This article is taken from the first issue of Think Global People, the new home of Relocate Magazine.
Click on the cover to access the digital edition or read all of the articles on our website.

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Take a moment: suspend reality and think of your team and wider organisation as an orchestra

Creativity and play are tried and tested ways of helping us to understand the world. Today, there is much to make sense of. With lockdown and remote working – or even working cross-border before lockdown – it might feel like we are all playing our parts in different rooms. In a very real way, many of us are doing just that.The challenge is that this makes it very difficult to hear each other, work and play together in concert. Some rooms might be too far away to hear the music at all. Others might have less soundproofing so other players are drowned out.This can make us uncertain of our own parts – the music we are playing and how others hear us – and affect our team and individual performance. Paul Williamson’s timely webinar (click the image above to watch the playback video) is a great starting place for everyone – teams and individuals – to pick up their instruments, find peace and stability, have their voice and creativity heard again amid the clamour caused by Covid-19 and perform brilliantly.

Interdisciplinary approaches to problem-solving

The key messages – that creativity is important right now, music can build resilience, and help team dynamics, communication and support inclusion – resonate particularly strongly in these Covid-stricken times.“I passionately believe that everyone is creative,” says Paul Williamson, a qualified learning and development professional and executive coach, whose personal mission is to use music, the arts and storytelling to bring out the best in people, and their passion and purpose, for the good of businesses as well as individuals.“To solve a problem, you have to use your imagination and imagine a situation of what something could be like. It’s a form of creativity. We’ve honed these skills from childhood. But we need to reconnect with a sense of play. I’m really interested in bringing that out in adults. It can be incredibly liberating to crack something using your own resourcefulness.“Music can create space, evoke thoughts and emotions, allow us to access to our creativity and resourcefulness and this gives us more of a toolbox for dealing with stress and problem-solving.”

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Read the ‘Resilience for Changing Times’ Programme Q&A with Paul Williamson

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Understanding our own voice and how we show up at work

Paul Williamson’s impactful session based on psychology and structural dynamics guided participants through how to be aware of their personal voice and presence in a team, as well as ultimately offer a practical toolbox for how to continue “playing” in concert with other team members during disruption.Underpinning Paul Williamson’s approach is the concept of the leitmotif – a recurring musical theme that represents a character, object or location. He invites participants to consider what their theme would sound like. He offered three excerpts of specially-composed music, from a march in 4/4 time, to gently flowing music, to a dynamic arrangement, each with signature workstyles and beliefs, and asked us to consider which one we would identify most closely with.

In the same way a film or musical score highlights important elements of the story, the webinar invites us to find out what our individual score might be, what other people would hear as a consequence and ultimately how our personal score serves us.

Listening and hearing

This approach also offers us an understanding of what drives our teammates as individuals, giving us insight into their workstyle and purpose. Knowing this means we can see more clearly others’ perspectives, which supports inclusion and better decision making.Developing this self-awareness of our individual voice and what motivates us through the metaphor of music, and understanding how we show up to work and the impact we make, can help us hear our teammates and play alongside each other in a more productive and harmonious way.“If there are clashing themes and conflict in a meeting, for example, people stop listening to each other,” said Paul. “A composer would orchestrate a suite and a bridge between all themes, very much like the credits at the end of the film, which blends all the themes and brings them to a conclusion. The real-life equivalent of this is asking different questions of each domain at different times.“I think understanding yourself through music is a very powerful tool in professional development, as well as being aware of what themes other people bring to the room. As with an orchestra, it’s about balance, moving things forward and bringing out diversity of thought, important more so now than ever.”Watch the full playback of the webinar to experience Paul Williamson’s practical session in full and build your own toolbox to bring out the best in your team.

Paul was part of the Relocate Global Festival of Global People 2019 - learn more about his session on innovation drawing inspiration from the live entertainment sector.

This article is taken from the first issue of Think Global People, the new home of Relocate Magazine.
Click on the cover to access the digital edition or read all of the articles on our website.

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