Making

First, a note about the importance of Play

The two forces that most destroy group creativity are approval seeking (you want everyone to love you) and competition (you want to be better than everyone).

Approval-seeking means we perform for safety instead of taking real creative risks.

Competition leads to people protecting their ideas instead of building on others.

What uncovers group’s hidden patterns is and leads to genuine group understanding is spontaneity, freedom from approval, and non-competition.

When people stop trying to perform correctly and start playing, they access a more truthful, intuitive part of themselves.

When a group is at play, attention shifts outward to the game, the other players, the shared task. The inner critic goes quiet. People stop monitoring how they appear and start actually showing up.

Viola Spolin is an educator, actress, social activist who came up with improvisational games. Yes, she is the grandmother of improv. Her son created Second City. She created those games when she was teaching immigrant kids in Chicago around the 1930’s; most kids spoke different languages and play united them and created understadning. Her games demand full attention to the immediate moment, what she called “contact” with the material, the space, and each other. This is what most groups lack in ordinary meetings.

A game has rules that apply to everyone equally. Within those rules, players are free. This creates authentic psychological safety.

Various crafty things I’ve made