Those who play together to solve a problem learn to communicate under pressure, to trust their teammates, and to remain flexible when the plan fails
You might be wondering: Raquel, what are you going to talk about today? Sales in the real estate sector are extremely serious. Significant figures, life decisions, contracts, and long-term commitments are involved. How can something so rigorous have room for play? How can play become a real transformative tool for a sales team?
As an experiential and transformational coach, I've seen firsthand how a playful approach makes a difference that no traditional lecture can. In recent experiences, I've witnessed how this approach awakens dormant areas within the team; not due to a lack of talent, but because they hadn't been activated with the right approach.
Playfulness is not just entertaining: it works differently on the brain. While an expository presentation activates the rational hemisphere, the one that processes data and coldly files it away, a playful activity engages the area where creativity, intuition, and emotional memory reside.
The rationale behind this methodology is not new. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, in his seminal work Homo Ludens, argues that play is a free action carried out within defined limits and under voluntarily accepted rules, accompanied by tension and joy. But the most revealing aspect of his thesis is that it dismantles the idea that play and seriousness are opposites.
The playful character, Huizinga asserted, is not the absence of commitment but a way of being fully present.
This perspective becomes critically important when building sales teams. Let's be honest: some corporate training programs fail not because of a lack of content, but because the way it's delivered negates its impact.
Play breaks this pattern because it requires experiencing learning instead of simply listening to it. When a team solves a challenge together, under clear rules and adapting in real time, it activates key skills. This type of training doesn't detract from the seriousness of the business objective; it strengthens it.
Those who work together to solve a problem learn to communicate under pressure, to trust their teammates, and to remain flexible when the plan fails. These are precisely the skills required when dealing with a client who hesitates, objects, or changes their mind in the middle of a negotiation.
Investing in corporate training with a playful approach is not a fad or a distraction from real work; it is recognizing, as Huizinga stated almost a century ago, that playfulness and seriousness have never been enemies, and that awakening a team begins by allowing it to play.
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