This workshop isn’t conducted in an office, it’s done whilst walking in a stimulating environment.
This isn’t a new idea. This was the technique employed by Aristotle. His Peripatetic school was so named because scholars would accompany the great man as he walked and talked.
There is something about walking that opens the mind. There is something about sitting in a dull meeting room that renders it useless.
Lots of people, when faced with a really tricky problem, go for a walk to think things through. If a colleague asked you to leave the office to go for a walk and talk, you would rightly assume that something big was about to be discussed.
This is the principle of Ambulando – inspired by the Latin ‘Solvitur Ambulando’ which means ‘it can be solved by walking’.
Ambulando can take place in any location where walking is easy and there is the opportunity to be removed from distraction. At the moment, Ambulando is being run from Tate Modern in London. At the moment it is a one-to-one session with Philip Morley.
A typical Ambulando session begins with coffee or breakfast in the Members’ Room. Here you introduce the problem you need to confront. There’s an initial discussion and the scope of the issue is explored.
Then the walking begins. Philip has adapted some Lateral Thinking and Six Hats techniques (both invented by Edward de Bono) to allow progress on the move. Comments are recorded on a digital sound recorder so there is no need for note taking of any kind.
Moving through the galleries there will be plenty of discussion about the artwork. But this, in itself, is an excellent way of provoking discussion. An unexpectedly good method of looking at issues with a totally different perspective.
Ambulando sessions can take up to a day, punctuated by lunch and regular refreshment breaks.
The Tate is the first location to be chosen but there are many indoor and outdoor locations we’re looking at now. Both in the UK and abroad.
“Does thinking and walking work? Absolutely. I have done it for years with friends and colleagues, with great results. And I have proof it works particularly well with Philip. He and I walked around a park and the session was so rich and productive, we wrote a business parable together, completely on the fly, in about three hours. I recommend you take a walk with Philip if you want to think of something new.”
Dave Gray, Founder, Xplane Corporation, Missouri, United States.
Philip|Morley 