By watching children, we can observe an enthusiasm for learning, for play and for making mistakes but in our educational system and working environment, we are encouraged to see the world in black and white, with correct and incorrect answers, following rules and protocols. We are discouraged from play and experimentation and have lost our own understanding of how we learn.

In my own experience, understanding topics such as contextual safeguarding and exhibiting professional curiosity has not been an easy skill to acquire as we have stopped finding answers for ourselves.

Emotionally Bruised Learners

Many of us are emotionally bruised learners, so education and learning create feelings of failure rather than joy. When we experience curiosity, it feels like we lack expertise and feel unsafe to practice.

Curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking are all skill sets that we need to be able to master.

We have to encourage our workforce to play, to experiment, to formulate questions that activate learning, to re-frame problems and slow down our decision making to explore and discover. We need to share ideas with others and identify new possibilities.

Brian Sutton-Smith, a dean at the University of Pennsylvania stated that “THE OPPOSITE OF PLAY IS NOT WORK; IT IS DEPRESSION”

Serious Play

Serious play generates ideas, improves performance, motivates and is a critical workstream for businesses.

Stuart Brown, MD, author of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul, Penguin Books, 2009 and founder of the National Institute for Play: https://www.nifplay.org/about-us/about-nifp/ promotes play as an absorbing activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of self-consciousness and time. It is self-motivating and makes you want to do it again and is important in work as well as being part of therapeutic interactions.

We need the newness of play, the sense of flow, using our imagination and the energy of being in the moment that this provides.

Innovation

We encourage staff to “innovate” but what does that truly mean? https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/innovation/

The art of innovation is the creativity and curiosity to think outside known parameters and systems.

In order to embark on such creative journeys, we must look inwards and ask ourselves questions.

• Where do we value inquisitiveness and play?
• Where do we value common sense and intuition?
• Where do we discuss our different perspectives and balance tradition, risk taking and innovation?

In order to change the world, we need to campaign for the right to be curious and use our imagination.

So lets co-create play, curiosity and meaning making together

Understanding our own play personality can help us look at ourselves. Am I a collector? a competitor? a creator? a director? an explorer? a joker? a story teller? or use movement in play?

Reconnecting with our play personality can create new opportunities and by being an active learner we are open-minded and enable new possibilitis to emerge.

So what Key Performance Indicators capture our culture.

As leaders and entrepreneurs we need to move beyond the open door policy or our reliance on dashboards and create new mechanisms on how we measure success.

I propose the following:

• Hearing Laughter
• Creative Enjoyment
• Opportunities for Sharing Experiences
• Play as part of contact
• Inspirational Activities

Learning how to learn | Barbara Oakley | TEDxOaklandUniversity – YouTube

So lets relook at the role of play and having fun together, creating a learning journey and seeing the value in camaraderie and coffee!