Games.  Professional development.

Two things, both of which get me very excited.  I decided to start making a list of organizations and individuals that employ games either to help individuals develop professional skills or to enable team-building.  From my personal contacts, these are the following groups who use games in a business context:

• Action Centered Training, Inc. - I was introduced to Ron Roberts by way of Mary Couzin.  Ron has an incredible passion toward professional development and not only uses, but invents games to use in team-building and corporate training endeavors.
• iO (formerly improvOlympic) - Paul Bellos reached out to me after my first GameTime Connections event was promoted in Brad Spirrison's Chicago Sun Times column.  We met in-person and hit it off as we share similar values toward play, creativity and professional development.  iO does great improv shows and has adapted their training programs to support corporate needs.
• The Go Game - My brother-in-law took part in an implementation of The Go Game as a large-scale team-building event for one of his business organizations.  Aside from wire figures dancing like gorillas on the splash page, I get the impression that these people know games and have created a unique approach to team development.

Who else is using games within a corporate framework?  Comment here about the individuals, groups or companies from whom you have experienced team-building or professional development games.

I'm sure everyone has heard that quote before: "Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?"  Especially if you have ever worked on a dysfunctional team or in an organization where communication was not operating at its best, you are familiar with the idea of different individuals or teams performing independently at best, or in direct opposition at its worst.  Well, this week's game is taking the quote a bit more literally.  Take one or more activities that you typically do with your dominant hand.  Over the course of this week, use only your non-dominant hand to complete the activity.  This could be as simple as brushing your teeth, talking on the phone or using your remote control.  As you begin to engage your non-dominant half, you will not only begin to appreciate the complex motor skills required from your dominant hand, but also reflect on how the rest of your body responds.

As an example, I almost always hold my phone up to my left ear with my left hand.  My right hand, being dominant, is sometimes restless and wants to check email or otherwise engage itself.  When I switch and have my right hand holding the phone to my right ear, I engage my listening skills more intently.  Perhaps it's because my right hand is no longer free to be distracted - I'm not sure.  What I do know is that it completely changes my perception of the phone call.

Play the game of switching hands this week with non-critical activities (i.e. no switching up for surgery, driving, handling flammables, etc.) and see how your body and mind respond to the difference.  When you've had your fill, come back here and share what the experience was, how it felt and how, if at all, it changed your outlook or behavior.

[This exercise is inspired by a suggestion from Hope Bertram.  Thank you, Hope, for providing the great idea!]

As the week draws to a close, so too does my adventure through the book Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch.  Rather than write a long-winded post reviewing the book, I've decided instead to provide a short summary followed by my favorite highlights.

The Summary

Nachmanovitch's Free Play is an inspiring book that encourages the reader to reawaken their natural gift of creativity.  Heaped with historic anecdotes, religious and cultural metaphors, and fair share of musical and artistic references, this book seems geared primarily to artists and musicians.  However, if a reader outside of those creative professions chooses to pick this one up, they will not be disappointed.  The inspiring stories and suggested activities - well immersed in the text - can wring the creative juices from anyone and would serve business professionals in any industry where a bit of strategy and creative thinking can take you places.

Highlights

As I was reading the book, my mindset was based on games and play.  Since those fields are my passion, and the title is Free Play, I kept a running log of the most inspirational quotes and excerpts.  [On a side note, the prologue to Free Play is not only inspiring but also cathartic - rather than spoil it, I'll leave it to you, the reader, to enjoy for yourself.]  The following are my favorite sections, as drawn from the book:

p. 19, 2nd paragraph - "A walk, following your intuitive promptings, down the streets of a foreign city holds rewards far beyond a planned tour of the tried and true.... As the pattern of people and places unfolds, the trip, like an improvised piece of music, reveals its own inner structure and rhythm.  Thus you set the stage for fateful encounters."  What an inspiring paragraph.  Essentially expanding on the concept of "It's not the destination, but the journey," the writing evokes such a wonderful feeling of exploration and adventure.  I remember reading in a flight magazine about a writer who decided to write what basically amounted to a travel guide of his bedroom.  Instead of seeing everything as he had for years, he stepped out of his perceptions and for the first time, saw just how remarkable his own room was.  Unfortunately, I can't recall the author or I would share the details of the book for those interested.

p. 44 - "Galumphng is the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation of activity."  Again, the imagery in my mind's eye was wonderful - I pictured Monty Python and the Ministry of Silly Walks.  [While researching for this article, I actually stumbled upon Monty Python's Silly Walks Generator, which truly champions the idea of galumphing.]  Once again, I thought back to my youth and the impromptu games we would play.  I distinctly recall how excited my siblings and I were when we got a new refrigerator.  Why?  Because it came in an enormous box.  We turned the box into a theater, putting it upright and cutting a window on one side.  We'd put on shows for each other and for our parents.  I can't seem to remember any of the shows that we did, but we had no fear of performance and no formal knowledge of it either, but that didn't stop us.

p. 50, 4th paragraph - Nachmanovitch quotes psychiatrist Donald Winnicott: "...It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult [emphasis mine] is able to be creative and to use the whole personality..."  What seems like a luxury to us, time to play, is, as Winnicott puts it, the only way that we are "able to be creative and to use the whole personality."  Is he implying that we are incomplete if we do not allow time to play?  In my opinion, Winnicott is really saying that play is what allows us to bring out our full potential.  I've often felt that we're different when we play, more relaxed and open to possibility.  Whether it's a structured activity like a game or an unstructured pursuit, like our improvisational performances in a refrigerator box, opening ourselves does not simply allow ideas to come in, but also to let our whole self shine.

p. 68, 3rd paragraph - The chapter is entitled Practice and rightfully so.  The section I am highlighting deals with coming to terms with practice and particularly with the power to choose how we practice.  "You don't have to practice boring exercises, but you do have to practice something... If you don't think the result is good, you have the power to change it... In any art we can take the most basic and simple technique, shift it around and personalize it until it becomes something that engages us."  Anyone who has been through band in grade school or taken art or singing lessons has likely encountered the rote memorization approach to practice.  The teacher says, "Practice the [chords, sol fege, brush stroke, etc.] until you've got it perfect."  When you get home, your parents say, "Keep practicing it just like your teacher said."  You practice for a while and either a) get it down, b) get frustrated but keep at it or c) get frustrated and give up.  Imagine how differently it could turn out if you were empowered to choose how you practice or develop the skill you seek.  Because of my passion for both professional development and games, I'm developing a system that incorporates game play into corporate training frameworks, expanding the options that an individual employee or a team has when it comes to honing their skills.  In essence, I'm using the concept of selective practice to apply the same concept of selective practice to the career development plans of others.

Finally, there is a G. K. Chesterton quote on page 166 that really inspired me as I create a business and special projects within the same scope of games: "The whole difference between construction and creation is this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists."  Think about that line the next time you are sitting down to start a new project or initiative - will you only love it when it's done or is your love of it what drives you to take on the assignment in the first place?

Just wanted to add a thought before signing out tonight.  Amidst the throng of bikers along Michigan Avenue, viewable from my office at 500 N. Michigan, and the din of fireworks that sound almost like downtown Chicago has mysteriously relocated to the West Bank, I've been thinking about how people approach games from the standpoint of rules and what it means in a broader context.  From all of the years I have played games, I've noticed two distinct types of people, those who play according to the rules and those who play with the rules.  Now, the fireworks appear to have caused my brain to lose all capacity to function, or perhaps that's just the time (6:44pm as I type this), so I'll leave the conclusion to you, the reader, for now.  I'm sure that I'll be revisiting this topic shortly.