Lead with a dash of Play

What if we didn’t call it “play”? Jay Guilford has been guiding the growth of leadership and teams for over 20 years. And yet, like so many before me, I was first curious about his roots in the circus. Does “play” have a branding problem? We talk about play in the DEI space as well as the legacy of the circus.

GUEST: Jay Guilford

Jay Guilford once worked with a bunch of clowns. Literally. Long ago in a land far far away, Jay  ran away with Cirque du Soleil. There, Jay created Cirque’s corporate training program – SPARK. With SPARK, Jay strapped executives into apparatuses and flew them high across Cirque du Soleil theaters and training facilities. These “playful” activities helped groups experience trust, teamwork, and healthy risk taking in new and innovative ways.  

Currently, as founder and managing partner of his own leadership consultancy – CoWorks – Jay  infuses elements of play in his training activities. In 2023, CoWorks will launch a series of play based teambuilding sessions called ARTWRK. With ARTWRK, groups will learn and experience  collaboration, communication, and trust through performing arts. ARTWRK sessions will be  facilitated by Jay and other Fortune 500 trainers. ARTWRK activities will be taught by performers from Marvel, Broadway, Cirque du Soleil, and STOMP.  

Jay has over a decade of experience in leadership and team building. He has designed and  delivered training sessions for Google, Uber, Microsoft, Mastercard, The Empire State Building,  Procter & Gamble, Kmart Australia, SwissLife, Club Med Punta Cana, SABMiller Brewery Latin  America and other companies.  

Jay holds a BA from Emory University and an MA from Columbia University.

www.coworkslead.com

Is there a place for playfulness within the very serious issues of our day? Michelle Li identifies it as critical. When creating Clever Carbon, Michelle deliberately developed a cheeky, hip, playful tone to the teaching of climate footprint. Creating joyful spaces of learning may be a different approach than many in the climate industry, but it just may help us adopt new habits.

GUEST: Michelle Li

Michelle is the founder of clever carbon. She launched her career in Silicon Valley where she worked for some of the biggest names in tech including Salesforce and DocuSign. A proponent for making sustainability the new norm, Michelle founded clever carbon to help teach people about carbon footprint in a hip, fun, and relatable way. She is a TEDx and SXSW 2022 speaker on the topic of carbon literacy and believes that a carbon literate society is one where transparency and accountability will flourish and one worth striving for. 

Michelle started Women and Climate NYC, a community for women interested in learning and talking about climate.

Links

• Carbon Footprint Team Building
• Take the 2 min carbon footprint quiz
• COP27: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cop27 

Can play help us collectively build an innovative economy? Neville Billimoria, SVP for Mission Federal Credit Union, shares the ways play supports his creativity and well-being. In the process, we see how play can be a pattern interrupt, a useful intentional disruption when something is not working - whether that is a meeting at work or a bigger initiative.

GUEST: Neville Billimoria

Neville Billimoria is an effective communications and values leader, growing organizations through external marketing, media, and sales effectiveness, as well as internal organizational alignment, corporate communications, and leadership development. He brings experience, energy, and empowerment to his leadership role as SVP Membership/Marketing and Chief Advocacy Officer at Mission Federal Credit Union, a $5.5B not-for-profit, and the largest financial services organization exclusively serving San Diego, where he has accountability for a strategic array of crucial outward facing functions for 20 years including marketing, community relations, corporate giving as well as promoting Mission Fed’s public image and brand.

Mission Fed received Consumer Reports highest rating for all national banks or credit unions in 2015 and 2018, the BBB Torch Awards for Ethics in 2015 and 2017, Forbes rating as one of the best State Credit Unions and highest ranked local credit union in 2018 and best in the state in 2019, the Union Tribune’s Top Workplace Award for 2020 and the highest ranked local credit union on the Forbes America’s Best Credit Unions for 2022.

After graduating from UC San Diego, Neville has remained involved on the UCSD Alumni Board since 2008, as well as teaching martial arts, yoga, and meditation on campus for the last 40 years. Other current Board service includes the North County Philanthropic Council Executive Committee, Real World Scholars Board, and was recently appointment to the Girl Scouts San Diego Board.

Prior board and volunteer service includes serving on the Ackerman Foundation Board, the Alliance 4 Empowerment Board, AFP- National Philanthropy Day Honorary Committee, Mission Fed Community Foundation Secretary, San Diego Nonprofit Association Board, Cause Conference Co-Chair 3 times, Advisor to the Conscious Capitalism SD Board & Founder of the Chamber of Purpose SD.

He is a frequent speaker on topics including brand as culture, purpose-driven leadership, social capital optimization and civic engagement for maximum impact.

In the research and the book he co-authored (Primed to Perform), Neel Doshi identifies play as the number one motivating factor for performance. He argues that we need to change how we motivate performance. We discuss how forward-looking CEOs are restructuring, the not-so-distant future of our jobs, and ways to make team leadership at any level fun.

“Curiosity and experimentation are at the heart of play.  People intrinsically enjoy learning and adapting. We instinctively seek out opportunities to play.” (Primed to Perform)

GUEST: Neel Doshi

Neel is the co-founder of Vega Factor and co-author of NY Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller Primed to Perform, published in October 2015 by Harper Collins.

Previously, Neel was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, CTO and founding member of an award-winning tech startup, and employee of several mega-institutions. He studied engineering at MIT and received his MBA from Wharton. In his spare time, he's an avid yet mediocre woodworker and photographer.

Vega Factor is a company building technology to help organizations of all sizes and in any sector transform their culture and achieve the highest levels of performance. Learn more here: vegafactor.com

Primed To Perform introduces the counterintuitive science behind legendary cultures the likes of Southwest Airlines and Starbucks. Learn more here: bit.ly/PrimedToPerform

What can happen when we remember that creativity is a process? Amy Climer studies and teaches creativity, including how to lead in a way that explicitly supports creativity and the creative process. Hear what Sir Ernest Shackleton understood about leadership, how imagery can unlock better connections, and what nobel prize winners do that the rest of us can emulate.

GUEST: Amy Climer

Dr. Amy Climer teaches teams and organizations how to increase their creativity so they can maximize innovation. She works with forward-thinking organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Her clients describe her as approachable, inspiring, and transformative. She has a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. She developed the Deliberate Creative™ Teams Scale to help teams understand how to increase their creativity. Amy is also the host of The Deliberate Creative™ Podcast where she shares practical advice and strategies to help leaders build innovative teams. She lives in Asheville, NC. When not working, she’s often whitewater canoeing or building something in her wood shop.

Websites: climerconsulting.com and climercards.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/climerconsulting

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyclimer/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/amyclimer/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyclimer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/amyclimer

Ruksana Hussain brings together the play personalities of explorer and storyteller in her work as a travel journalist, publisher, and speaker. Seeing the world with a mindset of “wow,” keeping open to learning something new even in her home town and from people she meets with regularly, starting the day with a crossword puzzle - Ruksana has a lot to teach us all about the place of play in “work.”

“Generally speaking, play is something that’s imaginative, self-directed, intrinsically motivated and guided by rules that leave room for creativity.” Kristin Wong, New York Times How Do You Add Play To Grown-Up Life - Even Now - NY Times

GUEST: Ruksana Hussain

Ruksana Hussain is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience working with national and international print and digital media as a magazine editor and features writer. She has contributed to publications covering diverse beats and topics, including but not limited to lifestyle, travel, cuisine, culture, business, wellness, and more. She has received recognition for her journalistic work from the Society of American Travel Writers, North American Travel Journalists Association, and the Los Angeles Press Club. She is also the recipient of diversity fellowships from the ACES The Society for Editing and the American Society of Business Publication Editors. In 2022, her travel magazine—Traveler and Tourist—was named one of 13 new journalism and media projects to watch. 

Blog: www.travelerandtourist.com

Portfolio: www.ruksanawrites.com

Magazine: Subscribe​ (Now generously funded by ICFJ/NAHJ)​

Want to foster a creative, innovative environment? Jeff Harry describes the essential nature of play in order to create psychological safety. In the process he argues that the world needs to stop the model of leadership which stemmed from toxic masculinity, instead embracing the divine feminine and a healthy blend of masculine and feminine leadership.

“You’ll find the future where people are having the most fun.” Kevin Carroll

GUEST: Jeff Harry

Jeff Harry combines positive psychology and play to heal workplaces, help teams build psychological safety and assist individuals in addressing their biggest challenges by embracing a play-oriented approach to work.  Jeff was selected by BambooHR & Engagedly as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers and has been featured in the NY Times, Mashable, Upworthy, Shondaland, & Wired.  Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon, and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day.  Over the past 15 years of facilitation and speaking, Jeff’s main goal has been to help work suck less by assisting leaders in building a playground workplace atmosphere that motivates their staff to do their most vibrant work.

Website: RediscoverYourPlay.com

Podcast: What Would Ted Lasso Do Podcast

Instagram: @jeffharryplays

TikTok: @jeffharryplays

Twitter: @jeffharryplays

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffharryplays

Medium: @jeffharryplays

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jeffharryplays

As a rare woman leader in tech, Kathy Klotz-Guest had to deliberately choose joy. Told many times to be more serious, to change the way she dressed, to lead differently, Kathy chose instead to forge her own path in leadership, and now she teaches others how to grow in owning their identity and joy in order to bring more authenticity into their leadership.

GUEST: Kathy Klotz-Guest

From Silicon Valley to Second City, Kathy Klotz-Guest, MA, MBA, is on a mission to help people and companies be bolder, happier, healthier and way more human. That means speaking up, braver communications, more innovation and greater well-being with humor and improvisation. A speaker, author and founder of Keeping it Human℠, she combines her 15 years of leading successful teams in tech with almost 25 years doing stand-up and improv comedy. Her book, "Stop Boring Me!," was on Inc.com's list of business must-reads and her work has been seen in places such as Thrive Global, HuffPo and Forbes. Kathy speaks, consults and performs all over the country.

https://www.keepingithuman.com/

The Lead with a dash of Play is back for season 2!

More CEOs, Executive Leaders, Researchers, Authors and Coaches on the vital role of play in the workplace.

Guest clips from: Neville Billimoria, Neel Doshi, Kathy Klotz-Guest, Jeff Harry, Ruksana Hussain, and Michelle Li.

Curiosity, compassion, innovation, and community - why is play not considered essential leadership development? Mary Hendra, Executive Leader and Founder of Move with Grace, shares thoughts on the connection between leadership and play, as well as the impetus for this podcast series.

Was the podcast series “too long, didn’t listen”? This is your summary of a great season of guests exploring the tension between play and work.

“When people know their core truths and live in accord with what I call their play personality, the result is always a life of incredible power and grace.” Stuart Brown, MD, author of Play.

Mary Hendra

Mary Hendra is an executive leader and entrepreneur bringing curiosity, creativity and compassion back into the workplace, into our civic spaces and into our opportunities for adult learning.

In addition to hosting "Lead with a dash of Play," Mary creates unique cohort experiences built on stillness, creativity, and compassion - with a dash of play.

Learn more about Mary's work here: https://maryhendra.com/playground/

See Mary's "play portrait" and create your own here: https://maryhendra.com/play/