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Design Toolkit

Design Toolkit

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Storytelling

Skill Level:

Beginner

Shifting

Transport your participants to an entirely new realm of imagination and possibility with Storytelling! Moving from thinking to imagining is the key with this Shifting technique. The less familiar to your participants' experiences, the better!

Paradoxes

Skill Level:

Beginner

Shifting

Paradox might be the ultimate Shifting technique. Paradoxes are brief brain-busters that demonstrate how two logically opposing views can be true at the same time. When integrated skillfully, paradoxes can shift your participants from a habit of mind that relies on understanding a single "objective reality"to one that embraces forms of knowing that exist beyond logic.

Thought Experiments

Skill Level:

Beginner

Shifting

Ask your participants to sit back and imagine something that seems impossible. Sitting on a laser beam was one of Albert Einstein's favorites. This type of activity can quickly shift an individual's perspective by depicting an uncanny reality.

Zen Koans

Skill Level:

Intermediate

Shifting

Present participants with a Zen Koan, or brief story that concludes with a question that is impossible to answer through even the most advanced form of analysis.

Ego Transcendence

Skill Level:

Advanced

Expanding

Facilitate a mindfulness practice called decentering, and help your participants move beyond identifying and separating their concept of "I, me, and mine", revealing that the Self is a construct driven by ego, whose tendency is to divide and focus on differences. Transcending ego in this way better positions participants for more inclusive ways of relating with others (colleagues, clients, and communities).

Generative Scribing

Skill Level:

Intermediate

Applying

As participants move into dialogue, visually represent the ideas
that arise and integrate content from the room by drawing on the wall. As you draw, access your internal energy and
bring it back into the dialogue.

Real-time Value-Behavior Alignment

Skill Level:

Intermediate

Applying

Check in on how well the values you regularly espouse (e.g., transparency, responsibility, forgiveness), align with
the actions you take in scenario-based simulations or real life.

Rapid Prototyping

Skill Level:

Beginner

Applying

Capture insights in a shareable form, through story-boarding, 3D modeling, role play, and rapid journaling.

Reflection-in-Action

Skill Level:

Inermediate

Receiving

Pay attention to the symbols, motivations, and instincts that drive real-time action and reaction in a simulated or real task.

Storing Objects of Attention

Skill Level:

Beginner

Receiving