Review - The Playful Entrepreneur: How to Adapt and Thrive in Uncertain Times by Mark Dodgson

The Playful Entrepreneur: How to Adapt and Thrive in Uncertain Times by Mark Dodgson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Kindle Edition, 280 pages

Published October 2nd 2018 by Yale University Press

Source: Netgalley

Synopsis:
'A compelling account of how incorporating play into work can help us overcome the uncertainty and turbulence that surrounds work

How can we learn to deal with uncertainty at work? The answer, as Dodgson and Gann eloquently portray in this pathfinding book, is to learn from the adaptive behaviors of entrepreneurs. Play, the authors show, is a crucial component of this. It encourages exploration, experimentation, and curiosity while it also challenges established practices and orthodoxies. It facilitates change in people and organizations.
 
Drawing on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and innovators, this book explains why we should incorporate play into work, what play looks like, and how to encourage playfulness in individuals and organizations. Dodgson and Gann identify four key behaviors that endorse, encourage, and guide play: grace, craft, fortitude, and ambition, and provide a blueprint for an alternative way of working that fosters resilience and encourages innovation and growth in difficult times.'

My Thoughts:
Initially, I really liked and was intrigued by the concept of this book but unfortunately I just didn't feel the same way while I was actually reading it.

I found some of the case studies way too detailed so they lost my interest along the way. I must admit I ended up skimming over quite a lot of what I thought were unnecessary details to try and get to the eventual point of each chapter.

I think if the delivery of the concepts in this book were more to the point with a lot of the fluff taken out, the messages it was trying to portray would have been so much clearer and interesting.

I have run my own business for almost 10 years now so am always after interesting ideas to take up and use to improve our culture and how our workplace feels, but this book just ended up being a little too overwhelming to me.