This is a statement made by Richard Bach in his brilliant
book, “Illusions”. Narrated as a simple
fable, the book is a powerful metaphor for spiritual awakening and impacted my
own learning journey significantly.
Bach’s simple yet profound statement validates the 3rd
Principle of the 4 basic Principles of Learning on which the “CorporateTheatre”
methodology is based. These are:
·
Learning
happens best in the child state. In the
adult state, one has most of the answers, very few questions.
·
No one
can train another. The onus is on the
learner. Unless the learner chooses to
learn, learning does not happen.
·
One person’s knowledge may not be relevant to
another. Learning is best when each one
gets in touch with their own inherent wisdom.
·
If there
is learning, there is transformation. If
there is no transformation, there has been no learning.
Last evening a friend and fellow-facilitator shared with me
the following passage, which once again reinforces the 3rd Principle:
"Recognition is famously a passage from ignorance to
knowledge. To recognize, then, is not the same as an initial introduction. Nor
does recognition require an exchange of words: More often than not, we recognize mutely. And
to recognize is by no means to understand that which meets the eye;
comprehension need play no part in a moment of recognition. The most important
element of the word recognition thus lies in its first syllable, which harks
back to something prior, an already existing awareness that makes possible the
passage from ignorance to knowledge: a moment of recognition occurs when a prior
awareness flashes before us, effecting an instant change in our understanding
of that which is beheld. Yet this flash cannot appear spontaneously; it
cannot disclose itself except in the presence of its lost other. The
knowledge that results from recognition, then, is not of the same kind as the
discovery of something new: it arises rather from a renewed reckoning with a
potentiality that lies within oneself."
(from "The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the
Unthinkable" by Amitav Ghosh)
(bold and
italic added)
During the course of even an eight-hour workshop, without the
use of any presentations, slides, projectors, or notes, participants experience
and behaviourally demonstrate almost all the essential ingredients of
high-performance leadership and team dynamics that we desperately seek at the
workplace – instant Integration, free and open Communication, Collaboration,
Creativity & Innovation, effective Delegation, managing Time, enjoying
Change, celebrating Challenge, consistent Customer-Centricity, commitment to
Quality, and having fun even when dealing with intense pressure, competition,
and failure.
When I spell this out at the beginning of the workshop, it sounds
highly idealistic to most participants and many of them think it is an arrogant
exaggeration. But then I give them the
unconditional assurance that they will demonstrate all these behavioural
elements as their own immediate and instinctive possibilities even within the
first 3 hours of the workshop.
This becomes possible because the learning does not happen
from external ‘teaching’ of knowledge, and explaining conventional
definitions. Instead, it is facilitated
by a series of what Zen terms the “AHA!” experience of the participants as
layer by layer, they drop the limiting baggage of past definitions and
experience, and get in touch with a far more fundamental level of intuitive
wisdom, and the primal instinct of ‘the human animal to hunt, survive, and WIN in
packs’.
Having experienced the behaviour, the workshop also enables
an exploration of how these immensely powerful and exciting possibilities are
tapped, not by changing or transforming people, but by transforming the
environment. The role of leadership in
creating and sustaining this environment for instinctive and consistent
high-performance is also processed.
Most of what we need is already available within. The challenge is not to learn, but to
unlearn. “CorporateTheatre” is an unlearning experience.
