Your participants may already be overwhelmed
Transcript of this video:
If you’ve seen the movie, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life,
you’ll almost certainly recall the scene in which a
grotesquely morbidly obese character Mr.
Creosote, walks into a very fine French restaurant
and proceeds to gorge himself on the delicacies
provided there, to the extent that he needs a bucket,
to periodically empty his stomach so
that he can consume even more.
When eventually he reaches the point
where even he feels full.
The Maitre d’, played
by John Cleese, offers him a final wafer thin mint
to complete his meal.
Mr. Creosote initially refuses,
but under the blandishments of of Cleese’s
Maitre d’, finally consumes that wafer thin mint and explodes.
I’ve been thinking a bit about this scene
after some conversations with friends about our experiences
of leadership development programs
and facilitations that we’ve been involved with recently,
where we increasingly sense that a lot of the people coming
to those courses are already feeling overwhelmed.
And if we offer them just one more wafer of technique thinking
that we making ourselves useful as the host
or facilitator, we may be just giving them yet more of
what they’ve already got too much of.
And increasingly in my work, I’m kind of reining back
on the urge to teach people things.
I’m not saying I don’t do it all together,
but I’m really reining back on it.
In my recent workshop with Shawn Callahan, as we went along,
we reined back on all these techniques
and giving people content in favour of allowing people
to express themselves
and be more in touch with their own experience.
And that’s increasingly how I want to be working
with people.
Photo by Zac Harris on Unsplash
