Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

We view intelligent urges as a virtue and playful urges as a vice. But play and intelligence should be complements, not competitors. Play, put differently, can be a portal to intelligence. In his seminal article “The Technology of Foolishness,” James March writes that “playfulness is a deliberate, temporary relaxation of rules in order to explore the possibilities of alternative rules.”21 He argues that individuals and organizations “need ways of doing things for which they have no good reason. Not always. Not usually. But sometimes.” Only by taking a playful attitude toward our own beliefs can we challenge and change them.