Competence model articles Curiosity and openness to improvise and experiment Dares to improvise and experiment and to acknowledge the importance of this Promoting creativity, problem solving and out of the box thinking Understanding and facilitating individual and group learning process

First time in my life

We encourage you to be open to improvise. In order to be open to improvise, we practice to lose control. While we have a plan for what to do, and what to say, we predict situations and more or less we ready to control the situation if.. If everything goes as planned. But what if it doesn’t? What happens when you can not control the situation if something happens unpredictably?

Donatas Petkauskas February 22, 2020

0 67 Less than a minute

First time in my life — Photo by Jeffrey Grospe on Unsplash

Why did I choose this tool?

From our experience, we react differently to unpredicted situations. It depends on our previous experience with something similar, so if we had one, we will know how to react, or if we didn’t have that experience, we can choose different ways to react to the unpredicted situation.

How does this apply to being a trainer?

The exercise allows to train the “ego” of the trainer. This exercise is about giving up the control, listening to the other person, accepting the way others think and being more creative at the same time.

Main content:

Try something new you have never tried before and reflect on this experience. Do it during this week.

Reflection questions:

When was the last time you did something for the first time? What was your experience?

How often do you push yourself out of comfort zone? Maybe you are too much stuck in a comfort zone? Hm?

Co-author of the article: Agne Kvikliene

Agne Kvikliene – professional IT project manager who sometimes works as a trainer helping people to build organizational changes, strategies and ensure the quality. She had been working with training programmes and coordinated national trainers’ pool at National Agency of EU programmes for youth. While having experience in training, educating people she initiated training quality standards and raised the topic of trainers competences development. The biggest achievement for her was to lead Eastern partnership youth forum which was a milestone for the strengthening the quality of the non-formal education and the partnership among the EU and EaP countries. It became a continuous activity happening once in a two year.

Co-author of the article: Povilas Plukas

Povilas Plukas is the learning designer who designs experiences that grow personalities and helps organisations to reach their learning goals. Over the last 10 years he provides training courses on personal development, interpersonal communication, teamwork, change management, learning to learn, social entrepreneurship, gamification and game design. Povilas is a member of International Applied Improvisation network. He studied improvisation at Second City, a world-famous improv school in Chicago. He is partner in the consulting company Kitokie Projektai. The company has been active both in Lithuania and internationally since 2000.

Editor: Donatas Petkauskas

is professional supervisor, coach and experiential learning trainer, having more than 15 years of experience in consulting various organizations and individuals, creating and conducting training course on national and international levels. Donatas has extensive experience in non-formal education, training of youth workers and trainers. He is working in the field of non-formal education since 2003, since 2004 he is a member of trainers pool of Lithuanian National Agency (currently an alumni).