Episode 11

full
Published on:

1st May 2023

"When my fingers are moving, I'm golden"

Play, creativity and imagination can enable people to look at things differently, 

to extend their own potential. But formal education suppresses our natural instinct to play and as adults makes us think it’s wrong to play. Alison James is on a mission to reclaim the word play.

Alison has written about her commitment to teaching and learning creatively in many publications, from early work on autobiography and personal development planning in the creative arts, to her present day interests in creativity, imagination and play in higher education pedagogy. 

She co-authored Engaging imagination: helping students become creative and reflective thinkers with Professor Stephen Brookfield (2014) and more about Alison and her work can be found at Engaging Imagination. Alison was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2014.

At heart she is an educator and facilitator who unlocks conversations, ideas, capabilities in people, including herself, on how play, creativity and imagination can enable people to look at things differently.

She left full-time work at the university so that she could concentrate on a three year research study, funded by the Imagination Lab Foundation. While people think she retired, she prefers to call it free-range play.

Things to consider

  • What age do we move on from play and creativity - 16? 18? 23?
  • Through play, how we can rediscover the things that we love, that bring us joy and spark our curiosity. 
  • The internal and external constraints from society to education to academia that stop us thinking about why we do things the way we do them? And stop us doing them differently.
  • Play should simply enable you and others to do your jobs.
  • Organizations such as Formula 1 and Red Cross use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®
  • A shift in the zeitgeist towards play.

Links

Get in touch!

Make Work Play

Playfilled

Transcript
Lucy Taylor:

Hello and welcome to the show.

Lucy Taylor:

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

Lucy Taylor:

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

Lucy Taylor:

And I'm Zuki Stewart from Playfield, a startup helping organizations to enable

Lucy Taylor:

everyone to rediscover their creativity.

Lucy Taylor:

Through playful wonder and serendipity, together we are.

Lucy Taylor:

Why Playworks?

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The podcast that speaks to people radically reshaping

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the idea of work as play.

Lucy Taylor:

In this episode, I'll be interviewing the wonderful Allison James, who's part of a

Lucy Taylor:

playful revolution in higher education.

Lucy Taylor:

Allison is Professor Emerita of.

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Learning and teaching at the University of Winster and a UK National Teaching

Lucy Taylor:

Fellow and Principal Fellow, h e a.

Tzuki Stewart:

She has held numerous posts in her education, including

Tzuki Stewart:

associate Dean of learning and teaching at the London College of Fashion

Tzuki Stewart:

and Director of Academic Quality and Development at Winchester University.

Tzuki Stewart:

Her extensive teaching experience includes managing, examining, and teaching on

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PG cert provision in academic practice university, into which she has brought her

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experience as a playful creative educator.

Lucy Taylor:

Since late 2019, Alison has been a freelance academic with

Lucy Taylor:

a portfolio including coaching consultancy, staff development course

Lucy Taylor:

and book reviews, PhD examinations, workshops, and speaking engagements.

Lucy Taylor:

She's a trained facilitator of the Lego Series Play Method and the

Lucy Taylor:

co-designer of a new version of its facilitator training set specifically

Lucy Taylor:

in the context of higher education.

Tzuki Stewart:

Alison recently undertook a three year study called The Value

Tzuki Stewart:

of Play in Higher Education, funded by the Imagination Lab Foundation.

Tzuki Stewart:

In this study, she presents clear evidence of the positive impact

Tzuki Stewart:

of playful learning, including it being highly inclusive and

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transferrable across disciplines.

Tzuki Stewart:

She challenges views that play is fluffy and unsubstantial, and addresses

Tzuki Stewart:

the barriers and misperceptions that playful learning can face.

Tzuki Stewart:

He's just ways to nurture a positive play culture in compulsory

Tzuki Stewart:

and post compulsory education.

Lucy Taylor:

In this episode, we explore how working with our hands

Lucy Taylor:

can enhance reflective practice, the value of the unexpected, and how we can

Lucy Taylor:

reclaim the playfulness of our youth.

Lucy Taylor:

So Allison, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Lucy Taylor:

It's lovely to have you here.

Lucy Taylor:

I'd love if we could begin with you telling me a little bit in

Lucy Taylor:

your own words about what it is you do and how play fits in

Alison James:

I work with individuals and organizations and I do research into how

Alison James:

play creativity and imagination can enable people to, to look at things differently,

Alison James:

to extend their own kinds of practices and potential and all the rest of it.

Alison James:

I've always seen my role as an educator or manager as being that of facilitator or

Alison James:

somebody who unlocks conversations, ideas, capabilities in people, including myself.

Alison James:

I left full-time university working.

Alison James:

I essentially, I retired, I retired early.

Alison James:

And the thing that I found was I didn't have a problem with the word retirement

Alison James:

because to me it was just, it was, it was just a descriptor, like saying

Alison James:

manager or student, or teacher or fireman, or welder or you know, whatever.

Alison James:

It's just, it's just a word.

Alison James:

But what I came across time and again was people who just thought I was, I'd packed

Alison James:

up, I'd given up, I was waiting for God.

Alison James:

You know, this notion that there's all these endings if you retire.

Alison James:

And so the word retired, the word retired seemed to give other

Alison James:

people the wrong impression.

Alison James:

I wasn't bothered by it.

Alison James:

Um, but other people weren't quite sure what that meant.

Alison James:

You know, had I taken up knitting?

Alison James:

Was I just gazing out of a window?

Alison James:

Vacantly?

Alison James:

and I, and to me, I've never felt more busy, more creative, more excited by life.

Alison James:

So that's where I turn to the word free range cuz it kind of allows you to kind

Alison James:

of mooch about and do and do whatever.

Alison James:

so that I could concentrate on this three year research study that I've

Alison James:

just completed, which was funded by the Imagination Lab Foundation.

Lucy Taylor:

I would love to take you back in time.

Lucy Taylor:

Tell me about your playful child self.

Alison James:

well, it was all about the dirt.

Alison James:

All about the dirt.

Alison James:

I loved, you know, I loved gardening, mud pies, being physically active,

Alison James:

getting grubby, uh, being outside.

Alison James:

I think, and this is something I really, that has really struck me,

Alison James:

the more I've done work with play and creativity, especially in relation

Alison James:

to our formal education, is I was, I was a very imaginative child,

Alison James:

and I don't say that with vanity.

Alison James:

I just was, and by the time I was 11, it was clear that.

Alison James:

You know, you, it was time for you to do other things.

Alison James:

So my childhood was very much, I was very much, you know, I loved

Alison James:

creating worlds, fantasy worlds.

Alison James:

Um, my, my friend over the road and I had this game that we used to play,

Alison James:

this invented world Reinhabited, which was housed in the garden shed, um, like

Alison James:

I said, you know, mud pies, I probably did the most, you know, illustrious

Alison James:

gardeners these days would be dying when they would've thought, you know, I would

Alison James:

make mud cakes and ice them with some kind of lime solution, which probably

Alison James:

is like, sort of chemical warfare.

Alison James:

And then I'd happily distribute them around the garden.

Alison James:

Amazing.

Alison James:

Anything ever grew?

Alison James:

Um, I loved Lego from tiny, I loved Lego, I loved dolls, houses, anything

Alison James:

where you could build, create, make up stories, you know, do do whatever.

Alison James:

And.

Alison James:

. And so I loved all of that.

Alison James:

And then I went to secondary school and there, there were two things really stood

Alison James:

out when I look back on those times.

Alison James:

One was I went off to secondary school still thinking it was okay to talk about

Alison James:

mud pli, mud pies and Mabel believe.

Alison James:

And you suddenly realize that everybody around you, your teachers, your peers

Alison James:

and your parents and your everybody, they want you to be something else.

Lucy Taylor:

Mm.

Alison James:

it was almost like having a dirty secret.

Alison James:

Well, I guess it generally was a dirty secret and and I do

Alison James:

remember as a kid thinking.

Alison James:

, I'm, I'm not doing life right because I still like mud and make believe,

Alison James:

but I'm not supposed to anymore.

Alison James:

So clearly I'm doing it wrong.

Alison James:

and now I've got to be something else.

Alison James:

So it was, and I, and you know, and I remember one time a, a, a kid at school

Alison James:

teased me, um, because they'd come to, they'd come to play at my house and I'd

Alison James:

suggested, why didn't we go make mud pies?

Alison James:

And this, this person sort of, you know, released this bombshell

Alison James:

and lots of people laughed.

Alison James:

and I look back now and I think, why not?

Alison James:

You know, what's wrong with that?

Alison James:

You know, if you get to 25 and you want still make mud pies, you do it.

Alison James:

Except of course now we call it art or something, So I think, I think I

Alison James:

was a very creative, playful child.

Alison James:

. So I came outta school, bunch of good qualifications.

Alison James:

And so ostensibly I had a good education.

Alison James:

But when I look back on it now, I just think, well, that was largely luck

Alison James:

because I was, I was naturally disposed to be able to learn in those ways.

Alison James:

And, but what also happened was there I was 18 with my, with my bunch of

Alison James:

perfectly respectable qualifications, but my creativity, my belief that it

Alison James:

was either okay to paint and draw, or that I was any good at painting and

Alison James:

drawing, or that that was a worthwhile pursuit absolutely crushed out of me.

Alison James:

and that was, that was a death and a loss that I wasn't aware of at the time.

Alison James:

You, you just thought, well, I'm growing up, you know, I'm, I'm too grown up now.

Alison James:

And you see it actually, you see in 16 to 18 year olds who, when

Alison James:

they go into further educational, higher education, you know, they

Alison James:

want to have the grownups stuff.

Alison James:

And the number of people I've spoken to around playing creativity say that

Alison James:

it's not always your 16 or 18 year olds who are most comfortable with it.

Alison James:

You know, they, they think, they think they've moved on from all of that, but

Alison James:

it's your mature students, you know, mature over 23 that who are actually

Alison James:

in a much more disposed of that.

Alison James:

Cause they've tried the whole grownup thing and they know that actually there's

Alison James:

a much more variegated way of living.

Alison James:

Um, so, so yes, so wins and losses, very playful child lost it.

Alison James:

in some respects, although I think I always remained a playful adult, I

Alison James:

just didn't label myself as, as that.

Alison James:

And of course, we could spend weeks talking about what do

Alison James:

we even mean by playfulness?

Alison James:

and it's been, it's, it was moving into working in creative arts education, um,

Alison James:

in my early thirties, that, that there was this whole new world open up for

Alison James:

me, this whole new world where actually my skill set was very useful as that

Alison James:

enabler, as we said to start off with.

Alison James:

But that here were these people around me, to whom it was entirely natural to

Alison James:

have a whole set, set of other talents, other ways of seeing the world, other

Alison James:

ways of being able to express themselves.

Alison James:

And it was just mind blowing.

Alison James:

It was absolutely mind blowing.

Alison James:

And I think that was where I became conscious of, of one of oh,

Alison James:

a thousand lessons about how we get things a little bit skewy in

Alison James:

our minds about what constitutes.

Alison James:

Um, a valuable formal educational experience because when I told people I

Alison James:

worked for 11 years at the London College of Fashion, fantastic experience, but I'm

Alison James:

not, you know, I'm not a fashion designer.

Alison James:

I knew nothing about fashion.

Alison James:

Um, and when I went, I, I remember telling a couple of people in, you

Alison James:

know, traditional universities that I was going to the London College of

Alison James:

Fashion and, and it was amazing how people sort of thought the word fashion

Alison James:

was something to giggle about, not obviously people who actually worked

Alison James:

in fashion and knew what it was about.

Alison James:

And so, just as we have with play, there were these sort of.

Alison James:

This kind of suspicions or sort of innate prejudices about,

Alison James:

you know, was fashion hahaha?

Alison James:

Was that a degree subject?

Alison James:

And my golly, it is.

Alison James:

And, and I, I had to learn that for myself.

Alison James:

So that was an incredible eye-opener.

Alison James:

You know, walking, walking into a place where just everybody did things

Alison James:

differently to the ways that I'd seen people do them in other institutions.

Alison James:

And that was fantastic because I then had this incredible time in which to

Alison James:

reinvent all my teaching and learning practices and my support practices,

Alison James:

because most of the students there.

Alison James:

Were visual learners.

Alison James:

They were, they were creative learners.

Alison James:

They, they didn't respond well to, or, or their favorite pursuits

Alison James:

weren't necessarily academic writing and formal essay construction and

Alison James:

traditional, this, that and the other.

Alison James:

You know, they needed and wanted other things and they had so much to

Alison James:

give and share if you were able to speak that language, if you were able

Alison James:

to work in ways that unlocked them.

Alison James:

And so, without even labeling it as such, that's where I think

Alison James:

my, my creative and my playful education really, really took off.

Alison James:

It had started a bit in, in the arts institution I worked

Alison James:

in before I went there, which was sort of multidisciplinary.

Lucy Taylor:

What fabulous journey and I love that.

Lucy Taylor:

Well, it saddened me, to hear, you know, that loss of, and, and the hiding of those

Lucy Taylor:

things that really lit you up as a child.

Lucy Taylor:

And I can certainly relate to that myself and I, I'm sure a lot of people can,

Lucy Taylor:

that kind of pushing aside of the things that we love and the things that bring us

Lucy Taylor:

joy and um, really spark our curiosity.

Lucy Taylor:

And I love the fact that you have rediscovered that cuz I, I don't

Lucy Taylor:

think everybody does do that.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, and I think, wow, what a gift and how you've, you've bought it to others

Alison James:

we're prisoners of conditioning.

Alison James:

We're prisoners of conditioning.

Alison James:

I think we are also very convinced.

Alison James:

You know, people, people by and large people who work in academic, in, in

Alison James:

academia are either deeply in love with their subject or deeply committed

Alison James:

to, you know, developing learning in others or a whole heap of other things.

Alison James:

You know, there is, there is, there is a commitment there and we have it

Alison James:

absolutely impressed upon ourselves about the weight of our responsibility,

Alison James:

about being conscientious, about having integrity, about doing

Alison James:

the right thing by our students.

Alison James:

But, and a whole heap of other stuff gets caught up in that and we end up,

Alison James:

if we are not careful in believing that there are only certain ways.

Alison James:

To be, you know, honorable, committed, uh, educators with integrity, who, who

Alison James:

do write by their subject and by their students, not necessarily in that order.

Alison James:

Um, and I think that's, that's one of the, the big challenges that we, that we

Alison James:

face, is that we've become prisoners of beliefs and drivers and values that have

Alison James:

crept into our, our formal education in whatever, in whatever sort of sector.

Alison James:

And I think we need to.

Alison James:

We need to have our eyes wide open to the dangers that that can bring.

Alison James:

Now, of course, you can't be naive, you know, institutions

Alison James:

have to work in a certain way.

Alison James:

A lot of them aren't, you know, we're supposed to have sort of some form of

Alison James:

autonomy, but, you know, we dance through governmental tunes, departmental st tunes,

Alison James:

leadership tunes, whatever, whatever.

Alison James:

So there's, there's always internal and external constraints in what

Alison James:

we do, but nonetheless, there is, there is room for just asking why

Alison James:

we, why we have to do those things.

Alison James:

And we say to ourselves in academia, you say, oh yeah, book.

Alison James:

That's the great thing about universities.

Alison James:

We do that.

Alison James:

Yeah, well, we do.

Alison James:

And we don't actually, you know, um, you know, we do a lot of gameplay as well,

Alison James:

and, and kind of agenda, agenda dancing.

Alison James:

Um,

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, gender dancing.

Lucy Taylor:

Nice.

Lucy Taylor:

I mean, and would it, yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

I mean, uh, is it fair to say that kind of academia and education is

Lucy Taylor:

dominated by the kind of rational, the logical, the linear and what play brings

Lucy Taylor:

in is something that disrupts that?

Alison James:

That's a really interesting question.

Alison James:

I think it will depend on your subject.

Alison James:

Um, so, and I think you are absolutely right that certain, certain disciplines,

Alison James:

and obviously I'm not an expert in all of them, so, so I, I I wouldn't be

Alison James:

able to say anything definitive, but certainly what I've found in the play

Alison James:

studies that I've done is that you come across people who will say engineering.

Alison James:

Case in point, I worked in Tyrin in, uh, 2020 just before the pandemic kicked

Alison James:

off and worked with a number of people from engineering who, and their view

Alison James:

of engineering was, and this is not because they were Italian engineers,

Alison James:

this is just, they were, they were themselves, you know, everybody's unique.

Alison James:

We are not all, we are not all clones, but their, their, their view about engineer.

Alison James:

It's not about creativity, it's about precision.

Alison James:

You know, it's about precision, it's about measurement and, and

Alison James:

to be a good engineer, these are absolutely fundamental to what I do.

Alison James:

Therefore, for one or two people in the room, there was, they, they, they

Alison James:

couldn't quite see why you would need creativity and playfulness necessarily.

Alison James:

Um, I then worked with other engineers a few months later who

Alison James:

said, but it's all about creativity.

Alison James:

It's all about interpreting.

Alison James:

It's all about this and the other in how they approach engineering

Alison James:

in their area of engineering.

Alison James:

So you can't be, you can't be sort of cut and dried about things

Alison James:

and we make these kind of binary.

Alison James:

So we do it with play work, we do it with arts and sciences.

Alison James:

We do it with all sorts of things where we say it's this or it's that.

Alison James:

And another colleague who contributed to the study, um, talked about the work

Alison James:

that she's done in trying to bring arts and medical sciences together so that

Alison James:

both realize that there is a place.

Alison James:

You know, the, the, the, the strengths and the skills and the practices of

Alison James:

each have a place with the other.

Alison James:

And I think that's really, that's a really important thing for us to realize.

Alison James:

And I think there has been, there has been a lot of that

Alison James:

over, over the last 20, 30 years.

Alison James:

You know, with, with a shift towards more inclusive teaching and learning,

Alison James:

more creative teaching, learning.

Alison James:

We have got an awful lot better.

Alison James:

we still find that there are islands of practice where people think

Alison James:

it has to be the lecture seminar.

Alison James:

The only way to assess is the essay in the exam.

Alison James:

and, you know, I often quote, an academic from a number of years ago

Alison James:

who said to me, and, and that person was, was very interested in what I did.

Alison James:

They even invited me to speak to, one of their network meetings at

Alison James:

their university, which is fantastic.

Alison James:

So they, they were open, but their, their question to me was, my job is

Alison James:

to educate, you know, It's not to entertain and, and I was just surprised

Alison James:

that the question had even formulated itself because to me those are.

Alison James:

Those are not binary opposites.

Alison James:

You can do both.

Alison James:

I think one of the, one of the disservices that we did many years ago was to invent

Alison James:

a Sneery word, which was edutainment.

Alison James:

And edutainment instantly sort of was used to be derogatory about

Alison James:

practices that sounded like they were, you know, dumbing down education.

Alison James:

Um, that they were, um, sort of taking liberties with the integrity of the

Alison James:

subject cause they were sort of trying to make it, accessible to people who clearly

Alison James:

didn't have the academic, wherewithal to, to cope with difficult, which is nonsense.

Alison James:

but actually I've always thought that entertainment, like retirement in play

Alison James:

is another term that needs reclaiming.

Alison James:

Because, because it just says you can have both, you can have serious,

Alison James:

meaningful, and complex and difficult and conceptual, and you can have.

Alison James:

Fun or whatever entertainment means to you.

Alison James:

And let's not even go down the rabbit hole of fun.

Alison James:

Cause you know, other people who are infinitely more qualified than me have

Alison James:

been trying to work out what fun is.

Alison James:

I think there is, going back to your question, I think that the, the

Alison James:

belief in the rational, logical, and the linear is can get in the way.

Alison James:

but then again, you know, it, it brings us onto that really difficult

Alison James:

territory about how do we define play?

Alison James:

You know, what is play?

Alison James:

Does it have these features or that features?

Alison James:

And depending on what discipline you inhabit, play is likely to, to have more

Alison James:

or fewer of different characteristics.

Alison James:

and some of those characteristics don't even fit terribly comfortably

Alison James:

in a formal higher education setting or in a workplace setting.

Alison James:

But to me, Nevertheless, there's still play.

Alison James:

You know, a play purist might say, oh, it has to be entirely voluntary,

Alison James:

otherwise it's not play, or it has to be purposeless, or it's not play.

Alison James:

But actually, letting off steam is a purpose.

Alison James:

You know, wanting to throw a ball in the air to see how high it goes is a purpose.

Alison James:

It's just not a kind of predetermined, complex goal.

Lucy Taylor:

without wanting to open a can of worms that I realize I might

Lucy Taylor:

be asking a play researcher what play means to you in the context of work.

Lucy Taylor:

I am gonna ask you that question, like, from, and, you know, from all

Lucy Taylor:

of the research that you've done and your own experience as a playful

Lucy Taylor:

educator, um, what does it mean to you in relation to education and your work?

Alison James:

If somebody says to me, yes, but what's play, what's playful learning

Alison James:

or what's play-based learning, then I would say that that kind of learning

Alison James:

is anything that involves any kind of play or games or a playful approach to

Alison James:

learning, which is which, which sounds terribly straightforward and neat harrah.

Alison James:

but of course the problem is, is play means so many different

Alison James:

things to different people.

Alison James:

And if you look at play theorists, if I look at Brian Sutton Smith, who, whose

Alison James:

work I find hugely impressive, you know, he creates this typology of play

Alison James:

types, but he has all sorts of things in there drawn from different disciplines,

Alison James:

including things like hostessing, whatever that is, um, babysitting,

Alison James:

you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Alison James:

Things that I don't think of as remotely play-based or playful.

Alison James:

Um, and so we start finding that there are quite kind of edgy boundaries around what.

Alison James:

Play, um, of all those kinds.

Alison James:

So I suppose what I do is I try and move all the kind, well, most

Alison James:

of the societal forms of play, if you like, to, to, to the edge.

Alison James:

Because when I think about play, uh, in formal educational settings, I'm

Alison James:

not talking about extracurricular play, play and the playground, whatever,

Alison James:

whatever I'm thinking about play, uh, in the curriculum, play for, in

Alison James:

the classroom, play for staff and educational development, whatever.

Alison James:

So that's, that's my, that's my parameter.

Alison James:

And if you, if you take out the words higher education and you put in work,

Alison James:

then I would say that it is about play to enable you and others to do your

Alison James:

jobs or that it is part, it is part of the context in which you do your jobs.

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Alison James:

You might have a much more grownup, um, or sophisticated,

Alison James:

uh, way of describing it.

Alison James:

But, but that, that, if, that, that does sort of, that's what I am, that's what I

Alison James:

mean, a little sort of qualifier in there.

Alison James:

You know, lots of people and academics.

Alison James:

We are, we are so and sos for this.

Alison James:

We do love a little bit of kind of, you know, naval gazing.

Alison James:

And so, you know, one of the things you learn as a, a new academic is it's

Alison James:

really, it's all about problematizing.

Alison James:

This is when, you know, you've joined the big, the big people.

Alison James:

You problematize.

Alison James:

It's, it's the

Lucy Taylor:

That word slightly makes me, it makes me shu that.

Alison James:

Yes.

Alison James:

You know, and, and 30, 30 something years ago as a new academic, um, I,

Alison James:

I, first of all, I was baffled by it.

Alison James:

Then I thought, oh, I'd better learn how to do it.

Alison James:

And then, you know, at the other end of the scale, you just.

Alison James:

. Yeah.

Alison James:

Yeah.

Alison James:

But no, but you know, yes, problematizing up to a certain extent, but then we

Alison James:

can go down, we can get ourselves in terrible, terrible knots.

Alison James:

And so I think problematizes want to know.

Alison James:

Yeah, but what's the difference between play and creativity?

Alison James:

What's the difference between experiential learning and this, that and the other?

Alison James:

And actually how, you know, all very interesting if you want to get into

Alison James:

theoretical minutia, which is more or less unsolvable because nobody can agree.

Alison James:

But you know, there, there are just simply at the end of the day,

Alison James:

there will be crossover points.

Alison James:

Play might be creative, it might not be creative.

Alison James:

You know, creativity isn't always playful.

Alison James:

Uh, experiential learning might have a bit of play and creativity and

Alison James:

it, but then again, it might not.

Alison James:

So, I mean, it's just, if you just kinda go, it depends.

Alison James:

Yes, they can all be a little bit of the other, but they

Alison James:

all have distinct features.

Alison James:

Leave it alone

Lucy Taylor:

I think that's really interesting and I think you did an amazing

Lucy Taylor:

job of keeping that very understandable and that seems to me to be a very

Lucy Taylor:

intuitive, way of thinking about it.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, for me it's a, I guess it's about bringing an attitude of playfulness

Lucy Taylor:

to the work at hand and creating space for others to do the same

Lucy Taylor:

and not taking work at face value.

Lucy Taylor:

How do you shake it about a bit and,

Alison James:

Absolutely.

Alison James:

Absolutely.

Alison James:

It's that lovely quote that he takes from Friedrich Von about play,

Alison James:

uh, being, taking reality lightly.

Alison James:

And I think that's, that's really important because it doesn't mean.

Alison James:

That you are dismissing reality or what you are dealing with as

Alison James:

trivial, but it means that you are approaching it in a different way.

Alison James:

And of course what you are describing, I think is that difference

Alison James:

between play and playfulness.

Alison James:

Because play actually can, can be a very un playful experience.

Alison James:

You know, sometimes people look at the word play and think, oh, it

Alison James:

must be horsing around and lots of jealousy and tho those sorts of things.

Alison James:

But it can be so many other things and it can be quiet and it can

Alison James:

be thoughtful and it can be slow.

Alison James:

Um, and you know, to, to me it, it has so many, it's like a kaleidoscope.

Alison James:

It's got so many different facets.

Lucy Taylor:

I think that's really, really important cuz I think as

Lucy Taylor:

you said at the beginning, there is a bit of squeamishness around the

Lucy Taylor:

concept of play in relation to work.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think the, I think the breadth of what it can mean is much more

Lucy Taylor:

inviting when you, when you think about it in a very wide context.

Lucy Taylor:

Like it can be solo as you said, it can be quiet.

Lucy Taylor:

It doesn't have to be what I think it gets stereotyped as, as this kind

Lucy Taylor:

of boisterous bantery, you know, competitive games type of play.

Lucy Taylor:

There's a great variety.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, and I think that feels much more inclusive to me.

Alison James:

Yeah.

Alison James:

Yeah.

Alison James:

I think it's often it that that's why it's, it's often really nice to, if

Alison James:

you can, in not too heavy handed away, not like, you know, trying to explain a

Alison James:

joke before you've got to the punchline.

Alison James:

But if you can kind of unpack some of the assumptions, because I do think that's

Alison James:

one of the greatest, th th those kinds of prejudices or barriers or, or, or maybe

Alison James:

narrow interpretations of what play is.

Alison James:

Is is what stops people.

Alison James:

Well, it makes people more hung up about play than they need to be.

Alison James:

Um, but it also means that people are, as you say, squeamish or suspicious.

Alison James:

And it does mean that if you are working in a very market driven,

Alison James:

productivity oriented, um, setting, then, you know, play sounds

Alison James:

like a waste of time and money.

Alison James:

And certainly in something like a full educational setting where you've got

Alison James:

people paying for their education or they've got grants, but they've got loans

Alison James:

or they've got whatever, um, you know, the idea of playing your way to your

Alison James:

degree or your qualification or whatever just sounds like a complete nonsense.

Alison James:

But it's because people have, um, yeah, that, that they don't fully

Alison James:

understand what what play is.

Alison James:

And it's interesting because we have been on a similar journey with.

Alison James:

Lots of things that are now, um, that I, I think had had the same sort of

Alison James:

barriers and things that ha now ha have been completely rea reappraised.

Alison James:

And it can happen with, uh, with play as well.

Alison James:

If I think of what used to be called a specific learning diff difficulties.

Alison James:

And now we are talking about, you know, neuro neurodiversity.

Alison James:

But back in the, the sixties and seventies dyslexia was, was seen as people who

Alison James:

couldn't read or spell, you know, people who, who weren't academically bright.

Alison James:

And what we've done over the last 40 years is, you know, those kinds of complete.

Alison James:

Misjudgments about what that particular learning difference is all

Alison James:

about have been completely upended.

Alison James:

You know, people understand about diverse ways of processing information.

Alison James:

People understand about so many different things, and the stigma has gone.

Alison James:

And that's, that's exceptionally important when you consider the incredible strengths

Alison James:

and, and, and gifts and talents that, um, uh, that, that having dyslexia can bring.

Alison James:

That's just an example, but I've seen it, I've, I've seen it in, In my, in my work,

Alison James:

working with learning support services and, and, um, uh, working with colleagues

Alison James:

who were, uh, working with students with a whole range of, learning differences.

Alison James:

if you're even allowed to call them learning differences anymore,

Alison James:

you know, the, the, the, the language moves on very quickly.

Alison James:

But, so, you know, there's a case in point if you think about, uh, some of

Alison James:

the, in, in, in wider society, some of the sort of the things that we were okay,

Alison James:

we thought were okay to, uh, label, to joke about, to talk about, you know, the,

Alison James:

the things that we assumed were norms 40 years ago in lots of different ways.

Alison James:

You know, we, we've reappraised that.

Alison James:

I'm not suggesting that you.

Alison James:

Play and neurodiversity are necessarily on the same, on the same platform, but

Alison James:

I think it, it's perfectly possible for us to take something that we think is

Alison James:

a problem and actually reappraise it to realize that judiciously viewed so not

Alison James:

uncritically viewed, um, that actually we've got hangups we don't need to have.

Alison James:

because, because there were really good reasons for having

Alison James:

play, but not play at any

Alison James:

price.

Lucy Taylor:

so it feels like we've got quite a lot of.

Lucy Taylor:

Revolutions on our hands.

Lucy Taylor:

So we're trying to revolutionize the word play, entertainment, retirement, um, and

Lucy Taylor:

speaking to you and reading your papers.

Lucy Taylor:

And it feels like there's a bit of a revolution going on in higher

Lucy Taylor:

education at the moment, um, with kind of play clubs and comp play

Lucy Taylor:

conferences popping up all over the place in the world of higher education.

Lucy Taylor:

Is, is that fair to say?

Lucy Taylor:

Is that your, is that your experience?

Alison James:

I would love it to be a revolution.

Alison James:

And it's funny cuz I, I don't really think of myself as a revolutionary.

Alison James:

I, think of myself as somebody who likes to stir the pot occasionally,

Alison James:

but I, but I think you are.

Alison James:

No, I think you're right.

Alison James:

But, but again, it's like, you know, it's a bit like when, when somebody becomes,

Alison James:

an overnight sensation, say in music or in film, they're not an overnight sensation.

Alison James:

They've been pegging away for Lord knows how long, most of them.

Alison James:

Um, and suddenly Bosch, there they are, they're, they're, you

Alison James:

know, a-listers or whatever.

Alison James:

and it, it, again, slightly dodgy analogy for play, but I think, you know, there are

Alison James:

a lot of very highly respected people in.

Alison James:

In play, play networks who have been around for a long time.

Alison James:

You know, they've been using play and play for learning for

Alison James:

15, 20 years, if not longer.

Alison James:

And the, some of the associations, something like Playful Learning

Alison James:

Association in the UK has been around for, I don't know, 12, 15 years.

Alison James:

And it started off as a special interest group, for, for games

Alison James:

and I think learning technology.

Alison James:

and that's, that's become much more, uh, broad ranging over the years.

Alison James:

And it's got an international, it's got international involvement.

Alison James:

And then you've got newer ones like, um, the playful University

Alison James:

platform, which is hosted in Denmark, but again, international board

Alison James:

that's been around for a few years.

Alison James:

The professors at play in the states that, um, launched itself two years ago.

Alison James:

It's got something like 800 members.

Alison James:

So you've got, you've got new players and you've got old players.

Alison James:

But what I would say is certainly.

Alison James:

In the last five years, maybe three to five years, I have seen

Alison James:

suddenly the word play pops up.

Alison James:

You see it in more contexts.

Alison James:

You, you see people talking about, we've still got a bit of a way to go.

Alison James:

You know, I was very fortunate in one of the universities I worked

Alison James:

in, whereas there was some kind of espousal of the word play.

Alison James:

Um, but there was still re resistance among some of the, the, you know,

Alison James:

the old guard who, who really weren't quite sure that they wanted to see

Alison James:

any reference to play in things like educational policy or whatever.

Alison James:

Um, you know, I, I do think we've made a lot of, a lot of, inroads.

Alison James:

I think what has also happened now in the work that I'm aware of, people

Alison James:

are saying, so we've got more and more publications around playful practices,

Alison James:

playful education, playful work.

Alison James:

You know, I've come across a number of studies which have been fascinating

Alison James:

around play in the workplace.

Alison James:

So all of that's going on.

Alison James:

What perhaps we need more of is, research studies, perhaps, uh,

Alison James:

something that's going to enable us to have that critical mass.

Alison James:

But also have some, some kind of, uh, supporting research on that.

Alison James:

Even if it's like, you know what, even as I say that out loud, I'm not even

Alison James:

convinced if that is what we need, but I think it's what higher education thinks

Alison James:

we need because then it, you know, um, it can, it can breathe out and go, phew,

Alison James:

there's the research to support it.

Alison James:

It must be okay.

Alison James:

I think we are still.

Alison James:

still in, in an education world, in a work-based world where

Alison James:

everybody is relieved, if you can say so-and-so has been doing it for

Alison James:

20 years, there's this book on it.

Alison James:

There's that research study.

Alison James:

This major company is using it.

Alison James:

It's one of the reasons people love Lego Sirius play.

Alison James:

You know, you can say Formula One have used it, red Cross have used it, X

Alison James:

number of universities are using it.

Alison James:

All these big companies are using it, blah, blah, blah.

Alison James:

Um, and, and so people are relieved.

Alison James:

You know, it's like, it's like taking a supplement that, that, you

Alison James:

know, has been supported by science as opposed to something that your

Alison James:

Auntie Dora says works even though Auntie Dora was ahead of her time.

Alison James:

So, um, uh, I, yes, to, to go back to your, your question,

Alison James:

definitely there is a shift.

Alison James:

There is a shift in the zeitgeist, but I think we are still up against,

Alison James:

a lot, a lot of concerns that come from a legitimate base if you like.

Alison James:

You know, we, we, we owe our students, as I've said already, we owe our students

Alison James:

an excellent learning experience.

Alison James:

We need to be responsible with the money they're investing in us.

Alison James:

We need to make sure we can do our best to unleash their potential so that they

Alison James:

can go on and do this, that and the other.

Alison James:

And those are very serious and weighty concerns and higher

Alison James:

education for years and years now.

Alison James:

Is, has not, it's not, it's not resting on its laurels, it's not a relaxed place.

Alison James:

It's had all sorts of issues with funding, with, with withdrawal of,

Alison James:

of, you know, government support, uh, dancing to various educational tunes,

Alison James:

far greater, um, uh, dare I say, interference from external agencies and

Alison James:

can influence the kinds of decision making that, that universities have to make.

Alison James:

So, I mean, And, and it's a bit, you know, I've, I'm, I'm sorry to say it and

Alison James:

I dunno, maybe your listeners wouldn't agree with you, but I do think that there

Alison James:

is still an awful lot of educator bashing goes on, you know, when I was growing

Alison James:

up, there was that silly old adage about those that can do and those that can't

Alison James:

teach what other, you know, utter, utter.

Alison James:

Um, but certainly if you look at a lot of the British media and pronouncements

Alison James:

made by, uh, successive UK governments in the last 20 years, you know, they love

Alison James:

trumpeting the value of the, the, um, you know, the UK Research University and, and

Alison James:

our world-leading education while putting the boot in to those who are actually

Alison James:

delivering that education on the ground.

Alison James:

You know, there's still some kind of mis, you know, misconception that, that some of

Alison James:

us are still up in ivory towers, which is complete again, it's absolutely nonsense.

Alison James:

Um, so I think we are up against, we are up against what I would say are.

Alison James:

resistances and suspicions, which are born of that lack of understanding

Alison James:

of what play means, what, what it can do, what playfulness can do

Lucy Taylor:

Yes, and actually how it can be a fundamental piece of delivering

Lucy Taylor:

an e, an excellent education and unlocking that potential of human beings.

Alison James:

Absolutely.

Alison James:

Absolutely.

Alison James:

And, and you know, I often, I often share the story sort of many years

Alison James:

ago, I, I worked, um, with a wonderful colleague who was one of the first to

Alison James:

say, I want, I want you to design a, a Lego based module for my students.

Alison James:

And it was, I was, I spent a, a number of years absolutely fascinated,

Alison James:

um, by the whole notion of personal development planning as it was called

Alison James:

at the time, professional development, you know, the kind of soft skills, the

Alison James:

whole person development so that you understood, you know, who you were,

Alison James:

where you were going, what you wanted to get out of your education over

Alison James:

and above or in, in tandem with your, you know, your, your subject study.

Alison James:

So, you know, the whole critical reflection agenda, rah, rah.

Alison James:

Um, but I wasn't really a fan of the, and now sit down and write a

Alison James:

500 word reflection on what you've learned, because I knew that, you

Alison James:

know, a lot of students just, you know, , well, they were remarkably.

Alison James:

Speedi, you know, they'd knock something out on the bus.

Alison James:

They'd, they'd give us some old guff that they knew that would please us

Alison James:

about, you know, how they, how they were gonna do things differently

Alison James:

as a result of doing X, Y, Z.

Alison James:

And, you know, and some of them quite upfront about the fact that they

Alison James:

thought it was utterly pointless.

Alison James:

And so I was at pains to bring playful and creative and self-reflective approaches

Alison James:

together to make it more meaningful.

Alison James:

And so, as a part of that, on this particular course, I was invited to run a

Alison James:

personal development planning, uh, module.

Alison James:

Um, and I made it entirely Lego based.

Alison James:

So I was inspired by techniques from Lego series play.

Alison James:

And I created this three hour workshop where, um, students at the end of their

Alison James:

year course built Lego based models of their learning journey from that year.

Alison James:

You know what?

Alison James:

And they were all international students.

Alison James:

They'd all come from abroad.

Alison James:

It was a year long course prior to embarking on the degree.

Alison James:

they all had these, they created these extraordinary models of what

Alison James:

it felt like to arrive in the uk, you know, their expectations, how

Alison James:

it unfolded things, this, that, and the other, blah, blah, blah.

Alison James:

And, um, at the end of the, the sessions, you know, they would listen.

Alison James:

They would've listened to, they'd obviously expressed

Alison James:

their own learning journeys.

Alison James:

They'd listened to the stories of the learning journeys, others.

Alison James:

And, and I took one of the gifting techniques and said, okay, you know,

Alison James:

everybody took an a, a name out of a hat.

Alison James:

Um, and it was, you know, a secret.

Alison James:

And they built, they built a gift for one of the people in the room.

Alison James:

They were maximum groups of 12.

Alison James:

One of the people in the room.

Alison James:

Something that they, you know, they noticed about the story.

Alison James:

They told about their learning journey.

Alison James:

That, and they built for them something that they thought they

Alison James:

might, you know, need or benefit from.

Alison James:

And, and it was extraordinary how the, the, the building and the sharing

Alison James:

of the models of these learning journeys was incredibly insightful.

Alison James:

It was infinitely more meaningful.

Alison James:

Than sitting, sitting, you know, lonely on the number 37

Alison James:

bus boshing out your 500 words.

Alison James:

The building of the gifts was an extraordinary experience, bearing

Alison James:

in mind that, you know, the, these weren't necessarily students

Alison James:

who were already good friends.

Alison James:

They'd come from different courses and all the rest of it.

Alison James:

And at the end of that, we had, we had this big inflatable, I call it

Alison James:

was a pod, big inflatable white pod in the studio where we'd been doing

Alison James:

the Lego and it had, um, a laptop with a little video, uh, recorder on it.

Alison James:

And they were able, students went in and they, and there were some

Alison James:

prompts stuck on the size of the pods.

Alison James:

And the students went in and they were able to respond to these reflections

Alison James:

and say, you know, basically how they felt about the experience they just had.

Alison James:

And then, and then they, they wrote to take their recording away, a little video

Alison James:

away, and then they did write some kind of critical review of their year, but

Alison James:

their teachers were blown away by, How the quality of the writing and the reflection

Alison James:

had changed in that kind of, you know, doing it literally in sort of physical

Alison James:

multisensory capacity, then reflect the audio visually and then writing something.

Alison James:

Um, very, very long-winded way of sort of sharing an example, but also at the

Alison James:

end of one of these sessions, a girl who'd literally just built all the way

Alison James:

through three, three, the out three hours.

Alison James:

She was absolutely devoted, if you like.

Alison James:

Um, and she asked if she could help me ti day, where the Lego

Alison James:

always happy for a bit of help.

Alison James:

So said yes.

Alison James:

And, um, we were chatting away and, and she said, uh, do you

Alison James:

know I have a D H D and uh, uh, attention deficit disorder and.

Alison James:

No, because you've, your focus has been phenomenal this morning.

Alison James:

You've spent three hours totally on task immersed in what you are doing.

Alison James:

And she said, she said a wonderful thing.

Alison James:

She said, if you'd have done a PowerPoint and a seminar, I'd have

Alison James:

been out the door in 10 minutes.

Alison James:

But she said, when my fingers are moving, I'm golden.

Alison James:

And I just thought that was the most beautiful.

Alison James:

It always, it always makes me kind of get a bit unnecessary when I tell that story.

Alison James:

Cause you just think, there you go.

Alison James:

There you go.

Alison James:

What else do you need?

Alison James:

You know, this girl

Lucy Taylor:

I, I've got,

Alison James:

transformed.

Lucy Taylor:

yeah, I've got a goosebump.

Lucy Taylor:

So you're telling me that because I think going back to your point about,

Lucy Taylor:

um, You know, diversity, I feel, and, and reading your study, it feels like actually

Lucy Taylor:

creating playful ways for people to learn or for people to work gives access to

Lucy Taylor:

such a wider group of people and people with different ways of experiencing

Lucy Taylor:

the world and learning and taking in information and expressing themselves.

Lucy Taylor:

And you create this, this cauldron that is so much richer than if you

Lucy Taylor:

simply do a PowerPoint and deliver it in this very kind of rational,

Lucy Taylor:

cognitive way that works for, you know, such a small group of people.

Alison James:

Yeah.

Alison James:

Yeah.

Alison James:

And I think also it's, it's a very good example.

Alison James:

I think people, people on the outside look at playful experiences and they

Alison James:

just think, oh, that's brilliant.

Alison James:

That'll be a really quick way of me doing X.

Alison James:

You know, just bun a piece of bunch of people together, get 'em to do X, Y,

Alison James:

Z, and, and it'll all work by itself.

Alison James:

And of course, again, you and I, and I'm sure your listeners know as well, is

Alison James:

actually for really, um, what's the word?

Alison James:

Uh, I was, I was, I was gonna say effective.

Alison James:

Ooh, no, not effective, playful learning, but

Lucy Taylor:

I wanted to say sa, I wanted to say sacred.

Lucy Taylor:

What you described just sounded sacred to me,

Alison James:

No, but lots of people talk about sacred, you know, the

Alison James:

sacredness of the play space, don't they?

Alison James:

So I think, you know, that's an entirely legitimate term, but I

Alison James:

think may I, I'm not quite sure.

Alison James:

I think there are lots of words I want say, but I maybe, maybe I'm

Alison James:

going to be pathetic and sort of go for a good play experience.

Alison James:

We, we, we all know it's a bit like nice, you know, it's everything and nothing.

Alison James:

But I think for play to be something that is going to be entertaining,

Alison James:

inclusive, insightful, comfortable, relaxing, whatever it is that you want

Alison James:

it to be, you don't just, you don't just pull it out of your pocket, unless

Alison James:

of course you are quite experienced and you know that you've got something

Alison James:

that will work in a certain situation.

Alison James:

You have to think about it.

Alison James:

You have to think about, You know, why do I want to do this?

Alison James:

Why do I think this is a good idea?

Alison James:

Who am I doing it with?

Alison James:

What, what kind of enthusiasms and retic senses might they bring?

Alison James:

What is it that I don't know about the people I'm thinking about doing this with?

Alison James:

Because I think one of the things, one of the things, I talk about my study and

Alison James:

I'm afraid, this is where I did, did, um, sell my soul to the academic devil.

Alison James:

And I came up with a good old poly syllable term, uh,

Alison James:

you know, polarities of play.

Alison James:

Uh, but I, and I tried not to use it, but actually I kept coming back to it being

Alison James:

really the best term I could think of.

Alison James:

And it is that one thing can have.

Alison James:

Very extreme views around it.

Alison James:

So if we take this notion of diversity and inclusion, you know, I would

Alison James:

get a bunch of people in the study going, plays absolutely brilliant.

Alison James:

It's so inclusive, it, it's a leveler.

Alison James:

It does this, that and the other.

Alison James:

And then you get other people who say you've gotta be careful because

Alison James:

some play experiences will simply reinforce any kind of in inequalities

Alison James:

or divides or whatever there are.

Alison James:

So some gamers, for example, would talk about, you know, the cultural capital that

Alison James:

comes with certain forms of playing games.

Alison James:

And if you haven't got that, if you don't know the in jokes, if you

Alison James:

don't know how something works, then already, you know, You are, you are

Alison James:

on the outside competitive play.

Alison James:

Same thing.

Alison James:

You know, bunch of people would say competitive play

Alison James:

is fantastic for my students.

Alison James:

It's so incentivizing.

Alison James:

It motivates them.

Alison James:

They love winning, they love the rewards, they love this, that and the other.

Alison James:

And another bunch of people would say, it brings out the worst in my students.

Alison James:

The last thing I need is for them to be pitting themselves against

Alison James:

each other, blah, blah, blah.

Alison James:

I like collaborative, cooperative play where you all have to work

Alison James:

together to win, et cetera, et cetera.

Alison James:

So, um, yes, I think it's that, that's, again, it's another ramble,

Alison James:

but I think it's about saying that yes, play does have the possibility

Alison James:

of, of opening up learning to people who maybe who, who weren't getting

Alison James:

on well or, or for whom traditional ways of doing these traditional

Alison James:

ways of teaching and supporting.

Alison James:

Weren't having the breakthroughs or weren't enabling them to have the

Alison James:

breakthroughs that they, they needed and actually, you know, that they

Alison James:

were perfectly capable of doing.

Alison James:

There's a wonderful story in, in, in my study, um, that somebody from, uh, medical

Alison James:

sciences sh shared and, uh, that, that's a very broad brush term, but she talks

Alison James:

about micropipetting ala diehard, and she, she said, you know, micropipetting.

Lucy Taylor:

read that one.

Alison James:

And it's an absolutely lovely one.

Alison James:

Um, it's worth reading study just for that one.

Alison James:

And of course the great thing is with PDFs, you can just search for Microing

Alison James:

and you'll go straight to the story.

Alison James:

Um, but she said, you know, they, that that microing is one of these

Alison James:

incredibly precise techniques, but loads of people don't get it.

Alison James:

And, and she was wondering, you know, how could she teach this, this the kind

Alison James:

of the delicacies of technique because it wasn't just a question of, you know,

Alison James:

you have liquid in, in one container and liquid in another, and you squirt a bit

Alison James:

of that into that and Bob's your uncle, you know, precision is absolutely a key.

Alison James:

And so she, she found the, the water jug riddle from diehard, I'm

Alison James:

not going to spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen the film, is there

Alison James:

anybody who hasn't seen the film?

Alison James:

Um, and, and so she took the analogy of that and at the end of the workshop,

Alison James:

she had two perfectly capable, bright medical students come up to her and

Alison James:

just say, You've literally saved our medical careers because they said, you

Alison James:

know, we were struggling with this.

Alison James:

We just couldn't grasp it, and we were ready to walk away.

Alison James:

You know, they'd lost their confidence.

Alison James:

They'd lost their belief that they, you know, that they had the, the

Alison James:

academic intelligence to do things.

Alison James:

And it was just about finding that different technique.

Alison James:

Um, and I think that's, you know, that that's one in, in a myriad,

Alison James:

you know, reasons as to why, why play is legitimate, you know?

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

I love that.

Lucy Taylor:

So, uh, I mean, we touched on in the introduction, but you have

Lucy Taylor:

written a number of books about play.

Lucy Taylor:

So you wrote Higher Education, engaging Imagination with

Lucy Taylor:

Professor Steven Brookfield.

Lucy Taylor:

You wrote The Power of Play in Higher Education with Chrissy nci.

Lucy Taylor:

And then most recently, as we've been alluding to, you wrote a study which

Lucy Taylor:

was funded by the Imagination Lab, how dreamy, um, called the Study of Play

Lucy Taylor:

in Higher Education, sorry, the, the value of play in higher education.

Lucy Taylor:

And I mean, again, I'm gonna ask you another slightly impossible question,

Lucy Taylor:

but from, you know, all this deep work that you've done and also your own

Lucy Taylor:

practice, which I know is very playful.

Lucy Taylor:

You've given us a, a lovely example here, and I know you've got hundreds

Lucy Taylor:

of others from the chats we've had before, but what would you.

Lucy Taylor:

what do you think is most valuable about playful approaches to learning

Lucy Taylor:

and bringing, inviting play in?

Lucy Taylor:

Like, why should we do this

Alison James:

That's really interesting because you'd, if you

Alison James:

were, if you were asking me and 19 other people, you'd get 20.

Alison James:

Different answers.

Alison James:

Um, which is why I think if anybody's got an interest, even if they're not

Alison James:

very familiar with what it's all about, leafing through any of, of, of my

Alison James:

books and papers or, or the study or, or whatever or anything about playful

Alison James:

learning by other people as well is, is, is really good because, cause we

Alison James:

all have our subjective preferences.

Alison James:

What do I like it?

Alison James:

I think what I like about it is connection.

Alison James:

It's a, it's pure and simple and it's connection through plate or

Alison James:

through creative and playful means.

Alison James:

It's enabling people to connect to.

Alison James:

This subject, you know, maybe they didn't want to, maybe they didn't

Alison James:

think they were interested, wonderful stories in my, my study, but in other

Alison James:

studies as well, where, um, they, they look at student feedback forms and the

Alison James:

students having had a playful experience will say things like, this was the

Alison James:

class I really didn't want to go to.

Alison James:

This was the class.

Alison James:

I thought that was going to be pointless.

Alison James:

This was the class I nearly skipped and I'm so glad I didn't.

Alison James:

So I think, you know, people come along and, and then, you know, we, we approach

Alison James:

things with preconceptions, don't we?

Alison James:

You know?

Alison James:

Oh, I don't wanna watch that.

Alison James:

I'll be a bit boring.

Alison James:

Oh, I don't want to go to that.

Alison James:

It's a bit late.

Alison James:

Oh, I'm, they're not sure if that's going to be any good.

Alison James:

That's not my cup of tea.

Alison James:

But, so we kind of talk ourselves outta loads of things.

Alison James:

But I think what play does is if you can get people in a room nine times

Alison James:

out of 10, I find that even those who are not sure they want to be there, 98%

Alison James:

of them will have their minds changed.

Alison James:

Fairly quickly when they realize there is something that intrigues

Alison James:

them or peaks their curiosity or kind of gets close to something

Alison James:

that they felt was cut and dried.

Alison James:

Um, and you know, sometimes you seem set to be able to, so that people

Alison James:

have kind of got, you know, a few sort of reasons as to why this is proper.

Alison James:

You know, why this is okay.

Alison James:

Or you just say, you know, archetypal line from the Moody movies.

Alison James:

Do you trust me?

Alison James:

And you, you try something and then afterwards you debrief and you

Alison James:

unpack and you say, okay, you know, What was going on in your mind?

Alison James:

What did you find from that?

Alison James:

What did you notice, blah, blah, blah.

Alison James:

So those sorts of debrief, and I think debrief with play can be really helpful.

Alison James:

A lot of, a lot of times, uh, you don't wanna kill it, stone dead.

Alison James:

Obviously.

Alison James:

You want to believe some magic in the same ways.

Alison James:

You don't ask people to explain how they did a trick, in my view, anyway.

Alison James:

Um, so connection, connection to me.

Alison James:

You know, somebody suddenly is interested in the subject.

Alison James:

The subject is speaking to them, it's making sense.

Alison James:

They can see how it has relevance.

Alison James:

These all or some of these relevance for other things.

Alison James:

They can, they can start going on their own kinds of journeys and stuff.

Alison James:

I think.

Alison James:

Connection to self and others.

Alison James:

I think one, one of the things I've noticed time and again, is how play

Alison James:

engenders conversations with people.

Alison James:

Um, years ago, I and a number of colleagues co-ed, a play in creativity

Alison James:

festival at the University of Winchester, and it ran for three years.

Alison James:

Uh, were annually for three years, and first year we ran it.

Alison James:

Um, somebody basically we, we, we just set up, set up a lot of cr

Alison James:

creative and playful activities.

Alison James:

In the first year, it was just literally, we kind of

Alison James:

experimented with spaces on campus.

Alison James:

For the final two years we did it in a big play tent on, on one of the sports fields.

Alison James:

Um, so there was a kind of, you know, special place going

Alison James:

back to your sacred space.

Alison James:

That to me was my sacred space, that tent.

Lucy Taylor:

Oh, lovely.

Alison James:

Which was lovely.

Alison James:

Um, but, but, um, somebody, uh, from a non-educational department

Alison James:

wrote in a, in a feedback form.

Alison James:

I've had, I've had conversations with people I never speak to about

Alison James:

things I would never normally talk about, and I just thought that was

Alison James:

mind blowing because it is about how play and it, it, you don't, this is

Alison James:

where I think play is so important.

Alison James:

Play and creativity, whichever one you prefer is that it's not like you say,

Alison James:

okay, you know, by, by 1130 I will have had a meaningful conversation with Brenda

Alison James:

about climate change or whatever it is.

Alison James:

You know, it's just, I'm allowing myself to go into that

Alison James:

space and I'm going to try x.

Alison James:

Things will unfold.

Alison James:

And you know, we have lost in many respects, I think in higher education, the

Alison James:

value of the unexpected learning outcome.

Alison James:

We're so busy measuring whether or not people have met these learning

Alison James:

objectives that we forget about all the ones that really, really matter

Alison James:

and actually maybe matter even more, you know, than the ones that we're

Alison James:

supposed to have got out of a module.

Alison James:

Um, and so I think, I think it's, it's those things that play can unlock, that

Alison James:

can be both to do with the education or the work-based experience, but also all

Alison James:

the things that may be, are completely private and personal to that individual.

Alison James:

Maybe they don't even share.

Alison James:

, but they, they have had something outta that experience.

Alison James:

And so I think yes, fundamentally play for connection.

Alison James:

And that doesn't necessarily mean getting all group huggy with everybody, although,

Alison James:

you know, hey, I'm all up for a group hug.

Alison James:

But it's, it's, it's just about,

Alison James:

you know,

Lucy Taylor:

too.

Alison James:

yeah.

Alison James:

Opening eyes, making connections, tapping into something meaningful.

Alison James:

Uh, yeah.

Alison James:

It's, it's, which all sounds incidentally very touchy-feely, but

Alison James:

to me, that word connection, and there's nothing wrong with touchy-feely

Alison James:

either, but there's that connection.

Alison James:

It's, it's, it's ev it encompasses everything.

Alison James:

It encompasses your rational, logical, linear that you were talking about.

Alison James:

It encompasses emotional and the human, uh, it's, it's, it's subject based.

Alison James:

It's people based.

Alison James:

It's what is my place in this world based, you know, it's for

Alison James:

big questions, little questions.

Alison James:

I think that's what's so great.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think that connection, I mean, it kind of comes back to, you know, the

Lucy Taylor:

journey you described at the beginning.

Lucy Taylor:

You know, that reconnection to that very early part of ourselves, which sometimes

Lucy Taylor:

we lose and is very important to remember.

Lucy Taylor:

I love that quote by Bernard Decoy, which I quote way too often.

Lucy Taylor:

When we are guided by our playfulness, it will lead us back to life itself.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think that is, you know,

Alison James:

I love

Lucy Taylor:

if you can give people that gift, I think it's such a, an

Lucy Taylor:

amazing thing and a generous thing.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, I'd love it if we could finish by, um, , we ask all our, our guests

Lucy Taylor:

to share a playful practice that our listeners can go and have a go with when

Lucy Taylor:

they go back to their place of work.

Lucy Taylor:

So I wondered if you had something, um, that you've been playing with that

Lucy Taylor:

you might be able to impart to us.

Alison James:

Oh gosh.

Lucy Taylor:

Cutting you on the spot here.

Alison James:

There are, there are so many.

Alison James:

I think this is going to sound like a bit of a cop out answer, Lucy.

Alison James:

I think, I think if, if anybody feels that, I think, I think your

Alison James:

own playfulness, we all know whether or not playfulness is working.

Alison James:

It's like if you tell a joke and it falls flat, you know, you know that

Alison James:

it didn't, didn't work, you know?

Alison James:

But I think we get a sense of, of where our playfulness resides.

Alison James:

And I think, so I think owning your own playfulness and thinking about, um, how

Alison James:

you might, how you might try, I think if you are going to pick a playful practice.

Alison James:

Again, this is gonna sound like a bit of a, a sort of a, a non-answer

Alison James:

to your question, but I think it's, it's about first asking yourself is,

Alison James:

you know, why do I want to do this?

Alison James:

What do I want to achieve or not achieve?

Alison James:

What's, what's, what's the, the driver behind the play?

Alison James:

Is it because we are stuck?

Alison James:

Is it because there's a gap or is, is it, there's something else.

Alison James:

And you don't have to overthink these things sometimes actually

Alison James:

it's a very simple thing.

Alison James:

Like, you know, I wanted to connect, or I want us to breathe, or I want us

Alison James:

to, uh, expand our ideas or whatever.

Alison James:

It's, there are so many playful practices that I've used that, you know, I would,

Alison James:

oh God, I, I dunno where to start, but I tell you what I will do, I, I will

Alison James:

suggest one lot, which are Lego based.

Alison James:

So Christie, nci, and I have just reissued, um, and it's open source

Alison James:

and it's freely available online.

Alison James:

Um, I can always send you the link, um, if that's

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, we can put it in the show notes.

Lucy Taylor:

That would be great.

Alison James:

We call it something like Lego for learning

Alison James:

online, offline, and elsewhere.

Alison James:

And it's, it's a, it's a second edition of a booklet that we brought

Alison James:

out in 2019, which is about all the different ways that you can use Lego

Alison James:

series play and Lego based activities in, in a higher education situation.

Alison James:

And we have our offerings, but we also have, I think we had 16

Alison James:

contributors in the first edition.

Alison James:

We got 24 in the second edition.

Alison James:

And they offer a whole range of ways in which you can use

Alison James:

Lego in different studies.

Alison James:

And I think, I think though that's, that's one, that's one

Alison James:

suggestion of a playful practice,

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Alison James:

uh, that that, that I would, I would share

Alison James:

because I use Lego all the time.

Alison James:

So, so I guess Lego based things is absolutely,

Lucy Taylor:

So,

Alison James:

well, I've got one other though, which is a sort of a

Alison James:

back.

Alison James:

And also, you know, I, I can't remember where I got inspired to use this, um, but

Alison James:

it is, it's, it's an exercise I used to use in, um, oh God, workshops years and

Alison James:

years ago called What's On Your T-shirt.

Alison James:

And I used to get, um, I used to bring in cardboard cutout t-shirts,

Alison James:

not live size, but little t-shirts.

Alison James:

Um, and I used them in teacher training.

Alison James:

I used it in reflective practice.

Alison James:

I used it in all sorts of workshops.

Alison James:

Um, and I would ask participants to write on, on their t-shirt, you know,

Alison James:

what was it they most wanted, uh, either their colleagues or their students to

Alison James:

know about them in any given context.

Alison James:

So it could be at the start of a module.

Alison James:

It could be in this room right now, it could be.

Alison James:

I don't know what.

Alison James:

And um, you know, they had, they had pens and things and so they, they, they

Alison James:

could decorate the t-shirt, they could write a slogan, they could have an an

Alison James:

image, they could do whatever they wanted.

Alison James:

And that was wonderful.

Alison James:

Forgetting us away.

Alison James:

You know, a bit like the way, if you do a play-based activity or you work with

Alison James:

Lego or you work with creative things and you invite people to introduce

Alison James:

themselves, what they say through those means compared to if you just all

Alison James:

whipped up the table committee style, if you go around the table or use the

Alison James:

flip chart, you get the CV approach.

Alison James:

My name's Brenda.

Alison James:

I, you know, I've worked for 25 years in accounting, blah, blah, blah.

Alison James:

Um, and, but if you do it through playful and creative means you

Alison James:

get a totally different story.

Alison James:

And, and, and so people would write all sorts of things on their t-shirts,

Alison James:

which, which were then wonderful.

Alison James:

Points of conversation.

Alison James:

So if you had it with trainee trainee teachers or people new to

Alison James:

education or whatever it was, you know, seeing what they thought their

Alison James:

role as a teacher was, for example.

Alison James:

But my favorite one was I did an away date with a network for, um, co um, librarians.

Alison James:

And we had about 55 librarians in, in a lovely castle, uh,

Alison James:

somewhere back in the days when you could go to such lovely places.

Alison James:

And, and I did the, the t-shirt activity.

Alison James:

So I was used to handing out the T-shirts.

Alison James:

Everybody would write something, everybody would write something different, and

Alison James:

then there would be a big conversation about, you know, what, what the slogan

Alison James:

on the t-shirt meant, uh, macho hilarity.

Alison James:

And what was so touching with the librarians was it's the only

Alison James:

time that there was an incredible homogeneity in the messages.

Alison James:

And so they all said things like, I can help here to help.

Alison James:

Do you need help?

Alison James:

What help would you like?

Alison James:

And it's just of all, and it was just, it was just a really lovely

Alison James:

moment that, that, that there was this sort of synergy in the room and,

Alison James:

and they, they all thought it was hilarious about they'd all come up

Alison James:

with these remarkably similar messages.

Alison James:

About,

Lucy Taylor:

That's amazing.

Lucy Taylor:

This like community of people wanting to be in service.

Alison James:

yeah.

Alison James:

Yeah.

Alison James:

It was lovely.

Alison James:

And you'd, you know, you'd get students and you can, there's so many ways you

Alison James:

can riff on a, on a thing like that.

Alison James:

So if you'd like, that's a mixture.

Alison James:

It's the simple, it's the creative, it's the playful.

Alison James:

It can take as long or as short as as you want it

Alison James:

to.

Lucy Taylor:

That's brilliant.

Lucy Taylor:

Thank you so much.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, I, yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And I will put the link to the Lego.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, Booklet that you mentioned in the show notes for the episode, and

Lucy Taylor:

I know those are designed for higher education, but I feel like there's

Lucy Taylor:

a lot of, um, transferable learning in so much of what you've shared to

Lucy Taylor:

other sectors and other industries.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

So thank you Alison.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Alison James:

I just literally say on that basis, cuz I think that's an incredibly

Alison James:

important point to end on, is yes.

Alison James:

You know, and I've made this point when I've talked to lots of different

Alison James:

constituents since the study came out, you could quite easily take away, you

Alison James:

know, the study for example, says the value of play in he, you can easily

Alison James:

take away, he and you can put in the workplace, in education at home,

Alison James:

in your local community, whatever, whatever in your family, you can take

Alison James:

away that thing because the kinds of transferrable things that come through

Alison James:

are the emotional experiences you have through play, the insights about

Alison James:

whatever it is you're doing through play.

Alison James:

And there are so many sort of universal things that irrespective of where we are

Alison James:

and what we are doing, We're doing all the time as a human, like reflecting on

Alison James:

stuff, uh, formulating questions, making decisions, uh, dealing with incomplete

Alison James:

information, um, blah blah blah.

Alison James:

So there are so many things expressing ourselves, communicating, connecting

Alison James:

so many things that far transcend the higher education, uh, category.

Alison James:

And they trans, they transcend disciplines as well, you know, so

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, fantastic.

Lucy Taylor:

I mean, I feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, but I, we will end it there today and I'd just like to express my thanks and

Lucy Taylor:

gratitude for such a rich conversation and yeah, such beautiful stories.

Lucy Taylor:

Thank you.

Alison James:

thank you Lucy, and thank you for the great questions

Alison James:

and thanks for the opportunity.

Lucy Taylor:

You're welcome.

Lucy Taylor:

Bye-bye.

Alison James:

Bye.

Tzuki Stewart:

So Lucy, what were your reflections on your

Tzuki Stewart:

lovely conversation with Allison?

Lucy Taylor:

Oh, that I could have carried on for hours and hours.

Lucy Taylor:

I feel like she's got so much playful wisdom to impart.

Tzuki Stewart:

Mm

Lucy Taylor:

Um, but I really loved the language that she uses.

Lucy Taylor:

So things like free range instead of retired.

Lucy Taylor:

And reclaiming things like the word entertainment, like how can

Lucy Taylor:

we make that a positive thing?

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

We want to entertain the people that we're educating.

Lucy Taylor:

I thought that was really nice.

Tzuki Stewart:

Oh yeah, I completely agree.

Tzuki Stewart:

found it so refreshing to hear her say that she's never felt more creative

Tzuki Stewart:

and energized than at this point in her life as she is in the stage that,

Tzuki Stewart:

you know, we would deem retirement.

Tzuki Stewart:

That's when she's really feeling that creative energy flow.

Tzuki Stewart:

So I thought, fantastic.

Tzuki Stewart:

I'm looking forward to that, that stage as well.

Tzuki Stewart:

So that was really refreshing

Lucy Taylor:

Me

Tzuki Stewart:

and, and yeah, exactly that the reclaiming of language, I thought

Tzuki Stewart:

she was so spot on when she was talking about the kind of inbuilt hierarchies and

Tzuki Stewart:

sort of blinkered perceptions that we can hold in education, where we study, what

Tzuki Stewart:

we study, how, how we build a body of work, exactly around that kind of slightly

Tzuki Stewart:

sneezy word of e entertainment, which is actually can be a brilliant, valuable

Tzuki Stewart:

thing to offer someone if it can be.

Tzuki Stewart:

Enjoyable and entertaining as well as imparting something of value.

Tzuki Stewart:

Um, and yeah, just a phrase jumped out at me when she was reflecting on

Tzuki Stewart:

that, around being prisoners of our own beliefs, um, which is, I think was just

Tzuki Stewart:

a lovely phrase to take away as kind of really make sure we're kind of examining

Tzuki Stewart:

our own beliefs and whether they're serving us, really holding us prisoner.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, that was really rich and that sense of there being a

Lucy Taylor:

dominance of certain ways of knowing and understanding the world and learning

Lucy Taylor:

over others and that, you know, the cognitive and the rational is primary.

Lucy Taylor:

And actually we lose so much when we don't allow space for other

Lucy Taylor:

ways of learning and knowing.

Tzuki Stewart:

mm Absolutely.

Tzuki Stewart:

What else came up for you?

Lucy Taylor:

I love this idea of, Play being about taking reality

Lucy Taylor:

lightly and at the same time, not trivializing it, but just holding it

Lucy Taylor:

loosely and not taking it so seriously.

Tzuki Stewart:

Mm mm

Lucy Taylor:

really interesting.

Tzuki Stewart:

Keeping it really intuitive.

Tzuki Stewart:

she was just super generous and inviting and inclusive in how she.

Tzuki Stewart:

Was thinking about play and playing and playfulness.

Tzuki Stewart:

I completely agree.

Tzuki Stewart:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

And on that, point about inclusiveness, the.

Lucy Taylor:

It was that beautiful example of where she got the group to do their reflective

Lucy Taylor:

practice through Lego, and that girl said, when my fingers are moving, I'm golden.

Lucy Taylor:

And I just thought, wow, that is so powerful how you, she felt completely

Lucy Taylor:

included and engaged in that exercise because it wasn't done, you know,

Lucy Taylor:

just through the written word or just through cognitive reflection.

Tzuki Stewart:

no, I love that moment as well.

Tzuki Stewart:

I also really enjoyed listening to Allison's reflections on how it feels

Tzuki Stewart:

like this kind of field of play and being more embracing of play is kind

Tzuki Stewart:

of gaining momentum, um, as an idea.

Tzuki Stewart:

And I kind of agreed what you were saying around there's still a sense that

Tzuki Stewart:

it kind of needs, you know, research underpinning it because that gives

Tzuki Stewart:

the permission to engage in this, it validates, this desire to engage in

Tzuki Stewart:

play and it kind of legitimizes it.

Tzuki Stewart:

And I was noodling on that and thinking that, you know, there's fantastic

Tzuki Stewart:

research out there that already exists and, you know, yes, let's have more.

Tzuki Stewart:

We can only, we can only add to this body of work.

Tzuki Stewart:

But I really liked her kind of slight provocation that.

Tzuki Stewart:

More research isn't what is required for wider playfulness in

Tzuki Stewart:

our work to kind of gain traction.

Tzuki Stewart:

I think if we say, you know, yes, we would want more research, but it's not,

Tzuki Stewart:

it's not required to give us permission.

Tzuki Stewart:

Um, you know, really it's the kind of practical experimentation

Tzuki Stewart:

in real life workplaces.

Tzuki Stewart:

That I think would be so additive to this.

Tzuki Stewart:

You know, small pockets of just trying new ways of working, new

Tzuki Stewart:

ways of connecting with colleagues, ideating in workshops, warming up

Tzuki Stewart:

before meetings, solving problems.

Tzuki Stewart:

Um, you know, it doesn't have to be a wholesale revolution, but just these

Tzuki Stewart:

small pockets of kind of experiments.

Tzuki Stewart:

I think that's when it feels really impactful because we kind of take

Tzuki Stewart:

it off the page and we really.

Tzuki Stewart:

We really try it in real life and as adults, we kind of open ourselves up

Tzuki Stewart:

to the possibilities of what might happen when we let that little bit

Tzuki Stewart:

of play into our lives and into our work and into our relationships.

Tzuki Stewart:

Um, so I, I loved her.

Tzuki Stewart:

Yeah.

Tzuki Stewart:

Sense of, yes, let's have more research, but also let's, let's let

Tzuki Stewart:

the rubber hit the road on this.

Tzuki Stewart:

We don't need to wait for that to give us this kind of legitimized permission.

Lucy Taylor:

Yes, exactly, and, and kind of link to that, the, the value

Lucy Taylor:

of the unexpected that comes out of those sorts of experiments and

Lucy Taylor:

allowing space for those things to blossom and, you know, you might come

Lucy Taylor:

up with something you never imagined.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, just creating a little bit more space for these ways of working.

Tzuki Stewart:

mm I wonder how we can just become more comfortable

Tzuki Stewart:

with inviting the unexpected in.

Tzuki Stewart:

I think for, for, for some of us are kind of better at that than, than others.

Tzuki Stewart:

Especially in, in this kind of, Workplace environments.

Tzuki Stewart:

I think that's probably where we feel least comfortable with.

Tzuki Stewart:

Maybe the unexpected generally.

Tzuki Stewart:

And um, it's nice to think how can we open up ourselves a little bit more to it?

Lucy Taylor:

Hmm.

Lucy Taylor:

Was there anything else that struck you?

Lucy Taylor:

Listening to the conversation?

Tzuki Stewart:

Just the one to leave this conversation on, which

Tzuki Stewart:

is, I'm not sure what a gender dancing is, but I want to find out.

Lucy Taylor:

Sounds great, doesn't it?

Lucy Taylor:

Homework for the week.

Tzuki Stewart:

Yeah.

Tzuki Stewart:

Thank you so much for listening today.

Tzuki Stewart:

If you enjoy this episode, please do rate and review as it really

Tzuki Stewart:

helps us to reach other listeners.

Tzuki Stewart:

We are releasing episodes every two weeks, so do hit subscribe

Tzuki Stewart:

to ensure that you don't miss out on more playful inspiration.

Tzuki Stewart:

Don't forget, you can find us@www.whyplayworks.com or

Tzuki Stewart:

wherever you get your podcasts.

Tzuki Stewart:

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

Tzuki Stewart:

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

Lucy Taylor:

If you have any ideas for future episodes, topics you'd love

Lucy Taylor:

to hear about, guest suggestions or questions about the work we do with

Lucy Taylor:

organizations, we'd love to hear from you.

Lucy Taylor:

Your feedback really matters to us, so please drop us a

Lucy Taylor:

line@hellowhyplayworks.com.

Lucy Taylor:

We'll be back in a fortnight with a brand new guest and we hope you'll join us.

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About the Podcast

Why Play Works.
Let's radically reshape work.
Do you have a niggling feeling, a secret hope, that work could be more joyful, more fun and (maybe) a little bit wilder? Do you sense deep down that doing great work doesn't need to be a slog?

In Why Play Works, Lucy Taylor and Tzuki Stewart hear the stories of people who are radically reshaping the idea of work as play - from play practitioners to academics to organisations who take play seriously.

How can working on serious problems be fun and delightful? Is play the opposite of work, or is it actually how we unlock success? How can reconnecting to our playfulness create more fulfilling and enlivening experiences of work?

We investigate how we can harness the power of play to boost resilience, improve well-being and foster collaboration, connection and creativity in the way we work.

About your hosts

Lucy Taylor

Profile picture for Lucy Taylor
Lucy is the founder of Make Work Play, an organisation on a mission to use the power of play to help organisations unfurl their potential. She is a passionate believer in the power of playful working as a way of bringing the best out in people, creating flow and unleashing creativity.

Lucy designs and leads playful processes which help teams unleash their individual and collective magic. Her approach to facilitation is immersive, playful and creative. Make Work ‘ Playshops’ are a space for you to get the hard work done together in a way that feels enlivening and fun.

Lucy has held positions as Visiting Faculty on MSc Programmes at Ashridge Business School and the Metanoia Institute. She studied PPE at Oxford and has trained in Systemic Coaching and Constellation Mapping, improvisational theatre and puppetry.

Tzuki Stewart

Profile picture for Tzuki Stewart
Tzuki is co-founder of Playfilled, which she brought to life in 2020 with Pauline McNulty to help forward-thinking businesses transform for high performance by filling their culture with purposeful play - the missing piece of the puzzle to increase creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning.

A culture consultancy at the intersection of new ways of working, organisational development and employee experience strategy, Playfilled supports leaders looking to rise to the challenge of changing expectations of work. They offer leadership talks, workshops and change programmes.

Tzuki previously worked in consulting and investment management, and completed an MBA from Warwick Business School in 2019 (timed to coincide with a newborn and toddler "because babies sleep a lot"... that turned out to be a bit of a fallacy!)