Happy Birthday, mum

My mother, Iris Arnott, would have been 98 today, if she hadn’t died
26 years ago, aged 72, of a heart worn out and broken too many times.

I miss her every day.

Playback Theatre Workshop

WooHoo! This is just the ticket. Melbourne Playback Theatre Company is offering a weekend intensive at the end of January. I wrote about Playback Theatre and community building here. I can’t think of a better way to ease into a new year. Wanna join me?

Summer Weekend Intensive

Melbourne Playback Theatre Company is proud to offer a weekend of training in Playback Theatre Practice.

There are 3 workshops over 3 days (with just enough space for your family duties!)

Friday         29 January         7pm to 9.30pm
Saturday    30 January          12.30 to 5pm
Sunday       31 January         12.30 to 5pm

Venue: Dancehouse , 150 Princes Street, Carlton.

“Investigating Story”

The great pleasure in Playback Theatre is seeing a story retold and transformed.
In this workshop we will continue our investigation of what it is to tell and re-tell stories, and how it is to hear stories from different perspectives. As part of this we will explore physical storytelling and non-linear narrative.
Whether part of your professional development or personal creative exploration, these workshops are designed to:

• Improve your listening skills.
• Play with ways of communicating.
• Discover and harness your natural storyteller.
• Explore ways of telling and composing story.
• Practice performance and presentation skills.
• Learn the Playback Theatre form.

Your facilitators are Glynis Angell, Ian David and Mike McEvoy.

Cost: Full – $250 / Concession – $220
Enquiries: Phone (03) 9690 9253  or email: mike@melbourneplayback.com.au
Places are limited to 14 participants- book early!

Download flyer and registration form

Inspiration

Here’s some gems that have inspired me recently.

A great slideshow about storytelling by Joyce Hosten called Influence through Storytelling. Particularly good if storytelling doesn’t come naturally.

Seth Godin writes about the fear of bad ideas. In essence, to have good ideas you need to have LOTS of ideas, some of which will be bad.

Les Posen tackles one of my favourite topics: more evidence that those in the sciences are tiring of boring presentations

Ever wondered about an insider’s view of humanitarian aid? Read this series of articles from Tales from the Hood which debunks some of the myths, and will get you thinking for sure.

Hugh MacLeod continues to capture the essence in his cartoons. I like this one.

Earl Mardle explores if we still have the time to be creative.

And wise words by Chris Corrigan on Cop15 and the potential of open space.

Possibility

Maybe it’s the time of the year – long days, warm evenings, sitting about with a bottle of wine, chatting with good friends. End of the year, beginning of a new one. Is it any wonder that ideas abound? That anything seems possible?

I was listening to Sir Ken Robinson on the radio today. He was asked about ‘lucky’ people – what makes some people lucky? He said it’s about seeing opportunities, rather than barriers. Whatever makes us lucky, I feel incredibly lucky – to be living right now, to be able to work in different countries and with amazing people, to have really good friends just around the corner and on the other side of the planet, to be able to use skype to pretty much talk to anyone, anywhere, any time, to have people who love me and support me, to live in a beautiful part of the world, to make enough money to be satisfied and not so much that I’m obsessed, and to have opportunities to take advantage of all that.

So I want to thank you for the part you’ve played, and to wish you a Happy Christmas or joyful holidays or just a relaxing break. And I’m looking forward to a lot more conversations, new and enduring relationships, and everything that flows from that.

What to do when you don’t know what to do?

I’m reminded, yet again, of the power of preparation over planning. During these last couple of weeks I’ve had to draw on all of my understanding of groups, capacity to analyse what’s happening and why, knowledge of process, ability to improvise and respond to what’s actually happening (compared with what I hoped might or should happen), and self confidence. Phew! No wonder I’m whacked!

And while this was an extreme case, EVERY facilitation job requires us to draw on these capacities to a greater or lesser extent. I believe my time is better spent building my own capacity rather than trying to predict what the group may or may not do and how I may or may not respond. The key, I think is trust. Trusting yourself that you WILL know what to do when a situation emerges.

Yes, it’s stressful at times. Who wouldn’t prefer to know what’s going to happen next? My experience of facilitating, and life, is that it’s somewhat tricky to try and predict what’s going to happen. I learnt at the Applied Improv Conference earlier this year in Portland about amygdala hijacks (which someone wittily described as *not* a cocktail). When threatened with uncertainty or unfairness or any other dodgy situation, the higher functioning parts of the brain shut down and the primitive brain takes over. This is not so good because the options are limited to flight or fright. Not a good look for a facilitator! The interesting thing for me is that we can TRAIN OURSELVES TO AVOID amygdala hijacks. Improv does this by putting us into situations that could cause an amygdala hijack – and we train our brain to stay functioning at a higher level. I also think trusting oneself and allowing process to emerge while facilitating is another form of brain training. It certainly has got easier for me over time.

And another thing that helps [me] is frameworks. Not everyone likes frameworks. I find them useful as a compass to help me understand what’s going on. The week before flying to India to facilitate a five-day event I decided to immerse myself in Theory U. I spoke with many wonderful people who helped me understand the theory, and to others who helped me explore how to apply it. While I didn’t consciously apply Theory U, it was there in the background and one aspect became critical on the last day.

While researching Theory U the following resonated:

• What does it mean to act in the world and not on the world?
• Leading from the future as it emerges
• The shadow side of the process

Theory U describes (in brief) a process of moving from sensing, to presencing, and finally realising. there’s lots more, of course, but that’s the essence.  So while I watched the group move thorough cycles of sensing, presencing and realising I also observed the shadow: judgment, cynicism and fear. Naming this on the final day was something I could contribute that I certainly hadn’t planned on. There were many nods of recognition as I described these shadows that thwart our best efforts to learn and improve. This is just one example of drawing on one framework to help a group move through the ‘groan zone’.

I’d be interested to hear what capacities you draw on when faced with not knowing, a potential amygdala hijack and high stakes to ‘perform’.

PS: Something else – the single most important thing I was reminded of was to do nothing. To not react, to simply observe, to allow whatever has to play out to, well, play out. And believe me, this is way harder than doing something!

Friends and community

This last week I was reminded just how valuable friends and community are, especially for those of us who (mostly) work alone.

I was in India. Chennai. A city of some million people. I asked one of the Indian participants the population of Chennai. To be fair, he wasn’t from there, and his answer was, “Maybe 5 million. Or it could be 10 million. Not sure.” I pointed out that that was a 5 million difference. He shrugged, and smiled. I guess that’s how you feel about population when you come from a country that has 1,140,000,000+ people.

I was facilitating a five-day workshop with numbers varying from 80+ people to around 30. Participants came from around the world. Some were fresh and enthusiastic. Others were tired and jaded. This made for some interesting dynamics! The expectations also varied widely with lots of factions and interest groups jockying for position. While this kept me busy trying to juggle all these expectations, I was also on high alert watching for offers and noticing without judging – harder than it sounds!

Even though I was surrounded by people, many of whom I had met before, it was a bit lonely. I couldn’t download all of my thoughts to anyone, so my computer and my friends that live in it became a lifeline to sanity, to laughs, to reality and to some bloody good advice. So to my friends on skype, on Facebook, on ning and on email – a heartfelt thank you.