In the very first episode of “Diary of CHRO,” João Ricardo interviews Sandra Pinheiro. She found a unique link between the Arts and Human Resources, bringing theatre to companies to inspire, motivate, and develop people and teams.
Pinheiro has previous experience as a marketing manager, public relations, and journalist. “I was working in journalism when I saw a contest for theater writing, and I decided to write a play. I ended up winning the contest with the first play I wrote, and I enjoyed it so much — the writing process, the thinking, and being able to be the first person to see the play.”
As her plays began to be staged, she was invited to join the team behind the production: “I was watching and observing the exercises and methodologies the actors and directors used to create the play. I thought that was really, really interesting for Human Resources and for the projects I was developing.”
“So I started to import some exercises, some dynamics into some training projects that we were making, and just try things and see what was going to happen. And what happened was that when we used some theater techniques or games as team building (…), the retention of the concepts was higher because they were having fun. So this was what made me think, ‘Okay, people need to have fun.’ (…) It’s the principle of Storytelling: we need to have an emotional experience connected with a rational experience. Connecting both would make the message stay longer and make more sense.”
She explains: “If you are able to provide an emotional experience with a learning experience, it will glue better because this is the way our brain works.” That’s how she decided to found the company Didaskalia, which brings theatre to companies to develop employees’ soft skills.
Watch the full episode:
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