Episode 15

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Published on:

26th Jun 2023

Restoring the world as a strange place of wonder

Have you ever entered a meeting and instantly been set up to fail? Do organizations really want to change or just be seen to change? 

Consultants also get stuck in this game where they want to bring in more play and creativity and the organization thinks they should change but won’t.

This is a challenge that Steve Chapman has encountered many times and has to overcome “vanilla compromises” that leads to no change. 

He does this through compassion and care, improvisation and subtle tactics like changing the space used. 

Steve is an artist, writer, and speaker interested in creativity and the human condition. He's spoken around the world on the subject of creativity and culture and worked with over 80 organizations in many sectors to help free them from ever tightening loops of common sense.

He holds an MSC with distinction in organization's culture and change, and has held roles of visiting faculty on a number of MSC programs at Ashridge Business School, the Meno Institute, and Ruffy Park as an artist. He sold his work across seven continents, exhibited alongside the lights of Pablo Picasso and David Trigg, and has held a number of successful solo exhibitions in Central London, Hampshire.

Things to consider

  • What is the difference between work and life?
  • How do we get paid more for the things that feel like play?
  • Can compromise lead to something that makes no difference
  • Nietzche sums it up for Steve, “learning to see the world as strange makes us un home in the everyday and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.”
  • Learn to see the world as strange. 
  • Ask curious questions.

Links

Transcript
Lucy Taylor:

Hello and welcome to the show.

Lucy Taylor:

My name's Lucy Taylor from Make Work Play an organization on a

Lucy Taylor:

mission to use the power of play to unlock potential and possibility.

Tzuki Stewart:

and I'm Zuki Stewart from Playfield, a startup helping

Tzuki Stewart:

organizations to enable everyone to rediscover their creativity through

Tzuki Stewart:

playful wonder and serendipity.

Tzuki Stewart:

Together, we are.

Tzuki Stewart:

Why works.

Tzuki Stewart:

The podcast that speaks to people radically reshaping

Tzuki Stewart:

the idea of work as play.

Lucy Taylor:

So today I'm gonna be speaking to Steve Chapman.

Lucy Taylor:

Steve is an artist, writer, and speaker interested in creativity

Lucy Taylor:

and the human condition.

Lucy Taylor:

He's spoken around the world on the subject of creativity and culture and

Lucy Taylor:

worked with over 80 organizations in many sectors to help free them from

Lucy Taylor:

ever tightening loops of common sense.

Lucy Taylor:

He holds an MSC with distinction in organization's culture and

Lucy Taylor:

change, and has held roles of.

Lucy Taylor:

Visiting faculty on a number of MSC programs at Ashridge Business

Lucy Taylor:

School, the Meno Institute, and Ruffy Park as an artist.

Lucy Taylor:

He sold his work across seven continents, exhibited alongside the lights of Pablo

Lucy Taylor:

Picasso and David Trigg, and has held a number of successful solo exhibitions in

Lucy Taylor:

his work in Central London, Hampshire.

Lucy Taylor:

And, sorry.

Lucy Taylor:

Welcome Steve.

Lucy Taylor:

It's so nice to have you on the show.

Steve Chapman:

Lovely to see you, Lucy.

Steve Chapman:

I've been looking forward to

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this.

Lucy Taylor:

So I'd love to start by asking you what does play mean to you?

Steve Chapman:

it's the, it's the verb of playing.

Steve Chapman:

I think there's, there's something about active that,

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that active act of, of playing.

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And, and I know what we mean by play.

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There's something human beings do is turn, um, verbs into things and static things.

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And it's like, We're seeking play or let's use play.

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It's, for me playing is finding myself in a moment of experimentation, of

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curiosity, of I wonder what would happen if, um, experimenting, um,

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and discovering and curious thing

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are all

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part of the same process

Lucy Taylor:

curious and I love that.

Lucy Taylor:

Well, I love that phrase.

Steve Chapman:

that that's the first time I've ever used it

Lucy Taylor:

Well, now it's a

Lucy Taylor:

thing.

Lucy Taylor:

Curious thing.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, okay, so it's active.

Lucy Taylor:

It's like, so it sounds like to you it's a state of being.

Steve Chapman:

it's something that.

Steve Chapman:

I I'm less of when I'm in it to, when I'm not in it.

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I might notice that I'm no longer in a state of playing, but when

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I'm in it, I notice it less.

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So it's almost like a flow state.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Um, yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Where you're sort of just in a, in a symbiotic

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dance with your experience.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

Oh, I love that.

Lucy Taylor:

And I can feel, I can, that's really, um, like a somatic thing.

Lucy Taylor:

I can feel what you mean in my body.

Steve Chapman:

and thinking of it like that as a process means that there's

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no boundaries as to what play is.

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You could be playing by doing, like a child might play, or you could be in a

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very serious accounting job working on a spreadsheet and still find that way

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of playing.

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Um, the content It seems weird that we judge what is play and

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what is not, what is creative and

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what

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, it is interesting.

Lucy Taylor:

So then thinking about that then, how do you think about

Lucy Taylor:

the concepts of play and work?

Lucy Taylor:

It sounds like maybe they're just the same

Lucy Taylor:

thing

Lucy Taylor:

or moments of the

Lucy Taylor:

same

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, I, I really struggle, I struggle to work out the difference

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between work and life, to be honest.

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Um, in, in, in, and that's, that's, a lot of people say, oh,

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that must be wonderful, but it's.

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It's disconcerting and troubling as well when you can't work out the

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boundaries to anything, um, that you do.

Steve Chapman:

But yeah, for me it's part of the same, same flow of my experience.

Steve Chapman:

Um, the, I, guess that may be the question people are asking

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is around what you get paid for.

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So do you get paid for playing?

Steve Chapman:

But for me it's all, all the same stuff.

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I'm either more into a state of flow and play or less into it, and sometimes

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I might be getting paid for it.

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And

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sometimes I might not be getting paid for it.

Lucy Taylor:

And yeah, how do we get paid more for the things that feel like play?

Steve Chapman:

I decided, um, in the start of when the pandemic hit and I

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was deleting everything out of my diary.

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Um, and there was, I found some weird joy in deleting it all, even though it's

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like all of this money was disappearing, but I made a promise to myself I was only

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gonna put in new work in which I felt free, in which I experienced freedom.

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And I've been, um, Eric Frog's work.

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been a big influence on me and he wrote the book Escape From Freedom and basically

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using his inspiration, I thought, I'm only gonna do work where I feel intrinsically

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free, so I'm not inhibiting myself and the people or the place or the environment

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I'm working with isn't inhibiting me.

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And so that makes it more likely that I am in a space doing what I'm interested

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in and playing and experimenting and.

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Getting paid for it because the client's getting more out of me.

Steve Chapman:

Um, because that state of flow and in that zone.

Lucy Taylor:

and have you managed, have you managed to do that Have you

Lucy Taylor:

managed to keep that sense of freedom?

Steve Chapman:

absolutely.

Steve Chapman:

It means, um, I've a lot less mummy.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but I can't, bring myself to do work that, that, that I'm not

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interested in or there's no hope in.

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I think they're my things I need to be, if I'm interested.

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If I'm fascinated, then people will get more from the work I'm doing.

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Um, but also to be some sort of hope.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

there's so many, I mean, you'll get it in your work as well.

Steve Chapman:

So many times over the years people come to say, we really wanna nurture

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a culture of play and creativity.

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And then I spend some time in the organization, I

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think, I don't think you do.

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I think you like the idea of it.

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You don't actually really want to do it, and we're just going through this

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dance where you are paying money for something that you are gonna make

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sure that I can't deliver and I can't

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do that anymore.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And do you think

Steve Chapman:

a waste of

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Lucy Taylor:

And do you think.

Lucy Taylor:

Creating a culture that is kind of playful and does that

Lucy Taylor:

require freedom and like what?

Lucy Taylor:

How do you do that?

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, I mean that's the, the short answer is, I dunno,

Steve Chapman:

it's, it's so unique and subjective for every single, every single thing.

Steve Chapman:

, but for me it really is around, , I, I'm interested in patterns of stuckness.

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So what the stuck patterns in how people think, how what people

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notice about themselves, um, is the limit of their experience,

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just their cognitive experience.

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Um, are they completely tuned out of body and intuition and environment?

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And then what's the power dynamics between people?

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What's the sort of cult values around here?

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Um, and there'll be all of these social and psychological patterns that

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will potentially be incredibly stuck.

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And so all I'm interested in is experiments to, disrupt stuck

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patterns where they're helpful.

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And that doesn't mean a stuck pattern is always unhelpful.

Steve Chapman:

I've, I've probably crossed the road in the same way for many, many years

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and it seems to work for me and I don't wanna change that really.

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But often the question I'm asking is, is this helpful or not?

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Is this stuck pattern helpful or not?

Steve Chapman:

And I wrote a blog years ago around, um, creativity and play in the workplace.

Steve Chapman:

And it was, it was, it was a blog that I wrote to try and put

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people off working with me that really didn't wanna do the work.

Steve Chapman:

And there's a number of questions in there, um, awkward questions.

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And, but one of 'em is, what are you prepared to let go of?

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Because if you're not prepared to let go of something, you

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can't just keep having new stuff.

Steve Chapman:

There's got to be something you're

Steve Chapman:

prepared to let go of.

Lucy Taylor:

prepared to let go

Lucy Taylor:

of?

Steve Chapman:

I mean, the thing is, um, I think letting go of needing to

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know what's gonna happen before they start, that seems to be the main thing.

Steve Chapman:

Letting go of everything, having to be planned out and measured before we start.

Steve Chapman:

And it's the same with learning The way we, the dominant way we

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think about learning is flawed.

Steve Chapman:

I, uh, again, you'll come across it in, in your work is people only want

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to seem to start a learning experience.

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If they can fully understand it and measure it through things they already

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know, means you never learn anything new.

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Cause if you can, if you can fully evaluate it through terms and measures

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that you already know, then it's not new.

Steve Chapman:

And it's the same in organizations.

Steve Chapman:

It's, um, culture change should look, smell and feel

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countercultural.

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And often I'll be working with an organization on, I'm a huge

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culture change thing, and I'll come up with some experiments and

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I go, oh no, we don't like that.

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And it's all good.

Steve Chapman:

You shouldn't, you shouldn't like them.

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Because if you like them and love them and think, yeah, this is

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exactly what works around here.

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It's not anything novel.

Steve Chapman:

So I think that's, that's the type of thing.

Steve Chapman:

But I mean, the things that we used to teach on the Ashridge Masters

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program, which you joined me

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, I did.

Lucy Taylor:

That was a

Steve Chapman:

them once, didn't you, was really around, , power and status.

Steve Chapman:

they, they, they tends to be the main things that, that, keep.

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Organizations and cultures stuck.

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and I don't just mean like the hierarchy, although that has an impact.

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It's like what is the relative need between people at any particular time?

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Um, what is the, that dance of what Keith Johnson would say, the

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kinetic dance of status between people, , where we are inhibiting

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and being inhibited at the same time.

Steve Chapman:

And really they tends to be the main dynamics that I'm interested in,

Lucy Taylor:

where do you start with power and status in an organization?

Lucy Taylor:

Like how do you, what Can you tell us about some experiments that

Lucy Taylor:

you've done there or how you've kind of poked at at those tensions?

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, I mean, I'm.

Steve Chapman:

Where the, it's really difficult as an external to start anywhere because you

Steve Chapman:

only see people in formal environments really where you, you get to experience.

Steve Chapman:

And of course it's completely biased from my own projections and everything.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but it's to hang out in the day-to-day of an organization.

Steve Chapman:

Then you start to see the subtleties of it.

Steve Chapman:

you can pick up subtle things in conversations and, As a gestalt, gestalt

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psychology is a big influence on my work.

Steve Chapman:

I'm interested in my own experience of people as I'm talking to them.

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So if I'm chatting with someone and I'm feeling anxious or excited or

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sad, or worried or scared, I'm taking that seriously out as that's a sign

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that something's going on around here.

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So I think there's that attuning to it, first off, and then just little,

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little experiments I remember in.

Steve Chapman:

One of the things that's really important to me is in that very first engagement

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with a client in an organization, if you can't challenge and poke

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and prod in that very first thing, it's only gonna get more difficult.

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and I learned that the hard way by, by doing it the other way around and

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thinking, right, I'll just get in and do the work, and play the game and

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that, and then it becomes impossible.

Steve Chapman:

But remember with a big consultancy organization, My main client and I've

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gone well, come up with some work and then they brought in a senior

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partner to talk to me about the work.

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And this, this guy came into the, this big plush office wearing a suit

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and sat down, he said, right, okay.

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Tell me, how are you gonna wow these clever people?

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How are you gonna measure it?

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And what's your guaranteed success?

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You can provide us.

Steve Chapman:

And it's that moment of choice thinking, right?

Steve Chapman:

I, I could spin something around that.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but I just said, well, I can't, I can't do any of that really.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, and, and you know that I can't do any of that because,

Steve Chapman:

uh, this is experimentation.

Steve Chapman:

I've got a sense of what might happen, but nothing's gonna change

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unless we're in this together in a position of experimentation.

Steve Chapman:

And that, that interaction went on for about an hour.

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And then he sort of, he softened.

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And he sort of, he, he understood and he appreciated the challenge and pushback

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and we did some amazing work together.

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So that was, that was that sort of early cha and other

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times it's gone the other way.

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They said, well, we are gonna go with X who can guarantee success?

Steve Chapman:

And it's all good luck.

Steve Chapman:

X maybe they can, maybe I'm just stupid, but,

Lucy Taylor:

I wouldn't say

Steve Chapman:

I dunno what's gonna, I dunno what's gonna happen

Steve Chapman:

tomorrow in my own life, let alone what's gonna happen in a massive

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think there's, excuse something so, Brilliantly honest.

Lucy Taylor:

I'm refreshing about that.

Lucy Taylor:

Just kind of caught like, as you said, you know, you are using yourself as a special,

Lucy Taylor:

how are you feeling in a certain situation and naming that in a way that people feel

Lucy Taylor:

frightened to, I think in organizations, because it's not acceptable to say that

Lucy Taylor:

we don't know or that we are not certain.

Steve Chapman:

That's, and that's, that's what I think part of the

Steve Chapman:

work is, and that's always been a philosophy, um, that I sort of learned

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from working with KRS Dega and Claire Brees, when I did some work with re

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Loom was that, um, right from the very start, it's all, it's all relational.

Steve Chapman:

Um, everything is relational.

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And so I'm, I'm saying those things at the, at the beginning, not to be an ass.

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, It's just, and some of it's self-preservation.

Steve Chapman:

It's like, I, I need to get this on the table now.

Steve Chapman:

Cause otherwise we're gonna get six months down the line and

Steve Chapman:

it's gonna be really awkward.

Steve Chapman:

, but yeah, that, that relationship's important right from that very first,

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And to model to, I guess to model the discomfort of experimenting, cuz

Lucy Taylor:

it's not always comfortable because uncertainty is frightening sometimes.

Steve Chapman:

No, and I think that's the, that's, there's this really stuck

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game that's played between organizations and consultants, probably loads of

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other games, which is the organization, , doesn't want anything to change but

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thinks they should be doing something to, I dunno, bring more playing creativity.

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And, um, the consultant really wants to bring more playing

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creativity in, but they think the organization's not gonna go for it.

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So both compromise.

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, and end up getting to some vanilla thing that's gonna

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make no difference whatsoever.

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And I think you've got to, again, is what Karen and I used to teach

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on the Ashridge Masters program.

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You've gotta be on the edge of being fired right from that first meeting.

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Really.

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If, I mean, not again, from a place of compassion and care, it's not like

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you're just going in saying, I'm an arrogant kid and I wanna be fired.

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It's like you need to prod right from the start.

Steve Chapman:

And there's, there's so many brilliant improvisers, musicians and creatives and

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artists that I've seen that are going to do work in the corporate world, and,

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uh, uh, they've told me what they're gonna do, and it's like, no, no, no.

Steve Chapman:

You don't need to do that.

Steve Chapman:

You don't need to wear the suit.

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You don't need to use this language.

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You don't need to write this in this way.

Steve Chapman:

Fair enough.

Steve Chapman:

Make it understandable.

Steve Chapman:

Meet them where they're at, but don't round off all that brilliant

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weirdness that you've got.

Steve Chapman:

I'm chair of the board of a dyslexic, um, arts organization called Move

Steve Chapman:

Beyond Words, and they, they're dancers and they've been doing some work

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around, , communication and dance and understanding in the corporate world.

Steve Chapman:

And one of the things that I've been really, um, encouraging them

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to do is the, the corporates come into their world, they come to the

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studio, they use their language, , rather than the other way round.

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Because it's just, it's, it's not equal at the moment.

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, so that they're, the types of subtle things I think around power, even

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space, , space, uh, office space, location, what we wear are all, I mean,

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it's no status and power is never good nor bad the results of it are or can

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be, but it's just a natural phenomena.

Steve Chapman:

So they're all the subtle things that I'm

Steve Chapman:

always really interested in.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, and it's like, I think the space is so important, kind

Lucy Taylor:

of taking, as you said, people out of their day to day and planting them in

Lucy Taylor:

a context that's a bit disorienting leads to a very different kind of

Lucy Taylor:

conversation or learning experience.

Steve Chapman:

yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Absolutely.

Steve Chapman:

And, and more chance for randomness, I think.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

More chance for the

Lucy Taylor:

So I know, so you describe your work as being playful

Lucy Taylor:

with the unknown, and I'd love if you could share a couple of examples

Lucy Taylor:

of how, how you experiment with the unknown and how you create those

Lucy Taylor:

kind of uncertain but held containers for the people that you work with.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, I mean that, that, that, um, I think that's my

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strap line on LinkedIn, isn't it?

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Playful with not knowing.

Steve Chapman:

Cause I remember, um, I was in a workshop and someone had a, they had

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a whole session that was like, it's an experimental workshop and it's

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45 minutes to come up with a four line way of describing your work.

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And just instantly, as soon as they said four, uh, four words, so that within

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the first few seconds of the workshop I came up with it and that was it.

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And I don't, I think I just sat around drawing for the rest of the workshop.

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But for me it's that combination of what's really important to me about

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not knowing is that moves us towards curiosity that moves us towards mystery.

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There's that nature.

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Quote that on.

Steve Chapman:

I probably quote it on every single podcast I'm on, but

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that sums it up for me.

Steve Chapman:

So Nietzche said, learning to see the world as strange makes us un home in

Steve Chapman:

the every day and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.

Lucy Taylor:

Wow.

Steve Chapman:

So learning to see the world as strange makes us un home

Steve Chapman:

in the everyday and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.

Steve Chapman:

So that for me is the importance of moving towards not knowing however difficult.

Steve Chapman:

And, uh, I never find it easy because it restores the world as

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a place of wonder and mystery.

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And that's what cu that invites curiosity, and then that invites

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creativity, and then that invites play.

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I mean, if you're in a state of wonder, it's much easier

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to play.

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It, it's just like that.

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It's that that invites me, into that space.

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So it's not like I have a way of working.

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It's just a, an underpinning philosophy, I think.

Steve Chapman:

And I love that bit.

Steve Chapman:

Learning to see the world as strange.

Steve Chapman:

That's a really difficult thing to do.

Steve Chapman:

Like to look out the window and not go, oh look, there's a treat there.

Steve Chapman:

that's the label that I've got for it.

Steve Chapman:

That's just the convenient way of labeling it.

Steve Chapman:

How can I possibly experience every element of that thing

Steve Chapman:

that's out there and go, what the

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And that idea of becoming un home in the every day, like

Lucy Taylor:

there's just so much in that.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think for this sort of work, there's so much in that.

Lucy Taylor:

How do you create somewhere that is un home in order to recast

Lucy Taylor:

like those power relationships, how people relate to their work.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, so Rich

Steve Chapman:

there's the importance for me around, um, how I work with others,

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which was your question as well, is, um, to create, it's a, it's a phrase I got

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off a guy called Barry Mason, but how do I create a sense of safe uncertainty?

Steve Chapman:

And there's so much written about psychological safety to the point.

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It sort of doesn't mean anything anymore.

Steve Chapman:

Um, it's just become a thing that you apply.

Steve Chapman:

But I like the concept of psychological safety, but that

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doesn't leave that uncertainty.

Steve Chapman:

But Barry Mason's idea of safe uncertainty, which I think he

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wrote that paper in the nineties, so it's not new stuff, is what I'm

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interested in.

Lucy Taylor:

do you.

Steve Chapman:

And I think of that as, I think of that as

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the world of just enoughness.

Steve Chapman:

So what's, just enough structure?

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Just enough order.

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Just enough of an agenda.

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Just enough of a container.

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Like physical or emotional.

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Or psychological or, or logistical so that people aren't freaking

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out, but not a drop more.

Steve Chapman:

And that, I think that's the thing.

Steve Chapman:

Um, That, that's one of the things, a place of safe uncertainty.

Steve Chapman:

And that's different for every group.

Steve Chapman:

It's different for every person.

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So that's sort of what I always, always start a session by

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asking people , why you here?

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Even if they've been told to come here.

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Cause then I get a sense of what might be a sense of safe uncertainty around here.

Steve Chapman:

And I think the other really, really, really important thing, particularly about

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people doing weird, strange work like we do, is we are absolutely modeling.

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What we are teaching, um, not pretending to, um, but actually are.

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So I know that I am at my best when I'm right on the edge of

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not knowing what I'm doing.

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so I'm, I'm facilitating a, a workshop, down at Schumacher.

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Very soon on facilitation, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do, but

Steve Chapman:

I know I've got a day and I know roughly what the start will be.

Steve Chapman:

And I know when I need to end and I've got an idea of some stuff that

Steve Chapman:

I might do to use the environment.

Steve Chapman:

But I've learned over the years to not, not think too

Steve Chapman:

much about what I'm gonna do.

Steve Chapman:

Um, again, not from any other position that that means I show

Steve Chapman:

up in, in the same space that I'm wanting the participants to be in.

Steve Chapman:

Cause you can only lead people where you've gone yourself.

Steve Chapman:

And the same, like, the same with this, this podcast.

Steve Chapman:

It's, I always find these things are helpful if I don't know what

Steve Chapman:

the questions are beforehand.

Steve Chapman:

I know you, I know you and I, it's about play.

Steve Chapman:

I know we're recording for this period of time.

Steve Chapman:

I know roughly what we'd be talking about.

Steve Chapman:

But again, that's, that's that putting on the edge of being on home is how can

Steve Chapman:

I make myself on home in this everyday work that I, that I do all the time.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and I don't like really like doing the same workshop or the same talk more

Steve Chapman:

than once, because that makes it more,

Lucy Taylor:

Yes, I guess you don't, you don't have that.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, That e, that edge that comes with doing something for the first

Lucy Taylor:

time, and it's you having to be totally present once you've done it.

Lucy Taylor:

Once you fall back into a habit or a pat a groove.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

And I know that I'm not good with scripts, so I used to do lots of work in radio.

Steve Chapman:

used to write stuff for radio.

Steve Chapman:

Just, I did a number of different, like shows that were mainly

Steve Chapman:

improvised and again, you have a structure, uh, around there.

Steve Chapman:

You have a clock that needs to go to the news on the hour and stuff like that.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but then I did some work with a local radio station on

Steve Chapman:

the sports show, um, years ago.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, it must have been 20 years ago.

Steve Chapman:

And, um, I had to do a roundup of the local football news.

Steve Chapman:

And I had to write a script for it.

Steve Chapman:

Cause then he did everything scripted for some sort of regulation.

Steve Chapman:

And then I had to read my own script and it was terrible.

Steve Chapman:

I only did it once because I've become really anxious.

Steve Chapman:

I've become really out of breath.

Steve Chapman:

I couldn't get my words out.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and it was my own script and suddenly the script looked really long.

Steve Chapman:

And that's just always been a memory of how I find a script disabling.

Steve Chapman:

And it's the same with talks.

Steve Chapman:

It's like my inner critic Ted Talk.

Steve Chapman:

I've been invited to do that so many times and it's.

Steve Chapman:

I could make a lot of money outta doing that, probably, but it's

Steve Chapman:

like, I don't wanna do it again.

Steve Chapman:

Watch it online if you wanna see it, because I will be thinking of what I said

Steve Chapman:

last time and trying to do that again.

Steve Chapman:

So I, I like to be as close to experiencing things,

Steve Chapman:

uh, as, as new as possible.

Steve Chapman:

It's like, it is what the Buddhist call a beginner's mind, isn't it?

Steve Chapman:

like Shin Suzuki said in the mind of a beginner, there are infinite

Steve Chapman:

possibilities in the mind of an

Steve Chapman:

expert.

Steve Chapman:

There are a few.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think it's a great provocation, you know, how can we, Be

Lucy Taylor:

less prepare or I think it's important to prepare and I think what you are talking

Lucy Taylor:

about, you have decades of experience and you are able to do that and I think

Lucy Taylor:

probably, you know, maybe when you were less experienced you would prepare more.

Lucy Taylor:

But I think it's an interesting provocation, like what is just enough?

Lucy Taylor:

Like how can we

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

be more comfortable in that space of improvisation

Steve Chapman:

Yeah,

Lucy Taylor:

just being in the

Steve Chapman:

and I think the really important thing, the really important

Steve Chapman:

thing in what you're saying there is, I know what is just enough for me, but

Steve Chapman:

that won't work for everyone else and your just enough won't work for me.

Steve Chapman:

So it's to find out uniquely what it is.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, I know and I trust myself enough that when I'm in

Steve Chapman:

a space, I will know what to do.

Steve Chapman:

It's like I did the artist residency in, in, up in Scotland earlier this year.

Steve Chapman:

, so I was going up there for a week, invite a load of other artists.

Steve Chapman:

We were gonna be having workshops, and I, it was really difficult to not think

Steve Chapman:

about it other than I had to bring a load of art materials to Scotland.

Steve Chapman:

The, the plan was, I would discover what this is when I'm there and I

Steve Chapman:

trusted that I would, and I did.

Steve Chapman:

And it's the same like I, I know it, this workshop in Schumacher.

Steve Chapman:

I know I'll go, oh, right, yeah.

Steve Chapman:

This is what we can do.

Steve Chapman:

And if I don't, then what I'm doing is saying, I dunno what to do.

Steve Chapman:

Let's work out what it can be.

Steve Chapman:

You never without something to do.

Steve Chapman:

I did a, an online workshop for supervisors the other week and I came back

Steve Chapman:

after the break and I had loads of ideas of games and experiments we could do.

Steve Chapman:

And then I thought just before we started, That's what I think we should be doing.

Steve Chapman:

That's what I think I, that, that's my default.

Steve Chapman:

I'm going back into my default.

Steve Chapman:

I genuinely dunno what's needed here.

Steve Chapman:

So we came back after the break and I just said, I, I dunno what's needed here.

Steve Chapman:

I really don't.

Steve Chapman:

And then it was just quiet for ages.

Steve Chapman:

And then some people spoke and then some people got annoyed.

Steve Chapman:

And then that prompted me to remember a story that I told and

Steve Chapman:

then something else happened.

Steve Chapman:

And then in the end we found a whole thing that we ended up doing.

Steve Chapman:

But I think that's the thing is if, if we find ourselves in a moment

Steve Chapman:

of not knowing, then play with it.

Steve Chapman:

It's like, oh, isn't this interesting?

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

I've like, I've run out of stuff.

Steve Chapman:

That's, that's brilliant.

Steve Chapman:

Cuz that means that whatever comes next is gonna

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, and like, and share that.

Lucy Taylor:

So you shared that with a group of people and together you were able

Lucy Taylor:

to feel your way into something that felt true for the group.

Steve Chapman:

and not every, not everyone.

Steve Chapman:

Not everyone got it.

Steve Chapman:

Um, Some people just thought it was ridiculous.

Steve Chapman:

Some someone, someone said in the feedback, I had feedback from that

Steve Chapman:

session that ranged from saying, this is the best teaching I've had

Steve Chapman:

in decades, to someone else saying this seemed terribly badly prepared.

Steve Chapman:

Um, so it's all

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, totally subjective,

Steve Chapman:

But again, that's a power thing because I've, I've sort of got to

Steve Chapman:

that place before with groups and it's really not worked and I've been rejected.

Steve Chapman:

Well, not say not worked.

Steve Chapman:

It's not happened in the same way it can either work or not.

Steve Chapman:

And again, I think that's a, the typical pa pattern of power.

Steve Chapman:

We pay someone to come in with the knowledge to feed

Steve Chapman:

us the answer, then we apply.

Steve Chapman:

Um, so again, I'm always interested in what's the potential for.

Steve Chapman:

For these experiments in not knowing

Lucy Taylor:

I'm really interested in that idea of like when things haven't worked.

Lucy Taylor:

Can you give, can you share some examples like of when actually

Lucy Taylor:

this has been completely rejected or when it's kind of fallen flat?

Steve Chapman:

I always go back to a real, I mean, there's always little.

Steve Chapman:

Moments.

Steve Chapman:

So is that one I just said recently around some people in

Steve Chapman:

the, in that group didn't get it.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and I'm all, I'm, I've, I've got a rule of thirds in mind when working with

Steve Chapman:

groups is that a third are gonna get it and be inspired by it and do something.

Steve Chapman:

Another third would be going, I, I really dunno.

Steve Chapman:

I have way, what the hell's going on?

Steve Chapman:

And then another third in me saying, that's ridiculous.

Steve Chapman:

So, and if I hit that, Then, yeah, I, I reckon I'm doing well.

Steve Chapman:

But the one that always comes to mind was one of the first workshops that I did.

Steve Chapman:

Then it was for a university with, um, the senior faculty of a university and

Steve Chapman:

some of the staff, and this must have been 15 years ago, just, uh, just as

Steve Chapman:

I started going out on my own and they wanted to work on uncertainty or I

Steve Chapman:

dunno, agility or something like that.

Steve Chapman:

So I was just gonna do a load of, Improvisation exercises with them.

Steve Chapman:

And I couldn't get them to do anything.

Steve Chapman:

Every time I say, right, let's do this.

Steve Chapman:

They wanted to know why.

Steve Chapman:

They wanted to know the theory, they wanted to know that.

Steve Chapman:

And we, we'd do like some simple, I dunno, even just yes.

Steve Chapman:

And stuff.

Steve Chapman:

And they'd be wanting, before they began, they'd be wanting

Steve Chapman:

to know the theory behind it.

Steve Chapman:

And they'd say, no, no, I've done this before.

Steve Chapman:

Um, what new stuff have you got?

Steve Chapman:

Type of thing.

Steve Chapman:

And I was hating every moment of it.

Steve Chapman:

And then, so he got to lunchtime and I just said that I'm not enjoying this.

Steve Chapman:

You don't seem to be enjoying it.

Steve Chapman:

If you don't wanna come back after break, don't come back.

Steve Chapman:

And then we went to break and none of the faculty came back who were, I mean,

Steve Chapman:

this might have been a coincidence.

Steve Chapman:

All of the faculty were, um, middle-aged boarding white men with beards.

Steve Chapman:

none of them came back.

Steve Chapman:

but the staff came back.

Steve Chapman:

So we had a much smaller group of maybe six people instead of 16 people.

Steve Chapman:

And we had a brilliant afternoon, but that clearly wasn't working, that

Steve Chapman:

they clearly weren't interested in it.

Steve Chapman:

And I think there's a couple of times like we've talks or workshops that haven't

Steve Chapman:

worked for me where There's a difference between preparation that is helpful and

Steve Chapman:

preparation that you feel you should be doing so that you feel you've prepared.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and I, I try and avoid that, but I think there was a couple of

Steve Chapman:

workshops or talks where I, I don't think it was going into an arrogance,

Steve Chapman:

but it's just me thinking, yeah, I got this and I hadn't done that.

Steve Chapman:

Helpful preparation.

Steve Chapman:

I always, I always like a bit of an edge.

Steve Chapman:

I always.

Steve Chapman:

Worry about a workshop or a talk the day before.

Steve Chapman:

Not, not obsessively, but there's that, maybe it's adrenaline.

Steve Chapman:

There's been a couple of times when I've not had that and I've thought,

Steve Chapman:

nah, that's not been very good.

Steve Chapman:

so again, that's that importance of what's that balance between me, between

Steve Chapman:

knowing and not knowing, just enough

Steve Chapman:

preparation and not.

Lucy Taylor:

And, you got any, , experiences of kind of working

Lucy Taylor:

with organizations where you were like, that was bloody amazing.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, there's, um, again, it, it depends on, I don't

Steve Chapman:

think there's any such thing as like a creative organization.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, the philosophy I think is the organization doesn't exist.

Steve Chapman:

It's a patterning of relationships.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but you sometimes get pockets of.

Steve Chapman:

people or collectives of people that just fly it.

Steve Chapman:

And there's, there was a Dutch company I worked with for years

Steve Chapman:

and just doing some work around innovation and we'd do this weird.

Steve Chapman:

Day of inventing nonsense.

Steve Chapman:

That was nothing to do with our industry and in, but seriously inventing

Steve Chapman:

it, not just coming up with a name.

Steve Chapman:

We'd, we'd spent ages developing these ideas and expanding them, and then getting

Steve Chapman:

into, like, making rapid prototypes.

Steve Chapman:

So for me, a rapid prototype is, uh, an experiment to fail cheap, fast, and happy.

Lucy Taylor:

Nice.

Steve Chapman:

And when I've done this with groups before, people might

Steve Chapman:

get a flip chart and draw some sort of like half shy picture of this

Steve Chapman:

strange invention, but consistently with these, these, um, groups in this

Steve Chapman:

organization, they would go for it.

Steve Chapman:

And I remember them in the venue.

Steve Chapman:

I, I was in one group went out and they went and bought some curtains.

Steve Chapman:

From a shop down the road and created this immersive experience that

Steve Chapman:

we'd go in to see their invention.

Steve Chapman:

And everyone went into the kitchen of the venue and got this massive

Steve Chapman:

vat and filled it with water and they were come, they were struggling

Steve Chapman:

to get water in, so then they got a porter to help them bring it in.

Steve Chapman:

And it was just that, that total commitment to this pointless thing.

Steve Chapman:

And I loved working with them so much.

Steve Chapman:

and I, I'd give them some simple little experiments, um, like ways of getting

Steve Chapman:

unstuck, quick ways of getting unstuck.

Steve Chapman:

So you'll be familiar with the improv, um, game Eight things.

Steve Chapman:

So stand in a circle.

Steve Chapman:

Well, we, we'd do a

Steve Chapman:

musical version, don't we?

Steve Chapman:

Someone goes in the middle and name eight things.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and so I used to do that and they loved it, and I went back to visit them,

Steve Chapman:

uh, a couple of years later in Amsterdam.

Steve Chapman:

And they, they call it the fast eights.

Steve Chapman:

And they just do it everywhere.

Steve Chapman:

And it's just like, no, we need to do some fast date.

Steve Chapman:

And then they'll just jump up.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, this is a big organization and it's moments like that where I think

Steve Chapman:

this has now taken on the life of its own way beyond the work that we did here.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and so there's probably a number of things there.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, there, there'd be something about the Dutch

Steve Chapman:

culture.

Steve Chapman:

Of being bold and, um, at least the, I've worked with quite

Steve Chapman:

a lot of Dutch organizations.

Steve Chapman:

There seems to be a greater willingness to go out there a bit.

Steve Chapman:

there's also the permission that they gave themselves, the permission

Steve Chapman:

I gave them, there was genuinely a space for play and experimentation.

Steve Chapman:

So there would've been so many different things going on there compared

Steve Chapman:

to that first room of academics.

Steve Chapman:

And then I would've been, I would've been more confident as well.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, there's at least a 10 year gap between those two stories.

Steve Chapman:

I would've been more comfortable having done more experimental

Lucy Taylor:

and I love the fact that, was total commitment to

Lucy Taylor:

a pointless thing, and cuz you.

Lucy Taylor:

You did a project called the Not a Lost Cat project, which you

Lucy Taylor:

describe as being utterly pointless.

Lucy Taylor:

So, listener Steve is holding up a poster from the Not Alo Lost Cat Project.

Lucy Taylor:

Do you wanna do, do, you wanna tell,

Steve Chapman:

There's always

Steve Chapman:

got one to

Steve Chapman:

hand.

Lucy Taylor:

experiment?

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

And I just, I describe that as an utterly pointless project.

Steve Chapman:

Um, so a number of the project, I call them projects, they're like conceptual

Steve Chapman:

art projects are like art activism project, I dunno what you wanna call them.

Steve Chapman:

They tend to have a.

Steve Chapman:

At least an intention.

Steve Chapman:

So I did, uh, hosted the World's first silent

Lucy Taylor:

You

Lucy Taylor:

did and my son at age three was

Lucy Taylor:

on

Lucy Taylor:

it, and he was completely silent.

Steve Chapman:

He was, he was, um, he was episode 89 of 100.

Steve Chapman:

I've got them all written up on the wall here, but with a silent podcast project.

Steve Chapman:

It was an experiment.

Steve Chapman:

And my, my question was, what's the opposite of a podcast?

Steve Chapman:

How can that challenge.

Steve Chapman:

Our addiction to, to content.

Steve Chapman:

How can that challenge, um, people buying our attention, et cetera.

Steve Chapman:

But the Lost Cat Project had no point to it.

Steve Chapman:

And I was out walking my dog in the woods and I saw a lost

Steve Chapman:

cat poster in the distance.

Steve Chapman:

And I thought, I can't be bothered to walk over there.

Steve Chapman:

It's out of my way.

Steve Chapman:

Like I'm in London.

Steve Chapman:

I saw, I walk in a straight line between places.

Steve Chapman:

I don't deviate, but there's something about this cat poster.

Steve Chapman:

I thought, no, I'm gonna go over.

Steve Chapman:

And I walked over and it was just this most magnificent cat with massive

Steve Chapman:

ears and it was slightly cross-eyed.

Steve Chapman:

Um, it just looked like a weird cat.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and at the bottom it said, take a photo of this poster, share it with all

Steve Chapman:

your friends to help bring him home.

Steve Chapman:

Which is a nice way of finding a cat.

Steve Chapman:

And I thought, well, I wonder if this person just thinks that

Steve Chapman:

their cat is so amazing that they just want it to go viral.

Steve Chapman:

Maybe it's not even lost.

Steve Chapman:

Maybe it's just like, look at my brilliant cat.

Steve Chapman:

Send these pictures around.

Steve Chapman:

So I went home and painted my own fake version of it, and it just says, this is

Steve Chapman:

not one of those posters about a lost cat.

Steve Chapman:

My cat isn't lost.

Steve Chapman:

I don't even have a cat.

Steve Chapman:

I just wanted to show you my painting of this magnificent beast.

Steve Chapman:

And that was it.

Steve Chapman:

I painted it on lay free bit of Bristol board and I, I put it on

Steve Chapman:

Instagram and loads of people loved it and said, can I have a copy of it?

Steve Chapman:

So I made some copies and then more people wanted it.

Steve Chapman:

And I thought, well, there's something going on here.

Steve Chapman:

And this is the, this principle of the improvisation principle

Steve Chapman:

of what's the offer here?

Steve Chapman:

What there's an offer here.

Steve Chapman:

There's some things emerging, and it's like people like this, this thing.

Steve Chapman:

So I turned it into some posters.

Steve Chapman:

And I put 10 posters up in shortage and then more people

Steve Chapman:

said, can I have a poster?

Steve Chapman:

And a journalist got in contact saying, what's all this about?

Steve Chapman:

And I said to him, I dunno, he's just a poster.

Steve Chapman:

And then to cut a long story short, over a period of a year, um, it's

Steve Chapman:

probably a year and a half now.

Steve Chapman:

There are now over 4,000 lost cat posters in 52 countries on every

Steve Chapman:

single continent in the world where people have got them and they can

Steve Chapman:

get them for free from my website.

Steve Chapman:

They have to cover postage at the start.

Steve Chapman:

I've covered postage and then realized that it just costing me too much money.

Steve Chapman:

and people just love being part of this pointless thing.

Steve Chapman:

And they get a poster and they put it up wherever they

Steve Chapman:

are and send me a photo back.

Lucy Taylor:

Oh, it's such.

Steve Chapman:

And on the website there's a, there's an interactive map,

Steve Chapman:

so you can see a poster in Antarctica.

Steve Chapman:

There's something, uh, one in Bangalore.

Steve Chapman:

There's one in Hollywood.

Steve Chapman:

Um, it's in South America.

Steve Chapman:

I just had one from Greenland recently.

Steve Chapman:

and again, that's another thing where I'm not in charge of that project anymore,

Steve Chapman:

that it's, it has a life of its own.

Steve Chapman:

It goes wherever it wants to go.

Steve Chapman:

and then all of a sudden I'll get hundreds of orders.

Steve Chapman:

And there was an article in the Observer Magazine about

Steve Chapman:

it, so everyone orders them.

Steve Chapman:

And then, I think Creative Block wrote an article about it and Zoe Ball mentioned

Steve Chapman:

it on her breakfast show last year.

Steve Chapman:

And it's just, it just keeps growing and growing.

Steve Chapman:

But similar to that Dutch company.

Steve Chapman:

That's the thing that I love, is that, what I do is I ask the curious question.

Steve Chapman:

I wonder what happened if I put these posters up and then my job

Steve Chapman:

is to let it go wherever it goes.

Steve Chapman:

I'm just nudging it.

Steve Chapman:

I'm just yes, ending it.

Steve Chapman:

I'm just prodding it in the right direction.

Steve Chapman:

And then what was brilliant, it's a market.

Steve Chapman:

So many marketing companies have said to me, we'd spend a

Steve Chapman:

fortune on something like that.

Steve Chapman:

Wouldn't, wouldn't be successful.

Steve Chapman:

So what's the secret?

Steve Chapman:

And I said, I think the secret is there's no point to it whatsoever.

Steve Chapman:

it doesn't make, it's not for profit.

Steve Chapman:

It isn't the, an advert for cat food or something like that.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and I think people just enjoy the

Steve Chapman:

pointlessness of it.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think there's something so interesting cuz if, if

Lucy Taylor:

you, if you look at it now and chart back, you know, this one whimsical thing

Lucy Taylor:

that you did because you were curious has created this like infinite world of

Lucy Taylor:

possibility and fun and randomness and.

Lucy Taylor:

Play and hilarity and you could never know in that moment like

Lucy Taylor:

that, that curious act of yours would just lead to this explosion.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think there's, there's a leap of faith like it, you know,

Lucy Taylor:

cuz this is you, this is you as an artist pursuing your curiosity.

Lucy Taylor:

But think if you're thinking about people working in organizations,

Lucy Taylor:

there needs to be a similar.

Lucy Taylor:

Space for pointlessness space to do things because you are, you think it

Lucy Taylor:

sounds fine or interesting, but you don't actually know where it's gonna go.

Steve Chapman:

No.

Steve Chapman:

And that's, that's the thing is if I'd not walked over to that poster,

Steve Chapman:

then this wouldn't have happened.

Steve Chapman:

And whilst the Lost Cat project has made me no money, the, it's been brilliant

Steve Chapman:

marketing, accidental marketing.

Steve Chapman:

So it's led to other stuff for me.

Steve Chapman:

But if I'd not, if I'd ignored that poster, then it wouldn't have happened.

Steve Chapman:

And as if I, I often tell that story to illustrate a really important point

Steve Chapman:

to me about creativity and ideas.

Steve Chapman:

Because people say like, where do you get ideas?

Steve Chapman:

Where do I get my ideas from?

Steve Chapman:

It's like I, that's such a strange question.

Steve Chapman:

What do you mean they're everywhere?

Steve Chapman:

And I think it's, cuz I got a, a neurodiverse brain is I see

Steve Chapman:

the world in patterns anyway.

Steve Chapman:

So I'm predisposed.

Steve Chapman:

I mean, most dyslexic are autistic and various other people will

Steve Chapman:

see the world in that way.

Steve Chapman:

then it's also, there's a concept.

Steve Chapman:

Which I can't remember if I said to you before, but I've certainly not

Steve Chapman:

said it on this podcast, from a guy called ar Mendel, which is quantum

Lucy Taylor:

Oh, I've never heard of it, but I

Lucy Taylor:

love the name of it.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Quantum flirting, even if you don't, even if I don't explain it,

Steve Chapman:

quant quantum flirting has become such an important way of articulating of

Steve Chapman:

how I, like to interact with the world.

Steve Chapman:

So this is saying instead of, Choosing where to put your attention.

Steve Chapman:

It's letting go and allowing yourself to tune into what's

Steve Chapman:

calling for your attention.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

So I always say, you don't need to have ideas, you need to quiet so

Steve Chapman:

you can hear the ideas whispering to you.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

And that, that's the thing, is to be open.

Steve Chapman:

It's the same like with with workshops.

Steve Chapman:

I'll have enough of a structure, but then I want to be tuned

Steve Chapman:

into what's whispering for me.

Steve Chapman:

And in that moment, that cat poster was going, come over here and I, I had

Steve Chapman:

no logical reason to go over there.

Steve Chapman:

I didn't think I'm gonna go over there cuz that might lead to a big thing.

Steve Chapman:

And it was that, that principle of quantum flirting of like, oh no, I

Steve Chapman:

need to follow my gut instinct here.

Steve Chapman:

Um, and all of my work is led by gut instincts, which causes

Steve Chapman:

big arguments with my head.

Steve Chapman:

My head's going actually stupid.

Steve Chapman:

gut instincts going, no, we are doing it anyway.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but yeah, so that principle of quantum flirting of you,

Steve Chapman:

our job is to be open to the

Steve Chapman:

quiet whispers.

Steve Chapman:

And I think that links back with a nature thing of if you're, if you're

Steve Chapman:

making yourself feel on the edge of the everyday feeling like I'm home to

Steve Chapman:

you, it's much, there's, yeah, there's so many things that you can tune into.

Lucy Taylor:

how do you do that for yourself?

Steve Chapman:

I don't know is the honest answer.

Steve Chapman:

I don't know.

Steve Chapman:

But I've managed to, I guess through loads and loads of little experiments.

Steve Chapman:

I couldn't tell you what my process is other than it sort of works and I,

Steve Chapman:

I have learned to mistrust anything that smell that seems too concrete.

Steve Chapman:

Um, Alfred, north Whitehead called it the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Steve Chapman:

anything that's like if I go, oh, this is my process, this is how it works.

Steve Chapman:

I've learned to be suspicious of that thinking.

Steve Chapman:

No, that's a, that's a simplified abstraction of something that's far

Steve Chapman:

more complex.

Lucy Taylor:

I love that.

Steve Chapman:

But I, I think it's, it's, it's, again, it's rapid prototyping.

Steve Chapman:

It's failing cheap, fast, and happy.

Steve Chapman:

Maybe I did it once in a workshop and then I did something else

Steve Chapman:

and I did something else.

Steve Chapman:

And then I've got a whole talk that I do now, um, about all these projects.

Steve Chapman:

And they're all projects that have come from practicing this.

Steve Chapman:

So I've learned to trust that gut feel, which isn't easy because it's,

Steve Chapman:

it means you trust your gut feel in very difficult things in life as well.

Steve Chapman:

Um, which, so it's not, it's not all fun and games, that's just one side

Steve Chapman:

of it, but it's like, okay, there's difficult decisions, difficult

Steve Chapman:

conversations, difficult things to do.

Steve Chapman:

It's all part of the

Steve Chapman:

same process.

Lucy Taylor:

And it's brave.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, there's, it's almost, I'm never sure if it's brave.

Steve Chapman:

Um, I think other people perceive it as brave, but for

Steve Chapman:

me it's like I can't not do it.

Steve Chapman:

It's like, why?

Steve Chapman:

Where do I get the motivation to carry on doing, I dunno, the, the Sound of

Steve Chapman:

Silence podcast for two and a half years, and it's like, I can't not do it.

Steve Chapman:

Believe me.

Steve Chapman:

There were moments in that podcast where, I hate this, I just wanna chuck it.

Steve Chapman:

It's, it's ridiculous.

Steve Chapman:

It's taken up too much for my time.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, I just can't

Lucy Taylor:

Mm, lovely.

Lucy Taylor:

So before we finish, I wondered if you had a, had a game or a playful

Lucy Taylor:

practice you wanted to share.

Steve Chapman:

give me two letters of the alphabet.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, B and S

Steve Chapman:

Okay.

Steve Chapman:

This is, uh, a game called, b.

Lucy Taylor:

oh b

Steve Chapman:

Okay.

Lucy Taylor:

I love that game.

Steve Chapman:

b

Steve Chapman:

Salute.

Steve Chapman:

So I am going to, make three different sounds.

Steve Chapman:

One is a B, one is a wasp and one is a mosquito.

Steve Chapman:

when I do the B one, I would like you to salute.

Steve Chapman:

Okay?

Steve Chapman:

Um, but if you do it on the wrong one, you're out of the game.

Steve Chapman:

Okay.

Steve Chapman:

But you might, you might need to say salute

Steve Chapman:

cuz it's a podcast.

Steve Chapman:

Okay.

Steve Chapman:

This is how we play be salute.

Steve Chapman:

So I'm gonna let you hear the three different sounds, first of all, and then

Steve Chapman:

the second time we're playing for real.

Steve Chapman:

Okay, so sound number one.

Lucy Taylor:

Okay?

Steve Chapman:

Sound number two is

Lucy Taylor:

yeah.

Steve Chapman:

and sound number three.

Lucy Taylor:

Okay.

Steve Chapman:

you ready?

Steve Chapman:

We're gonna play it for real now, and as soon as you hear that

Steve Chapman:

sound, I'm gonna randomize them.

Steve Chapman:

They won't be in the same order.

Steve Chapman:

You just

Steve Chapman:

need to

Lucy Taylor:

yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

Salute.

Steve Chapman:

Salute.

Steve Chapman:

Correct.

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Steve Chapman:

that's how

Steve Chapman:

that's how

Steve Chapman:

you

Steve Chapman:

play.

Steve Chapman:

Be

Lucy Taylor:

Okay.

Lucy Taylor:

So ladies and gentlemen, we have, Steve has just invented and never played before.

Lucy Taylor:

Game be salute,

Steve Chapman:

Yeah, I mean, that's one of my, my favorite things to do is come up

Steve Chapman:

with two letters and then invent the game.

Steve Chapman:

Actually, I might do that at this facilitation

Steve Chapman:

course next

Lucy Taylor:

I, that just sounds brilliant.

Lucy Taylor:

And when I have got people to invent games, they're

Lucy Taylor:

always amazing and hilarious

Lucy Taylor:

and

Steve Chapman:

They're the best

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

and the commitment that people show is astounding.

Steve Chapman:

Yeah.

Steve Chapman:

And you got it.

Steve Chapman:

You got it right.

Steve Chapman:

And of course, whatever one you saluted to, I was gonna say yes, that's it.

Steve Chapman:

Because that's, that's the thing.

Steve Chapman:

There's this brilliant story in orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon Mackenzie,

Steve Chapman:

which I dunno if you've read that.

Steve Chapman:

It's a lovely book.

Steve Chapman:

There's a bit where he bec, he gets a role, a job in Hallmark

Steve Chapman:

cards as the creative paradox.

Steve Chapman:

And he doesn't know what the job is and no one knows, but he has a throne

Steve Chapman:

in his little office and candles, and he sits there like a guru and people

Steve Chapman:

start coming in and saying to him, oh.

Steve Chapman:

Gordon, I've got an idea.

Steve Chapman:

Um, can I, is this your job as a creative paradox?

Steve Chapman:

And he goes, yeah.

Steve Chapman:

Yep.

Steve Chapman:

And so they'd share their ideas with him and he'd go, I think it's brilliant.

Steve Chapman:

I think you should do it.

Steve Chapman:

But he used to say that to every single person that came in.

Steve Chapman:

Um, but they didn't know.

Steve Chapman:

He said it to every single person.

Steve Chapman:

that's, that's what I thought of with be salute is whatever you say

Lucy Taylor:

It's the right answer.

Lucy Taylor:

and

Lucy Taylor:

and that's a lovely in, in your, , creative practices that

Lucy Taylor:

you have, making others look good.

Lucy Taylor:

Is in there

Steve Chapman:

Yeah,

Lucy Taylor:

with

Lucy Taylor:

other people.

Steve Chapman:

yeah, absolutely.

Steve Chapman:

It's one

Steve Chapman:

of

Steve Chapman:

the things

Steve Chapman:

from years of improv, um, that really all you need

Steve Chapman:

to do, all you need to do is

Steve Chapman:

say yes and make the other

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

Well, Steve, thank you so much for coming on, why Play Works.

Lucy Taylor:

It's been an absolute delight to talk to you.

Lucy Taylor:

and if you want to find out more about Steve's work, we'll put all

Lucy Taylor:

the links to his weird and wonderful catalog of projects, um, and your web.

Lucy Taylor:

Do you want to share your website?

Steve Chapman:

yes, there's loads for 'em, but the easiest one to go to is

Steve Chapman:

canned

Steve Chapman:

scorpion smoke.com.

Steve Chapman:

Then that will link you,

Steve Chapman:

to all the

Steve Chapman:

other

Steve Chapman:

worlds.

Lucy Taylor:

And also probably set off a whole load of curious questions

Lucy Taylor:

about why Earth it's called that.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, thank you,

Steve Chapman:

thank you so much for having me.

Lucy Taylor:

You're welcome.

Tzuki Stewart:

So Lucy, what were your reflections on your

Tzuki Stewart:

lovely conversation with Steve?

Lucy Taylor:

Well, it was a lovely conversation.

Lucy Taylor:

It was like really joyful.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, he's been a mentor of mine for a long time, so it's just really nice to have

Lucy Taylor:

this free flowing conversation with him.

Lucy Taylor:

I really like the idea of play as a verb and that sense of curious, curious thing,

Lucy Taylor:

I think you said, and it being a flow state and this kind of symbiotic dance

Lucy Taylor:

with your experience, like for me, that,

Lucy Taylor:

, really is helpful in terms of.

Lucy Taylor:

Evoking the state of playfulness.

Lucy Taylor:

I think those words are really rich.

Tzuki Stewart:

Mm, completely agree.

Tzuki Stewart:

I really liked when you opened the conversation and you were asking

Tzuki Stewart:

him what the work play meant to him.

Tzuki Stewart:

And for him it was all about, as you say, curiosity.

Tzuki Stewart:

That was the word that kept coming out and experimentation.

Tzuki Stewart:

It was, you know, I think for all of us, you go straight to fun.

Tzuki Stewart:

It's really fun.

Tzuki Stewart:

It's really enjoyable, which it is, and that's great.

Tzuki Stewart:

But yeah, for him it was all around the idea of, of curious and experimenting, and

Tzuki Stewart:

I really liked his reflections on that.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think, you know, I feel like he brings a really bold,

Lucy Taylor:

courageous approach to this work.

Lucy Taylor:

His, um, you know, as an outsider, you need to be on the edge of being

Lucy Taylor:

fired, otherwise you are just kind of keeping the status quo in place, which

Lucy Taylor:

is ultimately not what people need.

Lucy Taylor:

Or, I mean, they probably.

Lucy Taylor:

Don't want the discomfort that comes with real change, but they need it.

Lucy Taylor:

And I think, um, just interesting to hear about the vulnerability and the

Lucy Taylor:

pushback when he speaks about experiments and the discomfort that they require.

Lucy Taylor:

And as leaders within organizations, you know, what are

Lucy Taylor:

you prepared to let go of like.

Lucy Taylor:

How far out of your comfort zone are you prepared to go and kind of

Lucy Taylor:

acknowledging that there's a relationship between your comfort and the degree

Lucy Taylor:

of change you're gonna be able to make, I thought was really insightful.

Tzuki Stewart:

I could not agree more.

Tzuki Stewart:

Such, such a rich point and kind of linked to that, this idea of how kind

Tzuki Stewart:

of businesses today and businesses, individuals as well, were kind of

Tzuki Stewart:

hooked on this idea of paying people to come in and tell us the right answer.

Tzuki Stewart:

I think were the words he used and his, as you say, pushback against that

Tzuki Stewart:

and the honesty that he brings by not being able to guarantee an outcome.

Tzuki Stewart:

And just, just kind of saying that that is what you're gonna get.

Tzuki Stewart:

You don't know what you're gonna get.

Tzuki Stewart:

I can't guarantee we're gonna achieve this outcome.

Tzuki Stewart:

And as you say, the discomfort that a lot of people have around that

Tzuki Stewart:

and yeah, just how refreshing his honesty, um, was on that front.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah, and I, I can feel it in myself like this desire to be

Lucy Taylor:

able to tell clients like what we're gonna get out it and the discomfort.

Lucy Taylor:

In my own being of doing pointless things, but I love how brave he is

Lucy Taylor:

around doing pointless stuff and, and actually the well of creativity

Lucy Taylor:

and freedom and experimentation and unimagined outcomes that come from

Lucy Taylor:

just having the confidence to hold a space which is seemingly pointless.

Lucy Taylor:

And having that faith that actually when you look back.

Lucy Taylor:

There will be a whole raft of things that you could not have imagined from

Lucy Taylor:

that point at which you were starting.

Tzuki Stewart:

Hmm.

Tzuki Stewart:

Yeah, completely.

Tzuki Stewart:

And this idea of his, his own kind of playfulness, creating an environment

Tzuki Stewart:

of safe uncertainty and, you know, it's clear that kind of uncertainty runs Yeah.

Tzuki Stewart:

As you know, as a thread throughout his work, but, How to make that feel safe.

Tzuki Stewart:

So, and I love this idea of kind of your, you're being held in a

Tzuki Stewart:

space that is ultimately safe, but that space is uncertain.

Tzuki Stewart:

So you don't know what's gonna happen in it, but you will be safe.

Tzuki Stewart:

And I just love that juxtaposition of kind of safety, but also

Tzuki Stewart:

uncertainty in playing with that.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

And the just enoughness, just enough structure, just enough preparation.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, yeah, really nice.

Lucy Taylor:

What else stood out for you?

Tzuki Stewart:

Definitely the un home prompt.

Tzuki Stewart:

I mean, I've never even heard that word before, but this idea of how

Tzuki Stewart:

can I make myself feel a little bit un home in my everyday world?

Tzuki Stewart:

Um, and just what a lovely prompt that was to, to kind of restore to the

Tzuki Stewart:

point of wonder when you look around and think how strange the world is.

Tzuki Stewart:

And just forcing that, just even the word on home is, is just.

Tzuki Stewart:

Oh, I just love that prompt and this idea of the, you know, the kind of patterns and

Tzuki Stewart:

it was like, you know, some patterns are helpful, like crossing the road, like I'm

Tzuki Stewart:

pretty happy to stay with that pattern.

Tzuki Stewart:

But yeah, just kind of looking at things with that un home eye.

Tzuki Stewart:

If you just landed here and this wasn't home to you, kind of what, what

Tzuki Stewart:

would you find strange or wondrous?

Tzuki Stewart:

I just thought was yeah, a lovely prompt.

Tzuki Stewart:

How

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

Yeah.

Lucy Taylor:

Well, yeah, Anna, really joy, it's really joyful.

Tzuki Stewart:

Hmm.

Lucy Taylor:

know, if you can turn your everyday experience

Lucy Taylor:

into a place of wonder, like, wow, what a great way to live.

Lucy Taylor:

I loved that concept of quantum flirting and allowing yourself to be called by

Lucy Taylor:

your attention and being open to those quiet whispers and following your nose.

Lucy Taylor:

And I, I can really.

Lucy Taylor:

You know, I know the times in my life when I've been really open in that way have

Lucy Taylor:

led to like brilliant, magical things.

Tzuki Stewart:

Mm.

Lucy Taylor:

Um, and it, for me, it was a reminder to do that more.

Tzuki Stewart:

Yeah, I completely agree.

Tzuki Stewart:

That was, that was the last takeaway that I, I just, I loved quantum flirting.

Tzuki Stewart:

It's like, it, I, and there's something really like the, the word

Tzuki Stewart:

like embodying keeps coming up.

Tzuki Stewart:

When I think about that, it's like, how can you embody that

Tzuki Stewart:

idea of quantum flirting?

Tzuki Stewart:

Like, how are you gonna move through the world with other people, with the

Tzuki Stewart:

environment around you, with nature, with ideas like, And yeah, the, the,

Tzuki Stewart:

the hearing, the quiet whispers, in our busy, busy, busy lives and busy

Tzuki Stewart:

brains, like being attuned to those I think could be really powerful.

Tzuki Stewart:

But yeah, just, I don't even know what that concept means really

Tzuki Stewart:

yet for me, quantum flirting.

Tzuki Stewart:

But I, it definitely grabbed me and I intend to quantum flirt, um,

Lucy Taylor:

Yes.

Tzuki Stewart:

as much as I can.

Lucy Taylor:

Here's to quantum flirting.

Tzuki Stewart:

Thank you so much for listening today.

Tzuki Stewart:

If you enjoy this episode, please do rate and review as it really

Tzuki Stewart:

helps us to reach other listeners.

Tzuki Stewart:

We are releasing episodes every two weeks, so do hit subscribe

Tzuki Stewart:

to ensure that you don't miss out on more playful inspiration.

Tzuki Stewart:

Don't forget, you can find us@www.whyplayworks.com or

Tzuki Stewart:

wherever you get your podcasts.

Tzuki Stewart:

If you'd like to join our growing community of People United by the idea

Tzuki Stewart:

of play at work, you can sign up to the Playworks Collective on our homepage

Lucy Taylor:

If you have any ideas for future episodes, topics you'd love

Lucy Taylor:

to hear about, guest suggestions or questions about the work we do with

Lucy Taylor:

organizations, we'd love to hear from you.

Lucy Taylor:

Your feedback really matters to us, so please drop us a

Lucy Taylor:

line@hellowhyplayworks.com.

Lucy Taylor:

We'll be back in a fortnight with a brand new guest and we hope you'll join us.

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About the Podcast

Why Play Works.
Let's radically reshape work.
Do you have a niggling feeling, a secret hope, that work could be more joyful, more fun and (maybe) a little bit wilder? Do you sense deep down that doing great work doesn't need to be a slog?

In Why Play Works, Lucy Taylor and Tzuki Stewart hear the stories of people who are radically reshaping the idea of work as play - from play practitioners to academics to organisations who take play seriously.

How can working on serious problems be fun and delightful? Is play the opposite of work, or is it actually how we unlock success? How can reconnecting to our playfulness create more fulfilling and enlivening experiences of work?

We investigate how we can harness the power of play to boost resilience, improve well-being and foster collaboration, connection and creativity in the way we work.

About your hosts

Lucy Taylor

Profile picture for Lucy Taylor
Lucy is the founder of Make Work Play, an organisation on a mission to use the power of play to help organisations unfurl their potential. She is a passionate believer in the power of playful working as a way of bringing the best out in people, creating flow and unleashing creativity.

Lucy designs and leads playful processes which help teams unleash their individual and collective magic. Her approach to facilitation is immersive, playful and creative. Make Work ‘ Playshops’ are a space for you to get the hard work done together in a way that feels enlivening and fun.

Lucy has held positions as Visiting Faculty on MSc Programmes at Ashridge Business School and the Metanoia Institute. She studied PPE at Oxford and has trained in Systemic Coaching and Constellation Mapping, improvisational theatre and puppetry.

Tzuki Stewart

Profile picture for Tzuki Stewart
Tzuki is co-founder of Playfilled, which she brought to life in 2020 with Pauline McNulty to help forward-thinking businesses transform for high performance by filling their culture with purposeful play - the missing piece of the puzzle to increase creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning.

A culture consultancy at the intersection of new ways of working, organisational development and employee experience strategy, Playfilled supports leaders looking to rise to the challenge of changing expectations of work. They offer leadership talks, workshops and change programmes.

Tzuki previously worked in consulting and investment management, and completed an MBA from Warwick Business School in 2019 (timed to coincide with a newborn and toddler "because babies sleep a lot"... that turned out to be a bit of a fallacy!)