STEPS: Coffee & Complexity Club #5
Come and join us for a new series, where we’ll grab a coffee and dive into all things complexity.
Session Theme - Whose identity is it anyway?
At a recent Coffee & Complexity Club, someone asked: how do you get OK with doing something new when you feel trapped by your identity?
It's a question many of us recognise. Part of the trap is that having too many options tends to send us back into the well-worn groove of the old familiar script. But by adding a little structure in just the right place — simple scaffolding that supports us in taking unfamiliar paths — we can make new things easier to try.
On Friday 16th October, Angelina from impro studio will guide us through a simple, low-stakes improv game to feel that for ourselves. Open to all, you don't need to have done improv before. There's no requirement to be funny; previous experience with laughing is a plus. Give it a go, play along and see what happens.
Angelina Castellini has been improvising for 16 years, starting at the London School of Economics. She's a professional practitioner with the Applied Improvisation Network, and has trained in Warm Data Lab processes with Nora Bateson since 2020. Through impro studio, she runs improvisation training, storytelling courses and creative coaching for people who work with people.
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From Tom:
“STEPS has got it right: systems can feel too hard to shift. Most of what makes complexity feel impossible is that we tend to keep reaching for tools that work for a different kind of problem. One where you can map it all out, find the leverage point, agree the plan and get the result. None of that survives contact with a complex system. You can't know what'll work until after it's happened. The only thing you can count on is unintended consequences … and yet you have to act anyway.
You don't need to be a complexity expert to come along. None of us has this figured out, and that's the point. Whether you're curious, a bit unsure, or even sceptical, you're exactly who this is for.”
How the sessions will run
In the series, we're not going to explain complexity at you. Instead, during each Coffee & Complexity Club session, we'll take one way in, bounce it around, try it out, and then come back to see what actually happened. We'll seed the first few sessions to get us going. After that, it becomes what the room makes it: we’ll offer one, or you can bring your own experiments to share!