🦋 The Secret Weapon for Hard Conversations & September Burnout

When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the company was stuck. Teams were trapped in silos, collaboration was tense, and difficult conversations often turned into turf wars.

Instead of doubling down on control, Nadella introduced something disarmingly simple: hackathons. For 48 hours, people from across the company stopped debating and started building together. Engineers coded alongside marketers. Designers sketched with sales teams.

In that playful space, the tone changed. Hard conversations about priorities and ownership turned into experiments: What could we try? What if this worked? One hackathon even produced Seeing AI, an app that narrates the world for people who are blind—an idea unlikely to surface in a traditional meeting.

Nadella understood something profound: sometimes the best way to handle complex situations and hard conversations is to reframe them as play.

September theme: All month, we're focusing on difficult conversations—one of the core skills of leadership. Today I want to share something that served me my whole life so well - playful mindset. This mindset enabled me to face many difficult situations and even face difficult situations such war, loss and fear with more agency and hope 👇

🔑 Why Difficult Conversations Matter for Leadership

Leadership isn't measured by how smoothly things run when everyone agrees—it's measured by what you do when tensions rise. Difficult conversations are where trust is tested, values collide, and character is on the line. They're also the arena where real progress happens. Avoid them and problems fester underground; engage them well and you turn conflict into creativity, resistance into buy-in, and uncertainty into shared direction. Leaders who lean into hard conversations don't just solve problems—they grow people and organizations.

🎮 Playfulness in Difficult Conversations

Playfulness creates a space that is both safe & brave. It lowers defensiveness, invites curiosity, and transforms heavy debates into solvable puzzles. As a mindset, it helps you enter the room not with dread, but with a spark—ready to explore, learn, and design better options together.

🧠 Your Brain on Play (Quick Tour)

Here's how play and a playful mindset affect your brain:

1. Dopamine → Motivation & Learning - Play boosts dopamine, which heightens curiosity and willingness to explore. You shift from threat ("protect myself") to possibility ("what else could work?").

2. Lowered Cortisol → Clearer Thinking - A playful frame calms the amygdala so your prefrontal cortex—the part that reasons and perspective-takes—stays online. You're less likely to snap back, shut down, or dig in.

3. Default Mode + Prefrontal Cortex → Creativity - Play activates networks linked to connection-making and problem-solving. You see more options than "my way vs. your way."

4. Oxytocin → Trust & Empathy - Shared laughter and lightness trigger oxytocin, the "trust hormone." People listen better, negotiate more generously, and connect more deeply.

5. Neuroplasticity → Growth Mindset - A playful state signals to the brain that mistakes are safe. This strengthens neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to form new pathways—making it easier to treat challenges as experiments rather than threats.

Bottom line: Play shifts us from defense mode to learning mode—the exact state leaders need in difficult conversations, and the state we so desperately need in today's polarizing times.

💡 Unexpected Truths About Playful Mindset

1. Play makes people more serious (in the right way) - Far from trivializing issues, play helps groups go deeper. By lowering defenses, it creates space for people to take risks, share truths, and face real stakes with courage.

2. Laughter can unlock truth faster than logic - In a tense conversation, a moment of shared laughter resets the nervous system. It reduces stress, boosts trust hormones, and often frees someone to finally say what they've been holding back.

3. Play reduces bias in conflict - When a disagreement is framed as a "game" or "experiment," the brain suspends judgment and shifts into curiosity. This makes people less likely to lean on stereotypes or hidden biases.

4. Play makes power safer - Normally, power gaps silence voices. But when leaders introduce playful frames ("Let's prototype both versions," "Switch roles for 5 minutes"), hierarchy shrinks. Everyone gets to contribute on equal footing.

5. Play is the shortest route to complexity - Adult development research says leaders must learn to hold multiple perspectives at once. Playful techniques like role-switch or metaphor games fast-track this capacity—making complexity tangible instead of abstract.

6. Play makes conversations stick - People remember ideas and agreements formed in playful, lighthearted interactions far more than those reached in purely serious debates. Play makes decisions memorable—and therefore actionable.

🛠️ Five Playful Practices That Served Me Well

1. Mini-quests for routine tasks

   I have to answer emails each day, and it's my least favorite activity. I really don't like emails. But what I do is set a 15-minute timer and race against myself to see how many emails I can answer in that time. So far my record is 11! 🙂

2. Playful mindset for conversations 

   Another way to utilize playfulness is in conversations you might have at various networking events. I know that many people experience anxiety when meeting new people. What if instead of trying to impress someone, you enter the conversation with the idea of having fun with that person? I'm not talking only about using humor (which almost always helps), but about the intention to enjoy the conversation, ask and explore interesting questions, and let curiosity drive the interaction.

3. Meeting check-ins

   I often start my meetings and classes with playful check-in questions. "What's your favorite movie and why?" or "What's one thing people usually don't know about you?" The purpose is multifaceted: to set a positive tone for the meeting, to help us get to know each other better (which builds trust), and to engage everyone's voice from the beginning. This isn't just a fun exercise—it's a practice that has served me well for two decades!

4. Changing roles

   When disagreements get stuck, I use a simple "role switch" norm. Each side must pause, take the other's position, and give 2–3 arguments in its favor. For example, if you argued for expanding our team, your task becomes making the case for not expanding. This breaks the cycle of defensiveness—suddenly you're thinking, not just reacting. It opens empathy and curiosity, reframes the debate as shared learning, and often sparks a playful energy that helps the group move forward together.

5. Informal meetings for creativity 

   When I look back, my best ideas didn't come from formal meetings. They came from unstructured, social moments. We built a whole movement in Serbia after a few friends spent a day at a modest river house. Another global initiative grew out of late-night conversations with activists in my kitchen over glasses of wine. The lesson? Informal settings create a relaxed, playful mindset—one that invites unexpected connections and lateral thinking, often leading to more creative breakthroughs than carefully planned sessions ever do.

🔥 Pre-Empt the September Burnout!

September feels almost like another New Year—many things are starting fresh. Activities quickly pile up and become overwhelming. September has the highest reported burnout rates! That's why I wanted to start this September differently—with a new mindset that will help you approach this busy season with playfulness while building mental and habitual resilience.

Play is not the opposite of serious work—it’s how serious work gets done without breaking us. The leaders who will thrive this fall are not the ones who avoid tension, but the ones who can hold it, invite creativity, and turn conflict into progress.

So as September begins, don’t just dive back into the grind. Bring a spark of play into your life & work. You might just find that what once felt like a battle becomes the birthplace of your best ideas ✊