Links 29/6/07

My Open Space buddy and blogger friend Chris Corrigan has a weekly list of links. It’s such a good idea, I’ve decided to copy it. So, here’s this week’s links.

The Annual Australasian Facilitators’ Network (AFN) Conference will be held in Adelaide, SA, in late November. This year is the 10th Anniversary Conference. Not bad for a virtual community of facilitators!

Melbourne Playback are hosting another series of Playback Workshops led by friend and fellow playbacker Ian David.

And here’s a site with a whole lot of free stuff for experiential training.

And an interesting site that explores ‘unsolvable problem’s with a tool they have developed called Polarity Management. Very useful for a lot of work I do with environmental groups trapped in either-or thinking.

WTF!!!!!!

Part of a letter in the 16 June edition of New Scientist, from Andrew Yake, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

“Conflating origination with voluntariness is a common error in unsophisticated discussions about free will. Suggesting that deterministic chaos is evidence for any conception of free will, however, propagates far worse confusions.”

Yep – I’m confused!

The Juggling Metaphor

Everybody knows about the juggling metaphor – well, I think they do anyway – you know, keeping all the balls in the air, juggling work-life balance etc. And I think there are other uses for juggling in exploring organisational concepts. As a keen juggler I’m always looking for ways to incorporate a spot of juggling into my workshops. The challenge, of course, is to make it relevant AND intentional. Here’s an example.

Recently I was facilitating a workshop with senior managers of an organisation undergoing significant cultural change. I introduced them to a frameowrk for change based on the phases of

Denial

Resistance

Experimentation

Adaptation

This model also explores the leadership responses that are appropriate for each phase. So at the denial phase the respones is to communicate, communicate, communicate; at the resistance phase the response is to listen, listen, listen; at the experimentation phase, the response is encourage, encourage, encourage; and at the adaptation phase, describe a vision of the future.

All very well so far, but a bit theoretical. How to explore? So I introduced them to juggling – 3 ball juggling – and described, and demonstrated the steps to doing this. Then I put them in pairs with the instructions that one person was to practice juggling for 5 minutes while the other person provided encouragement and support AND picked up the dropped juggling balls. After 5 minutes they swapped roles.

In the debrief we asked how people responded to the challenge of learning to juggle. Some answered that they thought to themselves “I could never do this” (denial); others described thoughts of “It’s too hard” (resistance) – and the pennies dropped.They experienced the whole model of resistance to change and the power of leadership all within the frame of the juggling activity.

Facilitator Archetypes

Last night I hung out for a few hours with other facilitators (what is the collective noun for facilitators? a rabble of facilitators? a host of facilitators?) at one of the regular Victorian Facilitator Network meetings.

Andrew Rixon and cartoonist/illustrator extraordinaire (and long time friend) Simon Keebone took us through the process of creating a fairy story about our facilitation experiences. It took a little while to warm up to the task on this grey, wet, cold Melbourne night but once we got into it is was remarkably easy to construct a fairy story.

Andrew reminded us of some of the key elements of a fairy story – we all know where they start and end (the Disney versions anyway) – there’s an alternative ending of ‘never living happily ever after’ (the Grimm version) too. And there’s lots of creatures in fairy stories – and magic – and faraway places – and trusty allies – and untrustworthy tricksters.

So we created our fairy stories in groups of 3 and told them – and this is where the magic of the night happened. With a few key descriptors of the actual facilitator in the story Simon was able to draw on flip chart (in front of our very eyes) a cartoon of the facilitator. If I’d been the protagonist in the story I would have snaffled the pic to take home! So picture this – arranged on the floor was half a dozen pics of facilitators in different guises.

Andrew introduced us to the archetypes of facilitators that he’s working on based on a series of on-line surveys conducted earlier this year.

The healer

The teacher

The warrior

The visionary

And we identified these archetypes in the stories and the work we do as facilitators some real insights started to emerge – and great discussion would follow…but what! We’ve run out of time! We had to finish – and so do I, for now, so more on this later.

Belonging

My footy team won last night. Now this is not very remarkable unless: 1) you live in Melbourne, Australia and 2) you barrack for Richmond aka the Tigers. Footy (Australian Rules Football) is a religion in Melbourne over winter, and while I no longer go to every match, I remain a devoted follower (after all I went to my first match, ahem…more then 45 years ago!) And Richmond is a serial heart-breaker: every year they promise lots but often fail to deliver. Nonetheless, last night, on a cold wintery night in Melbourne at the MCG, Tiger fans outnumbered the opposition fans by 4 to 1. Oh, and did I mention that half way through the season, Richmond was still winless? So last night was their first win of the season. YELLOW and BLACK! Yeah! Sorry, I’ll get back to the point.

This got me thinking about belonging – about the ‘tribes’ that give us a sense of who we are and our place in the world. And I’ve also been thinking about SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) – or the winter blues. I notice my own mood plummetting in June and July – and the general advice is to get outside more, do more exercise and socialise more – things we often don’t do in winter. Now I know why I love snow skiing so much – it’s all that sunshine, activity and drinking, ooops, I mean socialising.

OK, OK – I’m getting distracted again. Richmond supporters are linked by invisible ties of knowing – we may know nothing else about each other, but can commiserate with each other about the joys and sorrows of following, well…only another Richmond supporter would understand. Which got me thinking about all the other ways to ‘belong’ and how many options there are now of creating community. There’s the geographic community we belong to; the virtual communities (blogs, discussion lists, twitter etc); our friends; our family; our work buddies; our professional buddies; interest groups – there’s so many. So what is it about these that make them work – and others fall by the wayside. I reckon it’s a common language – a combination of what we talk about and the way we talk about it. We Richmond fans have a common language where we can say lots with a single raised eyebrow. It’s not just what we say either – it’s also the way it’s said.

Which makes blogging really interesting – because all we have is written words (OK – and pics, and vids, and illustrations) but it is one way. I’ve been asked recently why I have a blog. And here’s the reasons:
1) to have somewhere to record random thoughts and keep track of cool ideas, links, podcasts etc
2) because I make sense of the world through writing – the meaning emerges through writing
3) to connect with other people who I know already; and with others who I don’t know yet.

I guess it’s all part of the human need to belong.

How many ppt mistakes can one guest speaker make?

I would love to send this video to a guest speaker at a recent dinner I attended. Despite his credentials as a ‘world expert’ on his topic and the importance of his message it was all pretty much lost on me because of his ppt presentation that, no kidding, included every one of these don’ts.

Facilitator Language

Earlier this year, Andrew and Sascha Rixon and I collaborated on a paper about facilitator language. It was published in the IAF Journal (you can download a copy of the paper here.

Our major finding was that there actually is a special type of language that facilitators use that is different from other ‘business’ or ‘workplace’ language usage. And facilitators use language intentionally to reinforce the atmosphere, or mood, they are trying to establish within a workshop that will support the work or business that participants need to do.

It’s important to remember that facilitators are concerned with process – with participants bringing knowledge, wisdom and ideas, ie content, to populate the processes that facilitators specialise in. However if it was as simple as providing a process, who would need facilitators? Facilitators also bring an awareness of the individuals in the group, and the group as a whole – and the ability to adapt and modify processes (sometimes micro-changes that would go unnoticed by most people through to wholescale changes where one process is completely abandoned in favour of something else).This is not done on a whim – but based on a whole suite of complex observations, analyses and gut reactions!

Important in this whole approach is language – both the language that the facilitator uses and the language the facilitator hears. And this I think is central to the skill of facilitation. At the recent Facilitative Disaster & Crisis Intervention Training Workshops held in Melbourne in collaboration with the Global Facilitator Service Corps, (GFSC) we explored the language that people might hear at different stages of recovery following a traumatic change, crisis or disaster.

The GFSC model explores the multidimensional needs and responses of individuals, families, organisations and communities following a traumatic event. The four basic needs that underpin the model are survival, security, autonomy and transcendence. And the corresponding bahaviours commonly seen with each phase are reactive, receptive, proactive and interactive.

GFSC believes that facilitators bring a unique suite of skills that can complement the other support that people receive following a crisis or disaster. In particular, facilitators can work with groups – especially after the initial survival and security needs have been met by individuals. Facilitators know how to work with individuals in groups, and groups – especially to help with reconnecting individuals, families and the community. Integral to this ability are the listening and language skills that facilitators develop either deliberately and/or intuitively. Hearing the language that people use can help facilitators (and others) to identify how people are responding and what the appropriate responses should be. While this is amplified in disaster and crisis situations, the same is also true in organisational settings where the stakes may not be quite as high, but the responses are somewhat similar. For example, following a major organisational restructure, individual employees sometimes exhibit the same needs – and the language they use can help identify where they are at and what organisational responses might be appropriate.

Language appears to be one of the least studied and understood elements of facilitation. Lucky for all of us interested in this topic that Sascha is undertaking a PhD on exactly that topic.

Friday’s Random thoughts

Today I had lunch with Brian Bainbridge (of open Space fame) and Mick Walsh – also an open space buddy. We talked about the misnomer of ‘best practice’ – that as soon as something is branded ‘best practice’ it isn’t anymore. We thought ‘current practice’ was a better description.

On the train travelling to Melbourne I listened to the TED podcast of Seth Godin’s talk on sliced bread.His premise was about being remarkable to be successful – to get ideas out to those people who would do the spreading for you rather than spending a squillion dollars on questionable advertising. I liked his term ‘remarkable’ – it doesn’t mean anything other than being remarked upon – getting people talking. Bit like a few blogs I know really.

So a pretty ‘remarkable’ website I was pointed to yesterday in the midst of a robust discussion about the uses and abuses of ppt is Garr Reynolds’ blog on issues related to professional presentation design.

Oh, yes – and because it’s Friday I had to visit reasonsyouwillhateme for a dose of 30-something social commentry, briliant writing and good old left-wing politics.

And finally, in the 5 May issue of New Scientist there’s an interesting article on Making up your mind: ten steps to better decisions –
1. Don’t fear the consequences
2. Go with your gut insticts
3. Consider your emotions
4. Play the devil’s advocate
5. Keep your eye on the ball
6. Don’t cry over spilt milk
7. Look at it another way
8. Beware of social pressure
9. Limit your options
10. Have someone else choose

Technology Explained

I love using technology but rarely have any idea how or why it works – and the complexity gets too much for me sometimes. I’ve just gone wireless at home and am loving it!

This video on Wiki’s in Plain English is simply brilliant – a great way of using technology to explain technology. I’m for everything in plain English! Thanks to Hildy Gottlieb for the heads up on the Group-Facilitation List.

Yak Shaving

I know – it’s a bit out of date – but I’ve been partaking of a spot of yak shaving lately as I explore others’ blogs. A link here takes me there and another link somewhere else and before you know it I’ve wandered well away from my original task. But in the meantime I’ve come across lots of interesting stuff which is what makes yak shaving so much fun. Who knows where it will lead?

I’m a sucker for lists (who isn’t?) and so had to take a blog journey based on Johnnie Moore’s blogs that make me think. That’s where I found Dave Pollard’s blog. I think I’ll be a regular visitor.

Over dinner the other night my good friends Peter Codd and Vera Lubczenko were questioning me about my blog, and blogging in general. I explained that I have half a dozen blogs that I regularly visit and from there find other links of interest. And we also talked about the great TED web site. Vera reckons that Carl Honore’s vid on slowing down in a world built for speed is worth a look by anyone who is over-worked (and she would know!) 🙂

I’d post the vid in here if I could work out how! You’ll have to be content with the link for now.