Inspiration and news
"Whenever an ambulance drives past me, I know I have to be careful today!"
I remember this statement and the exercise that went as if it was yesterday. 2016 in Berlin on a gloomy Friday afternoon during my training as a change process facilitator. We were given the task of choosing a question that was currently on our minds. To then go outside. To completely clear our minds and connect with the world. “Flirt with the world, and the world will flirt with you!” was the invitation. I do not remember the question I chose, nor do I remember my attempts to flirt with the world. But the subsequent debriefing and the comment made by a fellow participant “When an ambulance passes me on the way to a workshop, I know that today I have to be careful” is still with me today.
Team and organisational development is not just about the mind, but about a holistic experience.
There are sufficient scientific studies confirming that our minds have a limited capacity for absorption and that many decisions are influenced more by our gut feelings. Whether this is a good thing or not, it is important to make team and organisational development a holistic experience. This can even include hugging trees, and in the meantime I have a fan club of managers who remember exactly such a moment out in nature. Most of the time, however, it is about enriching discussions with creative, systemic experiences to undo our limited minds for a moment.
Would you like to develop your gut instinct? The following two ideas may be helpful.
Flirt with the world and the world will flirt with you.
Do what I did back then: Choose a question. Clear your head and walk around with open eyes and a relaxed jaw, without any expectations. Observe, take in your surroundings and only then consider what signals and messages you have received. A relaxed, slightly slack jaw helps you to be particularly perceptive and not to apply a first filter.
Interpreting postcards.
If you want to stay indoors, choose a question, breathe out and draw three cards from a stack of picture postcards without looking at them first. Turn them over at the same time and, without judging, think about what these picture postcards might tell you about your question. Finally, reflect on what new insights and ideas you have gained from these postcards.
Would you like to experience a gut moment as a team? The following two approaches are easy to try out.
Building an answer with Lego
As a team, choose a question such as “Where will we be in 5 years?” or “What are our qualities?” Without thinking too much about it, build an answer to this question out of Lego in at least two groups. Interpret each other's resulting works of art and formulate assumptions about what the other group wanted to show. Then present your works of art to each other and note down the most important statements and insights to make them more tangible.
Drawing a mythical creature
Everyone has a sheet of paper and a pen in front of them. Fold the paper lengthwise into three parts to prepare. Everyone chooses an animal that best describes the team's qualities without revealing what they have chosen. Draw the top part of the selected animal on the first part of the sheet. Fold the paper and pass it to another person, but make sure that the connection point to the already drawn part of the animal is visible. Draw the middle part, pass the paper on and draw the bottom part of the animal. Pass the paper on one last time, open the sheet you have received and take turns interpreting the mythical creature in terms of the shown qualities. Then discuss how you can preserve these qualities and what additional qualities you would like to develop and how.
"It should be possible to use a few questions to find out where a team's strengths lie and where the areas for development are!"
"It should be possible to use a few questions to find out where a team's strengths lie and where the areas for development are!" A participant in the ETH leadership seminar asked me this in a slightly demanding tone. I thought for a moment and replied: "There are various questionnaires and models for teams and team dynamics, but they each focus on one aspect of a team. As far as I know, there is no collection of questions that looks at a team as a whole. But something like that can be developed.".
Feeling a bit like Heidi Klum!
A little Heidi Klum feeling: an impressive CV and the skills required for the next step in your career. An assessment center as a stopover to achieve this goal. Me as a coach at my side, helping with the preparation and suddenly feeling a little bit like Heidi Klum sending her models onto the catwalk.
Can you kiss the frog prince?
Can you kiss the frog prince? This question stuck with me and I still differentiate between HR and organizational development based on this logic today. While HR development is about helping employees realize their potential and turning them into princesses, organizational development is about a system that cannot be kissed.
"Since I turned my vocation into my profession, working feels like leisure time!"
This feedback pleased me particularly, as I feel the same way since the change into my current role but also because the starting point for the coaching regarding a professional reorientation had not been the easiest: a position that had been achieved through a lot of effort and personal investment, with the prospect of a next career step. Further education in a field that did not immediately promise career change opportunities combined with the desire for more meaning and fulfilment at work.