practice Archives

adventurer sat on a peak - icon for guest adventurers

#044 – Guest Adventurers

07/12/2021 by Mike Clargo

Inspire your team meetings and foster creative outcomes through unusual perspectives – Use imaginary participation to induce novel perspectives

adventurer sat on a peak - header image for guest adventurers blog

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Why take this challenge?

Introduce new and creative perspectives on your difficult situations

Tap into subconscious wisdom and provide validity for giving it voice

Build your people’s skill set in incorporating creative elements in their thinking

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

Our ability to empathise with others, to put ourselves in their shoes and try and see the situations through their eyes, is a great asset. It is really helpful in building relationships and helping people through change. But it also has other hidden benefits that are not so well used.

For example, it enables us to do a half-way reasonable representation of people within those situations. Even people we have not actually met.

This means that we can reflect a small amount of the wisdom of great people into our own thinking. True, it is limited to our own experience and thinking, combined perhaps with aspects of our subconscious and creativity. But it offers that subconscious and creativity the authority and opportunity to voice helpful and insightful (perhaps extreme) perspectives that might otherwise not be available to us.

But how should this be used in a way that might best help us and our team? That is the subject of this week’s adventure.

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

Personal Guest Adventurer

So, let us take your current idea, situation or problem.

Who might be best able to provide helpful different perspectives on it? An adventurer like Ben Fogle? A statesman like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr? A controversist like Donald Trump? Perhaps a quintessential creative, leader, entrepreneur, social reformer, prophet, pirate, activist? Even a stage or film character?

Think about what you are currently focusing on as if you were them. What would they say? How might they see things differently to you? How might they shock or disrupt your thinking?

As you think about this, allow your subconscious free rein. Let it come up with anything, Some of it might be rubbish, but other things might have something really insightful to add. You don’t have to answer all of ‘their’ questions or challenges – just those that you feel could be helpful.

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

Guest Adventurers at your Meeting

Introduce the idea of the green track to your team. And ask them to select up to three different individuals or characters who might provide the most helpful novel perspectives on the situation. Create name tags (or even photos) around the table (or the virtual screen) to represent them.

Then invite the members of your team to feel free at various points in the meeting to ‘take the chair’ of any one of them and to ask a question or voice an observation from that perspective.

The intention is to generate creative insights. The group doesn’t need to respond to them all, just the ones they find helpful. They are after all just comments in the flow of a meeting.

At the end of the meeting ask your team how they found this approach, and what might be done to improve it for future meetings where it might be used.

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

Guest Adventurers Strategy

Change is becoming an ever more important component of our working lives. If we are to be successful, the ability to take creative perspectives and include different ways of thinking will become key elements in in our people’s toolset.

The red track this week is about working with your team to think about how you might use a strategy around Guest Adventurers to help achieve this.

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library

Let us know how you get on.
Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

Please help us to extend and develop our community by sharing what you are doing. Click on the links below where you are most active, and then like or share the article to your network. Thank you for helping.

And share your progress and insights with the Twitter LbA community using #leadingbyadventure

Useful links:

Introduction to Leading by Adventure  |  What we mean by spirituality?  |  Why Adventure
Adventures to date   |  I did it, but it didn’t work very well   |  How do I know if it is working
Bringing this thinking into your meetings   |  Adventure & Mental Health
Leading by Adventure community   |  Explore Strategic Support options

#032 – Reflection in the breeze

14/09/2021 by Mike Clargo

Take space and time for your mind to ‘listen’ to what is going on around it – Arrange time, location, and environment for your mind to wander afresh

Please help us to get the word out in just two clicks – click here – then click the like button

Why take this challenge?

Time in reflection helps reduce stress and anxiety

Greater efficiency in thinking and creativity

Reflection helps build resolve and the ability to focus

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

Pascal said that all the evils we experience arise from human inability to sit quietly in a room. We all need time and space to simply think, to process, to understand.

To remove ourselves from pressures and distractions, and allow our minds to stretch back into their normal shape. Time to reflect, to dream, to imagine, to aspire. Space for for reflection and for new ideas and insights to emerge and intersect with our routine.

So where do you like to do this? Chances are that it will be somewhere that gently stimulates your senses. With comfort, beauty, harmony, resonance. It may involve water, or walking, or music. It may involve scents, or tastes, even massage or stretching.

But what might be the impact of changing some of these things? Taking time for yourself at work to deliberately structure a period of reflection, with the time and space to see its impact on your recall, insight and creativity. Putting on some music of an unusual tempo. Smelling a rose, or burning a joss stick. Savouring something you particularly like the taste of. Getting comfortable or stretching artistically?

Doing something that clearly signals to you and your brain that you have the time, and the space, and the openness to whatever might emerge.

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

Just a bit of reflection to try out

The green track this week is to find somewhere where you won’t be interrupted, and to take 10 minutes for yourself in reflection and see what comes up.

Prepare for it beforehand, select some music, or sounds, or drumming. Pick a slide show of inspiring pictures. Use some aromatherapy scents, or immerse yourself in the smell of the back of your hand.

Then set the time aside, position pen and paper ready, immerse your sense(s) in the experience you have created for them and see what reflections come up for you.

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

Making reflection regular

If the green track worked for you. Consider setting aside a regular reflection time where you create an environment with sounds, scents, visuals, whatever and immerse yourself in it with a pen and paper. Allocate a regular time for yourself, alone, to be still, and to allow your conscious mind to go where it needs, and to stretch out its kinks.

Try changing the nature of things – perhaps select quiet reflective music or epic adventure instrumentals, and see what sort of influence this has on your peace, your creativity and your reflection. Experiment, and see what works for you and what does not.

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

Trying reflection with your team

Too often, gathering together is all about talking. Sometimes the compulsion to talk drowns out the listening. But what if we made some of the time we meet all about listening? A communal reflection time for allowing our individual minds and awareness to stretch out, together.

Mother Theresa was once asked what she spoke to God about in her prayers. ‘I just listen’ she responded. ‘Oh’ came the response ‘so what does He talk about to you?’ ‘He just listens’ came the reply.

There is a profound quality in listening to another listening, which is captured in the phrase ‘deep calling out to deep’. Not everything requires words. Sometimes our deepest insights into each other come from silence. Do you think your team may be up to trying this?

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

Epic theme music – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eyZH9TefM8
Reflective piano instrumental music – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIm8KtWE_Uw
Relaxing video images – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHACKCNDMW8
Guide to relaxing smells – https://homesick.com/blogs/news/14-calming-scents-to-help-you-unwind

To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library

Let us know how you get on.
Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

And share your progress and insights with the Twitter LbA community using #leadingbyadventure

Useful links:

Flamingos taking off - metaphor for the space between one situation and the next

#007 – Using the Third Space

19/02/202116/02/2021 by Mike Clargo

Use small pauses between things to best ready yourself for each challenge and opportunity. Divest yourself of the debris of what’s past and put on your best for what’s to come.

Why take this challenge?

Be at your best for each challenge and situation throughout your day.

Better work-life balance through intentional transitions between the ideal work you, and the ideal home you.

Improved mental health for you and those around you

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

In our second adventure – Fixing ‘ … that’s not me’ – we explored how ‘who you are’ is something you can choose. You can put on the ‘you’ you want. You can choose the ‘you’ that will be best for each situation. Even each moment.

Out of his research into top performing athletes, Adam Fraser has discovered that in many cases our success is determined by something most people take for granted – the transition between one thing and the next. Too often we bring who we were in the last battle into the beginning of the next one. And the fact is, that may not be the best option for us.

Around this idea, Adam has prepared some excellent (brief) resources that I heartily recommend you take a look at. This week’s adventure is about better understanding what happens to YOU in those transitions, and then trying out his simple three step approach.

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

A bit like the Third Space

Our adventure this week involves watching a short video (6 mins) and then trying it out (4 mins). You will find the video here. But before you watch it, please try out the following:

Reflect (30 seconds) … on your last activity. Identify what positives you achieved within it, and any learning you put into place (NOTE: this is not a critique – you did some good. Look at it!)
Rest (30 seconds) … sit square in your chair, arms and legs uncrossed, feet on the floor. Close your eyes to cut out distractions and breathe slowly. And bring your attention to each of your senses – in yourself, in this moment. Re-centre them on yourself. And pause for a minute.
Reset (30 seconds) … think about the video you are about to watch. Think about what version of yourself is likely to get the best from the next 6 minutes. And determine to bring that version of yourself to watching the video.

Then watch the video. And make whatever notes or intentions you want to make. And then, before you move on to the next task you have set:

Reflect (30 seconds) … on how you watched the video. Identify what positives you drew for yourself from within it (Remember it is not a critique)
Rest (30 seconds) … sit square in your chair, arms and legs uncrossed, feet on the floor. Close your eyes to cut out distractions and breathe slowly. And bring your attention to each of your senses – in yourself, in this moment. Re-centre them on yourself. And pause for a minute.
Reset (30 seconds) … think about the next situation you are about to step into. Think about what version of yourself is likely to most helpful to those around you and achieving the best outcomes. And determine to step into your next situation as that version of yourself.

That’s it. One short video, and two (very brief, and unrefined) applications of Adam Fraser’s insight. But hopefully enough for you to begin to get a glimpse of its potential. And, of course, to have taken another adventure in your mind.

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

Trying the Third Space for Real

The Blue Track is about trying out the Third Space on some things that are real and meaningful for you. This could be all of the transitions in one day, or it could be a number of what you believe will be important transitions over the next week. Whichever you choose, do the following:

Consider how much time you have for each of those transitions to use the Third Space properly, and how you can find somewhere uninterrupted to have your Third Space.
Set your alarms (calendar, phone, whatever) to give you time for your Third Space before each of the upcoming activities. Remember that if you (rightly) want to review and critique the preceding activity, this needs to take place outside of your Third Space. Keep your intention for the Third Space very simple and straightforward – it is about the best possible transition, nothing more.
When your alarm goes, make sure you cannot be interrupted, and work through Adam’s Reflect-Rest-Reset process. Don’t worry if you struggle a bit, there is plenty of opportunity to perfect it for yourself.
Bear in mind that Rest does not have to be the process described in the Green Track. Depending on the time that you have available, there are many mindfulness exercises available through YouTube (although, personally, I find prayer works for me), but it could be a walk, or other exercise, or something else you find restful.

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

Over to Adam Fraser …

For many of us, the restrictions of the Pandemic have meant that we no longer have the travel time that enabled us to make the most important transition in our lives – that from work to spouse, parent and/or friend. Work live balance is not about the hours, it is about who you are in those hours.

If as a result of trying out the Green and Blue Tracks, you can see the potential in the Third Space (particularly in respect of moving between work and home) and want to take it further. Then I need to hand you back to Adam Fraser so that you can use his resources (most of which he seems to have made generously available for free) to further think through and refine your approach. I have included his website and some of his words of wisdom in the Pack section below.

The Third Space has huge potential for our own mental health, and for the mental health of those around us who benefit from us (and others) turning up in our most helpful form. So the pack area also contains other resources you might want to reflect upon.

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

Three simple steps to not take a bad day home – Adam Fraser TEDx Talk
What is the Third Space – Adam Fraser providing examples of people using it
Adam Fraser’s website

Other resources to help you create healthier environments

You are Not a Frog – Rachel Morris’s podcast for busy people in stressful work
Information on looking after your mental health
Articles on creating creating flow in your organisation (as the alternative to stress)

To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library

Let us know how you get on.

Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

And share your progress and insights with the Twitter LbA community using #leadingbyadventure