+44 (0) 7973 953586 paul@impro.org.uk

‘Play to Play’ is one of the improvisation tenets in the LIFEPASS acronym. It’s the principle that most puzzles people at first sight.

I explain that we are all familiar with playing to win. We compete in sports, board games and in many aspects of work and life too. So much so, that playing to win can masquerade as necessity.

But if we play only to win, we miss many of the other pleasures available in a game. That’s where playing to play comes in. In a simple game of tag, for example, if you are never ‘It’ then you miss out on what it’s like to be chased and caught. In fact, you miss half the point of the game, which can only be experienced in the contrasts as you play.

If you want to explore this in a workshop or a conference, you can easily convert many traditional competitive games to bring in more elements of collaboration, so that a group can feel the difference and increase their awareness of when each is most appropriate.

We all know ‘Rock, Scissors, Paper’ for example as a competitive game, with some traditions including a finger slap on the wrist for the loser. Ouch!

Contrast that with collaborative versions. In one, you (both) win only if you show the same gesture as your partner. In another variation, which preserves an element of competition, all the pairs in the room play their Round One game simultaneously. Whoever loses in round one then supports their partner when they face another winner in Round Two. The groups of supporters build up until there are just the two camps for the Grand Final.

One remaining facet to add to Play to Play is ‘Play to Learn’, which is a reminder to reflect after a game to notice what you’ve learned.

If you’d like to bring more playfulness to your organisation, please click here to find out more or get in touch directly to find out more about our Improvisation sessions!