Brain Bursting in Berlin

I’ve recently returned from the great Berlin Change Days event. An awesome couple of days over a weekend focused on exploring the art of disruption, with lots of arts and lots of disruption from people, places and the insights they bring.

I’ve been following the evolution of Berlin Change Days over the years with eager anticipation as to when I would make the trip. Ironically given that I had to move from the UK to Canada, to put myself in the position to attend.

I had prepared myself for a heart, soul, ego and more to be twisted, turned and shaken inside out. This would be a group of people who spoke my language but were equally capable of keeping me true to my own self exploration of change and disruption.

I’m honoured that Nik Beeson and I had the opportunity to deliver our Disruption & Dis-Chord session on the first night and get a group of attendees clapping and conjugating the relationship of disruption to change through the analogy of beats. I won’t spoil the content for those that may attend or experience a future session but I pose this thought to you: Culture of an organization is its heartbeat – how do you travel to the new beat of the business heart when a disruption occurs?

I’ve always believed that the best change facilitators have a fluid connection between their creative and analytical sides. Connecting emotion and logic for the benefit of navigating a pathway forward. Its partly reflected in my own company name having a human and scientific reference (see capillary motion for the scientific reference). This conference brought that in loud and clear for me to experience and see others joyfully enthuse over.

Sessions used creative art, music, movement, dance, improvisation and many more incursions within the world of the liberal and creative arts to see disruption. We even started by putting disruption in trial with some awesome for and against arguments as to its “buzzword” multiple usage.

As I’ve said before, with any conference the depth can be measured by the side conversations and when you realize that your conversation has moved into international development being supported through pathways of choice – you truly are freeing your intellect to respond in its best way. I loved sharing my insights of curiosity and I loves being able to discuss the geographic perception differences of change management, leadership and organizational development.

Thank you everyone for massaging my synapses, challenging me and making me see with so many different lenses and making me part of the family. Thank you to Holger, Inge and the team, Berlin Change Days is my best conference ever and I look forward to many more!

If you attended, what were your thoughts, takeaways or insights of the experience?

Thanks to the participants at our workshop below…