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 Chapman 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 difference
• Nietzche 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 Fromm
• Barry Mason, Safe Uncertainty
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice, Shunryu Suzuki
• The (Not A) Lost Cat Project
• Sound of Silence Podcast
• Arny Mendell
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace, Gordon MacKenzie
• Can Scorpions Smoke

Hello and welcome to the show.

My name's Lucy Taylor from Make Work Play an organization on a

mission to use the power of play to unlock potential and possibility.

and I'm Zuki Stewart from Playfield, a startup helping

organizations to enable everyone to rediscover their creativity through

playful wonder and serendipity.

Together, we are.

Why works.

The podcast that speaks to people radically reshaping

the idea of work as play.

So today I'm gonna be speaking to Steve Chapman.

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

his work in Central London, Hampshire.

And, sorry.

Welcome Steve.

It's so nice to have you on the show.

Lovely to see you, Lucy.

I've been looking forward to

this.

So I'd love to start by asking you what does play mean to you?

it's the, it's the verb of playing.

I think there's, there's something about active that,

that active act of, of playing.

And, and I know what we mean by play.

There's something human beings do is turn, um, verbs into things and static things.

And it's like, We're seeking play or let's use play.

It's, for me playing is finding myself in a moment of experimentation, of

curiosity, of I wonder what would happen if, um, experimenting, um,

and discovering and curious thing

are all

part of the same process

curious and I love that.

Well, I love that phrase.

that that's the first time I've ever used it

Well, now it's a

thing.

Curious thing.

Um, okay, so it's active.

It's like, so it sounds like to you it's a state of being.

it's something that.

I I'm less of when I'm in it to, when I'm not in it.

I might notice that I'm no longer in a state of playing, but when

I'm in it, I notice it less.

So it's almost like a flow state.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

Where you're sort of just in a, in a symbiotic

dance with your experience.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

And I can feel, I can, that's really, um, like a somatic thing.

I can feel what you mean in my body.

and thinking of it like that as a process means that there's

no boundaries as to what play is.

You could be playing by doing, like a child might play, or you could be in a

very serious accounting job working on a spreadsheet and still find that way

of playing.

Um, the content It seems weird that we judge what is play and

what is not, what is creative and

what

Yeah, it is interesting.

So then thinking about that then, how do you think about

the concepts of play and work?

It sounds like maybe they're just the same

thing

or moments of the

same

Yeah, I, I really struggle, I struggle to work out the difference

between work and life, to be honest.

Um, in, in, in, and that's, that's, a lot of people say, oh,

that must be wonderful, but it's.

It's disconcerting and troubling as well when you can't work out the

boundaries to anything, um, that you do.

But yeah, for me it's part of the same, same flow of my experience.

Um, the, I, guess that may be the question people are asking

is around what you get paid for.

So do you get paid for playing?

But for me it's all, all the same stuff.

I'm either more into a state of flow and play or less into it, and sometimes

I might be getting paid for it.

And

sometimes I might not be getting paid for it.

And yeah, how do we get paid more for the things that feel like play?

I decided, um, in the start of when the pandemic hit and I

was deleting everything out of my diary.

Um, and there was, I found some weird joy in deleting it all, even though it's

like all of this money was disappearing, but I made a promise to myself I was only

gonna put in new work in which I felt free, in which I experienced freedom.

And I've been, um, Eric Frog's work.

been a big influence on me and he wrote the book Escape From Freedom and basically

using his inspiration, I thought, I'm only gonna do work where I feel intrinsically

free, so I'm not inhibiting myself and the people or the place or the environment

I'm working with isn't inhibiting me.

And so that makes it more likely that I am in a space doing what I'm interested

in and playing and experimenting and.

Getting paid for it because the client's getting more out of me.

Um, because that state of flow and in that zone.

and have you managed, have you managed to do that Have you

managed to keep that sense of freedom?

absolutely.

It means, um, I've a lot less mummy.

Um, but I can't, bring myself to do work that, that, that I'm not

interested in or there's no hope in.

I think they're my things I need to be, if I'm interested.

If I'm fascinated, then people will get more from the work I'm doing.

Um, but also to be some sort of hope.

Yeah.

there's so many, I mean, you'll get it in your work as well.

So many times over the years people come to say, we really wanna nurture

a culture of play and creativity.

And then I spend some time in the organization, I

think, I don't think you do.

I think you like the idea of it.

You don't actually really want to do it, and we're just going through this

dance where you are paying money for something that you are gonna make

sure that I can't deliver and I can't

do that anymore.

Yeah.

And do you think

a waste of

Yes.

And do you think.

Creating a culture that is kind of playful and does that

require freedom and like what?

How do you do that?

Yeah, I mean that's the, the short answer is, I dunno,

it's, it's so unique and subjective for every single, every single thing.

, but for me it really is around, , I, I'm interested in patterns of stuckness.

So what the stuck patterns in how people think, how what people

notice about themselves, um, is the limit of their experience,

just their cognitive experience.

Um, are they completely tuned out of body and intuition and environment?

And then what's the power dynamics between people?

What's the sort of cult values around here?

Um, and there'll be all of these social and psychological patterns that

will potentially be incredibly stuck.

And so all I'm interested in is experiments to, disrupt stuck

patterns where they're helpful.

And that doesn't mean a stuck pattern is always unhelpful.

I've, I've probably crossed the road in the same way for many, many years

and it seems to work for me and I don't wanna change that really.

But often the question I'm asking is, is this helpful or not?

Is this stuck pattern helpful or not?

And I wrote a blog years ago around, um, creativity and play in the workplace.

And it was, it was, it was a blog that I wrote to try and put

people off working with me that really didn't wanna do the work.

And there's a number of questions in there, um, awkward questions.

And, but one of 'em is, what are you prepared to let go of?

Because if you're not prepared to let go of something, you

can't just keep having new stuff.

There's got to be something you're

prepared to let go of.

prepared to let go

of?

I mean, the thing is, um, I think letting go of needing to

know what's gonna happen before they start, that seems to be the main thing.

Letting go of everything, having to be planned out and measured before we start.

And it's the same with learning The way we, the dominant way we

think about learning is flawed.

I, uh, again, you'll come across it in, in your work is people only want

to seem to start a learning experience.

If they can fully understand it and measure it through things they already

know, means you never learn anything new.

Cause if you can, if you can fully evaluate it through terms and measures

that you already know, then it's not new.

And it's the same in organizations.

It's, um, culture change should look, smell and feel

countercultural.

And often I'll be working with an organization on, I'm a huge

culture change thing, and I'll come up with some experiments and

I go, oh no, we don't like that.

And it's all good.

You shouldn't, you shouldn't like them.

Because if you like them and love them and think, yeah, this is

exactly what works around here.

It's not anything novel.

So I think that's, that's the type of thing.

But I mean, the things that we used to teach on the Ashridge Masters

program, which you joined me

Yeah, I did.

That was a

them once, didn't you, was really around, , power and status.

they, they, they tends to be the main things that, that, keep.

Organizations and cultures stuck.

and I don't just mean like the hierarchy, although that has an impact.

It's like what is the relative need between people at any particular time?

Um, what is the, that dance of what Keith Johnson would say, the

kinetic dance of status between people, , where we are inhibiting

and being inhibited at the same time.

And really they tends to be the main dynamics that I'm interested in,

where do you start with power and status in an organization?

Like how do you, what Can you tell us about some experiments that

you've done there or how you've kind of poked at at those tensions?

Yeah, I mean, I'm.

Where the, it's really difficult as an external to start anywhere because you

only see people in formal environments really where you, you get to experience.

And of course it's completely biased from my own projections and everything.

Um, but it's to hang out in the day-to-day of an organization.

Then you start to see the subtleties of it.

you can pick up subtle things in conversations and, As a gestalt, gestalt

psychology is a big influence on my work.

I'm interested in my own experience of people as I'm talking to them.

So if I'm chatting with someone and I'm feeling anxious or excited or

sad, or worried or scared, I'm taking that seriously out as that's a sign

that something's going on around here.

So I think there's that attuning to it, first off, and then just little,

little experiments I remember in.

One of the things that's really important to me is in that very first engagement

with a client in an organization, if you can't challenge and poke

and prod in that very first thing, it's only gonna get more difficult.

and I learned that the hard way by, by doing it the other way around and

thinking, right, I'll just get in and do the work, and play the game and

that, and then it becomes impossible.

But remember with a big consultancy organization, My main client and I've

gone well, come up with some work and then they brought in a senior

partner to talk to me about the work.

And this, this guy came into the, this big plush office wearing a suit

and sat down, he said, right, okay.

Tell me, how are you gonna wow these clever people?

How are you gonna measure it?

And what's your guaranteed success?

You can provide us.

And it's that moment of choice thinking, right?

I, I could spin something around that.

Um, but I just said, well, I can't, I can't do any of that really.

I mean, and, and you know that I can't do any of that because,

uh, this is experimentation.

I've got a sense of what might happen, but nothing's gonna change

unless we're in this together in a position of experimentation.

And that, that interaction went on for about an hour.

And then he sort of, he softened.

And he sort of, he, he understood and he appreciated the challenge and pushback

and we did some amazing work together.

So that was, that was that sort of early cha and other

times it's gone the other way.

They said, well, we are gonna go with X who can guarantee success?

And it's all good luck.

X maybe they can, maybe I'm just stupid, but,

I wouldn't say

I dunno what's gonna, I dunno what's gonna happen

tomorrow in my own life, let alone what's gonna happen in a massive

Yeah.

And I think there's, excuse something so, Brilliantly honest.

I'm refreshing about that.

Just kind of caught like, as you said, you know, you are using yourself as a special,

how are you feeling in a certain situation and naming that in a way that people feel

frightened to, I think in organizations, because it's not acceptable to say that

we don't know or that we are not certain.

That's, and that's, that's what I think part of the

work is, and that's always been a philosophy, um, that I sort of learned

from working with KRS Dega and Claire Brees, when I did some work with re

Loom was that, um, right from the very start, it's all, it's all relational.

Um, everything is relational.

And so I'm, I'm saying those things at the, at the beginning, not to be an ass.

, It's just, and some of it's self-preservation.

It's like, I, I need to get this on the table now.

Cause otherwise we're gonna get six months down the line and

it's gonna be really awkward.

, but yeah, that, that relationship's important right from that very first,

Yeah.

And to model to, I guess to model the discomfort of experimenting, cuz

it's not always comfortable because uncertainty is frightening sometimes.

No, and I think that's the, that's, there's this really stuck

game that's played between organizations and consultants, probably loads of

other games, which is the organization, , doesn't want anything to change but

thinks they should be doing something to, I dunno, bring more playing creativity.

And, um, the consultant really wants to bring more playing

creativity in, but they think the organization's not gonna go for it.

So both compromise.

, and end up getting to some vanilla thing that's gonna

make no difference whatsoever.

And I think you've got to, again, is what Karen and I used to teach

on the Ashridge Masters program.

You've gotta be on the edge of being fired right from that first meeting.

Really.

If, I mean, not again, from a place of compassion and care, it's not like

you're just going in saying, I'm an arrogant kid and I wanna be fired.

It's like you need to prod right from the start.

And there's, there's so many brilliant improvisers, musicians and creatives and

artists that I've seen that are going to do work in the corporate world, and,

uh, uh, they've told me what they're gonna do, and it's like, no, no, no.

You don't need to do that.

You don't need to wear the suit.

You don't need to use this language.

You don't need to write this in this way.

Fair enough.

Make it understandable.

Meet them where they're at, but don't round off all that brilliant

weirdness that you've got.

I'm chair of the board of a dyslexic, um, arts organization called Move

Beyond Words, and they, they're dancers and they've been doing some work

around, , communication and dance and understanding in the corporate world.

And one of the things that I've been really, um, encouraging them

to do is the, the corporates come into their world, they come to the

studio, they use their language, , rather than the other way round.

Because it's just, it's, it's not equal at the moment.

, so that they're, the types of subtle things I think around power, even

space, , space, uh, office space, location, what we wear are all, I mean,

it's no status and power is never good nor bad the results of it are or can

be, but it's just a natural phenomena.

So they're all the subtle things that I'm

always really interested in.

Yeah, and it's like, I think the space is so important, kind

of taking, as you said, people out of their day to day and planting them in

a context that's a bit disorienting leads to a very different kind of

conversation or learning experience.

yeah.

Absolutely.

And, and more chance for randomness, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

More chance for the

So I know, so you describe your work as being playful

with the unknown, and I'd love if you could share a couple of examples

of how, how you experiment with the unknown and how you create those

kind of uncertain but held containers for the people that you work with.

Yeah, I mean that, that, that, um, I think that's my

strap line on LinkedIn, isn't it?

Playful with not knowing.

Cause I remember, um, I was in a workshop and someone had a, they had

a whole session that was like, it's an experimental workshop and it's

45 minutes to come up with a four line way of describing your work.

And just instantly, as soon as they said four, uh, four words, so that within

the first few seconds of the workshop I came up with it and that was it.

And I don't, I think I just sat around drawing for the rest of the workshop.

But for me it's that combination of what's really important to me about

not knowing is that moves us towards curiosity that moves us towards mystery.

There's that nature.

Quote that on.

I probably quote it on every single podcast I'm on, but

that sums it up for me.

So Nietzche said, learning to see the world as strange makes us un home in

the every day and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.

Wow.

So learning to see the world as strange makes us un home

in the everyday and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.

So that for me is the importance of moving towards not knowing however difficult.

And, uh, I never find it easy because it restores the world as

a place of wonder and mystery.

And that's what cu that invites curiosity, and then that invites

creativity, and then that invites play.

I mean, if you're in a state of wonder, it's much easier

to play.

It, it's just like that.

It's that that invites me, into that space.

So it's not like I have a way of working.

It's just a, an underpinning philosophy, I think.

And I love that bit.

Learning to see the world as strange.

That's a really difficult thing to do.

Like to look out the window and not go, oh look, there's a treat there.

that's the label that I've got for it.

That's just the convenient way of labeling it.

How can I possibly experience every element of that thing

that's out there and go, what the

Yeah.

And that idea of becoming un home in the every day, like

there's just so much in that.

And I think for this sort of work, there's so much in that.

How do you create somewhere that is un home in order to recast

like those power relationships, how people relate to their work.

Um, so Rich

there's the importance for me around, um, how I work with others,

which was your question as well, is, um, to create, it's a, it's a phrase I got

off a guy called Barry Mason, but how do I create a sense of safe uncertainty?

And there's so much written about psychological safety to the point.

It sort of doesn't mean anything anymore.

Um, it's just become a thing that you apply.

But I like the concept of psychological safety, but that

doesn't leave that uncertainty.

But Barry Mason's idea of safe uncertainty, which I think he

wrote that paper in the nineties, so it's not new stuff, is what I'm

interested in.

do you.

And I think of that as, I think of that as

the world of just enoughness.

So what's, just enough structure?

Just enough order.

Just enough of an agenda.

Just enough of a container.

Like physical or emotional.

Or psychological or, or logistical so that people aren't freaking

out, but not a drop more.

And that, I think that's the thing.

Um, That, that's one of the things, a place of safe uncertainty.

And that's different for every group.

It's different for every person.

So that's sort of what I always, always start a session by

asking people , why you here?

Even if they've been told to come here.

Cause then I get a sense of what might be a sense of safe uncertainty around here.

And I think the other really, really, really important thing, particularly about

people doing weird, strange work like we do, is we are absolutely modeling.

What we are teaching, um, not pretending to, um, but actually are.

So I know that I am at my best when I'm right on the edge of

not knowing what I'm doing.

so I'm, I'm facilitating a, a workshop, down at Schumacher.

Very soon on facilitation, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do, but

I know I've got a day and I know roughly what the start will be.

And I know when I need to end and I've got an idea of some stuff that

I might do to use the environment.

But I've learned over the years to not, not think too

much about what I'm gonna do.

Um, again, not from any other position that that means I show

up in, in the same space that I'm wanting the participants to be in.

Cause you can only lead people where you've gone yourself.

And the same, like, the same with this, this podcast.

It's, I always find these things are helpful if I don't know what

the questions are beforehand.

I know you, I know you and I, it's about play.

I know we're recording for this period of time.

I know roughly what we'd be talking about.

But again, that's, that's that putting on the edge of being on home is how can

I make myself on home in this everyday work that I, that I do all the time.

Um, and I don't like really like doing the same workshop or the same talk more

than once, because that makes it more,

Yes, I guess you don't, you don't have that.

Um, That e, that edge that comes with doing something for the first

time, and it's you having to be totally present once you've done it.

Once you fall back into a habit or a pat a groove.

Yeah.

And I know that I'm not good with scripts, so I used to do lots of work in radio.

used to write stuff for radio.

Just, I did a number of different, like shows that were mainly

improvised and again, you have a structure, uh, around there.

You have a clock that needs to go to the news on the hour and stuff like that.

Um, but then I did some work with a local radio station on

the sports show, um, years ago.

I mean, it must have been 20 years ago.

And, um, I had to do a roundup of the local football news.

And I had to write a script for it.

Cause then he did everything scripted for some sort of regulation.

And then I had to read my own script and it was terrible.

I only did it once because I've become really anxious.

I've become really out of breath.

I couldn't get my words out.

Um, and it was my own script and suddenly the script looked really long.

And that's just always been a memory of how I find a script disabling.

And it's the same with talks.

It's like my inner critic Ted Talk.

I've been invited to do that so many times and it's.

I could make a lot of money outta doing that, probably, but it's

like, I don't wanna do it again.

Watch it online if you wanna see it, because I will be thinking of what I said

last time and trying to do that again.

So I, I like to be as close to experiencing things,

uh, as, as new as possible.

It's like, it is what the Buddhist call a beginner's mind, isn't it?

like Shin Suzuki said in the mind of a beginner, there are infinite

possibilities in the mind of an

expert.

There are a few.

And I think it's a great provocation, you know, how can we, Be

less prepare or I think it's important to prepare and I think what you are talking

about, you have decades of experience and you are able to do that and I think

probably, you know, maybe when you were less experienced you would prepare more.

But I think it's an interesting provocation, like what is just enough?

Like how can we

Yeah.

be more comfortable in that space of improvisation

Yeah,

just being in the

and I think the really important thing, the really important

thing in what you're saying there is, I know what is just enough for me, but

that won't work for everyone else and your just enough won't work for me.

So it's to find out uniquely what it is.

I mean, I know and I trust myself enough that when I'm in

a space, I will know what to do.

It's like I did the artist residency in, in, up in Scotland earlier this year.

, so I was going up there for a week, invite a load of other artists.

We were gonna be having workshops, and I, it was really difficult to not think

about it other than I had to bring a load of art materials to Scotland.

The, the plan was, I would discover what this is when I'm there and I

trusted that I would, and I did.

And it's the same like I, I know it, this workshop in Schumacher.

I know I'll go, oh, right, yeah.

This is what we can do.

And if I don't, then what I'm doing is saying, I dunno what to do.

Let's work out what it can be.

You never without something to do.

I did a, an online workshop for supervisors the other week and I came back

after the break and I had loads of ideas of games and experiments we could do.

And then I thought just before we started, That's what I think we should be doing.

That's what I think I, that, that's my default.

I'm going back into my default.

I genuinely dunno what's needed here.

So we came back after the break and I just said, I, I dunno what's needed here.

I really don't.

And then it was just quiet for ages.

And then some people spoke and then some people got annoyed.

And then that prompted me to remember a story that I told and

then something else happened.

And then in the end we found a whole thing that we ended up doing.

But I think that's the thing is if, if we find ourselves in a moment

of not knowing, then play with it.

It's like, oh, isn't this interesting?

Yeah.

I've like, I've run out of stuff.

That's, that's brilliant.

Cuz that means that whatever comes next is gonna

Yeah, and like, and share that.

So you shared that with a group of people and together you were able

to feel your way into something that felt true for the group.

and not every, not everyone.

Not everyone got it.

Um, Some people just thought it was ridiculous.

Some someone, someone said in the feedback, I had feedback from that

session that ranged from saying, this is the best teaching I've had

in decades, to someone else saying this seemed terribly badly prepared.

Um, so it's all

Yeah, totally subjective,

But again, that's a power thing because I've, I've sort of got to

that place before with groups and it's really not worked and I've been rejected.

Well, not say not worked.

It's not happened in the same way it can either work or not.

And again, I think that's a, the typical pa pattern of power.

We pay someone to come in with the knowledge to feed

us the answer, then we apply.

Um, so again, I'm always interested in what's the potential for.

For these experiments in not knowing

I'm really interested in that idea of like when things haven't worked.

Can you give, can you share some examples like of when actually

this has been completely rejected or when it's kind of fallen flat?

I always go back to a real, I mean, there's always little.

Moments.

So is that one I just said recently around some people in

the, in that group didn't get it.

Um, and I'm all, I'm, I've, I've got a rule of thirds in mind when working with

groups is that a third are gonna get it and be inspired by it and do something.

Another third would be going, I, I really dunno.

I have way, what the hell's going on?

And then another third in me saying, that's ridiculous.

So, and if I hit that, Then, yeah, I, I reckon I'm doing well.

But the one that always comes to mind was one of the first workshops that I did.

Then it was for a university with, um, the senior faculty of a university and

some of the staff, and this must have been 15 years ago, just, uh, just as

I started going out on my own and they wanted to work on uncertainty or I

dunno, agility or something like that.

So I was just gonna do a load of, Improvisation exercises with them.

And I couldn't get them to do anything.

Every time I say, right, let's do this.

They wanted to know why.

They wanted to know the theory, they wanted to know that.

And we, we'd do like some simple, I dunno, even just yes.

And stuff.

And they'd be wanting, before they began, they'd be wanting

to know the theory behind it.

And they'd say, no, no, I've done this before.

Um, what new stuff have you got?

Type of thing.

And I was hating every moment of it.

And then, so he got to lunchtime and I just said that I'm not enjoying this.

You don't seem to be enjoying it.

If you don't wanna come back after break, don't come back.

And then we went to break and none of the faculty came back who were, I mean,

this might have been a coincidence.

All of the faculty were, um, middle-aged boarding white men with beards.

none of them came back.

but the staff came back.

So we had a much smaller group of maybe six people instead of 16 people.

And we had a brilliant afternoon, but that clearly wasn't working, that

they clearly weren't interested in it.

And I think there's a couple of times like we've talks or workshops that haven't

worked for me where There's a difference between preparation that is helpful and

preparation that you feel you should be doing so that you feel you've prepared.

Um, and I, I try and avoid that, but I think there was a couple of

workshops or talks where I, I don't think it was going into an arrogance,

but it's just me thinking, yeah, I got this and I hadn't done that.

Helpful preparation.

I always, I always like a bit of an edge.

I always.

Worry about a workshop or a talk the day before.

Not, not obsessively, but there's that, maybe it's adrenaline.

There's been a couple of times when I've not had that and I've thought,

nah, that's not been very good.

so again, that's that importance of what's that balance between me, between

knowing and not knowing, just enough

preparation and not.

And, you got any, , experiences of kind of working

with organizations where you were like, that was bloody amazing.

Yeah, there's, um, again, it, it depends on, I don't

think there's any such thing as like a creative organization.

I mean, the philosophy I think is the organization doesn't exist.

It's a patterning of relationships.

Um, but you sometimes get pockets of.

people or collectives of people that just fly it.

And there's, there was a Dutch company I worked with for years

and just doing some work around innovation and we'd do this weird.

Day of inventing nonsense.

That was nothing to do with our industry and in, but seriously inventing

it, not just coming up with a name.

We'd, we'd spent ages developing these ideas and expanding them, and then getting

into, like, making rapid prototypes.

So for me, a rapid prototype is, uh, an experiment to fail cheap, fast, and happy.

Nice.

And when I've done this with groups before, people might

get a flip chart and draw some sort of like half shy picture of this

strange invention, but consistently with these, these, um, groups in this

organization, they would go for it.

And I remember them in the venue.

I, I was in one group went out and they went and bought some curtains.

From a shop down the road and created this immersive experience that

we'd go in to see their invention.

And everyone went into the kitchen of the venue and got this massive

vat and filled it with water and they were come, they were struggling

to get water in, so then they got a porter to help them bring it in.

And it was just that, that total commitment to this pointless thing.

And I loved working with them so much.

and I, I'd give them some simple little experiments, um, like ways of getting

unstuck, quick ways of getting unstuck.

So you'll be familiar with the improv, um, game Eight things.

So stand in a circle.

Well, we, we'd do a

musical version, don't we?

Someone goes in the middle and name eight things.

Um, and so I used to do that and they loved it, and I went back to visit them,

uh, a couple of years later in Amsterdam.

And they, they call it the fast eights.

And they just do it everywhere.

And it's just like, no, we need to do some fast date.

And then they'll just jump up.

I mean, this is a big organization and it's moments like that where I think

this has now taken on the life of its own way beyond the work that we did here.

Um, and so there's probably a number of things there.

I mean, there, there'd be something about the Dutch

culture.

Of being bold and, um, at least the, I've worked with quite

a lot of Dutch organizations.

There seems to be a greater willingness to go out there a bit.

there's also the permission that they gave themselves, the permission

I gave them, there was genuinely a space for play and experimentation.

So there would've been so many different things going on there compared

to that first room of academics.

And then I would've been, I would've been more confident as well.

I mean, there's at least a 10 year gap between those two stories.

I would've been more comfortable having done more experimental

and I love the fact that, was total commitment to

a pointless thing, and cuz you.

You did a project called the Not a Lost Cat project, which you

describe as being utterly pointless.

So, listener Steve is holding up a poster from the Not Alo Lost Cat Project.

Do you wanna do, do, you wanna tell,

There's always

got one to

hand.

experiment?

Yeah.

And I just, I describe that as an utterly pointless project.

Um, so a number of the project, I call them projects, they're like conceptual

art projects are like art activism project, I dunno what you wanna call them.

They tend to have a.

At least an intention.

So I did, uh, hosted the World's first silent

You

did and my son at age three was

on

it, and he was completely silent.

He was, he was, um, he was episode 89 of 100.

I've got them all written up on the wall here, but with a silent podcast project.

It was an experiment.

And my, my question was, what's the opposite of a podcast?

How can that challenge.

Our addiction to, to content.

How can that challenge, um, people buying our attention, et cetera.

But the Lost Cat Project had no point to it.

And I was out walking my dog in the woods and I saw a lost

cat poster in the distance.

And I thought, I can't be bothered to walk over there.

It's out of my way.

Like I'm in London.

I saw, I walk in a straight line between places.

I don't deviate, but there's something about this cat poster.

I thought, no, I'm gonna go over.

And I walked over and it was just this most magnificent cat with massive

ears and it was slightly cross-eyed.

Um, it just looked like a weird cat.

Um, and at the bottom it said, take a photo of this poster, share it with all

your friends to help bring him home.

Which is a nice way of finding a cat.

And I thought, well, I wonder if this person just thinks that

their cat is so amazing that they just want it to go viral.

Maybe it's not even lost.

Maybe it's just like, look at my brilliant cat.

Send these pictures around.

So I went home and painted my own fake version of it, and it just says, this is

not one of those posters about a lost cat.

My cat isn't lost.

I don't even have a cat.

I just wanted to show you my painting of this magnificent beast.

And that was it.

I painted it on lay free bit of Bristol board and I, I put it on

Instagram and loads of people loved it and said, can I have a copy of it?

So I made some copies and then more people wanted it.

And I thought, well, there's something going on here.

And this is the, this principle of the improvisation principle

of what's the offer here?

What there's an offer here.

There's some things emerging, and it's like people like this, this thing.

So I turned it into some posters.

And I put 10 posters up in shortage and then more people

said, can I have a poster?

And a journalist got in contact saying, what's all this about?

And I said to him, I dunno, he's just a poster.

And then to cut a long story short, over a period of a year, um, it's

probably a year and a half now.

There are now over 4,000 lost cat posters in 52 countries on every

single continent in the world where people have got them and they can

get them for free from my website.

They have to cover postage at the start.

I've covered postage and then realized that it just costing me too much money.

and people just love being part of this pointless thing.

And they get a poster and they put it up wherever they

are and send me a photo back.

Oh, it's such.

And on the website there's a, there's an interactive map,

so you can see a poster in Antarctica.

There's something, uh, one in Bangalore.

There's one in Hollywood.

Um, it's in South America.

I just had one from Greenland recently.

and again, that's another thing where I'm not in charge of that project anymore,

that it's, it has a life of its own.

It goes wherever it wants to go.

and then all of a sudden I'll get hundreds of orders.

And there was an article in the Observer Magazine about

it, so everyone orders them.

And then, I think Creative Block wrote an article about it and Zoe Ball mentioned

it on her breakfast show last year.

And it's just, it just keeps growing and growing.

But similar to that Dutch company.

That's the thing that I love, is that, what I do is I ask the curious question.

I wonder what happened if I put these posters up and then my job

is to let it go wherever it goes.

I'm just nudging it.

I'm just yes, ending it.

I'm just prodding it in the right direction.

And then what was brilliant, it's a market.

So many marketing companies have said to me, we'd spend a

fortune on something like that.

Wouldn't, wouldn't be successful.

So what's the secret?

And I said, I think the secret is there's no point to it whatsoever.

it doesn't make, it's not for profit.

It isn't the, an advert for cat food or something like that.

Um, and I think people just enjoy the

pointlessness of it.

And I think there's something so interesting cuz if, if

you, if you look at it now and chart back, you know, this one whimsical thing

that you did because you were curious has created this like infinite world of

possibility and fun and randomness and.

Play and hilarity and you could never know in that moment like

that, that curious act of yours would just lead to this explosion.

And I think there's, there's a leap of faith like it, you know,

cuz this is you, this is you as an artist pursuing your curiosity.

But think if you're thinking about people working in organizations,

there needs to be a similar.

Space for pointlessness space to do things because you are, you think it

sounds fine or interesting, but you don't actually know where it's gonna go.

No.

And that's, that's the thing is if I'd not walked over to that poster,

then this wouldn't have happened.

And whilst the Lost Cat project has made me no money, the, it's been brilliant

marketing, accidental marketing.

So it's led to other stuff for me.

But if I'd not, if I'd ignored that poster, then it wouldn't have happened.

And as if I, I often tell that story to illustrate a really important point

to me about creativity and ideas.

Because people say like, where do you get ideas?

Where do I get my ideas from?

It's like I, that's such a strange question.

What do you mean they're everywhere?

And I think it's, cuz I got a, a neurodiverse brain is I see

the world in patterns anyway.

So I'm predisposed.

I mean, most dyslexic are autistic and various other people will

see the world in that way.

then it's also, there's a concept.

Which I can't remember if I said to you before, but I've certainly not

said it on this podcast, from a guy called ar Mendel, which is quantum

Oh, I've never heard of it, but I

love the name of it.

Yeah.

Quantum flirting, even if you don't, even if I don't explain it,

quant quantum flirting has become such an important way of articulating of

how I, like to interact with the world.

So this is saying instead of, Choosing where to put your attention.

It's letting go and allowing yourself to tune into what's

calling for your attention.

Yeah.

So I always say, you don't need to have ideas, you need to quiet so

you can hear the ideas whispering to you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that, that's the thing, is to be open.

It's the same like with with workshops.

I'll have enough of a structure, but then I want to be tuned

into what's whispering for me.

And in that moment, that cat poster was going, come over here and I, I had

no logical reason to go over there.

I didn't think I'm gonna go over there cuz that might lead to a big thing.

And it was that, that principle of quantum flirting of like, oh no, I

need to follow my gut instinct here.

Um, and all of my work is led by gut instincts, which causes

big arguments with my head.

My head's going actually stupid.

gut instincts going, no, we are doing it anyway.

Um, but yeah, so that principle of quantum flirting of you,

our job is to be open to the

quiet whispers.

And I think that links back with a nature thing of if you're, if you're

making yourself feel on the edge of the everyday feeling like I'm home to

you, it's much, there's, yeah, there's so many things that you can tune into.

how do you do that for yourself?

I don't know is the honest answer.

I don't know.

But I've managed to, I guess through loads and loads of little experiments.

I couldn't tell you what my process is other than it sort of works and I,

I have learned to mistrust anything that smell that seems too concrete.

Um, Alfred, north Whitehead called it the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

anything that's like if I go, oh, this is my process, this is how it works.

I've learned to be suspicious of that thinking.

No, that's a, that's a simplified abstraction of something that's far

more complex.

I love that.

But I, I think it's, it's, it's, again, it's rapid prototyping.

It's failing cheap, fast, and happy.

Maybe I did it once in a workshop and then I did something else

and I did something else.

And then I've got a whole talk that I do now, um, about all these projects.

And they're all projects that have come from practicing this.

So I've learned to trust that gut feel, which isn't easy because it's,

it means you trust your gut feel in very difficult things in life as well.

Um, which, so it's not, it's not all fun and games, that's just one side

of it, but it's like, okay, there's difficult decisions, difficult

conversations, difficult things to do.

It's all part of the

same process.

And it's brave.

Yeah, there's, it's almost, I'm never sure if it's brave.

Um, I think other people perceive it as brave, but for

me it's like I can't not do it.

It's like, why?

Where do I get the motivation to carry on doing, I dunno, the, the Sound of

Silence podcast for two and a half years, and it's like, I can't not do it.

Believe me.

There were moments in that podcast where, I hate this, I just wanna chuck it.

It's, it's ridiculous.

It's taken up too much for my time.

Yeah, I just can't

Mm, lovely.

So before we finish, I wondered if you had a, had a game or a playful

practice you wanted to share.

give me two letters of the alphabet.

Um, B and S

Okay.

This is, uh, a game called, b.

oh b

Okay.

I love that game.

b

Salute.

So I am going to, make three different sounds.

One is a B, one is a wasp and one is a mosquito.

when I do the B one, I would like you to salute.

Okay?

Um, but if you do it on the wrong one, you're out of the game.

Okay.

But you might, you might need to say salute

cuz it's a podcast.

Okay.

This is how we play be salute.

So I'm gonna let you hear the three different sounds, first of all, and then

the second time we're playing for real.

Okay, so sound number one.

Okay?

Sound number two is

yeah.

and sound number three.

Okay.

you ready?

We're gonna play it for real now, and as soon as you hear that

sound, I'm gonna randomize them.

They won't be in the same order.

You just

need to

yeah.

yeah.

Salute.

Salute.

Correct.

Yes.

that's how

that's how

you

play.

Be

Okay.

So ladies and gentlemen, we have, Steve has just invented and never played before.

Game be salute,

Yeah, I mean, that's one of my, my favorite things to do is come up

with two letters and then invent the game.

Actually, I might do that at this facilitation

course next

I, that just sounds brilliant.

And when I have got people to invent games, they're

always amazing and hilarious

and

They're the best

Yeah.

and the commitment that people show is astounding.

Yeah.

And you got it.

You got it right.

And of course, whatever one you saluted to, I was gonna say yes, that's it.

Because that's, that's the thing.

There's this brilliant story in orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon Mackenzie,

which I dunno if you've read that.

It's a lovely book.

There's a bit where he bec, he gets a role, a job in Hallmark

cards as the creative paradox.

And he doesn't know what the job is and no one knows, but he has a throne

in his little office and candles, and he sits there like a guru and people

start coming in and saying to him, oh.

Gordon, I've got an idea.

Um, can I, is this your job as a creative paradox?

And he goes, yeah.

Yep.

And so they'd share their ideas with him and he'd go, I think it's brilliant.

I think you should do it.

But he used to say that to every single person that came in.

Um, but they didn't know.

He said it to every single person.

that's, that's what I thought of with be salute is whatever you say

It's the right answer.

and

and that's a lovely in, in your, , creative practices that

you have, making others look good.

Is in there

Yeah,

with

other people.

yeah, absolutely.

It's one

of

the things

from years of improv, um, that really all you need

to do, all you need to do is

say yes and make the other

Yeah.

Well, Steve, thank you so much for coming on, why Play Works.

It's been an absolute delight to talk to you.

and if you want to find out more about Steve's work, we'll put all

the links to his weird and wonderful catalog of projects, um, and your web.

Do you want to share your website?

yes, there's loads for 'em, but the easiest one to go to is

canned

scorpion smoke.com.

Then that will link you,

to all the

other

worlds.

And also probably set off a whole load of curious questions

about why Earth it's called that.

Um, thank you,

thank you so much for having me.

You're welcome.

So Lucy, what were your reflections on your

lovely conversation with Steve?

Well, it was a lovely conversation.

It was like really joyful.

Um, he's been a mentor of mine for a long time, so it's just really nice to have

this free flowing conversation with him.

I really like the idea of play as a verb and that sense of curious, curious thing,

I think you said, and it being a flow state and this kind of symbiotic dance

with your experience, like for me, that,

, really is helpful in terms of.

Evoking the state of playfulness.

I think those words are really rich.

Mm, completely agree.

I really liked when you opened the conversation and you were asking

him what the work play meant to him.

And for him it was all about, as you say, curiosity.

That was the word that kept coming out and experimentation.

It was, you know, I think for all of us, you go straight to fun.

It's really fun.

It's really enjoyable, which it is, and that's great.

But yeah, for him it was all around the idea of, of curious and experimenting, and

I really liked his reflections on that.

And I think, you know, I feel like he brings a really bold,

courageous approach to this work.

His, um, you know, as an outsider, you need to be on the edge of being

fired, otherwise you are just kind of keeping the status quo in place, which

is ultimately not what people need.

Or, I mean, they probably.

Don't want the discomfort that comes with real change, but they need it.

And I think, um, just interesting to hear about the vulnerability and the

pushback when he speaks about experiments and the discomfort that they require.

And as leaders within organizations, you know, what are

you prepared to let go of like.

How far out of your comfort zone are you prepared to go and kind of

acknowledging that there's a relationship between your comfort and the degree

of change you're gonna be able to make, I thought was really insightful.

I could not agree more.

Such, such a rich point and kind of linked to that, this idea of how kind

of businesses today and businesses, individuals as well, were kind of

hooked on this idea of paying people to come in and tell us the right answer.

I think were the words he used and his, as you say, pushback against that

and the honesty that he brings by not being able to guarantee an outcome.

And just, just kind of saying that that is what you're gonna get.

You don't know what you're gonna get.

I can't guarantee we're gonna achieve this outcome.

And as you say, the discomfort that a lot of people have around that

and yeah, just how refreshing his honesty, um, was on that front.

Yeah, and I, I can feel it in myself like this desire to be

able to tell clients like what we're gonna get out it and the discomfort.

In my own being of doing pointless things, but I love how brave he is

around doing pointless stuff and, and actually the well of creativity

and freedom and experimentation and unimagined outcomes that come from

just having the confidence to hold a space which is seemingly pointless.

And having that faith that actually when you look back.

There will be a whole raft of things that you could not have imagined from

that point at which you were starting.

Hmm.

Yeah, completely.

And this idea of his, his own kind of playfulness, creating an environment

of safe uncertainty and, you know, it's clear that kind of uncertainty runs Yeah.

As you know, as a thread throughout his work, but, How to make that feel safe.

So, and I love this idea of kind of your, you're being held in a

space that is ultimately safe, but that space is uncertain.

So you don't know what's gonna happen in it, but you will be safe.

And I just love that juxtaposition of kind of safety, but also

uncertainty in playing with that.

Yeah.

And the just enoughness, just enough structure, just enough preparation.

Um, yeah, really nice.

What else stood out for you?

Definitely the un home prompt.

I mean, I've never even heard that word before, but this idea of how

can I make myself feel a little bit un home in my everyday world?

Um, and just what a lovely prompt that was to, to kind of restore to the

point of wonder when you look around and think how strange the world is.

And just forcing that, just even the word on home is, is just.

Oh, I just love that prompt and this idea of the, you know, the kind of patterns and

it was like, you know, some patterns are helpful, like crossing the road, like I'm

pretty happy to stay with that pattern.

But yeah, just kind of looking at things with that un home eye.

If you just landed here and this wasn't home to you, kind of what, what

would you find strange or wondrous?

I just thought was yeah, a lovely prompt.

How

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, Anna, really joy, it's really joyful.

Hmm.

know, if you can turn your everyday experience

into a place of wonder, like, wow, what a great way to live.

I loved that concept of quantum flirting and allowing yourself to be called by

your attention and being open to those quiet whispers and following your nose.

And I, I can really.

You know, I know the times in my life when I've been really open in that way have

led to like brilliant, magical things.

Mm.

Um, and it, for me, it was a reminder to do that more.

Yeah, I completely agree.

That was, that was the last takeaway that I, I just, I loved quantum flirting.

It's like, it, I, and there's something really like the, the word

like embodying keeps coming up.

When I think about that, it's like, how can you embody that

idea of quantum flirting?

Like, how are you gonna move through the world with other people, with the

environment around you, with nature, with ideas like, And yeah, the, the,

the hearing, the quiet whispers, in our busy, busy, busy lives and busy

brains, like being attuned to those I think could be really powerful.

But yeah, just, I don't even know what that concept means really

yet for me, quantum flirting.

But I, it definitely grabbed me and I intend to quantum flirt, um,

Yes.

as much as I can.

Here's to quantum flirting.

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