mindfulness

on becoming who you are

become-who-you-are

 

in times of turmoil – which recently seem to be accurate every day more, than the day before – in our private lives, with our families, in our neighbourhoods, communities, in our organisations, in our leadership roles in the world – what stories we choose to put on stage matters a great deal.
working in the field of social innovation, often i deal with realities just emerging, realities that have a breath ago been not more but a dream, realities fragile, incomplete, not consequent. yet – they want to become, they are becoming, they prototype well and they inspire hearts with hope.

a story does not need to be big, or perfect, or ready. what is sufficient is that YOU decide it is time.

take our LEADERSHIP FESTIVAL. there are sufficient people who say:
“it will not work”
“you do not really know, what you are talking about”
“this is all a fantasy, a phase, it will pass. business reality are hard facts and results”

well, i have the freedom to choose and believe whatever the heck i want to. and i choose to believe, that we ARE actually designing a NEW way of relating to each other from our leadership positions. and all them, who say it is just a fairy-tale for the naÏve ones i say “it is called visionary”.

now more than ever it is important, which stories you listen to and which you voice. which you repeat to yourself. which you share with others. and which stories you put to sleep, leave in the storage, tell them it is not their time.

so no matter how challenging it is to hold your dearest story out there, for the world to see, in all the beauty of its imperfection – i stand here with you. shoulder to shoulder. i ain’t going nowhere. whenever you feel, like the world is too much or the challenges too many, remember: you curate your own story. decide what you focus on and what you kick out. pick the story you want to live. pick the story that is YOU in your best version. get ready. go out there. and dance with the world.

visual facilitation

visual facilitation is not about only drawing. it is not a modern name for making a comic based on a situation. it is way more. it means working with a powerful combination of words, shapes and colours for recording and organising the communication and creation flows in conversations inside an organisation, a group or even in one’s own note-making for a deeper understanding and a more participatory access.

 

agile

i use visual facilitation for example when developing a concept with our customers and planning an event together. visual notes take good care that all details are transparent and we are all on the same page of what needs to be done during which of the steps of large group events.

 

BMH

 

i also find visual facilitation helpful for preparing instructions for people in a large group, in small groups or even individually. this gives them something to check with, whether they understood the instructions and what the consecutive steps should be and allows participants to relax deeper into the participation in an actual dialogue.

 

storytelling

visual facilitation allows you to put many things that belong together on one piece of paper, in a neat and clean way. below the example of a training schedule for a five-day event, including the every-day structure, topics addressed during each day, the two major focus forces and a symbol, explaining the dynamics of what the training refers to, in this case: increasing creativity in teams.

 

schedule

 

second example is a schedule of a one day event on mindfulness, including the WHAT, the HOW and the WHY of the session.

 

turbo koncentracja przy totalnym luzie

 

sharing my practice: what i use to organise my notes is a frame with two boxes: the lower, outer edge box includes the date, the upper inside box the setting (customer / event / theme). this helps me find in my notes what i am looking for easily.

 

fbb

 

 

if you want to see more examples of really diverse visual facilitation styles and some works of truly great visual practitioners, join me on a sentimental journey back to this july in berlin, on EUVIZ – european conference for visual thinkers, practitioners and facilitators. a rich HARVESTING archive you can find here.

now it’s your turn. just grab a pen and paper, listen to someone talk about a matter that intrigues you and – go visualise!

 

euviz