Organizational culture, built through play
Play is the fastest way to build a team that actually works together.
The Playground designs play-based programmes that develop the human skills an organization runs on — connection, trust, emotional regulation, resourcefulness — and measures what changes.
- 3 years teaching at Universidad Francisco Marroquín
- Creative Mornings speakers
- Programmes for diplomatic missions and entrepreneur organizations
Every high-performing team needs people with certain key characteristics — the characteristics of a true A Player. The A Player's Journey is the process that develops those characteristics deliberately and measurably, through play.
The opportunity
High-performing teams don't just need more technical training.
They need people who can regulate their emotions under pressure, connect genuinely with their colleagues, hold a positive attitude through the difficult stretches, solve problems with the resources they have, and take initiative without waiting to be told.
These are the characteristics of a true A Player — and, contrary to what is usually assumed, they can be developed deliberately, not only hoped for at the hiring stage.
When an organization invests in developing these capabilities, the return is concrete:
- Psychological safety to propose ideas and admit mistakes
- More trust and genuine connection between colleagues
- Better collective emotional regulation under pressure
- More energy and openness in the team
- A stronger organizational culture
- Real willingness to collaborate across areas
Why play
Play isn't a recreational break from serious work. It's the mechanism.
It is the most effective and natural way to develop these human characteristics. When people play together they drop their guard, try new things without fear of judgment, practise failing and recovering in a safe context, and build trust organically — far faster and more genuinely than a traditional soft-skills training in a conference room.
The research
This isn't only intuition.
Google — Project Aristotle
Google's research on high-performing teams identifies psychological safety as the single most decisive factor in a team's success.
Lund University
Studies show that playful, relaxed mental states generate more creativity and better solutions than states of rigid pressure — without sacrificing productivity.
How a session works
Play literacy
We start by making play legible: what it actually is, why adults stop, what blocks it at work, and what it's good for. Nobody builds a skill they think is frivolous.
Designed experience
Every session is built around a specific characteristic, not around a game. The activity is the vehicle; the skill is the destination. Sometimes it looks like playing. Sometimes it looks like a hard conversation with better conditions around it.
Transfer
Each session ends by naming what just happened and where it shows up on Monday. Without that, it was recreation.
The seven characteristics
An A Player isn't the person with the best résumé. It's the person a team gets better around.
Positive attitude
The energy a person brings to a team is contagious. An A Player chooses their attitude deliberately, even under pressure — and it shows in their body language, in how they make others feel, and in the energy they draw toward the team.
Passion and initiative
Genuine proactivity. Not waiting for everything to come from outside. The capacity to start, to put your own energy in, to raise the standard, to get involved and move things forward.
Resourcefulness
Practical ingenuity: solving with what you have. Moving well under constraints. Creativity applied to real problems, without stalling for ideal conditions.
Mental toughness
Not taking everything to heart. Slightly thicker skin. Tolerating friction, direct feedback and the ordinary human rub of working in a team, without being interpersonally fragile. Not aggression — healthy emotional resilience.
Emotional regulation
Managing your own emotional state under pressure instead of being managed by it. This is the base that makes developing everything else possible.
Connection
Building genuine trust and rapport with teammates, not only coordinating tasks with them.
Team player
Understanding everyone's role, knowing who to go to, adjusting and covering for others when needed without losing your own role — a 360-degree view of the team, as in a team sport.
The programme
The A Player's Journey
The programme is designed as a journey — a route with its own narrative logic, not a series of loose activities.
The call to adventure
Day Zero
The initial diagnostic.
The road
The development sessions
Where the seven characteristics are built, in a deliberate progression.
The resolution
Close and evaluation
Where the change is evidenced.
- 7 sessions
- 12 h 30 m of facilitated time
- Diagnostic and re-measurement included
Series — multi-session programme
00Day Zero
Work Culture Diagnostic
Interviews, short calls and observation, run by an organizational psychologist. Discreet, and scoped to what this programme can actually move.
01Session 1
Play Literacy
What play is, why it disappears from adult life, and the barriers and myths that block it — unifies the conceptual framework and why it matters for a working team into one shared starting point, before the group moves into building individual traits.
- 2 h
- Joaquín
02Session 2
Regulating Your Batteries: Mental, Physical & Social
A talk plus interactive exercises on personal energy management across three distinct batteries — mental, physical, and social. Works on recognizing when each one is running low and building the habit of recharging deliberately instead of pushing through on empty. Foundational self-awareness the rest of the programme builds on.
- 1 h 45 m
- Joaquín
03Session 3
Passion & Positive Attitude
A talk plus interactive exercises on two connected traits: reconnecting with genuine passion and interest at work, and the deliberate choice of one's own attitude and energy. Works on why intrinsic motivation outperforms obligation, and how the attitude a person brings into a room shapes everyone else in it.
- 1 h 45 m
- Joaquín
04Session 4
Resourcefulness & Initiative
A talk plus challenge-based activities and exercises on two connected traits: finding a way forward with what's available instead of stalling for the ideal setup, and the instinct to step in and start rather than wait to be asked. Works on the bias toward action that turns constraints into starting points.
- 1 h 45 m
- Joaquín
05Session 5
Mental Toughness & Emotional Regulation
A talk plus pressure-based activities and exercises on two connected traits: developing the thicker skin to take a loss, a critique, or a setback without shrinking, and the ability to notice and manage internal reactions in real time. Works on staying steady and responsive under pressure instead of reactive.
- 1 h 45 m
- Joaquín
06Session 6
Connection & Team Play
A talk plus interactive activities and exercises on two connected traits: building genuine connection within the team, and the role- and situational-awareness needed to function well as a team. Placed intentionally once the group already has individual maturity and rapport — connection lands differently once people trust each other.
- 1 h 45 m
- Joaquín
07Close
Final Evaluation
Closing session and final evaluation, measured directly against the Day Zero diagnostic (Work Culture Diagnostic) to evidence real change in the areas originally assessed — climate survey, participant self-assessment, and facilitator observation.
- 1 h 45 m
- Joaquín
Why this order
Framework first, then the individual traits
Session 1 puts the whole group on one shared starting point. Sessions 2 to 5 then build the traits each person can develop on their own — the base of maturity and self-assurance the relational work needs.
Relational last — session 6
Connection and team play are placed at the end on purpose: connection lands differently once people already trust each other, rather than on day one with a room of strangers.
Day Zero
The diagnostic is what makes the programme yours instead of generic.
- Run by Dani Fetterman, organizational psychologist.
- Work Culture Diagnostic
Discreet by design
One-to-one interviews, short calls, observation. It doesn't require pulling the whole team out of their work for a single formal session.
Deliberately narrow
It produces a report focused on culture, climate, communication and relationships inside the team — scoped to what this programme can realistically influence. It is not a generic diagnostic of the whole company.
What it's for
It is what allows each session to be personalised to this specific team, instead of delivering a programme that would be identical for any organization.
Measurement
Diagnose, intervene, then measure against the same baseline.
- 01
Initial diagnostic
Day Zero.
- 02
Intervention
The six development sessions.
- 03
Closing evaluation
Compared directly against the initial diagnostic.
Part of the measurement is perceptual — climate surveys, and each participant's self-assessment. The comparison is what makes it possible to show clearly whether there was real change in the areas diagnosed at the start.
Deliverables
Two layers, not one.
The proposal combines two complementary layers. The second exists so the work is never only abstract.
01
Cultural and relational structure
The real development of the seven characteristics in your people, evidenced through the process and through each participant's evaluation.
02
Tangible organizational structure
Concrete documents your organization can use immediately.
- Role descriptors
- Behavior codes
- Culture guidelines and policies
- Day Zero report
- Impact comparison
This second layer does not replace the cultural work — it complements it, and it makes sure the proposal never feels abstract. Hard structure, applicable immediately.
Engagements
Three ways in.
Recommended
The full programme
The complete A Player's Journey: diagnostic, the six development sessions, the tangible artifacts, and the final evaluation. Presented as a complete package — a sequence with its own logic, not a set of loose sessions to try and see whether you like them. It is a process the organization commits to from beginning to end.
Start a conversationTalks and keynotes
A single session for conferences, member organizations and leadership offsites. The case for play, delivered to a room of people who've never considered it seriously.
Custom sessions
Targeted work on one characteristic or one moment — an offsite, a merger, a team that's gone quiet.
Scope, sequence and pricing are set after a first conversation.
Who we are
We've spent three years finding out what play does to a room full of adults.
The Playground is Camila Botrán and Joaquín Fernández-Townson. We've taught at Universidad Francisco Marroquín for three years, spoken at Creative Mornings, and spent that time testing what actually happens when you give serious people permission to play — and then asking them what changed at work.
Camila Botrán
Co-founder
Joaquín Fernández-Townson
Co-founder
Organizational psychologist
Dani Fetterman
Runs the Day Zero diagnostic and the closing evaluation.
Tell us what your team is stuck on.
A first conversation is a conversation, not a pitch. We'll tell you honestly whether this is the right instrument for what you're dealing with.