Unpeeling Layers: Exploring playfulness in coaching. Teresa Layman and Stephanie Wheeler share their Be Playful Onion Model
In our busy modern lives, playfulness often gets lost amidst responsibilities. However, it’s a powerful resource for unlocking creativity, resilience, and deeper connections – not just for children but adults too.
Playfulness is invaluable in coaching and team development, as explored in our award-winning book (Wheeler & Leyman, 2023). In the book, we introduce the Be Playful Onion Model, a framework to help professionals and clients enhance personal and professional growth through playfulness, boosting creativity, spontaneity, flexibility, resilience and engagement.
Origins and development
The Be Playful Onion Model (Figure 1) began in Stephanie’s kitchen just before lockdown, born from a desire to write a book about playfulness in coaching in a playful way. Initially, our ideas revolved around fun activities like using coloured pens and toys, but reflecting on this during the COVID years, we realised the essence of playfulness lies deeper. It’s about behaviours, expressions, and mindsets – what we call mindset and heartset, as well as the quality of relationship. Equipment and activities are important, but without the inner ingredients, playfulness and its benefits won’t emerge.
Figure 1: Be Playful Onion Model © Wheeler & Leyman, 2023
Playfulness is more than fun: it encompasses a range of behaviours, attitudes, emotions enhancing creativity, problem-solving and emotional resilience. Supported by Professor Proyer’s research, our model reflects our proposed broader definition. As Stephanie says (Wheeler, 2020): “a quality of thought and interaction unlimited by associations with fun which emerges from and deepens the coaching relationship, is rooted in authenticity and mindful presence and encompasses a cognitive attitude towards exploration, supporting shifts in perspective”.
Inspired by Professor Proyer, Dilts’ Logical Levels, and Alison Hardingham’s description of them as “psychological levels” (Hardingham, 2004) the Be Playful Onion Model illustrates playfulness’s layers, from visible activities to intangible mindsets and heartsets.
Hello Onion and the Be Playful Onion Model
The Be Playful Onion Model, shared in our book, launched at the ICF Global Conference 2023 in Orlando, US, and many webinars and lectures, is metaphorically represented as an onion. Each layer signifies different aspects of playfulness. The model provides a structured approach to explore the rich dimensions of playfulness. It encourages recognising and using different layers based on the context and, most importantly, the needs and preferences of clients.
These interconnected layers enrich one another, creating a holistic approach to personal development and coaching. By understanding the various dimensions of playfulness, coaches and professionals can foster a more engaging and effective coaching environment and conversations.
Let’s take a whistle-stop tour of the model before you give it a go. The character Onion joins us, symbolising playfulness. The outer layers of the model are tangible and visible, involving physical items and activities, while the inner layers delve into deeper, more complex forms of playfulness – less visible yet crucially important.
Starting from the outer layer of Environment, consider factors that foster playfulness, such as location, facilities, and equipment. Sometimes, ensuring privacy is key for engaging in playful work without observation. Think about how to incorporate the environment into your sessions, akin to outdoor coaching. In our book, we share a story of Bob and the daffodils, where brightly coloured flowers were used as audience members in a playful session with a CFO focused on presentation performance. It truly helped.
Moving further into the model, we reach Doing, which includes tangible activities, tools, and techniques like playful language, metaphors, storytelling, poetry, drawing, art, music, modelling, and improvisation. Simply changing language to ask for someone’s wildest idea, instead of just an idea, can alter the dynamic and result. Inviting experimentation or giving something a try can facilitate creative practice.
Next is Expression: conveying playfulness through tone and a range of expressions. This incorporates elements from Proyer’s OLIW model of adult playfulness, categorising playfulness into four dimensions: Other-directed, Light-hearted, Intellectual and Whimsical.
Finally, we reach the heart of the model, Ways of Being. This pertains to core intentions, beliefs, and presence. Often, we reference figures like the Dalai Lama or Bishop Desmond Tutu, who, despite challenges, exude playfulness with a simple twinkle in their eye or through more overt expressions of playfulness.
Stepping into the Be Playful Onion Model
As a brief introduction and experiment, we invite you to step into the model and use it as a tool to discover where you currently stand in terms of personal playfulness. We have provided some example questions to help guide you.
You can then revisit with different inquiries, such as exploring your coaching or professional practice now and, in the future. It can also be used with clients, or even teams. Engage playfully by jotting down notes or drawing as you go.
Later, we invite you to immerse yourself fully by walking the model. You, may like to add further questions, allow yourself to experiment and freely roam as you explore. Remember, there is no right or wrong – this is all data to be discovered and discerned later in reflection.
So, let’s start by inviting you and your playfulness to join us – maybe even draw your own little onion or playful version of you. Allow yourself to become fully present, set aside your daily concerns, and set your intention on exploring playfulness. Drop your awareness from your head to your full body, inviting all useful information for our playful experiment to surface. Become your own private detective with curiosity glasses on, allowing whatever emerges to come forward. Afterwards, reflect on what has surfaced and consider your next steps.
Following the model, start from the outer layer: consider, imagine and visualise the following in relation to your personal playfulness.
Environment:
– What kind of environment makes you feel most at ease and open to playfulness?
– How can you create or find a space that encourages playful activities?
– What physical items or props (such as toys, art supplies) help you feel more playful?
Doing:
– What activities do you enjoy that make you feel playful and creative?
– How can you incorporate playful language or metaphors into your daily routine?
– What new playful activities or hobbies would you like to try?
Expression:
– How do you express playfulness in your interactions with others?
– How can you use storytelling, art, or music to express your playful side?
– What changes in your tone or body language can help convey a more playful attitude?
Way of being:
– What core beliefs or intentions support your ability to be playful?
– How can you cultivate a mindset and heartset that embraces playfulness?
– Who are your role models for playfulness, and what can you learn from them?
Freely move your attention to the different layers where you are most drawn. Spending as much time as is necessary. Allow yourself to wander and roam, exploring what emerges.
Reflection:
– Stepping back from the model, reflect on what emerged for you. What has intrigued or surprised you? What will you now do more of? What you are your next steps?
Additional experiments
Walk the Be Playful Onion Model
Now you’ve got it! Let’s take this playful exploration to the next level. Let’s walk the model to immerse yourself more fully and to physically engage, to get out of the head and tap more into the somatic full-bodied intelligence.
To do this simply write the layers on post its place on the floor. Step into each zone, using the questions above to explore each layer. Use your playful intuition to develop this further and add questions or areas to explore as you step through.
Hello Onion my playful companion
In our book we created Onion, a cartoon character to serve as a guide and invite for playful experimentation. This character represents all aspects of playfulness and we hope is an additional tool which serves as a touchstone, reminding coaches and clients to tap into their sense of playfulness and nurture their capacity for it.
As an added bonus we invite you to playfully muse and imagine Onion as your playful companion, representing your own playfulness and an all-knowing resource. You might like to draw Onion (or a version of your own playful character) to better connect.
Now imagine communicating freely with Onion and consider some of the following
- Where is your Onion right now? Is it even in the room with you?
- If it could communicate with you what insights about of your own playfulness what would it share and how – using words, stories, images, music or something else.
- When was the last time you connected? Like an old friend how might you invite it to join you more?
- What does it need in order to show up? What does it like? What will help it flourish? How will you know when it is around?
- What adventures may we have together next, from micro-moments to more?
Conclusion
We hope you found this useful and that it has given you some food for thought regarding your own playfulness, both personally and professionally. Playful practice is a rich area to explore and develop.
For more insights and ways to develop or overcome barriers, we encourage you to explore our book and connect with us.
We’d be delighted to share more and continue the conversation about your own playful practice.
Connect with us on LinkedIn or our website playfulnessincoaching.com. We’re available for supervision and coaching sessions, workshops, and courses.
Join us on our Association for Coaching webinar series starting this month (November, 2024): https://www.associationforcoaching.com/event/playfulness-in-coaching_ws
We look forward to connecting and hearing your experiences.
Remember, Be Playful.
CASE STUDY: Zara’s playful journey
In a group coaching session, Zara walked through the model, beginning with a hesitant step into the Environment layer, conscious of all the group watching her.
Tentatively, she began to share what was emerging for her, guided by my questions. Unlike others, she focused on the sense of presence and ease rather than any environmental aesthetics. However, she then shared she felt more at ease and playful in nature, or with a window with a view. Moving to Doing, now more immersed and less aware of the group, she recalled joyful memories and activities, her demeanour clearly brightening with animated body language as she shared these moments. We all could feel the bubbling of joy that was quietly building.
In the Expression layer, Zara discovered that her playfulness began with her eyes, inviting others to experiment and try new things. A useful insight for her practice. Stepping into Being, she reiterated presence, trust and playfulness. This time she became more confident and easeful, a knowing with a quiet, playful potential emerging.
Re-walking the model with curiosity, Zara explored different elements and adapted questions related to her coaching practice. This process brought her new playful insights and experiences, some quite forgotten, deepening her awareness of her preferences and style.
References
- Wheeler, S., & Leyman, T. (2023). Playfulness in Coaching: Exploring Our Untapped Potential Through Playfulness, Creativity and Imagination. Routledge.
- Wheeler, S. (2020). An exploration of playfulness in coaching. International Coaching Psychology Review, 15(1), 44-58.
- Hardingham, A. (2004). The Coach’s Coach. CIPD.