Why are we afraid of story?
1 August 2007Storytelling, I think, is a part of being human. We hear stories, tell stories and make sense of the world through stories. So why are some of us so afraid of stories? Here’s a conversation I had this week. Me: We’ll provide an opportunity for folk to tell a short story about something positive that’s…
Aikido
25 July 2007Wow! I’m at an Asian Facilitation Conference in Malaysia and today attended a session on Kensankai Aikido Dojo. Aikido is a Japanese martial art, focusing on peace and harmony, using minimal strength and agression. We learned about presence and welcoming and centring and deflecting and movement and responding and blending techniques (enetering and turning). This…
Improvised Facilitation – the heart of facilitation
22 July 2007Making choices is at the heart of facilitation. Choices are made from the moment we agree to a facilitation task – and continue throughout the design process AND, most importantly, when facilitating with a group. Those choices include what to wear, how to act, what to say, what to do, how to respond… With so…
Difficult Conversations
17 July 2007Yesterday I revisited Difficult Conversations in preparation for a workshop I was running – and also because at a family gathering my sisters-in-law had been talking about difficulties they were having raising issues with their bosses. There’s a lot to Difficult Conversations, even though the book itself is easy to read, the application is a…
More on ‘What is a facilitator?’
14 July 2007Hmmmm…. It must be the cold, wet and miserable weather that’s making me a mite introspective at the moment. *gazes out the window at the rain* Inspired by ‘Ideas that Stick’ and a question from an artist about ‘what is a facilitator?’ I’ve been trying to establish for myself what is the core of facilitation.…
The world needs more facilitators – AND improvisers!
13 July 2007I was checking out Dave Pollard’s prolific blog and came across this. He’s describing 12 of the most important areas of expert consensus about the next pandemic: Resilience, practice and improvisation skills are more critical than good planning in a pandemic: Redundant systems, people who have been through emergency situations or rehearsals, excellent, evidence-based decision-making…
“What’s a facilitator?”
13 July 2007I’ve just returned from a networking lunch where someone asked ‘What’s a facilitator?’ Someone else (not me) said “Anyone who needs a facilitator knows what a facilitator is – for everybody else, it doesn’t matter.” Hmmmmmm. What do you think? BTW – my response was ‘facilitators help groups make better decisions’ – still trying to…
More on facilitator language
12 July 2007I’ve just returned from New Zealand where I did some work with Anne Pattillo and her team. We revisited our paper on facilitator language and summarised the findings as follows: Language is a window on facilitator behaviour and effectiveness. Evidence suggests that polite, effective facilitators use communication skills to reduce the force of negative behaviours.…
What’s the core of facilitation?
11 July 2007I’ve been reading ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath. Their premise is that ideas that last ie are sticky, are ones that are understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought or behaviour. They explore six principles that underpin ‘stickiness’: – Find the core – Get attention/surprise/unexpected then hold attention/interest – Make concrete: help…
Psychodrama
5 July 2007Today I had lunch with my Playback buddy Shani – we’d not been in contact for a long time after meeting at Playback Theatre workshops about eight years ago. Shani came to last year’s facilitation conference in Geelong and it’s been great to reconnect. In the intervening years Shani gained a PhD while I…well, let’s…