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Got teams? Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up and work on being a team, the BEST team you can possibly be. At Fujoli Labs we partner with leaders who want to sustain high levels of team productivity + engagement, without burn-out. We create a virtual learning environment to help teams see themselves as a team, increase connection and trust, teach critical communication and collaboration skills and have meaningful conversation.   Wonder what CEOs are most concerned about? According to a recent study by The Predictive Index (PI), the top concern of the 160 CEOs they surveyed is team cohesion — a state where the team is completely aligned in their purpose, strong in their connections and communications, and dedicated to the team’s success. And the view of the CEOs is that team cohesion has worsened since the pandemic started, not improved. PI also found that 69% of companies restructured their teams during the pandemic, and 97% of CEOs are allowing some degree of remote work in the future. All this disruption, uncertainty, and distant connections adds to the strain on teams and the relationships of their members. Even as we’re emerging from the pandemic, business is getting more complicated, not less. All this leads to greater challenges to productivity and achieving the results you’re looking for. And the old ways of solving for that — working more hours, increasing pressure to deliver, holding lectures on performance improvements and team dynamics, giving people new processes to adopt, or having a night out with the team to blow off steam — won’t work. Neither the proverbial carrot nor the stick will help you achieve your goals. So what’s the answer to increasing team cohesion, especially in a time when so many people are working remotely? How can team members become closer, more aligned, more committed to the team and its objectives when they’re not in the same room with each other? (Actually, how can you achieve all that even *if* they’re in the same room together?) Let’s see what science says. Trust is Critical to Success Trust is the cornerstone of working effectively as a team. When team members trust each other, they not only achieve more, but they are better able — as individuals and as a team — to weather difficult challenges, to find new ways to solve problems, and to create new opportunities. Lacking trust is the first sign of a dysfunctional team, as discussed at length by Patrick Lencioni in his blockbuster book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Philip Sandahl, wrote in his Teams Unleashed, that there are two ways to build trust on teams. One way is to “…engage in disagreement or conflict successfully and survive.” That requires, however, a safe and supportive environment, as conversations can be heated. The second way is easier and less risky — having team members get to know each other on a deeper, more personal level. “Learning more about one another’s personal stories gives team members a human dimension and a higher level of regard that can’t be ignored,” Sandahl said. This is supported by research from Katzenback and Smith, in a paper entitled, “The Discipline of Teams.” They said, “Taking the time to occasionally get to know team members’ backgrounds, experiences, successes, and even their stories about stumbling, all build trust. This is especially valuable on new teams or teams going through reorganization.” Takeaway: Trust matters, personal connections are key. Positivity Drives Productivity It may sound counterintuitive, but if we put blinders on and just focus on work, work, work, we don’t actually become more productive. Instead, we become rigid in our thinking, less creative, less resilient, and our connections with others can become strained. The occasional short sprint is one thing, but to make that kind of pressure a way of life for your team can threaten your results, not to mention increase turnover. The secret is to have the right balance of focus on results and focus on the needs of the team. Surprisingly, the key to that is not to drill down on productivity, but rather to build up the positivity that the team experiences and shares. By positivity, we don’t mean how much they smile at each other. Instead, it’s a mix of trust, respect, camaraderie, communication, constructive interaction, diversity (of thought and approach), and optimism. When positivity is high on a team, you will see them smile and laugh, but they’ll have the resilience to be able to do that even under the hardest deadlines. And as positivity grows, so will the team’s productivity. They will be more invested in their work and in each other, and they’ll have a greater sense of purpose about what they’re trying to achieve. Neuroscience supports this. When we’re under stress, whether mild or acute, or when compliance is the operative directive for a team, our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is activated. This is the fight-or-flight reaction, and it causes our body to shut down all but the most important functions. Also engaged in this sequence is the Analytic Network (AN), which limits our attention to focus on a specific task or issue. We need the SNS and the AN to help us get things done, but spending too much time in these states is toxic to our health. The complements to the SNS and the AN are the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and the Empathic Network (EN, also known as the Default Mode Network). When these are activated, we’re in a more open and relaxed state, our creative juices flow, and we’re more receptive to new ideas and new connections. We need both of these to be effective, and the balance will shift, depending on the demands of the moment. Unfortunately, too much of how business is conducted and teams are led activates only the SNS and the AN. That not only stresses our teams, but it reduces their capacity to thrive. Research, particularly by Boyatzis, Smith, and Van Oosten, shows that the ways to unlock the PNS and EN include a positive vision of the future, a sense of purpose, compassion, time spent in nature, mindfulness, playfulness, and laughter. Barbara Fredrickson from the University of North Carolina focuses on the specific impact of positivity, which includes the influences of the PNS and the EN. She says that positivity broadens your mind and expands your range of vision, making you stronger, wiser, more resilient, and more socially integrated. Creating that kind of environment not only aids the individuals on the team, it creates a dynamic that takes the team into higher reaches of achievement. Takeaway: Positivity not only builds creativity and resilience, it also expands the capacity to achieve, or exceed, the desired results. Learning Together Accelerates Growth In a paper on “Does Team Training Improve Team Performance?” the researchers (Salas, Granados, Klein, Burke) found that team training, as opposed to training focused on individual development, explained 20% of the variance in team performance. Team training, as cited, included constructive interaction, conflict resolution, and creating a supportive environment. In another study led by Eduardo Salas, their discoveries highlighted the need to view training as a system, or an on-going series of learning experiences, rather than just a one-time event. Included in this is what happens before, during, and after training. They found that fall-off from one-time events occurred within a few days, and that there was no substantive change in skills or behavior from this single session approach. Separate research showed the limits of passive learning, as is experienced in classroom lecture situations, where participants are expected to absorb and reflect on new information, but not necessarily to apply it. Instead, learning is best transferred by doing, in what is called a Learning Loop, where one learns new information, applies it, gets feedback, reflects on the learning experience, and then repeats the process. When the Learning Loop is applied within teams, the process of knowledge and skill development is accelerated. When students are learning with each other, rather than learning alone or in parallel, they develop a collective intelligence that builds on itself and expands the range of creativity, understanding, and insight. This type of co-learning further serves to deepen connections and understanding. Takeaway: learning together improves everyone’s growth, and one-off training sessions don’t work. Engaging the Whole Person Pays Dividends So often in business, it seems like the only thing that matters is what goes on between our ears — our thoughts, ideas, plans, and decisions. But there’s so much that goes on below our neckline that informs how we think, where our ideas come from, which plans get pushed into consciousness, and how comfortable we are with our decisions and our colleagues, partners and customers. Even if we try to ignore it, our bodies and emotions always have a say in things. Research by Srini Pillay at Harvard and others suggest that 98% of mental activity is outside of our conscious awareness. This body-centered exploration is further supported by Alan Fogel at the University of Utah, who has done deep research on the differences between our Conceptual Self-Awareness (CSA) and our Embodied Self-Awareness (ESA). Most of the focus in the business world is on our CSA, but since we’re not robots, our ESA is always present as well. When we ignore that, when we shut down what’s happening inside our body, we not only cut off an incredible source of wisdom, we also limit our ability to think in abstract ways, to find surprising creative ideas, and to assess all aspects of a decision. Research has shown that when we quiet our minds, when we allow the body-centered feelings and sensations to inform our work, we tap previously hidden stores of wisdom and insight. Among the approaches to expressing our Embodied Self-Awareness are meditation and mindfulness practices, movement and dance, music, and connecting to nature. Takeaway: we need to include our full self in our work, not just our mind, for greatest effectiveness. How Fujoli Applies These Insights At Fujoli, we’re serious about helping teams learn, grow, and become more cohesive. But seriousness itself is not the ticket to achieving sustainable high performance, as we’ve seen above. So we don’t go the typical route of droning on about how to get better — we have teams experience that themselves, backed by the scientific insights mentioned here. Recognizing the importance of working with the whole person, not just their analytic brain, we begin every session with exercises to get participants totally present and connected, both with their bodies and with each other. Some of these exercises might seem fun or frivolous, but as we’ve seen from the science, it’s exactly what is needed to get each team member ready to learn. We also spend time getting people connected to each other on a deep, personal level. That builds trust and makes them more open to working together without the agendas or barriers so often seen in corporate settings. We don’t presume that just because two people have worked together for months or years that they really know each other. We make sure that bonding develops. Then, depending on the particular team skills you want to focus on, we have team members work together to solve challenges, build on each other’s creativity, and discover ways to have difficult conversations that actually enhance trust, not tear it down. And all this is done from the expansive space that positivity affords. When people are not guarding themselves against an onslaught of PowerPoint slides and dozens of bullet points to sift through, they get more work done and better work done. So what may look like simple, even fun activities are actually rigorously designed techniques to unlock connections, creativity, cohesion, and results that traditional approaches to team development can’t achieve. www.fujoli.com Working remotely is a challenge, even if you feel like you’ve got things dialed in. No matter where you are on the continuum of comfort in managing your remote team, it can be tough to make your team more productive and effective, better able to cope with this disconnected work environment, and not just survive, but thrive. Unfortunately, our Zoomified world can lead to burnout. The thing is your team is made up of people—humans, not machines. And humans have real needs that are more than just data in, data out.  Humans need to connect. At Fujoli, the whole reason we do what we do is to help teams find real, authentic connections, trust and alignment so they can thrive. We believe that a key component to preventing burnout and fostering well-being in your team isn’t optimizing, lecturing, or strategizing. Fujoli’s virtual Lab sessions are custom-crafted to your team’s needs, and they’re more than "ice-breakers" or "energizers". Whether your team participates in a single Lab or engages with a series of Labs, what your team experiences together is intentionally designed to provide an optimal experience of authentic aliveness, connection, engagement, and learning. This means less stress, more answers, and making life a little easier for your team, and for you. We teach skills that break down barriers, which helps you and your team work better, feel better, and be better together. So How Smart is this “Smart Skill” Thing? Fujoli Labs are NOT just some random virtual cocktail party, energizer, or ice-breaker. There is a ton of expertise and science-backed structure that goes into designing your team’s Lab experience. We have years of expertise in designing immersive and engaging learning experiences. It’s fun, yeah, but like the back of that magazine you see at your dentist’s office, it’s fun with a purpose. What’s the purpose? Fujoli Labs teach critical skills that help teams thrive. Our goals for the design of a Lab are based on three key ideas:
We tap our years of experience and science-backed research to create a holistic arc to each session, and to the series as a whole. Learning is biological. We need to experience it, connect with it, feel it in our heart and in our gut, just as much (if not more) than it has to make sense, or stand up to reason. That’s not to say that things shouldn’t make sense (although what about 2020 has made any sense?) but that what you feel, what you experience, is what sticks with you. It’s all about the feeling, about the why. Fujoli believes in multi-sensory aliveness. We wake up your team’s senses (smell, touch, taste, vision, hearing, body) and, yes, we do all of that remotely. Ok, Walk Me Through a Lab Already Burnout happens when people feel overwhelmed and disconnected—from their teams, and from their authentic selves. Here’s how we solve that: Phase One: Land  Picture the arrivals gate at your local airport. Everyone pouring off their planes, flying in from different places. Some had bumpy flights, some flights were smooth. Some people had a guy sitting behind them putting their smelly feet up on the arm rest. (Gross.) The point is, everyone’s landing in the Lab from a different state. And we don’t just mean Minnesota. When people log in, some are rushing from other commitments, from urgent family needs, from helping their kid log onto virtual school, or maybe just knocking their coffee over on their desk and notes and keyboard. Some of them are coming in with ten hours of blissful sleep and a positive outlook on life (and whatever those people have got going on in their lives, I want that). With Fujoli, we recognize that this arrivals gate is a distinct phase for your team. We help people orient themselves, because you can’t just go from burnt toast to total business engagement. Musicians don’t just start playing. They tune up. It’s the same for your team. In Fujoli, we use music and movement to get your team connected, engaged, and aware that they are a team—and they’re ready to start a shared learning experience together. Phase Two: Connect  This phase has two parts. First, you connect to yourself. You make the shift from being in your head, in a state of Conceptual Awareness (all those thoughts about meetings or strategy or what to have for lunch) to Embodied Awareness — to a state where your whole body is engaged and aware. Once they’ve reached this phase, your team can let go, become fully present, and really start to change their dynamic. By waking up the senses in this phase, your team will connect to their bodies, which is our distributed brain, where our deeper wisdom, our gut instincts, and our intuition reside. Each individual member of your team remembers that they’re more than just their heads. And when they make that connection, they connect to their full selves. From here, the team members connect to each other. They drop facades, those carefully-constructed images we each hold of ourself — a mask, more or less, that we project. It’s impossible to connect authentically from mask to mask. You just can’t do it. And so, through a range of exercises, your team finds joy and play in revealing who they truly are, and seeing one another, person to person. We make it fun, we make it light, we make it safe. We help you and your team become aware that you are a system, almost like an organism. We call this becoming aware of the team, being a team. You and every member of your team are not just a bunch of lone individuals. And you can learn how to see your system. Phase Three: Skills  Now that you’ve arrived, and connected, it’s time to get really serious about everything, bust out the powerpoint presentations and start doing burpees. No just kidding, now it’s time to play. We use smart play to break down barriers and create a safe, fun, and exponential learning space. It’s from this place that we do the really cool stuff. They say the difference between knowledge and wisdom is knowing a tomato is a fruit, and not putting it in your fruit salad. The world is flooded with so much information, but it’s starved for wisdom. Wisdom comes from the inside, from what you experience. And you can’t really learn or experience something purely in your head. You need to experience learning in your full-bodied wholeness. You can’t just hear it and read it, your heart needs to feel it, your gut needs to know “yup, this works.” Teams can only get better together by learning and practicing together. Instead of reading a handout called “How To Communicate,” we give you an experience of communication, so you feel what works and what doesn’t. With Fujoli, your team gets an immersive experience. We get the learning into your bones. And by making it fun (not in a lame or forced way), you’re willing to take more risks, you’re willing to fail, you’re ok with being imperfect, you’re forgiving and understanding. You’re building collaboration and teamwork skills. We offer surprises, the kind of learning-by-doing where key insights sneak up on you like a nine-year-old with a Nerf gun. It’s participatory, interactive, and then . . . Oh! That’s what I just learned! Phase Four: Insights Just like trying to walk after spinning around a bunch of times, the Fujoli phases are not linear. Your team’s experiences will have a natural flow that feels seamless and organic. But each activity is mined for precious insights that participants glean from the experience and the skill they practiced. A typical query is “What did you just learn? What did it take to make this successful?” It’s a rich way to tap the collective intelligence and wisdom of the team. Research in cognitive sciences and learning pedagogy show that people learn by doing, and retention helps by using recall. Phase Five: Action  At the heart of this work is the core belief that real, measurable, and sustainable change only happens over time. No one ever gets fit from just one workout at the gym, as nice as that would be. Whether your team does just one session or takes a series of sessions, you need to commit to practice and put the new insights into action, if you want to make the learning stick. Every group leaves a session with a commitment to practicing at least one new behavior between sessions.
I want to experience this! What’s next? Whew. All of that was… a lot. We’re just super enthused about what we do and we think it can really help you and your team. So come talk to us! Visit our website and sign up for our email list. You learn about the power of Fujoli Labs by doing it. So what are you waiting for? 2020 has been . . . A year.  We’ve all, to varying degrees, been through the fire this year. And things have changed—in our work, in our lives. Covid-19 has changed the way we interact with the world and with each other. But while some are eager to get back to the way things were, a better question is what do we do going forward? We aren’t going back to normal. Normal isn’t likely to happen any time soon, and even if we could, let’s face it: Normal wasn't all that great. Between being slammed with projects, spinning our wheels, and “We are NOT communicating here,” work hasn’t always been a picnic and teams haven’t always vibed. Even before Covid, based on a global study of 3,000 teams, less than 12% of teams considered themselves as high-performing. In terms of team culture, mental health, and anything remotely resembling joy and fun in the workplace, pre-pandemic “normal” left a lot to be desired. But now, in a Covid-colored world, we don’t have to accept just getting back to normal, we can seize a new opportunity. We can fundamentally shift not just what, but how work can be. Making Teams Better in Three Steps As team leaders, there’s a massive opportunity awaiting us. We don’t have to rely on tired approaches like webinars, new year kickoffs, or what the latest hot author said about how to make teams work better. The world has changed. New ideas abound. Let’s seize the day! Yes, it takes a certain boldness to adopt new methods, even ones — like Fujoli! — that have proven to be highly effective. It used to be said that “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM,” but that kind of let’s-do-things-the-safe-way will actually hold you, your team, and your company back. Nowadays, someone might say, “Nobody ever got fired for using Zoom.” But the critical question is HOW are you using it, and how are you responding to the culture changes that are happening right in front of you? Are you being reactive? Or are you leading the charge into a more powerful and effective world for your business and your team? Here are three key steps toward building lasting change in your team’s culture: Step 1: Know Thyself as a Team Nothing changes until you see your team and your culture as they really are, understand your strengths, become clear on what's holding you back, and commit to become the best team you can possibly be. Having your team participate in one-off trainings or telling everyone to get a takeout dinner from a nice restaurant and charge it to the company are nice things to do, but they have a limited shelf-life. They’re the corporate equivalent of getting a chair massage at the mall. It feels good for a little while, but ultimately nothing really changes. So why does changing your culture matter? Because you can be more than punching the clock, meeting deadlines, playing it safe and not making waves. If you want to increase your team’s engagement — with the work at hand, with the efforts of the team, and on an interpersonal level — then culture matters A. LOT. If you want your team to not only do more and with limited resources, yet actually enjoy the work more, then yes, culture matters A. LOT. First: Awareness Learn to see your team by its strengths. What works well? What can you build on? And what holds you back? What you can’t see, you can’t fix, right? AND, if you can’t see anything, you might not be looking deeply enough. So just stop. Without making any judgments, look at how your team is interacting with each other. Do communications flow smoothly? Do they seem to enjoy their conversations? Are people putting gifs or emojis in the Slack channel? Those may seem silly or simplistic, but they’re actually great indicators of how people on your team are feeling and about how safe they are in interacting at a deep level with each other. If communications are short and terse and, basically, transactional, you’ve got a great opportunity to shift things with your team. If you’re not getting a sense of flow and engagement between the people on your team, you don’t have to just live with it — and please don’t assume that ignoring it will make those blocks go away. It’s time to take action. Next: Commit You can’t throw “solutions” or quick fixes at people like they’re spaghetti that you hope will stick to the wall. Culture change takes time AND it takes your commitment to seeing the effort through to a new and better state. If you’re not all-in on this, they won’t be either. And then, whatever attempt you make will be just like that massage at the mall. Does that seem scary or too demanding? Well, how do poor results, higher turnover, and strained communications grab you? If you need a mantra to help you, or if you need some ammunition to help you sell any change effort up the line, just remember these three things: Team culture thrives when leaders put people first. Team culture thrives when team members are willing to do things differently. Team culture doesn’t change without complete commitment to that goal. So if you’re all-in on seizing this opportunity, what’s next? (I’m so glad you asked.) Here’s an idea. Ask the people on your team about all the training and development experiences they’ve been through in their years. It’s probably impressive and probably pretty broad. It’s probably pretty expensive, too, when you add it all up. Now ask them what really worked, what really made a difference in how they see their jobs, their contributions, their interactions, and their satisfaction. Don’t be surprised if you hear crickets . . . Step 2: Get Fujoli Fujoli is the bold new approach to team development and increasing employee engagement that uses the neuro-science of learning to connect people on a deeper level than most traditional programs can achieve. It’s kind of like taking a side door into people’s psyches to help them make new connections, rather than trying to jam through the analytical front doors in their brains. In a cage match between Fujoli and a traditional webinar — BOOM! No contest. Barriers break down, trust grows, connections deepen, commitment increases, creativity flourishes — and, results improve. All while they just thought they were having fun, and suddenly seeing each other in new ways.
The thing about culture change, whether with Fujoli or some other method, is that you can’t take a one-and-done approach to it. Even Fujoli would end up like a (hilarious) massage if you only did one session. So (and this is where your commitment is really key), you’ve got to do a series of sessions to really land the learning and make it stick. You’ll know the team is getting it when they start looking at their work through a Fujoli lens. Like, “Do we need more Fujoli here?” Or “That document is just not Fujoli enough.” We’ve seen this, and it’s a powerful and bonding addition to a team’s vocabulary. So, after your team has done four to six Fujoli sessions, what’s next? Step 3: Make It Last It’s not enough just to have your team look at things with a Fujoli lens from time-to-time. You need to explicitly review how the team is doing, what’s going well, what isn’t going so well, and how, collectively, the team wants to adjust. That last part is the real secret to making change last. When the people on the team are invested in the team’s success, when it becomes a case of “We” not “You+You+Me,” then you’ve got it made. When the team members are active participants in keeping the new connections and engagement growing — when they fell they own the process — that’s when the magic happens. So it takes attention, it takes commitment, and it takes regular reviews (and maybe a Fujoli tune-up session?) to maintain this wonderful new state. And it’s totally worth it! To find out how you can tap the power of Fujoli to elevate your team, click here to set up a chat. And sign up for our free email newsletter here. To be the best leader you can be, you need to be who you authentically are — and, deep down, I used to think I was too goofy to be a serious leader. But then I learned something really important, and it changed everything for me. Hello world, team performance coach and play expert Katrin Windsor here. I used to be a stressed-out executive, managing teams across countries and continents. I was a VP in Silicon Valley, a Managing Director in NYC, a General Manager based in London and Paris. I know the pressures of corporate life and what it means to hold P&L responsibilities for international teams and operations. And throughout it all, I learned one very important lesson: Fun and play are powerful antidotes to stress, and they help teams stay positive, creative, and productive. The answer seems so simple, right? Relax, have fun, play a little. But that approach is so under-appreciated, misunderstood, and overlooked. Play? In the workplace? Is this a company or an adult day-care? The truth is, boring and serious are expensive. Sure, you can get people to knuckle-down and get stuff done. But that pressure to just perform limits the range of people’s thinking and can quickly lead to burnout, while fun, joy, and lightness can truly transform your team and create tremendous results.  FUJOLI disrupts the traditional way of developing teams. We do that through play, Smart Play. (Hey, but, uh… What is Smart Play?) Smart Play is play with a purpose. It feels free-form, but there’s deep meaning behind it, and real, tangible results. The way FUJOLI applies Smart Play is:
With Smart Play, participants experience a clear, effective and uplifting journey that builds skills that stick. And it all started with an idea. Seeing the Need Throughout my life, my passion has been for connecting people and leading experiential learning. As the founder of the International Business Circle, a peer-to-peer forum for international executives, I worked with all kinds of hotshots and C-level folks. But whether I flew to the United Arab Emirates or to Tokyo or to Brazil, my success depended on my ability to quickly connect with my teams, get them to trust me, and to collaborate together. I've been through those phases so many times with so many teams, in multiple languages, and delivered award-winning results. My corporate background has given me crucial insights on how to improve teams. I noticed for example, that diverse and cross-cultural teams work more effectively together. I observed that team performance improved by incorporating the whole person. Far from being too goofy for the corporate world, I realized that the more I was able to help people connect authentically, loosen up, let their hair down, and create these multisensory shared learning experiences, the more successful teams became. After selling my company and becoming a coach, I gave keynote speeches around the world. But even after the applause, when I walked off stage, I knew that a keynote wasn’t enough. It left me disappointed, because one speech, however good, doesn’t really make a difference. Talking at people doesn’t work. Creating shared, interconnected, immersive learning experiences does. All I had to do was find the way, and help others see the need for it. Sparking the Idea In 2018, I was in a leadership program in California where I met a kindred spirit, Kaitlyn Lyons. We discovered that we share a passion around helping adults play again. We set out to create a workshop, as an experiment, to see how work teams react to play and wondering what the impact would be on their performance. We called it Fujoli PlayLabs and it turned out to be a total success. Participants reported back that they felt so energized after the Fujoli session, it made them much more productive. A year after that session, Fujoli had become part of their language and culture. It was a big A-HA moment for Fujoli. In early 2020, with my new partner John Sandahl, we began testing Fujoli in a virtual setting. (Hello, Zoom!) It was a BIG success and the word-of-mouth has been tremendous. And we’ve been gaining momentum ever since.
What does this mean for you? Play isn’t just meaningless diversion. Play can be deep and impactful, connecting people at their core and showing them that it’s okay to be who they are. This is the gateway to unlocking your very best self — as a leader, as a team member, as a human being. We believe that this approach to helping teams be better together is the future of mastering teamwork. Play taps people into their own wisdom in a powerful and resonant way, while dry lectures and traditional team development work often shuts people down. (Seriously, what do you remember from your last training program?) Do you want to discover your team’s best? Let’s chat! Schedule a Free Consultation. Or drop us a line! We really want to hear from you and work with your team! Even before Covid-19 drastically changed the way we work, remote teams were dispersed, disconnected, scattered—around the country, and around the globe. For the most part, people approached work as a series of tasks to be accomplished, a list of things to check off. Sure, you show up at work, give it your best, check in with your colleagues, etc etc. And for a while, it kinda worked. But now that our nine-to-five lives have slowly devolved into a whenever-to-whatever, it’s becoming harder and harder to feel engaged, collected, and energized. Work is draining us dry. And that has nothing to do with swapping pants for leggings every day, and everything to do with the way we’re disconnected—from our teams, as well as from ourselves. We’re overwhelmed, Zoom-fatigued. We’re exhausted. There has to be a better way.  Good news: There is a better way. And that’s Fujoli. What is Fujoli? Fujoli stands for Fun, Joy, and Lightness. Okay. But… What does that actually mean? Fujoli is a better way to engage with remote teams That’s what Fujoli brings to the (virtual) table: A way to bring teams together that’s more than just corny icebreakers, and much more engaging than a lecture you forget on the drive home. Fujoli offers science-based virtual sessions we call playlabs that are unlike anything else out there—and they offer transformative results. Fujoli creates online experiences where people can come together as humans, connect authentically, and use play to break down barriers. Play is often seen as the opposite of work, but in reality, play is an essential counterpart to productivity and well-being. The world needs more play! We’re all so freaking serious, and boring training sessions don’t make that any better. We need play and joy to unleash our team’s potential! Play makes sucky days survivable. Play brings new perspectives. Play helps you lower stress hormones, and produce more of the feel-good chemicals that lift you up, hold you together, and keep you going. Who is Fujoli? Fujoli was founded by former executives and team leaders who can directly relate to the challenges teams face every day. We hold advanced credentials in coaching teams and individuals, and we keep on top of the latest research on team performance, transformation, and change. We have a passion for developing individuals and teams through play, human connection, and gamified learning. Simply put: For us, play is about the joy of discovery and skill in action—not about platitudes or forced encounters or trust falls. How does Fujoli work? Fujoli works to address your team’s unique needs with custom-crafted sessions that provide arcs of shared, collaborative learning. We create online experiences where people across remote teams can come together, engage in a safe, fun space—not forced, not lame (we promise), not super woo woo—for smart play. When your team comes to the playlab, we take the time to sync everyone up, like a tuning fork. We all know what it’s like, rushing to make a meeting, coming in from here or there, distracted by a masked-up grocery run or a last-minute bit of homework help for your kid’s virtual class session, logging onto a call with barely enough time to spare to check that your hair is okay and there’s nothing on your shirt. We get it. And we know just what to do to change it. Inside the playlab, teams can truly connect to each other, drop their facade of “all business, all the time.” Take a breath and feel, more than just think. Through purposeful play, people find themselves breaking down barriers, becoming aware that they’re more than just harried individuals, chained to an endless list of tasks. A team is an organism, a system, a unit. We’re not just workers, we’re human beings, with a desperate need for connection and creativity. Even globally-dispersed teams can come together. Conscious teams become thriving teams. Fujoli is the key to that. Why Fujoli? Now more than ever, companies are putting employee well-being on the top of their priority lists. They’re starting to care about the impacts of this new remote work environment on mental health. Burnout is real, and it takes a real toll. Companies that build connections can find new ways to heal, thrive, and achieve greater results. Innovation isn’t just about having the best ideas, it’s about execution. And when it comes to execution, collaboration depends on trust, teamwork, and connection. If your team is all heads-down, work work work, focus, achieve, metrics, whatever, then you seriously need Fujoli. There is real value in conscious play! It’s fun, but it has a purpose that reaches out far beyond a single session. It’s joyful, and it opens doors to refreshing, authentic engagement. It brings a true sense of lightness to our heavy, burdened world. And, most of all, it's a new, powerful way to level up the quality of your teamwork and collaboration. Start Playing! If you’re interested in learning more about what Fujoli can do for your team, hop on over to fujoli.com to sign up for our newsletter. Or, if you are ready to jump right into the ball pit, schedule a free call with us! We’ll talk about what you want to achieve with your team and how Fujoli can support that. |
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June 2021
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