l’Amour Toujour — Vientiane, Laos | October 2017
“I’ll Fly With You ”
“Neung… sãwng… sãam..,” and snap, a final photo has been taken. It’s ten past five on an October afternoon and it’s a wrap. My first day as a Management 3.0 Workshop Facilitator has come to a close. After more than two decades as an instructor in one form or another, I think I finally figured out what I want to do when I grow up.
Another October afternoon, 22 years earlier, on a drizzly day at an army training centre in the east of the country, I was promoted to sergeant-instructor for the Infantry in the Royal Netherlands Army. It wasn’t a position I was instantly comfortable with [read: Let’s Get Loud]. I didn’t quite see myself as a teacher of any kind. But like any role you take on in your life, it grows on you and six years later I left the army feeling quite accomplished as an instructor/group commander.
Having left the security and comfort of a career in the army (keep in mind this is pre 9/11 and its disastrous aftermath) and after a short stint as an operations officer for a small airline, I travelled to Southeast-Asia to think about what I should be doing next. I had intended to visit Cambodia but, as severe rains had washed away most of the roads to Phnom Phen, I ended up in its northerly neighbour Laos. One night, as I was having a drink in a bar in Vientiane, someone asked if I was interested in working as an English teacher. Without much hesitation, I decide to accept the challenge [read: One Way or Another] and have been a teacher — of English and many other subjects — in Laos ever since.
But then, three years ago on a Wednesday night in March, I found myself on the 23rd floor of a skyscraper in Hong Kong. In an effort to launch a virtual community college [read: Spinning Around in the Air], I had been to meetings all over the city, been interviewed on RTHK Radio and that night I gave a presentation to a select group of attendees at a community centre in Sheung Wan.
It was a new experience. I wasn’t teaching, I was presenting; and it definitely wasn’t one of those dreaded ‘Death-by-PowerPoint’ presentations. I had spent weeks writing and practising my script and creating an audiovisual slide deck that would compliment — rather than overpower — my talk. I had been very nervous but, after the opening line, “Good evening and welcome…” the whole presentation unfolded itself as an engaging one-man show with bits of humour and selected personal anecdotes, followed by a lively audience discussion.
That night, as a walked to the ferry back home, I realized that I had found my true calling! Rather than instructing I wanted to tell stories and I wanted my surroundings to be part of those stories; to engage all the senses. And, rather than ruminating codified concepts and reinforcing set rules, I wanted to talk about and experiment with new ideas. But how?
I now knew what I wanted but had no idea as to how to actually do it. Then I came across the book Management 3.0 by Dutch management pioneer Jurgen Appelo and I saw a path. For well over a year I read numerous books and watched dozens of videos related to this new concept of Management 3.0. To test if the ideas laid out in the books and videos would actually work, I decided to run small experiments at work and in my classes, some successful others not quite so… From these experiments I learnt that the happy medium between teaching and presenting can be found in workshops.
In the summer of 2017, I felt confident enough to apply for certification as a workshop facilitator. The Management 3.0 organization reviewed the articles I’d written about my experiments and, on 7 September 2017, I was awarded my Certificate of Practice. I now was a certified Management 3.0 practitioner, time to plan my first workshop.
As I want my workshops to engage all the senses, I decided to built my first one around the experiential experience of preparing a traditional Italian lasagne from scratch. It was scary. I had control over the theoretical and audiovisual parts of the workshop, but not over the kitchen I needed to have teams cook their lasagne in.
Luckily I have a friend who owns the Love Life Café in Vientiane and she was willing to help me out. Once I gave her the recipe for the lasagne, she and her staff stocked up on the ingredients, arranged the mise en place and prepared a backup lasagne in case my workshop attendees wouldn’t produce anything edible.
This morning, Saturday 28 October 2017, I got the the Love Life Café at 7:30 to setup and test the equipment — and have quite a few coffees to calm my nerves. At about a quarter to nine the attendees started to drip in and at nine sharp my first Management 3.0 “Fresh Lasagne Challenge” Workshop kicked off. Like in Hong Kong a couple of years earlier I was nervous but once I started things went well.
Then, at around 11:30, it was time to cook:
I had had sleepless nights over this part of the workshop, would it go well? To cut a long story short, it went brilliantly. They took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but the teams worked well together, everybody enjoyed their tasks AND… the lasagne they cooked was absolutely delicious!
The whole day went as I hoped it would. The participants were active, engaged and enjoyed themselves. There were no serious technical hiccups and the cooking, which I had dreaded so much, went very well. Weeks of preparation and today ten hours on my feet but… dare I say it?
YES I DO, my first workshop as a Management 3.0 Facilitator was a success!
One of those moments that has made the playlist of my life: l’Amour Toujour
Gigi D’Agostino – I’ll Fly With You on l’Amour Toujour. [CD]. Mergenburg, Germany: ZYX Music. (2000)
This autobiographical sketch comes from my bundle In the Moment: A Disjointed Audiobiography which is available at Amazon.com. (USD 9.50 for a paperback or USD 4.50 for the Kindle version)
