Archive for category: Courage

This Changes Everything (Kathy Taberner)

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We live in a complex global world where demands of leaders are increasing everyday. With a focus on transparency, inclusion, equality, agility, possibility and collaboration, how can leaders leverage themselves to live, work and play in a way that is respectful, sustainable, and most important, fun?

The answer is simple. Curious conversations. Hiding behind texts, emails and social media, conversational skills are the most important skills leaders are failing to engage in. Research out of Stanford is showing that 9 out of 10 conversations miss the mark. Research is also showing organizations are focused on ‘soft’ skills that have hard impacts: communication skills, critical thinking, agility – all of which require curiosity. These are skills that are expected of leaders but are never taught. Curious conversations are the disruptor needed to thrive in our global, multigenerational workplace.

In our interactive workshop, participants will experience how curious conversations are at the forefront of innovation and collaboration in a time where demands are high and resources are low. Participants will experience and learn: -The value of different perspectives, there is never just one way to do anything – Communication skills to shift leaders from reacting to intentionally responding – Self-awareness, clarity around how they are showing up as a leader, their impact and turning barriers into bridges – The skills needed to collaborate, innovate, problem solve & manage emotions. Skills that are currently expected of leaders but have never been taught Canada’s success lies in our leaders’ ability to confidently disrupt the status quo, step out of comfort zones while also being inclusive and collaborative, as they reflect rather than react.

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Culture Map (Renate Bia Franke)

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Bringing transparancy into the cultural patterns of organizations can help to speed up transformational change. The culture map is basically rooted in the concept of the spiral dynamics by Claire Graves but made applicable for the organisational context. It is one of theses concepts that is so useful as a frame of mind in the back of your head because “it explains the world” – as a participant called it – and at the same time it can be used as a tool through which you can look at organisations.

We will explore the map in an interactive fashion  and give you an idea of your own culture map and how you can use it in an organisational context.

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Developing Change Management Sponsorship with Lego® Serious Play® (Rich Batchelor)

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Change Agents are constantly challenged by senior leadership to show the value of change management to deliver successful change initiatives. Before we can discuss the right approach, we need get them sponsoring the change and supporting the change management presence. This workshop will use Lego® Serious Play® as an approach to show the value of change sponsorship, change management and leadership by SHOWING its worth and understand how to develop a psychological contract to support change management activity for organizations and their leadership teams.

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Eroding the Power from within: Activist Communication (Esther Barfoot)

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Get a load of this: in the Netherlands a police officer isn’t allowed to choose the partner with whom he is teamed up in the police car. He has no say in the choice of partner who might or might not save his life in a life or death situation. Police people, nurses, teachers and many other professionals are often prevented from doing their work properly by all kinds of rules, regulations and interference by managers and other staff, based on an inherent distrust of the healthy judgement of professionals. Fortunately, in many organisations, professionals are standing up and forming movements to reclaim their own professionalism, judgement and space to do their work properly. These movements, of course, want to spread the word and communicate with the people inside and outside the movement. This calls for a different kind of communication than the classic, top down corporate communication. It is what Esther calls ‘activist communication’.

Activist communication does the following:

  • It stands between and is co-created with the innovators and change agents
  • It harvests stories from the undercurrent
  • It gives words to new concepts
  • It spreads valuable ideas
  • It keeps the dialogue alive
  • It kisses the future awake

It does this in many, often creative forms. Activist communication searches for ways to appeal to the right brain, the intuition. In this workshop Esther will talk to the participants about activist communication and her experience at – among others – the Dutch National Police (illustrated with many photos and examples). Then the participants will do the activist poster workshop she has done many times at the police and, for instance, in health care organisations. The participants develop an interesting quote or motto about something that really frustrates them in their work, makes them an feel rebellious, or alternatively something that really inspires them. Through (street) art they turn this into an appealing poster. The workshop is designed to empower participants, as well as search for ways to make progress, break down faulty systems and move from distrust to trust, while staying in conversation with the main order of things.

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Power of Looking and being looked at – The Practise of Empowering Photography (Eeva-Liisa Vihinen)

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Power issues show up in every encounter we have with other people.We can use our way of looking at each other in either oppressing critical or accepting and appreciating way. Choosing an appreciative look enables trust to emerge. We all want to be looked at and seen acceptingly an lovingly – that makes us want to give our best. One way of turning upside down and exploring the power issues in professional helping work in its different forms is the method of Empowering Photography. In the core of this method is the loving and appreciative way of looking, not really the photografic technique. With the accepting and loving look through the camera lense we can give voice and power to those who have been lacking it and thus make real the whole potential of the organisation.

In the workshop we explore and experience what happens when the power of the photographer’s look as an auteur is given to the person or group looked at. The basic method is developed by a Finnish social pedagog and photographer Miina Savolainen and is developed further by tens of pedagogs, social workers, working life developers and consultants. The method is about exploring what happens when we give up our own “knowing” and definitions and surrender ourselves for the interaction with the other. The change it produces is often a feeling of intimacy and commitment that stems form the experience of being understood. It is an ability to listen another human being with deeper concentration and a growing experience of your own ability to show love and respect. In the workshop we will throw ourselves to the process of opening up to see and be seen by each other through the camera lence. We will also be reflecting on the possibilities of the method and its basic ideas to apply on corporate issues like building a shared strategy, making all voices heard to meet the challenges and developing an appreciative and empowering culture.

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Conversation Catalyst (Nathan Bragg)

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People often avoid talking about thorny issues together. This workshop provides an avenue into nonviolent discussion.

Treating a given space like a giant piece of graph paper, participants position themselves in specific places to silently declare their opinion of a concept. Individuals are then offered the opportunity to create a sculpture to help illuminate why they have chosen their position; this image is further defined in words by viewers outside the given sculpture. This is important because when viewers “read” a sculpture, they short-circuit any judgement which might arise from a Sculptor who would otherwise use spoken words. In addition, when those at the opposite pole help describe offered images in words it effectively humanizes all individuals who might otherwise appear to be in bitter opposition.

The participants will:

  • learn the power of making interactive non-verbal polls
  • practice creating images to illustrate a deep truth
  • be encouraged to practice deep, empathetic listening
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Curiosity & Disruptive Change (Nik Beeson)

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Real disruption is a deep wound to the integrity of organisational identity, so real disruption requires radical adaptation, structural transformation… a transformation in identity. The question that disruption is asking is not ‘what is the problem?’ or ‘how do I survive?’ or ‘how do I make it go away’, the question that disruption is asking is ‘Who are you?’. How you navigate that question determines the path of your evolution. Will you react or respond? Or will you deflect, dismiss, resist, deny or hide? Will you be willing to wrestle with it and, more importantly, with yourself? Will you seek to understand it and, more importantly, seek to understand yourself?

‘Curiosity & Disruptive Change’ focuses on curiosity as the strongest motivation and most useful aptitude for navigating and instigating disruptive change. We will explore what it means to be disrupted, how we react to disruption, what curiosity is, and how to cultivate a curiosity towards disruption that enables us to discern the possibilities and realise the potentials in any challenge. Myth, fairy tales, problem solving, perceptual challenges, crafts & play, current affairs… any or all are possible approaches we might take. Prepare for a little disruption… We’ll create situations which will instigate your curiosity, and we’ll analyze and reflect on our experiences and how they apply to your current situation.

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The Act of Creation – Working with Dilemmas in Organizations (Jacques Chlopczyk)

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Seemingly incompatible alternatives and either/or problem definitions are common in consulting and managing organizations. Starting with Arthur Koestler’s theory of humour and creativity we will explore concepts and tools to understand how these dilemmas offer a great starting point for the development of creative and novel approaches. This workshop will introduce a powerful framework to address and harness these dilemmas as an opportunity for development on a personal, team and organizational level. The approach is based on three distinct models from

a) the field of intercultural consulting,

b) personal development and

c) systems thinking.

The workshop provides a great setting to experience how the approach can be facilitated with groups before we will discuss its conceptual background and the application of the framework in organizational, personal and team development – and in telling jokes.

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What Makes us Human (Marlou de Rouw)

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What changes if I come to a group not as an expert to share knowledge, but rather as a human being coming to learn from the experience of the other so that I may transfer it into my own context?

This workshop will take participants on a deep exploration of the question “What makes us human?”, and will help them think through the consequences of taking our common humanity as a starting point to any work we do. At the heart of this workshop is the approach used by the international NGO the  Constellation, SALT: Stimulate/Support – Appreciate/Authenticity – Learn/Listen/Link – Transfer/Trust/Transform/Team.

Facilitators of this approach know from experience that people within the communities and groups they work with have what it takes to dream, act and transform – they trust that as facilitators they need only to host a space that is ‘human’ enough for people to express themselves freely and find their own solutions – trust that building from strengths and aspirations any group of people has enough in common to overcome their differences and work towards a shared dream.

Participants will leave the workshop with renewed energy, connections and concrete ideas of taking next steps in a change process of their choice.

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Increasing your capacity to collaborate and communicate (Charo Lanao)

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“The world is getting more crowded. Depending on the circumstances, conversations across boundaries can be delightful, or just vexing: what they mainly are, though, is inevitable.”
   Kwame Anthony Appiah

Today’s rapidly changing and interdependent world has included a global migration where our society is increasingly ‘diverse’. In order to function effectively with a range of colleagues, service users, students and clients it is essential to improve one’s intercultural sensitivity (working with, understanding and being sensitive to cultural differences). Effective Intercultural Sensitivity is crucial to successful and optimum practice in all workplaces.

This training offers:

  • Tips and tools to improve specific intercultural communication skills
  • Visible and Non visible aspects of culture
  • Cultural self awareness: Own perspective on culture, cultural values, rules and behaviour
  • Cultural boundaries: influences in work, management, teams, meetings
  • The different ways people negotiate, communicate, agree and resolve conflict
  • Understanding the Five Frameworks for cross – cultural interaction

Tailored training modules specific to your particular working needs and circumstances are also available.

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