Diversity Workshops
Diversity workshop in Los Angelos, California.
Drawing on his experience in psychology facilitating group sessions, this workshop focuses on thinking about minorities and ethnic groups in your society and understanding appropriate workplace conversations. Borrowing the concept of Punching Up from the entertainment world, we explore the issue through the lens of humor, as the excuse that a comment was a joke is often used before a situation is escalated to the HR level for resolution.
The Punching Up framework will stop issues before they start by achieving a group consensus on touchy subjects in a safe and supportive environment. Your team will develop a common philosophy that isn’t based on presumptions before the issues come up in office conversations.
More an exploration than a lecture, we’ll approach the subject through activities, scenes and discussion. “Punching up” is a term used to describe using satire against the powerful in society, as opposed to “punching down”, which is mocking those in a weaker position in society.
Teamwork Workshops
Teamwork requires cooperation and excellent listening skills. This workshop is a series of active exercises designed to bring an existing team closer together or break the ice when a new team comes together. Suitable for groups from six to eighty. The photos here are for executives of Ai Qi Yi, at a retreat center outside of Beijing, done in English with simultaneous interpretation.
Workshop members in Dubai discuss their insights.
CREATIVITY WORKSHOPS
Creativity comes when we stretch and move beyond the status quo, without judging the results right away. We work on the fundamentals of brainstorming and ideation, while learning to save criticism for the end of then process. Turning “no” people into “yes, that’s interesting” people and thus fostering an environment conducive to new ways of thinking.
ideation and innovation
Using tested and proven Design Thinking tools, this workshop involves your team in a carefully designed series of activities from brainstorming to ideation, resulting in ideas and a strategy plan no single person could have come up with on their own. The “group genius” is what we call the phenomenon that emerges when team members are allowed to contribute and create in an open, encouraging environment. Here, a small startup team in the US comes up with products and services, and leaves with actionable items for specific team members.
PRESENTATION WORKSHOPS
A startup co-founder practices her pitch in a unique series of exercises inspired by improvisation to avoid a rote memorized performance.
Dynamic Presentations
Presentations needn’t be boring affairs. We teach the fundamentals of storytelling in order to capture an audience, with humor or emotion, in order to get your ideas across in a memorable way. Humans remember stories more than facts and figures. And everyone can learn a bit of showmanship to add some flavor to their presentations. Exercises get participants up and active, and lead to rehearsing their presentations in a more natural, less memorized manner. We can help you get to where your going a little smoothly, a little more creatively, and maybe even with a little more fun.
Pitch Training
His unique workshop The Bulletproof Pitch uses improvisation techniques and exercises to put speakers through their paces in a fun and challenging way. They must juggle interference, the introduction of new subjects, and calls to stretch their emotional range while delivering their pitch or speech. This gets rid of the rote-memorization problems of being unable to deal with mistakes or distractions, and also having a one-size-fits-all approach to public speaking. Flexibility, expressivity, and verbal dexterity are developed with exercises that the workshop attendees can take back home with them.
Diversity workshop in Vancouver, Canada
Communication and Creativity Workshop for Yamaha