A doorstop versus relationship rules
23 September 2009Many years ago I read a very good article about the differences between a Big Mac and the Naked Chef by Joel Spolsky. It was 2001. It’s about scaleability, and quality. And surprisingly, it’s still on the web, hence the link. The main premise was this: Some things need talent to do really well. It’s…
Here’s a Facilitating With Confidence manifesto 1.0
27 August 2009Facilitating With Confidence Manifesto View more presentations from Viv McWaters.
Building rapport
14 August 2009I wonder what comes to mind, about facilitation, when you look at this photo? I’d be interested in your interpretation. I see rapport building – an essential, but elusive part of facilitating that takes some effort to build and can be lost in a moment. I understand rapport to be developing a human connection with…
Rebooting
13 August 2009Last year, Anne Pattillo and I started up a new business together – Facilitating With Confidence. We’d tried our hands at facilitation training before and became frustrated when people learnt enough to ask us to come and do the tricky gigs, but didn’t have enough confidence to have a go themselves, even though we knew…
Opening Space for Conversations
10 August 2009In my last post I said, “If I have done my job well I will have set up the preconditions for whatever transactions need to take place to emerge as a result of the workshop. And the best way I’ve found to do that is to open space for conversations, and to get out of…
20 Questions for facilitators
9 August 2009When I meet with a client to talk about a facilitation gig, I have some key questions I ask. Not in any particular order, and not all are needed avery time. I usually say very little to begin with, wanting to hear in my client’s own words what they want. I’m listening for clues, for…
Closings: What’s the point?
28 October 2008Both conferences I attended recently finished with Open Space, which meant the closing of the space and the conference happened at the same time using some variation of a ‘talking stick’ ritual: whoever has the stick talks, everyone else listens. Inevitably people have to leave early – to catch flights, attend to other commitments, because…