Bridging the Attitude Gap in Disater Preparedness Training!

Gabe created another opportunity to pilot the workshop for a second day in a row.  This was a group of 6 : 3 improvisors and 3 non-improvisors.  We also had 3 experienced trainers in the room.  One trainer returned for our second session to observe.

My big discovery over these two days is this workshop meets a gap in disaster training:  How to enable useful attitudes of calm, clear thinking and effective action?  Regular disaster training focuses on knowledge and skills and misses attitudes in a crisis.  This is the gap we fill.  Enabling better attitudes will help disaster knowledge and skills stick better!

This group enabled committed participation and valuable adult training feedback.  I am also noticing some differences between American and Filapino groups when we run the same exercises.   It seems like Americans focus on the individual and control, while Filapinos focus on the group and connecting together.  This sets up different behaviors in the common improvisation exercises we use.  Fascinating!

I am also learning about Filapino culture and regional differences.  A boon for me and this work is the Filapino love of word play.  Because they are multi-lingual, they are facile with puns, acroynms and humor with words.  This is helping Heroic Improvisation because we need to come up with simple and clear language to all to understand quickly.  We are getting good suggestions about how to tune up communication of the concepts.

We are finding the balance between traditional training and throwing people into a chaotic situation.

Hooray for us!