Growth Through Play, Seriously
I recently attended a conference through the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) at Niagara University. A five-day event, CPSI holds two assumptions: that everyone is creative in some way and that creative skills can be learned and enhanced. I couldn’t agree more.
Participants came from around the globe—Australia, Ireland, China, Mexico, and from across the US. As a first-timer, I was directed by the registration person to head over to the eight-foot tables across the way to create my name lanyard. And the play began. The tables were covered with a plethora of stick-on numbers, words, shapes, animals, name titles, and every other type of decorative symbol you can imagine. The playfulness continued into the conference sessions exploring innovation, change leadership, applied imagination, deliberate creativity, design thinking and more. Tables in every room had stacks of colorful post it notes, colored markers, Legos, pipe stems, pom poms—more creativity triggers than we could get through in any given session.
The invitation was to bring your full self to every session as we dove into divergent and convergent thinking, framing problems as questions, recognizing how judgment shuts down ideation, and focusing on language that expands communication. Participants toyed with the materials, doodled, and spontaneously created as they received new knowledge and shared their insights, aha moments, and real-life challenges.
It was five days of learning, propelled by playful attitudes, approaches, and activities. The fact that participants, staff, and facilitators all embraced a playful mindset created a space of openness, flexibility, endless possibilities, and fun. Beyond the newfound creative problem solving tools and skills, the experience also affirmed our JLP model of framing creative leadership and team cohesion through a jazz lens for high level performance. Our model’s Ensemble Mindset principle, based on a common purpose and language, individual excellence, shared leadership, and antagonistic cooperation, is a foundation to swing into a field of collaborative co-creation.
People couldn’t have been more excited when I told them about how we bring jazz principles and practices to the corporate business world. They were fascinated by the fact that jazz music can connect people to their work in new and surprising ways.
If you’ve been a reader of our blog, you won’t be surprised that I wrote the following post in 2019, examining why play should be a vital part of leadership and team culture.
SERIOUS PLAY FOR LEADERS
Play is the highest form of research
—credited to Albert Einstein
PLAY-FULL LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS:
Adapting an attitude of play encourages expansive thinking
Social skills and collaboration are enhanced through play
Play represents freedom and self-direction
Group Play
Have you ever seen great jazz musicians look like they weren’t having fun while they’re playing? Did any band members look stressed? Probably not. Playing with others brings the power of support, collaboration, conversation, challenge, and constructive critique. The exchange and flow are energizing, fresh, and inspiring. The invitation to play stimulates human beings to share responsibility for what is being created.
In Free Play, author Stephen Nachmanovitch relates how astonishing it is when two musicians come together for the first time, begin playing, and “demonstrate wholeness, structure, and clear communication.” He further notes that initially there may be no agreed upon structure, but once the play has begun, there is structure because they “open each other’s minds like an infinite series of Chinese boxes.”
The beauty of playing together is meeting in the One.
—Stephen Nachmanovitch
Play is training for the unexpected
—Marc Bekoff, biologist
In my recent creativity post, I noted that one way to move into a creative mindset is to be play-filled—to have an attitude of exploration. The newness of play can generate flow, spark the imagination, and bring a surge of energy in that moment. When you approach something playfully, you learn better. Play provides an opportunity to experiment, to expand our curiosity, and to deepen our interest in the task at hand.
We often take work and life so seriously. This interferes with our ability to look or move beyond the confines of our usual routine and approach. What would it look or feel like if you added a playful twist to a daily routine?
Play is the Brain’s Favorite Way of Working
Play activates brain signaling systems, including the neurotransmitter norepinephrine which is involved in eliciting attention and facilitating action and learning. Play also improves brain plasticity, so that change becomes possible when this chemical is elevated. Negative stress induces cortisol, which triggers the “fight, flight or freeze” response. The conditions of play—the generation of signals that enhance learning without an accompanying stress response—allow the brain to explore possibilities and to learn from them.
Life must be lived as play
—Plato
CPSI 2022 session
Consider the value of play as a catalyst to:
Expand your flexibility in thinking and problem solving.
Energize you, renewing your natural sense of optimism and openness to new possibilities.
Better tolerate routines and emotions such as boredom or frustration.
Provide a sense of expansiveness and
Promote mastery.
To be present, without defensive walls; accepting others as they are.
Enable cooperative socialization and nourish trust, empathy, caring, and sharing.
Stimulate creativity - imagination, inventiveness, and dreams – which help us think up new solutions to problems.
Let your work become your play. Let play become central to your work.
