A Playshop for Evolutionary Leadership, Collaboration & Systems Thinking

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A few weeks back, I had the honor of designing and facilitating a 3-hour event - or "playscape," as Professor Laszlo called it - with a class of MBA students at the Presidio School of Management studying "Evolutionary Leadership, Collaboration, and Systems Thinking."

With such a juicy course title, I wasn't a hard recruit. I knew from the get-go that I did not want to try to present to the class, opting instead to first give the students a participatory experience of the kind of collaborative design processes I like to create, and then open the room for conversation and questions generated by the interaction.

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In less than three hours, the class created six new enterprises, defined the guiding principles and organizational practices of each, incorporated key insights from three dozen world-class writers and authors and, finally, presented these business models to each other in way that could be readily understood in about three minutes.

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It was a rich and immersive afternoon of collaborative design and social learning, embued with emergence and playfulness.

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Doing What Comes Naturally

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“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation”. Plato

Years ago when I was a teacher, I found that even my second graders sometimes got too serious. Once when they were all intense and upset about some test, I created the Esnesnon Club (nonsense spelled backward) and they were all members.  The rule was to create nonsense ideas that engaged all members.  Sometimes, what happened was brilliant, other times, just pure corn.  The Esnesnon Club continued throughout the year. Always though it brought fresh air into the room and lightened things up. 

Later when I founded the Learning Exchange, (1972) play was a healthy part of the process.  We had a large recycle department that stocked left overs and scraps from businesses throughout the city.  We would have contests to see who could think of the most uses for these items.  These items became reusable wealth and became a healthy part of the LX budget each year.  One of the things the LX spawned was an Invention's workshop for teachers and principals. Teams were asked to select ten to 15 items out of a barrel of goodies and then they were asked to invent something with them.  Non just anything, but a "timer that would run for exactly three minutes then send a signal to send a rubber ducky down stream"; or "a vehicle that would run on its own power for 90 seconds then emit an odor that would trigger something else to happen". Teams had to design, build, market, and sell their ideas.  We often had adults ... serious adults rolling on the floor with laughter.  There was a freedom in the room,  unencumbered moments where people became themselves ... curious, collaborative, playful, and active.  These were the years before anyone thought about the value of collaboration. But here they were seeing how different minds could see and solve different parts of the problems.  In the debrief there was always astonishment about how they all participated and because of that, created success.  In a three-hour module these adults who worked side by side each day - who counted on each other - got to know each other better than all the hours they had spent working, worrying about students and parents, playing politics, and acting adult. 

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Undressing in Public

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The only valid test of an idea, concept or theory is what it enables you to do. MG Taylor Axiom, 1983

I sometimes stare at the clothes worn by people throughout the ages and wonder what the motive was for such costuming. Corsets, pettycoat hoops around the feet, shoes that bind and distort, armour so heavy that one could hardly walk... and on and on. In the 1920's, Helen Willis, one of the world's greatest tennis players was the first to question the need for long dresses and corsets when playing tennis. She dared to undress in public by trading her dress for mid calf pants of a sailor type style. Follow swimming suits fashion through the ages and you will find the same questioning over time about the appropriate dress for the situation.  And over time, new images of what is appropriate dress comes into fashion. 

Today, another form of undressing in public is happening. This time it is not about clothes but about expertise. For years and years, we have sought to get our doctorates or other certificates signifying that we have the answers ... that our answers out-trump other answers.

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