{"id":368,"date":"2025-06-29T10:00:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/?p=368"},"modified":"2025-08-17T09:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T23:04:09","slug":"5-05-leadership-and-serious-social-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/29\/5-05-leadership-and-serious-social-play\/","title":{"rendered":"(5.05) Leadership and Serious Social Play"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Serious. Social. Play. WTF?!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On this episode,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/kgbutler\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KG<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/pgarcia\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul<\/a>&nbsp;welcomed&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/drchrismaxwell\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Maxwell<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/marcuscrow10000hours\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marcus Crow<\/a>, the duo behind the consulting firm&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.10000hours.com\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">10,000 Hours<\/a>&nbsp;and the digital product company&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.podandhive.com\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pod &amp; Hive<\/a>&nbsp;to discuss their unique approach to leadership development, built on a conversation that began 18 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their methodology centres on what they call &#8220;serious social play&#8221; &#8211; using simulated sandbox environments for teams to practice navigating complexity. These are not typical team-building exercises.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The goal of these games is to shift the focus from the individuals (&#8216;nodes&#8217;) to the &#8216;links&#8217; between them. Most development targets individuals, leaving the crucial work of building effective group dynamics to chance. Marcus and Chris&#8217; work explores what happens in those links; how teams handle ambiguity, compete, or collaborate when faced with a novel problem, as they find themselves in a &#8216;complex state&#8217;. By shortening the feedback loop between action and outcome, these simulations make the team&#8217;s invisible dynamics visible and discussable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This conversation highlights a simple but powerful idea: if you want teams to perform at their best, you have to give them space and time to practice, and to take that practice seriously. By embracing a high &#8216;practice to play&#8217; ratio, teams build muscle to improve collaboration and help them navigate inevitable uncertainty of day-to-day organisational life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, this is only one in many topics of this free-wheeling conversation. What helped make it so fluid and effortless, apart from the amazing generosity of the guests, was an equally amazing wine! Our friends at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/acellars.com.au\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Annandale Cellars<\/a>&nbsp;provided a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gounyanwines.com.au\/the-wines\/p\/2021-sangiovese-9pmak-dz9px\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>2023 Gounyan Wines, Murrumbateman Syrah<\/strong><\/a>, a delicious, fruity red that will make every conversation an enjoyable one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sl\u00e1inte&nbsp;<\/strong>friends!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Useful resources from this episode:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.10000hours.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">10,000 Hours<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.podandhive.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PodandHive<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/shivoo.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shivoo<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re keen to hear what you thought of this conversation. Please let us know through either of the options below.<br><br>Please reach out on\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:askus@leadershipdecanted.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">askus@leadershipdecanted.com<\/a>\u00a0or visit us at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.leadershipdecanted.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.leadershipdecanted.com<\/a><br><br>Disagree or agree with anything we&#8217;ve said? How wrong are we?!? Are there any leadership topics you&#8217;d like us to discuss (or perhaps other books or podcasts that might set us straight!)? Maybe you&#8217;d like to recommend a favourite wine!<br><br>Whatever tickles your fancy, we&#8217;d love to hear from you!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div id=\"buzzsprout-player-17415342\"><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/1658419\/episodes\/17415342-5-05-leadership-and-serious-social-play.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-17415342&#038;player=small\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipdecanted.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}