How can we explore playfulness in coaching. Stephanie Wheeler reports
Before you read on, I invite you to pause. What arises for you when you read the word ‘playfulness’? Does it include curiosity, a sense of fun and perhaps energy? Or maybe resistance, scepticism, even fear? How is this showing up in your body? Where does playfulness sit in relation to your life and work?
Why focus on playfulness
Searching for an MSc research dissertation topic some years ago, I noticed that while humour was often present in my coaching, I struggled to tap into playfulness in the midst of complex and serious topics. As the majority of my clients approached matters with logical, analytical thinking, I wondered how both of us, taking only that approach, might limit our co-creation. I became curious about whether and how allowing space for playfulness might open up new ways of thinking and addressing the issues at hand.
Fast forward some years and my fellow Henley alumna, Teresa Leyman, and I have recently published a book exploring playfulness in coaching (Wheeler & Leyman, 2023). The book contains research from a wide range of disciplines as well as our perspectives from practice and those of 15 ‘Storytellers’. Our Storytellers include very well-known coaches and others you probably haven’t heard of as we wanted to capture multiple perspectives. Included is a Playfulness Scrapbook full of ideas and tools for practice.
What is playfulness?
As the King in Alice in Wonderland very gravely said, we needed to start at the beginning. For us that meant defining playfulness. We were surprised that there’s no universally agreed definition of play, playfulness or even humour. Adult playfulness is still a relatively young research area without universal agreement as to its conceptualisation, definition, measurement or specificity (eg, identifying where playfulness ends and creativity or humour begins). As our current focus is practice rather than research, we can hold these distinctions lightly.
A cornerstone of our work on this topic is around widening and deepening understanding of playfulness and its place in transformational change. In our experience, playfulness is almost always initially associated with fun, play and childishness. This association can sometimes understandably lead to the view that there is little or no place for playfulness in coaching on serious, complex topics often with high stakes, perhaps with senior teams.
We invite you to see playfulness as much broader than fun or play, less in terms of the behaviour of play and more in terms of the qualities which playfulness embodies. These include childlike curiosity, a willingness to be flexible and in the moment as well as openness to explore and experiment. This distinction between childlike and childish is important. It’s not so much about the tools you use (an inherently playful tool like LEGO® can be used in an unplayful way) and more about how you are in the coaching space (a seemingly unplayful tool like the GROW can be used playfully).
Be Playful Onion Model©
To help us make playfulness more tangible and practical in a coaching context, Teresa and I developed the Be Playful Onion Model© (Figure 1). Di Gammage (2017) encourages us to see play as a moving hologram of a jigsaw rather than in terms of a binary work/play construct. Similarly, our model is not intended to be linear – you can move along layers and be in several at the same time. One way of looking at the Onion is that movement from outer to inner layers represent the spectrum of what the words ‘play’ and ‘playfulness’ attempt to capture; moving from ‘doing’ the act of play to ‘being’ the embodiment of playful qualities.
Fig 1: Be Playful Onion Model ©
The outer layer represents play behaviour you might see. In coaching this might be the use of tools such as collage, art, LEGO®, playdough, or constellations to name but a few. As you move inwards, the play behaviour might be more internal such as playing with complex problems or imagining by diving deep into metaphors.
The middle layer builds on the OLIW model of adult playfulness proposed by Prof René Proyer, a leading psychology researcher into adult playfulness. Unlike most models, this uniquely multi-faceted model doesn’t link playfulness to fun or enjoyment, but proposes four distinct facets of playfulness: Other-directed, Light-hearted, Intellectual and Whimsical.
In the coaching space, Light-hearted playfulness might be expressed through how questions are framed (“What’s your wildest idea?”) or the tone or energy of speech.
At the heart of the model is a playful way of being grounded in compassion, non-judgment and appreciation of common humanity. You can see this in practice in the tradition of the Buddhist Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh where wisdom, calm and joy are cultivated. The Dalai Lama and the late Rev Desmond Tutu come to mind, holding complexity and difficulty while also being able to access joy, childlike wonder and curiosity. Applying these qualities to transformational change, imagine the impact of supporting the ability to tap into playfulness, holding difficult or serious topics with the ability to access a lighter perspective, creativity and imagination.
Our Onion sits in the ground, representing the qualities to cultivate for playfulness (including presence and confidence) allowing us to stay in the space of not knowing. The environment around the Onion represents the conditions necessary for it to grow and flourish (including the internal environment of the coach/client, the environment of the coaching relationship, the physical environment as well as the systems within which the coaching is taking place).
The model has proved useful for reflection and supervision both around accessing (more) playfulness and how playfulness is showing up and affecting practice.
Fun, fun, fun
Neuroscience and positive psychology suggest that cultivating positive emotions can significantly support transformation. In the right contexts, we celebrate the impact of fun in coaching. And, the potential of playfulness is so much broader. For example, the idea of serious playfulness has come up in various guises in education, psychology and religion for many years. In essence, it enables holding joy with perspective and sadness/worries with lightness and being simultaneously mature and childlike. It’s not difficult to find examples of Nobel prize-winning mathematicians and scientists engaged in serious work whose approach is infused with playfulness. In our coaching, playfulness is often a way for clients to address challenges in a deep and transformative way, with laughter and tears being common fellow guests.
Practical examples might include facilitating a team to build LEGO® models representing various aspects of their lived experience in their team and its systems. By inviting participants to speak about the models and what the various aspects represent, we open a space for storytelling, deep listening and enabling more distance (eg, it often feels safer to say ‘this brick represents fear’ than to say ‘I am scared’ and then a conversation can be had about the fear with less perceived vulnerability). We can then move to shared models which rely on inclusivity to incorporate the key parts for all and encourage the participants to view the models from different perspectives (high/low, near/far) which often unlocks further insights.
Pit stop
Let’s pause again for a moment. Having read the article so far, what arises for you now when you think about playfulness? How is that showing up in your body? Is this different from before? What might this be telling you?
Benefits
What might we enable through fostering playfulness in coaching? Winnicott (1971) argued that only by playing can we be creative and only by being creative do we discover our Self. If we can foster playfulness in our work (and life), we are inviting their close friends, imagination and creativity along too. Some of the doors we might open include:
- Accessing different perspectives, experiences and possibilities
- Creating space for exploration and experimentation
- Increasing ambiguity tolerance, a sense of benign detachment which fosters curiosity and seeing new possibilities
- Experiencing flow, supporting creativity and happiness
- Building understanding and deepening relationships
- Being able to hold difficult emotions and situations more expansively and compassionately
- Increasing our capacity for dealing with change and complexity
Unless Teresa and I are specifically working with coaches to access their playfulness, in our own work, playfulness is not usually the end goal. Our invitations to playfulness are extended lightly when it might be of service for that particular client at that particular time. The great news is that we’re all hardwired to play and with a little help, we can tap into playfulness to develop this part of ourselves more.
Reflections to explore playfully
- When was the last time you were playful? What made it playful for you?
- Which of your values and character strengths might help you access playfulness (even) more?
- In which layer(s) of the Be Playful Onion Model© do you habitually sit? How might this support and/or get in the way of your work with particular clients?
- How flexible are you to offer playfulness in a way which resonates with your client(s)?
About the author
- Stephanie Wheeler is a leadership and team coach and LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator. Her co-authored book (Wheeler & Leyman, 2023) won the Coaching Book of the Year Award 2023 from The Henley Centre for Coaching. Stephanie and Teresa are guest lecturers on Masters coaching courses at Henley Business School and University of East London. They also run workshops for coaches focusing on playfulness.
References
- Brauer, K., Proyer, R. T. , & Chick, G. (2021). Adult Playfulness: An update on an understudied individual differences variable and its role in romantic life. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(4), e12589.
- Gammage, D. (2017). Playful Awakening: Releasing the gift of play in your life. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
- Proyer, R., & Wagner, L. (2015). Playfulness in Adults Revisited: The Signal Theory in German Speakers. American Journal of Play, 7(2), 201-227.
- Wheeler, S., & Leyman, T. (2023). Playfulness in Coaching: Exploring Our Untapped Potential Through Playfulness, Creativity and Imagination. Taylor & Francis.
- Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. Penguin Books.