optimal Experience and Performance………………………….... 21
Interlude: The Zone……………………………………………………… 24
Chapter 4: Possibilities of Play………………………………………………. 25
Interlude: If You Want to Save the World, Do Absolutely Nothing…….. 30
PART II: Dynamics of Group Work and Play
Chapter 5: Playing the Game of Business………………………………..….. 32
Interlude: “Yippeeskippee, I’m Going to Go Play Today!”……..……… 43
Chapter 6: Foundations of Play……………………………………………… 45
Interlude: Rewarding Play for Play……………………………………… 55
CONCLUSION..…………….…………….…………………………………… 56
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………. 58
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated and in service to the vast eternal silence and clarity of being that
we all arise from, live within, and dissolve back into with each moment and breath of life.
This free flow of the infinite is the great player within every form of life.
May the readers be able…
“To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.”
- William Blake
…and recognize that…
“God works and man plays…
The harder I play – the harder God works.”
- Joseph Chilton Pearce