I love turning a room of “Not So Happy to be Here at The Moment” peers into “Passionate Fired Ups with Ideas and Presence.”

I love watching the skepticals quickly move on the spectrum from “Eye Rollers” to “Eye Smilers.”

I love solving problems with Play. 

I believe, when Play and Work tangles magic happens. As leaders, we don’t have to be the experts of domain, but we need to be “ The Space Holders” and “The Witnessers” for unique experts to crack out of their cocoons to show up with their beautiful colors. So, how might we just facilitate THAT? I have few theories and some tried methods:

SET AN INTENTION about the outcome before you meet with the group. Later, when the creative energy dissipates and dragon heat rises, remembering your intention will help you sail through the storms. You have an intention and you have a direction. Storm shall pass, keep sailing.

WARM everybody physically with energizers. We can not solve problems behind the open laptop screens. We need eye contact. We need body wisdom. We need connection. 

TRUST that everyone in the meeting has a brilliant piece of the puzzle. Your task as the facilitator is to help gem pieces to find each other. Utilize design thinking exercises to help the pieces define their shapes. “ I have this piece that looks like a good fit here.” Boom.

PRACTICE spontaneity. Preparation before a meeting is good, but sometimes we don’t have time to prepare. Sometimes, we don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. Sometimes we just need to go with the flow. Trust that the moment will reveal what needs to be revealed for the team. Teach team to show up to see what happens.

FRAME problems. Imagine you are in an art gallery and you are walking through an exhibit of problems. Which problem is the most interesting and relevant? Invite everyone to join you to solve that frame of problem and make sure you are in the same museum, looking at the same picture.

IDEATE with Play. Give everyone permission to get the “Bad Ideas” out of their system. Role play solving problems with an “As If The Sky is Blue” mindset to make everyone creatively excited to get the ideas flowing in the room. Finally, bring them “Down to Earth” to meet timelines and budget. When people’s energies are given blue skies to soar, it is much acceptable for the creative forces to land on what is actually achievable.

BE A CHEERLEADER. Tell everyone that they are doing great. Frequently. 

PROTOTYPE ideas quickly with papers, scissors, role playing, singing, drawing, whatever. Invest in “The Story” and it’s “Telling” and not in “Pixels and “ “Perfection” ”.

TEST ideas immediately.

CELEBRATE mistake and failures. 
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REMEMBER when “Work” and “Play” tangles, “Magic” happens.

I recently dropped into a more than a move your booty dance class called Soul Motion in Berkeley (Thank you for inviting me dear Safoura!) Soul Motion is a conscious dance practice, where one dances intimately with the Self, acknowledges the resonance of other Bodies dancing around them, becomes a Solar System with the Community of Dancers and the Community finds their place within the Infinite Potential of the Universe. This magical formation is gently and humbly guided by a SuperNova-esq dancer Valerie, who is a subtle, loving and tells you specifically and concisely what you need to hear at the right moment facilitator. As I was reflecting on how Valerie made this orchestration made feel effortless, I bookmarked my observations for a great facilitator and leader. I also pondered on how these trades can Empower Agile Teams and Product Design as a whole:

• Subtle Directing: Trust your group's psyche and intelligence. Be subtle and gentle in your management. Open up to possibilities and surprises. Always ask what surprises are appearing in the field and what is needed now? 
• Loving Care, Respect & Allow Creativity to Flourish: Genuinely care about the individual Stars in your Group. Creation is all about the people and not the Product. "Product" is a byproduct of what can come to fruition with the Seeds of people. The best contribution that your group members can bring into the party is their creativity and ideas. If group members are encouraged to BE more of who they are and appreciated and welcomed to bring in their UNIQUE GIFTS to the process, they can make something awesome happen together in harmony. When the energetic field is set with loving and caring INTENTIONS, an extraordinary, creative love child Product would be born naturally. If people are happy, feeling loved, and trusting one another, the process you set to get to the finish line will be joyful and hurdles can be tackled with more ease and harmony.
• Be Specific and Focused: Be specific and be focused in your requests. This is about YOU committing to be in Service to the group of people you are managing/facilitating and trusting their potential. Also, this is about you supporting them with focused information in order to help solve what they are committed to solve. Commit to setting YOUR TEAM for success for extraordinary results.

.MY DANCE (My Intimate Star): As my lady feet (also pet named as my elephants sometimes) hit the shiny hardwood floor, the dance ring became a mirror to my Soul's yearnings. The lessons to be learned started to mirage in my body. Gliding with the rhythm, exchanging moves with other Bodies and dancing with the Energy thought me so much more about the things I would love to work on and grow to become a Whole Experience in this Body than a life lived in My Mind. Funny how that​ works. Body has it's own divine intelligence. Always listen to your BODY and other BODIES in Space! 

• How can I notice my fears and limitations when I am working and come out of that constricted state quickly, so that I can be in Service of the Creation at work? 

OUR DANCE (Two Stars in Solar System): Every single interaction with another Body shed light into my insecurities and fears. I learned a big deal about what I fear and what I go after through moving in space with another Body. I was VERY surprised how much judgement I carried. Or, shall I say how much judgement my EGO has. This made me think of work place as the dance floor and the Energy I am bringing into my work:

• What if emails, meetings, work sessions, kitchen chats, lunch outings, basically all business of conduct are our dance together?
• How can I be in discovery with another person in every step of the way in our process?
• How can I give and take in our dance together?

GROUP DANCE (All Stars in the Universe creating Magic): This was the part of the dance that required opening up my view to see and to feel what moves and what rhythms were around me. The idea of being in hard and soft focus made me think of working in a team as part of an organization. Team members need to be in focus while working on their tasks, but they also need to keep an eye on the bigger picture to make sure that their piece of work fits in organization's jigsaw. 

• How can my work can fit in the formation?
• How can I quickly and organically shift focus between my work and the work at large?
• What is needed?
• What can I give more of in my own unique way?

In conclusion, all our interactions are as part of a Big Dance Party called Life. The key to have a good time at work and at home is to be aware of our own party poopers. If we can ease into those parts that are limiting, we can grow, flourish, create and love what we do. Most importantly, it is crucial to be able to bring our unique gifts to the dance floor, so we can boogie with each other. If you want to experientially answer some of the questions that are suggested above, come to the Meetup that I am co facilitating with my friend Sean Halle on July 11th at 6:30pm in Berkeley Sports Basement. We will make work tangle with play and make magic happen!





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I facilitated a Sprint Planning Empowerment Extravaganza with a group of brilliant engineers in Fremont, CA today. I helped the team with making assumptions for each User Story, identifying specific things that they need/want and dependencies that they need to manage with other teams. I encouraged them to think out loud and talk about their feelings. Feelings? "We talk about feelings at work?" I said, "Oh my yes, indeed! How does this user story make you feel based on the assumptions you made?" Some felt sunny, others partly cloudy, one yelled "Sky is falling!" We all laughed and asked a lot of "WHYs?" to get to the bottom of what was contributing the antigravity for the sky to fall. Turns out, this engineer was depended on someone in another team to finish his part of the task. Some uttered " Why don't you meet with so and so and so and so together, I know they are working on this piece and that piece and that could help you solve your jigsaw puzzle. " Sun came out. Eyes twinkled. Gravity restored. Sky was saved.

• The big AHA moment one for the group was to share how one feels in front of EVERYBODY and let the team ask them a lot of WHY questions to get the support they need with their "stormy weather." Once people heard "I am feeling Sky is falling" all eyes with caring attention gifted him with ideas that can help solve the problem in the immediate future. Lesson learned: Bring your humanity and vulnerability to your group to get the caring support you need.
• Second AHA moment was to think out loud about what one needs to get the task done. Turns out, when we articulate the things we need with sound, we can be more SPECIFIC and specificity helps estimate the tasks better. This way also helps dependencies to be articulated and discussed, before dependencies creep in further along the way in the Sprint. Lesson Learned: Think out loud in front of everybody to make better connections to the events that need to happen for you to get your task done with ease and joy.

Today's extravaganza was purely experiential in terms of how this would be received by the engineers. I am happy to report that experiment succeeded. Tasking was a breeze. Team ended on Sunny Blue Skies. Teach Healer can sleep soundly tonight knowing that she helped the team to be more harmonious, productive and playful. YAY

Techniques used: I created the Empowered Team Sprint Planning Extravaganza experience, utilizing and combining Empathy Map with Experience Mapping and Service Blueprints with a sprinkle of improv.

We all experience the boiling soup in our heads when an agreement on a delivery with a teammate manifests itself as a completely different outcome than the originally discussed idea. "Wait. Whaaat? Didn't we agree on so and so? I thought we were on the same page when they left the room galloping full gusto!!! I thought they were going to come back with what we finally agreed on... Arghhhhhh.... Why? What? Whyyyyyyy?"  I get how annoying this is. When I am in a state of what feels like my ideas are discarded and disrespected, my inner child starts screaming all tones of screams. Highs and lows. No medium range notes. Nada. I first doubt myself, then start either feeling angry at the person or I give up on the battle completely, because I have no more energy left to discuss the project any further. So, what to do?

• Take a deep deep blue breath and go back to the original meeting minutes to remember WHY the original decision took place at the first place.
• Then, imagine as if you are a little cute kitten. So cute. Once, you connect with your cute little inner kitten, get curious like a playful kitten would, WHY this person/group took a detour from the original agreement? Please really embody the kitten in your being. Otherwise, you will still be under the influence of your angry inner child. You might find out that the person generates ideas more comfortably when they work alone.
• Play a yes, and game to find the middle way to draft a new agreement and help and encourage the person to be more collaborative. Give yourself a pat on the shoulder, because you are helping someone grow.
• Record the new agreement.
• After everyone finally agrees for reals, just keep coming back the agreement notes for each iteration. Breathe, persist, repeat.

Persistence is a lesson I learned from MR. Claw. When he wants something, first he gets closer to his want. For example, he would go by the door and start staring at the door knob in silence. Then, he would make eye contact with me. Then, he moves his gaze back at the door knob, then looks at me, then looks at door knob again, then looks at me. He does this with patience and persistence. The moment I tell him he needs to use his cat door, he starts meowing at me persistently. I roll my eyes and open the door for him. So you see, he is a master persister. 

When you feel like you were "thrown under the bus" in a meeting or over an email:

1. Acknowledge how you feel
2. Take a deep breath and hold your neurovascular points
3. Instead of saying to yourself or out loud 'You just throw me under the bus!" Say out loud, "Challenge accepted!"
4. Wear something that activates your superhuman powers to take on the challenge

By changing the way we respond to events, we can help the energy that is generated in the micro instance of our interaction with a coworker to go to an empowered self, instead of  going to the victimized self. When we step into our power, we take on the challenges with gusto and create in a World that nourishes and supports us. Feeling expansive is more productive that feeling shrunk and not feeling in our power.

Greetings from Portland, Oregon. I am here to attend the User Experience Engineering: Interaction Design Conference (#UXInteractions) this week. As advertised, we are learning to sail beyond our limits in Interaction Design. My first session for the week was Hagan River's Enterprise Apps: To Boldly Simplify Where Nobody has Simplifies Before. Her lecture was engaging, funny and made me reminiscence about the bloody usability battles I lost negotiating with stakeholders and also reminded me of the ones that I won that made our users go merrily on their paths. Merrily merrily merrily song goes here...

3 Takeaways from Hagan's workshop:

• Arbitrary iconography sucks
• Pagination is evil
• Best Practices for form, navigation design and goals for style guides.

However, today's gift writing is not about the design principles that would help us sail in the muddy waters with less mud with clear blue skies. I think we would all like the coordinates for those waters. Please keep reading on.

Exercise: Design a homepage for the library.
User: Patron of the library
Needs: A visitor who wants to find new books, see what she has checked out or overdue, see what is in on order....
Time: 5 minutes
My Sketch:

I realized what made me feel at ease after I sketched my mini design challenge. Here are the 3 things that might help bring harmony in your being in times of an urgent request.

1. 2Cs and 3Ws: Exercise instructions are very clear and concise. There is no question about the direction, or who the end user is for this design. Often times this is never the case for software development. It generally feels like, the person who is writing the requirements does not have time to fully bake the bread. It feels like one of those take home and bake goodies, but without the knowledge of what it is exactly that we are baking, who we are baking it for and why? So, instead of engaging with unproductive inner dialog, help the person who throw you the red ball answer 2Cs and 3Ws as soon as possible. 
2. Trust and embody that you are absolutely doing your best within the time you have. It does not matter if you have 5 minutes or 5 hours. Refer to project management triangle and tell the requester to pick any 2 in the triangle to set expectations. It is better than asking if they would you like fries to go with that?
3. No matter what it is that you are doing, do it with a joy and curiosity of a clown by sneaking little gifts that maybe no one else would ever notice. Perhaps a little smiley face is hiding somewhere in the page... :)

If you experiment with these 3 things, will you let me know how your inner child reacted to this?
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Today, I learned the Dance of Directions with a group of amazing women from Sunray Meditation Society who have been practicing the teachings of Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo (Eastern Cherokee) and her ancestors more than 20+ years. We gathered on a beautiful garden surrounded by giant redwoods, over marveling the Bay from East hills, accompanied by deer, blue jades and the scent of magic. 

Each direction has heavenly teachings that are available to us right now. The question is can we make the space and time to be in communion with these energies?

NORTH is Ideal
What qualities I would like to bring forward at work?
What is my unborn potential?

EAST is Inspiration
How can I open myself to inspiration at work?

SOUTH is Abundance
What are my inner conflicts and confusions?
What possibilities would open up if I did not feel conflicted?

WEST is Transformation
How can I keep my ego out of work place?

Realize that we are all connected and part of something bigger than us. So why suffer?

I have my fear patterns pointed at me by amazing Paula Colletto in her clown mask workshop last year in San Francisco. We were working on a trust fall exercise as a group. As actors, our task was to fall back behind, fully committed, trusting  that our exercise partner got our backs for life. Most importantly, we were to make sure to keep an eye contact with the audience while falling back like a graceful swan. Let me tell you, it was not a piece of freshly baked artisan loaf of bread. (I don't like cake.) Each time my partner increased the distance, thus raising the stakes, I either barked like chihuahua, annoyingly loud or completely went silent, closing my eyes and disappearing from my own body. Months later, I am realizing that getting loud and angry or disengaging and ghosting from the scene are two ways how I protect myself when a stressful event happens. This is very true for work or my improv scenes. Ten thousand light bulbs fusing through my brain with this amazing discovery!!! Thank you Paula for seeing my inner child through the veils of fear.

Realization is the first step to healing. I believe actualization will come by sharing this insight with my coworkers, family and friends, so that they can be compassionate and loving to my scared little child and not take it personally. Understanding my own patterns are helping me be more understanding with others. I inadvertantly am now noticing other people's fear/stress patterns and I say with my inside voice "Oh poor little one is just scared. It is going to be ok little one. I am here with you and we will figure things out. We have [few more days] before we hit that [deadline] and together we will make magic happen." 

Professionalism does not mean to act like a numb robot at work and suffer through a career and make others drawn down to Pacific Ocean with you. We are in this together. My healing is your healing. Your healing is my healing.

What are your patterns when compost hits the fan? If you find them, will you reveal them to everyone for the sake of global healing?