PLAYSTATE

Quick, Enlightening Activities that Stick

How do you activate the play state in real-world training when time is tight, attention is divided, and expectations are low? This section offers a set of quick, purposeful activities designed to spark curiosity, challenge assumptions, encourage reflection, and make learning stick. Each one aligns with a specific phase of the PLAYSTATE framework, and can be layered into your in-person, virtual, hybrid, or asynchronous sessions with minimal setup but maximum payoff. These are not filler or flair—they are miniature tea ceremonies that invite learners to step into the experience, not just observe it. Use them as openers, transitions, resets, or capstones to transform passive training into meaningful engagement.

P – Prepare: Get learners to opt-in and find their personal “why.”

  • Instructor-led – “Look at the agenda and ask about each item, ‘So what, why is that important?’”
  • Self-reflection – “Look at your calendar at all the things coming up that relate to [topic].”
  • Pair share – “What do you like about [topic] and what are some challenges.”
  • Small groups – “What if you were a failure in [topic], what would be the consequences?”
  • Virtual or Hybrid: Create a Word Cloud that highlights your feelings about [topic].
  • Asynchronous: Use a ranking, sorting, or poll that allows learners to prioritize learning objectives.

L – Lean In: Build safety, spark curiosity, activate mirror neurons.

  • Plan a topic-specific activity that is interesting and slightly challenging but that everyone can do, such as create a story about a picture you show.
    • Pick a common object and write a short description of it. Be careful not to name the object but from the description, others should be able to discern what it is. Debrief with having people guess what else the description could be and engage in observations about scope.
  • Lead an activity everyone will likely do incorrectly and create psychological safety when everyone realizes there is nothing to be embarrassed about.
    • “Say the alphabet silently in your head, and every time you reach a vowel, blink once. Ready? Go.” After 15 seconds, say, “Raise your hand if you blinked on Y.” Debrief with a nod to the “sometimes Y” saying in school or how we pay attention differently when we are seeing versus hearing.
    • Give everyone a small mirror and ask them to outline a graphic in the workbook by looking at their pen through the mirror. It will be difficult, and some will draw way off track. Debrief something to do with points of view or assumptions.

A – Acknowledge: Surface resistance and distractions so they don’t block learning.

  • “What’s the eye roll?” Invite learners to name one cynical or skeptical thought they had when they saw the training topic. Laugh. Normalize. Then move on.
  • This or That – Show two options (“More training” vs. “More time”), and have learners vote. Use results to acknowledge priorities.
  • Pre-Call the Excuses – “If you’re thinking ‘I already know this,’ ‘this won’t work here,’ or ‘I don’t have time,’ you’re right. It is also true that ‘It depends,’ everything does.”

Y – Yield: Empower learners through progress, creativity, and control.

  • Scattergories Challenge – In groups or breakouts, have participants brainstorm a list of answers to a question you want addressed. (in hybrid, have those in remote conference rooms go first). Teams take turns sharing their lists, crossing off all items in common with others and sharing only those still unique. Score how many original answers each group had. Variations based on the game Listography can give points for matching as many players as possible or matching only one other player or team. Asynchronous learners can compare their lists against a pre-written one.
  • Balloons – “If you feel uncomfortable doing so for any reason such as a latex allergy or fear of them popping, you can step back and observe, or I will blow one up for you. This is a great activity you will not want to miss, if possible, though. Blow up your balloon and tie it. Gather in this open space with your balloons. Everyone is responsible for keeping all the balloons in the air. If a balloon touches the floor or a piece of furniture, it is out of play. Ready? Launch!” Most of the balloons will be on the floor in short order. Debrief by asking them what happened and how they could have approached it differently, relating it to how some things in life are beyond our control.

S – Suspend: Disrupt assumptions and open new perspectives.

  • Stack these numbers vertically (1,000,  40, 1,000, 30, 1,000, 20, 1,000, 10) and reveal them one at a time, asking learners, “Add these numbers in your head and give the answer as quickly as you can when you get to the answer bar.” Most people say 5,000. Wait until you get the right answer of 4,100 (ignore it if it comes up early), then debrief with an explanation of how we do things on autopilot or with something relating directly to the topic.
  • Show a “B” in a red circle, an “A” in a red circle, an “A” in a yellow circle, and an “A” in a red square with the heading, “Which One is the Odd one out?” They will respond that it is “all of them.” Go back and ask them to call out each one. It turns out the A in the red circle has nothing about it that would make it the odd one out, which makes it the odd one out. Debrief with something about how we jump to conclusions or how we pay attention to the squeaky wheel.

T – Teach: Layer content progressively and meaningfully.

  • Do-Discuss-Debrief or Point–Example–Engage–Point – Structure each learning segment to include a real-life hook and a challenge, not just a lecture.
  • Post a slide with these two sentences one above the other at the top: “What Are The Elusive Characters? Missing Two Letters or Numbers.” Then these letters: W A T E ? on the top row and M ? L O N on the bottom row. They call out that the missing letters are R and E, but you insist they are a C and a T …because the letters are just the first letters of each of the words in the two sentences above and they are trying to spell Watermelon. Debrief with conversations about first impressions or patterns.
  • Show words in different colors than they say (“Red” written in blue ink, “Yellow” written in black ink, etc.). Ask them to aloud “call out the color, not the word” and demonstrate. They will be all over the place. Debrief about right and left brain or habit.

A – Apply: Solidify learning through demonstration and reflection.

  • Teach Back: “If you were teaching this to your team tomorrow, what 3 things would you emphasize?” Let them teach one another in pairs or groups.
  • Simulation: Difficult people practice – “Pretend I am a difficult person. I will make you my boss, so you can tell me what to do. Now imagine you have called me into your office to talk to me about my ‘attitude.’ You are at your desk, and this is the chair you ask visitors to take (pull a chair in front of the room facing them and suggest they invite you to sit down at some point in the role play if it stalls). I will start off, and someone play the role of the boss. If one speaker drops off, someone jump in and help them.” Play back and forth until there are flustered players and nervous laughter (it will not take long). Ask if you were pushing their buttons and ask why a difficult person would want to do that – point to the payoff. Train an effective communication technique for disarming and replay the scene using it.

T – Translate: Connect insight to learners’ real-life context.

  • Ah-Ha Breakthroughs: Ask them to rank (in writing or via a virtual poll) the phrases ASAP, Hurry, and Right Away according to urgency, then invite them to compare their answers with the people around them (or show poll results). A lively discussion will ensue. Interrupt and ask, “Who ranked ASAP number one? Who ranked it number three? If you ask for something ASAP, when do you expect it if you were number one? Number three? If I ask you for something ASAP, and you agree, what have you promised me? You’ve promised me my definition of ASAP, and you don’t know what that is.” Debrief by talking about how different words mean different things to different people and we need to clarify.
  • Scenario Mapping: “What would this look like at your job?” “What’s one conversation this session prepares you to have?” or “Name the concept, where it shows up, what success looks like, and what could block it.”

E – Extend: Keep the learning alive after the session ends.

  • Memory Hook: In grammar training, when teaching sentence structure, introduce that Compound Sentences have two complete thoughts. Between the two thoughts, you need a semi-colon or a comma and a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS – for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). “It’s like with two complete thoughts, you need two things in the middle: first a comma, then a dot above it to make it a semicolon or a conjunction after it. To help you remember, here is the Run-on Rap: Two thoughts, two things; comma with a dot, comma with a FANBOYS.”
  • Gamified Debrief: quiz competition or creation of a learning artifact to take with them.
  • Real-Life Integration: Schedule actions, write notes to your future self, or create accountability circles.

The goal is to keep the play state evolving and the cup refilling.

In the end, what we teach is only part of what people learn. The rest lies in how we shape the space around the content—the ceremony, the energy, the rhythm, the invitation. The PLAYSTATE™ process isn’t about filling the cup with content; it’s about preparing learners to receive, consume, and carry it forward. A full cup is a gift—but only when it’s filled with something useful, taken in, and made part of something bigger. The best learning isn’t what gets poured in—it’s what gets absorbed, applied, and returned to again and again.