CreativeMornings/Berlin Interview – Julius Hassemer on BLOSSOM

As the seasons shift and September unfolds, we turn our attention to this month’s CreativeMornings global theme and to the next event hosted in Berlin.

As a preview of this Friday’s talk, in this conversation with Julius Hassemer, the upcoming guest we discussed about rituals for resilience.

1. Connecting our September global theme BLOSSOM with your talk titled ‘Rituals for Resilience’, what’s one ritual you’d like to see blossom across workplaces

Various teams and companies already have so called check-ins at the beginning of their workday. I do not only want to see more of that. I'd like to see a style of check-in, in which participants feel saver, free, calm and inspired. I think this works in a surrounding in which people are appreciated for being (socially) courageous, in which superiors show vulnerability and in which a moment of silence is a good thing an people can appreciate the calm.

2. Looking ahead, what small step can each of us take to start building resilience in our own team?

Establishing consent explicitly. Agree with others, whether you want a hand shake, a fist bump or a hug for a greeting. Double check whether the location of your meeting feels good to everybody. Ask for a pronoun. Also approach people who not appear to agree with the way things are done - if you get it wrong 5 times but in 1 occasion your colleague needs your help, this is a big win.

3. Being creative is an important part of many people’s life. In your experience, does building resilience help creativity grow, or does it require separate practices?

We live in a world, in which being individual, exciting, outstanding is considered positive. Even being "hardcore" - whatever that means - is desirable, as well as being extreme, having live through pain or having a lot of tattoos (maybe a new word, like "crassism", could capture this desire for the extreme). Yet, in my courses at WeTeK Berlin gGmbH, I often see people profiting from a clear structure, from explicit consent, from naming one's prevalent fear and working on it. So yes, I think fundamental resilience is the basis for creativity. Only on top of what feels secure, we can experiment, be extreme, go crazy for a while in order to discover new perspectives.

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Interview conducted by Aida from CM/Ber