A major part of my role in any workshop that I facilitate is CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT.  I am currently sitting at gate B25 at the airport in Toronto prepping to head home after an incredible experience co-delivering workshops that address challenges and provide staff team training in a particular residential living community. 

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To engage the participants in whole brain thinking and to fully bring them into the room, I like to start by taking them through a fundamentals of drawing exercise. 

A current team training workshop (that I have co-developed and now deliver with community engagement strategist Beverley Pomeroy) centres around COMMUNICATION.  We include the strategy of OBSERVE WAIT AND LISTEN, i.e. O.W.L.  Naturally, the drawing exercise in this workshop centres around the OWL image. 

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The resulting 60(!) owls from this week are absolutely amazing! Though each participant was given exactly the same instructions, guidance and tools- the results are all so magically different- yet the goal was the same.  What a great metaphor for understanding what we each bring into our workplace. 

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We also explored our core values to better understand our differences and similarities. The participants added their core values to a drawing of an anatomical heart, which they then decorated and brought into circle for an in depth dialogue.  The owl drawings will be incorporated into a Living  Wall Street Art piece in the staff room and the hearts will be collages into a framed art piece!

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The owl theme continued in the talking pieces I created for the circle. 

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So somehow I’ve been able to bring my skills, my lived experience and my passion into a new environment- enhancing the profound delivery by Bev, the key facilitator, while facilitating participants in drawing and street art and sock crafts! Amazing!