WHAT IS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING?
"The movement of the body and the action guide us toward a more pure and direct connection with our potential and our capacities. Change involves moving and deciding my destiny."
What is the working methodology I use for my team-building workshops?
It's called Experiential Learning learning by doing, by experiencing through involvement in a particular action. Naturally, our interest to learn increases, leading participants toward a more creative terrain and a deeper personal involvement. The knowledge no longer comes from an outside source; the knowledge is within them.
Experiential learning helps us identify with our own knowledge, or even rescue the forgotten knowledge or, as I like to say, that which we know but don't yet know we know: a kind of forgotten, ancient wisdom. It is motivating, inclusive, participative, and, above all, a fun way of learning and it also generates serious commitments to that learning.
My approach
I have been facilitating for 20 years, and in that time I've developed my own system of facilitation and active learning, built on tools that have proven their effectiveness. I work in a holistic way, seeing the team as a whole made up of individualities each one necessary and important in helping the team reach its full potential.
My workshops bring together a powerful and creative combination of games, challenges, yoga, and breathing experiences in nature initiatives that help us learn in a more fun and effective environment.
I believe in the power of experiential learning as a way to develop stronger, more effective, and happier teams. It has enormous potential.
Why does it work?
It moves us away from our usual work environment. It's difficult to build real team cohesion when we communicate mostly by email and stay focused only on solving tasks. Sometimes we need to stop, step back, and see where we are and where we want to go. Many of the teams I've worked with have come to the same conclusion: it's vitally important to have short meetings at least once a day having a coffee, seeing each other's faces, and recapping "where we are" and "what we're doing."
Alliances and structure
Every team works with a set of rules or alliances that help establish limits, ways of coexisting, and how to manage relationships more fluidly. These alliances generate more structure, commitment, and trust. Taking the time and space to revisit and reaffirm the value of our alliance as a team is essential to creating a safe space where everyone is aligned and walking toward common goals.
Psychological safety
Creating a safe psychological environment where each team member feels listened to and valued for their ideas and opinions is one of the essential pillars on which a team grows and develops in a healthy way. This generates real motivation and personal initiative, and it brings value to many new ideas. Many team managers, across different projects, have told me they'd like each team member to show more initiative, contribute more ideas, and be more creative. Personally, I believe this is one of the most important keys to achieving that.
Knowing each other
To know one another more deeply, to approach each other with openness, and to establish a dialogue of true listening and respect from the heart. To live and feel through our emotional intelligence, letting ourselves be caught by the wonder of knowing our teammates a little better. During the workshops, many participants have shared how important it was for them to learn more about the lives of their co-workers this has bonded them more closely, breaking down many prejudices and preconceived ideas.
Creating an action plan
Creating an action plan is vital it's refreshing and inspiring. It gives the team a new identity and opens a space and an opportunity to create something new together, and to be happier and, therefore, more productive. It helps us identify: What are we going to do? How are we going to do it? And who is doing it?
The results we achieve with experiential learning
Experiential learning helps to:
Strengthen team performance and staff cohesion
Motivate
Develop our skills and competencies
Discover our own values and the values of our teammates
Open a proactive space for communication
Give depth to learning and fix it more firmly in place
Stimulate creative thinking
Enhance employee morale and personal responsibility
Act effectively toward the satisfaction of our internal and external clients
Integrate and absorb the content of our business
Strengthen our leadership skills in a practical way
Help people discover and value the skills of other team members
Have fun, laugh, and relax