Business Walrus: the Key to Supercharging your Staff

It’s a huge privilege to work in an industry where we get paid to come up with creative ideas, said Sophie Gallagher, Senior Strategist at Slingshot Media, during her Inspiration X talk at MFA EX 2023. But the reality is, not every idea will see the light of day. After a while, this can be demoralising for your team, lowering their energy levels and affecting staff retention.

So how do you supercharge your team’s creativity and make them feel valued and excited about their work? You need to think outside the box, she said.

Enter: the Business Walrus.

This fun, interactive party game helps ‘gamify’ the process of coming up with creative ideas, Gallagher explained. In the game, players are challenged to present on the fly as they compete with others for $1 billion ‘walrus dollars’. Playing a game of Business Walrus with your team before your next client presentation can be a great way to build their creative confidence, boost their performance skills and make them feel heard.

Here’s why, she said:

Practice, practice, practice

We all know the first idea is never the best one – you need to keep working at it to come up your best work. A game of Business Walrus lets your team practice and finetune their big ideas before it’s time to present them to the client.

It pushes people out of their comfort zone

There’s no denying it – Business Walrus will ask your team to do a lot of weird things. But if they can stand up in front of your entire agency, including the CEO, and back themselves for that creative idea while in ‘game mode’, doing it in front of a client becomes a whole lot easier. Their confidence will go through the roof.  

It gives everyone a voice

Don’t just play Business Walrus with the same people you work with day in and day out. Bring in the ops team, the executive leadership team, the strategy team, the traders – give everyone a voice. Because being heard is what really makes people feel energised and passionate about the work they do. 

Watch the full video of Sophie Gallagher’s MFA EX talk here.