'Play with me eyes'

A moment with Maggie this morning brought play sharply back into focus.

It made me think about a post I read yesterday about the importance of play as a vital part of work place culture. We definitely need more of it in our education and in our lives.

We forget we’re playful beings at heart. We unlearn it through the messages of education, and on wards in our work.

‘Play with me eyes are very different’ to ‘grind of the day’ autopilot eyes.

They have powers to create new moments, new possibility.

The education I went through education system was largely stripped of play, creativity and reflection. It hasn't changed. That change has become my work.

We’re judged and we judge ourselves in our schools and in some work places, on results and relentless productivity.

There’s rarely a measure , recognition, cultivation of intentional personal growth and contribution unless of course you’re luckily enough to get the illusive 'Student or Employee of the Year' prize. Many of these accolades go to people who dare to be different, step outside the grind and explore for a breakthrough. We reward it and yet, 'the systems' measure results, not performance. Ticks. Comparison. Star, no star. Academic, non-academic. In my experience it rarely recognizes the raw talent and potential of real humans. Harnessing, recognising and rewarding intentional play, exploration, creativity, is rarely targeted at scale. That needs to change.

A close friend recently told me that her workplace has a culture of 'head down on our time’. She’s a designer. It's stifling to creativity, innovation, new products and services. The employer loses. The economy loses. Everyone loses a piece of themselves and their potential.

Happily my workplace isn’t like that; but sometimes my thinking is. It's because that’s how the system conditioned me to think.

Allowing or, heaven forbid… planning to do what’s in the moment; to play, explore, just ‘be’, is usually when something clicks for me. That aha moment that eludes us when we’re on autopilot; Space and play allows subconscious creative connections to percolate into consciousness.

Last week a colleague, Dan Prince call it, 'Building better brakes, to go faster.'. Makes perfect sense. My mentor Megan Macedo talks about taking an artistic approach to our work and life. That resonates.

I’ve noticed play and stepping away to do nothing is often the catalyst for the release of ‘stuckness’.

Yet this goes against everything that’s been instilled in us through our education. We continue to pack and stuff every moment of our days with stuff.

New insights, creative connections, moments of gratitude; Peace. We thrive as humans on that feeling of progression and contribution that you can’t get with a ‘tick.’ Finding, not loosing pieces of ourselves. That only comes when we allow ourselves to surrender.

Break through rarely happens alone, in the grind of the day. It happens with others. It starts with, letting go. allowing space, moments of serendipity.

This is where the healthy productivity and the big moves forward happen in our work and our lives. Both matter.

Note to self… ‘Re-adding play to my life lens. I need it in my field of view’.

I’m writing on a post-it note… ‘Model Maggie’s ‘play with me eyes’ every day’.

It’s on the fridge.

I'm being intentional to make this stick.

Surrender and play for well being and healthy, connected productivity.

Thanks to Dr Bruno Roque Cignacco for your post yesterday. I playfully introduce you to Maggie above. You, and she made this particular moment of reflection and new intention happen.

Follow us at Lancaster Work in Progress to stay connected with how we’re learning by doing to curate moments of play, creativity to contribute to the next generation of players, creators, innovator and change makers.

Bring it on TED talker Stuart Brown… I’m all ears, and eyes…