This is the second article exploring how projects from SkyTouch’s most recent Alpha Games keep the company focused on the future. In case you missed it, be sure to check out Developing Focused Innovation: The Alpha Games, Part 1 for more ideas on how to keep your business constantly improving.
Director of Sales Nic Jones and his team are brainstorming ideas for a SkyTouch recreation room. “If I’m working on my computer for a couple of hours, I’m no longer as productive as I know I can be,” he says. Not only that, “if everybody’s just completely head down in their computer, you don’t have a culture, you don’t have a community.”
Nic explains that success in business makes it easy to forget about the hard work and improvement that got you there, and that for a business to remain successful, it must find ways to improve even the systems that work and to grow a culture that values constant innovation. “Step back from your everyday job, and say how can we look at this from a different direction, how can we take this to another level?” Nic says. “Well, the first step to me of that is to get people away from their desks for a minute.”
Nic references research that directly connects physical activity with higher brain functioning and mental prowess. “By having a space where people can think together throwing bean bags around, you’re getting your blood moving, your brain thinking, people are talking, by the time you get back to your desk, you’ve got some endorphins going, you’re thinking about other people in the building, and getting to know others.” He says the benefits of this kind of activity are twofold, on one hand providing new perspectives to help solve problems, and on another building a company culture that values collaboration and cross-pollination.
“Whether your socializing about work or about what you did this last weekend, it’s creating that community, it’s creating a culture, it’s creating a better environment for everybody to work in. That’s the purpose of this: to have something that will bring people together.” If you bring people together throwing bean bags, Nic says, the energy they get from being active “will eventually actually make your work better and more productive.”
Nic’s team will spend the Alpha Games thinking of and experimenting with the best tools to inspire community building and creative thinking at SkyTouch. They want to create activities and spaces that keep competitiveness low and engagement high. Something that isn’t too exhausting, physically or intellectually, and still get people’s blood and mental juices flowing.
“The whole purpose of something like the Alpha Games is really to try and focus on being innovative. To ask, What can we do?” Nic says. “What can we do that would really benefit a hotel other than taking these baby, chronological steps? How can we leapfrog that, and think from a completely different direction? The cool thing is that I’m already seeing ideas that are doing exactly that.”
The essential question behind Nic’s Alpha Games project is simple, and it’s at the core of the SkyTouch philosophy on innovation. According to Nic, the point of the Games is to ask: “Are we just continuing in the direction that everyone got into, or are we truly going in the direction that we set out to go in?” By giving every employee an outlet to explore this question, the SkyTouch Alpha Games keep SkyTouch focused on the future, from keeping ahead of technological solutions to imagining better business practices.
Look out for our next article, Keep the Games Going , to learn how to keep innovation alive through recognition and rewards!
