Over the years, I have refined my teaching space as a simulated real life-real learning laboratory. My teaching methodology (Methodology - Chris Breen) aims to facilitate deep learning opportunities and draws on a crucial insight from Maturana and Varela’s Santiago Theory of Cognition. They claim that the job of the teacher is to perturbate the learner in a way that increases the likelihood of uncovering taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs.
It is one of my highlights in teaching when I manage to recognise and act on the golden gift that arrives with a hinge moment that is pregnant with possibility (Hinge Moments - Chris Breen).
And, of course, it is one of my most frustrating experiences when I realise (in retrospect!) those situations where I realise that I missed what, in the moment, feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for magical learning.
A fortnight ago, I was closing a challenging executive Personal Leadership and Working Together programme (Personal Leadership - Chris Breen) with an activity which aimed to give participants a beautiful and inspiring embodied understanding of the challenge of foregrounding relationship-at-work as per the diagram below.
The small group of participants had been divided in pairs using a game where their partner was the person whose birthday and month was closest to theirs. We were a small and odd numbered group, so I also joined the activity.
I explained that the task required each pair of partners to face each other and for one person to lead through a series of movements (with music) while their partner acted as their mirror. They would swap roles halfway through the song.
In the feedback at the end of this first song, it was clear that most participants were out of their comfort zone. Some leaders had immediately created difficult movements so as to be one up on their follower partner. They reported being very self-conscious. Almost everyone preferred following to leading, because the music went on for a long time and they felt embarrassed that they could not create more interesting moves (self-inflicted KPI’s!).
All was going to plan so far. I could point them to the diagram and show how they had responded to the task in a typical management above-the-line way with their egos were in charge. For most of them there was little of no attention paid to the actual project of accurate mirroring.
With a few demonstrations, I explained that this mirroring project would only work if each leader to set themselves the task of making sure that their follower had a real chance of completing the project of being a perfect mirror. This meant that all moves needed to be slow and flow in continuous movement.
I then set them the challenge (with the same partner) to revisit the project to a different piece of music. This time their entire focus should be on easing the task of the follower as they tried to move towards a place where the movement just flowed between them and they became uncertain as to who was leading and who was following.
The change in the room was dramatic as the harmony and flow that accompanied the successful mirroring product was obvious. Feedback from individual members mentioned how the pressure to perform had been removed through the collaborative participation. Each group claimed to have reached moments where they were so in flow that they were unaware of who was leading and who was following. They were excited at this image of what might be possible at work if each personal showed up this way with foregrounded Trust and Care and backgrounded Ego.
Then came the first seemingly innocuous hinge moment when I saw the time and had to make a decision what to do next as we were nearing the end of the session.
I decided to ask them to repeat the process but this time with a new partner. One partner from each group raised their hand and then moved clockwise to a new partner. I then explained the need to let go of any assumed expertise they may feel they had through the successful completion of the task with their previous partner. This was a new partner so it was a new project. A new partner brings a different life experience and new qualities of self-experience and preference. This new project would only work if they took the time to start slowly and give themselves time to connect and get to know each other's abilities and preferences. Only by taking this time to connect could they hope to reach a space of flow and accurate mirroring.
With great anticipation I started the new song... and very soon it all fell apart!
While I was concentrating on building rapport with my new partner, I could feel a break in harmony in the room as one pair started playing the fool. The ensuing laughter and giggles soon infected the other groups.
Another hinge moment – this one far more important.
I chose not to intervene. In retrospect, I suppose I had some naïve hope that the disruptive moment would pass and that each pair would successfully let go of their laughter and awkwardness and return to the task. This did not happen and I single-mindedly kept my focus on my partner and we stayed at the quiet centre of the typhoon.
When the music came to an end, I sternly emphasised the point that what had just happened showed how easy and inevitable it was that personal discomfort or agendas would sabotage successful projects.
And then we move to our chairs for the closing circle of the programme.
In my dreams I replay the situation.
This time I take a moment longer to make a decision. This time I decide to stop and pause the music.
I ask participants what was going on. I start with the initiators. What just happened? Why did they react this time when they did not in the previous exercise? What was different? Did it have anything to do with the fact that they were the only two men in the group who were now partnered together? Did this create awkwardness?
I shift my attention to the pairs that weren’t the initiators of the disturbance. Why did they respond? What happened to their focus on the task?
After receiving feedback, I comment that we are very seldom at ease and on top of new situations and the challenge is to show up any way with full presence (Warrior - Chris Breen) through embracing and letting go of any awkwardness.
And then I start the music again for replay time with each participant aware of the challenge they had experienced last time and this time ready to stay focused on getting those mirrors to work!
They succeed and go away with the experience of rich real-life real-time learning.
And then I wake and again feel my bitter disappointment in having missed the opportunity to welcome this guide from beyond.