294 - Learning From Burning Man About Transformative Experience Design with Rob Blakemore

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hapnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Rob Blakemore, and he shares his experience of Burning Man as a Participant, volunteer, organizer. And we draw similarities, learnings about the corporate world and the learning and development space. And what is it that brings people together to radically collaborate and create something that has never been done before? And stand in the space even if it gets difficult. And what does it take to facilitate such events and such experiences? So stay tuned. And by the way, if you don't have pen and paper at hand, take your own notes, scroll down to the show notes to download my free one-page summary. Now lean back to be inspired. Hello, Rob. Welcome to the show. Thank you.

Hey, it's a pleasure to be here. Hi, Myriam. Hello.

I am so curious to hear about your facilitation journey, and mostly, I must say, about your experience with Burning Man and helping to organize and to facilitate the experience and the volunteers.

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's been quite a journey.

And I always start with the same question before anything else. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually, do you?

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I know I don't— I certainly wouldn't normally introduce myself as a facilitator. I think within Burning Man circles, I see myself more as a sort of a coordinator or collaborator, an introducer of people, bringing different people together to and encouraging them to achieve the things that they want to achieve. So no, it was interesting when, when I thought about that question, I thought, well, I've, I've, I have done things labeled as facilitation, including, uh, European leadership summits for Burning Man. And, um, and then I realized, well, of course I do a lot of facilitation in, in the company that I, I now run with, um, with Simon and do a lot of work with Simon and Ian who are on your show. a few, few weeks ago, um, at Mindblown in learning and development, immersive learning and development. But no, I probably wouldn't label myself as a facilitator.

So from which direction are you coming into this field, and how did you then end up facilitating leadership circles for Burning Man and working in a facilitation firm?

I guess my, my journey into it all is, well, my original career and interests were in computer science. So I spent 24 years doing IT consultancy and jumping around all various different roles from leadership project management roles to deep tech stuff, most recently at the European Space Agency. But what sort of got me more and more out of the tech, or probably better to say, wanting to integrate all these different things in my life that I'd suddenly come across and thought could lead to an even more faceted career, all started with going to Burning Man in 2008. So I'd been going to UK festivals for quite a while, then started branching out to festivals around Europe. And one of my friends said, oh, well, you should— we're thinking about going to Burning Man. Would you like to come along. And, and I said, well, what, what's Burning Man? Back in 2008, nobody had really heard of Burning Man. I think about a decade ago it got very— it, it sort of went worldwide and popular. But, but back then no one had heard of it. And the more I looked up about it, I thought, this looks like an interesting thing. It looks fantastic. And when I spoke with people, they would say, oh, well, you're— yeah, that, that there's nothing like it. And I thought, well, I'm lucky enough to have traveled around the world for 2 years, and I thought, well, I, I've, I've seen some things. But no, when I went to Burning Man, it really was different to anything I'd ever seen before. And I think one of the reasons for that was it's a transformative event because it takes you so far away from your normal parameters, and you have to— you're encouraged to participate and, and be in the moment. And, and because everybody is doing the same thing, there is nothing there but that which the participants bring. Everybody is taking something that's deeply personal to them, that's meaningful to them, and whatever project they're bringing matters so much. You— gifting is, is one of the, the 10 principles, and we'll— I think we'll come to those in a bit, but people are encouraged to bring gifts of their choosing to Burning Man.

Before maybe we go into the details, and I think the, the gifting, as you said, and the 10 principles are incredibly important. If someone in the audience is not familiar with what Burning Man is, yeah, could you give us the nutshell?

A quick overview. So yeah, Burning Man is a project that started originally in 1986 by a guy called Larry Harvey and about 35 other people. They burned an effigy of a man on Baker Beach in San Francisco. And it has become now this event in Nevada, this, uh, uh, out in the Nevada desert that 80,000 people attend and co-create. So it's a spectacle of all sorts of creativity. People are encouraged to come and bring things to the event. So you get huge art sculptures, you get people doing performances, you get what are called mutant vehicles driving across the, the, the, the desert floor, which is called the playa out there, um, that, that are expressions of projects that people want to birth into the world and gift to the community. So Burning Man is a lot of different things to different people. If you ask different people what is Burning Man, you would get a, a very different answer because it's often flavored by the project that's important to them that they take. But I see it as a, as a, as a mixing pot of people coming together in a community to co-create an event, taking things that are passionate to them.

And then leaving the space without leaving a trace.

Absolutely. Leave no trace is one of those 10 principles. And Yes, we try to leave any space that we go in as, as burners, as we're so-called, at least as good as we found it. So leaving no trace at Burning Man really is leave no trace. The theme camps, which are what we call some of the larger projects that go, we have to take in all of the infrastructure from the lighting to the power to the entire grid layout. There is nothing there. It's a completely blank desert. So Everything that goes in gets taken out. And the theme camps that go, many will set up their own shower rig, and not even dirty water is dropped on the playa floor. So it's that leave no trace. They will come up with things like evaporation ponds to make sure the water goes, and then anything that comes in is then taken out. So that the desert really is left properly clear.

And those who might not have got the number that you just shared, it's 80,000 people coming to this space in the Nevada desert, and it's all collaborative building something. Everyone has a different perspective, different ambition. Everyone brings something. And I would be curious to hear your experience or your perspective. What does it take to get people to co-create an event, to stick by the rules, to call themselves Burners? So there's this entire identity creation around it.

So I think it's first worth saying, although the event in the Nevada desert is called Burning Man, there are Burning Man events all over the world. And indeed, that was part of my journey, really, because I came back To the UK thinking, well, that was an amazing experience, only to find out that there was already a group of people here that were creating events in the same ethos here. And that's how I threw myself into Burning Man, just helping out. And there's a little bit of a story that I can say about that in a moment. But yeah, Burning Man events now happen all over the world in practically every country of the world. So the way each country brings people together to work very much depends on the flavor of what each local country is doing. Shall I continue my thread on coming back to the UK and then jump back to answer your question? Is that okay?

Yes, absolutely. Because I think the fact that you have branches all over the world that still connect to the same idea is even more mind-blowing. I wonder what makes it stick together. So yes, please. Continue.

Cool. So, well, I got back to the UK and I found out there was an event called London Decompression that had been running for a few years, uh, in, in, in London. And I first went along and I, I, I went through the, the same journey that— or a similar journey to what people now come to me with when they want to get involved in Burning Man events. My first reaction was to say I have— oh wow, it's amazing this is here. I don't think I've got any skills. I'd love to help out, but I don't really know what I can do. To which it was explained to me, no, I'm sure you do. We need somebody to help with anything. You can do a performance, you can do art, or you can get involved in running cables and doing tech if you like. Well, I came from the tech world, and I thought, well, that first year in 2008 when I came back. Um, I thought, well, I'll help run cables, which I did for the first year. And then I realized that Burning Man is such a wonderful creative opportunity to try out something that you've not— never done before, that maybe you've always wanted to do, that, that, that you've never thought that you had the background for or the capability for. And I looked up at the stage and I saw the Cabaret Compère, the MC, And I thought, what I'd really love to do is that. She was really warm and inviting. And in the next year, she said, well, come on up. So at the next event, I was like, no, I realized that's what I want to do. So I was able to become the cabaret compère and then get involved in the art and entertainment side of things, helping look through the performers that applied and help place the pieces. And over the subsequent years, I was able to do more and more of the art side, which I'd never really got involved with growing up. It was very much stuck in my head what my mum had told me, you do maths, you don't do art. So those sort of things that we get from our parents really are ingrained. And so it was this opportunity to find a different part of my personality that then led me to doing performance and being involved in the art side that then Somebody said, well, can you sort of lead the art area and then lead the entertainment area? And then somebody— it was suggested that I might be interested in co-running the event with a wonderful lady called Hilda, that we do that. So we still help co-run it to this day. And then about 10 years ago, Burning Man asked if I could be regional contact for the UK. So Yeah, it's been this journey into this area that I really wasn't originally trained for, and just by sort of volunteering and getting involved and saying yes.

And that's, yeah, what I also heard from your experience is this radical yes-and culture and the radical enablement. So if you're interested enough, you can do whatever you want and you can grow into it. And I think there's so much to learn from that about, for maybe corporates or a different context. So what is it, what did this event or this experience do to you that you came back and thought, I want to spend volunteering time bringing it back home and making it accessible to more people and continue the journey? And what is it that we might be able to replicate then, that you already are replicating in your learning and development work?

So, I mean, the thing for me when I was out there that was so different to things that I'd done before was the feeling that it engendered inside of, at several times, feeling like a child again in a way that other experiences hadn't given me. And I think Gifting being one of the principles at the, at the beginning, within the first 24 hours of being there, somebody had come up to us and just passing and said, oh, I've got something for you. And they went to get whatever it was, it was a necklace or something to say, oh, we— that's, that's for you. And we were like, wow, that's, that's amazing. Thank you. Stay there. We've got something for you. And we went trying to go through our half unpacked items. And their response was so unlike what happens in the default world. They were almost genuinely offended. They were like, what are you doing? If you've got something, gift it to someone else. Don't gift it to me. And many people have a misconception, and this was definitely our misconception when we went, that Burning Man was a bartering society.

Hmm.

And, and it's not. Bartering is a transaction, and that's actually exactly what we're trying to get away from. Gifting is a free gift that you give to either the community or an individual without expecting anything in return.

So it's basically, if I understand correctly, it's the priming even before the event that you make up your mind, you bring something that you will gift to the community and its individuals.

Yes.

Trusting that you will get something in return, but not expect— so, but not based on this concept of reciprocity, or—

Yeah, absolutely. And when you've got 80,000 people walking around the space gifting things, something, but not expecting anything in return, that is what After a couple of days, you realize your mindset's totally changed, that you feel like a child again. You're, you're walking around and suddenly you're in a space where it's not transactional anymore. You can, you feel freer, you feel able to— yeah, it just leads to a very different feeling. And that is one of the things that was very special that I wanted to come back and have more of. In my life, I guess what you get from volunteering and the gifting is being in an environment like that, which is very enriching. And I suppose what can companies learn from it and what can workplaces learn when, when people are gifting the things that they truly want to gift? Like when people have got the freedom, no matter how much more than, even if it's just a little bit more than they've currently got, you're going to get more out of people. I mean, at Burning Man, you're at one end of the extreme. So the gift that either an individual might gift of a piece of art or a performance on a stage, or whether it's collaborating with other people to create a theme camp of, uh, maybe 5 other people, maybe 10, maybe 100 other people to create a— I once went with, uh, Coyotes, which is a cabaret club and bar. So we would go, we would build the cabaret club, build the structures, take in everything that was required to run that space. And then we would invite artists to come and perform on, on, on the stage and at the space. So when people bring something close to their heart, so they're doing it, that's it. So when people are doing something not for monetary recompense, Mm-hmm. but they're doing it because they really want to take it, even if they're amateurs at what they're doing, If they're doing it not because somebody else is telling them that they need to stay up all night and make it work, or you won't be paid until it's gonna work. When they're at— I can see this is one end of the spectrum, but it makes the point that at Burning Man, there's nobody else making somebody stay up all night for days on end, working all hours to ensure that their project is delivered according to their vision. They will spend 18 hours a day for days on end in advance creating, building this with a team of people, all by themselves, because ultimately they want to do it. And that leads to such a different— what you then get is looking around, that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. No, that is. No, that is. No, that is. And that happens not because the man is bashing down telling somebody to do it. It's because it's a creative unleashing that they want to gift.

Yeah. And it sounds like the human need for self-expression and the purest self-expression without fear of being judged.

Yeah.

So I can see how this is— and we're talking about 80,000 people plus all the branches, like in the UK and almost any other country of the world. So it's not a niche.

Yeah.

It seems to be something where large amounts of— large number of people are really engaged in. And I wonder, and you mentioned the 2 principles already out of the 10, and maybe you can speak a little bit to these because my assumption would be when we think of how to scale such a thing and while maintaining this pure culture, Because there will always be, I assume, there will always be the opportunist coming along. Oh, I can get around not gifting and just benefiting from the other volunteers. But you have to keep this risk rather low, or the fraction of people, because otherwise it spoils everything.

So yeah, I mean, there's a few things you touched on there that might be interesting to explore. So The 10 principles weren't originally there at the beginning. So I think it was 2004. It was 2004 when the event was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And eventually it outgrew Baker Beach that the police basically said, look, this is, this is a massive event. It's, it's great. You can't hold it here. And he went looking for a space that you could have more people without upsetting The surrounding neighbors.

So you go to the desert, of course.

And a group suggested the Nevada Desert. And on, on so many levels, that was exactly what Larry realized he was looking for. Because it's such a blank canvas, it allows the maximum amount of creativity for whatever people want to bring. So not only was it not upsetting neighbors, but it was then allowing people to have a a proper blank canvas. And the event got carried on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. What then happened was some of his co-founders said, said to him, well, look, I think we should capture the essence of what we've got here. We don't really quite know what— we know we're onto something, but what is it? What, what, what is really the essence of Burning Man? And so Larry Harvey was then asked to go and spend a weekend writing the— writing down what he backwardly thought were the principles of the event. Um, something had emerged. What are they? So he went away for a weekend and he came back and proudly pronounced, I've got them. I've got the 9 principles of Burning Man. To which his team said, there's something not just not quite right about the ring of 9 principles. Go away and get a tent. An event needs a 10th. So he then went away and wrote another one, uh, uh, the final of the 10 principles that capture the event's essence. So when I, uh, when I have been chatting with Larry about the principles, firstly, it's impossible— it's important to, to remember that the principles are guidelines, but they're not rules. So you will get a lot of healthy debate within the community. As you can imagine, the community is a vastly different set of people with very different ideas from different countries and different backgrounds. What is important to some people is less important to others, and what, what is a more important principle in some contexts and some burns is, is perhaps less important in other contexts. So I remember suggesting to Larry that the principles were, or that I saw the principles as a sort of spider's web. And when you pull too much on one in one direction, then you're sort of pulling on the other and you might go too far and need to come back this way. I'll explain in a moment when I say what they are. In fact, it's probably worth just touching on what they all are and then we can go into them in more detail. So the 10 principles are radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leave no trace, participation, and immediacy.

Thank you. And I, and I can already sense what you mean by the spider web that you Because for me, it sounds like a balance between agency and self-responsibility without neglecting, or while keeping in mind the community and being in service of the others.

Absolutely. So the 2 that I often see as pulling this spider's web are radical self-expression. People are very much encouraged to take the project that has meaning for them and that they want to do, And I'll encourage people to take the thing. Don't just— I think one gets it wrong if you look around Burning Man and you go, oh, that's what Burning Man is, I need to take something like that.

Mm-hmm.

What makes Burning Man amazing is that it's so eclectic. So what you almost wanna do is look around and, and try and take something that isn't there. Take something that's, that's, that's an expression of you. But while you are being radically self-expressive, depending on what your piece is, especially say if it's a piece of art or a performance, that might then start encroaching or tugging on the other principle, which is civic responsibility and being mindful of others and radical inclusion. So you get these tensions where people will have very heartfelt views that, well, no, I'm doing this and the principles say that I can. And it's like, well, yes, but you also need to remember these other principles. So it's often a sort of get bringing people together and having a dialogue about how one principle might be impinging on what they see as their most important principle. And that leads to a very nourishing debate that normally leaves people a bit more enlightened about how one's impact might impact on others in a way they hadn't originally thought.

I love that. So it basically means if I have radical self-expression on one end and radical inclusion on the other, then they both coexist and must be or shall be followed so that they don't step on each other's, so that they don't exclude each other. So if my radical self-expression suddenly excludes people, this would be the limit or the boundary Of my personal freedom of radical self-expression. Do I understand it correctly?

Those 2 things are always in tension. So all of them really are in tension and in tension. And how one of the challenges I have is I, as the UK regional contact and one of the event leaders, people will often come to me almost wanting me to pronounce on these things. And very, very, very rarely is it clear-cut. What it normally is, is that people have both got, have got very different viewpoints and that there's validity in both.

Mm-hmm.

So what I will try to do is bring together those people and enable the community to have a conversation about what is the more important one in this particular scenario at this particular time, because there isn't an answer. Which is a, well, this one trumps that one. It's always a conversation because it's always about the specifics.

Which then also makes it adjustable to the different cultures and contexts. And this is then also why it's not a rule but a guideline.

Yeah, yeah.

And this again empowers or puts the participants or those who engage with these guidelines in a place of responsibility and self-agency.

Yes. Yes. Because it's for the community. Well, in a sense, we, we are, we're always self-policing ourselves and we're always, the community's encouraged to sort of stand up and express one's own viewpoint and be part of the community as well as being an individual within that community. So you have to hold all of the principles together really to say, okay, what is right in this scenario?

Yeah, it's fascinating. And what I also love about that, I have so many ideas and starts of thoughts in my head that I try to keep them, that the 10 principles or guidelines are very extreme in the way they're Stated. So radical inclusion, radical self-expression. So it is the extreme, and thereby it's almost provoking this tension and thereby provoking the dialogue for people to be in conversation around them so that they really think about them and how they want them to show up in their experience. So it's a very sneaky or very smart way to, to help everyone to get in touch with them. And to live these, by these principles in one way or another, by making them extreme.

Yes. Yes. And I like what you say there about living with them, because I think the other thing that I've realized as I've got more embedded in the, in the community is that, well, these aren't, these aren't just good principles for when one is a burner at Burning Man or a Burning Man event. These are actually quite good things to think about. In one's day-to-day life, all of these things in day-to-day life and in society are held in tension with one another. It's just that often people don't think about some of them. But if, if, if we're to take responsibility for ourselves in an event or in the wider world, these are good guidelines to also take into one's interactions in the wider world and the corporate. space and everywhere.

And I wonder whether this is actually one of the building blocks of why it's successful, that if the principles were a little bit more mushy or trying to please everyone and include everyone, then there would be either space for interpretation, but in a way that would leave the space of interpretation Subtle and unspoken.

I think there definitely is space for interpretation because ultimately, each individual needs to interpret it to the particular scenario that they find themselves in. But I really like the way that you said it before about they're extreme. So they force you to confront them because they're expressed extremely. They're an encouragement to question all of the time what is right in this scenario.

Yeah, and I'm thinking of the opposite of corporate principles and values that are often boiled down and phrased in a quite shallow and phrased in a way that everyone would agree, but then there is no conversation around that. This provocation, but including people and attract— catching their attention, curiosity, and engagement by provoking them in a healthy way.

Yeah.

And then also forcing them to state their own values and how they relate to those. Brilliant. And one thing that came up while you explained your own journey, which is remarkable, uh, from tech To then finding your curiosity for more arts, and then even in the organization and now being in the facilitation people business. How does it work to have this radical inclusion? That's— it's also the principle of radical inclusion. You wanted to do something and someone made space for your growth based on— purely trusting that if you're curious to go into the space, you will be able to do that. So, well, yeah, just one, one second, because what I find remarkable is on the one hand this radical openness and trust, on the other hand it's such a big event and it is a big brand, so there's also a risk that if something goes wrong, yeah, there can be damage Made serious. So how do you—

So, I mean, each of the events will tackle it slightly differently, but within some of the ways that that works within London Decompression, which is, uh, there, there are 3 Burning Man, official Burning Man events in the UK at the moment. 2 of them are sort of week-long events in fields. So one is Burning Nest, which is around Maytime and down near Exeter. Another is Microburn, which is in Wales. London Decompression is unusual in that we do hire in a more typical London venue within London for about 2,000 people. Think sort of disused warehouse sort of feel because we want it to be a more as much of a blank canvas as possible for people to come to, to then bring the things they want to bring. I suppose a direct answer to how do we deal with people wanting to try out a new area, but they haven't done it before, we will tie up all of our lead positions, especially for people that are trying something for the first time. We'll make them co— we'll tend to suggest that they be co-leads with someone else that has done it before. That both allows them to feel supported, find out a bit about the area, but it also means— I mean, we're, we're running— all of us are volunteers, all of us buy tickets, including myself and everyone. And all the money that comes into London Decompression then gets re-gifted out as art grants or performance grants or infrastructure grants. So all of the money goes back into the event. But people are still volunteers, so most people, almost everyone, has got a day job to do at the same time. So also being a— having co-leads for key positions allows, well, when their work takes over and they can't give space at a particular moment in time to help with the coordination of the event, somebody else is close enough to it to run with it at the same time. That's probably one way. I guess we also have to trust The— because we're all volunteers, other than having a view because you've seen something similar done before, perhaps if you've been involved in the event for longer, there isn't anyone with the right answer. So there's a tension between wanting to have a co-created event and not have anyone dictate decisions, along with not having complete anarchy and people running around just doing everything and it And, and it, it not sitting together with either the, the event as a whole or the, or the camp or thing that they're put next to. I think to give an example of some of the way that structure is held at Burning Man, the grid layout of where people go, that is centrally decided. So you apply to take over a space. And similarly, at our event, you'll apply as a theme camp. We have rooms or areas or marquees that we'll put outside or, or, or in whatever space. We invite the community to apply to bring what they want to bring. So every year it's very different because the event is only there because of those that apply. So we'll get to take over the, the rooms as a whole. We'll have theme camps apply, and we don't tell them what they do in their space. So when they apply, they have complete creative control over, I want to bring this. We will then try and place them in a particular space, but we don't get involved with their vision. So I think that's another partial answer to your question. We will hand over the space to groups of people, to then do what they want within their space. But if they want to come outside of that space and interact with the people around them, then that needs negotiation. At Burning Man, it's because it's such a wider distance. I mean, it's over miles. You get on a bike and you travel around, or you jump on a mutant vehicle to travel around the playa space to the different projects. They are very, very strict over you do what you do in your boundary. If you're in the city part, it becomes one of the biggest cities in Nevada while it's on, and then it's completely razed to the ground, nothing being left. So in the city part, not the open playa part, it's, it's very, very zoned and spaced. But Burning Man don't get involved in telling you what to do in that space.

Freedom within boundaries.

Yeah, freedom within boundaries. And then where you get the overlaps, that's where you might have mediated discussions and dialogue. We also— it's probably also worth touching on now on the, on the ranger teams that we have at Burning Man and equivalents within Burns. So also as volunteers to the event, people can say that they'll do normally about a 4-hour shift to help be rangers at the event. Now, at our UK events and, and at Nowhere, so A group of people from the UK several years ago, about 2002, wanted to create Burning Man in Europe. Looked around and found that there was one desert in Europe, and that is the Zaragoza Desert in Spain. So a bunch went out on a recce to this desert and created an event called Nowhere, which is a wonderful event. It's, it's about 6,000, 7,000 people now out in the desert there, but it's the same blank canvas as Burning Man, and perhaps has a bit of that smaller feel. You'll go around and you'll meet people again, whereas at Burning Man— one of the wonders of Burning Man is you can go out, have an experience, get lost, really lost in your surroundings, and not know what you're going to find. At Nowhere, you're going to see the people again. I do a an 8 or 12-hour shift when I'm there as site lead of Nowhere. And the people who have volunteered for 4 hours are the— are in effect the ranger team that help do the site leading. So as problems get pushed up through theme camps, or there might be issues going on, I will encourage the volunteer team that have stepped up for that particular 4-hour ranger shift to in the most part, use their own common sense as to what the answer is. They're walking around. I will try and tie up somebody who's not done it before with somebody who has done it before, and anything might happen. The first time I did a site lead shift, it was quite the experience because there was actually a fire that kicked off in one location. There was a lost child that had been called somewhere else. and a part of a structure had fallen down. So I got this whammy of normally you've got a completely quiet 12-hour shift, nothing happened. All of this happened at once. But it was sort of, right, direct the teams to, to go and do what they think best. All of those things have got protocols. So as site lead, we, we enacted the lost child protocol, which is to shut gate and to then send nomads out to around their last zones to look them up. Obviously, the fire protocol is put the fire out, which thankfully that was it was quite easy. And then we got the infrastructure team on, on putting this, this structure back. But as new nomads, that— yeah, you, you've, you've got to trust people. Normally what they're going around doing is there might be a camp dispute that just needs to be like one of these boundary disagreements of, oh, we're doing this here, you're doing that there. And of course, out in the desert Everything is wonderful and lovely on the first few days. A few days in, people are a bit more dehydrated. Um, one of the wonders of Burning Man events in deserts is that you really are at all extremes. You're at your physical boundary as well as often coming across concepts and ideas mentally that you've not really thought about before. So you're at the extreme, and then of course you're probably sleep deprived as well because it's a 24-hour event, nobody's telling you to go to bed. So people are often tired as well, which can lead to disagreements. So what normally the Rangers are there to do is just to sort of hear the disagreements and get people talking in dialogue, often referring back to the 10 principles and trying to work out with common sense a solution. A long answer to your question.

And I love the long answer because now it makes so much sense to get the different pieces. It sounds as if The reason why it works is you have very clear principles or a cultural foundation, then things that are set. You have the protocols, you have the how-to or processes for the extreme situations, a buddy system where people get support in their growth journey, and then facilitation skills to enable this collaboration when the human stuff happens as it will, as you described.

Yeah.

And how much freedom or flexibility is then for you as the UK team? What is set? What is flexible? And how does the negotiation then with the mothership, with Larry and his team in the US— are there regular meetings? Is it totally decentralized? How does this work so that it still continues to develop.

Only because you've just mentioned it, Larry Harvey is sadly not with us anymore. He died a few years ago, and that was quite a cultural— everyone around the world felt that. We continue, so the, the, the group of people that were around him and a lot of the original founders are still involved, uh, carrying on that legacy. I think in answer to your question, I've seen quite a change in The way— so when I first went to Burning Man in 2008, as I said, most people around the world hadn't heard of Burning Man, and Burning Man US didn't really— wasn't really involved in the events going on in other countries. So the UK was one of the earliest such events to happen outside America. So London Decompression is, is one of, if not the longest running burn event outside America. Initially, it was just a group of individuals that muddled their way through using the principles, working it out ourselves. As Burning Man got bigger and more and more countries got teams creating stuff and doing stuff, the regional contact network became created. Then they sort of realized centrally that actually it'd be really good to connect these people together a bit. So As time's gone on in the last 10 years, there have been regular meetups or annual meetups. It normally in Europe, what really is the worldwide organizers to get together for about 4 days at what is called the European Leadership Summit, but really is a space for the different regional contacts and event organizers to share ideas about what works for them. So there are presentations about what works, and there are also loads of breakout groups around. Normally, I find the ones that are most useful are the ones that are like discussions about a live problem. How do we deal with this? And then the community get together, thrash it out, talk about the principles, talk about what's worked here, what hasn't worked there. And then people go away and take that back to their communities and their events. What's interesting is to see how all of the events have their own flavors because there is no entertainment or activity but that which people bring. If the community aren't offering it, then it doesn't happen there. So some events are very, say, art-focused. Some events may be very performance-focused. Some, some events may be about bringing a community together because something has happened in that community that makes it a very live topic. So the things that work in some places don't necessarily work in others. But yes, there is now that central connecting of threads around the world, but very little thou shalt not do this. So people often ask me, what do you do as a regional contact? So when I've got my regional contact hat on, Really, the, the only formal thing that I see myself as doing is we are able to sign off events that happen in our country as official events. And what that really entails is that we've looked at them and we believe that they follow the 10 principles of Burning Man, that they're, they're not just paying lip service to them, they're actively trying to bring them to life. The other thing is that we also make sure that they're being legal and they're not completely unsafe and going to kill anyone. But other than that, it's for the events to decide what their flavor is, what their focus is, and what they do.

Yeah.

The day-to-day thing I see myself as being as a regional contact is a connector, sort of what I said at the beginning, that sort of people will come to me saying, oh, I've got this idea to bring something to Burning Man or a Burning Man event, and I'll be like, that sounds fantastic, you should do it. Were you aware that these people are already doing something similar? Maybe you'd be interested to hook up with them to find out how they do it and integrate with what they're doing. But no, no, there's no pressure. It's just sort of connecting people if they want that connection. If they don't and they want to do 2 different projects, that's totally fine. But often people are like, oh wow, that's amazing. I didn't really know what I was doing. And to be able to connect in with someone who's done similar in the past or is taking something similar now is something that they really—

So this means that there's no active curation in terms of program and things emerge. And I can imagine that then themes emerge as they're present in society or in the world at the moment.

Yes. So people might take workshops to events, which are discussions about particular topics. They might be events of worldwide importance, or they might be whimsical topics of comedy that have come up at Burning Man events. So people are open to bring whatever they want to the space, which is Burning Man.

And I still want to, to ask to cover the aspect of what you've learned from that for the L&D place space. And still one burning question, how do you deal if someone oversteps? If there is some— because freedom of expression can easily derail in hate speech and all kinds of isms.

Mm-hmm.

Is this something that Burning Man has protected itself from due to the strong principles and the people it attracts? And if not, how do you deal with it?

So I guess so many different answers there. I think one of the things that helps keep it in check, and I think it's a lot easier in person than online— online is another beast— but to a certain extent, this answer relates to both. Because people are encouraged to stand up and speak their voice and their opinion, yes, that might bring out some radical views, but what it also does is bring out tempering views of— I think people are far more likely within a Burning Man event, when they encounter something they don't like, to stand up and go, no, I don't think that's acceptable, that is not following our rules. And when you have— sorry, I said rules, and of course I'll correct myself— that's not following our guidelines. I don't think that's okay. And I think there is— but because of the atmosphere of healthy debate, what that allows, one, is for people with perhaps more radical views to have their opinions tested publicly. And how many of us have had views that when they actually come up against scrutiny, they get changed? So the air of discussion does allow for people to come on a journey, and that actually enables all those listening to really consider both sides of the argument and come down perhaps more strongly on why a center ground is in a particular place. Of course, it might be that the radical expression actually is the right one, and people come towards that. But that dialogue is, I think, really healthy. Yeah.

Thank you. I find this fascinating. And the way how I imagine it is that in a space that encourages and respects this radical open-mindedness, That if we get shut down too fast and, oh, your opinion is not appropriate, cannot be expressed, then it kind of grows like a cancer cell.

Yeah.

Inside of someone. Whereas if it gets out without the shame of, oh, maybe this is inappropriate, then the person expressing it will also remain more open-minded because we are not so much in this Fight, flight, freeze, or survival shame space.

The conversation allows somebody to really test, is what I'm saying or doing— now I'm seeing and getting feedback that 95% of the community is really against me on this. Do I actually want to do this now I know that I'm upsetting so many other people? And then they've got a real personal choice. which is, no, this really is important to me, and I'm going to carry on pushing this direction because I think it's right. Or they're going to say, actually, that I need to question why is 95% of the community against me on this. And unlike perhaps in the default world where they're just told to shut up and go away, they're given the reasons why. 95% of the community is against them. So even if they don't change their mind, they at least know why. And I suppose to go to its extreme, when, when we've had these sort of discussions at Burning Man leadership summits, one of the core team from America, an amazing, amazing guy called, uh, Stephen Rasper, I really like his comment around, well, what do you do when all of that fails? The emphasis, he suggests, should be on banning behaviors, not people.

Hmm.

So what that means is don't make it about the individual. Always communicate, no, this behavior, we've decided as a community, as a, as if you come together with the core people organizing that particular event, saying, no, this is, we don't believe as organizers that this represents the spirit of what we believe the principles are in a saying, then the behavior is banned, the person isn't. If the person says that I'm not going to come unless I exhibit this behavior, well, then in effect they're banning themselves because the behavior is not to be tolerated at the event. But what that allows is a route back in.

Mm-hmm.

So if after a couple of years they reflect and go, actually, I don't want to do that behavior anymore, Then they're back in the event because it was the behavior that was banned, not the person.

So it's very forgiving as a culture.

Which comes out of that principle of radical inclusion.

Mm, yes, of course. Yeah.

Radical inclusion is we invite strangers, but radical inclusion is about inviting people into the community. It doesn't ultimately mean anything goes. It doesn't mean that you put up with people being, well, I suppose being at the extreme of behavior that is widely felt to not be in the spirit of, of the principles of Burning Man.

Yeah. And what have you taken from your experience at Burning Man and being in the key organizing team of Burning Man or Burns in the UK for your work with corporate teams or organization?

Yeah. Well, my favorite principle is participation. As an organization, we believe that transformative change, whether at the individual level or the society level, can only occur through deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. And so everybody is invited to co-create. Everyone's invited to play. In participating, no matter how large or small, we're all part of the experience, and being directly involved is what adds meaning to the event. So I guess for the corporate side and our corporate learning and development, there's a lot of evidence that suggests that people learn best when they are immersed in an activity. The more immersed you are, the more you really are thinking and feeling and acting as if what you're doing is, is happening. It's more real to you. So you, you remember it. The learning sticks. So to give an example, we created something called the Quest for Collective Intelligence along with Ian at Living Systems and Simon and I at Mindblown. The quest for collective intelligence, it's sort of, it's a, and now learning and development activities generally are a sort of blend of all these different worlds that I wanted to get together, which is a cross between sort of immersive theater, gaming, new technology, and escape rooms. wrapped up as this learning and development experience for leadership training. So within the Quest for Collective Intelligence, one of our activities is a sort of escape room type thing. There's a timer going down, the clock ticking. People might say that, well, I'll talk to my team like this, and this is how I will act. If you get a PowerPoint presentation from someone about interpersonal skills, That is nothing like being in an escape room. The clock's ticking down, and what you actually say, rather than, oh, please can you stand over there, or please can you look at this, the clock's ticking down and you're like, get over there, you idiot, just get out. And we have the behavioral scientists there watching the experience to be able to time out, put a stop on the clock, and, and say, right, okay, clock's not running anymore. Are you aware of how you actually did just communicate. And how did that feel for you as a recipient on the end of that? And how did you— were you aware that that was what was said? And then having this dialogue, which— In real time. Often leads to a, no, I didn't actually even realize I spoke to you like that, and I'm so sorry for how that made you feel. And with all of the experiences that we create where people are feeling so deeply immersed and participatory in what's going on, somebody will often pipe up and go, well, this is actually just a microcosm of what goes on in the workplace. And whether it's smaller teams or board level, someone pipes up and goes, no, but you, but you're saying that you're only acting like that because it's an escape room, but you're not. You're like that in the workplace. And that allows a dialogue to use what's going on in the environment we've created and the examples there, but they make the direct connection of what's going on back at their workplaces. And because it's so immediacy being another of the principles, because it's so immediate, they're directly involved in the exchanges that it has much more meaning in their life. And so they take it and they apply it back into the workplace.

Yeah. And I can also see how it would relate to what you explained earlier, how you grew in As a volunteer and then in a leading leadership position, that you get intrinsically motivated to learn about new aspects once you're in them. So putting then teams into escape rooms or into immersed situations where they suddenly realize that they're lacking certain skills, they might then get intrinsically motivated in going out and seek to learn them.

And we will sometimes We'll often be a bit naughty. We'll do a psychometric test on people to find out what areas they're good at. And often we'll then put them in a role that brings out— we'll deliberately assign them to a character that is bringing out the areas of weakness. And we'll ask people, what do you think you're strongest at and what do you think you're weakest at? But we will deliberately create experiences that create these friction points to then allow a more rich conversation about the areas of growth, because that's really what we're there for.

And I can imagine it can lead to real breakthroughs because someone who has, who's maybe not the strength in leadership, but is more of the follower, maybe more the eyes on the details, the executor, suddenly they might look at a leadership challenge from a different perspective that can actually work even better or bring fresh air into a team.

Yeah. And so we do rotate people around all of the different positions. So from leadership and, and part of the Quest for Collective Intelligence is a breakdown into 3 areas, really, head, heart, and hand. So when people are put into a leadership position of trying to do strategic thinking, perhaps communicate what they need to communicate. I mean, it's interesting how it allows— we did a delivery a few months ago where there was someone who was meant to be the leader, but actually it was the second in command that always stood up and actually took over and they allowed that to happen. And even when they were in the leadership role and had been formally assigned to the leadership role, someone who was meant to be doing something else just took over. And it allowed them to see, because people were pointing out, no, no, this happens in the workplace as well. This isn't just here. And it was quite a moment that often in our experiences, there can be breakdown and tears, but there's so much growth that comes from being in that position where people are giving you such constructive feedback with direct examples of something that has just happened. And then relating it back to what they see in the workplace. You obviously need to create that space of psychological safety for people to do that. But I think that's easier to do when they're put into a, what is on the surface, a game or an experience which is not of the workspace. But then obviously we're all humans and we've got, as humans, we all have We take the same blind spots and both positives and negatives of our character, or positives and reactive tendencies of our characters into every situation we go in.

Yeah.

But it does allow for people to show up and then have a dialogue about their reactive tendencies. We very much encourage that, people to try and name what their reactive tendencies are. And then we encourage dialogue about that so people can say, oh, I didn't realize you were like that and get a different perspective why people react in a particular way. And because it's not in the workplace, it's just that little bit easier, I think.

Yeah. And again, the parallel I see to Burning Man is, um, it also takes you out of this traditional or your usual routine, and you create some sort of certainty through the guidelines, the principles, the rules of the game. Okay, this is how we will behave in this context, and these are the rules, air quotes, that apply, at least in the escape room, similar to the principles of Burning Man, that then help also to lean into a new role and be more experimental.

Yeah.

What remains your facilitation challenge?

I think so. Well, we're at London Decompression, which we're, we're deep in organizing at the moment. We're lucky enough to always be oversubscribed. So we have a set amount of spaces that we want theme camps to fill. We've got stages that we want performers to fill. We've got artists that want to bring art. We've got workshops that apply, DJs that want to perform, and there's only a limited amount of space. So I think at the moment, the challenge we've got is how do we maximize the opportunity for all these people who want to bring stuff to our event to be able to bring it. And that often is then with dialogue. It's about connecting together the different theme camps and saying, look, this person wants to bring art. It's sort of— they've got space-based art, let's say, and you're creating a spaceship. Can this work to put that piece within your structure? This band or artist might have some space-based songs. Can they come into your space? And it's, it's about trying to find creative solutions to this problem we've got of wanting to let down as few people as possible. So we try and encourage collaborations wherever we can if it means more people can contribute. To the event overall.

Beautiful. Which then also will enhance the event and its creativity in general. So kind of matchmaking.

Yes, exactly. Matchmaking. I like that. Yes.

Creative matchmaking. Um, a bit running out of time. I don't know where time went. What had you wished you'd known before? What would be your advice to your younger self?

I think that it's okay and possible to be yourself and go for the things that you want to do and speak up. I love the phrase, feel the fear, but do it anyway.

Mm-hmm.

Sometimes you learn the most by throwing yourself in at the deep end and giving it a go. That first step is often the hardest, and regardless of whether Your mum once told you, or continues to think, that you don't do art, you do maths. You don't have to be bound by what anybody else's expectation is of you. Feel the fear, give it a go anyway, and you will learn so much more just by being immersed in the activity and trying. And of course, having people around you that, that that are there to support you when you fail, or to nudge you in the right direction. But you won't get anywhere without taking that first step. So yeah, that I think.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and for the sharing, Rob. And I hope that the audience has been as inspired as I am by finding the connections of what's possible at Burning Man and how can we bring it to even corporate or business life, or at least our private life.

Yeah. And there's so much at Burning Man which has gone out into the wider world. I think of just briefly, I mean, so many individual projects have gone on to other things, solar panel technology used in the desert, generator technology, lighting structures that went out into the wider world as individual projects. But You also have something called Burners Without Borders, which is perhaps worth mentioning. It was found that a group of individuals, I think it was in the wake of what originally one of the hurricanes in America, in disaster zones that happened first in America and then around the world, it was realized that, well, disaster zones need exactly the same skills that burners use in the desert. It's a blank canvas. They need power. They need lighting, electricity, water. structures, coordination, everything that's needed in a disaster zone of pulling people together, volunteers together, keeping people inspired is what happens at Burns. So Burners Without Borders go around to disaster zones around the world, helping out, building structures, bringing people together, structures physically and as a community.

Socially.

So even within disaster zones and the terrible things that happen there, they also encourage the survivors of those disasters to come together one night a week, say, and do performances themselves and create workshops and start a dialogue in that space for how do we rebuild this community from the wake of whatever the disaster or even war zone is that's, that's happening, as well as rebuilding, being there to help teach the skills of rebuilding the physical structures that might have come down. Yeah, it's inspiring. I love Burners Without Borders and their vision and for what they do out in the wider world.

Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. I will put all the links in the show notes if the audience is curious to learn more about you and the work you're doing and also about Burning Man and what you do in the UK.

Wonderful. Myriam, it's been an absolute delight.

Thank you. Same here. Thank you for staying tuned and for listening until the very end. I hope that you found the inspiration and the wisdom that you are looking for, and I hope that you will subscribe to the show so that you never miss any of the interviews with another inspiring facilitator from across the world. I'm devoted to continue this podcast and to deliver weekly an episode that maintains the quality that you expect and you deserve. And if you would like to help me to maintain this quality and to keep the podcast free, please help us visit workshops.work/support to make a small donation to keep the podcast free. Thank you so much. I hope to be in your ears next week.