We’ve all felt the power of nostalgia in our personal lives and many of us will have experienced it recently over the Christmas period reminiscing on childhood memories. However, we don’t necessarily associate nostalgia with the workplace or think of using it in a business context. Perhaps marketing being the exception, nostalgia is a largely untapped resource.
In 2021, Harvard Business Review published an article titled ‘The Surprising Power of Nostalgia at Work’ leveraging the author, Clay Routledge’s, 20 years of research in the psychology of nostalgia to outline some great insight for business owners and managers.
Routledge said: “As a psychological tool, nostalgia is restorative. It helps us navigate stress and uncertainty and find the motivation needed to move forward with purpose and focus.”
It is also a powerful tool for bonding and collaboration. He said: “Nostalgia brings the social self online. It increases social agency and directs that agency toward helping others and strengthening social and group bonds. Given the importance of positive relationships and effective teams for both the health of individual employees and the organization, managers should explore ways to incorporate nostalgia into team-building activities.”
Routledge isn’t alone. Constantine Sedikides (a professor of social and personality psychology) and Tim Wildschut (a senior researcher in psychology) have carried out research across 18 countries finding nostalgia to be “both a driver of empathy and social connectedness and a potent internal antidote for loneliness and alienation.”
Their research also found “nostalgia helps build resources like optimism or inspiration or creativity, which are correlated with mental fortitude.”
Leveraging the power of nostalgia, it’s with great excitement that we launch our newest program, Synergyk.
Synergyk is bringing back 8-bit music, retro-styled consoles, joysticks, LEDs and minigames recreating the 80s-style tactile gaming experience. As soon as groups see their console they are immediately transported back to the fun and adventure of the original 70’s & 80’s gaming experience.
The program challenges teams with a series of minigames where they need to work together via the console to solve challenges in a collaborative, hands-on way.
Tactile and nostalgic by design, the console inspires teamwork and shared experiences, helping to forge team connections and promoting collaborative problem-solving.
With many feeling uncertain about what 2023 has in store, why not use nostalgia to bring optimism to the year ahead. To find out more about Synergyk, or any of our team-building, learning or development programs, please get in touch.
Thanks for reading.
Oliver Sheer
Joint Manager Director, Be Challenged