Working with people we love

My friend Chris Corrigan in Canada has written a fabulous post about the joys of working with friends. Go on- go and read it now. I’ll wait.

Here’s one of his quotes:

While it may be true that one person can make a difference in the world, I believe that the difference one person makes is choosing to work with others.

This post is for all my friends who I have the privilege of working with, and who I hope to work with a lot more. Thanks for being funny, wise, energising, creative, challenging, supportive, pushy, engaging and just being you.

Which version of you shows up?

I like this concept of ‘recalibration’ and recognising that we are made up of a whole lot of different selves. Reminds me of the ritual learned at an improv conference of naming what we’re feeling and discarding the dodgy ones and embracing the useful ones. From zefrank via Dave Pollard. Strong language warning.

Who needs facilitators?

While there’s been a flurry of posts on the Australasian Facilitators’ Network list about the processes used at last weekend’s 2020 summit (where 1000 of Australia’s ‘best and brightest’ – not my words – gathered in Canberra to discuss 10 topics with a Chair and co-Chair for each topic and an array of facilitators) there’s been disquiet, and some downright fury, at the quality of facilitation at the summit. 

An article in today’s Australian newspaper talks about concerns that some voices were not heard, others misrepresented, and outcomes pre-determined at worst or manipulated by the Chairs at best.Hard to know if these claims are true. But it does raise an opportunity to explore just what the role of the facilitator is/was/should be in such a situation. Here’s what’s clear so far: 1000 people sat through an opening and plenary sessions at the beginning of each day and at the end where the big ideas were revealed from each stream. At other times they were in their ‘streams’ groups of 100 – seems different facilitation processes were used with each stream (based on images from television reports). I saw processes where people came to a podium and talked for a short time about their ideas. I saw people sitting in rows; I saw people sitting in small groups; I saw some graphic facilitations; and I saw people writing on flip charts.

Fellow facilitators who knew about the call for facilitators to help with the summit said the brief was broad and vague (aren’t they all?) and none of them was selected. Seems it was a process of ‘who you know’.

I’ve heard first-hand comments like: “The facilitator in our stream wanted agreement before they would write anything up. They wouldn’t allow us to disagree and have different points of view.”

I’ve heard via the media that what people said was rewritten in the scribe/facilitator’s words to a point where the person couldn’t recognise their own words or ideas.

If true, this is not good facilitation and any facilitator worth their salt knows it too – and wouldn’t do it. No matter what the stakes or what the pressures. So it raises the questions about who was facilitating and whether they had any facilitation skills at all. It raises a more important question about the image of facilitation and facilitators.

Good facilitation is transformational – enabling individuals to work together for growth, development and change. And facilitation is no longer an added extra – the skills, the understandings and the personal awareness that accompanies good facilitation can be a part of everyone’s professional kit bag. Facilitation requires us to believe in the wisdom of individuals and groups and their capacity to resolve, build, challenge, shape and grow. But all this doesn’t always come naturally, especially if we are used to being in control. We have to learn some of the basic practices of facilitation and, most importantly, learn how to GET OUT OF THE WAY.

Facilitating with Confidence Web Site

WooHoo!!! My new venture is alive and well. Go check it out here.

Friday links

Here’s a few links for a Friday afternoon:

Simplicity quotes from Commoncraft

A virtual whiteboard application Twiddla from Academhack.  

A great example of visual reflecting by Geoff – and I know it’s accurate, cos I was there!

A podcast from Matt Moore and friends on Blended Facilitation. 

Comic Life enables you to make comics from your photos. 

Taking chances

Anne Pattillo and I have started a new business together. It’s called Facilitating with Confidence and we have a web site. I haven’t linked to it because there’s been a few stumbles in getting it up. This experience of adding to our already existing individual businesses with a new joint venture is exciting, nerve wracking, frustrating, risky and plain exhausting. Why are we doing it then? Neither of us need the business per se, but we like working together, and we reckon we work together well, each complementing the other. And it’s fun to create something new.

We’ll have a significant on-line component – which means we’ve had to learn a whole stack of new skills. This is good. Well, it is for me. I’m reminded of the Curse of Knowledge in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick. It’s easy to become too comfortable with what we know. It’s humbling to start afresh – learning new skills. It’s a reminder of what it’s like to be learning something new.

Patti Digh mentioned something like this at last year’s improv conference in Banff too. She used the metaphor of having climbed to the top of a mountain and then encouraging others to come on up. From the top, the journey looks easy; from the bottom, or even part-way, the journey may look daunting. This is a good thing to remember when training others. It’s a good thing for me to remember. It’s relevant to our new business.

I was just chatting to my friend Andrea who is now living in San Antonio, Texas. Andrea knows more about how groups work and the roles people take on in groups than I can ever hope to know – and yet she patiently and with great good humour walks beside me on my journey as I try and learn. She quite correctly guessed that our new faciltation training would be full of improvisation, and creativity, and humour, and innovation. We hope so too! We want to invite people like Andrea to be a part of the on-line world of Facilitating with Confidence.

So if you too cross your fingers and we keep working behind the scenes, soon, real soon you’ll be able to visit and find out what it’s all about. Stay tuned!

Words into action

I’ve been pondering this question for a while and would like your thoughts. Here’s some scenarios:

#1: There’s a lot of commentry around regarding the forthcoming 2020 Summit and how the ideas will translate into action

#2: Comment heard on the radio: ‘It’s all very well to talk, but what are we going to do about it?’

#3: Recent workshop designed to provide information and dialogue – frustration that no specific follow-up actions emerged.

My question is:What is the value of talk?My thoughts are that there isn’t enough talk. Talk and conversation and discussion and dialogue simply to explore and wander through ideas, taste them, throw them around, spark new ideas, keep the synapses active, and inspire. The need to come up with actions, next steps etc seems to devalue talk – that talking isn’t inherently valuable, but a means to an end.

And I guess inherent in this is responsibility. Actions etc tend to default to what ‘someone else needs to do about it’. Isn’t it enough to have an interesting conversation that translates into new personal knowledge, maybe understanding, that may, or may not, translate into action. After all, we are who we are because of all the influences built up over our lives. Isn’t personal responsibility enough?

A few thoughts on facilitating

Yesterday I facilitated a workshop with some people from a rural community to explore their future in light of the changes that are occurring around them. I’d heard a cool quote on television the night before that I used:

“Knowledge is knowing you’re on a one-way street; wisdom is looking both ways anyway.”

It seemed appropriate, and set the scene for some ‘knowledge transfer’ via presentations and time for conversation. Making sense of a complex, changing world isn’t going to happen in one workshop. Facilitating in this situation is so much about getting out of the way – allowing time and space for people to explore what interests them. Of course, Open Space is ideal for this.

The crunch comes when it’s time to decide what to do next. I wonder if this is necessary at all. We’ve been programmed to have beginnings, middles and ends. What’s wrong with something that continues? Conversation, collaboration and space. Three elements of community that are increasingly being squeezed by the pace of modern living.

Geoff Brown is blogging

My friend Geoff Brown has finally started blogging. This is really exciting because he has lots of great things to say. Go read his blog now.

30-day learning journey

I’ve accepted Chris Corrigan’s 30-day learning journey challenge.

Here’s what I’m curious about:

I’m curious about how to bring together the threads of passion, creativity and collaboration in myself and my work as a facilitator, and what’s next?

Wanna join in?