Guest blogger Chris Tero has sent me this after we’ve had some training adventures together – on team building with drums and CSR:
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April 27th: Henley Business School.
As part of my ongoing research and learning around all things embodied, I attended an afternoon session at the Ki Centre in Brighton called ‘Presence’ .The event was presented by Mark Walsh and his associates. A great time was had by all, and over Chinese food that evening, we discussed the possibility of some kind of collaboration. I invited Mark to Henley Business School to have a look at what I did there. Either side of the session (in the van!), we had some interesting conversations around a range of topics including; somatics, creativity, recession, training and so on. At Henley, the group comprised 13 leaders from the engineering wing of a large French energy company. I was there as part of a 3 day leadership training course, which was proposed these outcomes:
- Demonstrate improved communication through more positive conversations
- Build capability in structuring your thinking before communicating
- Understand how to adapt your style to more effectively influence others
- Have increased self knowledge and understanding of potential limitations / barriers to success of your own leadership style
- Achieve a unity of purpose to improve efficiency & effectiveness
- Improve stakeholder influencing capability through increased self awareness / emotional intelligence
- Be better able to manage cultural differences
- Inspire and lead for greater team engagement
- Be a role model as a proactive manager of change
My contribution was a teambuilding drum circle, which offered delegates the chance to embody and reflect on some of the learnings of the day in a more informal and lighthearted way. After chatting to the course director, it became apparent that this was much in need. The last part of the day involved quite an intense session of stakeholder feedback. The group had been given some ‘home truths’ about how their individual performance, as well as the company’s environmental image were perceived from the outside, which seemed quite negative despite a substantial Green PR campaign. As part of my introduction, I suggested that they might want to let go of these concerns, put the brain into neutral, and relax into ‘the task at hand’, which was first and foremost to have fun together! The only caveat, was to use part of their awareness to keep an eye on the ‘Big Picture’ and to absorb any potential learnings or insights.
Despite (or because of) the playful nature of the session, the group relaxed quickly and rose to the challenge of learning some new skills together. Participants, were invited to track their feelings during the course of the session, using a combination of embodied presence and emotional intelligence. They were also asked to consider two key fields as a backdrop to this process of listening and playing; attention (presence) and intention (emergence). Because of the non-crucial nature of the outcome , it was possible to let go of negative emotions such as judgement, fear or cynicism, and to simply enjoy the experience in the present moment.As the session unfolded, each individual was encouraged to learn and embody specific rhythms. Here they could monitor the quality of their attention as it moved from their personal contribution to the collective intention, which was to co-create a highly textured and relatively complex piece of music. The session went well which ended with general feedback and q & a’s , and finally one last teambuilding exercise; everyone carrying their drum to the van 🙂
On the way back it was fascinating to hear Mark’s take on the evening from the perspective of a somatics practitioner. Firstly, he gave me some valuable feedback on my own delivery ( more ‘length’, less ‘self apology’!), which led to a conversation about how instant and effective a mirror this process was in revealing individual bodymind assessments and leadership styles. Indeed in longer and more involved pieces, we explore these aspects in more detail through ongoing conversations that arise around the ‘hands-on’ sessions. For example, our eco-dome CSR teambuilding projects combine actual on-site construction of dome dwellings for struggling communities in the developing world, with arts based workshops and team profiling. Alternatively, teams can create a ‘Playdome’ or ‘storytelling circle’ for kids in school playing fields across the UK, with a large percentage of their financial commitment going to a similar kind of project somewhere like Nepal, India or Africa. For more info, please visit our associates blog at: http://www.missionperformance.com/CSR.html
This approach is employed as the underlying philosophy of Common Ground, a loose affiliation of likeminded creative individuals who share a collective vision of recovery, sustainability and culture change on both the personal and collective level. Our website is being built, so for more information please contact Chris Tero at christero@live.co.uk.