Event Type:
Global Leadership Conference
Client Brief:
Do something we’ve never seen before.
Key Objectives:
- Communicate Key Messages so that they stick
- Create an experience so memorable that attendees will talk about it for years
- Generate Brand Love
Key Messages:
- Be comfortable with the uncomfortable (change management)
- Focus on the vital few (effective delegation)
Case Study:
Piercing booms emanate from behind closed doors. Something is growing, but we’re not quite sure what it is. Suddenly, The doors burst open into… chaos! Darkness. Drumming. Colored whirls. What is going on?!
We carefully shuffle in and start to notice: this isn’t what it normally looks like.
Bean bag chairs? Sofas, Apple-esque bars and even wobble stools appear from the shadows as we continue to explore. I hear a hollow knocking next to me. A colleague has found a bucket next to his chosen bean bag. He’s holding a pair of drumsticks that must’ve been left on top.
Another hit from across the room and suddenly the chaos amplifies as the crowd picks up the clues: we’re supposed to be drumming!
A spotlight sears through the night and a Candy-colored foursome are suddenly in our sights. On a platform at the edge of the vast space, they reveal themselves to be the sound of the booms at the beginning: they’re street drummers! Pounding orange buckets in rhythmic intensity, they corral us sonically to align to their beat. A shout! Their leader, clad in a ruby red tracksuit, has signaled something and a sort of magic happens: everyone hits at exactly the same time.
How did that happen? I notice, as I rat-a-tat on my own plastic vessel, that the drummers had reduced their chaotic patterns to the simplest of rhythms: a 4/4 beat. Recognizing that, we all just naturally fell in line. As we start to get comfortable, I notice some friends jiving in place while they keep time.
It doesn’t last long, though, as our stage friends suddenly ramp back up to syncopated flows as we accompany them with our simplistic tick-tock. Just as I feel an animalistic flow build within me, another piercing shout! The leader has stepped forward again, this time with stick-in-hand shooting up skyward. His wrist seems to magically glow red as he slowly lowers his drumstick’s gaze to the back corner. Like the burgeoning flickers of a freshly lit campfire, the corner of the room blooms in dusky red. Without pause, I glance down and notice that my arm is going up in flames, too! Oh, the wristband! I had forgotten that they wrapped one around my right arm and assured me it would all become apparent in time.
Confused, I search around, but with all the darkness, my eyes keep gravitating toward the red man on the stage. The one pointing to the red corner. Oh!
I start to see other red bands hovering towards the red corner and I start on my short journey, my bucket-drum hanging from my neck by a rope attached to either side of the cylinder. As I arrive, I notice that another quarter of my colleagues are heading toward the opposite, now verdant, corner, their arms the epicenters of green halos. We fill corners of the room and suddenly, we are awash in colors, blue and yellow rounding out our quartet of hues. In our newly-formed cornice communities, we beat out our now-learned rhythm and our foursome of drummers start to build their cadences to a rousing summit. Suddenly: BLACK!
Silence.
Then a primal roar grows. This is a sound not heard within this audience before, but yet, I slowly realize, WE are making it. Cheers growl from our depths as we release the fervor of the experience. What WAS that? What just happened? Did I just do that?
As we reach peak spirit, another spotlight. This one on a well-dressed man with greying-but-trimmed beard and sleek sillhouette. Our President. We can’t help but erupt again!
“My friends,” he begins, “Wow.” He seems disorientated, but regains composure as a small chuckle floats through the cornered crowd.
“For three years, we have tried to convey to you, our leaders, what we believe will level up our company: our core pillars of leadership. In the past, we’ve been met with nods and then… nothing. We’ve been told that you all just don’t resonate with the concepts, but we believe them to be truths. So, today, we thought we would try something… a liiiittle different. Raise your hands if, when you walked into the room 10 minutes ago, you were uncomfortable.” A louder chuckle rippled through the assembled as hands tentatively raised.
“Good.” Another laugh.
“Now, after you found your bucket and drumsticks, who figured out what you were supposed to do with them?” More confident arms raised.
“There you go, you got comfortable with your uncomfortable situation. You worked it out, you communicated with each other with your eyes. You created your solution.”
“Now, it was chaos when you all started to drum and play around. A beautiful chaos, but chaos all the same. When our <Client Redacted> red-clothed friend here got the signal from our show caller to simplify the beat to a 4/4 rhythm, who immediately found clarity about how to move in sync toward musical nirvana?” Drum beats and hands in the sky along with cheers!
“So, I’d say that you all found clarity once you were focused on the vital few elements that you could control, right? Did you feel that?” Nods. “That was our goal. If you can feel within yourself the effects of our pillars, we believe that you’ll be able to live those pillars with conviction and understanding that could never happen with us just telling you about these concepts over and over.”
“Now, you’re in 4 groups, ready for your first game without us saying a single word. That’s the power of these pillars. Ready for your next challenge?” Whoops and hollers. “Let’s do it!”
