Leading from the Clown

Clown wisdom for leadership & collaboration with Ralf Wetzel

About the event

A one-day exploration of what the clown knows about leading when the script no longer works.
 

Most leadership development is additive. It identifies a gap and tries to fill it with another skill, framework, tool or technique. But what if some of those gaps are partly created by the very developmental logic designed to close them?
 

Clown work starts from almost the opposite assumption.
 

It is subtractive. It removes what has gotten in the way: control, habitual competence, polished performance, the need to know, the urge to fix too quickly. And underneath those layers, something surprising appears: capacities that were never missing in the first place.

The capacity to receive before judging. To wonder before naming. To desire openly without hiding behind strategy. To stay when something goes wrong instead of immediately correcting it. And beneath everything else: to be emotionally truthful no matter what happens in the encounter.

These are not tricks and they don't make you funny. They are innate human capacities that professional life has gradually trained into sleep mode — and precisely the capacities we need when familiar answers, routines and leadership scripts stop working.

Leading from the Clown is a highly experiential day using red-nose clown practice to recover and revive these capacities. We work with presence, encounter, not-knowing, mistakes, desire, exposure and the unexpected — and explore what becomes possible when leaders stop adding for a moment and start removing what gets in the way.

You will not learn how to become a clown. But you may discover that you were perfectly capable of moving without a script — before you were taught that you needed one.

“Leadership begins where the script stops working.
The clown has been living there for centuries.”

The facilitator

Ralf Wetzel is a renowned business educator, who has been working at top tier European Business Schools for the last 17 years. His signature is a performing-arts-based teaching approach using improvisation theatre, red-nose-clown and theatre mask work. Next to that, he’s an independent theatre performer and producer himself.

Feedback from previous participants

★ "What a wonderful workshop to prompt some deep reflection and different thinking about how I approach myself, my leadership and the groups I work with. And all through finding my clown, some play and lots of human connection." Becky Lythgoe, Head of Insights and Engagement

★ "A wonderfully creative, fun and also challenging workshop that focused on the first dimension of 'clown state' - to be with what is, let it affect you and give it back. I learnt that there's no need to perform - just to explore, that crowds can be friendly and resourcing and that taking my time and settling my own nervous system first is not just important in my 1-2-1 work but powerful in a group setting too." - Lucy Morris, Coach & Principal Consultant for Organisational Development

★ "Best 3 hours of the month - playful, profound, world-of-work transforming" - participant
 

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