128 - What games can teach us about designing better workshops with Lily Higgins

Games are fun, silly, not based in reality…

We can take our serious selves into games and embrace playfulness, but it’s a lot harder to take the playfulness back with us as we return to the ‘real world’.

But what if we see that ‘real world’ as a game itself?

What if we saw every interaction as a game?

We could press certain buttons, move certain facets, and play with expectations and beliefs that change everything. When a meeting is a game, when an interview is a game, and when relationships are a game, we can have fun – we can open up possibilities and find new meanings within established systems.

Join me and Lily Higgins in this week’s episode as we explore game design, facilitation, and the spaces in between.

Find out about:

• How to see life and its constituent parts as a game
• The six elements of game design that we can apply in non-game situations
• Why playfulness can be so powerful
• How different players see games differently and what we can take from that knowledge
• What urban games are and how they can be facilitated
• Why Lily likes to start sessions with an ‘Orchestra of Misery’

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Questions and Answers

[01:01] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[02:00] Do you recall what caused you to shift to finally calling yourself a facilitator?

[06:06] What inspires your work? Is it a particular school of thought or practice?

[07:57] What’s the difference between game thinking and gamification?

[10:47] What are the helpful, deeper ways we can apply game thinking to create intrinsic motivation?

[14:13] Do you have to draw a line between seriousness and fun when applying game thinking?

[20:17] How much of the background, the rules, the detail do you share with clients?

[22:07] What tools are there within game thinking that help flatten the room?

[33:24] What are your thoughts on finite vs infinite games?

[36:14] What makes a workshop fail?

[37:08] What is an urban game?

[43:45] What did you take away from this urban game in Central Station that you apply in professional spaces?

[46:30] What would the equivalent be in an office?

[48:25] Do you have a favourite exercise?

[56:28] Was there anything else you wanted to bring today that you haven’t yet been able to?

[01:05:51] What is the one thing you would like listeners to take away from this episode?

Links

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Lily's website

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👉 What happens when being “professional” gets in the way of being human? My new podcast Unprofessionalism explores the rules we’re taught to follow at work, and what happens when we break them. Listen here: https://unprofessionalism.buzzsprout.com/  👈