At European Consultants Camp we did an alpha run of the Ship of Fools sculpt. This to gather some very recent images for kick-starting integrated pull-marketing of the controlled folly service, gaining critical feedback from excellent colleagues familiar with and skilled in facilitating Satir concepts, and gathering a crew for causing another “congruence meme” wave.

Run up and context setting

This is some of the meditative music we used.

Sculpt The sailmaker was made to walk the plank so the cap’n could buy time. This would have caused a mutiny later, had we not stopped the sculpt, having gathered more than enough information, and getting tired. Back stabbing of the cap'n by the first mate Turning the outlook to take a starboard view does not make the ship turn

Reflections More communication between cap’n and first mate Clarification about job descriptions More time to observe the system in order to make informed decisions Swabbies are fine More background Find allies for a mutiny more quickly More time for preparation Ah, and when do we have all of these In Real Life? We don’t. But in general we can ease communication between roles and do more asking instead of assuming. Who to ask, and how, in order to not lose perceived authority or face? Ask those around you that you have a lot of credibility with, and build up just walking around the company. Likely people will desensitize after a while, and not find it odd at all that you appear regularly. It may be appreciated and that brings down the risk of disrupting the system by your appearance in other than positive ways. And, as a Cap’n you can always play around with the Byzantine Generals problem.

Improvements for sculpt

1. Have a catching and compelling story to set the stage.

2. More of a note: A version with a simulation will require a whole day, with reflections and tie-in on the day after. Another workshop that is. But, clearly, this sculpt can easily be turned into a simulation.

3. Change the ship pastor’s role to fool, now that it turns out to be a Pirate Ship. Every community has one, even Pirates. Besides, not many people know that Pirates are of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster faith. We believe that Pirates will evolve into more fully humane beings, regardless of others knowing about our faith.

4. Business model

Additional resources for sculpt

• Helm
• Eye patches
• Shark
• Cutlasses, knives, swords
• Pirate’s flag
• Swabs
• Plank

Appreciations

Thank ye Mona, Henrik, Otto, Marco, Bent, Cor, an’ Graham. This makes fer a grounded an’ powerful kick-start t’ get Ship o’ Fools goin’. An’ ’tis extremely important how we kick start, fer any imbalance in that, can come aft t’ haunt us later, an’ probably fairly smartly at that.

Let us know if an’ when ye (co-)facilitate an instance o’ ‘t, or if ye wish t’ work together on an instance? We be eager t’ know what happens, an’ excited about further facilitation an’ development o’ congruent memes!

What else ye got? An’ be quick about it, I be shippin’ out soon! Ya horn swogglin’ landlubbers!