The Fun One

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into the episode. Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the fun one of the Women Talking About Learning podcast. I'm Andrew Jacobs. It always seems as if we're looking for ways to make learning and development fun. This might involve using methods like gamification, storytelling, interactive activities and creative content to try and increase employee engagement and knowledge retention. To delve further into this area, we have three great guests to discuss this. Our

first guest is Jess Rogers. Jess is a leadership coach with almost two decades of experience, helping ambitious, values -driven senior leaders find their voice, lead authentically and advance their careers without compromise. She's coached directors, VPs, chiefs of staff, senior council and others who care deeply about their teams but often feel unseen or pressured to fit conventional leadership models. Our second guest is Elaine Gosden. Elaine is CEO and founder of Blue New

Consulting, a leadership development consultancy specialising in organisational growth. Driven by her values and belief that life is too short not to make a difference, she connects the right people to the right solutions while enabling others to be their best selves. Our third guest is Dr Kuva Jacobs. As co -founder of Emergent Learning, Kuva is a learning strategist and designer fascinated by the sweet spot between fun and

effectiveness. Together with her award -winning learning design team, she explores how gamification can deepen engagement and drive performance, from role plays and characterisation to humour and chatterbox -style decision -making tools. This is an awesome conversation. Recorded in September of 2025, this is women talking about learning. This is Jess, Elaine and Kuva talking about fun. So I think I was the one who came

up with this. topic, which is the fun one. And it's something that's quite close to my heart because I'm obviously very passionate about learning. And for me, I feel that if the learners can have fun while they're learning, not only does it make it a better experience for them, but it also means that they're going to remember things better as well. The learning is going to have more impact. So I think that that's a really great aim. But where it gets interesting is people's

ideas of fun are really different. So there's no one remedy that we can put into our training that's going to make everyone happy and think that it's fun. Sometimes you're going to have different reactions. So I thought that that was a really interesting topic to discuss because I think that we need to... go about this with a little bit of caution. So I guess I would love to hear your stories about how you've used fun

in learning when it's worked and when you've hit some challenges as well. Can I? I'll jump in here. I agree with you, Kuva. I think that fun is a really good and important facet for learning, definitely, especially when you're working with groups. But you're right. Fun looks different to different people. And I think when you bring in people's lived experience and people's backgrounds as well, their perception of fun

really can change. And so you have to be quite careful as a learning practitioner not to just assume that we're going to do this and it's going to be fun and everybody's going to love it and it's going to be great. It's about bringing some

connectedness. into it as well because when you build those connections on a different level when you're working in a group a learning group I think that's when you can then sort of tease out the fun and almost in a in a strange way fun sort of manifests itself naturally rather than it being something that you have to create absolutely yeah I had a session a couple weeks ago and the topic was really great we were teaching about e -commerce and we were talking about brand

and styling and things like that and in the chat one of the participants started grabbing photos

of another participant and then using AI to dress them in different costumes and then putting that into the chat and it was linking back to what we were saying because it was all about brand and so they were having a lot of fun just laughing at this chat and the things that were popping out but at the same time they were still listening to us and so it made the session a lot more enjoyable which was great and then it also gave us permission to have a bit of play in that session as well

which was really nice. hmm it's really interesting isn't it like even the word fun and I love what you said just about perception um because like one of my personal values is is joy and I I just think the world needs more joyful workplaces if we're not if we're not experiencing joy of some kind and that's different for everybody um whilst we're at work then we're never going to access like any level of true performance or high performance so for me like the attraction

of coming on this particular podcast was about actually me having a little bit of access to joy by talking to other women who want to talk about joy and fun at work um but also to to really you know hear some exciting things about how

you're making stuff fun so yeah I guess Jess what drew you to coming on this particular one? It's not dissimilar to you, Elaine. Joy is a really key thing, I think, for life. And I always say joy is a feeling. You know, people talk about wanting to be happy. But happiness requires sort of the circumstances to be right. Whereas joy is what you cultivate in yourself. So even if

the circumstances aren't. great you sort of you know you have that mindset you have that hope and that's what brings joy and I think um when I when I saw fun I yeah I saw the link to joy just like yourself but also I thought you know so many times we um go on these business podcasts we listen to these business podcasts and they have these sort of these really heavy topics yeah there was a lightness that came with the fun one and I thought yeah I want to bring some

lightness into work and into learning because that's how we do our best work, isn't it? When we are in that place, that space of fun and joy, the work becomes somewhat easy, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Akiva, can I ask you, I'm guessing for you, did you spot that gap and that's the reason why you suggested the fun one or what was your motivation for suggesting the fun one? Sorry, before I answer that question, when you guys are talking about joy, I can't help but think

about the movie Inside Out. I've got that image in my brain. I don't know if you've both seen it. And then sadness as well. And, you know, you see her dragging along the ground and she's not able to do anything. And then you've got joy. And, you know, there's someone who I work with who, you know, reminds me a little bit of

her and she's really active. and always getting stuff done and it's fantastic so yeah there's definitely an attitude that you want to cultivate right definitely so yeah sorry going back to your question Elaine yeah so I was just saying what motivated you to to suggest this one like

did you spot it as a gap in the like I'm just curious for you like where did that come from uh I've had I've written um Quite a few LinkedIn posts and then from the LinkedIn posts drawn out blog posts as well around the topic of gamification. Okay. And I find it like such an interesting topic because it is so, you know, there's so much controversy around it, around the fact that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And so I find that really fascinating. How can you

find the path forward where it actually. lands and fits um and you know doesn't fall flat which I've seen both in my experience and yeah in um one of my inspirations was when I'm a parent as well so I've got um two daughters and I as a parent didn't want to be too I guess aggressive like I wanted my children to behave but at the same time I didn't want to be this strict bossy parent and I went to this uh session about it was called playful discipline and it's all about

how to use play to to help with your children and there's some really interesting concepts in that there's a book about that as well um andrew and um and yeah i i was quite fascinated

in that and i tried out all these different concepts and it was funny because sometimes they don't want to play like for example I had this game which was clip race to try and get them to clip their seat belts in the car simple right but then they're like no I don't want to play clip race anymore because they didn't like that feeling of competitiveness of the game the pressure that the game was actually putting on them they didn't want to have to you know compete with each other

so I found that a really interesting component that when we add this level of competition maybe people don't respond well to that yeah it comes back to right what you were saying for me at the beginning cuva about everyone's experiencing fun differently and this this concept of forced fun within a learning environment it really really really puts people off so it's something really interesting to poke around in like how have you how have you guys experienced that in sessions

that you're running and delivering like when is when has it kind of worked really well and when is it when is the incorporating fun really fell on its face I think um it's just you've made me think Elaine you're right that it can turn people off even though the fun is fun yeah but when if you go into a space or in my experience you go into a space and you say now we're going to do a game You do visibly feel and see people's faces and feel the energy kind of shrink back

because people immediately think you're going to put me on the spot or you're going to force me to do something. And particularly those who have introverted tendencies, they immediately, it raises something in them. And that's back to the point, I think, where I really think when

people feel connected. they have fun so actually it doesn't have to be the thing necessarily it's the energy that's created and it's when people are able to feel connected feel that they can then be playful feel that they can then sort of give themselves give more of themselves into the situation or into the environment that the fun manifests itself quite naturally I mean, that's what's happened in my experience. And even, you know, sort of in traditional training,

you do an icebreaker at the beginning. Yeah, cringe. As soon as you say icebreaker, it's meant to be fun. Yeah. Yeah, cringe. So it's almost finding different ways to do icebreakers without calling them icebreakers, just to bring everybody into the room. And sometimes it can be as simple as asking a question as opposed to. playing a game that brings that element of connectedness and fun to it. I think use of humour is another

thing that's really important as well. Like how can we use humour effectively for fun, for shifting away from that really dry, boring content into something that's funny and interesting. Just going back to that same course, we've done lots of courses, but somehow I'm gravitating back to that. I added this character in to talk about learner personas. And instead of just putting a dry persona in, I had Jack Tyson and he's a

chainsaw guy. And he is out on the farm in Australia and he's got me ute and I chuck me chainsaw in the back. And, you know, it just had this. that when everyone saw that slide, they laughed and they had this really positive reaction to it. But I could have just, you know, put a standard 28 -year -old influencer who does blah, blah, blah. Instead, I'd created this fun character. So sometimes things like that, a little bit of storytelling can really set the tone as well.

Elaine, I've just noticed there's a question.

How can we be more connected? without this forced phone and i wonder what's your experience i think it's really interesting isn't it like for me the skill of the facilitator is to present the connection opportunity rather than the agenda item so it's like moving away from hey now now kids we're gonna because it's that to me and i've i've had this for years this debate in my head about am i a facilitator of great experiences or am i a trainer and and i personally really

dislike the word trainer or training I don't know why I've never really sat down and reflected on it too much but that that question sort of helps me to understand well actually maybe what I don't like is that the role of a trainer is to give this to you whereas the role of a facilitator feels more like person -centered learning so

it's more like I'm meeting you where you are you will meet the learning where you are and if we can make that a bit fun um through some clever use of activities that doesn't feel like we're going in this direction and now we're segwaying over here because we know it's time for an energy change. I feel like that's the skill of the facilitator is to read the room well enough to know that something is needed, but also to respect the fact that you're probably going to have quite

a diverse group with different needs. So I don't know that I'm ever there yet. I think I'm still experimenting in all of the sessions that I'm running around how do you... How do you stop that kind of, oh, and now it's time for this. But yeah, I don't know. I'm still working on it after 22 years in the training room. I think that's the beauty, isn't it, of being a facilitator, that you don't know what you're going to say. Yes, you have your material that you want to

share, but there's something. quite magical about meeting all of your participants where they are so you go into that space knowing that for example this is an inclusive leader uh program and this is this is what we're delivering today as part of that but actually feeling what people are bringing into the room as well and sometimes thinking that or getting them to name that starts to build that environment straight away of trust of learning as well and i i actually that's that's

part of the the job that i love the most that kind of and i said that's the coach in me sort of just meeting clients where they are so being able to remember and sort of and see what comes into the room and sometimes yeah it can be challenging but more often than not suspending to some degree what i have to deliver just being there is where the magic happens I agree. And I also think too, like Andrew's asking us about fun and I sort of think, you know, let's stay with the fun.

Like some of the things that we've done is like bring like fancy dress, which sounds like ultra cringe to some, but we're doing like a themed gamification of a thing. So like it's all metaphors and analogies, but we might be taking a group through, let's say they're at the beginning or the end of a leadership development journey. like we're metaphorically going to take them through the desert. The desert is going to have

some challenges. And so as they go through the desert, they're going to come across problems and objects and stuff. And we've got games that we play that are like half day, full day games with them. Not our games. We're bringing in a licensed team to do that for us, but it just works so brilliantly. But we'll turn up with all our desert gear on so that everyone immediately, it's like, it's not like, hey guys, we're going to have some fun now. The signaling is different.

The signaling is like, this is different. This isn't. This isn't like strap yourselves in for a facilitated learning session and some PowerPoints. This is an experience. You're going into the desert. So, yeah, I don't know about you guys. What have you done to really bring in the fun and the humor and the joy, I guess? I'm just remembering, actually, this was slightly different. I went on a retreat at the beginning of the year and there was dancing was what was brought into

it. into our into part of our um retreat experience so it wasn't because it was still a learning experience even though it was a retreat and when the facilitator mentioned music and movement

the initial response was oh that we had to stand up but actually you know once somebody started started with a silly move and everybody started laughing all of a sudden it released something i don't there is there's a chemical isn't there i guess when that laughter i think or serotonin it was one of those yeah It was amazing the difference it made. And by the end of the session, it wasn't actually a particularly long session, this part of the retreat. We were in fits of laughter.

We were all doing a catwalk. There were pictures of everybody, you know, busting their dance moves. And it was just amazing the power of that humour, the power of that. The silliness almost. Absolutely, the silliness. You know, nobody was trying to

be the best dancer. It was just that. movement of one's body and it just opened us all up for what was to come next so I think that there's something about bringing movement into it and people letting allow people to use their bodies so to your point Elaine you said about dressing up and you know going through the day and there's there's something about it's using your full bodies and it's not just the cerebral thing it's it's everything and I think that's an experience

yeah yeah and sometimes it's even just the smaller things like I was running a session um about designing learning and I got everyone to stand up and I said to them okay I want everyone actually I used a voice I was like okay now we are all ballerinas we need to make our arms nice and straight and then And then everyone pointed their arms and I said, okay, now we are auditioning for a ballet. I'm going to choose the people

who have very nice straight arms. And then everyone, you know, stood with their arms nice and straight. And then I said, okay, now we are going to be the zombies. And then everyone, okay, like everyone changed so that they look like zombies. And I said, okay, your arms are not straight anymore. You know, I sort of played up the zombie thing a little bit at first. I was like. great, you guys are looking great as zombies. But I said, your arms are not straight anymore, but you've

done this intentionally. So you knew what the rules are and you choose to break them intentionally. So we want to do the same thing with learning as well. You need to know what the rules are when you're designing good learning, but it's okay to break them as well, as long as you're breaking them intentionally. So I just used that metaphor to help them to understand that concept.

And it also meant that in the middle of this full day session, they got to stand up, they got to use their bodies, they got to have a little bit of a giggle before they sat back down. So things like that, even small things, I think can really help to change a session as well when

we can think about them. Yeah, we have a lovely little exercise that we throw into one of our leadership programs when we're talking about... and the importance of vision and leaderships and, you know, knowing, I guess it goes back to Covey's kind of, you know, beginning with the end in mind. And we sort of do a little bit

of input, but then it sounds really similar, Kuva. We get everyone to stand up in a space where they can't be touched. And then we ask them all to close their eyes and then just to think about which way is north. And we have them

all with their eyes closed. point to the direction that they think is north and then they open their eyes and look around the room and of course unless it's really clear or unless everyone is pointing in a different direction and you think gosh if we were an intact team and sometimes they are but if we were an intact team we're a team of leaders and this is our This is our perception of where we're all going. Just look at the differences

that we have. And again, it's just an opportunity to get everyone up off their seats kind of thinking. And it's so funny because everyone's like, whoa, we're so wrong. We're so incorrect with that. But the metaphor is really strong. So maybe it's the metaphors that we need. And even just that experience as well, like closing your eyes in the middle of a session, standing up as a group.

instead of just sitting in a room and watching someone at the front speak like that's so different and so that in itself really changes the experience for people I remember a few years ago and so you know the Amy Cuddy power pose yes love that um a female leadership development program and one of the things like saying to everybody right so let's all stand up now and do do you are your power pose so some people it was the hands on the hips for some people it was you know putting

their wrists down whatever it might be but there's something again it's that just one thing stand up and do so we talk about the power pose the reason for the power pose the research behind it and it's like okay now we want everybody to do their power pose and doing it in person was really powerful and then you know the pandemic happened and we were all on doing lots of things online and it was just as powerful doing it online

actually you know getting Wow. And so I'm going to take a screenshot and, you know, just for the purposes of this group. So you will have a record of it, if that's okay. You can switch your camera off if you want, whatever. But people very rarely did switch their cameras off. But it's just doing something like just a pose. It's similar, I guess, to what you're saying, Elaine, when you stand up and face north. It's doing a pose, your pose, that makes you feel powerful.

And it made people feel powerful and it got them into their bodies and got them. And also. It makes people laugh. Yeah. So, you know, it's a relatively serious topic, you know, female leadership and, you know, improving female leadership in sort of environments where, you know, they're trying to increase their visibility of female leaders. And then you bring this element into it of fun. Yeah. And people immediately feel them relax and say, actually, it doesn't have

to be this serious thing. Yes, it's serious. Yes, it's important. But actually. It can also be fun. Yeah. And it's that kind of energy change, isn't it? I guess we're looking for, because if we are working with a group of whoever, leaders or people, doesn't matter. But if we're working with them for a long time, over a series of hours or days, you know, we need to find those moments to shift the energy, to keep them all engaged

and kind of grooving and whatever. But I think it's something we need to pay more attention to. Particularly, you mentioned the dreaded C

word, Jess, like since COVID, like I think. people's expectation of a of a learning environment and what's fun is a bit different now I don't know I don't know are you guys seeing any changes in terms of how people are experiencing fun in learning post -covid that's a really loaded question for me because I think I've got a view but what's your what's your view what's the other interesting to hear your view I think well I think but If we go right back to the beginning where we were

talking about fun and human connection, I think people are seeking that more. And I think certainly what we're seeing from our clients is that nobody's asking for virtual learning anymore. Now it's no longer a necessity. Everyone wants to go back in the room. Everyone is seeking that human connection, perhaps because there aren't as many opportunities as there were before to just connect in an office space, since most people have retained some level

of flexible working. So I think it's really interesting that, you know, what is it that people are seeking given we had the opportunity and we mentioned introversion preference earlier and how an introversion preference might prefer to be alone or might have an extra cringe when we mention icebreakers or fun. But even with that said, I still think the most introverted of introverts is still going

to seek some level of human connection. So I guess that's why it's loaded for me because what I see in our clients is that they're demanding it now more than ever and yeah we see that in the requests for work that are coming through but how does it for you guys are you seeing any differences from the last five years to pre -2020 well interestingly enough I just ran a session that we ran it virtually and face -to -face so we got to experience the same session with a

group that was virtual and then a group that was face -to -face and so you can really see then you know you're not comparing like two different topics you're comparing the same topic with two groups and I think you really it is harder to build that relaxed atmosphere when you are online you do miss so much it just it's like you have to be using the chat a lot more there's always a little bit of delay when people are speaking you can't have multiple people speaking it's

very hard to generate a conversation within the group between two of the participants so there's a lot more challenge in the facilitation to get that that natural flow of conversation that can happen in in a physical space yeah so I mean obviously I think most people if they have a choice they'll prefer to deliver face -to -face over virtual but yeah there's always business challenges around that as well where maybe people aren't able to physically come to that office

they you know in Australia I don't know how it is in the UK but in Australia we've got companies where they've got people in lots of different states and it's become more distributed and so the requirement is still there that we have to support across a wider geographical area because it's no longer everyone's in that one office so We can all go there. Now it's like you could have someone in every state and you just have

to cater for that. Yeah, I think from a facilitator perspective, which I'm going to take a different perspective, I think that there is a magic in that face -to -face that is lost, you know, when you're online. But as you say, Kiva, there's that kind of, there's the business need because people are, well, online enables companies to

reach more of their people. in you know a wider wider areas and also bring people together from different areas at a much lower cost than flying people around or you know transporting people around um so i think there's always a place for online but i think there's a richness that gets lost on online that you don't get face to face a richness section dare i say a bit of joy is lost as well like a bit of the joy i don't know is that just me that the joy is lost on an online

connection i i think it's I think it's connection. It's a deeper connection when you're face -to -face because it's the conversations that also happen between the sessions that you're having and when they do the group work, the conversations as they walk to and from the area where they're doing the group, if they're doing breakouts, that kind of thing. You don't get that if you're in a call, an online call, and you put people in breakouts, then they're whipped out of the

breakouts when the timer goes. you know when you're face to face they're having the conversations and then they're the conversations extends don't they as they come back to the main room or back into the space um so i think there's a for me it's about connection i don't know if it's so it's joy and connection are very interlinked but there's something in the connection that gets lost i think the one thing that i've found i really enjoy using miro and so i'll build out

these games on miro that you can't necessarily do face -to -face like they don't always work so I ran one with my team for example just made this up called the game of churn and the idea was that quite often we do work and then but we haven't asked the right questions in the beginning we haven't examined the scope closely enough or the brief or whatever and then we go off in the wrong direction and then we waste a lot of time so I was like how can I sort of teach this

as an experience to my team and so I came up with this big it's like a chess board but it literally makes you go blind because there's a million little black and white squares hidden in these squares was a little trophy underneath the white square so you couldn't really see it and then I put chess pieces and they could move in the direction of the chess piece but the first time I gave it to them I said all right off you go like everyone move once and then draw a line

and then move again draw a line and so they had this big mess of moving and they didn't know where they were going or anything like that and then the second round they were allowed to ask questions and so but they were only allowed to ask yes no questions and so then that allowed them to experience working together as a group and being able to slowly get towards the answer. So they had to think about what are the right

questions. So there was a lot of metaphors in there, obviously asking them to reflect as they went through as well. What was nice there was that the digital platform allowed me to create

a game that I guess I could have done it. in person but it was easier on Miro to create a game like that so I think there's things that we can do on Miro that are actually quite cool and I love brainstorming on Miro as well because you can have lots of people in one space putting all their ideas together and then you can use the tool to cluster and theme the ideas and so you can do things with Miro that you can't as easily do when you are physically in person.

I've never heard of it that's a top tip. So it's just a virtual whiteboard, basically. Very cool. Maybe I'll bring up my game of chair while you guys are talking so you can see, you can visualise it. We did a little exercise at one of our conferences recently where each conference table had a ball of string on the table and the people sitting together broadly didn't know each other. There maybe were one or two people that knew. And the name of the game, it was a bit of a nice way

of doing. the dreaded icebreaker but it was you know so maybe i start with a ball of string and i say something like i've got a sister and then someone else on the table has to say oh so have i and i i hold on to the end of the string but i throw the ball of the string to the person and then And so the game continues, everybody saying something about themselves and finding

a connection with someone else in the room. So you end up with this real physical manifestation of how we're all connected, which was really lovely. And then if you're feeling really brave as facilitators and if you've got enough string, then you can broaden it out to neighboring tables and sort of start playing with the connections across the room as well. Of course, if you've

got enough string. bearing in mind health and safety issues but again that was just such a lovely joyful way of rather than doing the kind of dreaded icebreaker and it sounds i don't know when you were talking about miro kuva it kind of is like oh you can do some similar things maybe not quite as cool in the whiteboard like you know idea space but you know to those connections like there's some lovely ways of doing it so and i love that that's physical yeah Yeah. Yeah.

It's nice to have something physical. Just where it's going around the table or around the room. Yeah. And also from an inclusivity perspective, you can also say, well, hang on a minute. If Fred over there has put his hands up loads and the ball of string has been thrown to him three or four times, then what can we, if someone's not got it yet, what connection could we find with them? Like, how are we going to bring these people in so that everyone gets at least one

opportunity to be included? So, you know, to increase those. connections as you really challenge people and what they're thinking so there you go a little free one from me oh that's wonderful this has been such a good chat yeah I've loved it. It's really nice to meet you both and hang out in this space. We should probably do this more. Definitely. This is my little game of churn, just so you guys know. Oh, it really is blinding.

Look at that. Yeah. And then eventually down in this little corner, they found it, but they actually went round and round in circles lots

and lots of times before they got there. So that was... kind of the intention here what happened was interesting they all kind of converged around the final piece lots of times so they can't they knew it was in this area but they couldn't quite find the piece so that was yeah it was a very interesting game to play with them how cool i'm definitely going to be going checking out what i can do in a mirror space after this um thanks kuva that's really cool i have one other question

for everyone my question is about when has it not worked when have you like tried to do something and it's just gone flat I have a classic example can I tell you my the little examples I was working in an obviously organization that will remain nameless but I can tell you they were in the dentistry industry we have a few games that we put into our sessions and one of them is a game where people are blindfolded and the first thing I have to say when playing that game is does

anyone not want to wear the blindfold because it's fine if you don't but I want people to feel safe so if that's if you've got any vertigo or whatever or you just don't want to do it that's fine so a couple of people sat out in this particular session they weren't all dentists but people who sell the dentistry we tried to play the game but there was one individual in the game who was just he He was very competitive and I think he realised early on that it was quite tough

and it is a really challenging game and that's all in the brief. It's really hard to solve. Most teams take at least 30 to 35 minutes. You're going to have to use your powers of communication. And his negative mindset was very much like, we are never going to do this, guys. We are never going to do it. And it was really interesting to see how toxic that mindset was because other people in the team tried to stand up to him and say, no, we think we can do it. But his voice

was so dominant and so powerful. that they ended up completely failing and not going anywhere near to solving the task so but it's supposed to be a fun engaging learning activity where teams learn the behaviors that serve them well and the behaviors that don't and so although the game failed and i and i it was really interesting in the debrief this particular person I said to him you know what do you think your impact was on the team when you said those things and

he tried to swerve the question and sort of said but it's a really silly game Elaine you should never have had us doing that what's the point of this and I'm like let's let's just stay with the question what do you think your impact was on the team when you behaved in the way that you did and he refused to answer and I'm a bit cross with myself because I had an opportunity to ask the team what was the impact of his behavior on your overall performance but that felt a bit

exposing for him so I backed away from that opportunity I don't know whether I'm happy with that or not but that that was an intended piece of fun that usually it's the only time I've played that game with teams hundreds of times it only failed the one time um and that was really interesting the impact of someone else's mindset on team performance I don't know how about you Jess I've had I've had occasions I mean thinking back to the COVID times being on screen and people switch their

cameras off by doing an exercise and get people to get into their body and then they their cameras go off and that's when you know you don't want to call people out because very good reason why so you kind of carry on but then when you've got the black square other people doing something I think that's when it it can feel uncomfortable and that hasn't happened very often to be fair but I think they they're that would or they would be occasions where it's felt like or maybe the

energy is not quite right here how about you Kiva have you got an example yeah I've got a couple I've got one where I was designing the learning for it was a mortgage lending company and they had a major legislative change that they were facing. And I came up with this great idea that they're going to have a battle where they're going to talk about the pros and cons of this new change. So we got a bunch of them

into the session. And these guys are very high earning, the top ones especially, and very, very careful with their time because every minute is money to them, basically. So they got into this session and we were like, yep, we're going to do a battle. We're going to talk about the pros and cons. And they were like, just tell us about the change. We don't want this. I'm not allowed to swear. We don't want this. Just tell us about the change. Tell us now. Like,

no fun. We don't have time for fun. So I think that that was really interesting and important because I think. What I take away from that is that if someone's actually really engaged and interested in what you're teaching them in the content itself, gamification or fun can actually feel like a distraction. and feel like it's getting in the way and wasting time where you could actually just be focused on the topic itself, which I

think is really important. The other one is probably when you're doing those compliance trainings that they force you to do when you do an induction. I can see you smiling there, Jess. And then some genius learning designer has decided, yeah, we're going to make this fun. We're going to turn it into a game. And then instead of just being able to get through the thing quickly, it takes longer and it feels contrived. And it also distracts.

Like I remember doing one that was. some kind of quiz show or I don't know it was some fun rapper around the outside but it actually didn't make it more fun to me it just meant that I felt like I was a bit distracted by it and um and it was taking longer yeah okie dokie I think it's probably time for us to wrap up ladies but it's been an absolute joy to spend this morning with you and have this conversation I've loved it I've loved talking about fun let's do more

of it let's see if we can bring a little bit more a little bit more joy into workplaces I would love to have more fun in the workplace 100 % so yes as much as I can possibly get I'm all for that yeah and I want my learners to have a good experience when they're they're learning from us and so I think that yeah it's super important and the more sticky we can make our learning the more impactful we can make it then i think that that's that's our job done right yeah it

was wonderful to meet you both and yeah let's take the fun into the day did you have fun listening to this episode the idea of forced fun is a bit of an anathema to me and it was brilliant to listen to experts in the topic produce such an interesting conversation do let us know your thoughts and perhaps share some of your ideas a very special thank you to jess elaine and kuva for their insight into this topic and for their time in making such a brilliant recording I know

you'll want to connect with them afterwards and their details are in the show notes, along with information about how to connect with us here at Women Talking About Learning. Please do remember to like and subscribe to the podcast on your podcast player. It makes a real difference in helping people find and recommend us. We're back in a couple of weeks and next time it's the female voice one. As always, thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon.