Guest Blog: Spaces of Trust & Awareness

Guest Blog by Petra Počanić

Part 2 (Click here for Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5)

Photos by Sylvia Brenzel unless otherwise noted.

 

DAY 1 – CREATING SPACES OF TRUST AND CREATIVE CONFIDENCE

Tuesday Sep 20th was the official start of the training. The whole day was in the spirit of building relations of trust and respect between participants as a basis for innovation-supportive environments. Very often this important territory is left aside — but it is essential for creating inspiring collaborative workplaces and for unleashing the dormant creative potential within individuals and groups.

Photo by Doris Rasshofer

By creating trust you create a sense of possibility. Change becomes tangible and achievable. With the ‘Cycles Dance’ and a metta meditation session, we began to co-create a common space by reconnecting with our selves and nature. This was our morning routine for the whole duration of the training relaxing and energizing – giving time to our body and mind to be fully awake.

And present.

More open for spaces we create with others.

Photo by Petra Počanić

Through all the awareness exercises we started to get to know each other from a completely different angle. Instead of presenting ourselves in a formal way as a list of labels we hardly build during our lives, we began the process with no preconceptions given by our educational and professional backgrounds.

Photo by Petra Počanić

We started to build a picture about a person with a beginners mind trying to really listen, perceive and understand who we/they really are and what really matters. No boxes, no labels.

Photo by Petra Počanić

DAY 2- AWARENESS AND EMPATHY (PAVES THE WAY FOR INNOVATION)

Bringing a diverse group of people onto the same page is not an easy task. During the 2nd day, we continued with self awareness, trust building and empathy. By being here and now, being open and letting your ego go, we acknowledge the emotions of others and we make decisions that take these feelings and needs into consideration. Facilitating successful innovation processes is about making space for everybody in the co-design process allowing the hidden creative/innovative potential to emerge and use this energy flow more efficiently. By feeling safe and comfortable you dare to try and make mistakes.

Empathy is essential for trust building within teams but also as design tool. It goes beyond knowledge and makes our observations powerful sources of inspiration. When we learn to listen (and really feel), creativity get unlocked. We are not anymore desperately looking for an idea or solution to the problem. It emerges by itself. It finds you.

Being in Italy, the Spaghetti Challenge becomes essential. A fun and simple game forcing teams to collaborate quickly. (Originally called the Marshmallow Challenge.)

The task is simple: in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard (91.44 cm) of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.

At the end of each day we gathered into our ‘Family Groups’ to discuss what we learned and record the findings on fruit leaves.

“Gratitude can be a powerful energy shifter.”

–Betsy McCall

This was Part Two of a three-part post. Want to keep reading about the “Hosting Innovation” programs hosted by Art Monastery Italia this fall? Click here for Part 1 or Part 3.