Hi, I’m Stefan Bramble

Facilitator. Educator. Organisational nerd. Academic weirdo. Fun guy.

I help groups

or rather

I help humans be human in groups.

All so working teams can

connect,

think together,

and do amazing work (and enjoy it).

The Brazen Co is my organisational practice and I love it

An unusual weird combination

It all started with a loud Italian family, then came the theatre, then came teaching and youth work, then clown, then facilitation, then becoming a director in a high-growth tech start up, then academia and the study of organisational dynamics and now The Brazen Co

This means my work sits somewhere between performance, learning, organisational leadership and organisational research in systems psychodynamics (a fancy word for the study of working groups). Oh, also coffee, biscotti and talking with my hands.

If you are thinking of working with me, you might like to know how all those bits and contributed to my thinking.

Heres a handy drop down ‘cos they look pretty and you can scroll if you’ve heard enough👇

  • Theatre teaches you how a room thinks

    Clown teaches you how humans connect through vulnerability

    But don’t fear, I don’t use this to make people perform or to do ‘enforced fun’ (I hate that)

    A wise leader uses these crafts to invite humans to… human, and engage with the with their shared task

    Because enjoying work in a natural human state, if we knoe how to get out of the way

  • Humans don’t learn from the outside

    Every teacher learns early that a learner has to learn for themselves

    The trick is to create the conditions and experience for that to happen

    You design for that outcome, and facilitate the for that possibility

    It’s kinda magic

  • Humans don’t like bullship - they sense it a mile away

    Your people are smart and they deserve to know the smarty-things that academics have been finding as they research organisational life

    Systems Psychodynamics brings together systems thinking, unconscious dynamics and the study of group life - it’s way cool

    I research it, I teach it, I live and breathe it.

    And I LOVE to share it because all the research in the world means nothing if it doesn’t help people make the groups they wanna be in

  • My Mama always says ‘Never trust a person who won’t eat the fruit they sell’ (she is a smart one)

    I have held responsibility for play, connection, leaning, development and c’ulture’. I have built things, I have tried, failed and succeeded (sometimes all at once)

    The experience taught me: a) this work is hard, b) this work is vital, c) this work can be funnnnn

    And also what it’s like to hold the very real pressures that is one all of us as we try to do our best, for places we care about, while all the human ‘things’ happen

How it comes together

Serious theory, obsessive design and playful facilitation makes for human experiences that are grounded, accessible and focus on the real work

The room is where is all happens.

I pay attention to the purpose of the room, the system around it and whats happening between the people inside it.

That might mean responding to, and going with shifts within the group.

Or holding course through (good) discomfort.

Or asking questions to poke around.

Or holding something delicate that needs some love.

The form may change, but the aim remains the same:

to make the invisible social life of work visible, discussable and useful.

That way, the collective potential of the group can do what it does best:

make cool things and do great stuff

Because serious work doesn’t have to feel solemn

In fact, it should be the opposite

Humans learn best when it is safe enough to play

with ideas,

with each other

and with the task your group exists to do

So, let’s think together

You might not yet know what you’re after

Even better

This is human work is a human thing, so let start off we a chat and see what we can think up