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Interview With Lucy Hawthorne
On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung, talks to Lucy Hawthorne, a facilitator, campaigner and founder of Climate Play. Through play-based learning or, so called ‘serious play’, Lucy helps make it safe, light and fun to talk about climate change issues, helping people to engage more deeply, honestly, and creatively to a topic that people would rather run away from.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Serious Play is play with a purpose. It’s playful methods and techniques I used in order help make progress on serious, apparently grown up stuff. I use it in the context of environmental issues, trying to make it safe, light and fun for people to have conversations that they generally don’t really want to have. It’s a series of different methodologies that help unlock creativity, communication, connection. It takes all of the good bits about play and applies them to something.
- I used to work in the UK charity and NGO sector for years and then shifted to become a facilitator because what I’m really fascinated with is psychology, specifically in what makes people change their minds, what shifts people’s beliefs, what helps people engage and disengage. I combined an understanding of campaigning psychology and what helps people to learn because learning is totally fascinating.
- I kept getting a familiar story of people feeling heaviness around social and environmental change, for good reason – there’s a lot of injustice and inequity. But that heaviness can sometimes be demobilising for people and it can end up fuelling apathy. Over the years I’ve been thinking about how you can engage people’s hearts and minds more effectively. You shouldn’t always be playful, but there’s a place for play in helping people to engage in topics that they don’t really want to. We need to counter depression, anxiety, demobilisation, stress to an extent in order to get people moving. I’m really fascinated by this weird binary of how we can deal with serious existential stuff with at least a smirk on our faces. I believe you can make significant, positive progress and be well, to an extent, in the process.
- The fundamental principle of Lego Serious Play is that it’s all based in metaphor because it’s essentially a story-telling technique. You’re not literally building things, you’re building metaphorically and telling a story, they’ve got a lot of complex meaning built into them. Sometimes people build these mad, really creative structures and others just build a couple of bricks, and they can be the most potent in the story they tell. You’re using a different part of your brain, feeling your way through the meaning rather than thinking.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Play is a basic building block of life, it’s about how we explore, learn, connect and develop.’
‘Lego is the main thing that I use in Serious Play, partly because it just works and it doesn’t tend to freak people out, it’s got a low barrier to entry because people are very familiar with it – and adults have been cultured out of playing.’
‘Fear has a very helpful role, in some ways, but it can be incapacitating.’
‘The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Lucy Hawthorne is a campaigner at heart, using facilitation, coaching and peer learning to help social justice organisations increase their impact. Nominee 'PRCA Voluntary Sector Campaign of the Year 2020' (CPRE, Don't Fast Track Fracking campaign). Particular focus on how to create open, safe and inclusive conversations that catalyse climate action.
https://www.climateplay.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyhawthorne/
ABOUT THE HOST
Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing and home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.
In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools and colleges.
Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed, through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring and digital marketing company.
Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people and planet.
CONTACT DETAILS
Tze Ching’s website: https://wedisruptagency.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wedisruptagency
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wedisruptagency/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/wedisruptagency
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzechingyeung/
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By Tze Ching Yeung
5
44 ratings
On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung, talks to Lucy Hawthorne, a facilitator, campaigner and founder of Climate Play. Through play-based learning or, so called ‘serious play’, Lucy helps make it safe, light and fun to talk about climate change issues, helping people to engage more deeply, honestly, and creatively to a topic that people would rather run away from.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Serious Play is play with a purpose. It’s playful methods and techniques I used in order help make progress on serious, apparently grown up stuff. I use it in the context of environmental issues, trying to make it safe, light and fun for people to have conversations that they generally don’t really want to have. It’s a series of different methodologies that help unlock creativity, communication, connection. It takes all of the good bits about play and applies them to something.
- I used to work in the UK charity and NGO sector for years and then shifted to become a facilitator because what I’m really fascinated with is psychology, specifically in what makes people change their minds, what shifts people’s beliefs, what helps people engage and disengage. I combined an understanding of campaigning psychology and what helps people to learn because learning is totally fascinating.
- I kept getting a familiar story of people feeling heaviness around social and environmental change, for good reason – there’s a lot of injustice and inequity. But that heaviness can sometimes be demobilising for people and it can end up fuelling apathy. Over the years I’ve been thinking about how you can engage people’s hearts and minds more effectively. You shouldn’t always be playful, but there’s a place for play in helping people to engage in topics that they don’t really want to. We need to counter depression, anxiety, demobilisation, stress to an extent in order to get people moving. I’m really fascinated by this weird binary of how we can deal with serious existential stuff with at least a smirk on our faces. I believe you can make significant, positive progress and be well, to an extent, in the process.
- The fundamental principle of Lego Serious Play is that it’s all based in metaphor because it’s essentially a story-telling technique. You’re not literally building things, you’re building metaphorically and telling a story, they’ve got a lot of complex meaning built into them. Sometimes people build these mad, really creative structures and others just build a couple of bricks, and they can be the most potent in the story they tell. You’re using a different part of your brain, feeling your way through the meaning rather than thinking.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Play is a basic building block of life, it’s about how we explore, learn, connect and develop.’
‘Lego is the main thing that I use in Serious Play, partly because it just works and it doesn’t tend to freak people out, it’s got a low barrier to entry because people are very familiar with it – and adults have been cultured out of playing.’
‘Fear has a very helpful role, in some ways, but it can be incapacitating.’
‘The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Lucy Hawthorne is a campaigner at heart, using facilitation, coaching and peer learning to help social justice organisations increase their impact. Nominee 'PRCA Voluntary Sector Campaign of the Year 2020' (CPRE, Don't Fast Track Fracking campaign). Particular focus on how to create open, safe and inclusive conversations that catalyse climate action.
https://www.climateplay.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyhawthorne/
ABOUT THE HOST
Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing and home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.
In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools and colleges.
Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed, through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring and digital marketing company.
Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people and planet.
CONTACT DETAILS
Tze Ching’s website: https://wedisruptagency.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wedisruptagency
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wedisruptagency/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/wedisruptagency
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzechingyeung/