A few weeks ago, we ran a survey asking readers what company practices most inhibited innovation:

• Create an all-work, no-play office environment
• Base all decisions on data
• Be too conservative with money, resources

Now, the results are in:

The worst offender: A rigid office environment. People don’t want offices designed exclusively around grinding out the day’s tasks without some fun. There has to be, surprise surprise, a balance. Here are seven ways to keep your office from stifling innovation.

1. Design an office with movement in mind. Certainly we’ve heard that the open floor-plan is a favorite office design, but it goes deeper than that: building a space with natural light, multiuse areas, lounges, natural elements, and hidden infrastructure (like wires) leads to employees feeling freer to move and, we hope, to think and create.

2. Allow employees to change themselves — in big and small ways. Encouraging movement is really just a way of pushing people to change their circumstances, to not feel constrained. Extend that spirit of change from the office space to the employee by hosting dress-up days (pajamas are simple and silly, but rewrite the rules) or dance parties, creating mentorship programs, and providing opportunities for collaboration.

3. Give people time to themselves. Don’t trap people in a schedule or that’s all they’ll focus on. Different companies have different perspectives on how to give employees freedom during the workday: outdoor lunch spots, nap-times, communal areas, open hours to pursue individual projects.

4. Change the sensory environment. In addition to bringing in natural elements, business pros suggest other ways of enhancing the sensory experience of the office: bring up the background noise to eliminate distractions, use warm and cool colors wisely, introduce good smells, feature art wherever possible, and make musical playlists with your team.

5. Toys! The air hockey table is an office cliche, but having games and puzzles around the office reminds employees that they can and should take breaks from their work — and that in those supposedly non-work moments is when creative breakthroughs can happen.

6. Have a sense of humor. Companies take themselves too seriously. But any time an organization can laugh at its mistakes or inconveniences, it reminds employees (and customers) that companies are made up of people who are flawed. The company also recognizes that life doesn’t begin and end with the workday. Employees who adopt that attitude can integrate their work and non-work lives better, too.

7. Create opportunities for conflict — and the means to resolve them. Ideas are tested by throwing them at a wall. Sometimes it takes many people to really put an idea through its paces and find out if it’s a good one. The company that creates an environment in which both the individual development of ideas and the collective testing of them is encouraged (and in which employees feel safe doing both) is going to be a more innovative, dynamic company all around.