Background

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The table below outlines the background behind the design of The Art of Illumination. There is a larger poster size version that shows the interrelationship between ideas (please see the 11 x 17 pdf attachment at the bottom of this page). There is also a mind map of the entire facilitator guide, but only for the 5 half-days (that 11 x 17 attachment is also at the bottom of this page).

Assumptions	How the Design Evolved	Collective Virtuosity	The Five Practices
Most business and organizational environments do not have spaces where individuals can apply arts-based processes to their work. Sure, it's not practical, but what would happen if it were possible? Imagine if any individual felt stuck or needed a breakthrough in thinking, could use paint, music, or movement, to access a different source for an idea, maybe even a breakthrough. How often do we just dive in to resolve a problem or situation, without conscientiously looking to discover any insight? I’m not suggesting a lot more analysis or team off-sites. It's more about having access to a different capability, a capability drawn from the individual's experience in a larger collective which encourages the individual to act with mindfulness of a much bigger context. Daved Barry, formerly with the Copenhagen Business School's Centre for Art and Leadership described some research where business leaders and artists solved the same business case. The research found that artists took very different approaches, often going down very different and unexpected paths. The artists framed the business case's situation very differently, they framed it with more possibilities than merely solving only for the business case's situation. Is it easier to work only within the zone of what's familiar, where there's contentment with what is known? If you step back and look at situations, problems and opportunities in in our personal and professional life, maybe what happens is that they just get reframed again and again with new or different information. What would happen if you could reframe a situation based on an experience of collective virtuosity -- the experience of being in a collective results in an inspiring or extraordinary moment. If you knew that was possible, how would that alter your choices and actions?	After finishing a run with One Arrow, One Heart in 2007, I was ready to give up that story for a new story. I wrote a new play and was ready to go into rehearsal. However, unexpected events in the lives of my director and actors put the script on the shelf. I sat down and on a blank sheet of paper penned an idea called WorkPlay, inspired by the Washington Ensemble Theater. For me, I had this vision of a physical space where individuals in business could discover insights on real business issues through exploring various artistic processes. While many other consultants and organizations around the world had found their value proposition for applying arts-based process to business, it wasn't as obvious to me about why others would be interested in workplay. So, Ijust began writing stories from my own life's experience that I felt were important to me, stories that pointed to why my experience of arts-based processes made a difference to me in my personal and business life. I wrote five stories. Each pointed to the way a different arts-based process could provide insight, to assist an individual reframe their personal or business challenge, problem, situation or opportunity. Each process is a practice, something that could be applied at work again and again. Five stories and five practices, each in a separate session. Each session one week apart so that participants could apply the practice and get more real life context. Cathy Raymond, HR Director for the City of Olympia premiered the event series in early 2008. After making all the final preparation, rehearsing, collecting materials, and outlining each day's flow of events and ideas, one week before the first session, I still didn't know where it was all heading, why do the five practices matter? Why are they important? In response, I found a white paper written by the Imagination Lab on "collective virtuosity." That was it! It was the umbrella idea that would frame the purpose and value of the five practices. It was an idea informed by the arts, an idea that some might relate to from their personal experience, while others could easily understand, too. As a result of designing the Art of Illumination, I've realized that what's fulfilling to me is when I get a chance to work on something with many others, but not in a parallel, fragmented way where each person's actions are invisible to me. If possible, I prefer situations where it's synchronous, where everyone involved is simultaneously participating. And, if it's coordinated and scheduled with people in other places, that's even more exciting. Examples* like Pangea Day on May 10, 2008, The Rolling Requiem on September 11, 2002, or Earth Hour on March 28, 2009 tell me that it's really possible. When you get in touch with your most authentic self, your purest self, you're able to express and participate so completely, with so much of your senses and your body, that it increases the likelihood of experiencing collective virtuosity. Pangea Day http://www.pangeaday.org/ The Rolling Requiem http://www.rollingrequiem.org/previous/public_html/ Earth Hour http://www.earthhour.org/home/	I had this intuitive sense that collective virtuosity was something that could be meaningful, and also something that was not readily available within organizational life. It's the experience of wholeness, of being part of something bigger than work as an individual. It's common to someone who is part of a symphony, choir, theater, or dance group. The synchronous practice, rehearsal and performance for an audience is the nature of their work. Work as individuals easily gets reinforcement and acknowledgment in organizational life, but there are seldom opportunities to reinforce the synchronous performance of a work group or organization. What would happen if individuals' in organizations could have that experience of collective virtuosity? Would an individual plan or execute differently if they had a personal experience of collective virtuosity with their work colleagues? Collective virtuosity is the individual's experience. Collective virtuosity and the five practices require direct experience to realize their value. The practices ask participants to explore and examine the ways they observe, participate and engage with the possibility that collective virtuosity could happen any moment. The five practices each have aunique way of bringing attention to one's inner sensibility, about how to draw on one's self-awareness.	The Practice of Recognizing is about noticing and negotiating with the "other" voice that second guesses, questions, and judges what one is thinking, wanting, or doing. If individual merely yields to this voice, there can be stalling to the point that it stops the individual from allowing something to happen. In our organizational life, this voice may have been created out of the risk or fear of failing. When the voice is recognized, then the individual has the opportunity to choose ways to quiet and disarm that voice just enough to trust and see what happens. The Practice of Suspending comes from the metaphor of the writer and the visual artist. Their creative process can, in some ways, naturally suspend their ego or their attachment to what the painting or story "should-be." By suspending, the idea then arrives in the moment. It is emergent, and can feel like something is being pulled out of thin air. It is as if they are grabbing the idea and letting go at the same time, so that the piece evolves uniquely. This contrasts with the bias to push agendas and positions in organizational life. When you observe improv theater, one sees how they allow a story to unfold. The culture of organizational life favors planning over uncertainty. Both improv and planning can live together if individuals have the courage to let things unfold, and perhaps create opportunities for innovation and breakthroughs. This is the Practice of Unfolding. The Practice of Embodying promotes awareness of the heart, mind and body. For example, when we look at dancers and consider the awareness they have of their body, it can almost be the same that an individual in an organization can have, a sense of one's whole body and feelings. The Practice of Enacting is about the emotional investment that commits one to action. The theater performer's emotional investment motivates their sacrifices and rehearsals because they know what it feels like when the curtain goes up, the curtain goes down and the audience applauds. Through this practice individuals reveal their emotional rationale that realizes their investment and commitment similar to that of the theater performer. The Practice of Recognizing is the most fundamental; to observe oneself, to know when the judge, the critic, the naysayer is speaking. The Practice of Suspending is more easily understood after the Practice of Recognizing because in order to let go, you must observe and know what you are letting go of. The paradox of letting go and being pulled in the Practice of Suspending also contributes to the Practice of Unfolding, because letting things unfold is about allowing time to dramatize the space between letting go and being pulled. The Practices of Recognizing, Suspending and Unfolding are all encompassed in the Practice of Embodying because each of these practices can have a heart, mind, and body awareness, a sense that is felt in one's body. Through the practices of recognizing, suspending, unfolding and embodying, the individual hopefully finds a more authentic voice, one that gives the Practice of Enacting the energy and enthusiasm to act with spontaneity, purpose and freedom.

Design Principles and Model

“The way you create real change in people is by giving them an experience that they haven’t had before.” Rhoda Pitcher, a Seattle-based management consultant, quoted in Fast Company’s 1999 article entitled, “A Cast of Leaders.”

For over six years, I developed leadership programs for Managers and Executives. With each new design, I realized more clearly what would make enough of a difference for personal transformation to take place. From this experience, I have drawn out a few key principles that informs the design of this experience.

1. Transformation is based on emotions. If the experience is meaningful enough, the awareness to choose a different behavior becomes available. The strength of the emotional memory affects motivation. The Art of Illumination is a play that evokes emotions.
2. A singular training event is not enough to find ways to integrate new learning. Events that are spread out over time where participants have the opportunity to practice new learning and reflect bring added value. The Art of Illumination consists of five events over a five weeks or longer.
3. Training that is contextualized by the immediate challenge or need provides the immediate incentive for exploring, discovering, and pursuing new learning. The Art of Illumination asks individuals to describe a professional or personal challenge at the beginning of each session.
4. Education systems have constrained the individual’s choices. While good intentioned, systems that try to ensure the right answer, also have limited abilities to tolerate ambiguity, to explore and adventure. The Art of Illumination does not provide the right answers, only a process for each individual to find what is situationally relevant and meaningful, both immediate and in the future.
5. A group’s learning happens mostly at the intellectual level, not at the experienced group performance level. Training events that simulate group performance and individual performance are likely to have a higher ROI. The Art of Illumination gives individuals an opportunity in each session to work as an individual and as a group.

For almost the same amount of time, as I have been involved in my own personal transformations, I have realized another set of principles that informs the design.
1. With the pace and busy-ness of our lives, reflection is necessary. The Art of Illumination gives individuals frequent opportunities to reflect in a personal notebook.
2. While most learning is about adding more, another important form is unlearning, removing layer after layer to reveal an inner core of one’s talents and gifts, skills and interests that may be either invisible or hiding. The Art of Illumination does not add new content, it provides a process for revealing content that is already resident and available to the individual
3. It’s all about story. Our attachment to stories in our past can constrain us. Our willingness to reshape stories of our past can change how we see ourselves, affecting our thoughts and behaviors with others. One’s story about what is meaningful affects the types of opportunities we seek and attract. The Art of Illumination weaves and concludes with story crafting.
4. We learn when we play, either structured or unstructured. The Art of Illumination activities and exercises encourage playfulness, imagination, and creativity.
5. For all that I’ve realized about my gifts, talents, and passions, what I personally find most meaningful is when they contribute to a group’s experience of their own performance, achievement, or accomplishment. The Art of Illumination is about finding the experience of a shared aesthetic.

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