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This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 0:04
Give me some specifics, and give some of our listeners some specifics of how it actually helps teams through some of the you know, typical challenges of miscommunication
Alex Suchman 0:14
that could totally transform how a team works together, is to know that you will not be judged and you will be rewarded for asking questions, for getting clarity. Another thing is just recognizing, oh, wow, I say things in a way that makes perfect sense to me, but if I want it to make sense to Andy, I need to appeal to Andy. So just understanding, what are those little things that each person can do to better understand and be better understood by other people. That's just that's just huge.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 0:57
Hello and welcome to this next episode of the lean solutions podcast. I am one of your co hosts, Jane doffenbaugh And Andy Ulrich, how are you? Mike, I am good brother. I am good Andy. As as you know, it is great to be seen by you, and also it's great to see you as well, but as you know, I am a fairly playful guy. We just had a little interaction. There were you, like, wait, what's he doing? Like, how is this working? I love to have fun. I love to I love the playfulness of being able to bring the context down to a human level. It seems to kind of level the playing field when we're playful. It also is able to kind of like connect us as people in a subtle but somewhat of a natural way. So I want to know, like, as we're talking about play, and that's what this topic is. Today's topic is play, and we use play in a lot of different places. We use play in learning and education. You know, there's gamification, there's you've probably seen it. You know, whether, if you've done any e learning, you know where they have kind of you know, they watch the bar and you're supposed to reach a certain score and play they use it in military, with war games. They use it in therapy. There is, there is play therapy to help people work through issues and what and whatnot. I've even seen hackathons and those kind of things in software development. But my question today, Andy is, is is play appropriate and useful in a more serious setting in business, like for for those that are really involved in in not just making money, but also as a business owner, you have all of these lives of other people that are working with you or for you, that also you know need to be supporting their families and whatnot. So is, is play an appropriate place in does it have an appropriate place in business, and specifically for us, continuous improvement? Do you have any any thoughts in this?
Andy Olrich 2:59
Oh, absolutely. Shane, I first of all, with the little intro bit, I'm used to you, mate, but yeah, that's what I love about you. And I love about this show, is we can have a bit of fun. And yeah, in business, in life, if it's not fun, I'm not usually, initially keen to do it all right? And what I love about using play in some of the workshops I lead, or if I'm involved in is, yeah, it lifts people, kind of lifts you out of the day to day, and just everybody helps level up the playing field from a rank perspective. Now, it's appropriate for the moment, but yeah, getting people to have a bit of fun along the way, we're a bit more inclined to give it a go. So I'm a big fan of fun. I'm a big fan of play, and more of it, especially when it comes to continuous improvement, because sometimes we've got to twist our brains into thinking a little bit of a different way. Or, I'm sure our guest is going to talk us all about that. But play on. I love it, alright.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 3:49
So let's talk about our guest as you as you bring Alex on. Alex suffman is the CEO and co founder of barometer XP, whose mission is to create cultures where people are excited about their work because they feel a strong sense of purpose and belonging. She uses games and play to strengthen interpersonal dynamics such as trust, accountability, psychological safety in the workplace. She's a finalist for the Metro DC ATD Award for Excellence in innovative and learning for innovative learning. Sorry, that's a mouthful. Alex, right there, has been featured in Forbes magazine and is a thought after speaker and thought leader on using play as a tool for organizational effectiveness and employee success. Alex, we are jazzed to have you here. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Alex Suchman 4:37
I'm so excited. There's already 100 things that that came up listening to your intro that I'm excited to dive into. I think this might be like an extra long episode, right on,
Andy Olrich 4:49
more time for play, but yeah, well, it's great to have you on and yeah, just listening to some of that. It's just, it's so great to have somebody who is officially known and recognized for play. And. Bringing those things in. So I believe, Alex, you're going to have a bit of fun with us this morning or today, whatever time it is, wherever you're listening. So before I jump into the first question, I think I'll throw it over to you. Is there anything that you you wanted to touch on, or are you going to take us on, onto a game already?
Alex Suchman 5:18
Um, we can do that. I want to, I'll start by, there's certainly people that hear the words play and work in the same sentence and recoil. There's definitely people when I say I'm a play facilitator, they don't want to make eye contact, or
Alex Suchman 5:32
they, you know, they feel so touchy feely. It feels touchy feely.
Alex Suchman 5:36
And everybody has an awkward experience. Everybody's like, you know, whether it's like we did a ropes course, it was like a horrible trivia night, because that one person got too competitive and made it not fun, or we tried to do, I don't know, like a pickleball tournament, but, like, some people aren't athletic, or one horror story was one of the people. She's actually a facilitator in our community now, and she worked in finance, and it was a bunch of accountants, and they wanted to help people get to know each other better. Accounting can be a very solitary field, and so for their team outing, they went bowling, and she said it was a disaster, because if you don't talk to people when you're sitting near them at work, you're not going to talk to them when you're sitting waiting for your bowling turn. There's nothing in bowling that has you interact with other people so often. It's well intended but not used well. You have to be really intentional. When you're bringing play into the workspace, it's very, very different than when you're playing a game with your friends or family. When they're the purpose is to have fun. At work, you want to have fun, but fun is never the goal. The goal is always to get to know each other better, to help think more creatively, to foster better curiosity, to practice different ways of communicating. And that needs to be the purpose. And then you want the fun to be a side effect.
Andy Olrich 6:55
So true. That's so true. And you just, again, you talked about 100 things that came up. We're going to talk about lots of stuff, but yeah, there's a couple of real, lived examples here in Australia, actually around I can't believe we did that. It was a disaster, but I'll hold it there. So hold you. I'll hold my powder dry, and then hang in there. Everyone. This is going to be a great episode. So okay, I'll, uh, I'll throw it to you. Alex, what? What are we in for?
Alex Suchman 7:20
Why don't we start with the game? Because a huge part of it, of getting people to let down some of their suspicion and skepticism around play, is seeing how it's different and how it can be done. One of the most universal challenges in the workplace is communication. You know, we're three people. We're all very accomplished, very smart. I might describe something in a way that totally makes sense to me based on my professional background and my experience, and it might make no sense to you at all, and that's on me. You know, if I'm trying to communicate instructions or expectations to you, it's on me to make sure you understand my job is not done when the words leave my mouth or when I the email is sent. So we're going to play a game that explores that and how people process information and what details are most important, what they really need when they're hearing something. So do you have a paper and a pen ready?
Shayne Daughenbaugh 8:21
I just want to know, are we being scored, because I want to beat it. No, it's something.
Andy Olrich 8:27
It's not a competition. But you are going down, right? You're going down. It looks
Alex Suchman 8:35
like we might have to dig into this competitiveness in the debrief. So I'm not away now.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 8:40
Alex, real quick. Is this something that people at home or that are listening can also follow along with? Absolutely?
Alex Suchman 8:46
Okay, absolutely. You just need a paper and a pen. This is a game called visionary. I call it my Swiss Army Knife game, because it can be used to explore so many different types of team dynamics and so many ways of looking at how you can improve how a team works together. So I have a picture on my screen that I'm looking at. I am going to describe it, and as I'm describing it, you are drawing. You are drawing what you hear me say for my own I'm going to put a two minute timer cool, just to add a little bit of challenges so it doesn't go on forever, and no one will see your drawings unless you want to show it. It's really just paying attention to what's helpful in the instructions. What can make them better, what details are most important to you? Okay, that sound
Shayne Daughenbaugh 9:34
good. I'm excited make it happen.
Alex Suchman 9:36
All right. All right. Here we go. So the picture is a portrait orientation, so the long way up and it is a very close up drawing, just a plain black pen and white background, drawing of the head of an owl. It's really just the head and the neck of an owl. So that's the overview, and I'm going to go into the different pieces of it. To start, I would draw a big circle that takes up about three quarters of the page, both height and width wise, and that's the Owl's Head. And that's the outline. The only other part of the owl outside the head is it looks like the owl is peeking in from the left side of the page. So there's like the diagonal of the neck going down under the head, and then inside the head, you have the face of the owl. And the face is it looks like a heart. It's like a big, wide heart, except that the bottom is rounded and not pointy. So it takes up, I would say, the vast majority of the width and height of that circle of the head. So it's a very rounded heart. And inside of that, you just have two eyes, two circular eyes, just little black circles. There's no nothing in the eyes, and the beak, which just looks like the letter V, and the beak is centered between and beneath the two eyes,
Andy Olrich 11:03
you said the letter V, right,
Alex Suchman 11:05
V, yep, V, pointing down.
Andy Olrich 11:12
Okay, it's definitely not an L. All
Alex Suchman 11:14
right, any any other, any other questions that something want me to repeat or clarify? I
Andy Olrich 11:23
uh, just the V is pointing. I'm just thinking of an hour now. It's been a while since I've seen them. But is it pointing like the pointy end is down?
Alex Suchman 11:30
Pointy End is down, yeah, little triangle beak, yep. Does that mean like, no feathers, or no ears, no eyebrows? It's very, very simple. Okay, all right, okay, so that was two minutes. Oh, wow. It goes by really fast. So before and I can show you, I can show you the picture in a second, and we can put it in the show notes, people followed along and want to see but how did that feel for you? What was going through your mind? What were you thinking as you were drawing?
Shayne Daughenbaugh 12:06
It was a little intimidating for me. Just like, where do I start? Like, I appreciated the heart thing.
Andy Olrich 12:16
Yeah, that was good. I was always just as I was starting to draw, I was having to go hang on a second. She might say something next. Hang on, hang on. I found myself racing ahead and and just Yeah, but I think kind of looks like an owl. I think Shane, I'm going to lead with vulnerability here, because this is going to be on YouTube, and we're recording the vision. I'm happy to show mine and and show why I'm doing other things in life.
Andy Olrich 12:42
Okay, both do it. Both do it on 3123,
Alex Suchman 12:50
I love it. Those are perfect, absolutely perfect. All right, all right, and now I'll share my screen, if I can share my screen and show you the standard, right?
Shayne Daughenbaugh 13:05
Okay, I'm gonna add it to stage. There it is.
Alex Suchman 13:08
This is the owl. Oh, gee, I think you both nailed it.
Andy Olrich 13:15
Yeah, I call it in, great. I call it in. This is a it's called a powerful owl. It's an Australian owl. So it's got the black beak. There you go. Oh, climbing it good.
Alex Suchman 13:26
We want, we want to be culturally inclusive of what owls look like all over the world.
Andy Olrich 13:33
Oh, sorry. Okay, keep going.
Alex Suchman 13:35
Yeah, so I appreciate you. You know, saying it was stressful and the vulnerability piece, what? What was helpful in the instructions
Shayne Daughenbaugh 13:45
shapes, like specific shapes, because I know what an owl looks like, but if you tell me to draw an owl, I don't know where to start. I'm just going to draw a circle
Andy Olrich 13:59
the heart with the curved edge. So it was good. You were connecting it with with common images that I was aware of, or letters, and giving me dimensions like three quarters of the page and a portrait orientation. So you were linking it to things that I'd kind of seen everywhere. We had no idea what the activity was, team for all of the of you who are listening and playing along, so this is in the moment real. So that for me was, yeah, you were connecting it to things that were familiar and not necessarily work related. So that took me back to where I spend probably the majority of my time. And yeah, there you go. Yeah.
Alex Suchman 14:38
Were there any details that you wish I had said that would have made it more helpful, or made you feel more comfortable or confident.
Andy Olrich 14:48
You could have shown me to start
Shayne Daughenbaugh 14:53
with. But that's not we showed we would have been there. All right,
Alex Suchman 14:56
I can already tell. Andy is one of the how do I break the game? He's one of those people.
Andy Olrich 15:00
Oh yeah, this is rigged. I gotta find a way, instead of actually just playing the game. No, that's me being cheeky, but yeah, if you had to show me, then it might have made it harder. I was just kind of relaxed. I was like, Oh well, you don't have to show me. You get you set me up. Well, like you said, but you don't have to show anyone. So I felt relaxed, but definitely the shapes and where it was coming from and the size and the orientation, yeah,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 15:22
yeah, I noticed that I had to fight against what I've perceived as an owl. Like I when you first did start drawing an owl, I started drawing like, kind of like the ears, you know, the big horned owl has the shapes and so. And then you said, just draw a circle. Like, oh, okay, hold on. Let me just back up. Erase this. Let me start over again. Let me just and then it was just like, let me just sketch. So I had to, like, back myself, away from where I wanted to go originally. And, you know, hard drawing and all of this thing and try to make it look like Picasso. Well, actually it does look a lot like
Andy Olrich 15:59
paid for it. So I'll go with that. So for those playing along at home and you're, if you're looking at this on LinkedIn or wherever, if you feel comfortable, pop your owl in the show notes with in the in the comments. We'd love to see it. Yeah, yeah, Alex, that was a great exercise. So, so yeah, we're too from, yeah. So, so debriefing that,
Alex Suchman 16:23
do you ever, did that ever happen at work where somebody starts describing something in your mind? You're like, oh, yeah, I know what I've done this type of project before, or I've, you know, heard that word, and you have an image in your head of what it is everybody on the team might and then everybody goes and starts working on it. But then what happens? You know, three weeks later, oh,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 16:45
that's not what I had in mind, and we just spent three weeks doing something that wasn't quite what was originally wanted or requested.
Andy Olrich 16:54
Yeah, yeah, it happened exactly. We've got how many different types of Owl and the customers just sitting there going, actually, that's not what it said on the website, or that's not what I had in mind, yeah. So yeah, that's definitely that, that variation, and again, I kind of feel because it's, we're falling back onto what we've previously done before, or if I've never done it before, yeah, the variation and just that interpretation can be, can be swayed a little bit.
Alex Suchman 17:20
So, yeah, so there's two different things, you know, when you when you're playing this with the people that you work with, there's two different kinds of conversations that come out. One is, oh, well, I had in my head that the owl looked like this, so I drew ears and I drew feathers and like, Oh, wow. It's crazy to me that you have a totally different idea of an owl. The other thing, though, is just what the experience was like. There's some people that might have been thinking like, I'm talking, you know, you're talking too slow. We have to get this done as quickly as possible, because that's what success looks like. That. You might have the people that are taking frantic notes on every detail, because for them, it has to be perfect, and so they're wasting all their time taking notes, and they don't even draw an owl. You might have someone who doesn't draw anything because they're just too nervous to make a mistake or to look silly or vulnerable, and all of those directly affect not just our experience of work, but how we work with other people and the outcomes and so bringing some transparency to how we think and what we need and what success looks like, and what motivates us and what scares us, that's just so critical for smooth collaboration network. And there's, there's so many skills, and there's so many complexities to, I mean, to being human. And so when, when multiple humans have to work together, there's so many areas where there can be misalignment and that causes waste and friction. And so in bringing some of these internal like intra and interpersonal dynamics to light, you can be much more strategic in how you work together. And there's such a benefit to knowing that and avoiding a lot of the common sources of conflict and tension and waste and burnout, and you know, all the bad things that we all experience at work,
Andy Olrich 19:02
so true. And when you were saying that, I was thinking too, you asked me and whether it was intentional or not, but it was you asked me just before we got going. Now, do you have a paper and pen? All right, so there's that piece there. It's like, do I have, have we got the team when we're ready to launch? Have they got all the tools and equipment that they need in advance, so that that popped into my head then, because a lot of times you do get thrown into a project and like, right? We've got to do everybody get together. We've got to go from here to here in this amount of time. We can't mess it up. Oh, yeah, you got enough tools, or you're not even asking the questions like, draw the outs, what with a pen or a pencil head? Yeah. So there's all those. Again, it lifts what I love about this is it lifts you into that space where you just refer to a project and it just, it doesn't it's not so much about what the actual task is. It's more around the relationship and the system and how there's all those things you said so you talk about relational waste in organ. Organizations. So might be an interesting term for some of our listeners, so we're going into that, but can you just give us a quick little explanation of what that means?
Alex Suchman 20:10
Yeah, yeah. And I'm still, I'm still fiddling with the term, and I'm really curious to hear from you and your listeners if it resonates, but so many of the challenges that come up at work that cause wasted time and wasted energy, a wasted social capital. And you know, issues with with products and deliverables are interpersonal are because you don't in order to collaborate with someone, you need to have some sort of foundation of familiarity and trust and shared accountability. And that doesn't just happen. You have to build that. You have to create that. And so I think there's so much avoidable conflict, avoidable waste, at work that comes from not building a solid relationship, a solid foundation of relationship. I mean, it's, it's very, you know, in our personal lives, if a friend calls me up and says, Hey, I need help, or I need advice, of course, I'm going to help my friends. If a random person comes up to me on the street, unless it's an emergency, and be like, I have to be somewhere. No, we, we want to help the people that we trust. We like the feeling of helping them. We especially if we know that there's some shared purpose that you know a success for one is a success for all. We want that. So why not build that relationship so you have that with all of the people that you're going to have to work with. And we all you know in that, in that assumption space, we attach so many assumptions to what motivates other people, why they say, what they do, why they do what they do, and very often we're wrong. And it's really good to prove those wrong, because I might assume I can't remember which one of you is like, oh, I need to win the game. But if I think, Oh, was it Shane? Okay, if Shane's always really competitive, and he always has to win, and like Shane, she's not going to be a team player because of that, well, I've just ruled out Shane and I have just deprived myself from all the wisdom, all the experience that he brings. And we do that constantly. We're always making these snap judgments about what people can and can't do, and what it would be like to do something with them or and and at work, the truth is, especially as we're using more and more technology, we really need to have positive collaboration with other people. It's so essential. And so if there's groundwork that you can do to build better relationships, to make it so those assumptions and those conflicts don't happen to me, it seems a perfect fit with the idea of lean and waste. Yeah.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 22:37
So, so I love this. I wrote it down. Play is a play gives a shared purpose. I love that, and that kind of mirrors and mimics what a business team, or, you know, work team is doing. But can you give, give me some specifics, and give some of our listeners, some specifics of how it actually helps teams through some of the you know, typical challenges of miscommunication, possibly unclear expectations or and I think you mentioned, if I remember correctly, you mentioned trust, yeah.
Alex Suchman 23:08
So that game visionary, I've done with 1000s of teams, and some of the big things that come out of it will, you know, you'll have, if you especially if it's if it's an intact team, and you have the leader and everybody else, leader will say, Oh my gosh, I don't leave time for you to ask me clarifying questions. Or, you know, I say I want questions, but as soon as somebody asks, I sort of dismiss it. And I'm like, you should know this already. I need to change. I mean, that it sounds very small, but that can totally transform how a team works together. Is to know that you will not be judged and you will be rewarded for asking questions, for getting clarity. Another thing is just recognizing, oh, wow. I say things in a way that makes perfect sense to me, but if I want it to make sense to Andy, I need to appeal to Andy, like Andy wants to, you know, he's really concerned with getting things done quickly, like time management is really important to him. So if I'm spending 10 minutes at the beginning of every meeting just sort of not really getting to the point I'm losing Andy, and Andy's going to write me off, and then I'm going to write Andy off. So we need to not do that. So just understanding what are those little things that each person can do to better understand and be better understood by other people. That's just, that's just huge, and it it Don't you know that game took two minutes to play and maybe five minutes to reflect on, and every single time you get real actionable insights, both at the individual level, but also at the collective level of talking about shared norms and your processes for how we structure our meetings and the way we communicate with each other, you know, before and after meetings,
Andy Olrich 24:51
yeah, and how, yeah, it's so true. Like, oh, he's an engineer, so you'll, you'll just be the stats guy, and she's from HR, maybe I. Better wash my backy, you know, it's really and I don't, I'm not generalizing everybody. It's just things that I've heard when I've been running or they're like, oh well, you're, you're the lean guy. Oh, you're the Lean Six Sigma guy. So everything's going to be XYZ. I'm like, hang on a minute. I used to be an electrician, and I like to do this on the weekends, like, find out a bit about me, because we're probably not so different. It's just we're in different functions and, and I think, I think that's, it's so I'm resonating so much with this and, and because that's the realities of diverse groups and thinkers and things, I'm just thinking many leaders a problem may be listening to this. I'm not trying. Here we go. Nearly pigeonholed you there. Sorry guys. It's there's that hesitation. It's like we are we're burning cash, or we're hurting people, or people are leaving. And you want me to play a game? You want me to bring games. This is not fun, guys, our business is in trouble. Our people are hurting. X, y, z. What do you say to those when you say, look, I want to do this through play, and we're going to get some really deep cuts, some serious outcomes and connection here. What's some of your tactics or ways to bring that, that hard head around? Who? Yeah, I haven't got time for this crap type mentality.
Alex Suchman 26:13
Yeah, well, sometimes it will tell me what you've done so far and how has that worked? Well, we've pulled all the stats on employee engagement, and we've done a survey and we are monitoring is like, yeah, Has that improved anything? And so that's one thing. But then the other thing too is in this, what I was mentioning at the beginning is, if you're very intentional, tensional in what activities you pick and how you connect it to something that's important with the group, we can say, hey, we take too long making decisions. You know, people are really risk averse and don't want to be wrong, and so we talk in circles, and it wastes a lot of time, and I know that causes a lot of frustration. Let's get better at making decisions. And what better way to do that than to practice and when you think about how kids learn homework, and, you know, sports practice, and, you know, if you musical instrument, whatever you do like it's, it's built in the idea that you have to practice. But then for adults, it's, you know, watch this video on your company's LMS, or go to this one workshop where somebody is talking at you and showing you slides and then change your behavior forever. It doesn't work, but, but if you bring in the experience, and that's what play is, is experiential learning, and you're specifically designing an experience to bring out the insights, the conversations, the learnings that you're trying to do, and in a way, you're simulating what happens in the work environment, people cannot help but show up as themselves in playing the game. You know, whatever insecurities they have, whatever personality traits, whatever way that they think or react, it's all going to show up. And so it's a way of bringing a mirror and saying, this is this is how you individually and you collectively work and act together. Is this what you want? Is this? Is this helping you? Are there things that you can do different? And that's where the continuous improvement lens is. You know, we're used to looking out. You know, where in the process could be better, where in the work environment. But what about looking inward? How could I show up. How can I react? How can I communicate in a way that's going to get better results and and you have to practice that. You know that that's yourself and situational awareness and sort of self modulation of our behavior. That's a skill.
Andy Olrich 28:38
It is. It is a skill. And one of the big things in Lean culture is reflection, okay, and say, it's like, yeah, that, hang on a second, and what, what am I doing? What am I projecting? You know, those sorts of things. So that, that looking inward thing, definitely, it's such a connection to to what we, we strive for. I believe in this, in this space, it's, it's such a, such a great, powerful thing to do. Because, yeah, we do. We're like, Okay, I'm here I come. I'm coming to help, and I'm going to look at all of your things in the process. And you describe that so well, and it's actually, yeah, hang on. We actually looked at ourselves here and reflected on what we're doing instead of it's it's over there, and it's all them. So I think that play, and I think that, for me, it's that if we have a nice experience with something, it kind of sticks in your brain, in the happy part of the brain. And I think we're, yeah, we are we're more we don't have that fight or flight sort of thing so much. It's like, oh, this is actually feeling pretty good. Yeah, I'm going to keep going with this. So I think again, that's, it's a real human reaction that we have to this.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 29:41
Yeah, can you? Can you give us a specific example of a time when, when you have have led this and found a breakthrough for teams or the team found breakthroughs through doing this? You know, whether it be team dynamics or process improvement, or whatever it happens to be, but can you give our. Listeners, hey, here's this, like a case study. Can you give our listeners absolutely
Alex Suchman 30:06
earlier this year, it was in the like, late winter, early spring, I did a virtual game session with a small marketing team. They're based in Texas, but they have employees all over the world, like across time zones, so most of their work together is asynchronous, and you're the other people who create marketing content. Do you have the people do business development, you have the graphic designers, you have the video editors. So very different, very different skills and very different roles, and the owner of the company wanted, not only for them to get to know each other and understand each other's strengths, but she really wanted to foster more collaboration and for people to take more initiative towards collaboration. She was spending so much time answering questions and walking through problems that she felt like she wanted all of the team members to step up, to step up their their ownership and their accountability. So we did a couple of games. And you know, this was just one session. Usually for we're trying to get deep outcomes like that. We want to do multiple sessions, but the people took to the games immediately. And, you know, people all over the world, so there are several who English was not their first language, and initially that's a little, that's always a bit of a barrier. And you know, it shows up different ways, whether you're communicating synchronously on something like zoom or asynchronously on something like Slack. It's really easy to misunderstand and misinterpret, but in the games, because they were having so much fun together, to people who maybe weren't introverted or who were not native English speakers, you could gradually see them start to feel more comfortable. And as they did, they started being funny, they started bringing in creative ideas and not just reacting. And then the other people were like, Oh my gosh, look at all these really brilliant and smart and funny and creative people that we never really had a chance to work with. And so, you know, during the session, we played a couple of games. There was some great reflection, and then it ended, and about five months later, I was talking with with the owner and the COO and they said the owner of the company said she got five to seven hours back every single week because they're going to each other to answer questions, because they like interacting with each other. And so they find excuses. And if that excuse is, hey, I'm stuck on this project. Can you help me? The work felt more it was great to be like you have people. People have your back. But then also, oh my gosh, we actually accomplished this together. Now we feel even more confident. And then they started bringing her ideas and saying, We found this better way to do something. We think this is a new offering that our clients might really like, and we've been playing around with it. And they've also, as a group, created their own game, like a tabletop roleplay type of game, like a DND thing, where everyone's a character, and they're navigating this, and they play it all the time on Slack. People love it, and they've really internalized this idea of play, helping them on so many levels. One on just feeling that sense of comfort and cohesion as a group and wanting to work with other people and liking that experience to two, better understanding themselves and better understanding each other. So you know who to go to for what type of help. Three, empowering them to look at their roles differently, to not just see themselves as this is my role, but I'm part of this group, and these are our goals, and anything that I can do that furthers these goals, I'm excited to do. I'm excited to help us all succeed more. And that was just from a 90 minute virtual game session.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 33:34
So it's almost or as as I'm interpreting it, it kind of it was a shortcut to getting to where teams naturally come to when they're together for a long time, if they're intentional, you know, and and it also helps if you're all together, but if you're asynchronous, it's hard to have that, you know, that time where you're together. So you just, you shortcut that, and gave them opportunity to understand, oh, this is what Andy's like. These are some of Andy strengths. Here's what Alex is really good at, or here's Alex personality, so that I can connect with and and all of that. It just seems like, like you were able to leapfrog into a, you know, a great way to be connected, to collaborate with work. And yes, lean solutions needs to have a DND slack. I'm just saying it online right now that I want Patrick to be a dungeon master. And if we could have that, that would be, we use WhatsApp, not slack, but yes, if we could
Andy Olrich 34:28
just, yeah, I think to Alex, we might. I'm just going to jump in here, and I'll lead in with the story. But we talk about start these games, and how some there can be a little bit of recoil or leaders hesitation with it, or even the participants. I'll give you an example. So I want to talk about, I like to understand, not only what goes well, but also red flag, do not do this. Look out if this is happening when you're going in with play. So there's a for those of you who may not be familiar with some of the sport. It's that I look at, it's, it's rugby league, okay? And there's a really big competition, and it's called state of origin. And every year they do these team bonding camps, right as part of they get, basically, you get halfway through the season, and they pick out all the best players, and then they're in these teams that play each other from New South Wales and Queensland. So they had this great idea, and they're like, You know what we're going to do this year? We're going to go horse riding. We're horse riding. Okay, so down in the glenworth valley near Sydney, it's a nice National Park. That resulted in one of our best players falling off a horse, breaking his shoulder, and then he was out for the rest of the season. And everyone looked around and go. Everyone looked around and went, who the hell thought that was a great idea? Like a week before one of the biggest games of the year. We're never doing that again. And God, sees him type stuff. So that's an example of when 2020 hindsight. It's looking back. Go. Why would you put this guy weighs a I don't know what it is in pounds, but he's 110 kilos, and you're going to put him on a horse and then send him out in the bush for a run around. Bad idea. So Alex, it's up to you. But have you got a zinger of a story where you went in and we did play and it was a disaster?
Alex Suchman 36:06
Oh gosh, yeah, in our early days, when we were just, you know, any team that would let us come in and play, we just wanted to get practice and sort of hone our methodology and hone our craft. And we learned some real red flags of who make for good clients and partners and who does not, and if you have you. So one story was a team at a government contractor, and they were very the manager of the team was a very like, no nonsense, no fuzzy, touchy feely human stuff. Like everybody should just do what they're supposed to do, like you get paid, and let's just do the work. And we did this team simulation with them, where everybody's working together, like you're the leadership team at an imagined, imaginary amusement park. And there's a whole bunch of information you have to put together and come up with a solution. And very early on in the simulation, which is intentionally very vague, it's supposed to be like you have to muddle through this together, like you're really going to show you're going to be uncomfortable, and you're really going to show your true colors. You have to get through this. And the leader made some comment of, obviously, we need to prioritize profitability in our decision. And no one questioned, and they just went along. And I think they came to a solution. It wasn't a very good one. It didn't really use a lot of the information. And then in the debrief, I was like, I totally missed in the instructions where you said we had to focus on profitability. And I said, I didn't that was an assumption that one person made, and nobody questioned that. And from that moment, you know, there are people that were like, we want to think about visitor happiness, we want to think about safety. We want to think about, you know, marketing and messaging. And we didn't feel like there was space for that. And it was a real eye opening moment that if, if the leader isn't willing to look inside themselves and recognize that they do so much for setting the tone, creating the environment for people to work in, then it's not worth our time to work with them, you know, and so for us, the team left not feeling good about themselves. And unfortunately, I don't think they learned the lessons that we intended them to because of the leadership, because, you know, if someone's saying this is what we have to do and everyone just do and everyone just do it. No one's going to ask questions, no one's going to come up with creative ideas, no one's going to especially if it's the leader, especially if it's the leader. And so a lot of what goes into experience, design and facilitation is in to, some ways, meeting a group where they are what's appropriate. You don't put an athlete on a horse, you know, right before a big tournament, because the risk is too high. If you have a group, you know, people who, if it's a group of accountants, and they're not used to thinking creatively, like, don't have them play charades. That's too big of a leap. Maybe there's a game that has more of a strategy component. Or, you know, maybe it's a, you know, they get into small teams that have been in a big team like you have to think about all of those factors for what mindset do people need to be in to even get to the learning and the outcomes that
Andy Olrich 39:32
you're trying to get them to? Yeah, he'd never been on a horse before, and no one had asked him. It was just like, Oh, we're going to throw you in the deep end here. This is going to be a great idea. Whereas, and there may be cultural reasons, there may be all sorts of triggering things from the past. I think that's a really good point you're making. There is, for me that's saying, like for yourself or whoever's facilitating or bringing this play in, is kind of got to read the room a little bit. Give me some insights into who's in the room, what roles? Is there any red flags? Is there any relationships that may blow up here, if I just make a joke? About, yeah, a little bit of homework on the facilitators side as well, just because, again, the human side of this is so important. So I guess a segue into that is, I want to do some play. I'm listening to this. I've never done it before. What's one simple, playful activity you'd pull out and say to people, Look, if you're going to get going, here's the one that I would would recommend,
Alex Suchman 40:23
yeah, I can share one, and then also share that. We built a whole database of games that you can search by. It's free. It's a free database. Say, like, I want a game that fosters conversation about curiosity. I want a game where a team can practice decision making. I want a game that's going to work on, you know, practice active listening or something. Because we want to make this process of finding the game. Finding the game really easy, but one that is so quick, it's so simple, and it's really fun. For the sake of we're doing something together, we're creating something together, and there's room for playfulness and curiosity. It's called fortunately, unfortunately. It's an improv game. And remember the game? I'm sure we all played as a kid, where one person says a sentence and everybody adds a sentence, and you create a story. It's like that, but with a twist. So the first person starts and you say the opening sentence, and then you say fortunately. You know this happened in the story, and then the next person has to start their sentence with unfortunately. So the story, there's no linear storyline. It goes up and down and up and down, but you have to actively listen to the person ahead of you, because you what you say needs to tack on to what they say. It needs to be in direct response to that. And it gets so crazy, I think, because it doesn't have that linear thing, because it's going back and forth like it goes into outer space, and we bring in, you know, creatures, and there's, you know, crazy details that come up, and it's just so much fun. And at the end, it's, you have this feeling of we just created a story together that's a shared moment of joy and creativity, and, you know, productivity, the co creation that we did together, and we're going to remember that, oh my gosh. Shane was so funny. The thing he said in that game was great. Like, remember when Andy tied everything together? He, like, you know, did a call back to something early in the story, and that was so funny. Those moments are so precious. And even if you're not directly practicing a skill, it's just reinforcing, look what you can do together. So that is absolutely one of my favorite
Shayne Daughenbaugh 42:23
so we do need to wrap up this conversation. Even though I'm I'm loving where we're going with this, I do want to to follow up, as you just described it. So you just gave us here, here's here's a scenario, here's a game you can play. How do I wrap it up?
Alex Suchman 42:40
Yeah, yeah, that's where the reflective piece comes in. Is it? How was that for you? What? What were you feeling? What were you thinking? Did you learn anything about any of the people that you work with? Did you notice a new skill, or find something really helpful or reassuring, or, you know, what made you feel comfortable to bring in a really outlandish idea, just that self reflection of like, what was it about this particular situation, the activity you were doing, the move you're in, that the people that you're with, the way they showed up, that affected how you feel and how you acted? And I think that that's what's missing from a lot of using Play and activities, is you're not connecting it to anything interesting.
Andy Olrich 43:20
Such a such an important point, to put a bit of a kind of bit of a full stop or rap rapid and then a bit of tip, but also have that inspired call to action, right? What are we going to do with this experience we've had? So Alex, with this is such a fascinating space, as I said earlier, at the start there. I just love learning through play. It makes me remember it in a positive way. And, and, and I try and do, do things, scenario base, play in everything I do, and just love it so, but we, we need to, need to wrap it up, as we've been talking about here. But how can people get in touch with you, Alex, and you mentioned there's a free database that you have an amazing gift to the world. So two things, what's the best way for people to reach out and learn more about what you do and how to find out more? But also, what is this thing? Where do we find it? And we'll put it in
Alex Suchman 44:13
the show notes for everyone. Yeah. So the one place to find everything is barometer. Dot barometer xp.com, that's our website, and on that website you can find information about me. You could connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. Alexandra sukman, but then to get from the website, you can learn about our facilitation programs and the trainings and workshops we do. But there's something called the play concierge, and that's the name of the platform, and it says, play concierge. There's a thing that says, set up your account and you go in, and we have all sorts of frameworks on there for how do you break down activities into their mechanics and dynamics, to connect to learning those different ways of looking at play, and how do you reflect and what types of questions? And then there's a do. Database of about 120 games that you can filter by 20 different variables.
Andy Olrich 45:05
Brilliant, awesome. Thank you for that. I'll definitely be checking that out. Awesome.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 45:09
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Is there any last things that you wanted to share with our I mean, you shared a ton, even in this short time that we've had anything you that you want to say, just, I just got to say this to encourage you out there.
Alex Suchman 45:25
Yeah, we're really promoting that there should be so much more play at work. And a lot of what we do is is training other people. So we do all sorts of virtual and in person workshops on how to use play to have to make better meetings. How do you use play to practice giving feedback. If people want to facilitate play, we have a whole certification program on how do you connect it to all different types of outcomes? So if anybody's interested in learning how to lead play, or wants to, you know, get some tools. I would love to share that we just want to make work. I mean, I know if I can say is make work suck less for people. I say that all the time. Those exact
Andy Olrich 46:05
words, Shane says that, yeah, make, well, I think that's on your LinkedIn handle, or it was. It should be, yeah, gosh, I don't want to like work has this? It's like work, but I mean, if it's fun, I'm I'm there, make you, yeah, it's such a great call. And I'll wrap up with my final thing. My mum always said, if you're going to work hard, you got to play hard and around balance. She does say she wished she didn't say that around me until I was in my 30s, but it's so true. And Alex, it's been an absolute joy to meet you. Shane, we'll debate whose owl is better later on, mate, but great to be with you again, and I'll throw that close out. Cheers.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 46:45
All right, yes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for watching once or watching and listening once again. Please be sure to if you did do the exercise, show us your owl in some way again. We'll be posting this on LinkedIn. Make sure that you drop it in the comments or on the YouTube however you can. Thanks again. Have a great day. We'll talk again later.