The Patterns of Games for Leading Social Change

Abstract

The current paper highlights the fundamentals of employing the play state to lead people toward improved performance across a variety of leadership responsibilities. It offers perspective on the historical, sociological, and psychological characteristics of play and game design toward leading social change. Drawing from experience leading and researching a variety of game‐focused interventions to lead social change, the paper focuses on the play state's unique characteristics to encourage iterative problem solving, adjust to complex problems, and optimize performance as tools leaders can use. It helps illustrate how games and play can be used to shift perspective and find solutions more traditional approaches may not. The work references a myriad of examples across leadership initiatives in education, policy, health, and more. The paper is designed to help leadership employ the power of play to address complex problems.