Inspiring – Page 7 – The Consulting Artist

Engage Better!

For the real leaders of engagement, our next Engagement Unconference will be on 27 June 2012.

Our first Engagement Unconference in November 2011 surpassed our highest hopes, and having listened to and acted on the feedback from you, this time we’re making it even better!

Leaders from Aviva, Barclays, Redgate, Rio Tinto, Sky and more came together for a day full of ideas and stories about how to use technology, structure and strategy, but most of all authentic leadership to engage people and purpose.

Yell’s Kayleigh Quelch described the first Unconference as, “A real inspiration!….I left with so many fresh ideas, so much future hope!”

We are restricting numbers to just 80 places to protect real dialogue, and 11 of those have already been booked by people who came last time. If you believe in people as much as we think you do, you’ll be one of the next 69 engaging leaders to join us.

We will keep the world café and the multiple conversations that everyone valued so much.
We will keep the art minutes record of the day, the twitterfall and the live blogging
We will add input in 7-minute, expert talks about what’s new to generate fresh dialogue.
We will have a debate to add more excitement, “Is HR good for engagement?” Yes, no or maybe? You’ll hear strong views and strong challenges because debate can often be an entertaining form of dialogue.

Why come?

Not just because you will learn things to make your business more money, though you will.

Not just because you will learn things to make your business more efficient, though you will.

Not just because you you will learn how to keep your customers longer, though you will.

Come because you know that engaging people, colleagues, customers and community, is the right thing to do, the right way to run your business, the right way to be and because you want to learn with other engaging thinkers.

Come because you want to really engage your people; not just some of your people, some of the time, but all of all of your people, all of the time.

Can you imagine how good work is when all your colleagues engage all of their energy, empathy and attention to achieve great things together? When you are all together on a mission! It is the most wonderful feeling. You’ll feel that on the day!

“An outstanding experience!” Peter Burton, ROTA-UK

We are Doug Shaw of What Goes Around, Peter Massey of Budd-UK and Jonathan Wilson of Humap UK and we look forward to welcoming you at the Second Engagement Unconference at The Spring on 27 June 2012.

Leap Day Learning

Wow! Leap day came and went in a blur of useful fun. Our numbers ebbed and flowed a little through the day, and that movement combined with the choice of venue, those who came along, the weather, the whole mix, really inspired and contributed to a great day.

To remind you – the day was loosely framed around connections between art and business, and being Leap Day, taking a leap into the unknown. Our time together started with a vigorous conversation around psychometric tests, fuelled by my recent MBTWhy? blog post. I’d not expected this and the conversation and debate flowed for about an hour before we drew our attention to matters a little more artistic.

Poetry

Vandy found a super poem hanging on the wall of the Perse School in Cambridge, which we shared to help set the scene:

See what I found

Some new corners of myself

Hiding away, tucked out of sight,

Untapped, untried, I found them

While reaching out to others.

I wonder how much more of me

There is to discover

– Anon

Drawing

From there we tried our hand at drawing. Jonathan asked us all to draw in pencil for two minutes. We then shared our drawing with our immediate neighbour who asked non judgmental questions about the drawing for a minute. We reversed roles for a further minute and then were invited to either enhance the drawing, or draw again. How would the brief, non judgmental coaching we had given each other affect our work?

My intention was to try and recreate a realistic impression of a pencil, at a much larger scale. I think these two before and after shots show how powerfully and quickly someone can improve after some non judgmental questioning of their work.

Painting

Vandy gave us a great introductory lesson in water colours. We all had a play and tried our hand at painting a grape.

I think my attempt is OK – it looks a bit bruised! And I’ve had another play with the techniques we learned which you can view here if you would like.

Photography

Jon Bartlett brought a camera and took some great pics. I pinched an element of one of his photos for the picture at the start of this post and you can see the whole album here. Jon’s photos are well worth a look and they convey a sense of the warmth and inclusion we cocreated on the day.

Writing

Since the day a number of people have written about it. You can read Vandy’s excellent summary here. David Goddin wrote a thought provoking piece here, and Jon captured an unexpected and special moment here.

I think we covered a useful spectrum of art based activities on the day. We certainly had a lot of useful fun, and I can see lots of ways in which elements of the day would fit very well into learning in the workplace. In the aftermath people who attended described the day with words like ‘awesome’ ‘friendly’ ‘real conversations’ ‘informal and creative’ ‘welcome’ ‘inclusion’ ‘fed the soul’.

We’re planning to run some more of these sessions sometime over the Summer. I’ll keep you posted. Meantime I’m interested to know what you think of this concept, and whether or not you think there’s a place for art and business to collaborate better?

The Power of Music

It’s Dad’s funeral on Friday and with my two Sisters Moira and Helen, we’ve chosen four pieces of music for the occasion. I’d like to share them with you.

Dad loved trad jazz, Chris Barber and Acker Bilk were among his faves. We’re going in to the funeral to a live version of Bourbon Street Parade/When The Saints Go Marching In. We discovered this upbeat instrumental hidden away on the third CD of a compilation. I can’t find a version of this online so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say it’s very uplifting.

During the service we’ll listen to two songs by The Beatles, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) and In My Life. These remind us of our childhood and are also a nod to Mum

I’ve attempted a version of the first song here:

And left the second song to the professionals here:

Once all is said and done – we leave the room to Putting On The Style by the wonderful Lonnie Donegan, who as well as being a great musician, had a sense of humour just like Dad’s.

Music is powerful stuff and whilst there are loads of songs we could have picked, we’re happy these four pieces do a good job in helping to tell Dad’s story. We hope you enjoy listening to them.