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"This is a process that enables you to look deeper into your own response to workplace issues -- beyond the surface to deeper levels of meaning -- it puts you in an entirely different mindset so you can break through to new levels of understanding and action." --Dennis Jaffe, Author, Consultant,
Professor of Organizational Inquiry, Saybrook Institute
"The power of this theatre experience is that it quickly involves everyone in the issues of work and life in today's organizations. Imagine viewing an important scene from your life and work presented in such a way that you and your colleagues identify with it and learn from it. This is the rich foundation that TransFormance Theatre builds upon for your mutual learning and discussion."
--Geoff Bellman, prize-winning
business author, and management consultant to Fortune 100 senior executives
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Inside The TransFormance Theatre Process TransFormance Theatre quickly generates shared understanding and mutual appreciation on all sides of an issue. Result: a more open communications atmosphere in which your group is able to find solutions to difficult problems more quickly. The following process outlines our approach to creating unforgettable meetings, interventions, initiatives, and events for organizations -- tailored to your needs, vision, and the expression of your vital message. The elements of the process are flexible and fluid, and can be interwoven seamlessly with any meeting design or initiative.
Preparation Your meeting design team works with us to identify key themes and stories that will illuminate the issues on your meeting agenda. You steer us to the right people to interview for story material. We gather the stories and perspectives that will honor and engage the entire group. If appropriate, we draft written scenarios from the interview notes that can be reviewed by the design team and the story-tellers in advance to assure appropriateness and alignment with the meeting objectives.
At the Meeting Using an array of multi-modal learning tools including group drumming, three-part harmony singing, and other physical learning exercises -- we rapidly generate a high degree of connectedness and participation amongst the whole audience.
Short Stories (Living Sculptures) We facilitate a large group dialogue on the key issues punctuated by short improv enactments of the different views, insights, and concerns of the group. This format enables most of the participants to weigh in with the group on the issues in a way that establishes open, honest communication, and connects the hard business data with the human feeling factor. All the important perspectives will be aired and forged into a shared understanding that makes everyone feel heard and acknowledged.
Long Stories Where appropriate, we pre-interview one or more key individuals in depth about their experiences relating to the specific issues on the agenda. Their stories may recount their careers with the company, or some critical project they worked on that sheds light on a number of the critical issues facing the group. Before the event, the story-teller and design committee review a draft scenario of the stories based on the interview notes. This ensures that the stories will be appropriate and on target for the meeting objectives. At the meeting, the individual tells his or her story in an interview format with the TT facilitator (about 15 minutes). After sharing the story, the teller spontaneously picks one of the actors to play themself. Then -- using improvised dialogue, music, movement, some props and costuming -- the actors bring the story to life. Embodying the story at hand, the actors play all the roles, bringing out the natural humor and drama of the human condition -- amplifying the inner dynamics and tensions of the decisions made and actions taken in the story. Because the stories are about real workplace experiences, they naturally illustrate how the values and vision of the organization connect to the business issues at hand. Successes and failures that many in the audience have lived through together are highlighted in a way that honors and validates the human dimensions of the workplace. The enactment takes 10-15 minutes. After the enactment, there are usually large and/or small group discussions of the issues portrayed in the story -- with the group participants sharing their own experiences and reflections on what they saw.
Seamless Integration of TT with Conventional Presentations The long and short story formats can be woven in and around slide presentations, small and large group processes, etc. This creates a much richer and more entertaining learning design that gets your important messages across in a profoundly more engaging and absorbable way than traditional cognitive learning designs can hope to achieve.
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Some Multi-Modal Learning Techniques All of the following techniques and processes are out-of-the-box by traditional meeting standards. But in the current environment of an ever-accelerating pace of change, the skill of being able to get more comfortable in our discomfort zones is a critical core competency for all organizations. The following processes (described in detail throughout the Multi-Modal Learning pages on this site) are brief, enlivening and effective in helping the group achieve its meeting objectives in a way that is bonding and fun -- they also serve to further the absorption of important information and the generation of full engagement in the meeting by all participants. • group drumming -- to quickly generate coherence in the group. 3-4 minutes of this kind of focused connectedness then serves as the basis for a meaningful and inclusive consideration of the content of the meeting agenda. • volunteer living sculptures -- one of the TransFormance Theatre formats -- 3 or 4 volunteers listen to a group discussion and then play back the audience's diverse perspectives on the issue in a brief improv theatre collage. This process enhances the group's listening and risk-taking skills while validating and honoring the diverse viewpoints present in the group. (TransFormance Theatre members lead and coach the volunteers through the process). • group visioning/energy management process -- drawing on his 25 years experience as a meditation teacher, Jonathan guides the group in a process that recaptures energy that has become stuck in supporting old, sub-optimal behavior patterns. That energy is then freed up, and made available to support the rapid adoption of the new behaviors needed for success in the new, energing operating environments. • improv physical group exercises -- to break up sit time and vary the mode of learning -- these physical exercises rejuvenate the mind and body and enhance spontaneity, flexibility, and trust in group interactions. Again, research has established that physical communication establishes openness and trust much more rapidly than purely cognitive communication methods can. • 3-part harmony singing -- rapidly unites and inspires collective group consciousness, trains better listening abilities. • Art Work -- Instead of a T shirt or a coffee mug, we develop and distribute framed copies of colorful custom-created paintings that capture the key themes of your offsite meeting or intervention. Each meeting participant receives a painting copy, along with a sheet of key learnings, as a way to leverage the power of the meeting experience.
Organizational Applications of Subtle Energy Management While our scientific culture has long understood and applied the benefits of coherent energy states, e.g., lasers, superconductors, we have not yet been successful in systematically applying those principles in the arena of human interaction and large organizations. Subtle energy management provides such an application -- especially in the areas of stess management/reduction and preventing burnout before it happens. A meditation teacher for over 25 years, Jonathan has spent about half his time in India since 1997, working with masters of subtle energy. The result has been the development of subtle energy management techniques, which enable people to recapture energy that's become stuck in old behavior and awareness patterns that are no longer productive. Management Consulting By virtue of the high impact of our integrated art and science approach, we can usually resolve communications issues, restore a positive work environment, and help you define and implement the communication and collaboration behaviors you need for measurable, sustainable success -- in a relatively short period of time.
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