Talk transcript

Hey, lots of you here, eh? And I'm really sorry, because I've actually got on this table a bunch of scrolls that are for taking away. You don't need them for now. And I did not print anywhere near enough. So sorry in advance.

Well, who wants to play a little role-playing game with me? Yeah? Actually, hands up, who knows what role-playing is? And who's a bit of a-- yeah, OK, right. Yeah, right, we've got a lot of nerds in the room.

Cool, well, that's no surprise to me whatsoever. Where are we? So I am going to take us through a little journey. Before we get there, I'll just do a little intro. That image often scales funny, but that's OK.

It's not too bad today. Kia ora, I am Tamara. I am a dungeon master, and I am also the founder of Leadership Treehouse. And I don't even know. I think you did a very good job of summarising what we do.

Essentially, I play Dungeons and Dragons with organisations and leadership teams to help them learn skills. That could be anything from primarily leadership skills, but preparing people for AI adoption in their workplaces, anything that you can think of that requires some sort of change or behavior change skill set, that kind of thing. I do it. And instead of telling people some frameworks or giving them a bunch of information, I drop them into a fantasy scenario with characters. And we get to make some choices.

We get to tell a collaborative story together. And it is very deep, impactful, powerful work that changes behavior. It sounds silly, and it is silly, but it's also very, very powerful. What else do I have to say about that? I will talk a little bit about what is role-playing, what a dungeon master is.

Role-playing is essentially a collaborative storytelling experience. Often, it's a bunch of nerdy people around a table, playing characters, rolling dice, telling a story of some description. It could be that you're going on some sort of quest for an old relic and an old mine or something, or defeating great evil, whatever it might be, you're telling it together. The decisions from the players and their characters and the dice are the things that basically combine in order to tell this story. The dungeon master is the person who sets the scene, sets the stakes, and basically interacts with the choices that those characters make.

So the characters make a choice, whether something fails or succeeds. The dungeon master then takes that and turns it into a new narrative, which is what we're going to be experiencing shortly. So that's pretty much what we're here to do today. And I will say that in this talk, my preference is that everything is really quite an experiential and felt sense of a talk. So there'll be times when some of this may not actually resonate.

Some of this may not make sense. But I'm going to ask you to tap into how things feel as we go through this so that afterwards you may have some realizations. The whole point of doing role playing in the context of learning things, which is what we're going to be doing today, is to imagine yourself in different situations and imagine how this might apply to you, even when I give examples that are not relevant to you. You should be able to draw out some stuff. So that's my job is to help you with that as your dungeon master today.

Before we go on a quest, we need to build a character because that character must go on the quest.

So I'm going to ask for your help on this. I've got some random tables here. And we're going to fill out this character sheet. We're going to use it as our hero for our story. I want you to-- this is a wizard.

I've already decided this is a mage. I was going to get your role for it, and then I decided I couldn't be bothered. So this is a mage, a wizard, a magic user of some description. I want you to have a look at this character. And I want someone to tell me what you think their name is.

Theodore. Fantastic. Couldn't have thought of a better name myself. Theodore. Pronouns for Theodore?

Anyone? It is. Huh? It. It is.

OK, that's going to be harder for me to do. I will try. I may end up defaulting today then, because I tend to just do that anyway. But let's see how we go. OK, OK, this is improv as it goes.

I'm going to ask-- I'm going to chuck this to this table. Who's willing to catch this? OK. Right, I'm going to ask you to roll on that dice. And we're going to figure out a special move or a strength for this character based on-- and that's when I stop it.

OK. OK, this was a special power is that they can make anyone cry with a song. OK, great. Are you guys going to be able to read this? I don't know.

I don't even know if I can read it. OK, jeez. All right, someone else-- you want to chuck it to someone else and we're going to roll for a weakness? Or as we like to say in the workplace, a developing area, right? OK.

19. 19. I'm going to tell you in advance that this whole talk depends on you guys rolling low. So I'm going to need you to get your-- get your high rolls out of the way now. OK.

Cannot function without a hot drink first. Who can relate? Right. And-- Chuck that to someone else and we'll do a special item. Stop.

Stop. Oh, I can't give you that item because that's just going to make the whole quest absolutely null and void. Let's roll again. Do you say 11? Um.

OK, a ring that translates any language. Now, I will say-- I don't speak any other language aside from English. I am that basic. So we're not going to be able to actually do that, but we'll see what happens and how that comes into play. What, it translates any language?

Don't test me too much. I am kind of a new dungeon master. Don't be-- don't be doing that. Right. This is our hero, Theodore.

It is coming with us on a journey. So are we ready to head on this journey? I can already tell I'm going to default to different pronouns and I'm really sorry. Thank you for your suggestion, but I think, given I'm working overtime in my brain to do improv, I think I'm going to have to default to them. Righty-o.

So Theodore is a new adventurer. Theodore, at the moment, finds themselves in a tavern, their favorite tavern, having just finished their dinner and on their second pint of beer, when a scroll appears in front of them and they look around and the mysterious figure's absolutely gone. The scroll on it says, "Urgent immediately head to the monastery on the hill. The beacon has gone out. Without the beacon, the town is at great danger of evil.

You must head up there to figure out what's happening and relight the beacon." Signed the adventurer's guild. So Theodore sighs, "Because as all great adventures start, this could have happened during the day where there was sunlight and it was all nice and everything. But no, it happens to be quite late at night. It is cold. It is dark.

It is raining, obviously. And there's a great storm coming in. It is the perfect setup for a climb up the hill to the dark, dark monastery." Theodore heads up this hill and comes across the big iron gates that stand so tall and a big fat padlock around that gate. They are locked out. So I'm going to ask us for a moment to take stock of what we might do given Theodore's skills as a mage.

So we've got some magic. Can make anyone cry with a song. Cannot function without a hot drink first. And has a ring that translates any language. What does Theodore do in this moment?

Have a think to yourself, because you're playing this hero in this moment. And I want someone to tell me-- well, put up your hand if you've got an idea of what Theodore should do right now. Oh, we're over here first. Audience member: Take the thermos out of their backpack. 100%.

I mean, we don't even have to roll for that. They're going to take the thermos out of their backpack. What's in the thermos? Hot drink. Yeah, yeah.

I'm just-- it's just hot water. It's just plain. Theodore's just like so basic. A nice thermos of hot water has a drink and steadies themselves. Fantastic.

OK, now what does Theodore do? We've got-- we had someone over here. Yeah, perfect. Did anyone want to-- now that Theodore's had a hot drink? Now that theodore's had a hot drink, and he can make a private stop, could they sing a song to see if there's any reaction from inside?

And then he may be nice enough to do that. Uh-huh! Yes, 100% we can do that. Let's get Rachel the dice. Now, this is a-- Woo!

Credit where credit is due. Very nice! Now, this is the thing that Theodore can do. So we don't need a roll to see if Theodore can do it. But what we're going to roll for is just to see if anyone's hearing this in the vicinity.

So let's roll. I'm going to say that you're going to need in this particular situation a 10 or higher. Theodore starts singing. And unfortunately, makes themselves cry. And is bawling their eyes out and not a peep from anyone else, sipping the hot water, having a nice wee cry.

Yes, it's been a long day, and it's nighttime, and it's scary. So it's a bit hard. But the song is beautiful. But there's no one to hear it at the moment. We're going to pivot.

What are we going to do now? Now that we've had a nice cry. Yeah? Have a look around the padlock to see if there's any languages or information. Yeah, yes.

Great. Yes, let's roll for that. Let's roll to see how well the eyesight is and everything on this dark, cold, wet night. Well. Great.

Yeah, 12 is fine. You, Theodore, looks at this lock. And just because we need to move the story on, what ends up happening is that actually it just says-- it just says on the lock, fakelocks.com. Just pull to open. Right.

Theodore pulls it. It was in Thieves' Cant or something like that. So only-- but luckily, luckily, Theodore's got a lovely item that can help with this. So successfully opens the gate. And we can head up to the monastery.

Now the storm starts really setting in. It's getting quite intense. And so Theodore makes their way toward the monastery. As they get closer, it is hard to hear because of the sounds of thunder. But they can hear an awful racket coming from the inner courtyard of this monastery.

They creep through the monastery and peek into the courtyard. Inside this courtyard is a giant black dragon. Currently, wings and claws are sort of what looks like attacking the walls and the columns and the furniture and the things that are inside this courtyard. So as Theodore looks on this scene, what is Theodore going to do? Make the front.

Make the-- Make the dragon cry. Make the dragon cry. Great. What-- no, so we can do that. I'm going to ask you a follow-up question.

To what end? What's the goal for Theodore aside from making the dragon cry? Neutralising the threat. Right, cool. Maybe trying to calm the dragon or draw attention away from what the dragon's doing.

Right. Let's roll for this. You're going to need-- I think for this, just to get the dragon to cry with the special skill we've got, I think you're only going to need a 12 or higher. 18. Great.

OK, so Theodore starts singing a beautiful song about two beautiful black dragons that once were lovers. And the dragon stops kind of thrashing around. It starts weeping and turns to Theodore and says, oh, you've come to help. Oh, thank goodness. And just keeps weeping in between and sobbing.

What does Theodore do in response to this dragon saying, oh, you've come to help. Any ideas? Yes? Audience member: Ask what's wrong. Tamara: Great.

Yeah, you can do it. You don't need to roll for that. I've been-- it's embarrassing, actually. It's embarrassing. Look, I was just doing my normal patrol of the area.

And I sort of got distracted by a shiny thing that was down here. And then when I got down here, I was too distracted looking at the shiny thing. And then I forgot that I forgot to have breakfast that morning. I did not have enough wheat-beaks. And now I'm struggling to get the energy to get out.

So you can see now that as you look around this courtyard, it looks like the dragon's been trying to-- it's quite a high sort of interior courtyard. And the dragon's clearly been trying to get out, but hasn't been able to because they didn't have enough WeetBix didn't have enough protein, or didn't have enough what-evers. So it's been stuck for the last day here. So what do we want to do with that knowledge? Yeah, great.

What kind of hot drink are we talking? Hot rum? Coffee. Coffee might do it. And so the dragon, like, big claw grabs this, like, thermos in the starts trying to drink this coffee.

Yep, yep, human stuff still s***. Yeah, no, thank you, though. Appreciate it. Any other ideas? Yes?

Oh, beautiful. Cool. Yes, call some stone-breaking, shifting magic. Right, let's get the dice over. We're definitely going to need some dice for this.

That's going to be reasonably difficult. Let's go with-- you're going to need a 14 or higher. Theodore concentrates. Concentrates so hard. This is magic that Theodore can do.

Theodore has done this magic before. However, Theodore has not done this magic in front of a big black dragon and a storm in the middle of a monastery. So the circumstances are really quite-- there's a lot of pressure. And suddenly, the magic kind of leaves Theodore, but it is not strong enough and it is not focused enough. It's very-- they're very distracted by what's happening.

Now, I will probably need to start wrapping this up. So I'm going to say at this point, as this happens, the dragon turns to Theodore and says, I appreciate you trying. Again, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I've just remembered something. I've just remembered that I'm a storm dragon and that I get power from storms. And then-- because we've got to finish this game, because otherwise-- so in the dragon just sort of opens its wings and just absorbs the sort of lightning and thunder magic from the storm.

And it kind of electrifies this whole dragon, this black glowing dragon. And he just goes, see you up. And just goes, leaving Theodore free to now climb the stairs up to the beacon and relight the beacon, thank you, and save the town from potential great evil and also rescue this wonderful dragon. So well done, everyone.

We went on an adventure together. Right. [LAUGHS] Yeah, I'm going to have to speed through this. So I want us to reflect a little bit on that adventure. There were many moments-- thank you-- for rolling, so s*** at times.

That was actually very helpful. There were times when we succeeded the roles and the decisions that we wanted to do, and there were times when we did not. And I'm going to ask you just to take a second to think about how it felt, how you think it felt from the outside when Theodore failed at something. How did it feel in this context? What did you notice?

Now, some of you will be starting to pull together a little-- some threads that I might touch on shortly. And some of you might be like, what the f*** are you talking about? But I'm just going to ask you to remember this feeling of what it felt like when you failed during this scenario. Hold on to that. The current problem with feedback in our organisations is that despite the many times we try and train people in feedback frameworks or good ways to give feedback-- and I'm mostly talking about constructive feedback here-- no matter how much we do this, it often comes out real judgy.

It's almost impossible for it to not, unless you put some time and thought into it. And again, what ends up happening in our workplaces is that even with the best of intentions when we give feedback, there is some sort of verdict or judgment that's often passed. It's like you're not strategic enough, or this leadership quality isn't coming through enough. And it feels like an identity thing. Hands up if you've ever been in a room where it felt like the feedback that you were given, either by a manager or a peer, felt like a little bit of an attack, or some sort of thing that actually didn't feel like you were seen, and then you didn't even hear the feedback.

Has anyone had that experience? Yeah, quite a few of us. And that's a real problem with feedback in our workplaces. It feels very judgy. Therefore, we don't do it.

Therefore, if I feel like it's risky to give someone else feedback because I think I'm going to make it come across judgy, I'm not going to do it. And then on the receiving end, if I am sitting there worried about how the conversation is actually going to go and just trying to get to the end of it, then I'm not listening to hear what's actually happening. And that obviously has a big cost in an organisation. It means that our personal development can't be prioritised. I don't know about you, but I work with a ton of organisations.

And I would say in most organisations, giving feedback between peers or team up and down, wherever, is pretty subpar. This doesn't happen that much. And again, because there's lots and lots of fear. And the cost of that is that if we're a high performing or a high growth company, it is crucial we have feedback in order to grow as individuals and to grow as a business. But again, there's a lot of absence of it because we're afraid of how it might come out.

So here's the alternative.

Feedback is story. So feedback is narrative. If you think about a dungeon master, like what we just went through, you will notice that there was feedback in the way in which we narrated those failures. And that's what I'm going to go into a little bit more detail of. Dungeon masters have a really interesting job on their hands to make sure that the characters don't feel shamed or afraid of failure.

Because failure is inevitable in a game like this because we're rolling a dice when the dice represents sort of things outside of our control. So we know that failure is going to happen. But we can't make it judgy or about identity or about anything like that because otherwise, it won't be a fun game. So we've got a lot to learn here about what it might be like if we think about feedback as a story. Let's get into some real specifics here.

Let's start by centering the hero. We started actually by doing that a little bit here. Now, I don't recommend that-- well, no. I do recommend that you go and do character sheets for all of your teams because how cool would that be? But some sort of version of making sure that the hero stays a part of the story of any feedback and that it's always that they are in charge.

They are the person that's kind of walking through the story, just like a DM will narrate the hero's story. And so to do that, we find out some good information about them, things that-- what are they working on? What are their strengths? How do they like to receive feedback? And I think we heard this morning some examples of, like, not everybody receives feedback the same way.

So how do we get this information about our team members that will help us to be able to anchor the feedback in something that's important to them? That's really important. I am coming through this-- by the way, the scrolls will have some stuff on this-- about this as well, so you can kind of take it away afterwards. So we're going to center the hero throughout all of this. And I want that to be a really core part of what you take away here because actually, that's one of the reasons why things come out a bit judgy in our workplaces because we're centering ourselves as the feedback giver.

We're thinking about our nervousness around it, our perception of their failure, or the thing that they did, or whatever we're giving feedback on, without actually putting them at the center of their own story. Narration and not judgment.

So we're going to describe what happened, not what it says about them. So you'll note that when we failed at times during that, I didn't say, man, you're a s*** mage with the-- when you said that we could, like, do the magic with a stone, with the pillars to make a thing. I didn't say, oh, that's a s*** idea, or you were s*** because you failed it. I didn't say anything like that. In fact, I said that usually, you're quite good at that.

It's within your wheelhouse. However, the circumstances, you'd never done it in this environment before. OK, so we added some context in. Judgment, if I'd said, man, you're s***, how would have Theodore have been able to-- if you think about this in a workplace context, because obviously, Theodore's not getting a constant narration from me as a DM in their head. But like, if you think about a workplace, if I'd said some sort of judgment about what they'd done, how quickly does that shut down the next-- where can we go from there?

The point about narrating it as a story and narrating it as an action rather than any judgment is to open a door for Theodore to go, now what? There were so many times we failed, and then the question is, now what? And there's so much we can learn from all of that, right? I'll leave-- you know, there's heaps that we can learn from that if we really had time to get into it. And then the third thing is that we want to point forward.

We always want to make sure that if there's some repeated patterns or anything, or if you'd said to me, we tried the stone magic thing, and then someone else said, I want to try it again. I would have said, OK, what did you learn from the first time? And you would have been able to reference me describing the environment, and you would have been able to reference something you learned from that. So Theodore was operating in this new environment with a dragon there. What could Theodore have done to mitigate those circumstances so that they could have tried again?

I wouldn't have let you roll again a second time after a failed action for the same action unless you'd been able to tell me what you'd learned, because otherwise, what's the point? So we always have to point forward, make sure that there is some sort of lesson that we can take forward, how does the lesson apply, and then the hero decides the next scene. What do you want to do next? Where's the pivot? And man, some cool things can come out of a pivot.

And in many of those situations, aside from the bits where I had to, like, strong arm us on a bit because of time, in many of those situations, the thing that comes out of a failure is a really cool next pivot point, new story point. If we treat the hero as that person going through and finding their own story beats, they are going to be more likely to own wherever that's going next. And again, we can provide feedback along the way to make sure that that's going in the direction that they want it to go in. So to become the DM of your team, I'm just going to refresh those three points, Centre the hero, remember it's about them, not you.

Narration, not judgment, find the narrated version of the story. And point forward, find the lesson and make sure that you're helping them open millions of different doors of where to go next after some constructive feedback.

Thank you, all done!

Talk references

• Dungeons and Dragons