Human beings are most productive when work feels like play. Enthusiasm, imagination and resourcefulness--the critical ingredients for success in the creative economy--are unleashed when people are having fun. Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called it flow - "the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity".

As we envision the future of work, the most successful organizations will be the ones that have figured out how to blur the lines between vocation and avocation. The efficacious organization of the future will display, among other things - a close alignment of personal interests and professional responsibilities; an ability to eliminate drudgery from the work, and a philosophy of autonomy, where workers display greater control over their work.

The prevailing school of thought these days seems to be one of hardship. No doubt, it is difficult to devote time to having fun in the midst of an economic crisis. Why is anyone thinking about playing around when we have real business problems on our hands? "We don't have time for games here -...