Female Mentalist for Leadership and Decision Making Sessions
Female Mentalist for Leadership and Decision Making Sessions
Leadership programs spend a lot of time on decision making, bias, influence, and the gap between how confident people feel and how right they are. The material is good and the format is almost always the same: a facilitator, a model, a discussion, and a group of senior people who have heard versions of it before.
There's a way to make the point land rather than be explained. I'm Magical Katrina, an award winning magician and mentalist, and I want to set out what booking a female mentalist does in a leadership session, and why it works where a slide doesn't.
Skill Decides It
Let me be direct about the keyword. Skill in this work has nothing to do with gender, and you should book me because I'm genuinely good at it: thirteen years of performance, awards from my peers, and rooms full of senior people who evaluate judgment for a living and still can't account for what happened.
The rest is a bonus. Leadership rooms tend to have seen a particular kind of speaker a particular number of times, and somebody different registers. That's worth something and it isn't the argument. Book me for the work and take the rest as a bonus on top.
Senior People Have Heard the Content
Start with the honest problem. An executive cohort has encountered anchoring, confirmation bias, and the influence literature several times across their careers, and a session explaining those concepts is received as revision.
They know the material and they don't act on it, which is the actual gap your program is trying to close. Nobody changes how they make decisions because somebody described a cognitive bias well. The thing that shifts behavior is experiencing the bias yourself, in the room, with your colleagues watching, which is a different kind of event entirely.
Being Wrong Is More Instructive Than Being Told
Why mentalism suits this material specifically. The content of my work is suggestion, attention, assumption, and the confidence people have in judgments that turn out to be wrong, which is precisely the subject of the session you're running.
When a room of senior people is collectively certain about something and then discovers they weren't, the point has been made in a way no facilitator can replicate. They aren't considering a concept, they've just had the experience. For a program trying to make experienced leaders more humble about their own certainty, that's a short cut to the thing you were going to spend an hour arguing for.
It Gives Your Facilitator Something to Build On
Practically the most useful function. A good session leaves a discussion open rather than closing a topic, and the conversation afterwards tends to be more candid than the one that follows a presentation.
Senior people will discuss their own error more readily when everybody in the room made it together. That's a considerably better starting point than asking executives to volunteer a time they got something wrong, which is a question most of them have learned to answer safely.
It Isn't a Training Course
Worth being honest about, since I'd rather set expectations than oversell. I'm not a behavioral scientist and this isn't a substitute for your programs content or your facilitator's work.
What it is, is a demonstration that makes the content land, and the right position for it is alongside proper material rather than instead of it. If somebody tells you a performance will deliver your leadership curriculum, be skeptical. The honest version is that it opens the subject memorably and your program does the rest.
Small Rooms Work Better Than Large Ones
Worth knowing when planning. A leadership cohort is usually twelve to thirty people, which is the right size for this to be personal rather than theatrical.
At that scale everybody is involved rather than watching, which matters when the point depends on them experiencing it rather than observing it happen to somebody else. A room of three hundred gets a performance; a room of twenty gets something that happened to them. For a leadership day, the smaller room is the better version.
Placement Changes What It Does
Worth deciding deliberately. At the start of a day it opens the subject and sets a tone where people are willing to be uncertain. In the middle it resets a cohort that's been in content since nine. At the end it's a strong close that people carry out of the room.
All three work and they do different jobs. Tell whoever you're booking which one you want and what the program is trying to achieve, since that genuinely changes what gets built.
Your Venue Doesn't Need to Do Anything
Practically relevant for an offsite or a training room. Leadership sessions happen in hotel meeting rooms, boardrooms, and rented spaces with a tight schedule and no production support.
Close up work needs no stage, power, sound, or setup, happens in the room exactly as it is, and finishes when you need the space back. For a day with a full agenda and a room booked by somebody else at four, that's one fewer thing to coordinate.
Why Book Magical Katrina
If you're designing a leadership program, here's my case. I'm a member of the Magic Circle in London and the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, I've earned multiple magic awards, and I've performed for clients including Formula 1, the Olympics, Porsche, Prada, Zapier, and the Ritz Carlton, with appearances on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and Masters of Illusion. I work magic and mentalism and speak on communication and influence, I'll build the session around what your programme is trying to achieve, nothing in it requires anybody to be exposed in front of colleagues, and I'll tell you honestly where it fits and where your facilitator is the better answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why doesn't the usual format work with senior people?
Because an executive cohort has met anchoring, confirmation bias, and the influence literature several times and receives another explanation as revision. They know the material and don't act on it, which is the gap your program is actually trying to close.
What does mentalism add?
The experience rather than the description. When a room of senior people is collectively certain and then finds they weren't, the point is made in a way no facilitator can replicate, because they haven't considered a concept, they've had the experience.
How does it help the facilitated discussion?
It opens a more candid one, since senior people discuss their own error far more readily when everybody made it together. That's a better starting point than asking executives to volunteer a time they got something wrong, which most have learned to answer safely.
Is this a replacement for our content?
No, and be skeptical of anybody who says otherwise. I'm not a behavioral scientist, and the honest position is that this makes the content land memorably while your program and your facilitator do the actual work.
What group size works best?
Twelve to thirty, since at that scale everybody is involved rather than watching, which matters when the point depends on experiencing it rather than seeing it happen to somebody else. A large room gets a performance; a small one gets something that happened to them.
Where should it go in the day?
Wherever matches your objective: at the start it opens the subject and makes people willing to be uncertain, in the middle it resets a cohort that's been in content since nine, and at the end it's a close people carry out. Say which you want.
Will anybody be put on the spot?
No. Nothing in it requires somebody to be exposed in front of colleagues, which matters in a room where people are managing how they're perceived by peers and by whoever runs their review.
What do you need from our venue?
Nothing, since close up work needs no stage, power, sound, or setup and happens in a boardroom or hotel meeting room exactly as it is. It also finishes when you need the room back, which suits a full agenda.
Make Them Feel It, Then Discuss It
A leadership session on judgment competes with everything your cohort has already read about judgment, and explaining the material again rarely changes how anybody decides anything on Monday.
Booking a female mentalist puts the experience in the room first: a group of senior people confidently wrong together, which is a considerably better opening for a discussion about certainty than a slide describing one. Then your facilitator does the part that actually requires expertise.
Reach out with your program and what the session is meant to achieve, and I'll tell you honestly how I'd fit it.