Capitalism vs Play / Control vs Anarchy

 

(Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/waltjabsco/5021267612 under CC-BY-NC-ND licence)

This post may be even more incoherent and rambling than normal, but I wanted to stick down a few thoughts that I may tidy up and extend at some point in the future!

I was partway through reading Rejuvenile by Christopher Noxon recently - this isn't a reflection on that book, but something it made me think about btw! There are plenty of examples he gives in that book about adults acting in "child-like" (not necessarily "childish") ways that are presented as though play is more acceptable in adulthood now - in all sorts of ways. I've also seen / read other stuff over the last few years that claims that play is now much more acceptable for adults. We can play on skateboards, collect toys, build Lego models, etc., that are often presented as "look, adults are allowed to play". 

But I've my doubts about the sort of examples that are thrown about to claim this, which made me think about what sort of play is really seen as "acceptable" and what isn't. About why adults generally aren't allowed to be playful in modern Western societies. (I know there is stuff about this in some classic play texts I'll have to go back to, just throwing a few ideas down here for myself!)

I've a hunch that the types of play that are generally seen as acceptable are fairly narrow - it's fine for adults to have hobbies that are fairly discrete in time and space (you can do it after work? Without scaring the neighbours?). It's fine for adults to play in ways that make them effective consumers (have you seen the price of Lego sets?!). It's fine for adults to do organised, controlled activities (clubs, sports, etc.). But if you aren't being a good capitalist consumer, if you are allowing playfulness to leak into other things, if you are making up your own rules about things (like a good player does), then those sorts of play are completely unacceptable.

Play in adults is generally allowed when it reinforces, or at least fits within, the rules set by those in power. It may even be encouraged when it results in increased profits and consumption. But I don't think playfulness is any more acceptable than it has ever been - we still need to be good worker drones 9-5, and a change in attitude could impact that. I don't think improvisational play is really encouraged - after all, if you start to play with whatever is around you, how will they fill those shipping containers with goods and keep the rich in the manner in which they've become accustomed? 

Is free / improvisational / creative play more aligned with anarchy than Capitalist societies would like? If you have a playful approach to the world, prone to changing the rules to suit yourself and your communities, is this inherently anarchist in approach? Bernie De Koven used to talk about changing the game to suit the players, this is the opposite to the way power works in countries like the UK, surely, where the powerful few set the rules of the game (and sell us the kit to play it too) - they want to force us all to play the game their way. So is any attitude that puts power (however small) in the hands of otherwise powerless individuals a threat to profits, to control? Is playfulness inherently anarchist in approach, which is why it's so disapproved of in adults, and stamped out in children as quickly as possible?

So games, hobbies, sports, etc are perhaps more acceptable in adults, as they are controlled, they are selling opportunities, they are neat and contained. Freer, more imaginative play, or even worse, a playful attitude are too much of a threat to control, to profit, to power. Games / hobbies / sports are "nice" capitalist ways of behaving. Playfulness is scary, anarchist, and seen as "wrong" by those with power... who heavily influence what we all see as the "correct" way of behaving.

So a bit vague and rambling I know, but at some point I'll try and come back to this and maybe write something a bit more serious on playfulness, anarchy, and why they are unlikely to ever be seen as generally desirable in capitalist society.

Playful Leadership Vague Thoughts

   

 (This is a CC-0 image that came up in a quick search for "playful leadership" - don't know about you lot, but it doesn't look that playful to me!)

For several years I’ve tried to pin down what I mean by playful leadership, and I haven’t been able to do it. I’ve also been struggling to be playful recently, probably not helped by living through a global pandemic, which hasn’t particularly helped me articulate what I mean when I think of playful leadership.

I’ve read lots of leadership and management books and articles, as well as plenty of stuff on play and games. Sometimes I feel like I’m starting to get somewhere, when an idea or model triggers a small “a-ha” moment, but then I fail to pull it together into any sort of coherent whole.

Part of this could be the temptation to pin these things down into neat models, or a clear set of steps (“5 steps to playful leadership!”), which we can follow and magically become a “playful leader”. None of these models, or steps, or whatever I found seemed quite right to me, even when I found several that seemed to touch on play – they’d sometimes have play as an important element, but perhaps not quite at their core, or reflecting how I felt about play and leadership. I also struggled to mash some of these different leadership models together, as I couldn’t successfully pull out their more playful aspects to form any sort of coherent whole.

Then, while in a very low mood and generally struggling, I had an important realisation. What I think of as playful leadership is really about encouraging a playful mindset in others. It helps if I play too, but I don’t need to all the time – the important thing is that I can enable others to play.

One of the components of my management style at work that is quite important to me is (trying to) protect colleagues from institutional politics, from micro-management of others, from unnecessary blame and retribution when things go wrong. In effect, these are also ways I try to gently shift the workplace culture towards giving permission to try things and fail. To play with different ways of doing things, knowing that they will be allowed (encouraged) to do so, and that as long as they don’t cause harm, it doesn’t matter if there is no immediate benefit either – as they can learn from that experience and try something else next time that might work better.

So my evolving understanding of my particular flavour of playful leadership probably has something like this at its core:

Helping others to be more playful.

The bits that stood out for my in other play and management texts, probably did so as they were potential enablers for that to happen. It’s ok that none of them were complete answers for me, and may even have been contradictory. But all of them could be tools that help take me part-way to being a playful leader – as it’s not a set way for me to act, but the impact I have on others.

I don’t need a 7 step method, or 4 zones of playful leadership, or anything else that pretends to be a complete answer. What I need is a clear idea of what I’m trying to achieve, and then a kit bag full of possible tools to help.

I don’t need a routeplan and detailed map to follow the “right” path. I need a compass, maybe a vague map, a penknife, a change of clothes, etc., so that we can find a good enough route that depends on the people present at the time, where they need to get to, and have some help for the challenges we need to overcome together. It doesn’t matter which things we need from that kit bag, or the exact route, just that we have a selection of tools that are available to use if we need to.

So what sort of things do we need in our kit bag? What goodies can help to enable a playful attitude, so I can be my sort of playful leader? I’ll have to start thinking in that way over the next few months and see if I can pull something useful together!