Marian
23-01-2007, 08:35 PM
Penny Tompkins and I are running this workshop on March 10 - 11 in Chichester, West Sussex. There are more details on the calendar and on my website (www.apricotisland.com/discover-your-assertive-self) - and as I have been speaking to people I've noticed they are particularly interested in the format we use, so thought I'd share that here...
We have developed a number of activities that help participants to attend (as cleanly as is possible within a group setting, without requiring participants to ask Clean Questions of one another) to various aspects of the experience that might be termed 'being assertive' - including language, beliefs, posture, relationship to the other person, etc.
After the initial introductions and a preliminary piece of work where participants model their internal state when they are not being assertive and then think about their outcome(s) for the two days, we then tell participants about our range of activities and we let them know that we have more activities than we have time for. It will be up to them to decide - as a group - which activities actually happen. We write the names of three or four activities on the flipchart and then ask participants to decide which activity they want to do first. We set no time limit for the decision making, and we do not work within a specific time frame for any of the activities, either. They take as long as they take. After the first activity, we put up another list of activities (which may, or may not include ones they've previously chosen from).
This process of participants deciding on an activity and then us running it continues until about 2.30pm on the second day when we run an activity based on 'conditions for change'.
We also let participants know that we may 'go live' with Clean Language questions at any point in the workshop if / when we notice something happening that seems to be significant for one of them.
The main reason we introduced the 'choose your own activity' idea was so that participants have an arena in which they can practise being assertive without having to role-play - if they want 'their' choice of activity, they need to speak up - and even if they don't realise this at first, because this 'choice' section happens often, they get plenty of opportunties to notice and start practising what they are learning in the 'real' activities. They can also notice what happens when they are assertive and still don't get their choice and / or when they are passive in this situation and give in to others' wishes. So it is a fertile learning ground.
The workshop evolves according to the needs and wishes of the participants, so it really does follow the principles of 'clean'. We can even create additional activities for day two, based on what we are learning about participants, and add these into the flipchart 'menus'. And a side benefit of working in this way is that there are no time pressures. Each discussion and each activity can run its course.
It is playful AND challenging, interactive AND self-reflective.
We'd love to see you at the workshop. Even if you dont need to be more assertive, you may want to come along in order to find out more about how this works in practice. Or maybe you know someone who would benefit from this kind of experience? If so, please let them know about this opportunity.
We have developed a number of activities that help participants to attend (as cleanly as is possible within a group setting, without requiring participants to ask Clean Questions of one another) to various aspects of the experience that might be termed 'being assertive' - including language, beliefs, posture, relationship to the other person, etc.
After the initial introductions and a preliminary piece of work where participants model their internal state when they are not being assertive and then think about their outcome(s) for the two days, we then tell participants about our range of activities and we let them know that we have more activities than we have time for. It will be up to them to decide - as a group - which activities actually happen. We write the names of three or four activities on the flipchart and then ask participants to decide which activity they want to do first. We set no time limit for the decision making, and we do not work within a specific time frame for any of the activities, either. They take as long as they take. After the first activity, we put up another list of activities (which may, or may not include ones they've previously chosen from).
This process of participants deciding on an activity and then us running it continues until about 2.30pm on the second day when we run an activity based on 'conditions for change'.
We also let participants know that we may 'go live' with Clean Language questions at any point in the workshop if / when we notice something happening that seems to be significant for one of them.
The main reason we introduced the 'choose your own activity' idea was so that participants have an arena in which they can practise being assertive without having to role-play - if they want 'their' choice of activity, they need to speak up - and even if they don't realise this at first, because this 'choice' section happens often, they get plenty of opportunties to notice and start practising what they are learning in the 'real' activities. They can also notice what happens when they are assertive and still don't get their choice and / or when they are passive in this situation and give in to others' wishes. So it is a fertile learning ground.
The workshop evolves according to the needs and wishes of the participants, so it really does follow the principles of 'clean'. We can even create additional activities for day two, based on what we are learning about participants, and add these into the flipchart 'menus'. And a side benefit of working in this way is that there are no time pressures. Each discussion and each activity can run its course.
It is playful AND challenging, interactive AND self-reflective.
We'd love to see you at the workshop. Even if you dont need to be more assertive, you may want to come along in order to find out more about how this works in practice. Or maybe you know someone who would benefit from this kind of experience? If so, please let them know about this opportunity.