Intentional Play: A Practical Guide to Internalizing and Implementing Communication Concepts

By Sheila Peters

Intentional Play embraces a specific way of processing communication dynamics through a gaming tool, and it will help you communicate better with colleagues, friends, and even strangers.
Framed around basic communication concepts, the game shows you how youre communicating, what youre doing, why youre doing itand most importantlyhow to make better choices to improve outcomes for yourself and others.
Annie Werner, a corporate trainer, says the book places the reader into real-world scenarios that force an individual to critically think, How would I honestly handle that situation? Am I effectively communicating? Whats great is that the reader realizes, I could be better.
Some people love the game, but others are afraid of it or avoid itbut they do so at their own peril as it challenges participants to navigate complicated human dynamics and preserve communication integrity.
Youre not just thrown into the game: Youll learn the underlying concepts that will help you master it card by card. From there, its up to you to apply what youve learned to communicate better and strengthen relationships by engaging in Intentional Play in everyday life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491750766

Sheila Peters

Sheila Peters has worked as a reporter, weaver, human-rights activist, and English instructor. Her nonfiction book, Canyon Creek: A Script, was recently published by Creekstone Press. Peters's stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Prism international, Grain, Room of One's Own, The Malahat Review, and Event. She lives in Smithers, British Columbia.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 Sheila Peters.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5077-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5076-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921371

iUniverse rev. date: 1/30/2015

CONTENTS

What Can You Do With a Communication Degree?

Introduction

SECTION I

The Story

CHAPTER 1   The First Recognition

CHAPTER 2   Teaching Brings Awareness

CHAPTER 3   The Constant Internal Drive to Bring Communication to Life

CHAPTER 4 Early Market Entrance

CHAPTER 5   Playing for Life

SECTION II

Insights to Assist You When Internalizing Intentional Play

CHAPTER 6   19 Lessons for Life Balance

CHAPTER 7   Core Concepts in the Intentional Play Communication Gaming Program

CHAPTER 8   Why a Game Program?

SECTION III

Processing the Cards through Intentional Play

CHAPTER 9   Gameplay

CHAPTER 10 First Round of Card Play

CHAPTER 11 Second Round of Card Play

CHAPTER 12 Third Round of Card Play

CHAPTER 13 Fourth Round of Card Play

SECTION IV

Strategies to Implement and Internalize Intentional Play

CHAPTER 14 The Intentional Play Challenge

Notes

Additional Resources

For all those executives, college students, and friends who have asked me for the last twenty-five years to share my internalized ideas on communication concepts. I have been listening. Now, for the first time, I share my secrets of intentional play so that you may build confidence with your interactions and experience meaningful communication results.

What Can You Do With a Communication Degree?

W hen I decided to declare speech communication as my major at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville (SIUE), I was continually asked by family and friends, What can you do with a communication degree? Years later, when I decided to go even further and pursue a master of arts degree in Communication, I was bombarded with the same question, except this time with added intensity.

Unlike many other types of degrees you go to school for, you don’t receive any particular professional title once you accomplish your degree in communications. If you go to medical school, you become a doctor. If you get a law degree, you become an attorney. If you study nursing, you become a nurse. What do you become when you get a degree in communications?

I always knew that the field of communications, the study of human dynamics, would take me far in my personal and professional life. What was even more important was that very early on in my career, I realized how valuable it would be for other people to gain communication insight to improve the quality of their personal and professional lives. So as I launched my career, I prepared myself to answer the question: So what is your professional title and what does it mean?

While some people referred to me as a communication expert, others would say that I was kind of like a people management specialist. There were several occasions in which I was defined as more of a people psychologist or even a sociologist. So after several years of teaching, training, developing, and coaching others, I decided I needed to give myself a title and be ready to explain it, so that others would have a good understanding of my profession.

The title I came up with was a communicationtologist. Why this title? It allowed me to embrace all aspects of what I do and give it a strong definition that others could understand.

A communicationtologist studies human dynamics with the intent of gaining the maximum understanding of each dynamic between people. The t between the n and the o is placed deliberately to serve as a reminder that becoming a communicationtologist takes considerable time.

Below are the top four lifetime practices one must adopt to become a communicationtologist.

1. Activate as many of your personal senses during interaction or when observing others interacting, so that you can bring your level of awareness to an optimum state, presence.

2. Discipline yourself to be a total listener, capturing and collecting as much bias-free data for interpretation, with the intent of arriving at the most accurate understanding.

3. Appreciate and fully comprehend that you will never master communication dynamics. Your work will be to pursue endless knowledge with infinite possibilities.

4. Live with an internal commitment to the study of human dynamics, an oath that you have sworn to follow for the rest of your life. You won’t give up, even when others do.

It might sound a little crazy for someone to create his or her own professional title with specific lifetime practices, but that is what I did. This book reflects many years of dedication to what I call the pursuit of becoming a communicationtologist.

Introduction

T his book is written for anyone who is eager to unlock his or her communication potential. It is designed to assist you as you navigate interpersonal relationships, both personal and professional. If you have a desire to build healthy, complete relationships throughout all aspects of your life, then this book is a good choice to read. I plan to take thirty-five years of intelligence out of my head and share it with as many people as possible who desire to learn, understand, and gain self-awareness around their communication behavior. My hope is that people will choose to embrace intentional play with the purpose of enriching their lives and the lives of all those they interact with on a daily basis.

So what exactly is intentional play? Intentional play is a concept that embraces a very specific way of processing communication dynamics through a gaming tool, which was originally entitled the A.S.K. Communication Gaming Program and has transitioned to being called the Intentional Play Communication Gaming Program. Intentional play is the concept of engaging in communication with the total purpose of increasing the effectiveness of as many communication efforts as possible in a lifetime.

This book explains the process that helps you play this communication game, an actual game board. The game is framed around basic communication concepts 101: putting behavior into practice across any and all of the roles you might be engaged in daily. The concepts addressed in the gaming process are simple and universally accepted across communication studies.

You will be guided through a gaming process that will help you increase levels of personal awareness and communication confidence. The effect may be even greater; you might internalize the gaming process into your own life, helping you find a new happiness, a sense of peace, and a sense of balance around your behaviors.

Perhaps it can be defined as a method that gives you more control over your own interactive world, the consciousness of being present in your current communication. Knowing what you are doing, why you are doing it, and making active choices to create the most meaningful outcome for yourself and others—these are all part of intentional play.

There have been—and will continue to be—many reactions from the thousands of individuals who have played the communication game. Some players love it, some are afraid of it, some get frustrated by it, and others want to avoid it all together. Regardless of the emotions felt, the simple truth about the game remains constant: it is a game filled with human dynamics, challenging participants to preserve communication integrity to the best of their ability.

To guide you as you begin to explore intentional play, the book is laid out in four sections.

Section I is the story. This is my personal journey of digesting and understanding communication concepts through an internalized gameplay process I created for my personal development.

Section II expands on the necessary insights around philosophies, core communication concepts, and gaming theories that will assist you when playing out the question cards in Section III.

Section III is where the gameplay begins. It is the actual playing of the concepts from the main card deck that is the foundation of the Intentional Play Communication Game. You will be guided through a practical gaming experience, card by card, that will begin preparing you for intentional play.