Why Play Works‪.‬ Lucy Taylor and Tzuki Stewart

How do you use playfulness and LEGO® to make an impact on something as serious as climate change? 
Lucy Hawthorne is the founder of Climate Play. She is a facilitator, LEGO® Serious Play® practitioner and campaigner at heart. She was an environmental campaigner and a social issues campaigner for about 15 years, helping ban fracking in the UK before starting Climate Play.
Despite this success she was able to reflect that ultimately they weren't deeply changing people's minds and hearts on the issues. 
Through Climate Play they create conversations, events and actions that people actually want to be involved in rather than only feeling like they should.
Things to consider
Play isn’t being super extroverted - it’s having a sense of humour.Playfulness and perfectionism are complete opposites.“Outcomes are not meant to be playful, but our process is.” - Yana Buhrer TavanierMake play accessiblePracticing playfulness is an ongoing journeyThe need to be light footed, create space for experimentation, and try different ways of doing thingsPlayfulness is about giving people choice and agency
Links
Lucy Hawthorne LinkedInClimate PlayYana Buhrer Tavanier - How to recover from activism burnoutCarol Dweck - Growth MindsetCatherine Wilkes’ Shoopery

Have you ever entered a meeting and instantly been set up to fail? Do organizations really want to change or just be seen to change? 
Consultants also get stuck in this game where they want to bring in more play and creativity and the organization thinks they should change but won’t.
This is a challenge that Steve has encountered many times and has to overcome “vanilla compromises” that leads to no change. 
He does this through compassion and care, improvisation and subtle tactics like changing the space used. 
Steve is an artist, writer, and speaker interested in creativity and the human condition. He's spoken around the world on the subject of creativity and culture and worked with over 80 organizations in many sectors to help free them from ever tightening loops of common sense.
He holds an MSC with distinction in organization's culture and change, and has held roles of visiting faculty on a number of MSC programs at Ashridge Business School, the Meno Institute, and Ruffy Park as an artist. He sold his work across seven continents, exhibited alongside the lights of Pablo Picasso and David Trigg, and has held a number of successful solo exhibitions in Central London, Hampshire.
Things to consider
What is the difference between work and life?How do we get paid more for the things that feel like play?Can compromise lead to something that makes no differenceNietzche sums it up for Steve, “learning to see the world as strange makes us un home in the everyday and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.”Learn to see the world as strange. Ask curious questions.
Links
Escape from Freedom, Erich FrommBarry Mason, Safe UncertaintyZen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice, Shunryu SuzukiThe (Not A) Lost Cat ProjectSound of Silence PodcastArny MendellOrbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace, Gordon MacKenzieCan Scorpions Smoke

What is the point of play? Is it just acting like a child at work?
Nicole has grown children's brands, Ella's Kitchen and worked at informal creative agencies, and also in corporate environments. 
She has identified over the course of her career 10 key qualities that make up a child's lens on business framework that Nicole shares in detail in this episode. 
Nicole believes the whole point of play is to have no point. It is not frivolous. It is a vehicle for connection that can have important benefits for employers including staff retention through greater relationships, willingness to collaborate, general wellbeing and happiness and ultimately better results flow from it.
“Play is like magic tea!” Nicole extols.
But it is NOT just having playful games to be done between the doldrums of work. In this episode explore the definition of play and its deeper meaning beyond just fun in the workplace and the results it will bring. 
Discussion highlights:
The role of play in creating connections and fostering better communicationThe benefits of incorporating playfulness in both personal and professional settingsOvercoming barriers to play in corporate environmentApplying a child's lens to business brings qualities such as confidence, creativity, resilience, and collaboration.
Key things to consider
Creating a culture that encourages creativity and innovation can have a transformative effect on an organization.Playfulness has to be embedded in the culture. It should be integrated into the culture of an organization rather than treated as a separate activity.Having playful areas at work to use between work is not being playful at workTo be playful at work and access your playful side, look through the eyes of a childA positive and inclusive organizational culture should encourage creativity, innovation, and collaborationA supportive culture can significantly impact employee engagement, productivity, and overall company success

Ace thinks play is wonderful. He sees it as explorative and unstructured, where we scan the world in which we exist and see all of the opportunities to push, prod, dig and learn.
Scott thinks play is annoying and that playfulness is where it’s at.  
Despite disagreeing on these fundamentals Scott and Ace work together at Envoy providing executive guidance; supporting partnership negotiations; facilitating leadership retreats; guiding strategic planning; and mediating conflict.  
They teach these disciplines through talks, workshops, and executive programs.
In this episode, we delve into the power of building momentum and playfulness (or play) in the way we work work. Our guests share experiences and thoughts on how intentional and regular doses of play and laughter can transform our approach to challenges and create a positive environment where different kinds of conversations can emerge.
Their work involves building partnerships and exploring the intersection of technology, behavioral economics, and psychology. While Scott and Ace are experts in handling tough conversations they bring a lightness and playfulness to the way they do it  - they take the work seriously but not themselves. 
Discussion Highlights:
When a stickman starts doing the YMCA dance during a serious tech demonstration, highlighting the inherent joy of playfulness.The impact of intentional play in loosening people up and facilitating discussions about opportunities, risks, and privacy in partnership contexts.The importance of consistently nurturing playfulness rather than resorting to it as a last-ditch effort.The value of momentum and creating space for play in our lives, allowing us to tap into it when needed most.How play and playfulness can be a great way to shift energy
Things to consider
Is being skeptical about play at work just being a curmudgeonly bastard?Where do you find flow most often?When you are using your energy to deal with serious issues you don’t have the energy to take yourself seriously. Building momentum and intentionally incorporating playfulness into our lives creates a reservoir of joy and resilience that we can tap into when facing challenges.Play is not a desperate last resort; it's a powerful tool that should be nurtured regularly to enhance creativity, problem-solving, and overall well-being
Links
EnvoyScott Wayne LinkedInAce Callwood LinkedInEnvoy Recorded Radio
Get in touch!
Make Work Play
Playfilled

Start a conversation with, “do you think a hotdog is a sandwich?” and see the playful reaction. 
Catherine Price is an advocate of bringing people together in a playful manner whether it’s a conversation with a stranger, a dinner party, at work or even Zoom.
Catherine helps people scroll less, live more, and have fun. 
She is a science journalist, speaker, teacher, consultant, and the author of several. 
Catherine is also the founder of ScreenLifeBalance.com, a resource hub dedicated to helping people create more intentional relationships with technology and reconnect with what really matters to them in life. 
Things to consider
Create deeper and engaging conversations with people by asking more interesting openersBantering with people is a form of playThere's often an assumption that only certain activities qualify as play.Play and fun aren’t an activity they are an attitude or a feelingFun and playfulness actually bring us closer together  as human beings.If you do have to use willpower to keep doing some activity that's being marketed to you as play, then it's not play anymore.Fun is any moment when three states coincide; playfulness, and connection and flow. This can definitely happen at work. Even on Zoom!Rules and structure can give people permission to be playful in an unexpected context.
Links
Catherine Price WebsiteThe Art of Gathering by Priya ParkerThe Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, by Catherine PriceHow to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life, by Catherine PriceVitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food, by Catherine Price
Get in touch!
Make Work Play
Playfilled

Play, creativity and imagination can enable people to look at things differently, 
to extend their own potential. But formal education suppresses our natural instinct to play and as adults makes us think it’s wrong to play. Alison James is on a mission to reclaim the word play.
Alison has written about her commitment to teaching and learning creatively in many publications, from early work on autobiography and personal development planning in the creative arts, to her present day interests in creativity, imagination and play in higher education pedagogy. 
She co-authored Engaging imagination: helping students become creative and reflective thinkers with Professor Stephen Brookfield (2014) and more about Alison and her work can be found at Engaging Imagination. Alison was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2014.
At heart she is an educator and facilitator who unlocks conversations, ideas, capabilities in people, including herself, on how play, creativity and imagination can enable people to look at things differently.
She left full-time work at the university so that she could concentrate on a three year research study, funded by the Imagination Lab Foundation. While people think she retired, she prefers to call it free-range play.
Things to consider
What age do we move on from play and creativity - 16? 18? 23?Through play, how we can rediscover the things that we love, that bring us joy and spark our curiosity. The internal and external constraints from society to education to academia that stop us thinking about why we do things the way we do them? And stop us doing them differently.Play should simply enable you and others to do your jobs.Organizations such as Formula 1 and Red Cross use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®A shift in the zeitgeist towards play.
Links
The Power of Play in Higher Education: Creativity in Tertiary Learning (2019), Chrissi Nerantzi , et al.The Playful University PlatformBrian Sutton-SmithEngaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinkers, by Alison Smith and Stephen BrookfieldThe Value of Play in HE
Get in touch!
Make Work Play
Playfilled