Learning Café Learning Café

Adapting a Playful Mindset. Your Advantage to Greater Trust, Creativity, Safety and Retention in Learning

Kelsey Kates shares how to embed a playful mindset into work to drive engagement, safety, collaboration and creativity. Kelsey will share insights on: The five dimensions of playfulness and 8 play personalities, and what it means to be playful at work. Why playfulness is critical for engagement, the neuroscience findings on the benefits of playfulness. Practical ideas on how to infuse playfulness into your work. How to make playfulness authentic, from a little goes a long way to knowing your audience.

Kelsey Kates

Former Global Head of Live Learning Experiences and Faculty Enablement, Google

Kelsey's been awarded multiple Brandon Hall Awards for the design of marquee Google programs - Facilitation Academy, Deliver Like a Boss, and her team's delivery of Google Way of Coaching and Google Sales School. In 2018 she won the Rising Star Award for Analytical Academy, a new multi-course program at Google to train and develop the finest analytical thinkers. As the Global Head of Learning Experiences at Google Kelsey Kates looks after the activation and delivery of 15+ facilitated programs within the Global Business Org for more than 20,000 Googlers, as well as the team's marketing and communication and the enablement and management of their 150+ facilitators. Kelsey has her B.S from the University of Denver and her Masters from Northwestern. She's a marketer turned analyst and now in the corporate learning and development space with a ton of passion for re-imagining great learning and education. She's not afraid to challenge the status quo and believes deeply in changing the world through more impactful and delightful learning experiences that transform how we show up. As a lifelong learner, she's currently pursuing an Executive Certificate from MIT in Neuroscience. Today, Kelsey lives in Dublin with her husband, son and dog.