Under pressure, organizational performance slows down.
Practice Leading Under Pressure: a play-based leadership program grounded in the science of positive psychology. From Finland
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This is what happens when you can’t handle the pressure
Decisions slow down
Leaders become overloaded
Teams disengage and productivity drops.
Every team member who is not engaged costs your company about 18% of their annual salary. In a 100-person company with an average salary of €50,000, where 80 people are not engaged, that’s €720,000 lost every year.
Source: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026Practice leading Under Pressure
This play-based program is the flagship of Nordaurai’s game-based positive psychology model
Play & Engage
Pressure is simulated through games: challenges, competing priorities and managing stress.
Practice leading under pressure
Practicing leading through games: outcome in emotional intelligence, delegation, decision making and communication
Organizational Performance Improves
Better execution, better wellbeing, effective decision making and increased revenue performance
Managers are the most pressured people at work: 45% experience a lot of stress (Gallup, 2026). And ineffective decision making costs a typical large company about $250 million in managers’ time every year (McKinsey)
Why does a play-based approach help?
Your investment will go to an approach that makes your team practice leading under pressure through science-based games and play, rather than only listening or passive activities.
Trainees taught with simulation games show 20% higher confidence to perform, 14% higher skill-based knowledge and 9% higher retention than those taught with other methods.
Source: Sitzmann, Personnel Psychology
Practice Leading Under Pressure
This play-based program is the flagship of Nordaurai’s Gamified Positive Psychology™ Model
Practice Leading Under Pressure
Physical and digital games in one program
In the room: physical games
Leaders play our card and board games together in the room. They practice how to lead under pressure.
Digital game
Leaders play our digital delegation game, guided live by our facilitator. Works on-site or remotely.
Behavior change outcomes:
Increased emotional intelligence
Better decision making
Spotting strengths in teams
Better task delegation under pressure
Improved organizational performance
The program includes:
Pressure simulated through science-based games grounded in real leadership challenges
Facilitation by a psychologist and leader development coach
ROI measurement, so you see what changed
Meet the game behind lead under pressure program
A research-backed approach, grounded in positive psychology
Purpose and outcome: trains strength-based thinking through cognitive reframing. The game builds self-efficacy, reduces shame around weaknesses, and creates psychological safety through humour and play. It improves active listening, communication, and empathy among leaders, and builds teamwork among team players.
The science behind the game: PERMA (Seligman) Psychological safety (Edmondson) Self-compassion (Neff) Self-efficacy (Bandura) Active listening (Rogers & Farson) Emotional intelligence (Goleman)
What Our Players Say
“It helped me reflect and open up among others in a way I wouldn't have done otherwise”
-Game developer, Nordic game conference
“A very good tool for team engagement, the games make you open up easily and have fun while reflecting’’
-Olli, Co-founder, Psyon Games
“The Bingo game is an amazing tool for understanding what is working in our organisation and what needs improvement. Our participants genuinely enjoyed it and we walked away with detailed, actionable insights. Highly recommended"
— HR Professional, Pilot Client, Finland
Case Studies
Case Study 1: Psyon Games
Case 2:Nordic Game
Participants came from different organizations and were meeting for the first time. Despite this, Nordaurai's games helped establish psychological safety quickly, and participants were open and fully engaged throughout the sessions. This showed that even among strangers, a well-designed gamified format can create trust and openness faster than traditional icebreakers or lectures. "Very good tools to start conversations and self reflection, especially in a group".
In this pilot session, Psyon Games ran a team engagement session with Nordaurai. With the Self-Compassion game, participants found real value in opening up to each other. With the Guess the Emotions game, the team identified who tends to feel a certain way under certain circumstances, insight that will help them navigate future situations as a team.
Our Story
Nordaurai was founded with the deep passion and vision of our founder, Angela Boyajian Adjounian, who spent years in the corporate world and saw how mental wellbeing and leadership trainings are passive and fail to reach everyone. Seeing the pressure in leadership, and her own mistakes due to pressure, made her talk with leaders, and it turned out that leading under pressure is a universal pain among leaders. That is why the science- and play-based Practice Leading Under Pressure program was developed as the flagship program of Nordaurai.
Angela’s passion for occupational wellbeing and learning and development took her to the University of Helsinki, where she conducted research on occupational wellbeing and validated her approach with businesses and organizations in Finland and the UAE
The answer of her validation and study at the University of Helsinki became our first flagship program: the positive psychology, play-based Practice Leading Under Pressure program.
Nordaurai goes beyond gamification in corporate learning and development. It’s a real game within a program grounded in positive psychology, where pressure is simulated through games, leaders engage from the first moment, and they practice behavior change and learning.
“If I hadn't been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder years ago, I wouldn't have experienced the power of positive psychology this deeply. Nordaurai is fully self-funded. This is what a young female founder's vision and self-confidence look like. This is not just my story. It is the story of every woman who trusted herself and executed with confidence. Nordaurai started with only a vision, and now people are playing our workplace wellbeing games. We are growing and I am grateful”.
— Angela Boyajian Adjounian, Founder & CEO, Nordaurai
Meet the Team
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Angela Boyajian Adjounian
Psychologist-FOUNDER & CEO
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Pernilla Mickos
GAME PRODUCER
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Linda Evaliina Grönfors
Leadership Development Coach
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Minna Huotilainen
ACADEMIC ADVISOR
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Yuliia Smirnova
GAME PROGRAMMER intern
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Albin Schill
3D DESIGNER intern
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Noel Wik
CHARACTER DESIGNER intern
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Nikki Khodaeian
GAME ARTIST intern
Nordaurai in Global Media
Nordaurai and Our Founder Were Featured in Bizpreneur Middle East Magazine
‘‘We are based in Finland, the world’s happiest and most wellbeing oriented country. Dubai, on the other hand, is the region’s capital of innovation, business, and bold ideas. Can you imagine what happens when you bridge these two forces? That’s exactly what Nordaurai does’’.
Read the full article in Bizpreneur Middle East Magazine, page 140.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nordaurai is a Finnish company for science- and play-based learning and development. Our flagship program, Practice Leading Under Pressure, helps mid-level and senior leaders practice leading under pressure through games grounded in positive psychology, with improved organizational performance and mental wellbeing at the root.
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The program is a self-paced e-learning program with modules and educational, science-based games as tools to practice leading under pressure. It includes our original digital games: the Delegation Game and Basketball for Compassion. available from January 2027
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Sustainable work under pressure, improved emotional intelligence, structured decision making and execution, including delegation and seeing your team’s strengths, and better communication for better team engagement, overall wellbeing, and organizational performance.
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Yes. The program has a digital model and a physical model with a board game that supports leaders to practice leadership, strengths, and communication under pressure.
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Yes. The games are grounded in positive psychology (PERMA, psychological safety, self-compassion, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence), designed by a psychologist and grounded in research validation from the University of Helsinki.
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A structured program with original positive psychology games designed especially for the real pains of pressure. It measures your behavior and supports you to practice leading under pressure, with a test before and after the program to measure your improvement. At the end, the measurement is provided to your learning and development department.
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Unfortunately not. However for any partnership matters get in touch with angela@nordaurai.com