Diary/BLOG

June 7th

Copenhagen, as in all Scandinavian cities I have visited, is a place of little or no eye contact. People active avoid contact with each other which has a good and a bad side. The bad is the isolation and coldness that abounds until you “Pass the test of communication”. The good side is that each person has their own space, a self-made world in which to think and create. That is, of course, until your creation requires ANOTHER set of hands to hold the cat’s cradle.

Yesterday I walked past a room on the fifth floor of my hotel where the door was ajar. I was nosey. I looked. They were making a porn movie in there. I called Finn and, in shock I told him. He replied: “Great”. I changed the subject to the weather.

June 8th

A wind of change is blowing through the city. One moment a cold breeze, the next, utter stillness and a blazing sun. I am restless about how hard people seem to find it to change. There is an entire change industry, yet of course change comes best from the individual, defined and designed by him or her. The “helpers” should tread with more humility.

I am going to look more deeply at the word “weird”, used by so many people to cover just about anything they find uncomfortable. Calling something weird often refers to your own fear or even suppressed wish to engage with it.

Tomorrow I am off to Odense to meet with DeCapo Theatre company, who are well known, and innovative. Woohoo! A long train journey!

Technical Notes

Experiments in Art and Innovation, Creativity and Process Improvement - a meeting with Learning Lab

We looked at how we might research the impact of art in organisations.

The five-fold nature of Action Research lends itself to an experimental research approach attempting to identify tangible impact.

There are five possible intervention measurement points if there are TWO learning/innovation events:

1. Before the event - pre-diagnosis/aim setting/hypothesis setting

2. Event 1 - including setting up the experiment/hypothesis finalisation

3. Experimentation period (including direct and participant observation)

4. Event 2 Reflection and Analysis and setting up further change

5. Further experimentation and input into a follow up five stage intervention

This is why, in learning events the magic of two becomes five. We really harvest the change possibility compared to the threefold nature of a single event.

There is scope for maintaining momentum and the number of intervention points maximises the possibility of lasting and deep change.

Often the facilitator has to fight for the agreement to two events, for example, in training or development. Yet it is vital to this kind of action research approach.
DON’T ASK ME WHAT ANY OF THIS MEANS!

Meeting at Masterclass.dk

“They are still in the seventies.” said Morten, referring to the many training companies he has encountered in Denmark. Do companies get the consultants and trainers they deserve?

Morten remembered me when I did the Alan Winner show and a days workshop for a CENTRIM summer school he was attending as part of his MBA programme. He remembered most of it and had used a lot of it since. He had tried one of the exercises with a client in the banking sector. It involved “constructive destruction”, destroying products violently in order to see what could be learned about their design. He told me he was thrown out by the client. We all cheered.

Masterclass is looking to work with managers who have “Lost their way” biographically so to speak. How can they move forward to a more engaging, enjoyable working life?

They are keen to use our Alan Winner theatre show in their events. The show is going to be franchised and translated into Danish!