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 Tavanier
• Make play accessible
• Practicing playfulness is an ongoing journey
• The need to be light footed, create space for experimentation, and try different ways of doing things
• Playfulness is about giving people choice and agency

Links

• Lucy Hawthorne LinkedIn
• Climate Play
• Yana Buhrer Tavanier - How to recover from activism burnout
• Carol Dweck - Growth Mindset
• Catherine Wilkes’ Shoopery

Hello.

Welcome to the show.

I'm Suki Stewart from playfield, a startup helping organizations to enable

everyone to rediscover their creativity through playful wonder and serendipity.

And I'm Lucy Taylor from Mate Work Play an organization

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

Together we are.

Why Play Works, the podcast that speaks to people radically reshaping work as play.

Tzuki Stewart Intro (enhanced): Today I have the pleasure of speaking

with Lucy Hawthorne, a campaigner at heart and founder of Climate

Play through play-based programs.

She helps make it safe, light, and fun for people to face climate change.

Combining Lego with climate psychology and social change

theory, Lucy helps organizations to engage more honestly, deeply,

and creatively with climate change.

Whether they're just getting started or have gotten stuck.

Having spent a while in the NGO scene, she became concerned that the

heaviness of the conversation was affecting people's energy to act.

As a qualified coach and Lego Serious play.

Facilitator, Lucy now challenges the norm of serious seriousness as

the best way to get things done.

In our conversation today, we explore

the significance of playfulness when engaging with serious topics.

Lego as a medium to understand and articulate ideas, feelings, and

beliefs more honestly and simply, and the relationship between play

and gamification in learning.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi Lucy.

It's so great to have you.

Thanks so much for coming on today.

Hello.

Thanks very much for inviting me.

I'm very excited to talk about all things play.

So let's kick off.

I'd love to hear what the word play means to you.

Well.

I guess the word that comes to mind for me is mischief, followed by

experimentation and, but I guess that's for me how I like to play.

I guess the thing with play is it's obviously there's two sides of it, right?

So there's, play is a state of mind or playfulness is a state

of mind and a way of being.

and I think that's really important as an attribute to develop, which

I'm sure we might talk about that.

There's obviously play as approaches and methods, and I'm

a learning, specialist I guess.

So I'm interested in how we use playful methods to cultivate playful attributes.

Absolutely.

I can't resist asking you to unpack the mischief a little bit.

So maybe, and maybe that leads me to the next question, which is what is your

earliest or favorite memory of play?

and has mischief always been a part of that?

I guess I, I think I've always been one of those people

that's, I think I've always been a sort of young child and an old lady trapped

in an adult's body, to be honest.

So I think, the mischief thing is, For me, it's all about having that

glint in your eye and a cheeky grin.

so I think often when people think about play, they, they think about

running round really fast or being super extroverted, but for me it's

actually more about, a kind of, a little bit of a sense of humor with things.

and I guess I've always been like that really of slightly cheeky

and irreverent, but never too provocative, which I guess is the.

The concept of my work, which I'm sure we'll come onto, but my earliest memories,

my very earliest memory, that comes to mind is standing in a garden with

one of my uncles and he had a bucket.

I probably would've been about four, I think, and he had a bucket

with water, and he was just simply swinging the bucket around, insert.

And my four year old little brain could not understand how

the water was not falling out.

Like I just couldn't get it.

And I really remember having this probably very dangerous game of trying to, as

he swung the bucket round of trying to get my hand in there and see if I

could get the water out, which, wasn't particularly good child supervision.

But I guess there's something there about just raw curiosity

and a bit of a challenge.

so I was asked as a real kid, but then there's another memory that

comes into mind of being a little bit older, probably a teenager actually.

And this is an example I give, in some of my work is as me and my lifelong best

friend, my cousin in the summer holidays.

and this is, before, The world went super digital, I guess.

and what we would do is we would call each other up on the landline.

We'd get an A to Z of wall the Hampton out, and we'd pick a random page, and

then we'd pick a, you know, one of us would pick a letter and one of us would

pick a number, and then we'd walk from our own respective sides of the town to

try and find each other in the square

Wow.

because I'm a massive geek.

and I love maps.

But I think that also is just for me, plays about, it's about exploration at

just being curious and just finding stuff out and a little bit of a challenge.

It's quite niche.

It's a niche example.

I don't think anybody else on your podcast will have said that one.

I'm here for the niche.

Is your cousin as big a fan of maps and challenge and exploration as well.

She's oh, really nice again.

I mean, I think he

Oh, sorry.

I dunno why I

Yeah, that's all right.

He still holds the same curiosity.

And we have talked at various points of reigniting this challenge, without

smartphones, but I think people have, invented that in TV game shows.

But we were there first.

you were the OGs.

Amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

So tell me more about Climate Play and how it came to be born.

thanks.

So I guess climate play is an antidote.

To the norm of serious seriousness

when we think around climate change and sustainability.

and in essence it's a learning and development organization that tries

to help unlock more radical climate action through play and playfulness.

So that's the concept of it.

And the reasoning for it is that I'm trying to make it, I say I'm trying

to make it safe, light, and fun for people to face climate change.

So that people can engage more deeply, honestly, and creatively.

So that's my reasoning behind it really.

and I guess the, or the origins of that, I'll talk a bit about what that

physically looks like in a minute.

But the origins of that came very much from my experiences of working as an

environmental campaigner and a social issues campaigner for about 15 years.

Really.

And at the point when I was most successful, I became most jaded.

So I was really heavily involved in the last couple of years, like the

key kind of turning point stages of theban fracking in the uk.

we did a great job and we won, and that is a big, that's a huge achievement.

but I really left, I was left with a couple of really key reflections

and one is that we'd become really good at playing the games politics.

And we were really good at, influencing, but ultimately what we were doing is

moving the pieces of self-interest around the board rather than deeply

changing people's minds and hearts on the issues and thinking that in regards

to our political targets, but also just really noticing that the way in

which we were trying to engage people.

Felt like we were either fearing or forcing them into action rather

than organically or naturally leading people towards us.

And so climate play, I try to think about, well, how can I create conversations

and events and actions that people actually want to be involved in rather

than only feeling like they should?

And I guess the third aspect of it is understanding that in some ways the

environmental movement, and I think that's probably the case for other movements,

has a real problem with perfectionism.

Like a really serious and corrosive problem with perfectionism and needing

to get everything right and to be able to hold your head up high because

you've done things in the right way.

And unfortunately, it just polarizes people and it puts 'em off.

So climate play is very much born from a kind of pragmatic belief of if we

can find ways of helping people to engage, you will achieve better impact.

So that's the kind of backdrop of it.

so there's a nice, big exciting, pitch to it.

And then practically what that means is that I run workshops, I run play-based

workshops with a lot of Lego to help businesses and other organizations.

Work out the human barriers to action.

So we know that climate change is a bad thing, but how do we

help people move towards action and create a space for people to

engage in the human dynamics of it?

I love that point around perfectionism immobilizing

us and I'll can hear more about it.

you also use the term plagiarism I'd love to hear more.

What does that mean?

Unpack that for us.

so I spent many years working kind of activist or

campaigning spaces, and I guess that piece around perfectionism, resonates

here cuz I think playfulness and perfectionism are complete opposites.

And so if I'm being conceptual, I think my work is quite countercultural in that way.

But the.

the word pla aist, I've slightly nicked it from somebody else.

And there's a brilliant woman called, Yana Burra Tia, and she's got a fantastic

Ted talk on activist burnout, which I would definitely recommend, you watching.

And she's a human rights activist and she calls herself a PLA activist.

and in that talk, she's got this brilliant quote to me that summarizes the whole

point, which is that our outcomes are not meant to be playful, but our process is.

So to me, plagiarism is about how do you hold the gravity and the seriousness of

the issues that you're engaging with, whatever your context, but understand and

allow for different ways of achieving the

outcomes.

Now, sometimes we do need to be really stoic, and sometimes we do,

of course, need to be really serious.

But I think there's just something about thinking about

what are the most effective ways.

To get people involved, help them stay involved, and to

become more deeply involved.

And so much of that is about culture and how we interact with each other.

So a lot of my work is about trying to create an atmosphere that's conducive, and

that is with a very pragmatic head on it.

So it's not saying, don't come to one of my workshops for escapism,

but do confer to one of my workshops if you want to engage.

That you are scared of doing it in the way that we're, we are used to.

and so I guess some of the thing with plagiarism or play-based activism

is just thinking about, what is it that you are trying to achieve and

being really clear on your focus?

And if you can try and find ways of playfully engaging people to

get involved in that, you are likely to be more effective.

So whether you're organizing a.

Protest March or a party in your village square.

If you can use play in a way to help engage people in the way that you need to,

you are probably gonna be more effective.

Yeah, I think the implications of that go so far and wide

the decoupling of process by which we reach an outcome and the outcome itself,

and that's has huge implications.

Yeah, and it's quite, it's counterintuitive sometimes, and

I guess that's where the balance of.

serious and light and silly, serious, and these things fall in.

But I think also that there's a lot of people that are trying not to

be escapist about the issues, but they are definitely escapist about

the way in which they are engaged.

And so I become a bit of a, a bit obsessed with this approach of how do we engage

people on things that matter to them.

Because we know there's loads of evidence.

It constantly comes out about how people want to engage in line with their values.

And on the subject of climate change, we

know that overwhelmingly in the UK here, we know overwhelmingly

people support greener action.

they want to

achieve net zero, they want it, but we just need to be really

pragmatic on how we can help people engage in the subjects that is.

Polarizing.

Scary, annoying.

It is annoying.

It's very annoying.

you mentioned how you, that you used Lego as part of your

work, so I'd love to bring that to life.

Do you have some examples that you can share in terms of how

you use Lego in your workshops?

So I use a lot of Lego serious play, but I, you

know, I adapt it to the context.

So I'm a little bit flexible with it.

the key thing with Lego is that obviously it's based around metaphor

and storytelling, but that particularly, it's really good for creating a safer

conversation because the Lego works like an intermediary cuz you build into your

Lego and then you describe your model.

And that just allows a little bit, there's an extra step of

psychological safety for people.

So a lot of my work is based around less of the technical

aspects around climate change.

So I don't tend to do work with people that's, anything technical at all.

It's more about how people engage with each other because it's

really breakthrough at surfacing assumptions, beliefs, values, feelings.

So a couple of examples I can give of when I've worked with companies and have really

quite significant results of, one company.

For example, I was brought in by the sustainability lead to

try and see if, we could create more of a, an organization wide

conversation around climate change and

brilliant leadership team and other, senior staff.

And so we ran, a half day workshop.

in three and a half hours, what can you do?

And using Lego as a way to help people reflect on their piece of the puzzle

within the organization, and then to bring that together collaboratively

and see where everybody else's pieces of the puzzle fit together.

we were able to, in three, three and a half hours, fundamentally look at the

business model of the organization and say, actually, how well aligned is it

to their values around sustainability?

And so that has a very practical dimension to it.

But really the secret there was it just helped 'em communicate.

It just helped 'em communicate and it helped them to, understand the stresses

and challenges and the fears that they had, the assumptions they had around how

they might be judged with by their peers.

All of that really superhuman stuff.

And by the end of it, essentially they'd.

Come to a conclusion that they were gonna shift their business model

away from flights and towards trains.

and that's in three and a half hours.

And that's just one example.

there's plenty of other ways in which I've used it, so around

this theme of human connections.

So I've done quite a bit of work with, say, sustainability consultants

or freelancers and dealing with the very human challenges of

isolation and needing community.

Thinking about how do they find the energy to keep, doing what they're doing?

So the trick is really understanding, the needs of those groups.

So what are their barriers to action?

And

then just literally designing playful opportunities for them to

explore it, where you're taking the sting out of their reality.

and you give them a prompt and kind of Lego

blocks to, to build something that manifests how they might be.

Feeling without the need for articulation through words.

Yeah, cuz there's massive limitations, with language.

But the principle with the Lego series play, the key principle

is that each brick is a metaphor.

So you take people through a process of getting them used to playings

Lego again, cause most people have forgotten unless they've got kids.

And you take them through a process where they get used to that again and

you stretch their kind of metaphorical muscles and their storytelling muscles.

And then you just go through processes where you ask some very sharp questions.

So you need

to know your crowd very well here.

And a lot of this is really just about good facilitation.

As much as

it is play methods, you know, really have done your work and you ask them

the right questions, people build their answers, and then everybody shares.

So you get a real brilliant reduction of hierarchy because

everyone builds, everyone shares.

And so it's a very kind of collaborative.

Form of play.

so the main thing I tend to do is Lego.

And the reason for that is because it's got a very low barrier for entry.

So I'm all about making play accessible.

So people are afraid of climate change and they're afraid of playing

as an adult because they're worried they won't be taken seriously.

So there's loads of other playful interventions.

there's thousands of different ways we can approach things, but

there is just something about the familiarity and ease of their going.

That just allows people in, which is why I tend to overuse it possibly.

I'm not sure it's possible to use that.

And you've mentioned.

Earlier in our conversation, the kind of tension that does exist between this idea

of being playful with your methods and what feels like serious weighty topics.

So how do you work with maybe your own discomfort around that,

or especially imagine others discomfort around that tension.

A similar tension that a lot of people working in play will

have, because whether you are working on, say, leadership programs in play,

it's all about the notion of needing to be serious you know, that norm of

serious seriousness I mentioned it's just born from, it's born from capitalism

essentially.

and how we're replicating that in all.

Corners of our life.

I think I get a mix of the way that people engage with my work is quite mixed.

Some people are like magnetized to it and they get it really quickly

and they're just up for a bit of joy and a bit of experimentation.

Other people are a bit more suspicious, so guess that plays out.

Most commonly when I'm working for an organization and the

attendees themselves haven't necessarily consented to play in the

same way.

yes.

this is a very familiar facilitator's

challenge.

Generally what happens there is that people soften after a bit

when they see that it works.

And when they see that they don't have to be silly, because

I don't push it too far, really,

they see the value of it and ultimately people do tend to follow their peers.

so I guess those, you know, those questions are.

Are a challenge, but I think I've been a bit surprised really,

that I thought I would get more kickback than I actually do.

I definitely get rolled eyes, and I wouldn't say it, it clicks with

everybody, but does it have to, there's a million different ways we

can approach things and for me, you asked about how this works for me is.

This, the development of this line of work has been really helpful

for me of understanding my role

and how I contribute to these really big issues.

And so for me it's really quite settling in a way to understand that this is

what I can do, this is what I can't do.

And actually if trying to contribute by making some spaces that make it

a bit more helpful and conducive for people is quite helpful.

I guess just one other point is around, I mentioned psychological

safety before, so people are afraid of both dimensions of my work.

And so in the way in which I design sessions and I guess the tone

through which I try to communicate with people is just about trying to

help people lower their barriers.

So practically as a facilitator, I really think about room dynamics, the dynamics

of how it's facilitated, who speaks when, what my role is, all of that stuff.

So you're thinking about power and those questions, but also just making sure you

don't, people don't walk into the room and then suddenly you make them put on a

silly hat and start dancing on the tables.

Yeah.

And alienate.

Yeah,

It's not a wedding reception.

That's such an interesting point that both sides of the coin

that you're working with can feel daunting, even if it's not intended to.

And that's a really interesting point that there's a.

For some people, there'll be a double challenge in that.

And I guess it comes back to the thing around

play being, something to develop.

it's about it being a skill or an attribute to develop, to be willing to try

and develop and do that in your own way.

So I very much think about playfulness being a real key kind

of 21st century attribute in the same way that we think about the

other buzzwords around resilience or ability to deal with uncertainty.

Because, the earth is moving very fast beneath our feet and

we need to be on our tippy toes.

So being able to practice playfulness is.

Is just an ongoing journey, and I'm definitely included in that myself.

Yeah, absolutely.

Me too.

so yeah, let's go there.

Why do you think the.

Ability to engage in playfulness using playful methods of working is important

both today and into the future.

I suppose there's just something about being lightfoot about it.

So if everything we did was completely playful, it would be a bit of a problem.

So in the context of climate change, in no way just to let

make, let me make this very clear.

I do not think that we should only talk about climate change through the

medium of Lego because sometimes we need much more kind of hardline actions.

But there is just something about creating spaces where you can experiment and try

stuff without worrying about consequences.

Now that feels counter-cultural on issues like, racial equity or climate

change because there's a real poverty, because there's a huge sense of urgency.

But it's about being willing to experiment and try things and just

see what happens and learn as you go.

So it's very strong connections with Carol Dweck, growth mindset stuff.

so the ability to just experiment and see what you learned and then that.

Ladder or the steps between play creativity and innovation is that if

you can give yourself more space to try stuff without worrying whether

it's gonna work or not, you'll, whatever you do end up investing

in is more likely to work better.

but I also think there's just something about trying to.

Hold the seriousness without being utterly miserable at the same time because it,

the seriousness isn't gonna go away, and that takes a lot of guts, I think.

And do you think this need to be light footed,

create space for experimentation, try different ways of doing things?

Do you think we're in a chapter of history where that's more required than before?

Or do you think it, this would always have been a kind of helpful intervention?

but one of my other childhood play fantasies was

totally time machine, so I would love to go back and see whether our world actually

bears a lot of similarity in some ways.

but yeah, things are changing really fast.

we're in a state of rapid change on literally all fronts, in terms

of our social norms, in terms of our global connectiveness and

cultural overlaps and, technology.

Everything is so fast.

And so the skill of being able to hold complexity and adapt

is just really important.

And I guess to me, playfulness is about how you do that, but with

possibly a smile on your face.

but this is all, it's all conceptual stuff, but I think it

is, you can boil that down really to willingness to experiment.

And you've mentioned before, gamification versus play and

learning environments and that is something that I've encountered lot

people thinking when you talk about play, you're talking definitely about

gamification, whereas definitely.

nuance between those things.

So what do you see the difference being between gamification versus

play and when is one helpful?

Where is the other one less

Yeah, it's a good question.

I think.

Gamification is used a lot in social movements as ways to en as ways to

engage people and just trying to make things a bit more fun, I guess pure play,

if we're gonna be technical about it.

Pure play is without clear outcomes in a way, and it's just allowing people to

follow their nose and dig what makes sense to them in their own distinctive way.

So deep.

Playful engagement.

For example, let's just take the example of the climate movement.

Deep playful engagement would be helping people understand how

they like to play and how they combine that with their interests.

So for example, I've done bits of work with activists about looking with the.

Play styles, so the Stuart Brown, eight different styles of play and

how you understand what you are Exten instinctively drawn to, and combining that

with ways that you can do your activism.

So that's playful and that's much more open and about people

interpreting things in their own way.

Gamification, is a little bit more instrumental in terms of using a

bit of fun and a bit of playfulness.

And some games to help people engage for a purpose that you've already prescribed.

So there is an outcome of this game, which is that you will learn X, Y, Z, and I'm

gonna help you get there, and you're not gonna have a horrible time in the process.

Yeah,

So that they're both really valuable approaches and there's

loads and loads of really great climate change and sustainability

related approaches that help make learning more palatable and more

effective.

So there's the.

2030 s d g game, which is about helping people understand the

sustainable development goals.

there's loads of different card games, like Greenhouse is one, there's loads of,

gamified knowledge learning approaches.

So the Financial Times, we've got this really great simulation

where you essentially have to pretend to be a global leader and

you answer a bunch of questions.

So those things are really super helpful at helping people get

on board with the knowledge.

And

I do, one of the things I do in my work is I run a monthly, run a monthly

meetup, first Thursday of the month at one o'clock UK time people, where we

look at gamified and playful approaches.

And so there's something, the benefit of the gamified things

is they're quite tangible.

So if there's a game, for example, you can take that into your workplace.

You can take that into your.

School and you've got a boundary time to do some reflection.

The broader concepts of play, is more about helping people

understand how to combine who they are with what they care about.

I, it massively simplifying what you're saying, but

I reflect on your response there.

It's this idea of gamification is almost a kind of clear road to a defined

Yeah.

area you want to explore, whereas playfulness feels

more open-ended in that you don't dunno whether that is that road's gonna lead.

Um, but as you say, massive kind of helpfulness E either way.

But it depends what you're trying to achieve, I guess

Yeah, definitely.

And I think there's something about the tangibility of games, and I guess a lot

of the work I do is, I have a workshop and all of the workshops have gone outcome.

So in a way, I'm still doing gamified learning to an extent.

It's just that I've tried to contextualize that with the bigger

challenge, which is about the.

state of being that is playfulness and that latter point, for me

has been quite a breakthrough understanding in terms of my work.

So I mentioned the classic Stewart Brown play styles, which I'm sure have

come up many times on this podcast.

But and relating to my eighties ed example is that I'm a huge explorer.

So that is, I am just that through and through.

And so for me, I'm able to harness my explorer in my work.

It is wildly curiosity inducing.

I find it fascinating, and so I'm able to be exploring on a day-to-day basis,

and that's what allows me to stay engaged in a topic that really stresses me out.

So I guess the playfulness piece is about helping people understand

what their connection is so that they're able to sustain themselves.

I'd love to hear a bit more about that in terms of how

your own play preferences can inform

Yeah.

the best way for you to engage in this.

So Absolutely.

I understand you're quite a big explorer preference.

So I have a big director preference, and actually a big physical mover

preference, with that insight, how would you, how would you suggest

I was to engage that might be different from your way of engaging?

I'd say you're probably already doing it, to be honest.

So 10 out of 10.

Um, and I'm pretty similar, so I'm also got a strong director.

I've got a bit, a good bit of the joker, but I definitely

don't like

to be, there's the mischief.

I definitely don't, like to be center stage, but I do a lot of dad jokes.

but the director thing is for me, comes out very clearly in

my work as well because it's about, for me that the way that.

Plays out is about organizing events and pulling people together.

and I'm a facilitator by trade and when I was a teenager I

was a hospital radio presenter.

So all of

these,

it's all coming out now.

Radio Warfarin.

the Hamptons Premier, premier Hospital rehab station, it was absolutely

horrific, I'm not gonna lie.

but it's all that sort of thing about trying to bring people

together and just organize stuff.

And again, that's, I do a lot of that stuff.

I've got various different side projects and I run this meetup group, so I'm

employing my, my, my explorer drives me.

My director helps me put it into action, but understanding that

as being play actually is quite enlightening because then you are

able to enjoy your work because you realize that you're actually doing it

this way because you really love it.

if you are a storyteller or you are a curator or whatever else, or you know

you're a killer seat and you really just like to get people moving, it's

really about saying, look, how can you gimme 10 ways that you could.

Bring this into your engagement with your family.

when you're talking to your kids about climate change or you're trying

to think about how to get your green network up and running at work, or any

other CO or you're trying to bring new volunteers into your community group.

It's really about trying to understand your preferences and theirs so that

you can design opportunities for people to engage that actually work for them.

Yeah.

I love that.

Okay, so you mentioned your monthly meetup.

It would be great to hear about how.

We can engage with your work, learn more about it and get involved.

Do you work with both kind of individuals and organizations?

Just give us a flavor of how people can get engaged and involved

I'd say there's three key ways.

So number one is that I work.

Predominantly with SMEs.

So they're small and medium sized businesses.

And I run workshops to help you unblock barriers to action on

sustainability and climate change.

So that tends to be about how you collaborate and how you get past

blockers in your organization.

So that's the first thing.

the second thing is, I do, a lot speaking around these issues.

I'm speaking opportunities and engagements.

It's another thing, and that's partly about, the pitch for playfulness in space,

because I think people are often really interested in, they're interested in the

story of what I'm trying to do often.

And then the third piece is about, teaching play-based engagement

in relation to climate change.

So that is a combination of bits of Lego serious play.

Other bits of creative facilitation, and also some of the kind of

play theory that we've touched on

today.

So that is, something that I'm gonna be launching as a different

approach, in addition to the other work later in the year.

That sounds fantastic.

Drawing towards the end of all of your conversation, do you have a playful

kind of practice or method that you can share, which we can take away and

try for ourselves or with other people?

what comes to mind is, it's not climate focus, but

it's totally my favorite game.

And I was taught this by a woman called Catherine Wilkes, who runs an organization

called Soup, which she uses improv to help young people And I'll describe the game.

So

you've got a bunch of people and you split them into small groups.

And, you give them a random letter.

each group has to come up with the name of a game that illiterates.

So for example, like popping pirates or something like that.

So then all of the teams share their names and everybody votes on their favorite.

So let's say popping pirates wins.

Then all of the teams then go back and have to make up some rules

for the game of popping pirates.

Everyone then shares their rules.

The different team share levels and there's another vote on the savor

game, and then everyone plays the game it's every time It's really weird.

Often very surreal.

but because you are, you're giving people ownership.

And that's one of the other things that I didn't just really talk about

too much on play about, playfulness is about giving people choice.

And, giving them agency.

So I find this game is something that's actually, it's really silly of course,

but it, you are actually starting to model, giving people like creative power.

but mainly it's just generally pretty weird.

the things that fully grown adults can come up with are, have been

the, a source of much confusion to many conference centers.

What?

What is the name of that game?

Does it have

I don't know, to be honest.

but hopefully I've explained that literally enough.

We could take that

it's weird.

into practice.

Amazing.

Thank you so much.

Is there anything that.

I should have asked you or you wish I'd asked you that I haven't in

the course of this conversation.

I can't think of that really.

But I guess one thing that I forgot to say is just if people, people wanna get in

touch is, how you can find me, which is.

You can find me@climateplay.org, so www.climateplay.org.

And if you look up, Lucy Water on LinkedIn, you'll find me.

I'm always just super curious to talk to people working in this space.

I guess one other thing I could just note how people listening to this

might be able to help me in my cause.

Yeah, put

So I'm really up for partnerships

because what I'm trying to inject into the sustainability space

is different ways of engaging.

Now, sure I can do my work and I fully trust that is effective.

But what I'd really like to be able to do is help other people do their work

more effectively through playfulness.

So I'm really up for conversations with people who are trying to

engage people but are getting stuck, and to see if there's ways.

In which we might be able to ally join forces.

Yes.

Consider it out there in the universe, the invitation.

Brilliant stuff.

Thank you so much, Lucy, for sharing your reflections and your

insights and more about your work.

It's been such a fantastic conversation.

Thank you.

it's an absolute pleasure.

Thank you very much.

Tzuki Stewart Outro (enhanced): So, Lucy, what did you think of

our conversation with other w c?

it was really inspiring That work is very close to my heart.

what she's doing is so important because, you know, that challenge

is so pressing and I work with a lot of NGOs and that sense of kind of,

Heaviness and burden and burnout.

You know, the burnout that happens in that world is intense, and so

anything that anyone can do to make that lift lighter and more

sustainable, I kind of fully salute.

Yeah.

So I just thought, go

Tzuki Stewart Outro (enhanced): yeah, absolutely.

I really liked the kind of examples she was using around.

How we'd have insights into our own ways of play and our own kind

of playful preferences to help us understand how we can sustain our

own en energy when navigating through something that we find difficult.

And you know, absolutely with climate change, but I was thinking also applies

hugely beyond that as well to anything that we might be finding a challenge.

So just kind of thinking or how, how do I like to play and how can I

use this insight to understand what you might need to do to restore that

kind of energy bank within yourself.

Really like that insight.

Yeah, that's really nice.

I really, enjoyed, I.

The fact that she brings mischief in, like, I think mischief is just such

an underrated kind of part of life.

And I really would like to see a world with a bit more mischief in and that

sense that of playfulness being like a glint in your eye and a playful

cheeky grin, um, really spoke to me.

especially, you know, in this world of seriousness and, um,

heaviness that's quite heavy.

Yeah, I think that meant something that

really, really spoke to me as well, kind of linked to that was this idea

of play as a tool to help us overcome.

Kind of crippling perfectionism.

and that's something that spoke to me really, really deeply

around how, how players almost the opposite of perfectionism.

And I think the world, the words she used were to loosen the grip.

And, uh, yeah, that just really resonated with me.

Yeah, that's really nice.

And also kind of the power of offline fun.

So I loved her example of her game that she played with her

But A to Z

Yeah.

And just thinking like, actually there's something so valuable, you know, that

was back in the eighties or nineties.

But, um, Of doing that now, just

Okay.

Taking, and as you know, our previous, one of our previous

guests, Catherine Price, you know, she's all about disconnecting from your phone.

And I felt that was a lovely example.

Like how could we bring that into those sorts of things

into our day-to-day in 2023.

Tzuki Stewart Outro (enhanced): a brilliant prompt.

I, I, I also really enjoyed hearing her effect on the way that she uses

Lego, which obviously comes up a lot in our conversations with, our playful

partners, but kind of using Lego as a way of communicating, kind of surfacing

assumptions and fears and biases and how that can remove the pressure on

us to use language to really surface those things and how we can just.

Use these amazing small pieces of, of plastic to kind of work beyond

the limits of language and surfacing those assumptions and those fears.

So I really enjoyed her kind of bringing that to life for me a little bit.

Yeah, and it kind of creates this pause where you are, you're

reflecting and you're using your hands and you're making before you then have

to put it into words this little, as you say, kind of non languaged space.

Um, and also interesting, it's kind of like a gateway drug, Lego into play.

It's like this safe thing that people have a frame of reference for.

it doesn't feel too vulnerable, so it's like a nice entry

point into playful working.

I thought that was an interesting point

I mean, I completely agree, and also I

think something that I found really helpful in this conversation was.

How much she kind of demonstrates the power of decoupling the outcome we're

seeking or the outcomes we're seeking from the means of getting there.

And that's what I'm really keen to explore with kind of play voice of

working is you might not be getting too, you know, the outcome you're

seeking might not be play, but can you take a playful path for getting there?

And I think just the conversation with Lucy was really helpful to

kind of decouple those two things for me in a really powerful way.

Yes, absolutely.

What, what else resonated with

I think the last thing, um, that's left me

with is, and probably, uh, fittingly at the kinda end of the series too,

was I just wanna ask everyone I meet for their earliest memory of play.

Because every time I've asked that in this series, it's just

invited our guests to share.

Really beautiful snippets and recollections from their past.

each ones has been this kind of glorious surprise that's so different

from anything I might have expected.

And I just have this sense of kind of, you never know what you're gonna

hear when you ask someone that.

and yeah, I just think it's, it's a lovely opener for the next time you

meet someone, in any kind of scenario.

It just invites something really, really beautiful for them to share.

Lovely.

And that is a wrap on series two.

Thanks so much for listening.

We're taking a break from recording, but are keen to explore other formats

and approaches for series three.

So if you have any ideas, we would love to hear from you, be at guest suggestions

or things you'd like to hear about.

You can get in touch with us at hello@whyplayworks.com.

Tzuki Stewart Special Outro (enhanced): And as always, if you enjoyed listening,

please do rate and review as it really helps us reach other listeners.

And if you'd like to join our growing community of People United by the idea

of play at work, you can sign up to the Playworks Collective on our homepage.

Until next time, folks, and stay playful.