Media Coverage in the Calgary Herald

The Play's the thing
Presentations aligned with firms' goals

Derek Sankey
For the Calgary Herald

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Peter Gardiner-Harding worked for years as a chartered accountant in his role as chief financial officer for a financial services company before he had a career epiphany.

"I got up one day and realized the pants just didn't fit and I had to go on a bit of a search for what it was I wanted to really do," says Gardiner-Harding.

He was always drawn to the creative arts and his current occupation wasn't a good match or an outlet for that creativity, so he decided to take his two passions --business and theatre -and take them to the corporate world.

"I've always been attracted to theatre and story-telling through theatre," explains Gardiner-Harding. "As soon as I started studying theatre (in the early 1990s), I realized the application of drama within a business context was definitely there."

He founded a company called Focus Management Group in the mid-90s, which has since been renamed playsthatwork Inc. The company, which operates across Canada in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria, employs 70 actors that produce theatrical presentations aligned with the business goals of a company.

"I'm looking for people that understand that as leaders they can influence their staff to create a story about their company which is aligned with their business strategy," says Gardiner-Harding.

"They'll have a million times greater chance of hitting those goals than if they just leave the culture story to chance," he says.

This theatrical, corporate story-telling approach to engaging employees is just what McElhanney Land Surveys Ltd. in Calgary needed, says manager of human resources Wayne Wheeler.

"Sometimes these management fads come and go and the only thing they have behind them is that they're

different," says Wheeler. "playsthatwork added tremendous value when it came to allowing our staff to reach conclusions that we've been preaching for years."

The company had been trying to drill home the importance of its strategic objectives, but after the typical PowerPoint presentations, business went back to usual, he says, adding: ..Our folks took this (format) seriously and the response was very positive."

Lonni Olson, a 34-year-old Calgary actor employed by playsthatwork, performed the routine for McElhanney with Gardiner-Harding.

"I wasn't sure how (the employees) were going to take it," says Olson. "You think, OK, oil and gas engineers, the conservative Calgary thing, they're not going to buy into it. But it was amazing how open everyone was."

playsthatwork offers its productions in three formats that vary in length and depth, depending on the goals of the client company.

In a typical routine, actors play the part of various types of employees grappling with common office scenarios that relate to the firm's business objectives. Employees simply play themselves and, in the process, can focus on how to resolve certain issues.

Gardiner-Harding emphasizes it's not about role-playing, which tends to cause employees' eyes to roll when confronted with the well-worn method of simulation.

"We're the actors," he says. "We only ask the participants to play themselves."

Olson adds that while there may be some nervousness among employees when they hear actors will be on hand, it soon passes when the workers get involved in the scenarios being played out in front of them.

"People get excited about it and you can see they're really listening to the key points within the script," Olson says.

Emily Talia, another Calgary actor for playsthatwork, says it's a unique gig that required her to hone her acting skills for this specific corporate purpose. Gardiner-Harding trains all of his members in the nuances of corporate acting.

"We can go from creating a scene or situation for employees that is believable, but then just jump back into being regular people and see how this interaction made them feel," says Talia.

In a tight labour market where employee engagement continues to be cited as one of the biggest HR challenges for corporate leaders, playsthatwork offers a twist on less creative, traditional methods of stimulating employees to become part of the corporate story.

There are business payoffs, but it also helps create loyalty and infuses some fun into what is otherwise a fairly dry corporate agenda.

"We're just trying to bring a story into a room and say, 'Here's a vessel. Jump in and play with it and see what you can discover about yourself and apply these new tools in the context of this story," says Gardiner-Harding.

derek.sankey@telus.net © The Calgary Herald 2007