Archive for category: Creativity

Creating your future NOW, via a disruptive Story-Work approach. (Yannis Angelis)

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Can you imagine the future of your organization, department, product, yourself in a highly disruptive world? Who will be you at that time and what will be your role? How disruption will have transformed you and your work? Are you interested to explore that?

As most organizations strive for a sustainable growth in an era of constant disruption, they fall into a paradoxical mythology, the one that they are able of keeping control and remain safe as they grow towards the future, the same way they did in the past. It is inevitable that a different approach is needed to detach themselves from the paradox that this mythology provokes and move towards a new narrative which reflects the multi-directional forces of the environment that they operate. The hypothesis, which forms the basis of this highly interactive workshop, is that if one tries to create successful strategies for the future, this cannot happen today without experiencing, “playing,” and getting more familiar with the disruption itself and its consequences.

This workshop firstly aims to produce important strategic outcome on the future of whatever you would like to explore, by considering how disruptive the future may seem. Secondly, via the introduction of a serious game concept, a set of disruptive interventions are used as ignitions and catalysts for new future personal stories and organizational scenarios to emerge. The concept provides a safe space for participants to familiarize themselves with disruption and by that to experience their creative-self being liberated.

More in detail, participants will be invited to interact with each other, combine and work with what exists today in the field they are operating, and what could be the consequences of several disruptive interventions occurring in the environment (I am disrupted) or induced by them (I am the disruptor). Inspiring challenges, working with stories and scenarios, leveraging group collaboration and dynamics, storytelling, sophisticated feedback and a lot of fun is deployed during this workshop.

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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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The Art of Human Interaction (Jouke Kruijer)

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Organizations have an inherent world of values, emotions, fears and desires. This most human, and often unconscious or hidden, world is an important part of organizational life. It is the bedrock of power and trust – these two vital forces that shape an organization’s culture, its people’s day to day behaviours, and thereby the outcomes it creates. Those leading transformational shifts in organizations need to be able to work with these forces. Traditional interventions addressing the why and what of transformation are important but not sufficient. To get to the heart of transformation, we need to address the heart – the human dimension. For this, we can draw on work in these three domains:

  1. Organisational Change interventions like Deep democracy, Agile and Scrum, Design Thinking, Storytelling, Pattern Recognition to release creativity and help designing meaningful change.
  2. Coaching, workshops and events engaging people not only at the intellectual level, but also at the level of feelings and emotions, using mindfulness, interactive exercises, rituals, art, and bodywork, to connect people to their humanity and to each other
  3. Design a change process allowing groups and individuals to challenge established ways of doing and being, explore and establish new ones, to better serve the purpose of the organization

To illustrate this, we will present a case study of the European Investment Bank. In this we show why and how different forms of art and artistic expression are incorporated in training, team development and away days. And we will also share the initial results of a project about the development of constructive work relations through art and artistic interventions. This project is sponsored by the Bank’s Personnel Directorate, and at the same time intentionally set up and empowered as a bottom up initiative. In this project staff from across the organization design a series of events to bring about connection and dialogue between people in the organization, thus creating small steps towards a shift in the organization’s culture . Finally, we will engage and inspire participants to co-create their own change design using scrum methods to leverage art to surface Power and Trust in transformative design.

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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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Build trust through the ancient art of juggling! (Yannis Angelis)

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So, a merger or an acquisition has taken place

… or you are assigned to conduct a new project team which involves various competences and mindsets and you find yourself struggling because

… in this novel situation, you and your teams need to work with new people that you don’t know, coming from a different personal and organizational culture. Moreover, you may have even been competitors just some months ago. So how can you make sure that you can, as soon as possible, create a collaborative field of trust in such a complex environment where things seem to be a bit chaotic?

The ancient art of juggling in its principal is a continuous attempt to bring a kind of stability to chaos. Juggling is not so difficult as it appears to be and participants in this workshop will learn to juggle 3 balls in a clear time of 30 minutes! Even if juggling is considered to be an individual art, they will have the opportunity to juggle together. The whole process combines both physical and social interactions, which are essential for creating connection and initiating trust. Juggling introduces a self-trusting attitude, a kind of “I can learn anything I wish to”. Most importantly for participants, by increasing their self-confidence, they will feel more trustful and will shine out more trustworthy.

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The Time Paradox – Delayed time as a catalyst for progress (Odette Meyer)

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In today’s world we are experiencing more than ever the urge to intervene, but we often do not know how. We expect our leaders and ourselves immediately to come up with the best solution, but for complex problems a simple answer is not obvious. A correct answer and a creative solution cannot be forced under the pressure of time. We collectively feel that there is too little time, while the pressure is getting higher every day. Control prevails while confidence disappears. The opposite is necessary in order to arrive at true insights and creativity. From a philosophical perspective and theoretical framework (logic) we would like people to experience these insights (magic).

Delayed time as a catalyst for progress. That delay alone is perceived as disruptive (both in an organizational context and a personal context). It is very uncomfortable to make a pass at the point when the pressure is so high. And it is also very uncomfortable to experience the feeling of fear and failure that is coming up when you stand still. But still: shared uncertainty reduces fear and creates connection. So why not adjust your pace – stand still, sit together, debate, share stories, and create possibilities?

In this workshop people will experience different dimensions of time and the way they are able to consciously switch between these dimensions of time. Participants will also experience their unique ways to slow down their pace even in the midst of turmoil. In doing so they will experience that they tap into the power of the Visionary Self (the part of us that is connected to the Relational Brain). This is important in order to go beyond uncertainty and the ways we are used to doing things.

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Ice-Breaker (Nathan Bragg)

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Never underestimate the power of creative play and “goofing off”. The games in this set are the jumping off point for all the deeper questions to be asked in Nathan Bragg’s Image Theatre workshops. This is a cornerstone.

This workshop will:

  • playfully exercise creative muscles
  • raise awareness that images are inherent to all communication
  • encourage a new form of deep listening
  • begin to illustrate the effectiveness of communicating through images we create with our bodies and/or objects.
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