From bureaucracy to playocracy: Transforming corporate culture with fun
“Innovation really lives on the edge of ridiculous, and in order for us to come up with innovative solutions to solve the world’s biggest problems, we’ve got to take risks. Play is an incredible way to help us do that.”
Dara Simkin
In this episode you’ll hear about
- The importance of mixing play and work: Why bringing play into the workplace can be a powerful tool for creativity, connectivity and innovation and radically shift organisational culture
- How to integrate play into the workplace: Key strategies for intentional design for implementing play intentionally and effectively to achieve valued outcomes
- The evolution of work culture: Unpacking how priorities within work environments have and continue to shift and what is needed as the focus of work cultures now
- Questioning conventional business constructs: How to develop a healthy approach to scepticism of traditional business practices and be active in questioning and challenging established norms and assumptions that may be preventing growth
- Reactive vs. responsive businesses: Recognising how your business or specific team approaches organisational change and adjusting the culture to one of proactively addressing emerging challenges
Key links
John Cleese on open and closed modes
About our guest
Dara Simkin is an expert facilitator, learning designer and Australia’s leading play at work specialist. As the founder of Culture Hero, a norm-busting consultancy driving cultural change and experiential events, Dara’s mission is to bridge the gap between work and play.
She’s worked with organisations like The LEGO Foundation and McKinsey & Co., as well as world-renowned play researcher Dr Stuart Brown and Silicon Valley’s IDEO Play Lab. She is certified in the Danish learning methodology, KAOSPILOT, known for its innovative and dynamic approach to education and training. She is currently involved in a research collaboration with RMIT University, uncovering the benefits of a playful mindset in business as it relates to adaptability, teamwork and belonging.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.
Transcript
Chris Hudson: Hello once more and welcome to the next episode in the Company Road podcast series, where we’re continuing to think about our social experiment around what it takes to change a company and I’ve been consciously mixing it up a bit within the content and the things in the guests that we’ve been featuring recently.
So just hearing from established entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, people that have got a different perspective has been interesting to a point, but obviously we’re now trying to push into some other areas. So we’ve got people that want to take a different approach to business, be it through jazz, music, cooking, art, Lego, anything really.
So it’s really true that if we retreat into our businesses and our work too much, that we start to lose our sense of self and maybe begin to stagnate a little bit and because we end up in mimicking behaviours of the people that we work with, it all feels a bit samey a lot of the time. We’re social creatures.
We’re inspired by people. We become the people that we put on a pedestal and idolise and then we get bored of those people, the people that we become and then we look for a fresh challenge after that. I’ve got a guest on the show today. That’s really going to help us unpack this sense of how to bring fun and play into the business and it’s going to be an interesting and fresh perspective, I think so I’m really excited to welcome and introduce this week’s special guest, Dara Simkin who’s joining us today. Thanks very much for coming onto the show, Dara.
[00:01:17] Dara: Hello, happy to be here. I’m happy to be the next person on the pedestal.
[00:01:20] Chris Hudson: So massive welcome and you’re a facilitator extraordinaire, I reckon and a fantastic speaker just from having seen you in the past. You were talking at a conference in 2019, this was just before lockdown. And I think it was actually what helped a lot of people survive lockdown just by the sheer energy that was in the room and the fact that you literally danced or bopped onto the stage as it was and started rapping to introduce yourself.
That just gives us a bit of a flavour, but you’re an expert facilitator. You’re a learning designer and you’re a play at work specialist as you describe and the founder of Culture Hero, which is a consultancy that’s driving some of those cultural changes and experiential events in one way or another.
And you’ve worked with a lot of really cool people like Lego, McKinsey. You work with Dr. Stuart Brown, who’s a legend. And you’ve done some work with KAOSPILOT and now with RMIT, I believe. So, it’s really, really cool to have you on the show. And I’m really looking forward to this chat today.
So having seen that intro that you did back at the breakout, I normally ask my guests a fairly specific question around something, maybe my question is how many ways are there to introduce yourself that you’ve tried because rapping and dancing may be one of them, but how do you normally introduce yourself?
[00:02:26] Dara: I do always love a good rap and a dance. I actually did a keynote last night and I obnoxiously listed all of my playful accolades. And I said to the audience, oh that’s so American, but can you blame me? Cause I’m talking about play to a group of professionals. And for me, it’s I need to build credibility in the space because oftentimes people hear about play at work.
And play’s got a PR problem, I think, not only in our adult lives, but in the workplace as well. It’s seen as a frivolity or a distraction or something that we do, for five minutes every year or something like that. It’s seen as a distraction and it’s seen as being childish. So it’s really about having to educate people around the power of play and then really teaching them and guiding them into how it looks as it gets rolled out into an organisation.
And I talk about what playful interventions. When we think about an intervention, it’s if someone’s got alcoholism or gambling or, we give them an intervention, but I think most adults in this day and age need play interventions because I was just reporting on some stats yesterday.
About 68 percent of Australian workers are burnt out. This is according to the Microsoft trends index, and that is the global average is only 48. So essentially, Australians are the number 1 most burnt out people in the world. According to a recent one, I think it was in 2022. I imagine that has a lot to do with the way that COVID was handled.
There’s also some statistics out there from Gallup around 48 percent of Australians are highly stressed. And it also in Australia alone costs 211 billion in disengagement costs businesses per year. So some pretty intense statistics about being burnt out, stressed and costing businesses a butt load of money.
[00:04:11] Chris Hudson: There’s this sort of serious aspect to it, which you don’t really see a lot of the time. And I’m interested to know how you bring play in and how many serious conversations you have to have before you get to the point that it’s fun.
[00:04:22] Dara: I think a lot of the time when I try and define play, like I’ve been doing this for the last eight years and I’m still constantly trying to work on my, one or two sentence elevator pitch because play is very much like love. It’s hard to define. It’s a part of us. We’re wired for it. And so when you’re trying to explain quite a- I don’t know if you would use the word ephemeral or ethereal or whatever you choose, trying to bring an abstract concept like that into a serious space is tricky. So for me, it’s really about building trust with With people. I could be basically selling ice to an Eskimo trying to build that level of trust around hey, trust me, this is going to work. It’s going to be great. I know it sounds a bit left of centre, but I think it’s an Einstein quote that says we can’t solve the problems with the same way we created them. And so I think now businesses are starting to feel a bit more under the pump around technology and the pace of change.
I’ve got different ways that I bring play into organisations. We do a lot of applied improvisation. So when you think about the 90,000 hours of work that we do in our lifetime, how much of your work do you think is improvised, Chris?
[00:05:40] Chris Hudson: I don’t know. That’s put me on the spot. I think maybe 10%. I don’t know.
[00:05:43] Dara: I would say all of it.
[00:05:45] Chris Hudson: All of it.
[00:05:45] Dara: We’re constantly having to think on our feet in business. We can make our diaries and have schedules and all that kind of thing, but we’re dealing with people and people do weird things and people are not necessarily always reliable. So we’re constantly improvising and I think that we don’t learn that skill. And when you look at universities now, like Stanford and Harvard, they’re incorporating improvisation courses in their MBAs and things like that, because so much about improvising is around navigating change and uncertainty with consciousness and confidence.
So I look a lot into, how are we explaining the concept of yes and. I think in Australia we, I’m American, if you couldn’t tell by my accent, but very much in the Australian vernacular is this idea of yeah nah, and when I first moved to Australia, I was like, what the hell does that mean? It’s sort of this non committal way of saying no. I find it really unclear. I think oftentimes saying no is a lot more direct and manageable. And so when we’re in a brainstorm or we’re trying to strategise or trying to think of ideas, you get people coming in and saying, yeah, nah, or, but, and so it’s really about teaching people, this is very simple concept of saying yes and where you’re building on each other’s ideas.
And so much about saying yes and is about listening and then building on the idea.
[00:07:09] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:07:09] Dara: I wondering if you, would you like to play with me, Chris? Shall we play for our listeners?
[00:07:13] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Go on then. Let’s see what happens.
[00:07:15] Dara: Okay. So let’s for shits and giggles, we are planning an end of the world party.
[00:07:20] Chris Hudson: Yeah,
[00:07:20] Dara: Because I love this quote that I read recently.
It says, if you want to change the world, you have to throw a better party than the people destroying it.
[00:07:27] Chris Hudson: Right, yeah.
[00:07:28] Dara: And so my quote is actually, if you want to change the world of work, you have to throw a better party than your competition. We’re planning an end of the world party here, you and I, Chris.
And you can start off by telling me, hey Dara let’s plan an end of the world party. And I’m going to respond with yes and talk about what we might bring. And then you’ll respond with yes, and. And I want you to build on what you hear from what I’ve said, and we’ll just have a little play.
Okay. So you tell me let’s throw an end to the world party.
[00:07:49] Chris Hudson: All right I’ve got an idea that somebody told me about and it’s to plan an end of all while end of the world party how are we going to do that?
[00:07:57] Dara: Yes. And I think in order to do that, we want to bring in some really powerful speakers like the Dalai Lama.
[00:08:04] Chris Hudson: Yes, and I think without Taylor Swift it wouldn’t be an end of the world party
[00:08:09] Dara: Correct. So we’ll have, yes. And we’ll have Dalai Lama, Taylor Swift. And I think we should probably have cocktails that have those wonderful little umbrellas in them.
[00:08:18] Chris Hudson: Yes, and who would be serving such a fine beverage
[00:08:22] Dara: I think probably it would be Taylor Swift walking around in a coconut bikini top, passing out those drinks.
[00:08:28] Chris Hudson: Yes, and would that be after the 44 songs that she just played?
[00:08:32] Dara: Yes. And we might even have her play 45. Okay.
[00:08:35] Chris Hudson: Yes.
[00:08:36] Dara: It’s just about letting your creativity flow and really suspending judgment. There are no bad ideas. And I think when we think about innovation, innovation really lives on the edge of ridiculous. And in order for us to come up with innovative solutions to solve the world’s biggest problems, we’ve got to take risks and play is an incredible way to help us do that.
We are wired for play from the time we’re born and anybody out there who has children, they know that children are constantly taking risks and experimenting and navigating their environment and figuring out what’s what and we still need to do that as adults. We still need to navigate our environment and we still need to take risks and think of the impossible, because, if you think about Amazon, they were very happily selling books and they took a risk and they’re like, let’s not just sell books, let’s sell everything. And now, Jeff Bezos is flying to the moon or wherever the hell he’s going. And think about Airbnb. Have you stayed in an Airbnb, Chris? Of course you have. But if someone would’ve said to you, Hey Chris, do you wanna stay in a stranger’s house? Next time you go on holiday, you’d be like no.
But Airbnb took a risk. Motels existed, hotels, caravan, parks. So I think play is really a chance for us to get creative in our thinking, to be divergent and to think of wild ideas because that’s where we’re at the moment with the speed of change and what we need to figure out to basically remain relevant.
[00:09:59] Chris Hudson: Is there a backstory to all this that’s led you to this point, in and around play, and how you’ve come to end up doing what you do?
[00:10:06] Dara: Yeah, and I realised you asked me before, how do I bring play into businesses? And I will be more specific about that.
Because I think, it can be quite a high level concept. So I would like to get a little bit more granular about it in a little bit, but I’ve always been a playful person. I’ve always, I had a great sense of humour.
I’m American, so I have no qualms and blowing smoke up my own ass. For my 30th birthday, I was like, what can I do that’s going to be epic? And so I decided to throw a summer camp. It was called Camp Simkin and I invited 40 of my friends for a weekend away. And I organised a relay race, a kickball game, a volleyball game, a fancy dress party, a barbecue. Because I went to summer camp as a kid as an American, you’d go to summer camp. It’s just
[00:10:48] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:49] Dara: part of the culture and we had a red team, a yellow team, a green team and a blue team and it was competitive and silly and fun and all my Australian friends were just losing their shit over it.
And so they told me that I should create this as a business. I was actually doing life coaching at the time. I had quite a successful life coaching business working out of a couple of different wellness spaces. And I put this camp together. It was called Camp Kid and You. I actually got a load of publicity about it.
I actually majored in PR at uni. So I got a half page spread in the Age that said summer camps were the new hipster trend. And I booked out a space and I was ready to rock and roll. And I had three people book. And I was like, shit, okay. I can’t throw a camp with three people. That means only red, yellow, and blue.
And I need a green team as well. And so I was a bit down. I was talking to a mate who is in branding and in marketing. And she said, Dara, Australians are far more likely to pay for their professional development versus their personal development. And for me, that was a real aha moment because being American, which is the land of Tony Robbins.
Americans love personal development. We have gurus and kinesiologists and spiritual guides and all that kind of stuff. So I was like, okay, what am I actually trying to do with this camp? And I got really into my Simon Sinek why, and I said I’m wanting to connect adults to their inner kid.
That’s why I was called Camp Kid and You, and then I started to research. Okay. If I can’t do play for personal development, let’s look at play for professional development. And I scoured the internet and I discovered IDEO and they’re an incredible Silicon Valley based design agency who basically coined design thinking.
They have a huge element of their culture and their business around play. You can’t actually be a design thinker if you’re not playful. I discovered Dr. Stuart Brown. I was looking into different organisations globally that were bringing play to work. And I said, okay, I’m going to make this weekend away about play and professional development. And so I scraped the barrel and found 12 people to come. I charged them like a couple hundred bucks for a whole weekend. I got a bunch of facilitators in. I facilitated myself. And for me, the big question was, can I change these people’s minds about play?
So at the start of the weekend, we looked at play and they said play was fun and kids and games and sports.
And by the end of the weekend play was resilience, vulnerability, creativity, innovation, openness. So I was like, cool, I can change people’s minds about play. And I started designing short little one and two hour workshops and went out into the world and did a lunch and learn for AGL and got involved with Workshop Melbourne and Laneway Learning and General Assembly.
I just got my name out and started to produce workshops like that and grew and grew from there. And that was, yeah, eight years ago now.
[00:13:31] Chris Hudson: That’s amazing. What a story and just one around the kind of persistence of it paying off really because you’re in that kind of Wayne’s world moment of putting on the best festival ever. And they did come, they did come and you still got a business running off the back of it.
So that’s really cool. What have been some of the more interesting or I want to say challenging aspects of getting that going in the last little while in terms of how people respond to it, because not everyone feels comfortable a lot of the time with play particularly in a very formal boardroom setting.
And you’re probably just turning up and, people might not be expecting it. So what do you see and how do you get around that?
[00:14:05] Dara: I think something very important to make clear is that play is an invitation and you could never force anyone to play. So while a lot of these workshops are seen as compulsory. I always create the invitation for people to participate. I’ve actually recently done a bit of work with a friend of mine who is a trauma informed counsellor and I’ve tried to really look at play from a more trauma informed lens.
I think that, there’s a whole world of that to explore and I’ve only scratched the surface, but I think for me, having had a coaching background my partner has had a lot of mental health issues. And so I think that I really come in with a lens of meeting people where they’re at, understanding that play isn’t accessible for everyone and really trying to create a lot of context and connection before the content.
And that’s something I’ve done quite a bit of training around the KAOSPILOT methodology, which is an amazing Danish learning methodology. And so it’s so important to frame up the space and create a semblance of safety. And I’ve kind of thrown away this idea of creating a safe space because safety is going to be on a spectrum for people. So it’s like, how can we create a safe enough space? And we do that by really defining I use a framework called I do art or I do heart actually. And it’s what is the intention of why we’re here? What is our desired outcomes? So that might be three things that we want to achieve, which are really like manageable.
And I think there’s a lot of expectation management with my clients around what is achievable in a half day or a full day or whatever that is. I think sometimes, people come in and they’re like, we want to change people’s behaviour and how much time do you have? Three hours. Oh, okay.
Yep. Yep. Sure. That’s not going to happen. We can just only even tiny, a little bit scratch the surface. So it’s, why are we here? What is our desired outcome? How are we going to do it? And I explain, what is purposeful play? And again, I use this idea of serious play, purposeful play, because it’s not about building spaghetti towers and doing treasure hunts.
This is really about using play as a vehicle to unlock people’s authentic selves, using play as a vehicle for people to have real conversations, to reflect, to connect. Then we look at, what resources are there. And I always have a great box with like fidget toys and squishy balls. And I love this aspect of the fidget toy of people just enabling themselves to get a bit tactile, get a bit more in their body when they start to feel like a bit of a fish out of water.
Then we talk about the sort of what is it? Attention, desired outcome. How? Oh, sorry. I skipped the A. It’s agreements. And that is something that I take a lot of time in doing. It’s like, how do we want to arrive here today?
How do we want to be together? How do we want to show up and get everyone to work in small groups and really define? How they want to be and so much of it is around being open, being curious, suspending judgment listening to each other, being present. For me, anytime I ever run any workshop, there’s a lot of time put into creating the context and building that connection.
So people can start to let down their guard a little bit and unwind. And the good thing about play is that it’s infectious. So if you see someone laughing and playing, if you’re standing on the sidelines, it’s probably not going to take you too long to want to jump in and participate because you can be the most miserable troll on the planet. I I still think that you want to feel joy. I think every human being on the planet fundamentally wants to have joy in their life. There might be extenuating circumstances that are stopping them from doing that, but we are born joyful little balls of laughter. And I’ve got this great stat.
It’s like babies laugh on average 400 times a day.
Do you know how many times a day people laugh on average over the age of 35?
[00:17:56] Chris Hudson: Oh.
[00:17:56] Dara: Take a guess.
[00:17:57] Chris Hudson: Once? Fifteen. Alright. That’s not too bad.
[00:18:00] Dara: When you compare it to 400, 15 is a little bit sad if you ask me.
[00:18:04] Chris Hudson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. I would say
[00:18:07] Dara: more than once, but, if you think about it, 400 compared to 15, It’s not enough.
And I think one thing that I want to make clear is that I’m not here to say that work should be play. Like we’ve got to get shit done. What I’m asking for in the work that I do is finding that balance between the two and really making more time and space for it.
And seeing the value that it brings because it allows us to be more adaptable. I think that’s one of the main things that I look at the moment is adaptability has been said to be like the number one competitive advantage in this day and age. Okay, great. How are we actually teaching adaptability or learning adaptability?
Well, play changes our brain chemically. It helps with neuroplasticity. It creates new neural pathways in our brain. Play is our favourite way to learn. I’ll spit another stat at you. It takes 400 repetitions to create a new synapses in your brain. With play, it only takes 10 to 20.
[00:19:02] Chris Hudson: Yeah, okay. What would that be? How do you make that? What would you start with?
[00:19:05] Dara: How to create a new synapses in the brain.
[00:19:07] Chris Hudson: How do you use it in any of the workshops you’re doing or more broadly what would you be-
[00:19:11] Dara: Like I said we bring in a lot of improv. We bring in storytelling, we do Lego. We do building your own game. There’s so many different ways that we can come in and run something we use lots of different frameworks around psychological safety and growth mindset and always connecting to more of like the science and research behind positive psychology behind collaboration.
We’re trying to change the hearts and minds of people around being more playful. And so it’s important that we’re not only coming in with the fun and the engagement, but we’re connecting it and grounding it in things like psychological research and social dynamics and all that sort of thing too.
[00:19:53] Chris Hudson: What’s been the most ambitious kind of exercise that you’ve run? And how did that go?
[00:19:58] Dara: For me, around improv it’s so beautiful to watch people we play this game called I Am A Tree and the first person, there’s about, it’s a group of four, and the first person comes in, and then they use their body to create a tree, and they say, I am a tree, and then much like the yes and of building on ideas, someone else comes in and creates a part of a scene of a tree, so they might pretend they’re an apple and they might hang off that person’s arm and then the next person might come in and say I’m a bench and then you just end up getting people laying on the floor, they end up being like a piece of toast or it’s just the kinaesthetic nature of the activity is so lovely to see because people got so into it.
They’re just using their bodies and making these ridiculous shapes and laying on top of each other. And it’s just, it’s hilarious and it’s such a fun thing to watch for people to really get into it.
[00:20:43] Chris Hudson: I think it’s, it takes something to get people comfortable with that. And maybe even just starting with something smaller is the key because a lot of people prefer to observe a little bit first before they jump in. I loved that point that you’re making around permission because if people can see that it’s obviously happening and working and it’s fun and they want to take part and they’re going to jump in and they’re going to get off their chair and hop off the dance floor.
So that’s pretty cool. In a business sense, like how does it work? Is it tied into like business objectives a lot of the time? Or is it just a sort of thing on the side? How does it integrate?
[00:21:12] Dara: Yeah. It depends. Like recently I ran or helped facilitate and design a two day offsite for a media agency. They were celebrating their 15 year anniversary. And so they brought all 150 of their staff from the four offices together and to the blue mountains. And for them, it was not only a celebration, but really creating a sense of belonging to the organisation.
So we interviewed all of the executive team. We really got into the nitty gritty of the story behind their journey, which was incredible. Really getting into the current crux of their engagement surveys and just really trying to identify and define where these people are at in order to create an amazing experience, that’s going to help them feel like they truly belong to the space.
And so for them, that was their initiative. It’s can we get people to feel a greater sense of belonging? And then at the end of the two or three days, they sent out a survey and I think it was like 89 percent of the people who attended felt a stronger sense of belonging.
And I think the rest were just neutral. So there was no one that was like a hard no. So I think we really came in and we did what, they wanted to do. Another time I worked with an ad agency, I did a quarterly play workshop. They were, I think, dealing with some silos and collaboration was a little bit on the fritz and at the end of working with them for those four quarters, their cross functional collaboration increased by 23 percent based on the survey responses.
A big thing we did with them was improv and yes and.
People definitely come to me and they say, I want to boost engagement. I want to create a sense of belonging. I want to improve collaboration. I recently did a two day conference for a not for profit Australian foundation for disability.
They were rolling out their new values, their new purpose, and they really wanted to make it engaging. So instead of having their leadership team stand up in front of their 150 leaders and say these are our values and this is how we’re doing it. We came in and we connected a game to each value.
And we brought in different dynamic exercises to get people to chat and explore and reflect on things. People are always coming to me with something they want to achieve and using play as a vehicle to really create an engaging experience because so much of the time it’s, you need people to buy into what you’re doing and I think now that I hear so many organisations are going through transformation, they’re rolling new strategies out. And it’s like, how are you bringing people on the journey with you to do that? You have to engage them. I think it’s a Maya Angelou quote. That’s they’re not going to remember what you said or what you did.
They’re going to remember how you made them feel. And so it’s like, how are you getting people to feel a certain way so that they’re buying into whatever change or transformation or upheaval that’s happening. So that’s often what we get called in for is to really bring that human element into that space.
[00:24:05] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it’s really cool. There’s a lot of discussion in business ready you mentioned transformation, but there’s of pretty hard directives and, measures and it feels like very rational in that space a lot of the time, because you’re just getting on with the work and it can be just formulates the point that you’re focused on very specific things.
And actually you’re judged on not only the way that you are in the office or wherever you are, but also your actions and the things that you’re able to achieve. And those are then ticked off against the scorecard. And it’s then moved on. It’s interesting from what you’re saying that, the more social or emotional aspect to that in terms of how you feel through that process isn’t usually designed for a lot of the way, a lot of time in business, it feels like there’s a lot of goodwill probably from people & culture teams to make that possible in some way or another. But to a large extent, people are assuming if you’re leading a company that the teams, if they’ve got the skillset, the hard skills to be able to perform their tasks, that they’re going to be able to, just pick up the reins and deliver what the business is asking them to deliver.
So I think it’s quite rare in a way for people to be thinking more about what the individuals within those work streams are actually feeling a lot of the time. So I really love what you’re saying about that. Because it feels like a much richer outtake, like you’d actually get something at a much deeper level for yourself.
If you went through a more immersive exercise, like you were describing. Does that make sense? Oh 100%, I think that it’s actually incredibly sad
[00:25:24] Dara: that businesses don’t think about how people feel. These are human beings, not machines. How can you not be concerned about how they feel? And when you were talking about, internal teams around P and C and L and D and everything like that I think sometimes people hire me for my energy because I come in and I’m not jaded from the corporate world. I’ve never held a corporate job. I think the last time I worked a nine to five, I was in my mid twenties. It’s just not been my path. And so I’m not a jaded human and I can come in and bring my wonderful, playful, amazing energy and create a space that is refreshing for people because I’m coming in with a whole different perspective. And I think people really appreciate it. Often when I get feedback from any event or any keynote, people are like, your energy is amazing. It’s cause I love what I do. And I think people deserve to feel good.
I feel like I just I sell feel good. I think what you are talking about that I have been thinking a lot about and have done a lot of reading on is, you talk about this kind of like narrow focus, this like really strict discipline.
[00:26:27] Dara: It’s like this tunnel vision. And John Cleese, who is an amazing comedian he’s a huge advocate for playing creativity. He talks about the open and closed mode. And I think the more that I’ve been researching play for almost a decade now, and I’m constantly finding different ways of this sort of like diametrically opposed system that we need to operate in.
So it’s we need to be open in order to generate ideas, in order to think, in order to explore possibilities, he talks about this mode is very relaxed and curious and playful. It’s really this is where creativity lives. And then there’s the closed mode, which is again, narrow focus, it’s efficiency, it’s getting shit done, it’s go do, it’s often like anxiety inducing and stress inducing, and you actually can’t fundamentally be creative if you’re anxious or stressed.
Like your brain just doesn’t work that way. Like when you’re, when cortisol is pumping through your body, you’re just not able to access that sort of part of yourself. And so we need that balance between open and closed. It’s like the yin and the yang of business. Amy Edmondson, who coined psychological safety, she talks a lot about innovation and she talks about playful chaos and focused discipline.
And in design thinking, we talk about divergent thinking and convergent thinking, but I think, unfortunately, that’s the scales tip far too much into that side of closed mode, convergence, focus discipline. And again, what I’m trying to preach in the business space is, yes, we need that.
Obviously, but we also need this other space. We also need this other space of imagination and risk and experimentation. And so that’s what I’m, what I get on my soapbox about is finding balance. And I think balance is an important part of being a human being. Like we need to find balance in everything we do.
Doing too much of anything is not good.
I went to a Chinese medicine doctor and she’s like, Dara, you can eat fried chicken, but not too much.
[00:28:24] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:28:24] Dara: That’s finding balance. Cause if I deprive myself of fried chicken in a month’s time, I’m going to eat a bucket of it.
So it’s just, yeah, really finding more time and space. And intention behind play.
[00:28:36] Chris Hudson: Yeah. I mean there’s some people in that closed mode that you were describing, I think a lot of people to give you a look at job descriptions, right? I mean that springs to mind immediately because you’re basically writing down a list of what people should do in their work. And maybe that’s a helpful constraint or maybe it’s a helpful guide to some people but it wouldn’t touch on the things that you’re describing.
And it possibly isn’t a balanced view that, that talks to the divergence of what could be possible within each of those areas, because it’s saying that this is what you have to do. And I think it’s like a really known issue within business that how much of it is actually true.
If you’re seeing a presentation and it’s a strategy, or if you’re seeing vision statement or value proposition or whatever it is. Prototype concept, like how much of that is actually true and you’re trying to figure out, okay, well who’s signed it off and who’s inputted and who’s been involved and how much of that is credible in what I can understand of the situation right now.
And unless you’re given some room to either question it, which is showing some level of curiosity but also input into it in a way that’s in some way creative. You don’t feel like you’ve really got any worth unless you can actually add to that in some way. So I think it’s incredibly important, but it just feels like the construct of business isn’t always set up in a way that would allow for those conditions to be satisfied in one way or another.
[00:29:51] Dara: I think we have so much unlearning to do around what best practices and And when I was wanting, I’m like, why, what has happened to us and why we stopped playing? And so much of that has to do with needing to conform and fit in. Like one of the reasons why we don’t play as adults is because we have so much pressure.
We think about kids and mortgage and housing crisis and all this sort of stuff. There’s not a lot to feel playful about. And so we need it more now than ever. And I know that sounds kind of cliche, but it’s if we don’t start doing things differently, like I have this idea. It’s if we don’t start playing, we’re kind of, I’m going to say forked.
We’re forked if we don’t start playing. I’m not going to use the full terminology, but you get what I’m saying.
[00:30:37] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:30:38] Dara: We go through our youth and we want to fit in and be accepted. And that has an evolutionary reason. Conformity and that helps us survive and have social dynamics and cooperation.
But then it’s again, we need to find balance around I want to be accepted. Of course. I want to be a part of the tribe, but I also have to maintain my individuality and my authenticity. So I can show up in the world in a way that feels good. It takes more energy to not be yourself than it does to be yourself.
And I think people forget that sometimes. And so when you look back to the Renaissance period, people were dancing in the street and there was festivals and jesters and all kinds of stuff. And then enter the Puritans who had a very religious protestant ideal, I think this must have been in like the 16th century where it’s like you will have salvation if you work your ass off and leisure time is for the devil and it’s sinful and if you want to be successful you have to work hard and no play.
And then fast forward to the industrial revolution, where that just kept breeding that ideology around, you’re a cog in the system and there’s no time for play. And if you need to work, work, work and do, and so that’s now 500 years of that sort of idea around all work and no play.
That is a long time for us to start to unravel our paradigms around what it means to work. And I think for me around working with businesses. There’s not enough pain yet around staying the same. We hear about it and it’s written about, and we know it’s coming and AI is here, but it’s like, there’s not enough pain yet for people and businesses to do something about it.
And one of the things that puts a B in my bonnet, Chris, is that businesses are so reactive. They’re not responsive and I’m making a gross generalisation, but most businesses are reactive.
[00:32:30] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:32:30] Dara: It’s we know the shit’s coming. We know technology is going to change the way that we work. What are we doing to humanise the workplace?
And I was listening to a culture amp podcast the other day and someone was being interviewed, I can’t remember who, and it said the modern workplace is no longer a place for tasks. It’s a place for connection. And if you want people to return to work and return to the office, you have to make it appealing.
You have to make it as comfortable as their house. So it’s like talking about how off sites are now on sites. And so it’s what are you doing in order to attract people back to the office? It’s not a free lunch. It’s actually giving them an experience and an immersive journey around connection and fun and belonging and feeling like you can be yourself.
[00:33:14] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it’s a fascinating area. I think you touched on so much good stuff there. I think the, the kind of history of art and, industry and work and the construct that goes with it is fascinating. It’s basically a concept, an idea that work has to run a certain way.
And that’s not necessarily an absolute truth to that, because obviously you can work in different ways as we found out, but until it’s proven to be okay the trust isn’t there a lot of the time for that adoption to be made. And so I’m thinking, if you remember just before lockdown, when I was going to talk, it was good times and then all of a sudden it happened.
But how excited people were about not just having to talk and, go to the office and meet in the corridors and go for lunch when they were able to work from home and Some of the collaboration tools really came into their own. It was like this big kind of unveiling of collaboration opportunity and an ideation opportunity, because everyone all of a sudden could be a contributor in a way that they hadn’t worked before, in a lot of cases, there’s some people obviously in the design community that were using those tools already.
But it just felt like this big kind of awakening to the possibility of what collaboration within the workspace you know, could involve, and then you get to that point and everyone just really loved it. They were drinking the Kool Aid for a long time. Obviously we were complaining about lockdown and not being able to leave the house at the same time but then there was like, okay, we’ll go back to the office now.
So what’s the next big kind of possibility. And that’s what it takes is there something in it for everybody to really get behind and take them back for themselves or is it just another way to get, people back into the office because they have to justify the rent, the intent needs to be placed in the right area otherwise it’s just going to feel like, it’s a commercial exercise. So I think to get to that sort of sense of what it would mean for the heart, within somebody to actually. change the way they would work, contribute more of themselves in their working life. How does that connection come about and how do the best initiatives start?
I guess is the question. I know that could go in so many different directions, but what’s the beginning of that?
[00:35:10] Dara: Well, I think it’s just organisations realising that people need to feel seen and heard and valued.
Be seen as a human being and not a cog in the machine. And how are we creating and intentionally designing physical, digital, and mental spaces that offer that?
I think it’s around, the four day work week is something that’s starting to cotton on more and more.
And it’s yeah, great. That sounds amazing. The fact that we have five days of work and only two days of play, you know, it’s ridiculous. I think there’s so much trust that needs to be built around leaders, understanding that people can get their work done and it doesn’t have to be a 40 hour work week.
And as long as people are doing the things they need to be doing, let them live their life, pick up their kids from school and go to the osteo or whatever it is. And I think there’s still such a tight hold around, leaders just needing people to be in front of their computer from nine to five or nine to six or whatever it is ten to seven and, keeping tabs.
And I think that’s just not reality anymore. I read a post on LinkedIn the other day from some leader who somebody was asking for a time off and was giving like a million reasons why and where he was going. He’s like, I don’t care where you’re going or what you’re doing. Just go.
[00:36:31] Chris Hudson: Oh yeah. Yeah. I saw the same one.
[00:36:33] Dara: yeah. Yeah. It’s I don’t give a shit. Go pick up your kid. Go to the dentist. I don’t care. Just do your job. Great. And yeah, I think that, It’s easier for startups and small businesses that are more agile to be able to adopt these ideas. But when you think of these corporate behemoths that have so much red tape and so much bureaucracy involved that it’s just oh, this is just too hard.
We’re just not gonna do it because it’s too hard. It’s like changing the education system. This is just, we’ve just been doing this like this for so long. I, how do we even begin to change this? It’s just too big and it’s well shit, we need to start chipping away at it somehow. Because also this next generation doesn’t want to work in a shitty corporate setting.
They want to feel valued and connect with their values and feel a sense of belonging and a sense of fun and connection. And I feel like so many of the older generation complains about the new generation just jumps from job to job. They get six months at this place to have it on their CV and then they go somewhere else.
It’s like, great. Why would you be making lateral moves? In your role. If you can promote, like I’ve done that in myself, it’s if you’re not going to promote me in the time that I think I’m going to be promoted, I’m going to go find somewhere else and get to the next level.
I did that when I worked in a PR firm, it’s I don’t want to be an executive assistant anymore. I want to be an account executive. You don’t see that in me? Okay, cool. Well, I’m going to go somewhere else where someone sees it in me. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way this new generation is operating, because they’re like, I’m not going to sit at a job that I hate.
That doesn’t make sense. YOLO, you only live once. I don’t understand people who work at a job they hate. I have compassion for them because they obviously feel very stuck and they don’t feel like they have a way out and it’s actually a consequence of what Dr. Stuart Brown calls play deprivation.
So when you, play deprivation is like sleep deprivation. So when you don’t sleep, You’re groggy, you feel like shit, you’re pretty pessimistic on life. The same thing happens when you don’t play as an adult.
You feel stuck, you feel like a victim, you feel disconnected. And then when you feel stuck, you don’t have the curiosity or the imagination to make any change.
I remember one of my managers in London, it was in the kind of advertising agency time that I was doing back then before I went into innovation myself. It was a really, I don’t want to say it was a bit of an engine, like it was just like pumping the whole time, day and night, weekends and everything else that went with it.
[00:38:55] Chris Hudson: It just felt hard to consider that you had choice a lot of the time because you- And the manager actually said at the time, the only choice that you can make is basically to leave, that’s where there’s no other way of influencing things within the corporate organisation whatever it is the business is the business you can basically use the door if you want it and that kind of maybe resonates at the time.
It made me want to dig my heels and actually do something within that business even more because I didn’t like the option of leaving but yeah, it just felt like the sense of choice feels maybe greater. It feels like there’s a sense of optimism about the fact that younger generations can come into the workforce and feel empowered and confident.
And, I think the transients will actually, help the economy broadly speaking, outside that kind of empowerment of the person, enablement of the workforce will actually do great things for a lot of industries and a lot of companies, and I don’t think that can really hurt.
But yeah, I think this sense of choice is interesting. And I’m also wondering, within the context of a business where to start, like where does the Locus for Change or the next Renaissance type moment actually originate from? Because is it from the top down? Is it new people coming in?
What’s been your read on, on how some of the organisations actually activate the change that’s necessary?
[00:40:04] Dara: I think the reality is it’s mostly from the top down. Because those are the people that are signing the checks and making the time to do things. I think people can have the impetus themselves to find joyful moments in their work and connect with their colleagues on their own terms.
But when we talk about creating play as a habit and part of the DNA of the culture that has got to come from the leadership space.
If a leader doesn’t believe that play and belonging and connection is a necessity, then the chance of that filtering out into the rest of the organisation is just probably impossible.
So when you talked about permission before, so much about creating play in the workplaces around permission. And as a leader, you have to give yourself permission to play first and then role model that so that people know that the permission is there because a lot of organisations have innovation theatre, which is we’re cool.
We got a ping pong table. We’re cool. We got an old school Pac Man machine. It’s cool. Number one, are people even playing it because they feel like they can. And number two, like that’s all well and good and an interesting place to start. But again, it’s play as a mindset. It’s not just this tick box where it’s like, oh yeah, we did that play thing.
That’s cool. Are you a play driven business? I’m so obsessed with heaps normal at the moment, which is a non alcoholic beer. Like they are just so wonderfully playful in their marketing and their branding. And I got a chance to chat to the CEO.
And I just, I messaged him and I’m like, you’re epic.
I just read your smart company article. Can we jam out about play? So we had a zoom chat and I was just talking to him and I was trying to decode what they do. And he’s like, we just approach things playfully and some businesses just start out that way. And it’s not a slog because they’ve believed in it from day dot whereas a lot of other organisations, it is really chipping away at the current state of bureaucracy and old ways of thinking that, I liken it to going to the gym, you have to lay your clothes out the night before and get yourself a sweet pair of Lulu lemon tights or a sick pair of trainers and you have to create a plan and it sucks when you first start and you have to go and push yourself and it’s just really hard and it’s not a habit yet. And then finally you cross the threshold and it becomes a habit. So I think. With businesses, you have to be incredibly intentional about play and make time for it and carve it out in the diary and have workshops and have immersive experiences.
And then eventually things will start to shift and you don’t have to be overly prescriptive about it because people are just naturally behaving that way, but in order to change behaviour and create new habits, you need a plan. You need an intention. You need to just do it and repeat it and just, yeah, really drill it in.
I think that doesn’t make, saying drill it in with play doesn’t make sense, but it’s just you have to keep doing it over and over again before it becomes a habit.
[00:43:06] Chris Hudson: I think the idea and the intent is obviously amazing and I think that most people would love it. But there are some people within the organisation that would have to justify it in some way. And if I dare mention the B word, which is business case, like how best do you think people can bring these initiatives about and justify the need for their existence in some way?
[00:43:24] Dara: So I did a collaboration with the Lego foundation and we did a research project. We were trying to define what does play need in a work context?
[00:43:33] Chris Hudson: Yep.
[00:43:33] Dara: And so we worked with amazing organisations globally to get a real mixed bag of input. And there was like, my, my research team read like 2000 pages of research.
We had 717 survey responses. There was like 44 one on one interviews and 80 video responses, and it said that play needs permission, space, and a spark in order to create connection, wellbeing, and new thinking, and I think to overly simplify the employee engagement space and just employee experience in general, you want your people to feel connected. You want your people to think differently and be collaborative and you want them to feel good. And so I feel like play is this incredible resource that touches on all three of those elements. It’s not just, oh we want people to have wellbeing.
So we’re going to do a wellness app and everyone’s going to get a Fitbit and we’re going to do yoga once a week. And we want people to think differently. So we’re gonna get a keynote speaker in to come talk to us from an innovation lab about hackathons. And then, okay, we really want people to feel connected.
So we’re going to do Friday night drinks. And it’s just this kind of like piece meal way of navigating these ideas, but when actually, when you just bring play into your organisation as a part of it and you integrate it, it’s like when people play their mentally well, when we play, we get dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins, it’s like a dose of play. And then when we play, we’re creative or collaborative or more open, there’s your new thinking. And when we play, we have fun, we feel connected. We feel joy, bing, bang, boom. You don’t need to be looking anywhere else outside of play to really drive these initiatives within your organisation. There’s a suite of benefits.
Like I said it’s the fastest way we learn. It helps with neuroplasticity. It helps release feel good hormones. It makes us more flexible, more curious. The list goes on and on. But I think sometimes again, people think play is childish and there’s a big difference between childish and childlike. And I think we’re making that distinction around childlike behaviour is experimental, it’s curious, it’s risk taking, it’s suspending judgment, and, childlike is taking the piss, throwing people under the bus having to go, punching down humour, that sort of thing. And I think, you just look at a kid.
Kids are amazing. They’re so full of life. They’re so curious about everything. That’s what we need to be. We need to be more like kids. There’s a kid in all of us, Chris. We just need to find it. We need to go to therapy and find our inner kid.
[00:46:11] Chris Hudson: Yeah, a lot of people talk about the, the energy that they get from spending time with their kids and other people not just kids, but with other people that kind of give them that sense of a spark really and permission to play. I think conversation at a basic level.
When you’re inspired by somebody and you can actually have an interaction that leads you to think differently or to come up with another idea and just be a bit silly with it. Sometimes that’s pretty cool. That’s a part of the fun, I guess the point is that it can be spontaneous or unplanned as you want.
It can be as organised as you want and still be fun. It doesn’t have to be this kind of, this big process that you have to learn how to do or anything like that. It, you can start with very simple things like we were describing at the start with the yes and exercise, you know, so plenty of things to do.
So what are some of the things that people who, if you imagine like this typical office worker listening to this podcast on their lunchtime. What’s something that they could do right now to feel a little bit more playful?
[00:47:02] Dara: Get away from your desk during lunch and go for a walk outside.
[00:47:06] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:47:07] Dara: And try and find all the things that look like a circle.
[00:47:10] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:47:10] Dara: Just get outside and be curious. We are addicted to our phones and the phone is not a creative place. It is a black hole. You might watch a funny YouTube video, but phones are made to steal our attention and get us to shop and buy shit. A big part of being playful is about putting your phone down. And I know that’s a big statement and I’m not trying to be on my high horse. I use my phone a lot and I am addicted to my phone and I know that, and I need to be better about it, but I still find lots of ways to play.
I find humour in everything. I love wit. I love playing with words. I love meeting new people. I love doing new things. I do a dance class every Thursday night. I go to festivals. I love Burning Man. I’m going to Africa Burn in April and May. I love dressing up. I love, just not taking myself too seriously.
And I think seriousness does not equal success. And there’s not one iota of research or data on the internet, I’ve tried to find it, that proves if you’re serious, you’re going to be more successful. Everything out there says, if you’re happy, you’re going to be more motivated. If you feel good, you’re going to be more productive.
Like we just take ourselves too seriously. And I think that we just need to loosen up our underpants a little bit.
[00:48:31] Chris Hudson: Oh, there we go.
[00:48:31] Dara: Our undies are way too tight. Find things that you enjoy, like going to a cafe and having a coffee with your mate. Borderline play, go see a show or even go to the movies.
Go for a walk, try something new, learn how to play an instrument. When we learn new things, that’s how our brain stays well and young. And we can avoid things like dementia and other sorts of neurological challenges that come up with age. It’s like learning and playing keeps our brain young. We need it.
[00:49:00] Chris Hudson: What about the kind of play that’s disguised, or maybe it’s work disguised as play, but it’s basically, it feels like something that you haven’t done before, so it feels a little bit scary and then it’s like a new skill that you have to learn or if you were running some training, so say like your boss was saying, you’ve gotta learn this thing, you’ve gotta learn about UX design, whatever it is there’s this new module you’ve gotta learn something new. Would that count as play because you were learning something new?
[00:49:22] Dara: It depends on how the module is delivered.
If you’re just staring at a screen and you’re not interacting with other people and you’re not, like using artefacts or it just, depends on the learning. Like we know when learning is not playful, when we’re just staring at a screen or staring at a book and going through the motions, it’s like, how engaging is the learning? So yeah, I think learning something new can sometimes, yes, at work be disguised as play or try to be playful,
I think it’s always in the way that something is delivered,
[00:49:52] Chris Hudson: So watching a series of, like the module might be like 10 videos that you have to watch and it might take you six or seven hours to do that end to end and you’re not interacting with anybody through that process.
[00:50:03] Dara: Not playful.
[00:50:04] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:50:05] Dara: That the idea is like when you’re in flow, something new or doing something and you are in that psychological state of flow, which is a description of it. It’s like you’re engrossed in what you’re doing. It’s one thing to not go to the toilet and sit at your desk for five hours and just be like stuck in your computer.
I don’t necessarily believe that’s in flow, like you’re engrossed in it, but not because you’re enjoying it because you’re just sucked in and that’s what’s happening. So I think there’s a big distinction around getting engrossed in something based on the sense of enjoyment or being engrossed because it’s just shit that you have to do.
[00:50:36] Chris Hudson: Well, the sense of completion, actually, the fact that, you think you’re in the flow because you’re in that zone and you get through a lot of stuff in three hours, but actually how has that made you feel?
[00:50:44] Dara: Has it given you energy or has it taken it away?
[00:50:47] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, I think we’re pretty much out of time, so I really appreciate the chat Dara and I love the perspectives that you bring into the world of work, which like, as always needs a massive shake up. And I think that if we’re thinking about how to change organisations, you’re the person to talk to.
So how could people get in touch with you if they wanted to find out more, ask a question just check in with you.
[00:51:06] Dara: Yeah, you can jump on my LinkedIn. I’m pretty active on there. My name is Dara Simkin. Also, my company is called Culture Hero. Our website is culturehero.co. . I’m not really big on, on social media. I don’t really have, I’m not really active. So if you want to catch me on LinkedIn or via email on my website.
[00:51:22] Chris Hudson: Yeah, awesome. All right. Well, thanks so much, Dara. I really appreciate the chat and I’ll let you do some more exciting things today.
[00:51:27] Dara: Cheers.
[00:51:27] Chris Hudson: Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it’ll make a difference.
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