The Leadership Vision Podcast

Play: The Secret Weapon of High-Performing Teams

• Nathan Freeburg, Linda Schubring, Brian Schubring • Season 8 • Episode 25

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In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, we dive deep into Chapter 2 of Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane and explore how the concept of “play” applies to team development.

Joined by authors Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring, we explore how “play” isn’t just about fun and games—it’s about intentional practice that unlocks trust, creativity, and deeper collaboration. When teams are given safe environments to experiment without pressure, they surface hidden talents, build psychological safety, and reimagine how they relate to one another.

This is the second part of our conversation on play. If you missed the first episode, we recommend going back and listening to the individual-focused exploration of play.

🔊 Key Quotes

“The importance of play is to give the characters of our life a different context to be who they are.” – Brian Schubring


“Sometimes play is conflict avoidant.” – Dr. Linda Schubring


“When teams are given the permission to play for the first time, they’re not going to know what to do… but leaders can gain so much by just watching.” – Brian Schubring


“Play is intentional to the team, to the mindset of people, and to the culture.” – Brian Schubring


Linda and Brian offer five action steps for introducing intentional play into your team:

  1. Create a Playground – Designate spaces or time to experiment without consequence.
  2. Celebrate Learning and Unlearning – Honor what’s gained and what’s released.
  3. Play with Strengths – Engage people in ways that both highlight and stretch their natural talents.
  4. Schedule Time to Leap – Create moments where risk and growth go hand in hand.
  5. Ask Often – Reflect regularly with your team: Are we playing? Are we progressing?

🎯 Reflection Questions for Leaders

  • What kind of play exists on your team today, if any?
  • Do you have a comfort culture, a complacent culture, or a competitive culture?
  • Where can you create intentional moments of low-pressure experimentation?
  • Are there unhelpful patterns your team needs to unlearn?

📚 Resources & Links

🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!

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The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Speaker 1:

The importance of play is to give the characters of our life a different context, to be who they are, because sometimes I believe that stereotype creates a character of context oh, that person's a fox. What play does? What play does is it gives a team a chance to erase the characterizations that they have of other people, because the topic is new.

Speaker 2:

And part of that came through our play with other clients, and so when we would give space for people to partner up and have a conversation about something, we usually found that they were able to go further in the conversation and the reflection than we could even teach them about. Sometimes we're saying lighten up a little bit. What can we achieve if we just engage with this practice in disguise and then make it applicable to the next hard thing that we have to do?

Speaker 3:

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about our work, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Friberg and today on the podcast, I have a question for you what does it mean for a team to play? In today's conversation with Dr Linda Schubring and Brian Schubring, we're going to be rethinking play, not as a break from work, but as essential to it. Inspired by Chapter 2 of Unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an origami crane, we'll explore how teams can use play to build trust, practice new behaviors and move closer to their shared dreams. We'll unpack how intentional playgrounds and organizations help teams find their voice, learn through failure and innovate safely, while also exploring the risks of staying too comfortable for too long.

Speaker 3:

This is part two in our discussion on play. If you missed the first one, you can go back and listen to it, but let's jump in and talk about play. Brian and Linda, welcome back to the Leadership Vision podcast. It feels like just moments ago we were recording the first part of this two-part little mini series on play. Could one of you just really briefly, in like 30 seconds, recap what we talked about maybe? Quickly define play, quickly define playgrounds, and then we'll jump into applying this idea for teams and organizations.

Speaker 2:

Play is practice in disguise.

Speaker 1:

And what that means is giving people the opportunity to practice various skills and test some of their capacities towards a specific objective, but keeping it fun and lighthearted, somewhat invitational, where the pressure is low but the practice and the play are intentional. Great, great great.

Speaker 3:

So we're going to be applying this idea to teams, to organizations, to business. My first question or what I might be thinking of, leaders is how do we? We got work to do, we got a. Or what I might be thinking of leaders is we got work to do. We got a bottom line, we got deadlines. How do we create play? We're not Google. We can't just give people 20 hours a week to go build their own little pet projects. How do you even begin to implement this idea of play in a business?

Speaker 1:

I think, philosophically, there is maybe a mind shift that needs to happen within the leaders, first and foremost because sometimes the leaders that we're working with misunderstand the importance of play and what it means for the brain to really play in a professional setting, and by that I mean giving people the opportunity to try new things, to think creatively, to have innovative conversations, to just press pause for a second on the looming pressures and deadlines that we're all trying to meet, because, yes, that's a reality.

Speaker 1:

But how do we put people in a much more relaxed place where they're not afraid to try something new, they're not afraid of being shamed or blamed. No one's going to criticize or judge others for not having a super great idea or trying something over and over again. Because when we play, we're not only learning about our own skills and capacities, we're also learning about the skills and capacities of other people. We're learning about the types of relationships we share with each other and how we can trust people when the pressure is high. And if a leader understands the importance of creating places where play is permitted, that leader can gain so much information on their people, where the clicks are, where the dynamic relationships are just by watching people play.

Speaker 3:

So, brian, my first, or my follow-up then, is do you have examples of that, like with the clients that we've worked with? Like, because I think our listeners are most curious like how, how, how, it's still how. Yes, I can you shift my mind? Great, but how do I do that? Give us some examples.

Speaker 1:

I have some multiple come to mind, the one that is the most clear we're working with a CEO, and this did not happen right away, mind you. This happened over a period of many, many, many months. But where the team arrived was utilizing this metaphor of we're practicing now, and by practice, it meant we're on the practice field, we're not in the stadium. By practice, it means we're wearing our practice jersey, we're not in the stadium. By practice, it means we're wearing our practice jersey. We're expected to get more dirty, we're expected to not be fundamentally at our best. But this idea of we're just going to practice right now and they could spend 60 or 90 minutes just practicing, practicing new ideas, what about this strategy? Asking people for their opinions and just this mindset of we're practicing, we're not on the field of play yet gives people the chance to quote play alongside one another in a way that they may not be doing if the pressure was super high, and just that metaphor releases the pressure, sure.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes it's. It's the unstructured 90 minutes that someone plays together, right so? Or the the unstructured time. There was a group that we worked with maybe 10 years ago now, and one of the things that they realized is that they weren't office near each other. These teammates were dispersed, and they were, they were, and their schedules were so filled with meetings that they had no time to just interact, and so they basically did study hall once a month and they were in the same room still doing the work, but then could look up and say, hey, have you ever thought about this? Or we should get a couple of people down here to talk about that.

Speaker 2:

And there was a practice of what would it look like if we just worked closer? And where can some of that innovative breakthrough come together? The key to it is that it's unstructured and maybe there's some broad goals. Or the purpose of this time is to, like I said, or like Brian said, practice. The purpose of this time is to get to know each other so that when we have to do the really hard things, that there's a relational understanding, similar to you don't send kids off to a playground and say, first you have to go down the slide and once you've done, that three times then you have to do the monkey bar, then you have to do this, and then you have to do that.

Speaker 2:

You've killed the spirit of what it means to just run at a playground and enjoy it.

Speaker 1:

And that's the invitation that we are asking leaders to consider is to consider gathering your team together, giving them an opportunity to work on something within the parameters of whatever the expectations are, and just let them go something within the parameters of whatever the expectations are and just let them go Intentionally, not giving guidelines, intentionally not giving high expectations, and just watching. Now, yes, it is going to take a different kind of attention on the leader's behalf of watching how people work together, what they're focusing on, what questions they're asking. Just to pay attention to that, because I also know this. When teams are given the permission to play for the first time, they're not going to know what to do, because most often, we expect teams to show up a certain way, to do their duties a specific way and to be measured in a specific way. Play is almost the opposite. It's just inviting people to show up and have at it.

Speaker 3:

I mentioned Google earlier because I think there's been a lot written about their culture around. I don't know if they'd call it play, but like psychological safety really came up as kind of like there's no bad ideas. You bring out ideas, it's a dumb or it doesn't kind of work Like that's okay, just keep them going. And I'm curious, if there's a in business, if you would encourage leaders to create specific playgrounds like in the book that are sort of set off to the side where you can do whatever you want. There's not real ramifications. Or can you sort of build some of these ideas of play into everyday meetings and stuff, like what I think Google did? Is it one or the other? Is it both? Is it what's been most effective in just in terms of getting leaders to loosen up to play? Because there's the offsite where you're just doing goofy stuff and you get to know each other. But then how do you make play just a part of every day? How do you make?

Speaker 2:

play just a part of every day. I think you're onto something with the making play a part of every day and it's not a part of everything. And so it's not just stop being serious. Everybody, lighten up. Exactly, it is more of how do you get people to not, once again, to not take themselves so seriously that they can step in, loosen their tie a little bit? Do even people wear ties? I haven't seen a client wear a tie in a long time. But when I think of the moments when people really are playing, there's also a time that we've heard when we talk to teams is that they experience play in service projects. So there's an organization we work with. Once a quarter they do a service project and they purposely make it fun. So it's not. I think there's this sense that or some place we learned or were socialized that work has to be so serious.

Speaker 2:

And, yes, there are times to take the things that we're working on very seriously, and then there's times to not take ourselves so serious. And, yes, there are times to take the things that we're working on very seriously, and then there's times to not take ourselves so seriously.

Speaker 1:

But this intentionality of play takes many different forms. There are some forms where play is intentionally aligned around some type of purposeful goal that you're trying to achieve. There are other contexts where play could be just topical, where you're gathering your team together just like throw ideas around about some type of topic that is relevant but not necessary, maybe to the bottom line or by due on Friday.

Speaker 1:

There is other intentional play that comes around this idea of culture building. What are the things that you're doing as an organization that are playful, that align're doing as an organization, that are playful, that align more with some of the rituals and routines, that you do as an organization that creates a place where people can gather together, play, whether it's on a theme or a celebration, or even bringing a specific type of food for everyone to share. That's playful. And so I think one of the important things to think about as a culture is that play is intentional to teams, play is intentional to the mindset of people and play is intentional within a larger culture, Because if you establish this idea of play on multiple levels and you're consistent with it, then people won't be surprised when you ask them to actually play without specific parameters.

Speaker 1:

We have a client that we work with and they are very intentional on how they're building their cultural community through this idea of playful events that they do, whether it's events that may happen through a sports season or events like a barbecue competition that they have. These are playful ways that people are engaged with each other, that are not about the job but are about building relationships with each other. My point is, play can have a cultural application as much as it can have a team application. My question to our listeners is which is more appropriate to your organization? And I would maybe bet that there's more likelihood for teams to embrace play first than for larger cultures. But the point is, let's invite people to come together, eliminate some of the restrictions and rules of engagement and allow people to relate and to problem solve and to reflect and to ideate on their own intention in a playful and nonjudgmental way.

Speaker 3:

So what I hear you saying, then, is play is both about building your team culture and about doing the work of your business, like it's not just oh, we're going to get together and play so that we like each other more, but there's I mean that's great, but there's also an element of like you can be creative problem solvers. You can get unstuck, maybe, by this idea of play.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, nathan, there's something about that. We like each other, or who liked each other, that's that's true. And what's also fundamentally true is who doesn't. Uh, because part of the experience of play is for people to understand who they trust and who they relate to comma, no judgment and the purpose of play is for you to also better understand those individuals that you may not get along with or not really have the same perspective on life. That's just as important within the relationship building construct of what happens when you play. We all have people in our life that we don't play well with, and that's okay for a variety of reasons, because sometimes those are the other relationships that are not necessarily about the conflict, but how it is that we respond when we're faced with tension or something that is getting in our way or some type of specific challenge. It's more about us than it is about the disagreement in the relationship.

Speaker 3:

I want to maybe transition to the second part here, because in the last episode we were talking about play as the individual. In a playground, there's an exit. There's this idea of being too safe, being too complacent. I got the playground, I can crush the monkey bars, I can go up and down the slide, no problem. What does that look like for a team to be stuck? Or maybe I'll ask it is there a danger of playing too much? Is there a danger of being, I don't know? Analysis, paralysis comes to mind, like what is that concept look like as it relates to a team? What does that concept look?

Speaker 2:

like as it relates to a team. Sometimes play is conflict avoidant, like practicing this conflict avoidance, and we have seen the teams that are so lighthearted that it seems like is anyone serious about anything, or are you trying to move together in in the in the same way. And so when we think about play, it's not just getting stuck, it's making sure you're making forward progression, forward movement, that there is some measure of sort where you can say, yep, we're, we're. Now to this point this, this is good.

Speaker 2:

Like and this is good enough, and now we've learned enough that we can step into the next arena.

Speaker 3:

There's a great Simon Sinek book when he talks about. It's called the Infinite Game and he talks about how Kodak got so safe that they essentially refused to innovate and they owned all the patents on digital cameras but just kind of refused to go into that and they're not a company anymore or whatever. And so I think that there's some some real truth to the dangers of just playing it too safe and not being willing to, like you said, get out of that playground and move to that next thing. Brian, I think you were going to say something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you're tapping into something here. Playing it too safe is a two-sided coin. Playing it too safe can be the fun-loving comfort culture where everyone's having a great time. There's not a whole lot of challenge happening there, but man, are we having fun?

Speaker 1:

The other side of that coin is complacent play, where you have a complacent culture, where the bully at the top of the slide is allowed to be the bully at the top of the slide, inhibiting anybody else from really playing, and that one person controls the whole thing. Therein lies a unique challenge, because that complacency culture is not only freezing the bully at the top of the slide but freezing the growth and development of anybody else. That's where I think we really have a challenge is we are not saying that we're promoting play to reinforce comfort culture. We're also not reinforcing this concept of play with a complacent culture, because both of those cultures aren't promoting the kinds of growth and development where all people are benefiting, or most people are benefiting, and that's the purpose of play.

Speaker 1:

I really believe that when leaders are looking at their teams at play and they just maybe ask themselves do I have a comfort culture or a complacent culture, or is it a competitive culture? And by competitive culture. I mean a culture that is asking people to show up in a specific way to engage each other, where there is some type of progression relationally and if something's not working we're given permission to let that go and to try something new. And sometimes I believe that when we are in either a comfort culture or a complacent culture, that those cultures place a lens over our vision and we just see things as okay that maybe six months ago we would never have considered okay because we were in a different place. I think that play is really an interesting way to look at our team's dynamic and whether or not we're growing as a team.

Speaker 2:

The organizations that we're working with right now, I wouldn't say there's not one that is experiencing a comfort culture. I think there's so much happening in the world today that there's a lot of unknown, there's a lot of uncertainty and there is no room to be comfortable anymore, and so it's not that you just buckle down and you do things with more intensity. Sometimes we're saying saying, lighten up a little bit. What can we achieve if we just engage with this practice in disguise and then make it applicable to the next hard thing that we have to do?

Speaker 3:

Are there signs or signals that a leader can look for to know if they're too comfortable, or to know if they're not maybe playing intentionally towards something Dear?

Speaker 2:

God, yeah, like watching people quiet, quit, watching people not engage. Looking at some of those measures where you have a bunch of people that are just checking boxes and not really engaged holistically. Some of the leaders that we work with, they are in it physically. There is this physical embodiment that they come in and they join in on whatever the challenge is. There are people that are in it with their minds and their hearts and their spirits and I would pay attention to the places where maybe they're not I think it's more of it could feel apathetic or well. I just don't know how to motivate them, because maybe they're all just a little comfortable. Push them a little harder.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure if I'm speaking from our experience that's Linda and I and how we work work with clients.

Speaker 1:

What I've learned is, when you give a team a chance to play anywhere with anything, it is clear really fast who's getting along, who's not getting along, who wants to play, who doesn't want to play. It's almost like within 30 seconds you can start to see these teams and fiefdoms and villains emerge from the shadows and it just seems so obvious to us how they're playing. But I really believe that many people really aren't looking for that or they don't want to see what really happens. When people are asked to play together and the converse is also true Just giving a team a chance to wrestle with some type of issue, you can see, like what Linda's saying, teams jump in right away and nine out of 10 people are fully in, and so I think that play is intentional, like we have to create times when we, like we're saying at the beginning of the podcast, we're creating times and places for teams to be creative, and it's also an invitation for observation. We need to spend time watching how people interact with each other.

Speaker 2:

And it's not trying to control the villain or whoever's perceived as the villain. I think sometimes it's the devil's advocate or someone that is speaking from an outside view that helps with the innovative breakthrough. And so sometimes it's not rushing the play, but, yes, setting some ground rules, but not rushing. You know, people interacting together and like playing nice right from the get go. Yes, there's professional decorum, but how do you? How do you then just kind of wait it out, Because maybe two people that are arguing are actually on the same side. They're just doing it loudly, right?

Speaker 1:

And sometimes, when you play, you have to just accept some of the things as they are, because we can't have a perfect play. We have an executive that we're working with. He read the book and one of the statements that he made was really revelatory for me when it comes to this idea of play. And he said this yeah, I know we have our Fox and Fox is going to be Fox. And he said this yeah, I know we have our Fox and Fox is going to be Fox. When he said that, he meant we have a person who plays that role and really can't change that. But he said this. But to focus on how the rest are playing together, I think that people are wired to try to eliminate the threat as fast as possible. That's what our brains think. But in this opportunity of play, there is also the opportunity for us to shift our perspective on all the things that are going well and just emphasizing that, because I think we can learn a lot from play giving permission and then asking ourselves and what do we carry forward?

Speaker 3:

so, brian, linda, what I'm thinking of right now is this, this quote that I wrote down when I was prepping for this, that I didn't paste the source of it, so I don't know where this came from, but, uh, it said, when teams are encouraged to play through prototyping, simulations or reflection, they often surface hidden talents and build deeper trust and create new solutions. And so, brian, when you mentioned the fox, it made me think of. Perhaps the fox is just misunderstood In the story. The fox is a villain. In Unfold, the fox is kind of the villain character and maybe that's how people think of the fox on their team, but it's not a villain. So I'm wondering how this idea of play can help teams unlock innovation, help people feel more like they belong to the team, have a sense of purpose, when otherwise they might just ignore that, without this kind of proverbial playground.

Speaker 1:

The importance of play is to give the characters of our life a different context, to be who they are, because sometimes I believe that stereotype creates a character of context oh, that person's a fox. What play does? What play does is it gives a team a chance to erase the characterizations that they have of other people, because the topic is new. Let us illustrate. We have a client that we work with every other month. We are working with their executives, and one have a client that we work with Every other month we're working with their executives, and one of the experiences that we do with the executives is a 90-minute session called Moments that Matter, and that session is a time capsule or a time capture of what is a moment that matters right now to us as leaders.

Speaker 1:

What that does is it invites people to step into a moment that matters right now and by doing that, they're coming as individuals and not necessarily their role or a reflection of who they've been in the past. It's kind of like it's a blank slate Everyone starts new because the moment is so important. And by doing that, it almost is like you're taking the character or the characterization out of context and putting them into a new conversation where we kind of start over with our relationship.

Speaker 2:

And we've done this work with so many other clients that usually just needed some alignment around language, some alignment around direction, where it's promoting a kind of understanding of, oh, when you say this, this is what you mean. And these moments that matter give freedom to a team to ask, ask the stupid question, or to have a smaller group conversation with a partner or a group of a group of three, and we found that that sometimes, by getting really smart people to be batting around ideas a little bit differently, create this sense of okay, this is another way to look at it. And, yes, fox is giving me villain energy, but guess what? He's also telling us that this really matters to us. Wow, my internal Fox is causing me to speak right now really passionately, and I'm realizing that it's because this moment is really important.

Speaker 1:

A moments that matter. Conversation is a topic that is new. It's important to the here and now and it is truly a conversation among equals, without any specific outcome. We're just talking about something because it's important and we don't know where it's going to go, so as facilitators, we have to hold the experience loosely, but this team engages because they know hey, now's the time where we're having a conversation, and it really is a time when relationships are reevaluated, alliances resurface and people that maybe don't talk as much or talk in a different way are given a chance to say something in a new way.

Speaker 2:

And part of that came through our play with other clients, and so when we would give space for people to partner up and have a conversation about something, we usually found that they were able to go further in the conversation and the reflection than we could even teach them about. So what we were doing was unearthing their best experience or their best answer or causing them to really own, you know, either the solution or components of the problem that needed to be fixed, and so, once again, a lot of our work is playing and trying new things in order to bring about that play in better ways and Moments that Matter is one of those.

Speaker 1:

And when we have these conversations. What I think is really important and back to the main metaphor of the book is that when people are having these conversations, they're actually resourcing their maps within. They're resourcing their lived experience within the organization when they were CEO of a different company. They're referencing the wisdom that they've learned, other relationships within the organization they are map, reflecting and sharing out loud. And that is so important because the conversations happen regardless of title or influence or geographic reach or how many people report to them. It's people bringing their whole selves to a conversation, and that conversation is playful.

Speaker 2:

I remember working with one group and we had broken them up to talk about the different maps of their lives and where they've experienced the kind of growth. And so people are breaking up. And then we see these two people and their partners, and they had the laptop open. So there's part of me that was judging right away and a little bit disappointed, like I wish they could just wait, just give me 30 more minutes to facilitate this conversation. And then I so I just started to observe and I realized that one team member was showing his partner where exactly in the world he grew up in this place, that he went to school, because it gave him context of oh well, then that makes a lot more sense about how you show up what is important to you, and it was in that kind of learning that a literal map on a website gave insight to a team member and promoted a better working relationship as a result, promoted a better working relationship.

Speaker 3:

As a result, we had some really good friends visiting us this last week.

Speaker 2:

We went to college together.

Speaker 3:

Long-time friends, and there's something about when you know those things about a person that you just feel safe with them. You feel safe to be yourself, you feel safe to share things that you wouldn't with other people, and that kind of shared history of maps, if you will, is such a, I think, just a profound metaphor, because you think about new people you meet in your life, new colleagues that come into your life and you're not really sure how can I play with this person? What can I joke about? What sort of silly ideas for this problem we have can I bring up without it getting shot down? And if you think about those people in your life that you do feel the most safe with, which aren't necessarily your family members, there is an ability to just play and be so silly with that.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes you come up with great, great stuff because of that shared history. And so I don't know if this is necessarily our last question, but is there a way that you have found for I know you mentioned the what was it called Moments that matter, but is there a way to speed that process up with with teams to better understand? I know you've done a lot of different activities, but how do you help team members get to that place where they can actually play, because I think if you just throw everybody in a room, you're like, okay, play, start creating different letters with your body, like it's like I don't know any of these people, I don't know if I can do this you know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

I didn't say what company that was from I know.

Speaker 2:

I know.

Speaker 2:

I know One of the reasons why leaders hire us to work with their teams and their organizations is that they know that the space that Brian and I create between us creates spaces for people to grow and get to know themselves in a different way, and when I think about some of the activities that we do or the questions that we ask, a lot of times we are seeking to get to know the different characteristics of each team member.

Speaker 2:

So as we get to know people, then we can say, oh, that's similar to you and we're drawing connections between people, between people and that space that we created for them to grow. Eventually we fade to the background because they've learned to play in the safety that Brian and I have created, and so I think there is something to be said about the way that you can accelerate an investment that doesn't happen with just inside people that come in and lead a different training and get you talking. Yes, some of those things can be helpful, but sometimes an outside person can give the kind of insight and parameters and permission to let people be more free to try new things, to express something that maybe they've felt confined by, and practice new behaviors that demonstrate that they are growing as a leader and as a team member.

Speaker 3:

So I have some action steps here that I want your feedback on, and we don't need to talk a lot about this. There's five. So, leaders, listening, this is what you need to go, do, uh, create a playground, celebrate failure, play with strengths, schedule time to leap and ask often, ask often is you know? Are we still playing? Are we making progress? What do you think about those action steps? Does that seem like? Obviously this isn't like a do this and then this happens type of a thing, but I think number two celebrate lessons learned and celebrate lessons unlearned.

Speaker 1:

Oh, say that again. Celebrate learning and unlearning. Okay, yeah, because sometimes we, they can unlearn patterns and ways of doing things that are no longer working. Things go isn't as easy as it sounds because we there's an unlearning of the ways that we think and unlearning of the ways that we relate to each other ways of unlearning characterizations of other people, and that's part of play we're playing away old patterns and playing in to new patterns. I like that that's really good.

Speaker 3:

I like that and nathan, I think it's like running slower doesn't make you faster maybe it does, it does actually, if you have good form, it does actually running slower. You have to be slower on your non-workout days, so it does yeah, and false advertising that these shoes can be run a four minute mile anyway. Anyway, what were were going to say something on topic?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I well, Nathan, I love these action steps, but if you're like me, at by the time I got to number three, I'm like oh I'm, I've lost, I've lost, forget it, I'll, I'll try something else, we'll just do a service project instead.

Speaker 2:

And so I would say look at these action steps, look in the show notes or wherever you put them, nathan, and begin to wonder, as a leader, which one you want to incorporate this week or in the next two weeks. Or maybe it's getting one of your team members together and you say I want to practice this step in practicing a different way of doing something. Can you help me craft an opening to a meeting? Or can we do something that looks a lot different, that creates this sense of a different kind of playground for people to play in, or gives feedback to people in a way that's not threatening or puts them on edge or just allows them to laugh in a different way, so that there can be relational trust built, so there can be greater innovative breakthrough.

Speaker 2:

And so sometimes it's just starting small. I think we've all read the pieces about habit stacking and stacking these good habits, but I think if you try to do everything at once, you've already killed the spirit of this. And so pick one, try it and see where it goes, or talk to your team about these are some five action steps for leaders and teams. Let's practice one, let's think about it and you crowdsource which one you're going to try and sometimes giving the work back to your team or team members allows them to really do something that you would have never thought of. That could be really fun and memorable for the team.

Speaker 1:

And what Linda just said, can play really well into action. Step number three play with strengths, because I think that a leader inviting people to think of an opportunity for play that emphasizes the team strengths is one thing. Also, to ask team members to think of an opportunity for play that challenges the areas we need to grow, because I think giving that ownership back is also another way to invite people to play. Number four schedule time to leap. I think that that one, nathan, is really, really important, because I think there are fewer things besides compassion and empathy that are more important for a leader than to create times where your people need to leap.

Speaker 1:

Key to the story of Unfolded is when OC is playing. You'll notice that she is leaping off a platform. That is an illustration of moments when we as people are taking a risk, where we don't know the next step, if the next step is going to hold us, where what we have been grounded upon is taken away, where we feel like our roots are established. That place is no longer there. We're not certain of anything that's going to catch us. I think that when leaders create these moments of play, they're intentionally creating moments where a leap is necessary and there's an uncertainty that needs to be faced for people to grow.

Speaker 3:

I love it. Well, a little teaser. What's the step after play Try.

Speaker 1:

Try is the focus of our next couple podcasts on this. That is my life in a chapter. Let's just try.

Speaker 3:

Let's just try something, just try, just try. Sometimes my kids are like I don't want to do this, what if bad things happen? It's like let's just try, let's just see what happens.

Speaker 1:

It's a different kind of pizza, exactly.

Speaker 3:

It's fine, it's different sauce, but the crust looks different Anyway.

Speaker 2:

That's why you're the dad of the playground, nathan. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3:

Brian and Linda. Thank you so much. I appreciate these conversations. Lot to think about, so thank you, thank you and thank you, listeners, for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Go pick up a copy of Unfolded Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane out now and the audio book will be out middle to end of August, august 19th. And if you would like to get more resources about anything you heard here, or if you'd like to share this with someone that you think could benefit from those things, we would really appreciate it. You can also visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom or click the link in the show notes. Go, follow us on all the socials to stay up to date and to get more resources for building your team and helping them to play and achieve their dreams. I'm Nathan Friberg.

Speaker 1:

I'm Linda Shubring and I'm Brian Shubring.

Speaker 3:

And on behalf of our entire team, thanks for playing.

Speaker 2:

Would you like that? Like how I did that?