What can coffee shop trainees and corporate talent shows teach us about identity and community?

I’ve not blogged for a few weeks now as I’ve been dedicating my writing time to drafting further chapters of my book.  This means that I’ve spent a lot of time recently in coffee shops as I find the lively and varied environment far more stimulating for writing than my home office.  However, I noticed something, a pattern across a number of the larger coffee chains that got me thinking.  Normally, if a server is wearing a name badge I make sure to notice what their name is so I know who I’m interacting with.  Sometimes I’ll mention their names…”Thanks Eduardo“, “Thanks Jayne” which seems to make a connection at a far less transactional and far more human level.  However, what I have noticed over the last few weeks is that in many coffee stores new members of staff have a badge that only says “Trainee“.

This anonymity troubled me in a number of ways.  I couldn’t engage with the new person in the same way as those with a name badge.  Of course, I could ask their name but being naturally introverted and a little shy I would never do this as it might seem a bit weird!  Everyone else behind the counter has a name badge that adds a bit more of a colourful description as to who they are.  Some stores even have little flags to indicate the employee’s country of origin.  But not the trainees.  They have no name or place of origin.  I got wondering how this little thing impacts the trainee’s experience of being a trainee and learning/demonstrating how they engage with customers.  Assuming the whole purpose of the “Trainee” label is to encourage customers to be a little more patient with their server as they learn the role why can it not also say their name?  I’m sure that it would really help their confidence to hear “Thanks so much Giselle, you’re doing a fab job“ or “Don’t worry about it James, is all part of learning the ropes”.  I came to the conclusion that the “Trainee” name badge was, unintentionally, denying the rookie employees an identity within the community of the organisation they were hoping to join until they had proven their worth enough to become differentiated as an individual from every other trainee.

Identity is an interesting thing in the corporate world.  How much of ourselves do we want to bring into the community of our workplace and how much does our organisation allow us to bring in?   A socio-complexity perspective suggests that our identity isn’t a solid, static thing that we have but is a sense of ourselves that is continually negotiated in the moment through our relationships and interactions with others.  Our organisations (as well as our families and other communities we are part of)  play a big part in forming our sense of who we are and what we bring to the community – either affirming or denying our perception of self.  I’ve often thought that instead of a ‘bring your pet to work day’ or ‘bring your daughter to work day’ that organisations would do well to hold a ‘bring yourself to work day’ where employees are given permission and encouraged to bring as much of their whole selves into the workplace for a day (hobbies, clothes, habits, skills, guilty pleasures etc.) to see how the fixed ideas of identity one has for work colleagues can be shaken up by seeing a different side of every individual.

I was privileged to be invited to host a talent contest fundraiser for a large corporation last week.  The format was based on the popular TV show Britain’s Got Talent but the acts, judges and audience were all from the organisation’s corporate HR community.  It was a fantastic event with jugglers, singers, musicians, magicians and dancers and the audience were stunned at the talents that were displayed by their colleagues who, a few hours earlier, had been sitting, smartly dressed at computers in the office!  I realised after the show that this event had done more than raise money for charity, it had been a shared experience of individuals bringing more of themselves to work.   Perceptions of the identity of individuals shifted as more of their talents were publicly revealed.  People who had previously been thought of as HR professionals were now also seen as talented singers,  those perceived as placement students were now also perceived as a well-disciplined and talented dance troupe,  those  perceived as having great career potential were now perceived as also having great musical potential.  There is a wonderful principle I first learnt from the world of Appreciative Inquiry which is ‘to perceive the other in relationship and not in role’ and this event amplified the power of this idea immensely, creating a stronger sense of identity and community that I am told has rippled back into the workplace and continues to grow.

How much of ourselves do we allow to shine through on a day-to-day basis?   What decisions do we make as to which individuals or communities we allow ourselves to be fully seen in?  How much do our organisations intentionally or unintentionally dampen our identity and sense of self through their procedures, processes or the space in which they give us to play and experiment?  How much detail about who you are is overtly displayed on your actual or metaphorical name badge and who or what is it that restricts it from being even more colourful?

Next time you spot a coffee shop trainee – be excited about what potential is lying beneath the name badge just waiting to be unleashed.

From the Subs Bench to the Olympic Ice – How the present moment changes everything

I admit to not knowing very much at all about Turkish football.  However, I recently heard a story on the radio about the footballer Ilhan Mansiz that really captivated me, not because of its tales of footballing prowess but because of its twists, turns, accidents and the emergence of new possibilities.

Ilhan’s debut for the Turkish national team took place in 2001 at the age of 26, a relatively old age in footballing terms to be making one’s first break into the international scene.  He struggled to make the starting 11 for a number of reasons including a recurrent knee injury, however he was selected to represent the Turkish squad in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan where once again he spent the majority of the tournament on the substitute’s bench.

His luck changed when he came on as a substitute in the quarter-final match against Senegal.  The game was in extra time, the score locked at 0-0 and both team’s coaching staff were preparing for a possible penalty shoot out when the referee played an advantage instead of giving a Turkish foul, Mansiz ran through a packed Senegal defence and scored a brilliant ‘Golden Goal’ that instantly won the match and put Turkey through to their first ever World Cup Semi-Final. (Turkey were subsequently knocked out of the tournament in the semi-final by Brazil)

From the ultimate high of scoring one of the most important international goals in football for his country, Mansiz hit a low after the tournament, leading a nomadic footballing life, moving from club to club and being plagued by his recurring knee injury.  In 2007 aged 32 his determination to make a comeback was finished once and for all when he was struck by a car on a pedestrian crossing – an accident that tore his knee to shreds and, despite various efforts to try and find his form again, his footballing career came to a rather sad end.

It was a year after the accident that his celebrity status and lack of current footballing commitments saw him offered a place on Buzda Dans – Turkey’s equivalent of the popular Dancing on Ice programme and, despite having never stepped onto the ice before, he seized the opportunity as a new challenge and a chance to regain some self confidence and meaning in his life.  He was paired with professional dance partner and Olympic athlete Olga Bestandigova with whom he fell in love with. The strength of their growing relationship helped spur him on, despite the constant irritation of his recurrent knee injury and the determined pair were eventually crowned Buzda Dans champions in 2008.   Now a recognised celebrity couple, they have set their sights on representing Turkey at ice-skating in the 2014 Winter Olympics.  Mansiz said in a recent interview with The Guardian newspaper “We are not expecting to get a medal but to be a part of the Olympics will mean much more than winning. It is also about encouraging people that no matter what, at any age, you can reach your dreams by believing and working hard.”

I found this a really heart-warming story when I first heard it but what struck me most was how much Mansiz’ future was drastically altered through small changes that unfolded in the split seconds of the present moment.  There is no way he could have imagined, as he stepped onto the pitch in 2002, that 11 years later he would be training to partner his girlfriend at Olympic figure skating as a result of a bizarre chain of events. I couldn’t help but wonder as to the multitude of ways the future might have been different for him:  What if he wasn’t brought on as a substitute in 2002?  What if the ref had given the a free kick instead of playing the advantage? What if he had missed the ‘golden goal’?  What if he’d continued as a successful footballer after the World Cup?  What if he hadn’t crossed the road at that particular pedestrian crossing?  What if the car had missed him?  What if he’d said ‘no’ to Buzda Dans?  What if he’d been paired with a different partner?  What if they hadn’t won Buzda Dans?  What will happen at the 2014 Olympics?

Obviously, it isn’t just Ilhan Mansiz who is subject to a future that is continually being shaped moment by moment, it was simply this story that caused me to reflect on it more deeply.  Everyone has an ongoing story like Mansiz.  It may not be as dramatic or high profile but second by second our actions and reactions in the present moment author our own future and the future of others.  The present moment is the domain of change, possibility and opportunity and now is the only time we can effect our stories.  Even then we are paradoxically both in control and not in control of what happens next.  What is happening to us right now may be unwanted or unpleasant but where could it be leading?  Could an unwanted consequence in fact be a door opening to a possibility that we have never dreamed of?  Sadly this is also true the other way round, we may be overall content at the moment but we don’t know what challenges may lie around the corner.

Mansiz story reminds me of how important every moment of being is and the importance of attempting to be as deeply present, aware and response-able* to what is going on around us.  For me this stretches the idea of ‘Working Live’ from simply being more present and adaptable in our roles as consultants, leaders, teachers or employees to attempting to be more aware and in awe of the infinite possibilities and opportunities of us perpetually ‘living life live’.

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* Response-able was a term coined by the co-founder of Gestalt Therapy Fritz Perls meaning one’s ability to have a heightened awareness of choice of possible responses available to us in the moment.

NOTE: For those interested, here is a link to a previous blog I wrote on Kairos time and the present moment.

The Giraffe Project – Part I

On 3rd September 2012, as I walked from the south to the north side of the Thames via Hungerford Bridge, I realised that I was stuck as to how I should begin the research for the book on creativity I’ve always wanted to write.  I began berating myself for even considering the project – there were many others who were far more experienced than me and knew much more about models and theories of creativity than I did – no wonder I didn’t know how to start.

Then, about halfway across the bridge a chain of thought suddenly unravelled…

…and the basic premise of The Giraffe Project was born.

I decided that I wanted the whole thing to be an adventure in creativity and that I wouldn’t let anyone know in advance what The Giraffe Project was all about.  They’d have to say YES without knowing what they were saying YES to!  I therefore re-named the project “Experiment 001″ for anyone who hadn’t yet taken part.  I also decided that I wanted to eschew any online technology that would make it all too easy for people to take part – it would be totally analogue using pens, paper and card to make it that much more tactile.  As people don’t really seem to send and receive interesting letters any more I thought that getting an interesting envelope through the door might be quite nice for participants.

An experiment pack

I designed an Experiment pack with the intention of creating mystery throughout the experience of taking part making it like some weird creative secret agent mission.  All that would arrive through the letter box would be a brown envelope marked EXPERIMENT 001.  On opening the main envelope two smaller white envelopes labelled 1 and 2 would become visible.  Participants were told to open envelope 1 and follow the instructions that simply said Have fun drawing a giraffe.  On finishing the drawing they were allowed to open envelope 2 that asked them to respond to three questions:  1) How does your giraffe make you feel?  2) What happened between opening the envelope and finishing your drawing and 3) Did you have fun?  The questions were vaguely aimed at finding out more about people’s attitude both to the experiment and to their drawing.  I was also interested to see if people would remember the ‘have fun’ part of the initial instruction – this was more important than the drawing itself.

On the 20th September I headed off to the post office armed with a big bag of experiment packs, dropped them in the post box and waited to see what happened and on the 28th September a hand written enveloped arrived through my door containing the first giraffe!

A young giraffe from Year 1

As the number of giraffes grew, participants began to ask me “So what are you trying to prove?” or “What are you hoping to get out of this experiment?” to which my genuine answer was “I’ve no idea!  I’m just interested in knowing what happens if I ask people to have fun drawing a giraffe!”  As it turned out, having no real attachment to a particular outcome meant that the purpose of the experiment emerged over time as more and more giraffes returned home.  One of the biggest surprises for me was the joy and excitement I felt on returning home to finding a brown A5 envelope waiting for me, ripping it open like a kid on Christmas day and grinning immensely at the beautiful, unique creation that I discovered inside.  As each arrived, I allocated it a number, scanned it in and placed it on the internet in what I called an ‘online creative sanctuary’.  I took a big pack into a local primary school and the year 1 children took time out to create a wonderful array of young giraffes.  A few months later I spent lovely afternoon at an elderly residential home where a small group of over 75s gladly took part as a group activity.

With over 100 giraffes now safely home part I of the project has come to a close and it is time to begin part II.  This next phase of the experiment aims to explore what themes, patterns and curious questions are provoked when taking a step back to look at this unique, creative collection and the varied responses to the questions asked.  To do this, I’m hosting a ‘Giraffe Party’ in London sometime over the next couple of months where a gallery of the creations will be displayed along with the anonymised responses to the questions.  Anyone is welcome to browse and offer observations, insights and questions, hopefully over a glass of wine and nibbles.

Whilst I’m holding back on attempting to make any further sense of this all until the giraffe party, some of the initial things that have struck me have been:

• Adults don’t have colour to hand much in their lives and most adults don’t have pencil cases!  At least adults in the corporate world.  All the giraffes created by children, those who completed them at home or those who work in creative jobs had a lot of colour in them compared to those who completed the drawings in their office environment.  A number of people rued the fact that their images lacked colour.
• The majority of the giraffes drawn by adults look to the left wheras the majority of giraffes drawn by children look to the right.  This isn’t always the case and isn’t universal enough to be called a statistically significant trend but it is very curious.  Is it to do with the developmental stage that the children are at?  Is it because these children are still learning to read from left to right?  Is it to do with the way we organise our thoughts onto a page or our sense of perspective?
• Only the adults apologised for the quality of their drawings, even if the drawings were very good.  A number of adults said they were ashamed of their pictures and wished they could have added more colour or detail even though nothing was really stopping them from doing so.
• A number of participants spoke of an initial resistance they had to get over before pen hit the paper.  Some drew immediately, others waited until a particular time.  Some spoke of their fear of opening the envelope on the train in case the instructions were to sing or dance and they were relieved to find out it was only drawing!   A few people said they were dismayed to find out it was a drawing task.
• The very act of drawing a giraffe brought back a lot of fond memories for people of holidays, books they had read or zoos/safaris they had visited at some point in their lives.
• Of the 100, 95 said “Yes” in answer to the question “Did you have fun?”.  Many said they had fun when they ‘let go’ of the need to draw a good giraffe and simply gave it a go.  A number said they didn’t notice the ‘have fun’ part of the instruction until the question was asked – they were too focussed on the task of drawing.
• 24 giraffes never made it home.  Some were put in the bin unopened because participants thought the letter was Spam.  Some remained on the ‘to-do’ list of busy corporate folk who were unable to find the 3-5 minutes required for them to give birth to something wonderful from their imagination.  At least 1 giraffe was lost in the post.  The fate of the others is unknown.
• Participants spoke of the excitement at receiving something physical in the post and the mystery and adventure of opening one envelope at a time.  This was mirrored by my own excitement when they returned.

NEXT STEPS:  The Giraffe Project needs you!
There are a number of ways you can support the next phase of Experiment 001:

• Browse the giraffes and learn about their creators via the Facebook page here
  
• LIKE the Facebook page.  These giraffes love attention and the more we can give them the better.
• If you spot themes or patterns in the giraffes then either post in a comment on this blog or e-mail me.
• If you are in the London area and would like to attend the “Giraffe Party” then let me know

A big heartfelt thanks to everyone who has taken part so far.  It has and will continue to be an exciting adventure and I’m touched by how generous you’ve all been with your creativity.

I will write a Part II to this blog after the Giraffe Party and publish the anonymised responses to the questions as well as the creative insights the party goers come up with.

Conversational fat content and social inoculations – How healthy is your dialogue?

It can be problematic to confuse simple with easy. To me simple means something that is direct, precise and minimalist whereas easy is the degree of difficulty, strain, brain-ache and trauma evoked in a person trying to do that thing. One subsequent problem of confusing the two is obvious, if we find something easy we may assume it is simple when we ask others to do it – yet others may experience it as difficult because they do not have the skills, knowledge or abilities we do. The other problem is slightly more obscure – we may assume that because something is simple it MUST be easy. I find the latter is often the case when considering change in the corporate world and trying to explain my perspective in often inelegant ways. Personally, I believe that organisations are simply a bunch of people engaged in an ongoing, complex process of relating that is as predictable as it is unpredictable. Human interaction and relationships are at the heart of everything so one of the most important things to pay attention to is conversation. By changing conversations we can therefore change interaction and change these things we call organisations. (Patricia Shaw wrote a great book entitled ‘Changing Conversations in Organisations‘ on this very subject.)

This may be a simple philosophy in its construct (i.e. a few precise statements) but it isn’t easy to get one’s head around in a ‘change management’ field dominated by logic, deductive reasoning and an unhealthy addiction to tools and models as the only way to solve deeply human relational problems. When I was first introduced to this perspective I decided I needed to find a simple way of making more sense of it so I started to take a greater interest in conversation. To be more precise, I became deeply curious about the ongoing process of conversing. Conversations hold a plethora of cues and clues as to what is going on between people and I have found that helping folk notice more about their dialogue and to then alter it slightly is a very effective way of stimulating change.

Last week I was invited to sit in on and observe a Leadership Team meeting. Most of the time such requests comes as a result of some problematic team dynamics or difficult content that the participants feel is quite volatile and may cause a relational meltdown. This meeting, however, was different. Everyone seemed to like eachother, everyone seemed passionate about the subject matter, everyone seemed to be in agreement and listening to each other’s perspective and the power relations were shared and negotiated in the moment as opposed to being dominated by one or two people. Despite this feeling of camaraderie the group felt they were stuck and, as I observed, I noticed that there was something odd about the nature of the conversation that I couldn’t quite put my finger on at first.

Then it hit me – it seemed that every valuable contribution that each person made was sandwiched between a huge amount of pre-amble, long explanations, repetition of context, caveats and self-depreciation. A typical contribution might be something like this…

“Taking into account the broader context of this project and the things that we’ve already discussed, I understand that the needs of the end customer here have to be met as much as possible, whilst we try to keep costs and resources to a minimum, so I was wondering if, and we don’t have to take this on board, it’s just a blue-sky suggestion and you are free to play devil’s advocate here, we could invite the customers to be part of the design of the project plan. Just a suggestion, I’m not wedded to it either way here and I know you’ll have different perspectives on it, just putting it out there to stimulate our thinking.”

As I’ve been doing a lot of running and trying to get healthy again after my surgery last year a fitness metaphor came to mind that helped me explain to the participants what I felt was going on:

“You are all making some great contributions here but each is surrounded by a large amount of uncessary pre-amble. If you could imagine putting your contributions on a set of those snazzy fitness scales that measure fat content – the percentage of fat in your dialogue would be large and quite unhealthy. This excess fat seems to reduce the visibility and value of your contribution. Lets try to experiment with being more precise and the fat content down from 50% to below 15%“

In the above example I’ve indicated the ‘fat content’ in red and the great suggestion that the individual made in green. The group found this metaphor very helpful and it encouraged them to be more precise in their dialogue and they made great progress whilst maintaining the collaborative friendly atmosphere. A reduced fat content exchange now sounded something like this:

“I’ve an idea guys, we could invite the customers to be part of the design team. What do you think?“

It seems to me that high conversational fat content occurs as a result of individuals needing to apply some sort of ‘social inoculations’ to their conversational contribution. By anticipating where one might be challenged, mis-understood or perceived as being mad, bad or wrong one tries to prefix and suffix the main conversational point with all sorts of pre-amble, caveats and self depreciation that will hopefully neutralise any conflict before it arises. This normally happens when new relationships are forged or as a result of a lack of trust in longer standing ones. In this instance, the group knew each other well, had a shared vision and hope for the future but hadn’t quite yet matured to the point of trusting each other’s willingness to support and collaborate on new ideas. By taking a personal risk and reducing the ‘fat content’ of their contributions they were able to make their point better and be better understood by everyone else in the room. They found this easier and easier each time they did it and the trust between them grew further meaning that it was easier to spot agreement when it occurred and any differences of opinion were more positive and propelling because of their crispiness.

The idea of reducing conversational ‘fat content’ is not to diminish the importance of context setting or to restrict the power of relevant tangents and thinking aloud/testing stuff out with others. It is simply to reduce the amount of time, effort and breath used on ‘social innoculations’ purely because we’re worried about what others will think about us. On the flip side, ‘underweight’ conversations can also be problematic and end up being too robotic, and lack context or empathy so, as with most things, it is a question of balance as opposed to right or wrong.

The next time you are in a meeting, imagine a set of metaphorical scales that weight each contribution and work out how much of your own and other’s conversation is vital organs, food/water/energy and muscle that keep the dialogue vibrant, healthy and alive and how much is social inoculation related fat that makes it feel all lethargic and unfit. Then, if you are feeling adventurous…try suggesting some liposuction!

The paving slab of certainty – The downside of well ingrained commuting habits

I’ve been commuting into London on a regular basis now for around 4 years. Despite occasional delays and frustrations I do actually enjoy it. I get to read different books, get to see different people, get to visit different places and the very nature of a big city such as London means that something unexpected or unusual is normally going on. As somebody interested in people, novelty and creativity it is a wonderful experience. However, something about my commuting experience bothers me and I feel the need to confess…if I am so welcoming of change and difference….why then do I stand at the SAME place on the train platform, get on the SAME carriage and seek out the SAME seat every morning? (My secret commuter tactic here is to stand on a particular paving slab that I have learnt normally aligns exactly with the first set of train doors nearest the seat that is normally empty. I like to think of this as the ‘slab of certainty’!)

I know I’m not alone here as I see the majority of other commuters exhibit similar behaviour. It is somewhat Pavlovian in nature as our brain seems to tell us “If we stand here, then the doors will be right in front of us” or “We can get on first an get a seat!” or “This carriage is far less crowded than the others” or “If I get on here then I will be in the right position for the exit when I get off” (Imagine all of that said with the tonality and facial expression of an overly keen Labrador waiting for a treat!)

These benefits may be true most of the time but I have also seen and experienced the somewhat ridiculous panic if something changes even just a little. Commuters can be sent into high anxiety states if a train brakes slightly too early or too late and the doors are not in their usual alignment with the platform. I’ve seen commuters stare with a real hatred and jealousy in their eyes if somebody ‘new’ is standing in their place on the platform or even worse…sitting in their usual seat. I recall one time, the front set of doors on a packed Waterloo & City tube train failed to open and people looked ashen saying to each other “What are we going to do?” as if they were trapped 20,000 leagues under the sea! (For those who don’t live in London – the W&C line only has two stops so it isn’t like the train is going to dash off anywhere until everybody has had time to disembark.)

It seems to me that myself and others want our commute to be unsurprising, predictable and without incident. There is nothing wrong with this and I recognise it in myself as coming from a desire to be in a place of safe certainty – a position where I feel that I know what is going to happen and I know what to do when it does happen. In order to maintain this position of safe certainty I need to say “no” to possibility, novelty and difference and I am usually rewarded with a seat, an uncrowded carriage or simply not having to think and improvise so early in the morning or late in the evening.

During my commute, I perceive the alternative of this predictable, controllable norm is a place of unsafe uncertainty – a position where I would feel I have no idea what is going to happen and wouldn’t know what to do when it did happen! Whilst a place of unsafe uncertainty is a little appealing due to the novelty it would bring, my norm of safe certainty is the lesser of two evils and I have decided that it is better to sacrifice the possibility of adventure in favour of making it more likely that I will get a seat.

This is a ridiculous scenario as I think about it – the risks here are so incredibly low and the worst that could happen is that I would have to stand or be a bit squashed for 28 minutes. I realise that, what I have done with regard to my commute is EXACTLY what I strive to warn others of in my coaching and change work – our human habit of giving up possibility and opportunity in favour of certainty and predictability in a way that keeps everything rather ‘stuck’.

If I were to practice what I preach I would tell myself that there is a sweet-spot between the two extremes I perceive – a place of safe uncertainty. A place where I wouldn’t always know what was going to happen but in which I can still assure myself that I’m protected from major risk. Safe uncertainty is the fertile ground where creativity, innovation, adventure and change can grow and flourish.

In personal and organisation development terms, safe uncertainty is about having just enough structure, just enough control and just enough governance to mitigate the biggest risks but leaving enough fluidity, spontaneity and freedom to welcome in new possibilities. A culture of safe uncertainty is one where folk are encouraged, within negotiated parameters, to try something new and if it doesn’t work to then fail happy and learn from the experience. A team who are comfortable with safe uncertainty are good-enough at predicting and planning but absolutely bloody masterful at adapting and improvising. Individuals who live their lives from a place of safe uncertainty are able to have wild adventures, learn new skills and develop new talents whilst being able to find novel ways of continuing to pay the mortgage, bringing up kids, leading an active social life, not dying through misadventure (etc).

Where you position yourself on this makeshift matrix is up to you personally. No position is right and no position is wrong (it is only a model after all!)   However, if you are seeking novelty, adventure and change but finding yourself maintaining the status quo in the bottom left hand corner then you may need to ask yourself  ’what am I prepared to let go of?‘ what are the small, modest experiments I can undertake knowing that I could live with the consequences if they go totally wrong?

If like me you are a commuter it seems that a good start point is to tinker with your habitual patterns to give yourself a real experience of safe uncertainty. Walk a different route. Sit on a different carriage. Get a bus instead of a train. I have to admit that , even though I’m happy to take big risks with most things in my working life, the thought of standing at the other end of the platform tomorrow morning still makes me feel rather anxious – how silly!

The Pet Shop – Taking the power of play seriously

One of the great things about working in a home office is that my creativity mentor, my 5-year-old daughter, sometimes pops in to see me and give me advice.  Sometimes this is also a huge distraction if, say I’m doing some coaching on Skype and she bundles in talking about the latest Moshi Monster she wants to catch. Over time though we’ve manage to strike a good balance where I welcome her spontaneous appearances and she respects that sometimes I have to do work that is all a bit adultish and dull.

Last week I was on a call when a note, written on tissue paper was slipped underneath the door.  I was immediately intrigued and excited as to what it might say and tried to stay focussed on my conversation, occasionally glancing down at the floor like a child obsessing as to what their unopened Christmas presents might be.

Eventually the call ended and I read the following note:

Here is the translation for those of you who aren’t fluent in 5-year-old phonics: “To Daddy, I am doing a pet shop. Would you like to come to buy an animal.  Please, it is downstairs. Love Maya.  PS. Can you get some pets for my pet shop.”

The note made me smile immensely, it must have taken lots of concentration and time to write it and I loved the fact that she had heard I was on a call so found another way of engaging with me.  I still had a lot of work  to do but decided to take 15 minutes off to be with her and respond to her note. I went into her bedroom and rooted through her mass of soft toys to find some that would be good for a pet shop and carried as many as I could downstairs to her.  I helped her set up her till, moved a table so the pets could be displayed and helped her arrange them in such a way that customers couldn’t help but buy them.  It was then her dinner time so I went off to finish my work, pleased that I’d found some time to be involved.  I am sure whatever work I did next was better as a result of my brief immersion into the imagination of a 5-year-old.

Just before I went to bed that night I re-read her note and suddenly realised that, in my adult-like state, I had missed something very important, something that was at the heart of the note – the invitation to play.  I felt filled with sadness.  I’d responded to the task, the request to bring toys, to go downstairs and see the pet shop but I’d not engaged in the fantasy, immersed myself in the imaginative space that is pure play.   This was the reason she had put all of the effort into writing the note.  How had I missed this?  I was determined to make up for it so I put the following appointment in my big adultish diary for the following day.  I thought to myself that I always take appointments in my diary seriously so I was determined to treat this invitation to play at the Pet Shop in the same way.

The next morning at 9am (totally ignoring the times in the diary appointment) I spent around ‘£200′ buying a variety of pets in a wonderful pet shop run by a lovely young lady who gave me a discount on everything.  There was a great special offer where if you purchased two dogs you got a free snake.  You could buy all sorts of pet food including beans for rabbits and the shop keeper even let me have a turn at being the shop keeper so I could see what it was like!  I had a wonderful time and will certainly recommend this shop to all of my friends.

In her great book Workplace to Playspace, Pamela Meyer describes our early experiences of play as a place “where we develop a sense of ourselves, experiment with different roles, become socialised, build confidence and explore our creativity.  However we get the message [early in life] that play is free and to be set aside when there [is] something important to do.“  She makes a call to shift our perception of our ‘workplace’ to being a ‘playspace’ – a place that is still highly productive but far more engaging, relational and developmental for us.  “From workplace to playspace is an invitation to shift from a mind-set that conceives of work as separate from dynamic engagement to one where the workplace is a playspace for new ideas, perspectives and possibilities – to embrace our organisations as living, breathing, ever-changing systems and reclaim play as an essential dynamic of success.”

For me, the Pet Shop experience yielded a number of personal insights for me.  Firstly I was surprised as to how easily I missed the invitation to play, the heart of the ‘offer’ on the note, instead being distracted by the instructional task.  Surely somebody who writes and consults on this stuff should have broken these patterns by now - apparently not.  It seems that play, imagination and creativity are not like riding a bike – you can’t just do it once and that’s it for life – it takes continual practice to maintain the embodied playspace mindset.

I’m also now intrigued as to how I can take play more seriously but without making it serious.  I’m not suggesting that I should schedule all play in the same way that I’d schedule meetings – that would be horrible and strip out all the spontaneity and joy from it.  However, there was something about the act of putting it in formally in my diary that felt very mischievous and I just wished that others could browse my diary, come across the pet shop appointment and think ”Eh?”.  There is something about deliberately blurring the lines between work/play, formal/informal, planned/spontaneous that feels like an exciting and worthwhile experiment both for me, for those I work with and hopefully for those who read this blog.

As Meyer says  “Being playful is an engaged, embodied and lighthearted state.  In reconceiving innovation, learning and change as improvised play we breath new life into these processes and create the very space needed to ensure they thrive.”
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From Workplace to Playspace by Pamela Meyer is a great read for those who are curious about how play can re-generate the workplace and nudge it into an experience that is all together more relational, developmental and creative for us all.  It is available from all good bookshops and internets.

Melted borders and inconsistent Grandmas – Talking creativity with chef Eric Gower

I love the question “I wonder what would happen if…?”   Having spent many years procrastinating or finding logical reasons as to why to say ‘no’ to stuff I find it a very liberating way of giving myself an excuse to do something that probably isn’t as well thought out as it should be.  I have found that the beauty of doing something just to find out what happens is a marvelous way of beating over-thinking, and self-defeating logic and has lead me on some incredible adventures.   The beauty of not having a well thought through objective in such curious experiments is that wherever they end up is just wonderful!

I recently asked myself this question when cooking from my favourite cookbook The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen:  “I wonder what would happen if I interviewed the author, Eric Gower about creativity and imagination in cooking?”  I own all of Eric’s books and, as a keen home-chef, I have always been incredibly impressed with the creativity in every one of his recipes – combining ingredients I never would have thought of and encouraging unique takes on different world cuisines.

Eric said a big YES to my invitation and we recently spoke at length on Skype on all things from challenging cooking norms, failing happy, letting go of an obsession with results and simply enjoying the creative process.  I got a wonderful immersion into the rather messy, experimental and creative world that sits behind a beautifully presented cookbook and took away some fascinating insights that highlighted to me that be it cooking, improvising, art or leadership – there are some common themes as to how we can unleash our creative selves.

Breathing new life into old ingredients
Eric is from California and is well-travelled, spending many years living in Tokyo so he has a keen interest in Japanese ingredients.  During his time in Japan he creatively imagined a whole new approach to the traditional cuisine, seeking to breath new life into old ingredients and giving birth to some fabulous new recipes.  He has also set out on a personal quest to bring the wonderful Japanese Matcha tea to a wider audience (I personally drink this on a daily basis).  However, this imaginative and innovative approach hasn’t always been welcomed and he has had to persist in the face of being confronted with being mad, bad AND wrong for the seemingly outrageous ways in which he has broken tradition.
Audio Clip 1 – Breathing new life into old ingredients

• It upsets people.  Inevitably somebody would stand up and say ‘this is completely outrageous, you can’t desecrate Japanese cuisine like this.’
• I’d tell them, look, this is actually a labour of love, I’m actually trying to breath new life into these ingredients by thinking about them in ways that you might not have.
• Some of my most vociferous disbelievers or critics often became zealous believers in breakaway style because I’d somehow given them permission to do something they had been told their entire lives they couldn’t do.

Fail happy – what’s the worse that could happen?
Eric explained to me that his creative process was very, very simple – become absolutely aware of EVERYTHING that is on offer, allow novel combinations to come to mind, ask yourself “I wonder if that would work?” and if it doesn’t work – big deal – at least something has been learnt!  He told me that one of the biggest barriers students in his classes face is getting over their fear of failure and that specialising in ‘bringing stuff back from the brink’ is in fact a good source of novelty and learning.
Audio Clip 2 – What’s the worst that could happen Fail Happy!

• You have to be able to see what you have.  Just glancing at that wall, all kinds of combinations occur to me that would never occur to me otherwise.
  
• Most people have spices stuffed in a draw and you have to paw your way through to get to them, they tend to die rather quickly.  Maybe they got adventurous one day and bought a little tin of mace or something and never looked at it since and it’s got all dusty – it’s because they can’t really see it.
• Almost all home cooks, if you average it out, have 6 dishes they cook and they just keep doing them over and over.
• What’s the absolute worst that could happen…if it doesn’t work, big f*****g deal and I’ve learnt something from the process.
• Students think they have to got to have a recipe, they’ve got to go right through it and do exactly what it says.  They don’t have any confidence in their own abilities so they sort of choke as a result of it.  I try to get them to relax and to realise that the stakes are quite low so why not try something and stop worrying so much.
• The very act of not worrying about it makes you a better cook.

Measuring spoon vs. gut feel and finger senses
I was interested as to how much improvisation and gut feel Eric uses when cooking and he told me that, whilst he relies on instinct and feelings over accurate measuring tools his wife holds an opposing perspective – symbolised by the constant re-appearance of a salt spoon!
Audio Clip 3 – salt spoon versus felt sense

• No, no, no – I never measure anything ever.  Even in baking.  I hate the idea of measuring…it’s all in the feel really.
• I love using my fingers but my wife is constantly trying to put a little spoon in the salt and I remove it literally almost every day so I can reach in with my fingers because a 2 finger pinch of salt is a very different quantity to a 3 or a 4 finger pinch.
• I think I still would be a very good cook if I went blind…and that’s where you want to be…I teach people to use a knife blindly..if you begin to get really comfortable with a knife the key is not looking and relying solely on tactile sensations.

Melting boundaries and inconsistent Grandmas
One of the great concepts of creative cooking we spoke about was that of ‘melting borders’ – not being constrained by the norms of what is considered truly authentic or ‘right’ for any particular style of cuisine – mixing and matching to create something that is unique.  Eric explained that seeking true authenticity is a pointless task as, even if one were to visit a number of Sicilian Grandmas to taste their authentic cooking, each would be uniquely different – the key is to learn, borrow and experiment.
Audio Clip 4 – melting boundaries

• Because I’m so interested in an international approach to food the idea of ‘melting borders’ is a good one for me.
• The very idea of authenticity is a misnomer in my opinion because if you drill down further and further you find there is still no such thing as ‘traditional’ cooking..they’re all going to be different because they all have very different ideas about what ‘traditional’ cooking is.  You’re never going to get there so just give up on the idea…that said, you can learn a hell of a lot and  borrow things here and there but you’ll never get there so don’t even try!

Stop worrying about results and start enjoying the process
Finally, I asked Eric for one piece of advice in nurturing and keeping one’s creative spirit alive.  His answer was simple – stop worrying about results and start to enjoy the practice and process of creating.
Audio Clip 5 – stop worrying about results

• It’s all about the process when we get down to it.  Cooking is a practice, a lot like yoga, mediation or even law or medicine.
• The more you do it, the more comfortable you get and the more you do it, the more you enjoy it – it’s really at the end all about enjoyment.
• The process is where all the fun is so if you divorce yourself from results and simply enjoy the process, the very practice of doing that is going to reward you a million fold.

Feeling creative?  Feeling hungry?

Eric’s books are available from his website and all good internets.  His new book “The Breakaway Vegetarian Kitchen” is due for release in May.

If you prefer one single download of the interview, you can listen to the full version here: Eric Gower full interview (19 minutes)