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How I came to focus on the creative process… giving people more options in thinking about their professional and personal lives
My Story
At the age of 18 I left for a year travelling in France. It turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my life. It gave me confidence in myself, and confidence in people. I met tramps and monks, farmers and engineers. I certainly didn’t love them all, nor even trust many… but I felt I could meet them on a human level and work things out.
‘But I couldn’t work things out with the guys running the kitchen in the social services hostel I stayed in outside Paris. They were ex-cons, and they bossed the place. Everyone treated them with respect. And the kitchen guys all bowed to their boss, the smallest guy in the place, whose name was… Mozart! Not someone you wanted to cross. Surprisingly, he had a fondness for all things Irish, so I was safe.’
After that year abroad, studying and teaching philosophy helped to order my thinking. It gave me a sense of the big picture. Big picture thinking can help us to stay out of rabbit holes, it can clarify our decisions and open up communication, and it can resolve conflict.
‘I have always been a reader. I love books. But I have also worked at reading people, and at caring for those small differences between us that are so important. A lifetime of encounters has helped me to see how I might walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.’
I set up my business in 1995. I always admired the inventors and entrepreneurs I had come across in my work, and I felt I needed to match their courage by going freelance… or, as my bank manager called it, ‘jumping out of the airplane without a parachute!’
I called my new practice Stride. I worked with businesses to expand their creative process, change team dynamics and give people new ways of thinking about their working lives.
‘One day I was sitting with a client in her office. She was stressed out. So we decided to walk around the park. After a while she laughed at something, and I realised: now she was physically present for the first time!’
I realised that meeting people in their office was less useful than getting them to meet me outdoors, and walking with me. The Walk and Talk was born!
“I’ve known Barre for many years and find his thoughts and ideas very insightful and enlightening. His engagement model is unique – the ability to open up and discuss important topics in a unique way is indeed novel, refreshing and beneficial. I would highly recommend it.”
- Ray Murphy, CEO, Strategic Computing Ltd.