Unlock Co-Creation through Serious Play: a Sequence to Artful Participation

On Wednesday, I attended a talk by Michael K. Sahota. I was excited to meet him in person and hear his insights on evolving organizations. His topic? From Self-Deception to Self-Mastery. A Roadmap to Being Your Own Hero. As I left, London’s first autumnal rains accompanied me. Several ideas began to connect.

In my bag, I had a book titled “Narrative Coaching” by David B. Drake. I had also recently listened to a podcast on artful participation in sociocracy. Plus, there was my own work preparing to run Designing Agile Games for Accelerated learning.

Epiphany of the Thames

Crossing the Thames, a transformative sequence for personal and organizational growth struck me. The sequence went: Self Deception, Self Awareness, Self Mastery, and finally, Artful Participation. As I reflected further, I added one more step: Enablers of Co-Creation. Although framed as an individual journey, co-creation is a group activity by nature. This sequence is about enabling each of us to participate fully and authentically in shared decision making and be part of a real collaborative team.

Self Deception ! Self Awareness > Self Master > Artful Participation > Enablers of Co-Creation

Given a clear recency bias, narrative coaching was the intervention I chose to break out of self-deception. This method focuses on the stories people tell about themselves. By re-framing these, we can change our perspectives and behaviors.

Connecting with Serious Play

I’ve compiled this article to document my thoughts around these topics. I’m still exploring this chain of reasoning. Yet, here’s how serious play and learning games can enhance artful participation. This is based on the principle that learning games teach us mental models that we can apply back to our everyday scenarios.

Exploring the Sequence

Let’s delve into each stage of this transformative sequence.

Self-Deception

This is the act of deceiving oneself, or the state of being deceived by oneself. This means convincing yourself or a (un)truth so that you do not expose the self-deception to yourself. Often, this is about maintaining a positive self-image. Engaging in decision making based on self-deception means that you are not starting from a position of current reality, and so less likely to achieve a true desired outcome. At this stage personal prejudices cloud or prevent collective decision making.

🔍 Further suggested reading (for myself as much as anyone else!): Robert Trivers posited that self-deceit came through natural selection as a competitive advantage to pass on genes.

Self-Awareness

This is the conscious knowledge of one’s own character, emotions, motives, desires, strengths, weaknesses, and biases. It is your ability to recognize yourself as separate from your environment and other individuals. Being aware of one’s emotions, biases, and triggers is essential in a collective decision-making process. This prevents personal feelings from overshadowing the group’s needs and objectives.

🔍 Further suggested reading: Daniel Goleman states that self-awareness is a primary component of emotional intelligence.

Self-Mastery

With self-mastery you have the ability to control yourself in all situations, including your own emotions, desires, impulses, and reactions. You can consciously work forward to progress your goals. In a collective decision making and collaborative team working environments, individuals need to regulate their reactions, ensure they’re listening actively, and contribute constructively. This requires a high degree of self-control and self-regulation. This discipline of self also helps to diminish the effects of groupthink, wisdom of the crowd, or information cascade biases. For collective decisions to truly reflect everyone’s best interest, participants must have not just self-control but the courage to voice their unique perspectives, even when unpopular.

🔍 Further suggested reading: Seneca and Stoicism, often discussed self-mastery, especially in terms of controlling one’s responses to external events.

Artful Participation

Artful participation sits within the Sociocracy 3.0 Enablers of Co-Creation pattern library. This is an individual commitment to actively consider and follow-up on all agreements, bringing impediments and improvement suggestions to the attention of others as necessary. It underscores the importance of self-accountability, integrity, trust, mutual support, and close collaboration. Artful participation encompasses the development of awareness and understanding of individual and collective needs, and the individual commitment to grow the necessary skills to support them. So, as we see, artful participation isn’t a one-time achievement but a continuous journey of self-improvement.

Bridging the Sequence with Learning Games

For me, the value and purpose of serious play and learning games perfectly complements the sequence to artful participation.

Here’s how I see the connection:

1. Revealing Self-Deception: As players lose themselves in a game based scenario, real or imagined, they often come face-to-face with their hidden biases and beliefs. Such moments of realization can shine a light onto our self-deceptions, nudging us towards confronting them.
2. Reflecting for Self-Awareness: The beauty of serious play lies in its ability to act as a mirror to everyday life.. Observing our decisions, interactions, and even hesitations during a game can offer a profound understanding of our deeper selves. It’s like retracing a familiar path, yet discovering something new with each journey.
3. Nurturing Self-Mastery: Every game poses its set of challenges, and in navigating these, we find opportunities to exercise restraint over our emotions and reactions. Think of it as rehearsing for the real world within the safety of the game’s boundaries. Gradually, the discipline cultivated in-game begins to cross over into our daily lives, encouraging us to act with intention and purpose.
4. Embarking on Artful Participation: Collaboration is at the heart of many learning games. Such games not only demand our full engagement but also teach us the value of trust, feedback, and collective growth. It’s a first-hand lesson in the art of participation, reminding us of the joys of being a part of something larger than ourselves.

Conclusion

Placing this chain from self awareness to artful participation in broader context, and we can see it as an essential journey for each and every person who wishes to be an effective and contributing force to multi-skill, part/whole product focus ( org topologies) and teal organizations.

The sequence highlights the transformative power of recognizing and reshaping our narratives, firstly as a personal journey of growth, and then enabling us to participate more authentically and effectively within collective settings. Through continued introspection and reflection, people can not only better themselves, but also elevate the collective consciousness of their teams and organizations. The bigger perspective here is in co-creating a more harmonious and productive future, as happier, more fulfilled knowledge workers and human beings. As we face the complexities of modern team dynamics and organizational structures, a time when people seem more unhappy professionally than ever, each of us must ask: Are we ready to embark on this transformative journey of self and collective?

Originally published at https://tripleloopagile.co.uk on October 13, 2023.