In an age of soft power, complexity is the name of the game'

1
(No Transcript)
2
In an age of soft power, complexity is the name
of the game.
If a project fails - be it in business,
government or the home - we no longer look for a
single culprit
One of the genuine shifts in recent years has
been a much better understanding of the
individual and the key role that individuals
complex functionality in the success of any
system
Keywords such as happiness, fulfilment,
authenticity, ownership, all signal a willingness
to consider that an individuals capacity to
deliver cannot be taken for granted.
New Integrity therefore always approaches its
consultancy projects - whether it be in the form
of training, problem solving or visioning - with
a 4 quadrant analysis.
3
individual

• Person

Practice
how we act upon in our world
your experience sense of self
internal
external
Policy
People
the laws structures of our society
institutions
our shared meanings values, culture
plural
4
Having worked in a number of different places -
from social work reform for the government, to
business consultancy for Microsoft or NGOs,
advertising agencies and the media, it is our
conclusion that we need a New idea of Integrity.
One which not only seeks an inner cohesion - a
person at one with himself - but a vibrant
connectivity between our new sense of ourselves
as complex individuals with the new sense of
what is now possible in our globalised
world. Without fail, paying attention to
individuals and giving them space to imagine
forms which could actually harness a creativity
and energy they know they have, big new ideas
arise. What big new idea could begin to capture
the spirit of their new adventure? Cue The Play
Ethic
5
A Great Leaders / Good Leaders question
What kind of experience at work would you want
your workers to have?
6
Work is
Comments from participants, 2nd October,
2004 Satisfaction, inspiration, purpose, fun,
creativity, meaning Responsibility, ownership,
Fulfilled and challenged, respected, peaceful,
Acknowledged, needed, loved Meaning-full,
accepted, fully human, in touch with
themselves, Motivated, stretched, heard,
appreciated, excited, wealthy and healthy,happy,
7
Fatboy Slim, Weapon of Choice (Spike Jones,
2002)
8
An
view of work
Work is exhausting, alienating, oppressive
(Leadership is too) And every worker/leader
dreams of sheer escape, transcendence, joy
What is the mentality that can help to align
imagination aspiration with action context
..Particularly among younger generations (X Y)?
9
PLAY a core human capacity that we
underestimate
Science its what complex mammals do to learn
how to survive, thrive, interrelate (95 million
years!)
Culture Indo-European root of play is -dlegh
to engage, to exercise yourself the Puritans
were wrong! Play means passionate activity and
engagement (Participant Play is also catharsis
the drama that transforms a life)
Play also means to take reality lightly
(Schiller, Huizinga) not living in fantasy, but
embracing openness and possibility in your
everyday life a real spirit of enterprise
Yet the legacy of the Puritan work ethic has
polarized our attitudes to play as something we
do in leisure, to escape work
10
Bartle Bogle Hegarty, X-Box campaign 2003,
Champagne
11
Bartle Bogle Hegarty, X-Box campaign 2003,
Mosquito
12
How does play relate to business?

• Much business culture over last 30 years (maybe
  longer) has been dabbling with various forms of
  play
• 70s-80s - Scenario Planning (Pierre Wack, Arie
  DeGeus, Shell/GBN, Art of the Long View
• 80s-90s - Use of sports/peak experience to
  emphasize team play
• Mid-90s - New Economy/dot-com _at_ play - books
  like Jamming!, Serious Play, The Pursuit of WOW!,
  Funky Business foosball in the boardroom
• Late 90s - Use of drama and music to emphasize
  collective creativity (Benjamin Zander, Micheal
  Gold), storytelling and improvisation to
  demonstrate collective knowing (Steve Denning)
• Now, even using toys - Legos Serious Play

13
How does play relate to business?
Forms of play used to improve ability of
companies to respond creatively to the volatility
of markets, socio-cultural trends, disruptive
technologies. Play helps a complex organism
and complex organisation - to develop its
response abilities, its adaptability So play
forms have become legitimate and effective in
improving business performance but is that
all there is to play? Is it just a performance
enhancer?
14
How does play relate to spirit?

• Like spirituality, play is about a means of
  transcendence in the everyday - another breath
  of life (pneuma) that animates fixed situations,
  accepted boundaries - puts things in play
• Like spirituality, play is about embracing
  possibility and change rather than fearing it
  because play is grounded in a deep common reality
  for humanity

15
How does play relate to spirit?
Play is a double (or triple) consciousness we
can juggle and live with different realities when
we are at play and in play

• Players can play both finite and infinite games
  (J. Carse)
• Finite games playing to win/defeat others, close
  the deal, complete the project (zero-sum)
• Infinite games playing to learn, to improve the
  rules of the game, to bring more people into the
  game (non-zero sum)

16
How does play relate to spirit?
Play expresses our paradoxical nature how we
are both deeply individual, and deeply connected
The seven rhetorics of play (Sutton-Smith)

• In our daily experience, play has both its modern
  forms
• play as intense experience (hedonism, flow)
• play as development (childs play/education)
• play as imagination and creativity (arts, media,
  science)

17
How does play relate to spirit?
Yet we also know play in its most ancient
forms 4. play as power and contest (agon, sports,
fight or flight) 5. Play as group identity
(festivals, corporate rituals) 6. Play as fate
chaos (gambling, stock market, luck) 7. not
forgetting play as laughter, subversion, the wise
fool or shaman
18
How does play relate to spirit?
To be literate in play, its forms and traditions
is to widen our frameworks of perception
Play consciousness is a radar system that can
help us to track how complex our lives and
aspirations are
Note Think of the playful myths at the heart of
many of the great religions Let there be
light (Christianity), Dice game of the
Mahabharata, Lila the playful god (Hinduism),
Bodhisattvas emerging from the Earth dancing
(Buddhism), Sufisms poetry
Plays diversity, paradoxes and pluralism is a
manifestation of the creativity that arises from
interconnectedness
19
Heres a tool we use to demonstrate the practical
use of a playful consciousness the fear and
love loops
Life is full of paradoxes leading to compromise
Age Experience Individuality Discipline
Mastery Profit and gain Hard power
Youth Freshness Collectivity Free expression,
unpredictability Altruism and gift Soft power
A playful approach will allow these
contradictions to exist as two truths in a
flexible relationship with each other
20
1.Fear/fear loop is also interesting. I have
discomfort when in groups in work. I was being
paid for it, so I didnt look for withdrawal.
Not the job I want yet I persisted in staying
on. Fear kept me there. After this experience,
I now conduct much of my work in love loop. Its
about diversity, playful, doing it together (even
though Im paid) 2. In order to jump the
loop, you have to realise that love is quite
tough, not sweet, gritty. 3. Life is full of
paradoxes - full stop. These loops represent the
balance of it. The biz leader who sits and says
ommm is interesting but she must also check
that wages are paid. Perhaps these loops are
three dimensional the movement is held in the
whole form. Play is indeed a wonderful link
between hard and soft its about applying and
releasing tension - tough now, and then something
different. If you want to be successful
holistic CEO thats ok. But deliver too
Comments from participants on the Fear and Love
Loops at SIB, 2nd Oct, 2004
5. An recruitment situation, where the move was
from love to fear. The candidate stated that
work isnt fun . (Why hadnt I explored this
attitude?) Fun is outside work. Ok, lets test
this do you have a favorite opera? Lets sing
it together. He blushed, we sang. I watched him
come in and out, from fear to love. Dont ever
do that again. Try again? I asked. And then he
sings, beautifully. 6. The middle point between
the loops is the point of choice, the difficult
moment of truth. Awareness of this choice is a
major empowerment. 8. Micro and macro here
fear is the lower consciousness. Love is the
higher most lives 80 f, 20 love. To shift it
round implies a different consciousness level 9.
Diversity is important. If see yourself as
diverse,its easier to see commonalities with
others in their diversity. 9. Should we
dichotomise these things? We fear the fear,
perhaps we should try to accept it. Can play help
us to love fear?
4. Discipline in life is important. There can be
playfulness and humour as long as playfulness
allows a different question it should be a
constant spin.Most orgs have 80 of people
turning up, 20 being present. Imagine if we
shifted that?
21

• The capacity to think and act as part of the
  larger whole is emerging as the ultimate value
  driver for the organisations of the future. Any
  organisation which wishes to succeed and sustain
  itself in the long run will need to respect and
  operate in accordance with this newly revealed
  reality hence new ways of knowing are required
  for business executives to be genuine and
  effective leaders

Sander Tideman, Spirit in Business towards a
new paradigm in economics and business
22
individual

• Person

Practice
how we act upon in our world
your experience sense of self
internal
external
Policy
People
the laws structures of our society
institutions
our shared meanings values, culture
plural
23
PERSON QUADRANT

• UPPER LEFT - THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE PLAYER
• Ever developing, keen to change and be more, sees
  self as the project and the environment as a
  reflection, a context or even a compassionate
  extension of the self - every bit as worthy of
  attention and nurturance. For the prize to be
  worth winning, the game has to be good.
• Valuing autonomy and authenticity. Seeking the
  tools - emotional, psychological, spiritual
  intelligence as well as strategic capability.
• Demanding connectivity - play is engagement. The
  more complex s/he becomes, the more s/he needs a
  complex response.
• Focus on creativity - using the whole self
• Non-attached - ie prepared to lose the game to
  win the experience. Theres always the next game

individual
internal
24
internal

• THE VALUES AND THE CULTURE THAT DEVELOPS FROM
  PLAY
• The right to self determination based on
  interdependence
• The importance of desire as a route finder for a
  career / life trajectory
• Beauty for beautys sake
• Logic of networks and sharing of information
• Freedom to play matched with time / space to care
• Finite games within infinite gaming
• Soft power - everything is connected in a link of
  causation, it changes as we change - the joker,
  the chameleon, the role player. Play is the
  software for transformation
• Moving towards a post-work, more automated, more
  animated society.

plural
PEOPLE QUADRANT
25

• THE ACTIONS OF A PLAYER
• Many of the practices of Generation Y
• Searching for the means and skills to become
  employable for life but not within one career or
  one company
• Gold dusting - gathering good credentials for
  the CV by doing what s/he can for one company
  then moving on
• Flexible working practice, shorter working weeks,
  sabbaticals and leave
• Substantial lives away from work - this is not
  leisure, it is a hunger for experience and growth
• Active attention to the inner state - how do I
  feel? Is this right? Like chess players and
  sportsmen / women
• Subjectify their surroundings - it is a canvas
  for their art
• Plus sides able to confront and transform
  difficulty

individual
external
PRACTISE QUADRANT
26
external

• WHAT IS A PLAYERS SOCIETY/INSTITUTION?
• Global and networked - players want the biggest
  possible canvas for their play
• Connected, integrated, co-optive
• New groupings of companies, offering their
  players a diversity of experiences
• Creative commons
• New connectivity between business, public
  services and NGOs - each benefiting from the
  skills the others can offer potential employees
• Citizens income - creating space and opportunity
  in peoples lives to develop ideas and skills
  that dont fit into the labour market - adding to
  the sum total of social capital
• Public services taken out of political realm and
  run by communities

plural
P0LICY QUADRANT
27
Indra Adnan,Pat Kane, Directors New Integrity 38
Fitzjohns Avenue London NW4 5NB t 44 (0)20
7443 9404/9417 E-mails indraadnan_at_newintegrity.or
g patkane_at_newintegrity.org Website http//www.ne
wintegrity.org http//www.theplayethic.com