What ten years of Play has taught me
Ten years ago today I pressed the ‘live’ button on the website for Play Contemporary Leadership CoLab . There was no strategy as such. In fact, despite having strategy and research in my skill set, it was a deliberate act of not letting my thinking get in the way of action. If I had, I may not have had the courage to act on intuition and curiosity.
I had in some ways fallen into professional development after three quite distinct phases in my working life. Like many women climbing ladders in the patriarchy, I had become quite enamoured with the idea of ‘women in leadership’. That had led to mentoring, coaching, leading ‘women in leadership development’ programmes, diversity and inclusion consultancy and studying gender and history at university.
But two nagging provocations haunted me. Firstly, what about ‘men in leadership’ programmes; how come women were treated as ‘special needs’? Why couldn’t I play with men too? Secondly, what about collaboration? People were talking about collaboration but I didn’t see a lot of it. I had also met Jenny Devine and was more than impressed. She introduced me to shadow work, which profoundly changed and challenged my ideas on what type of leadership development had the biggest impact on leaders.
So, ten years ago Play CoLab was born as a living enquiry into all of the above. Within a few weeks we had around 27 punters keen to be part of the experiment and we were away. I had, on a whim, bought a space in the centre of Auckland city where the aforementioned enquiry was to take place. (What was I thinking? Well actually I wasn’t, which was lucky). A small group of us started with ‘men in leadership’ programmes alongside ‘women in leadership’ programmes, as well as mixed gender courses in order to explore cohort dynamics. Things got interesting and Play CoLab gained momentum. That was around 80 leadership development programmes ago and Play CoLab has long evolved out of being an inquiry into becoming a practice that awakens the consciousness of leaders to the systems that they are party to. Fundamentally this includes their own internal system i.e. the human psyche. It has also evolved out of leadership development itself, as the work always sits in the context of an organisational system. Now our work spans consultancy, cultural diagnostics as well as executive team and individual development. It has taken us out of the Play CoLab space and into the world both online and in person, including various parts of Asia Pacific. This is not due to any sheer brilliance of my own doing. In fact, the more I get my own ego out of the way (the essence of collaboration) the more the path is revealed.
So, in the spirit of sharing knowledge which is key in collaboration, here are ten learnings, in no particular order, from this first decade of Play CoLab.
Vertical leadership development, that expands how a leader thinks/senses/intuits vs what they know, is the most impactful and critical type of leadership development as it deepens wisdom.
Fundamental to this, is the understanding that adults go through stages of development. Most often get stuck or perhaps too centred in earlier stages that does not allow the capacity to navigate complexity.
All systems including that which exists in the psyche of a leader have beliefs and operating systems below the waterline that if left unacknowledged and unexplored will leave the system (and hence the leader) stuck.
The process of raising what's under the waterline to above the waterline, is inherently uncomfortable and most leaders will avoid it like the plague.
But if you want transformation in the organisation or beyond, then the leader must look to transform themselves. Not an easy task, but a fascinating ride.
Shadow work is the fundamental game changer in doing this. (I will do another post on shadow work soon but consider it the acknowledgement of those parts of the personality which are repressed, hidden, ignored and basically underplayed).
While I am on the subject of shadow work, I learnt that there is always a silver lining in a major disruption like Covid. For us, it allowed us space to put shadow work online as well as expand the practice out of the Play CoLab office itself.
It is the integration of thinking and feeling, knowledge and intuition, and material above and below the waterline that expands the conscious maturity of the leader. (I had identified with being a thinker for many years. The concept of talking about FEELING in leadership gave me the heebie jeebies. My ego did not want to be associated with anything I thought was too ‘woo woo’. It took me a while to realise my ego needed some work in the feeling area!)
‘Women in leadership’ is a construct that has unfortunately become a feature rather than a disrupter of the patriarchy (read my Honours dissertation for more!). There are many brilliant male leaders who need to be in the same room and in the same conversation as female leaders to explore both diversity and unity.
Collaboration is not co-operation. It is about giving up being right (or wrong for that matter) and a whole lot more. It is only possible if collaborators are also in an on-going process of development themselves, expanding their own self-awareness moment by moment. So, as always I deeply thank Jenny Devine for being the collaborator who really brought this alive. And to Adelle Richards Alyson Keller (PCC, ICF) Dr Jane Horan Karen Bycroft, and darling Jasmine Khairmohammed for continuing to expand what is possible for Play CoLab. Also, a thank you to Precious Clark , Peter Blyde , Jenna Wee and Laura-Jane Booker for your mahi and support at critical times of this evolution. And thank you to each and every one of the people who have trusted us with their teams, with their organisation and their egos. You too are collaborators and it has been a real privilege to be with you on this ride.
As always we do not strategise the next phase of Play CoLab and we do sense a different way to play is calling.
So if you do read this, do not ignore your intuition. It holds many delights.
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