069: Unflattening: An Attitude that will Expand Our Thinking with Nick Sousanis
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Intro
workshops work is a podcast for facilitators, by a facilitator, about facilitation… so why have I invited Assistant Professor of Humanities and Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University and comic book artist Nick Sousanis to join me in this episode?
I read Nick’s remarkable work ‘Unflattening’ recently and immediately knew that the world of facilitation needed to know about it. I was delighted when he accepted my invitation!
What followed was a beautiful exchange of ideas and reflections from two distant fields, worlds that do not normally collide but have more in common than you might first think.
This is a very special episode of workshops work – and one that I think could change our practice in a deep and powerful way.
Find out about
Why trying to think outside of the boxes we are in isn’t necessarily a good idea
The most important question Nick believes we need to answer in this moment in time
Why unflattening is a journey, not a destination
Why images aren’t simply aesthetic, but communicative in novel and detailed ways
How creative constraints and limits help us learn, grow, and unflatten
Feeling inspired by the conversation in this episode? We can have our own – take a seat at my virtual table as part of a Mastermind Group.
A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!
Questions and Answers
01:44Is it correct that Unflattening was your dissertation?
02:33What prompted you to draw your dissertation?
05:25Where was the idea of Unflattening born?
08:58How does Unflattening relate to ‘thinking outside the box’?
12:47Did you create Unflattening to intentionally remove as many of these ‘boxes’ as possible?
17:47What is the magic ingredient for hearing each other’s arguments?
22:27Is Unflattening a journey, a philosophy, a destination?
27:51How can we practice Unflattening when it comes to emotive topics?
31:50What can pictures teach us that words cannot?
36:21 How do you encourage people to follow the path of your writing without being too explicitly directional?
45:05 What makes a workshop – or a class – fail?
01:02:13 What is the one thing you would like listeners to take away from this episode?