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What you missed... "Bloomin' Human," with the David Pearl Group

"Do you care enough about people to make them feel uncomfortable temporarily?" David Pearl opened his hands to the 200-strong audience, encouraging them to stop shuffling their feet and participate. "Uncomfortableness is a sign of growth," he continued, "We tend to forget all the times we fell off our first bike while learning how to ride it."

It was the end of a long "motivational" event. Those present had been subjected to about four hours of weirdness, designed to help them enthuse colleagues and staff. So did they feel energised or merely embarrassed? The proof was in the number of voluntary remarks and questions from people who, at the beginning of the afternoon, had seemed painfully shy.

"I was one of the group doing aikido downstairs, learning how to connect mind and body," someone piped up. "For me, getting absolute focus was a very powerful moment." This man was a City worker in a stressful position - the simple technique he had learned would definitely come in handy at the office, he said.

Another contribution came from a woman who had chosen to join a seminar with Jyotish "Josh" Patel, a practitioner of "energy healing" and other complementary therapies. "Josh demonstrated the power of simply looking at somebody, how that can effect their energy," she said. This was something she felt sure would inform her business relationships in the future.

"The sheer energy and happiness of today is something I'll take away with me," said another female executive. And upon hearing this, Pearl took the opportunity to reiterate a point he had been making throughout the event: "The energy is in your company already, you just have to give it permission to come out."

The London Business Forum (LBF) had brought Pearl's group of "creatives, performing artists and innovators" to St Luke's, a converted church on Old Street that is home to the community projects of the London Symphony Orchestra. Its spacious main hall has enough pine flooring for several basketball courts, a mezzanine gallery accessed by spiral staircases and silent electric shutters over the windows to protect the acoustics. There are only a few rows of raked seating at one end, leaving plenty of room for a full orchestra or, in this case, motivational fun and games.

As the LBF attendees filed in after lunch, they were clearly apprehensive. Some sat and talked quietly, some helped themselves to the drinks and snacks at the buffet nearby, but few looked comfortable, even those taking advantage of the free neck-and-shoulder massages dispensed by Pearl's colleagues. Like the rest of us, they had all seen "motivational events" parodied on TV - most notably by Ricky Gervais in "The Office", where his character's excruciating attempt at public speaking involved a swivelled baseball cap and a ghetto-blaster playing "Simply the Best," by Tina Turner.

It turned out the antidote to this scepticism was ironic levity. A choreographer by the name of Jamie Armstrong was first to address the audience - a burly Glaswegian, he asked everyone to stand and then copy his movements in what appeared to be a series of callisthenic exercises. It was only when the first bars of James Brown's "Sex Machine" exploded over the loudspeakers that everyone realised they were about to break-dance. Hilarity ensued, but even the stiffest senior executive joined in.

Then it was time for Pearl to explain why mucking about can have serious benefits in the workplace: "In the world that's coming, inspiring people to do stuff is going to be incredibly important," he said. "Companies that do things in inspiring ways tend to do inspiring things." However, he added, inspiration cannot be forced into people: by definition, it must come from within. "Standing here trying to fill you with inspiration is a low road, a short-term option. The only way we can really get value out of this afternoon is when we bring your intent to what's going on."

Each member of the audience was therefore asked to formulate a "declaration of intent", to bring focus to the days activities. Anyone can be inspired if their intent is focused, nurtured and guided, Pearl explained. To prove it, he showed a few clips of video from his group's recent visit to a town called Easington in County Durham, the location for the Bafta-winning film "Billy Elliot". This former mining community had seen its social fabric unravel following the pit closures of the 1980s, and had grabbed Pearl's offer of some pro bono motivation with both hands.

In consultation with the locals, the group set themselves the objective of "turning the town from grey to green in two days", a task that ended up involving 5,000 new hanging baskets and the planting of numerous trees. One of the video clips showed a colleague of Pearl's trying to get the local brass band to shed its traditional series of tunes and improvise. The band-members were ordered to hit any note they wished in order to generate a kind of free-form melody, but instead they hugged their brass instruments in mortified silence. Pearl stopped the video at this point to ask the audience a question: "Do these musicians remind you of people from the office?"

If you want your staff to venture outside their comfort zone, you must show willing, he explained. You must "Be Barbados!". To put it another way, don't simply show someone your holiday snaps because you will merely frustrate them; instead, recall what you were like on holiday and behave that way so the good will rubs off. And don't worry about taking radical ideas to the boss, he added: "The truth is: the big guy is always first into the dress."

When it comes to motivation, Pearl argued, workers basically divide into four types:

1. "I" people, who tend to deal with challenges by internalising them, to reflect on them before acting;
2. "We" people, who prefer to deal with problems through collective enterprise;
3. "It" people, who tend to approach each problem by considering first what kinds of resources and/or "content" its solution requires; and
4. "Its" people, who tend to approach each problem from the broadest possible perspective, considering first how it fits into the "big picture".

Each member of the audience was asked to decide which group made them feel most "at home", and to join the one in which they expected to feel least comfortable. Three of the resulting groups were then led to function rooms in the basement. The "I" group joined aikido master Dennis Burke in a makeshift dojo to learn "the power of focused intent" through various centring exercises and a little mock-combat. The "We" group joined Armstrong and Lianne Campbell, another choreographer and expert in complementary therapies, to learn about group mentalities; this involved meditation, co-ordination tests and synchronisation exercises. Meanwhile, the "Its" group joined Patel and Esperide Ananas, another expert in spiritualism and "energy healing", who led various mental exercises to stimulate intuition and get everyone thinking about their organisations in the broadest possible context.

However, it was the "It" group that stole the show. They remained in the main hall with some of Pearl's more musically minded colleagues (led by Danny Scheinmann, a "physical theatre specialist and professional storyteller"), and wrote their own opera.

About 50 in number, they were asked initially to perform the same exercise as the Easington band, picking notes to sing at random to create "a continuum of sound". The effect was surprisingly beautiful, like something by Ligeti (composer of the strange undulating choral movements from Stanley Kubrick's film 2001). Then, they began to create. One member of the group said later that it opened her eyes to what could be achieved in under an hour: "At the beginning, people were keeping their eyes closed because they were so embarrassed," she said, but ultimately the performance was "a fantastic experience".

When the other groups had returned to their seats, they were treated to another mélange of sounds as the "It" group divided into several small choirs, each singing a phrase from office life that they felt represented the stifling of creativity. "Don't leave your desks!" growled a handful of sopranos, "Deadlines!" intoned a cluster of bass baritones. Meanwhile, in the midst of it all, a young woman stood on a chair, having been singled out for some choir-singing experience as well as her good looks. It was she who provided the shrill leitmotif: "I'm so frustrated... no one is talking to me!"

Raucous applause erupted as the performance finished, partly out of appreciation for what the "It" group had achieved and partly because everyone had now shaken off their inhibitions - some were jumping up and down, screaming, while still in their suits, ties and heels.

The event closed with the Q&A section followed by another group activity led by Armstrong: "Do you want to finish like the Red Indians?" he asked. Nobody knew what the hell he was talking about but they were game for anything by this stage. They duly formed a large circle to create "create a rainstorm" with synchronised movements: rubbing hands together, clicking fingers, slapping wrists, slapping chests, slapping knees and stamping - a soothing shower of noise.

It was a fitting end to a weirdly useful day. As they filed out, some of the attendees looked a little stunned, but no one could accuse the David Pearl Group of leaving them feeling bored.