Difficult conversations
16 January 2014Summer, and holiday time, is a great time to people watch. Families and friends find time to get together. This past twelve months I’ve had two summers – one in the UK and now here in Australia. I’m interested in how people interact. I love listening to people talking in a language I don’t know…
Action storming for tackling difficult people
9 November 2012The question comes up sooner or later: “How do you deal with difficult people?” Leaving aside the question of what makes people ‘difficult’, or that one person’s ‘difficult’ might be another person’s ‘creative’, this is the second most common question we’re asked about facilitating groups. We’ve developed a rather nifty process that we’ve named Action…
Break down to break through
26 December 2011This song, Minnie the Moocher, by The Blues Brothers, came up on shuffle while I was at the gym. I was focusing on the song as I tried to take my mind off running and how heavy my legs felt. The song uses call and response, one of my favourite musical devices. At about 2…
You say tomato, I say…
3 August 2009A friend, who shall remain nameless for the time being, wrote an update on Facebook the other day saying she had just bought a new bathing suit. Now apart from the fact that I am insanely jealous of seemingly EVERYONE ELSE in the world who is taking holidays right now, and I’m not, this little…
Will I? Won’t I?
13 July 2009There’s a really cool performance piece that is a part of Playback Theatre. Two players physically enact an internal dilemma, or conflict. Naturally, it’s called Conflicts. It’s great fun to watch because most of us can relate to an internal dilemma: small or big. Will I eat this piece of cake or not? Should I…