In this episode I talk about the first day back at work where you need to find a way to apply the new skills in your day to day job. We talk about positive psychology and how you can motivate yourself to progress your visual journey every day in the office. Additional we introduce the visual facilitation garage. An advanced visual facilitation workshop where you can meet people who are on the same journey as you. This workshop will be help every month in Sydney and Melbourne and is hosted in Germany as well for many years. I hope you enjoy this short episode!
Hey! Guys, this is Marcel again from the Bikablo Radio with another insight episode.
Today I want to talk about the third day of the Bikablo training. If you have a look at the Bikablo training program in Australia you might say “There is no third day in the training”, and that’s right.
There is a two days training when you come to the Bikablo fundamentals and practitioner level, but what I mean is the third day, which is the first day when you’re back at work.
At work, the real change happens. You need to find ways to practice and apply the things you learnt on a daily basis. Here you might go through very mixed feelings.
First of all, you get a lot of positive feedback because people come to you and say Oh! My god, when have you learned to draw. I didn’t know that you could do that. That will actually happen, l promise you that, but as with everything new you also will not get it right the first time and you need to be OK with it.
What I mean is that you will not do the same performance you did in the training class. In the training room you had a safe environment and could explore the tools and techniques in your own speed. At work the speed of the others matter and outcomes become more important then the beauty of your lines. Very simple things that you had mastered in the training class are difficult again like drawing the light bulb or simple shapes like boxes and arrows.
Recently, I came across the work from Barbara Fredrickson, she is a scientist with more than twenty years experience in positive psychology. She wrote several books including Love 2.0 and Positivity.
On of her concepts which hit me and I really like is the “tipping point”. It is the ratio between positive and negative emotions and how to balance those feelings in a positive way: According to Barbara’s works, you need about three positive emotions to equalize one negative emotion.
That means for every line you draw not straight or every light bulb pictogram that looks a bit out of shape and funny, you need to celebrate three things that you did right and that you are happy about. The problem is when you tip over to the negative side you are more likely to stop the change you started in the training and through that you would have wasted time and training budget.
So how can you make sure that you get a healthy ratio between your positive emotions so that it equalizes the negative emotions out which will appear most definitely.
First, you celebrate everything that you got right and through that motivate yourself. That could mean that you are proud about your neat writing or the bikablo® containers and frames you swapped your content in. Or the strategic use of colours and the way you applied the shadows and highlights – every little success counts towards the positive emotions ratio. Please open your eyes and celebrate those little successes at work every day.
Secondly, I would like to introduce to you another great concept of Barbara Fredrickson work where she describes “micro moments of connections” between people. Those are the beautiful moments when two people see each other. It’s when you understand each others needs and feel connected with someone.
Of course you need a person you trust and can be open to. It’s a person that has a smile always ready for you at work. In our corporate world we need those good mates so that we can support each other every day. When starting visual facilitation you reactivate your drawing skill that you had almost forgotten since childhood and you need good mates that give you constructive feedback to progress further.
However, even if you have great people at work it is very hard for them to offer feedback to you as you probably do something new they have no own experience in. Therefore they struggle to support you even if they would like it.
Here the bikablo® Akademie will not let you down, we present to you the new bikablo® Visual Facilitation Garage. An advanced half-day bikablo® workshop in Sydney and Melbourne that brings together bikablo® graduates to practice, learn and grow together as visual leaders. If you are in German speaking Europe – The visual facilitation garage is also hosted in Germany.
You will get feedback about your work and see what you have already mastered and where you need to improve next. You will learn from someone who is on the same journey as you or just a couple of steps ahead!
I hope that the bikablo® Visual Facilitation Garage can provide you not only with necessary feedback but also creates those awesome “micro-moments of connection” that everyone need to reenergize their batteries so that you stay on track and become a visual ninja at work.
I hope to see you soon in Melbourne or Sydney in the Visual Facilitation Garage. Thank you very much and have a great week.
Marcel combines agile team coaching with visual thinking. Marcel believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can change the world. He loves high-performing teams and therefore coaches teams every day.
