Play is a powerful connector, transcending boundaries of culture and background. That’s the philosophy that Kay Scorah brings to her play practise.

Kay is a facilitator, coach, comedian, dancer, writer, and general polymath. Kay started work as a research biophysicist, before moving into market research and subsequently into advertising. She now runs HaveMoreFunlimited, working with individuals and groups to improve verbal and non-verbal communication.

Things to consider

• Set micro-challenges throughout your day, to inject a bit more play.
• If “play” feels to unstructured or lacking parameters, you can approach it as an experiment.
• The separation of work and play begins at school and permeates our society.
• How can we, as leaders, share our vulnerability and allow others to do the same?
• Allow yourself to be distracted.

Links

• HaveMoreFunlimited
• Turning the Tables conference
• Make Work Play
• Playfilled

Hello.

Welcome to the show.

My name's Lucy Taylor from Make Work Play.

And I'm Tzuki Stewart from Playfilled.

Together we are Why Play works, the podcast that speaks to

people, radically reshaping.

The idea of work as play.

Today, I'll be speaking to facilitator, coach, comedian, dancer writer, and all

round polymathic wonder, Kay Scorah.

After graduating in biochemistry, Kay started her working life as a research

biophysicist before making the rather left field move into market research,

and then advertising after working as a strategist and then planning

director at two London agencies, she quit the ad world in 1988 to start her

own business, Have More Fun Limited.

She works with individuals and groups on being 100% you and improving

communication by developing better listening skills and enhancing our use

of verbal and nonverbal expression.

She's been helped in this by studying, acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse

yoga therapy and several dance floor.

She's recently circled back to her scientist roots and began to dive deep

into academic research on the relationship between thought emotion and action.

In 2019 Kay created the Turning the Tables conference, an event where

corporate and local government leaders come to learn from young people

who've overcome extreme challenges.

She also writes, producers and performs theater and stand up comedy.

And as chair of the volunteer board of Creative Dance London.

In this episode, we explore how play can help us break old habits and find new

ways of thinking why we need to start with our bodies when it comes to play.

And the importance of finding your playful tribe.

Plus Kay gives you an enormous wealth of accessible playful

practices to take into your day.

So I'd love it.

If we could start with you just telling us a little bit about what you do and

how play fits into your kind of magical, diverse polymathic working world.

It's it's always difficult.

As you know, when people say, what do you do for me to answer that?

Because you know, 67 years I've I do quite a lot, but I guess my favorite

nickname for me, That a client came up with was the witch of noticing.

I love that.

And I like to think that that's what I do.

I notice for living.

I notice people, I noticed people as individuals, centers, groups, and then

I described to them what I notice.

And then we play with that.

I love that.

I love that kind of, um, yeah, just the presence that is implied in that.

Absolutely.

And it's such a gift, isn't it?

And you know this, that when we're brought in by other organizations,

we have the blessing of being so present because we haven't got the

whole politics, the structures, the hierarchies in our minds, we can just

be present and it's, it's a real gift.

Um, and so before we kind of dive into, you know, your stories of play

at work, I'd love to just hear from you, what does play mean for you?

Play for me is, is much more about experiment.

I like to think of play as an experiment with what's around me.

Because for me, the value of play is getting new ideas, creating solutions.

So in coming from a, originally from a science background, your experiment is the

thing that you use to make things happen, to prove that things do or don't exist.

So for me, play is a series of experiments in order to create

new ways of thinking and doing.

Yeah, I love that idea.

And that, that feels like it's, um, so accessible when you

describe it as an experiment.

Yes, yes, I need, you know, again, you and I both know this, that when we

talked to the corporate world and the systems world about play, they tend

to go, Ooh, no, not serious enough.

We can't do that.

And much as I resist being told, it's not serious enough because

players the most serious thing at, I think the word experiment helps

people to be comfortable with play.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I think it's a really great accessible way in for people who maybe don't

feel so comfortable with it.

tell me about a time, like time recently, when you have felt playful, what happened?

What was, what were you doing?

Uh, well, there's a very recent and very trivial.

I was on a call very much like this with my delightful business

partner, Paul Lopa in San Francisco.

And Paul is inclined to say at the end of our conversations.

Okay, so how are we going to end this?

And because we're both movers, it's quite often like, but what I did

is I looked around on my desk and I found a plain brown paper bag.

So, this is how we ended it.

So Kay is taking her envelope and scribbling on it with a marker.

I drew a pair of eyes on the brown paper bag, and then it became me.

It's been really great talking to you this evening and I can't

wait for us to meet again.

Bye.

Oh, I love this.

So Kay, is holding up a Jiffy bag, a paper Jiffy bag with eyes on

it and using it as a hand puppet.

I mean, looking at it, it was embodied, it was in the moment, it

was kind of inventive a bit scrappy.

Yes.

It also came from, you know, the most important thing.

And what I do is notice and get people to notice.

It's simply came from, look around my space, see what I can see.

Here's a brown paper bag.

What can I do with a bag?

I can put something in it.

So it's about noticing and then experiencing.

Noticing, touching, interacting with, and then turning it in to something.

Yeah.

That's so nice.

That sense of just inviting yourself into your environment.

Yes.

Yes.

And also I th th the other, there was an I've just thought

of another great play moment.

I have a lovely new coffee shop nearby, and I, with my friends and

neighbors tend to sit in the windows.

See.

And it's usually at the time when parents are coming back from dropping the slightly

older child at school, and they've got the very young child in the buggy.

And so we play games with the young children walking by the

winter, we play hide and seek or pulling faces or something.

And it just starts our day with such a great.

Of course, the people who are in the coffee shop thing

were bonkers, but who cares?

Who cares indeed?

And that just brings such a big smile to my face.

And I imagine a smile to the face of all those patients.

And those kiddos

Well, sometimes the kid, I was kind of going, who are these bunkers

grownups, but usually they play along.

that's so delightful.

Thank you for sharing that.

And so how do you feel that play and work relate to each other?

It's a big.

Yes, it is.

Let me start from as sort of opposite.

I think the separation of play and work is one of the

fundamental errors of our society.

So when I think of play time at school, When my son was going to school that used

to enrage me, this should all be playtime.

This is how children learn.

When do we learn the most when everything is play?

So the separation of work and play has always enriched me.

And I think one of the reasons that I was really academically successful

was I went to a primary school where we didn't separate work and play.

That everything was play that I had teachers who taught me to

add up by drawing funny faces on the board and having me count

how many faces they were and then putting a plus and a minus sign up.

Um, we did what we called ladling and pouring, which was pouring water from

one job to another, to see the difference in volume between one and another.

And I really believe that the separation of work and play.

A big mistake.

It really slows down our learning.

And I also get quite crossed that culture gets bombed in with play.

So we don't take the arts in music lessons, and art lessons

are a bit on the police side and they really shouldn't be there.

They're very serious play.

huge learning in there.

So if I don't like the separation, I don't like the hierarchy.

It's more than separation.

Isn't it?

It's hierarchy work is serious and important.

Play is something you do in your spare time.

yes.

Enrages me, sorry.

And you know how easily I'm raging?

Um, I love the rage.

I think it's important.

It's a fuel for change.

And then your mind, like how do you think those things should co-exist?

Uh, can I I'll get a bit nerdy.

So, um, I've been studying the principles of sensory motor intentionality.

This is how babies learn.

So they sense something and this can be pre-birth.

They respond to what they send.

So that's the motor part.

They may move towards it and move away from it to try to touch it.

Uh, and then in response to what happens when they do that,

they start to build up emotion.

Hmm.

So from the very beginning of our existence, our play, if you

like our interaction with random brown paper bags on our desk is

the beginning of our learning.

Hmm.

For me, the more we play, the more we learn, the more we play, the more we

find new pathways to doing old things and we'll, we played, we get out of

habits that may not be serving us.

And we're inclined, I think certainly the business world to

turn habits into processes and then it gets set in the system and we

just assume that's the right way.

Well, it's not always in play, allows us to find new ways.

I love that, that kind of way out of the grooves and the ruts that stop us

I'm happy.

Yeah.

And stop us doing things in a beautiful way and in a way

that is fulfilling and life.

Yes.

And thank you for the beautiful word, because it's not just about finding

better, more efficient ways and more entertaining ways to do things.

There is also a beauty in finding a better route, even if it's a longer route.

Can you give us some examples of where you've seen play in action, kind of

having, uh, you know, I'd go as far as to say a transformational effect at work?

Um, I'm thinking of a photograph that I took at a workshop

that I ran in Singapore.

And it's a picture of a very tall Western man and a very small Asian woman.

They both are using their pens, like little swords.

They're having a sword fight in my workshop.

And this was a workshop which was all about hierarchy and

cross-cultural communication.

And I don't know what the question was.

I'd asked him, but these two finished up having a sword fight with pens

in a meeting room in Singapore.

And at the end of this sword fight, the guy said, oh my God, she won.

And I said, just unpack that a bit for us.

And he said, I always assumed because I'm tall, male and white.

That I will win any battle, but he said she just kept

running around the back of me.

She kept breaking the rules.

So she kept running her in the back of him and stabbing him in the back of a pen.

Whereas he thought the rules were, we have to face each other as if this is a duel.

Um, and it was just a lovely moment of his realizing that she had

other ways of doing things that might actually be more effective.

Because he assumed he would win.

He wasn't being creative.

Mm.

He kept doing the same thing and she kept doing different things.

And I think that was another learning to it as well.

But he realized that he could actually do things differently

if he gave himself permission.

And by seeing her modeling something different, that kind of creates a space

for him to give himself permission.

Yeah.

And the other thing I loved about it was because they were quite a formal group.

I loved about it as well that they finished up leaning against each other

in the room, crying with laughter.

Oh, glorious.

So it, yes, it, I think it started it, it began the creation of a work relationship,

which was much more open and it really helped him to see that other ways of doing

things, but it also helped her to see that she was allowed to do things her way.

And just thinking about, you know, you've, you've done decades of work in

this area and have so much experience.

What have been the biggest surprises for you and working in a playful

way, with the groups and the organizations that you've worked with?

Well, I, I continue to be surprised by how many people resist the idea of play.

Um,

So.

We have, I'm currently working with the National Center for

Circus Arts and we're running.

Corporate half days where you learn some circus skills and you co-create things

with your colleagues and the number of people who come in at the beginning of

the session with their heads down and their arms pinned to the size of their

body going, I don't want to do this.

This is just one of those excruciating things.

So resistance to play continues to surprise me.

And I'm also constantly surprised by who is the most resistant.

I often get pushback from HR people saying, oh, we can't ask

the senior people to do that.

But actually in my experience, the really senior people are great at play because

they have nothing to lose in a way.

I mean, they're already up there.

Uh, and then the really good ones, the really good leaders know that making

themselves playful and vulnerable in front of the rest of their team really helps.

It helps the relationships.

We had lovely example in the last, uh, National Center for the Circus Arts

workshop, where the leader of the team, she brought 20 people from her department.

And there were a lot of them were really sort of fit young people and she was not.

And she got up on the flying trapeze.

Now we always say to people, you don't have to do everything.

You don't have to do the flying trapeze.

She got up there on the flying trapeze and there were tears amongst her team of.

That she was doing this.

Cause they will expect her to do the work too.

That's not for me, but no, she got up there.

The tears and the cheering were overwhelming.

Wow.

So yeah.

It's when you show your, yeah, I'll go for all risks.

I'll take brisk as a leader, a leader taking risk is a really fine thing.

I think.

Yeah.

And it makes me think there's this relationship between

play and vulnerability

Yes.

in doing that.

She was prepared to show her vulnerability to her team.

And then that yields this incredible reaction from them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, she, she knows that without risk, we don't learn unless we stretch

ourselves outside our comfort zone.

We just keep doing the same habitual stuff.

And yeah, it feels like there's quite a lot of misconceptions

around the idea of playing at work.

What do you see those as being.

Well, I think there's the parking of play in a separate category.

You know what?

I work with a lot of organizations who think that play is just going

out and getting drunk on a Friday

or going to the racists for a day.

And for me, Play at work should be integral to everything we do.

It should be an ongoing game at work.

We should be taking the opportunity to notice and improvise in every breath.

So, yeah, the Ms.

One of the misconceptions is, uh, we'll get some cheesy, old cow, like Kay, to

come in and run some cheesy workshop.

And then we'd all park it, go to the pub and we would never apply it again.

And that's not what I do.

And I know it's not what you do then they see what we try to do is get

people to build, play into work.

Yeah.

I mean, I couldn't agree more.

And, and how do you, I mean, how do you, how would you advise

people to start doing that?

What's the way in?

There's some very simple things that I always tell people to do.

You start with your own body?

Like you've been in a room with me where I say to people fold

your arms now fold your arms.

Yeah.

Cross your legs now cross your legs the other way.

So do things within yourself that challenge you a little bit.

And as soon as you ask someone to fold their arms the other way, and

I hope people listening to this will be folding their arms the other way.

It becomes a bit Clowney.

Yes, exactly.

So I'm listening as I'm watching Lucy pulling funny faces, as she

tries to fold her arms the other way.

So the tiniest thing becomes playful.

And then that begins the process of an interaction with other people.

So that start from within stop breaking your own habits, and then little things

like, please sit in a different place.

If you're going into a meeting, don't always sit in the same

seat as you always sit in.

And now most of us are working from home a lot.

Don't sit in front of your laptop in the same place, but put it somewhere else

and then notice what you see differently.

Change simple things in your interactions at work.

Find another way to the coffee machine.

I love that.

And, you know, if you find another way to the coffee machine, you might

walk past someone that you don't normally walk past and then find

a silly way to interact with them.

Or even just ask them if they'd like a coffee.

Yeah.

I love that.

And it's like these lifts opportunities to inject play into your day to

day, but it feels so accessible.

But coming back to that idea of permission, we don't always

give ourselves permission to do.

and I think, you know, that way, finding a different way to the

coffee machine is just lovely.

It's so simple.

And allowing ourselves to be distracted and the way that children, our

children are wonderful at distraction, they can be walking through the

park and there is a squirrel.

Oh, scleral great sport.

Oh no, there's a duck.

Oh, there's a pigeon.

I'm going to chase the pigeon.

Oh, here's another child I'll play with the child.

And that constant distraction is so enlivening.

Yeah.

So allowing yourself to be distracted at work, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

No, I think that's very important, but, and it's interesting that things you

described are physical distractions, that real well distractions.

Cause I think one of the things that gets in the way of play it

are all the digital distractions.

And I wonder, do you have a view on, you know, how do you balance that in

this hybrid way that we're wearing.

I'm hearing, uh, a lot of people talk negatively about disappearing

down the worm hole of Googling.

And, you know, I opened an email from so-and-so and then I looked up

who they were and then I got into LinkedIn and then there's the members.

It's not necessarily a bad thing.

Um,

If you turn it into a game.

okay.

I have this method that I'm using with clients about going down the wormhole,

we're calling it the, well, you notice yourself going down the well of digital

distraction and you think so how far down the, well am I, my halfway down?

is it interesting enough for me to keep going down or is this

getting a bit dull and dark now?

Should I climb back up?

Kind of like climb back up a different side.

So rather than just going, I'm not going to climb down the, well, I'm going to

find an interesting way out of the, well.

I love that.

And how were people climbing back out of the, Well, I'm intrigued.

Well, some of them are calling on a friend to come to the top of the well

and put their arm down and get them out.

So you can have your well buddy and you can go, oh my

God, I've got down this well.

Or, you know, reading our HR rules on dealing with diversity

and inclusion and I'm deep down in the well, somebody help me.

Sp you'll get someone to come along and have conversation about

the HR policy on DNI or something.

And that's interesting cause it's this, you know, inviting other

people in and finding playmates.

How does that, kind of show up in your work, kind of playing with

others versus playing by yourself.

that's a good question.

Big fan of playing with others who are nothing like you.

So what I love doing is when clients ask me to run workshops

with two different teams.

So I love the cross-cultural thing, whether the culture is to different

countries or whether it's the R and D department and the marketing

department within a company, I love doing that because they do tend

to think that they're different.

Mm.

And then when they start to co-create and collaborate, they realize they

have more in common than they thought.

Yeah.

And also they find the third way don't they, or the fourth

or the fifth or the 10th way.

They have their habitual way of communicating.

They meet someone who is very different, they find another way.

And then another way and another way.

So there's this endless limitless way of communicating when you put people together

with those that are different from them.

And I imagine there were all sorts of other things that come out of those

kind of cross-cultural cross teams.

Playing events.

Tell me about that.

Some of my favorite discoveries have been in body language

and facial habits.

So.

Um, particularly recently we have the zoom smile.

Don't we, that whenever we're on a video call, we've got this

weird little smile, which is

I'm doing a weird little

everyone at Lucy's doing a great smile.

And then there is an assumption that that person is okay.

And this happens in real life as well, where, I've had people play together,

and they've realized that when the Japanese person in the room puts their

hand over their face, it doesn't mean that they're laughing necessarily.

It might mean something else.

And you get the chance to ask them in a playful environment that you

don't get in a business meeting.

Um,

I was recently on a zoom call, and I got a private message and the chat

asking me if I could please turn down the volume on my facial expressions

Wow.

because we do.

And again, listeners, Lucy is doing amazing facial expressions here.

She's doing startled squirrel being chased by a child in the park.

I didn't know that was in my range.

So.

We make assumptions, don't we, about what people's expressions mean.

And sometimes there's somethings could be wrong.

And often when we play together, we realize those assumptions are

wrong because we have this very childlike way of connecting.

Yeah, I love that.

And I think it was Plato who said, you can learn more about someone in an hour

of play than in a year of conversation.

so, you know, you said you're surprised at how resistant people are still to play.

What do you think needs to be in place for people to feel like they can play at work?

Uh a couple of things come to mind.

one of course is modeling from above.

That playful leaders really important.

And especially when those leaders, as they tend to be are from, you

know, societies, upper echelons, it's really very important, but it's also

important that the play that they demonstrate is not attention grabbing.

So I would draw a line between a leader being a clown and a

leader, being a team player

Um,

mentioning no names, but there are some fairly prominent leaders as

clowns in our world at the moment.

And that's attention grabbing.

That's not playing.

yeah.

So leaders need to show that they are prepared to play with others and

simple things like taking a juggling thought into the office and throwing it.

And we need measurement don't we?

And I used to be quite resistant to clients saying, well, we need to measure

the impact of play, but in fact, if you need to measure it, measure it,

ask people how they feel when you introduce more play into the world.

And then your experience, how do people feel?

they feel, Hmm.

It's a dropping of the shoulders.

Mm.

It's I don't have to perform.

There's a big difference between performing play.

If I'm allowed to play the pressures and always on me to perform.

So we've noticed that yes, people feel less pressured, funnily enough, they

feel more productive because they find different ways of finding solutions

and they also find it easier to ask for help.

So they don't feel that they have to do everything alone.

And why do you think that is?

Where does that come from?

this, this is why, I like to differentiate between play and games.

So a lot of consultants like us don't actually play.

They played games.

Um,

And games are competitive.

They're not collaborative.

So I don't really approve, well, I mean, it's fine.

If you want to go out and play football, that's absolutely fine, but

that's not the kind of play I mean.

The kind of play I mean is, you know, finding a new way from my

desk to the coffee machine, without my feet touching the ground.

Okay.

I'm going to have to ask my colleagues for help.

So if we can introduce playful exercises that get colleagues to

collaborate rather than compete,

that's where the I can ask for help comes from.

And it sounds like there's an invitation in there.

It's kind of an invitational way of working together.

yes.

And make the invitation visible.

Why not just scribble on a piece of paper?

Um, Hey, can you get from here to the coffee machine without

your feet touching the ground?

There's no obligation.

It's not, you may not put your leader, everyone.

Lucy's now looking around her to see if she can find a way to get to her coffee.

Which is all the way downstairs.

So it's going to be a challenge, but I'm definitely going to

do this with my fun later.

Okay, so in terms of the conditions, it's kind of modeling, um, creating

space for that, starting with our own bodies, have you, um, Got any advice for

people listening about where to start?

You know, if they're working in an organization that isn't necessarily

that playful, where would you begin?

Always begin with an ally is, is my solution.

You know, as the kid that the skinny nerdy kid in the playground, I was

usually the one standing on the edge.

But then there would be another skinny nerdy kid or another

one who was out of place.

Get the other skinny nerdy kid to start playing with you.

And then people will notice.

I think simply things like my, putting my hand inside a brown

envelope and showing eyes on it.

You know, if I were to sit in the office, pretending to talk to a

brown envelope with eyes on it, that would get people's attention.

And perhaps they might start a puppet show

Yeah,

in which we will discuss how we are getting to get the packing

department to be more efficient.

I love that.

A puppet packing department.

So start small basically with small little experiments that get people noticing.

your tribe, play in your tribe in order to find solutions to problems,

make sure that others notice.

And we come back to the noticing, which feels like such

an important part of all that.

Yes.

And people do notice people at work who are enjoying themselves and

it cause habitual body language and facial expressions, facial

expression at work is not playful.

if you start to feel good, it'll show in your body and your face

and other people will start to feel good and they'll start to do it.

And you will start a playful movement.

Oh, that sounds so good.

And, and the sense of embodiment feels so important, like starting with your own

Yes,

and what ripples out from there.

Yes.

If you go to work, even if it's just sit down at your laptop, if you sit

down at your laptop with your play body on and not your work body, then

that sets you up for a playful day.

Yes.

And how would you describe the play body?

Well, um, everyone has a different play body, but you know, I think you've

done it that Paul and I do so much at coaching and we get people to, first of

all, make the body shape that represents them having the most shit time at work.

So, yes, usually it's hunched over, it's closed up it's it's tense.

So they do that, and then we say, make the body shape or the movement of you having

your best possible time, anywhere at all in the world, not necessarily at work.

So they feel this kind of arms out, grinning looking outwards, and then

you say, okay, choreograph your way from grumpy Workboard body.

Into exuberant, I'm having a great time body and then settle on somewhere.

You might want, not want to sit at your desk today.

Completely crazy exuberant body, but you might be somewhere along that road.

It might just be about lifting your head and noticing what's

going on in your peripheral vision.

But if you set yourself the worst and the best, and then you find yourself

a place which is towards the best and adopt that for the beginning of

your day, that's one way to start.

That sounds brilliant.

And I mean, I was going to ask you a question about, have you got a playful

practice that you could share with our listeners to take it to their day stay?

But I feel like we've been inundated with lovely playful practices.

I wonder if you have any others you'd like to.

Well I really recommend that everyone have juggling thuds in the workplace.

So jogging balls and randomly throw one at somebody cause they don't hurt.

If they hit you that soft.

Randomly throwing a juggling thought around the place is great.

If you're on a zoom call, pretend to be throwing a daunting thought at someone.

That's hilarious, especially if it's a big zoom call and nobody knows

which direction it's going in because everyone's in different places.

There's something I'd like to restate is pleased.

Let's not separate.

Playtime.

Playtime is integral to creative working.

It's it's what creative problem solving and collaboration start with you.

Watch children, very tiny children.

They co-create and collaborate beautifully.

You don't have to call it play time.

Just call it time.

Well, thank you so much, Kate.

It's been amazing to talk to you and I feel like there's just a whole.

Well, for the amazing practical ideas that people can take into their day to day.

So it's been a complete delight to talk to you.

Well, likewise.

And isn't it fun?

How talking about play makes a smile.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm, my cheeks are

Yes, absolutely.

You can't help, but smile.

If you're talking about play

So Lucy, how did your conversation with Kay go?

What, what came up for you?

Oh, it was so nice.

I mean, she has just got so many ideas for how we can playfully change our day.

So I loved it.

You know, the tiny micro changes we can make, to approach our day

differently and feel more playful with the everyday things that we do.

Absolutely the small, the small sort of challenges you can set

yourself around the coffee machine.

I love that.

Something that feels very banal very everyday, as you say.

And the idea of when, when I get there, what's, uh, a small, slightly

different interaction I can have with someone that feels a little bit playful?

They just felt like really lovely micro nuggets into your day, that you

can just set a little challenge to yourself, to, to experiment with, which

is what play for her is all about.

And I, you know, like showing up to your computer playfully.

I love that idea.

I also really want, to get, what did she call it?

The juggling

juggling feds.

Thuds, that's it.

And she's like, they didn't hurt just three, one itself and your head

and be like, Hey, I sadly don't have anyone here in my little makeshift

recording studio to do that with, but I was, I was craving that

opportunity, which is talking about it.

Yeah, it was so nice.

I also, um, I really liked her point at the beginning around The, amazing kind

of power of the outsider to notice.

The, witch of noticing.

Yes.

And she knows this for a living and then sort of shares what she's noticing.

And how she can turn up to any kind of scenario.

And she doesn't bring all of the context of that scenario.

She can just come and notice as a, as a kind of pure form of activity.

And I, I love that role of the outsider and just being free to

notice without any of the baggage.

And also, experimentation and experimenting with what's around us

as a way of creating new thoughts and new behaviors and new possibilities.

And that language, the language of experimentation being

quite accessible for people.

So maybe those who feel a bit more skeptical, actually

an experiment is quite safe.

in a way

It's sort of freedom within structure.

Experimentation still has that level of uncertainty, but it feels like a

sort of safe, familiar uncertainty, which, um, which for some people

play, doesn't feel like that doesn't feel like it's got parameters around

it and a sense of familiarity.

So I really relate that use of, of experiments as a way, as you say, of

being more accessible to those who might be a little reticent or a bit

unsure about engaging in these ideas.

I thought the way she talked about the separation of work and play as being

the, one of the fundamental areas of our society was so true and you know how that

starts in school and carries on through life and into work and how inhibiting.

Um, absolutely.

I think she really pulled out a lot of sort of myths that we

kind of in mainstream Western society hold about play.

When she's talking about leaders as clowns, and we do have some leaders

who kind of really lean into the idea of the attention grabbing clown and

that's not necessarily a playful leader.

And I really liked that challenging this notion of quite a one dimensional

view of play that I think a lot of us still hold, which is a playful

person or people who don't, you know, they look like they're playing the

prankster, they're joking around.

They're being outwardly playful and foolish to an extent.

And, know, that is play for some people and that's great, but that's not

the only way that play can manifest.

And I really liked that she was saying, you know, that that's not the

only way we should be thinking about kind of playfulness and leadership.

That's not the only way it looks.

Yeah.

I'm the importance of modeling different ways.

So I love the example she gave of the leader who decided to brave the

flying trapeze and the vulnerability that was integral to that.

And you know, how as leaders can we share up on rebel Lexi in order to

create space for others to do the same?

When she was talking about that exact story about the flying trapeze,, it

really hit me the kind of outsized impact of a leader taking a risk like that in

front of their colleagues, and I think she really brought alive the fear and

resistance and barriers to engaging in play and how we can often assume some

people are going to be up for it and some aren't and we always count them out of it.

She was talking about, you know, some, some gatekeepers saying

all the senior people in this team, they weren't get engaged.

You know, they're not gonna enjoy this, but where as actually,

they can really engage with it and have that outsized impact

I love the idea that enjoying yourself at work is infectious.

I just like in having fun and enjoying yourself and playing, you know, other

people feel like they can do the same and it just has this ripple effect.

And that sense that we've heard in some other episodes, of making these

offers and putting yourself out there, as a way of creating a movement.

I've really heard a theme in what she was saying around play as a real

powerful connector when she was talking about seeking out opportunities to

play with people who are kind of outside of our habitual circles.

So it might be people from different cultures, different backgrounds,

where it might be even just people within the same organization, but

from different departments that you might not be working with day to day.

And kind of the way that playing together can really transcend and cut through

differences that might keep those people apart, that's what certainly we've seen in

our work is that people find connections that were previously kind of invisible,

and it just really accelerates the relationship to a point of much more kind

of authentic connection and meaning than there was without that sense of place.

I loved, loved that story of.

Finding people who are outside of your, of your day-to-day circle and kind of

playing with them, if they're up for it.

And I also really liked her invitation to allow ourselves to be distracted.

Like children are, to allow ourselves to play in our environment and follow the

different threads and see where they lead.

That felt really juicy to me.

Thank you so much for listening today.

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