Kristi: Let me tell you a little bit about what
I'm doing here, and if we could maybe just start off with you
describing a little bit of your background and the work that you
are doing. But, what I'm working on is my master's thesis in Organization
and Leadership. And the program is really looking at organization
development as well as community development, educational development,
kind of development in a lot of different spheres. And we are
looking at that from a perspective of who we are as human beings
and what is meaningful to us, how identity comes into play and
those sorts of things. Rather than looking at moving people around
in little org charts and deliverables and outcomes and all that
fun stuff that we've all come to know so well.
Bernie : It sounds like a really interesting approach to
be taking.
Kristi: Yeah, it's really exciting. And, so one of the
things that comes up strongly in theoretical background is
imagination and secondarily play as they relate to who we are
as humans, and what that means to us in relationship to each other
and in community.
Bernie : Where did this come up?
Kristi: Um, in theory base that we are reading, which
is called critical hermeneutics. It's really stemming from -
Bernie: Catchy title.
Kristi: Yeah, big words. But it is coming from philosophers
starting with Martin Heidegger. And, really looking at um, Being,
from a perspective of - Heidegger says that language is our house
of being. That we understand the world and come to interpret that
world through language.
Bernie: I see.
Kristi: So a lot of what we are reading stems from that
approach and imagination and play come into it as aspects of our
being in relationship to time. Imagining things past present and
future. And, a playful relationship in conversation with one
another as we co-create community. So, given all of that, I attended
the NASAGA conference in
1999 I guess, when it was in San Francisco. And, I just thought
that you might be a really interesting person for me to speak
with about imagination and play and specifically as I approach
my thesis I want to focus on imagination and play in adult learning
and in organization development, all within a corporate context.
So, do you have any questions for me before we get started?
Bernie: Well, I have to think a lot about that.
Kristi: Yeah, there is a lot to think about.
Bernie: Yeah, really. But let's get started and I'll try
to give you anything that is clear to me.
Kristi: Okay.
Bernie: And maybe we'll have to have some dialogue about
some other things.
Kristi: Absolutely. And that's what I would really like
this to be a back and forth dialogue. And ask me whatever you
want to ask me as well.
Bernie: Good.
Kristi: So, could you just tell me a little bit about
your background and how you came to be doing the work that you
are doing?
Bernie: Well, I'd have to start all the way back to the
sixties. I have a master's degree in theater from Villanova.
And, after teaching for a little bit I get hired by the school
district of Philadelphia to write a curriculum in theater for
elementary school children, specifically in dense urban populations.
Kristi: Wow.
Bernie: And, um I learned that the kids were not able
to trust each other, for very good reasons. And I make it my criteria
that whatever I'm doing has to be something that is meaningful
enough to them that if I walked out of the room for a minute,
and came back in, they'd still be doing it.
Kristi: Hum.
Bernie: For some reason, it felt very important to me
that if I was going to perpetuate any kind of theater on kids,
I didn't want them to be doing, um Oklahoma.
Kristi: Right. Good choice.
Bernie: I wanted them to be doing something that they
found relevant to their lives. And I set out trying different
things, some were theater games. They responded pretty well to
theater games but not so well that if I walked out or if I turned
my back they'd still do it.
Kristi: Right.
Bernie: They were kind of being nice to me. I kind of
felt. I didn't really feel that they were getting anything. And
so out of desperation I started playing kids games rather than
theater games. Like Duck Duck Goose was a big revelation.
Kristi: And what age group were you working with?
Bernie: This was elementary school kids from five to eleven.
Kristi: Okay.
Bernie: Yeah, I had some very major teachings from those.
Duck Duck Goose was a big revelation, so was a game called Hot
Bread and Butter. Hot Bread and Butter is a game - it's also
called Hide the Belt. A kid goes and hides the belt somewhere
and everybody runs and everybody is kind of gathered around at
home. You know?
Kristi: Yes.
Bernie: Like a home plate or home base. And they all close
their eyes while somebody is going out and hiding a belt somewhere
around the area. And then the kid comes back to the circle and
says something and everybody goes and tries to find the belt.
And the first person who finds the belt gets to hit everybody
with the belt.
Kristi: Oh!
Bernie: I told the children, it's bad to do this. I'm
sorry. I told the kids, look, you can play any game you want
to play that everybody thinks it is fun. That was our contract.
And they chose to play this game, and I had to let them play it.
So, I said, okay how do we play it? Do we play it with a newspaper?
Nope, have to play it with a belt. I had these big foam rubber
swords. Can we play it with the foam rubber swords? Nope. Have
to play it with a belt. And, so I said, all right, we'll play
it with a belt. And we played it with the belt and nobody ever
really hit anybody with the belt. They kind of used it like a
coup. They never would think of using the buckle. And they always
just kind of did a little stroke on each other. And I realized
how important it was for the kids to be able to have access to
that kind of power and not use it.
Kristi: Wow.
Bernie: You know? What a profound theater that was for
those kids.
Kristi: Right.
Bernie: And I also realized how, you know the further
away - You go looking for the belt, you have to go away from home
to find it. If you want to be one of the kids that gets to have
the belt. And the further away you go from home to find the belt
the more likely you are going to get hit.
Kristi: So it was really a game of risk and power.
Bernie: It's a deep and penetrating and archetypal social
relationship. Just like any good theater piece would be. So I
wound up writing a curriculum in games instead of a curriculum
in theater. And it was called the interplay curriculum and we
had 1,000 children's games and they were all coded according to
what I thought were basic dynamics of children's play. Such as,
is it very physical or very mental? Is it um, is there a leader
or is it something they do together? You know, all these little
dimensions that - Is it good to be in or bad to be in?
Kristi: That one is interesting.
Bernie: Anyhow, so then I started in 1971 the curriculum
was published and I started teaching teachers how to do it, how
to administer the curriculum. And I realized that teachers were
as play deprived as the kids, if not more so.
Kristi: Right.
Bernie: And, in fact what happened was, in the very first
training, I started out with a game of Duck Duck Goose. And it
took 45 minutes before they would be willing to stop the game.
They just got so into it. It's true. And the reason they got so
into it was again, you know there is a theater there. Aside from
the fact that they were having fun, they were also playing with
something that means something to them.
Kristi: What was the meaning of Duck Duck Goose for them?
Bernie: Well, you know the game? You are sitting around
in a circle and there is a guy and he goes tapping everybody on
the head and says "duck, duck, duck, duck" and then
he picks the goose. And he gets up and runs after the guy and
if he gets to tag him then that guy becomes another duck and,
you know - You know that game?
Kristi: Yes.
Bernie: So think about what, or who you are in this circle.
And you don't want to be chosen. So how do you look? You know?
Here you are in this circle and everybody can see you, and you
kind of have to practice and develop the ability to look unappetizing
or inconspicuous. So suppose you do want to get chosen. Well,
how do you look? Do you look enthusiastic? Do you look disinterested?
Do you beg? All of those strategies have to be played with.
And they are different for each kid. And the kid who is the goose,
who do you choose? Do you choose the fastest runner because you
want the biggest challenge? Or do you choose the slowest runner
because - Do you choose a friend?
Kristi: Or somebody you want to be a friend? Or someone
whose attention you want to get?
Bernie: Exactly. You got it. Isn't that amazing?
Kristi: It is.
Bernie: And I started a thing that we called the Games
Preserve. It was a farm. I took my whole family and we moved
to a farm in Eastern Pennsylvania. We had 25 acres and there
was this big barn, and I converted the barn into like the ultimate
adult playroom with every game that I could find. We had flying
rings, and we had a sliding board, and we had hundreds of puzzles,
and a ping-pong tennis table, and a pinball machine and air hockey.
I mean, can you imagine?
Kristi: Oh, it sounds great!
Bernie: And we ran workshops there to help people explore
what is this phenomenon that we call fun all about? It was a
chance to take people out of context a little bit and put them
in a natural context and then give them these highly artificial
tools to play with and explore fun. So we got teachers and psychologists
and prison officials came, recreational therapists, and physical
therapists and we ran workshops there. Games and play.
Kristi: This is really interesting to me on so many different
levels. One, I grew up in West Chester so I'm familiar with the
area that you are talking about.
Bernie: This was near Fleetwood Pennsylvania.
Kristi: Oh, okay. Do you know Stuart
Brown at all?
Bernie: Sure.
Kristi: Yeah. I went down to Carmel the other day, and
had an opportunity to hang out with him for a couple of hours.
Bernie: I had a chance to meet him down in Santa Barbara.
Kristi: A ha.
Bernie: We spent a few hours together, he and his friend.
It was really wonderful.
Kristi: He's great.
Bernie: He is amazing, isn't he?
Kristi: He is. He asked me a question about how I got
interested in play. And when I really thought about that question
and, he encouraged me to kind of go as far back with it as I could.
And, what I came to remember or realize was that in kindergarten,
I was selected into a program in my school district which was
Downingtown area schools. It was called the DEEP program, Downingtown
Educational Enrichment Program. It was for "gifted children."
Bernie: Oh, you were a gifted.
Kristi: Yeah, well, all children have their gifts. Some
show up on IQ tests and others don't.
Bernie: But if you get to be in one of those places you
get special things. That's wonderful.
Kristi: It was. But what was so great about it was that
once a week I would go off with a couple of other kids, into a
special classroom and almost all of the learning that we were
doing there was play-based. It was very exploratory,
Bernie: You know what? This is what I started to do with
a teacher when I had to teach fifth grade, before I got into this
theater thing, that's what I was doing. I was trying to do this
play-based stuff and sometimes it worked and other times parents
hated me for it.
Kristi: Well, I loved it. And some of the things that
I learned there, or those learning experiences, have stuck with
me in a way that the normal academic curriculum learning did not.
Bernie: That's just wonderful.
Kristi: And, what I'm really interested in looking at
is by the time I got to Junior High, they still called it the
gifted program, but it was just more work in the same classes
that other kids were taking. And it was some independent study
kind of projects or an extra assignment or two so that we could
get extra credit. But all of what was really great for me and
helped accelerate my learning as a child was gone by the time
I got to Junior High.
Bernie: Right.
Kristi: Why is that? Why is it that children are allowed
to play and at a certain point in adolescence, and certainly as
we go through adulthood, it is no longer okay? And, what does
that do to us?
Bernie: Well, you know, here's another way of looking
at it. Are you ready?
Kristi: Yes, please.
Bernie: Have you ever noticed how kids play being grown
up?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: They get very serious.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: Well, I think what happens is that as we get older
we learn how to do that better and better. I don't think it is
so much that the world takes away our childhood. I think we do
that to ourselves. We get so damn good at pretending to be serious
Kristi: Right
Bernie: That's my theory.
Kristi: Well, I think you are on to something here.
Bernie: It's like, have you ever pretended to be sick?
Kristi: Of course.
Bernie: And then you get sick. Do you know what I mean?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: You are in this thing of convincing yourself
how sick you are, you know, you'd like to be off, but you feel
a little guilty. And then you actually manage to get sick. You
just convince yourself into it. I think it's the same thing here.
Kristi: That's interesting. Hmm - So where did you go
with theater?
Bernie: It turned into the games. I decided that games
were theater and toys were theater and all the stuff that was
around them were theater. And I started exploring that particular
reality more and more. I came up with an understanding of what
I call the play community.
Kristi: A ha.
Bernie: Here's a very big realization for me. There is
a thing - Grown ups when we play, those of us who are all so good
at taking ourselves seriously, we also have to find games that
we can take seriously.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: Because we are too grown up for silly games. So
there are these games communities. Like the football or baseball
players. That's a games community. We go, we play baseball.
Baseball is held at 5:00 in this park every afternoon. People
play baseball and that's the game to play and if you want to join
that community you have to play that game. And the better you
are the more valued you are in that community. It's kind of egalitarian
in some ways and extremely autocratic in other ways. Right?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: So, ultimately what happens is kind of like in
a game community, the game decides how good of a player you are.
Whereas there is another type of community which is the play community.
In the play community, basically you are deciding how good the
game is
Kristi: Okay.
Bernie: It was kind of like a bar at the Games Preserve
because people were walking around from game to game deciding
what they wanted to play together. So they were never really a
games community they were always a play community. The games really
became tools for them. You know what I mean?
Kristi: I think so, but say a little bit more.
Bernie: What was important was that they found something
to play. They would even change the rules if it made it more
fun to play.
Kristi: So the experience of play is more important than
the game itself.
Bernie: Exactly. It's more important than the game itself.
You judge the game in terms of how good it is at bringing everybody
an experience of play.
Kristi: And so how do we assess the experience of play?
What makes a good play experience?
Bernie: Well, I started using a psychologist named Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi as a model - so whenever anybody asks me
that I'm afraid I go into that particular shpeel
Kristi: Into his work on flow?
Bernie: Uh huh. And I see that being at play together
is being in flow together. And being in flow together is a special
state that I call CoLiberation, or mutual empowerment. And that
is a very attractive state to be in. I think given the opportunity,
given the right environment, the permission, I think that's what
people tend to want to do. They form play communities rather
than game communities.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: And my life's passion is to sort of spread the
word of the play community more. I wrote a book called The
Well-Played Game. I put together an event for the bicentennial,
the Philadelphia bicentennial celebration for a quarter-million
people. It was all based on creating kind of a play community.
Kristi: Wow.
Bernie: And I just filled it with - one of my most successful
things was a game of giant pick up sticks. Inside carpets they
make these cardboard tubes, you know to hold the carpet together?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: Well they throw them out and they are 16, 18,
24 feet long, and they are usually about one or two inches thick.
So they are perfect for giant pick up sticks. And sometimes we
paint them just to be cool. But the real rush is to start playing
the game. Do you know how you start pick up sticks?
Kristi: Well you start with the ones that are easiest.
Bernie: I mean, how do you set them up?
Kristi: Well, if they are giant that would be interesting,
because you have to group them all together and let them fall.
Bernie: Exactly and turned out to be the most fun of the
whole game.
Kristi: I imagine you'd have to all do it together to
get them in one big - .
Bernie: And run like hell. It was just so much fun. People
did it over and over again. We also had giant blocks made out
of cardboard cartons and built these beautiful cities out of them.
We had a three-way volleyball court, with three nets in a Y.
You had to change the rules in order to figure out how to play
three-way volleyball.
Kristi: It becomes much more collaborative, I would imagine.
Bernie: Yeah, it does. Anyhow, so later on there was a
group called the New Games Foundation that happened to be started
on the West Coast at about the same time by Stuart Brand. They
were doing these big play events for like hundreds of people.
A couple of them happened to be in the area and they came to my
farm, and they saw a training that I was putting on. We just
kind of almost fell in love with each other immediately. In fact,
this is a true story. I was driving them back to the airport,
with Rocky, my wife, and as we talked more decided that maybe
what I should really be doing is coming back with them to California.
And so, I just - I had no baggage, I was wearing a Dashiki, and
a pair of jeans I think. And, I just followed them into the airplane
Kristi: You just got on the plane?
Bernie: Uh huh.
Kristi: That's wonderful.
Bernie: So we became this wonderful kind of training
program. We wound up with this beautiful program that we gave
especially to like recreation departments throughout the world,
where we would teach maybe 10-50 people. We would give them a
weekend where we would teach them how to facilitate new games.
Which were all these wacky games that we just made up. And then
we would have an event on Sunday morning for the public that would
be facilitated by the people that we just trained. And, in the
afternoon we'd have a wrap up. It was such a beautiful way of
teaching people. It was just amazing how powerful it was. Because
you really learned by doing. Everything that we talked about
in the training became so eminently practical once you found yourself
in the position of having to do it. I was really proud of how
that whole training process evolved. We did that for many years.
I was also very fascinated by the business world. I too recognize
that something goes on in the business world, that obviously is
fun.
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: And there is also a lot of stuff going on in
the business world that is very clearly a lot less fun than it
could be.
Kristi: Yes. Very clearly.
Bernie: I mean when you think of it, things could be
a lot more fun and a lot more productive at the same time. And
clearly these people continue to choose to play like grown ups
too much with each other. To work like grown ups too much with
each other. So they take each other too seriously I guess? They
work in an atmosphere of fear.
Kristi: Yes.
Bernie: This is something I've only recently become aware
of, this connection. I started to use the word health a lot to
describe, kind of. It seems to me that play is really the natural
state for a healthy being and a healthy organization. You look
at animals that play and you notice that the animals that are
playing the most tend to be the healthiest. And the group or
the herd that is playing together, tends to be itself healthy
and safe. It is a moment of real cultural and social health as
well as individual health.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: And I think that distinction in terms of organizations
is a really good useful thing to be able to draw. In fact, one
of the workshops that I am most interested in, that I just most
recently developed and I'm hoping to be able to perpetuate on
humankind is a workshop that I call Healthy Fun. Which focuses
on that whole connection, especially for people with chronic disease.
On the other hand there is a workshop that I am doing that I call
Working Fun. And Working Fun is all about kind of helping people
to refocus on the fact that there are actually fun moments at
work God damn it! So, it's hard and it's stupid and all that
stuff but there are actual fun things that happen at work that
are in fact fun and productive. So, Working Fun is all about
focusing on that. Helping people kind of reclaim those moments
together. Like being in a good meeting. That is really a fun
event. But what is it that is fun about being in a good meeting?
Kristi: Right. And that's what I'm really interested in
looking at is - how are people defining fun and play? What is
the distinction in people's minds between work and play? Or imagination
and the "real work"? Because I think that we can't
create better organizations, we can't move towards more ethical,
sustainable action in our organizations if we don't imagine it
first. If we can't envision something that is different or better
and play around with those possibilities.
Bernie: The other side of that coin is that we also need
to recognize what is in fact playful and wonderful and enriching
about the organization that we have created.
Kristi: Right. Acknowledging what is already there that
is in that spirit.
Bernie: That's right. And, I think that's where I've
kind of started to focus. I think that for people to get to where
you are talking about is like a stage two evolution. I think stage
one is let's first of all recognize what it is that you are trying
to create and build that on those moments that are really good
for you. The other side of my work is that I pay a lot of attention
to the whole collaboration process and how you can, how a good
facilitator can use technology to enhance collaborative dialogue.
But essentially it's all the same dynamic as like the play community.
The work community has - well, if it becomes a job community,
then it's kind of - if people look at what they are doing as a
job then they've disconnected themselves from the work community.
But, if they see themselves as participants in the work community
then the job becomes, just like the game, more subject to their
ability to make changes in it.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: Because they don't let the job judge them and
judge their reality. It's though they are in this state of collectively
transforming the job
Kristi: And creating their reality together.
Bernie: Exactly. They are building it on understanding
that involving other people in a decision is more fun than not.
That having fun with other people who are also having fun is more
fun than having fun by yourself.
Kristi: Yes!
Bernie: This is a very difficult realization for most
people in this country.
Kristi: It is. And I think there is also this assumption
in a lot of organizations that there are certain functions that
play, like Marketing or Research and Development..
Bernie: Who get to play?
Kristi: Yeah. Those are the people that get to play but
if you are in finance you don't get to play. Which I think is
a total load of crap.
Bernie: Absolutely
Kristi: If you are coming up with complex financial models,
for example, you have got to be invoking your imagination and
playing around. And that is a realm of play that is somewhat
unfathomable to me, but at the same time I acknowledge it as just
as creative and interesting as the visual or material play that
gets to happen in more aesthetic functions.
Bernie: That's why I love this flow concept so much.
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: And I also like the "fun" word. I used
to use "game" and "play" as my kind of key
words for years. But "fun" is very helpful to me
Kristi: What is the distinction for you when you use "fun"
and "play"? What does that open up for you?
Bernie: Well, when people talk about if something is
fun or not, they almost have like a visceral criteria. They understand
it on a physical level, what the word "fun" means to
them. So, they don't have to think a lot about it. They can evoke
the experience quickly. And by doing so, it has a very healing
and opening opportunity for them. But you start talking about
"play" or "games" and that implies a different
- a game is a system.
Kristi: Right.
Bernie: Having fun is an experience. Play is a state
of mind.
Kristi: Okay.
Bernie: Again, having fun is an experience. People have
been finding it very liberating to begin to acknowledge - to use
the word "fun" to describe the reason they do things
day to day. They think of their world in terms of "what do
I do for fun" and " what do I do for everything else"?
Kristi: That's really interesting when you think about
it in terms of people's identity and how they are framing up who
they are and what they are about. If a game is something that
you play and play is something that you do, but fun is much more
about your outlook on life, then that sort of shifts it. What
is coming up for me is that it has different connotations in terms
of time
Bernie: Yes, that's true. And it is very much like the
experience of being in flow. I can use Csikszentmihalyi to describe
it to people very easily. And my model of CoLiberation fits on
it very nicely. I just got back from doing that at Esalen for
a weekend with 38 people, and I must tell you it was a transforming
experience. We created a play community and by the end of it there
was just so much loving and acceptance and delight and maturity
in the group, you know. It was just amazing.
Kristi: It's funny that you used the word maturity in
describing a playful experience. That's great.
Bernie: That is very key to my approach as well. People
talk about the inner child and play as a child attribute. I think
that play is a human attribute. Play comes not from the child
part of our being but from our very being itself. Adult is something
that we are playing.
Kristi: Well, that's interesting. Okay, keep going
Bernie: I mean that's what I think. That's me at my wackiest.
It's really what I suspect. It's so clear. If you watch kids
playing adult, it's all the miserable aspects of being an adult.
They get those things down.
Kristi: They do. Oh, it's so funny.
Bernie: I tell people, don't think of it as your inner
child, think of it as your grown up being. I set them up playing
patty cake. It's not your inner child doing this, it's you as
a grown up playing this game. There is no kid here, it's you.
Your whole being, your whole maturity is here playing this game
of patty cake. We are truly fully at play as adults. We're compassionate
with each other. We can much more easily delight in each other's
delight than when we were kids. We take much better care of each
other. We understand each other more clearly. There are all kinds
of wonderful things that we do that we couldn't do when we were
kids, and experience the play contract with each other.
Kristi: You talk about taking better care of each other
and really being more compassionate. I'm also interested in what
are the ethical connotations of play. And even more so, what are
the ethical connotations associated with imagination?
Bernie: That's a hard one.
Kristi: It is.
Bernie: Especially for the word "fun".
Kristi: Right
Bernie: My website is DeepFun. I rescued it from someone
who was about to make it into a porn site.
Kristi: Oh, wow.
Bernie: Ever since I got into games and play, and what
I would call it is adult play or adult games, the first thought
was that it had something to do with pornography.
Kristi: That's horrific that that is people's first thought.
It tells you so much about how disassociated they are from the
experience of play.
Bernie: It is a kind of cultural pornography to think
that way. Because our culture was created by a bunch of kids
who are too good at pretending to be grown ups.
Kristi: It's scary but it makes sense.
Bernie: But anyway, you can draw from principles of play
and games to help create an environment that is more conducive
to that experience that we call fun. Now, in terms of the morality
of fun, I think that when people have fun doing something that
really is immoral, it's usually because they are not really effective
having fun in doing things that are moral. In fact, you know,
Stuart studied mass murderers.
Kristi: Right, yes. He was telling me about that.
Bernie: And didn't he talk all about the fact that these
guys were really severely play-deprived?
Kristi: Yes.
Bernie: That they didn't play as kids?
Kristi: Yeah. Exactly. That it led to violence. The
absence of play led to violence. He said to me something interesting
which was that for him the opposite of play is depression, and
that leads to all kinds of nasty stuff in the world.
Bernie: I'd say that the opposite of play is death.
Kristi: Is death?
Bernie: Yes. I think even in depression we can get into
a state of play. In fact, what happens is we get into a game
that we can't stop playing.
Kristi: Right. Wallowing can be a game.
Bernie: Yeah. Absolutely. One of the things I talk to
people about in the DeepFun session is playing on the inner playground.
And how you can use the play and game metaphor to develop kind
of a playful relationship between yourself and your various aspects.
I talk about serious and silly. Naughty and nice. Fat and skinny.
There are hundreds of these little pairs. I invite people to play
hide and seek with them in their mental playgrounds. Or play
on the see-saw and the swings. To start exploring, instead of
a relationship of mutual aggression and competition, games that
are collaborative and fun. And that is a whole kind of like meditation.
What I use as a mantra is the word "me" on top of the
word "we". So the "we" almost looks like
the shadow of the "me". I use that to help people focus
both on the inner dialogue and the dialogue that they have in
their world, between themselves and others. It's funny, the whole
idea of "we" is something I've thought a lot about.
Csikszentmihalyi and other psychologists talk about the psychological
state, not about the sociological state. So they know a lot about
the "me" and not about the "we". So I talk
to people a lot about the balance between the two. That's why
the me/we thing is my logo.
Kristi: The "we" thing is really important to
me as I look at all of this in relationship to organizations and
building community in organizations. I think you know your description
of play community -
Bernie: The work community needs to have a kind of a function
like the play community.
Kristi: Exactly.
Bernie: In a healthy organization I think it does. And
I think people get to find their level of work where they really
are having fun doing their work. They don't need more parties
and dress down days
Kristi: No. You look at what happened in start-up organizations
in Silicon Valley where there is a fuse-ball table and rumpus
room, in every one of those start-ups. And that was maybe some
individual blow-off-steam time. But, from what I have heard and
talked to people about being in those organizations, it was
Bernie: It was hell
Kristi: It was hell. And,
Bernie: They weren't playful people.
Kristi: They weren't playful people at all and they would
go and beat the crap out of each other
Bernie: Exactly. And it's kind of endemic to the whole
culture.
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: Steve Jobs and Wozniak.
Kristi: It's like this cosmetic overlay of a really cut-throat
environment
Bernie: I know that. And that's why I refuse to do like
fun workshops. When I was at Mattel, one of the things that I
did was I was Major FUN there. And I actually made it my job to go
around and have fun events. So like for lunch we would get around
and play UNO together. Or, I would bring in Nerf guns into the
room, or I would bring in silly putty. Just to kind of make things
more fun. Unfortunately it was always external. The nature of
our business and the organization we were working with never allowed
the team to internalize that process. Except for one thing that
I brought that was the Nerf guns. And that was the only toy that
they would consistently kind of pick up and create a play event
out of and then go back to work. It saddened me profoundly because
it was an early indicator of the demise of that organization.
When the only thing that we could play with was guns,
Kristi: That tells you something.
Bernie: It tells you something about the nature of the
relationships
Kristi: Absolutely
Bernie: And the health of the organization. So, I quit.
Kristi: Well done.
Bernie: Thanks. This is interesting. One of the things
that we did at Esalen and something I tend to make as integral
to my process, is what I call quitting practice. We make it the
rule that any time during a game, unless people are depending
on you, you can just quit. And you can come back a couple of minutes
later or ten minutes later or stay quit as long as you want to.
Kristi: That's good.
Bernie: And the reason that we make this as a practice
thing is so that we can guarantee, ultimately, that when people
are playing together, they are playing together because they want
to play together. Play ultimately is a voluntary act. And any
attempt to oblige each other into play is only going to lead to
an event that really isn't that much fun for us.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: Now, you can't really quit when you are at work.
But you can, if you start looking at how you do consistently quit
out of opportunities to engage. To engage in a meeting to engage
in the hallway to engage - you are always kind of quitting.
Kristi: That's why I hesitated when you said you can't
really quit at work. Because you can't really, but you do
Bernie: You find ways
Kristi: Yeah, you find your way.
Bernie: Because quitting is part of your expression of
your personal freedom and your willingness to continue working
in the first place. So anyhow, it's neat stuff to play with and
I'm hoping to make this kind of work, this dialogue on working
fun, something that I can promote somehow at sometime in my life.
Right now I call myself the Bernie De Koven Center for Fun and
Profit. Well, the profit part I still haven't figured out. I
think Stuart is in the same position as a matter of fact.
Kristi: Yeah. We talked about that a bit. He was saying
that there was a real fear and well of rage when people realize
that they are play-deprived. Which I hadn't thought about before.
Bernie: Yeah. When I went to Esalen,
one of the guys who was there had taken my course last year and
he said, "you know, this thing about having fun is really
hard for me. This whole year I've been trying but I keep on making
things so serious." I don't mean to laugh at him, it's
just what a thing to say to somebody. "Having fun is very
hard on me." But, the business, and organizations -
Kristi: Yes
Bernie: My whole thing in organizations is that we have
to be very careful when we talk about play and fun in the service
of the organization, that we don't make play and fun into trivial
activities.
Kristi: Yes.
Bernie: And we don't trivialize them with birthday cakes
and Nerf guns. That we recognize them when they are expressions
of the experience of work at its best. Which is working with
people - working well with people who are working well with you
in a kind of sense of wellness.
Kristi: I think imagination has been trivialized in the
same way. In visioning sessions that are really predetermined
in a lot of ways.
Bernie: Yes.
Kristi: And they don't really allow for exploration of
possibility. They assume that a bunch of people are going to
get in a room and go through some sort of brainstorming or visioning
process, and come up with the great new plan. And that just drives
me nuts.
Bernie: Yeah. I agree with you. One of the reasons why
I got into using the computer in collaborative - to develop a
collaborative dialogue, in trying to create an invitation to play
together, what you often do is introduce a new toy to people.
Like the pick up sticks. There is a novelty there that causes
people to create another game, or another way of playing, or allows
them to drop aside their pretending that they are grown up and
get involved in really their play being. And I think the computer
can be like that in terms of inviting the evolution of new and
more functional rules for people to really work together and achieve
productive dialogue.
Kristi: How have you used it?
Bernie: Well, I started out in 86. I published a book
called Power Meetings. It talked about using a computer and a
projector as a kind of group whiteboard. With the person at the
computer using an outline tool. Did you ever use a dynamic outliner?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: This person is using it to facilitate the group.
So, if somebody said something, a point, that person types it
in and starts a new headline. If he doesn't know where to put
it, he might start a headline called "parking lot" and
put the idea under that. If a new idea comes to the agenda, you
expand and then you reorganize the agenda or add to the agenda.
So, what it does is it opens up so many processes that tend to
be encapsulated into a whole new flow. Because now people finally
have a space upon which to imagine that is fluid enough to capture
the group imagination. Capture and structure, because it's an
outline process. It allows people to go deeper to more of a comprehensive
perspective. So in many ways to me it is another form of facilitative
play, but it is helping people play with their words together
or their ideas together. And then of course what happens is you
can print out what people have said and everybody walks home with
the same kind of thing. They have the same understanding of what
has been accomplished.
Kristi: I like what you said about playing with what people
have said because for me, this conversation with you is fun.
And helping people look at conversation as play
Bernie: Yeah, you bet.
Kristi: In terms of how that then can lead to organizational
change or learning for individuals, or learning in community.
Bernie: You know, Doc
Searls talks a lot about
Kristi: Oh, Doc!
Bernie: Do you know Doc?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: Oh how wonderful.
Kristi: Doc is great.
Bernie: So he talks about markets as conversations
Kristi: Yeah, in Cluetrain
Bernie: That's right. We met in Santa Barbara. We've
known each other for years.
Kristi: I participate in - Jerry Michalski is a friend
of ours who puts on these retreats, called Jerry's Retreat. Jerry
worked for Esther Dyson a long time ago and knows all of these
interesting people. And every year or six months he just invites
everybody that he thinks is interesting and throws them in a room
for a couple of days and says have at it. And Doc was at these.
He's really a fascinating guy.
Bernie: Yeah, he is. What a wonderful soul he is.
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: So, yeah. Conversation is play. The whole thing,
of course, you can't talk about games or play without talking
about everything.
Kristi: Yes
Bernie: Because it is a reflection of the organism, of
the social being that we are.
Kristi: That is really what I'm finding as I've been doing
this research. It is going to be interesting to try to integrate
all of this into some sort of cohesive thesis, because it does
touch on everything.
Bernie: You go to my website and you look at all these
links you know and - Huizinga, you ever read Huizinga?
Kristi: No
Bernie: He wrote a book called Homo
Ludens I think this is from the 30's or 40's. The whole
premise is how play is a driving force behind the creation of
war and literature and culture and poetry. It's all, everything
is an expression of play.
Kristi: So, I don't want to take too much more of your
time.
Bernie: I have to go and work and do and be.
Kristi: But is there anything else you want to ask me?
Bernie: Well, you know the imagination thing I have to
admit I have not - we do what I call fantasy play and a lot of
the games engage the fantasy. I know in our work sessions, especially
when we are doing strategic planning, we tend to start by asking
people what their fantasy is. Let's imagine it is three months
from now, and everything we wanted happened. What happened? That
is usually how we start the meeting. And so that requires a level
of imagination.
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: It's like an honest imagination. It's imagination
that is as real as when you are pretending something as a kid.
That is really required of you if you are going to do it effectively.
Kristi: You mean being as immersed in it as you are as
a child?
Bernie: Absolutely. Really thinking about it honestly
and wholly. Oh, it's three months from now, and really believing
that it is three months from now. And investigating that reality.
So, yeah that's a great connection and one that I really encourage
you to make and foist upon the universe.
Kristi: Yes.
Bernie: It has been a pleasure talking with you.
Kristi: It has been great talking with you, Major FUN. Thank
you.
