Technique #603

The workshop exercise to end all others.

I am in this chateau in France. It is late afternoon. We have taken over a large conference room, and are preparing to facilitate a two day workshop. I and my two partners have a collection of ‘tools’ and exercises we are going to use. They work well; we are pretty confident in them.

There is a pile of post it notes on a shelf at the side of the room, mostly unused, left over from the people who have been there before us. On the top is a yellow post it, that has been used. On it are the words ‘Technique #603’. Underlined. Twice.

I always get a little nervous before a workshop. And in my nerves on this occasion I find myself drawn to the siren call of technique 603. Because this clearly, all my instincts are beginning to tell me, is the killer exercise, the workshop technique to end all workshop techniques.

Think about it. The fact that it is such a large number that makes it so interesting. Clearly this person has previously worked their way through exercises 1–602, which is some repertoire in itself (how many do I have? Forty, fifty? At best?).

And yet, even with 602 under their belt, it was not until they discovered technique 603 that they struck real gold. That they started underlining. Twice.

I become agonisingly fixated on this. Because I am a little nervous and I know this wonderful, killer technique is somewhere close. Temporally speaking, at least — it was probably being used in this room this very afternoon.

I can practically smell it. The energy it created. The quality of thinking it induced. A midwife to utter brilliance. And I am maybe only half an hour away from it. How do I find out what it was? In the end the preparation for the workshop is on us, and I have to focus.

As I go into dinner that night, I mention to my work colleague this frustrating, fascinating thing that has happened to me this afternoon. This elusive, alchemical exercise that has danced away just out of sight.

They look bemused.

It’s not an exercise at all, they say. ‘Technique’ is the French word for the technical support guy. #603 is his telephone extension.

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