Facilitation in pictures

In March I was delighted to facilitate a workshop at the Malaysian Facilitators’ Conference in Kuala Lumpur. And yesterday, “The world is getting smaller and smaller”, wrote a friend in an email. “Recently I contracted an artist for a project and saw this on her blog.”

Thanks to the amazing Wendy Wong of Welenia Studios for capturing my workshop in such a beautiful way.

Influencing and being influenced

Here’s another gym-inspired post. This time I was noticing how I run faster on the treadmill and generally try harder when there’s someone else on the next treadmill. If they’re faster than me (and most of them are) I’ll try and go faster too. If they’re slower than me, I notice a slight sense of superiority. Oh, I know all that stuff about doing your own thing and what’s right for you etc etc. I think we are always being influenced by those around us, and probably forget that we are influencing other people too.

At it’s best this is a good thing. I work occasionally at The Hub in Melbourne, a co-working space. It’s a long time since I’ve worked in this sort of environment, with people coming and going, hearing snippets of sometimes interesting conversations, sitting in on discussions, throwing ideas about, sharing a story or a glass of wine with people doing completely different work to me. I am happy to be influenced by this environment and the people in it.

Anyone competing in any physical endeavour will be able to tell anecdotes of how they were able to find something extra during competition. Performers experience it too – that feeling of ramping up for the actual performance. Improvisers (who are, after all, performers too) call it ‘being affected’, being open to the influence of people and the environment we’re in.

It seems to be a small step from being influenced though to being competitive. I have mixed feelings about competitiveness. Sure, I love the feeling of winning, of getting ‘there’ first, whatever ‘there’ might mean, of being recognised (which I think is what winning is all about, after all, no-one remembers who came second). And I’m also aware that a focus on winning denies all sorts of other possibilities,not the least of which is success. I learnt from some improv buddies the difference between winning and success, and how winning can be celebrated mostly by the winners and success can be celebrated by everyone.

This whole influencing, competitiveness, success dynamic is writ large on the internet. There’s the shallow, yet hard to ignore, numbers – of followers, of retweets, of likes, of friends. And there’s connecting with people in the same or different industries who are doing incredible work. There’s great writers, and great thinkers, incredible ideas, amazing analysis, brilliant artists, and people willing to share their successes and their failures.

It’s easy, for me, to feel intimidated. To feel inadequate, to feel that I have nothing new, or original, or interesting to say. Everyone else seems to be saying it – and much better than I could.

Woah! I’ve fallen into the Tyranny of Excellence – a feeling where nothing is ever good enough. We are doing amazing things, yet see ourselves as inadequate. This tyranny  is the dark side of ‘being affected’ – of influence, of collaboration, of easy access to what’s happening across the globe and of living in amazing times where being amongst creative entrepreneurs and thinkers is the norm. But it’s not the norm for everyone. It’s also easy to fall into a space of scarcity, where it feels as if there’s only so much to go round and not enough for everyone. Much better to remember a sense of abundance where the world needs ALL of our ideas and approaches and there really is no ‘right’ way.

The Be Affected art is by the amazing Mary Campbell (in the US) and the Tyranny of Excellence art is by the incredible Milan Colovic (in Serbia) and I’m writing this from Australia. See what I mean – we live in amazing times.

Joy and delight

Wouldn’t you like to have more of whatever it is that’s making the people in this pic react this way?

You bet.

The cause of all this joy and delight is bubbles.

The sort of bubbles that you blew as a child, and that you thought you’d outgrown. Seems none of us outgrow the pleasure  we get from watching someone blow bubbles.

This is the secret that Dr Froth aka Andrew Suttar knows only too well. For about the same time that I’ve been in business, Dr Froth has been blowing bubbles and developing his amazabubble performabubbles and his unique view on life known as Bubbleosophy.

Let’s face it – I’m jealous. Who wouldn’t want to see people reacting this way to your work?

And who wouldn’t want more joy and delight in their lives? This is something for me to work on methinks.

Here’s another pic of Dr Froth at work at the Hub Melbourne Christmas Party and if you want to see him in action, watch this video.

How to be more playful

I’m always banging on about bringing playfulness – which can be an attitude, a point-of-view, an approach – to work, to problem solving, to meetings, to life. “But how?” I hear you asking. Here’s a few ideas:

Have a play space – a space at work or in a conference for people to play: shooting hoops, hopscotch, just tossing a ball around… It doesn’t have to be fancy, just somewhere to get the body moving.

Have materials available (see the pic) They don’t have to be used, although they might be. Just having these available might encourage people to explore visual thinking, or ideas might emerge from looking at a problem from the perspective of a fish (yes, really).

Can’t quite figure out what to focus on? Try haiku. The limitation of a haiku (3 lines, 7, 5 and 7 syllables) encourages creative thinking. Make lots. Here’s one – it’s not very good (and that’s the point) Like chocolates, it’s hard to stop at one.

Playfulness gets a bad rap
Why? Play is fun and
helps us do our work better

or

We have serious work to
do. We can’t waste time
in play! That is sad.

Or try Essence, to get to the heart of something – especially if you are trying to describe something quite complex. Essence is a Thiagi activity, and while it does create a product at the end, the real benefits come from the conversations people have. In small groups get people to write (a description, proposition, elevator pitch – anything really) in exactly 16 words. Hear them all, then ask them to rewrite using exactly 8 words. And then 4 words. You can continue to 2 words and 1 word if it’s helpful. Depends on the circumstances really.

Paired Drawing is another favourite activity to get people playing with their thinking. In pairs, draw a face, taking turns, one line at a time. Silently (except for the laughter, of course).

Improv warm-up games. These games are designed to build a bridge between the day-to-day work that actors have been doing and getting ready for the stage (and after all, most actors have day jobs). The games might be simple physical warm-ups, and they might help get people out of their heads (and whatever might be worrying them) and into their bodies, they might aid in concentration, in focus, in empathy, in noticing. There are literally hundreds of these games. Often, any will do. People will make meaning according to what’s important for them. Games can also be a circuit breaker if a group is stuck in a certain pattern of thinking or looking at a problem. Games can provide metaphors, they can illuminate behaviours, and they can simply make us laugh. Sometimes we all need a good laugh.

All very well for creative thinking and problem solving you might be thinking to yourself. What about sharing important information? Surely nothing beats a good presentation, followed by a robust Q & A? Maybe – if the presenter is actually good. I’ve never seen a satisfying Q & A session, either there’s not enough time, too few dominate, it provides opportunities for grandstanding and soapboxing. Ah, don’t start me. Let me share some alternatives.

You’ve got a Very Important Report to share and want comments. Rip the report apart (especially if it has lots of pages). Give each person a page with the page numbers obliterated (of course) and get people to organise themselves into chapters, and then identify the key messages in each part.

The Board has just met and come up with some statements about the organisation that you have been charged with sharing with the staff. Sound familiar? Print out the statements on small cards and leave lying around the office for a few days. Feign ignorance if anyone asks about them. After a few days do some follow-up activity.

Staff have to learn a new procedure that’s to be implemented in the next financial year. Plant clues on your web site and in other electronic places, and on social media sites that your staff use, and create an on-line scavenger hunt.

Some key information has to be shared, and understood, by people. Use 35 (another Thiagi activity).

Many of these activity embody the improv principles that underpin playfully exploring serious issues: letting go (of limiting beliefs, of old patterns of thinking, of pre-conceived ideas); accepting offers (working with what’s available, building on each other’s ideas, silencing the judgmental inner and outer critic); seeing mistakes as opportunities (trying something lots, throwing out what doesn’t work, doing more of what does, small tilts to see the effects – some call this fast prototyping); being average (that’s right, letting go of the need to be seen as competent, polished, professional and opening up to new ideas and creativity).

Bringing people together, for a meeting, for a conference, for a gathering of any sort requires more than booking a time and a space. It’s our responsibility as leaders to take care of the human dimension too.

And one more important point about playfulness. It’s not a pre-requisite to have any ‘talent’ (though you might be surprised) – you don’t have to be an actor, or a performer, or an artist to be playful. All that’s needed is that you’re human. You are human aren’t you?

What does ‘edges of work’ mean?

A long time ago I learnt of a very useful tool called the wave analysis*. It uses the metaphor of the wave to explore elements of any practice. It’s a useful model because it helps categorise practices and the wave metaphor is dynamic and can be taken further to include undercurrents, rips and even whitewater!

On the crest of the wave is established norms – those practices that everyone uses; on the shore are dying practices, things we really should stop doing; out where the wave forms are emerging trends; and way out on the horizon are new edges. The thing about this dynamic metaphor is that one person’s emerging trend could be someone else’s dying practice!

This is one way of looking at the ‘edges of work’. In your business, what are the new edges, and emerging trends that you’d like to move into the realm of established norms? Some of the approaches that we’re excited about include practicing spontaneity, dialogue, serious play, open space technology, story and narrative, and bodystorming. These edges of work are designed to ready us for everyday challenges: dealing with complexity, thinking on our feet and navigating continuous change and uncertainty.

If this interests you, come and join us for a day of exploration on October 5 in Melbourne and stay for the Creative Methods Conference.

*I’ve been unable to discover the original source. If you know, please leave a comment below.

Meetings. How can we make them better?

Recently my friend Chris Corrigan wrote about objections to participation in conferences and meetings. One of his key points was the question of who is responsible for the experience. Often it rests with the organisers, or in the case of a meeting, the chairperson or convenor.

We are all responsible for our meetings.

This is one of the edges of work that I’ve been exploring – how we can influence our meetings, so as they are more meaningful, purposeful and enjoyable. A few small tweaks can make all the difference.

Like removing the tables.

Or avoiding abstractions.

Understanding the importance of conversations and relationships, before transactions.

Standing, moving and using your hands – as well as your brain.

These are some of the small moves that I’ll be exploring at a two-hour workshop next Wednesday, September 7th at the Hub Melbourne. Wanna come and play? You can register here.

Spend a day exploring the edges of work

About 16 years ago, I made the leap from full-time employment and started my own business. I agonised over a business name. I wanted something that would last the distance, and not lock me in to some sort of work that I’d outgrow. I eventually settled on Beyond the Edge Pty Ltd. I was initially attracted to the word beyond. It spoke to me of reaching beyond my own knowledge and experience, and  the unknowns that lay ahead. I chose the edge because imagination was already taken.

Fast forward to 2011. The name has not only sustained me and my business for all those years, it has finally come into its own. Maybe I intuitively knew something?

I’ve been conducting a little experiment recently around the edges of work – exploring some of the approaches that can help us deal with complexity and the demands of our modern-day work.

I’ve written about my experiences of Bodystorming here, and a participant in a workshop where we looked at the tyrannies that sometimes trap us said this:

“I found [your workshop] extremely beneficial for my personal development. I learnt a lot, particularly about my own inhibitions, and how I’ve created rules that are completely artificial, unproductive and unnecessary. After some reflection, I’ve developed some simple steps to overcome my fears of failure – concentrate less on my fears, focus on doing something, embrace being average and just have a crack – be present.”

As a result, Johnnie Moore (UK) and I have begun a venture called, not unsurprisingly, The Edges of Work (web site coming soon).  Johnnie and I have been working together quite a bit lately and pushing each other to our respective edges (where it seems the most potent learning happens). For those of you who don’t know Johnnie, he is incredibly astute at seeing what others miss, likes to playfully explore serious issues and puts a lot of the organisational BS into perspective. We share an interest in complexity, ideas, connections, spontaneity and not playing by the rules!

We’re offering a one-day workshop at this year’s Story Conference in Melbourne, where the theme is Widening the World of Work. We’re going to share some of our experiences and insights around some of the challenges we face in dealing with complexity, unpredictability and demands for creativity, innovation and agility.

The workshop is on Wednesday, October 5 and there’s more information about registering here.

Our understanding is that change happens at the edge: we see it in systems and in our own lives. At the edge, we are away from the routine and familiar: it’s exciting but scary territory, but it’s where new patterns and routines can emerge. How can we, as leaders, managers, and facilitators support people in staying in the space at least long enough for useful change? We’ll share ideas for navigating edge territory, overcoming habitual patterns that give us a kind of safety but prevent us from making real change.

And we’ll share a series of activities we’ve found powerful in getting organisations and people out of stuck places, rigid arguments and unquestioned rituals and into territory where it’s possible for new work to emerge.

We’d love for you to join us. Drop me an email if you’d like more information.

Good advice

Two things caught me eye in the newspaper this week.

Sarah Wilson was writing about trusting the process. She was referring to the creative process – the sometimes messy, unconnected, seemingly random process that we go through when being creative.

The secret?

Just start.

Good advice.

And the other was an interview with Eva Cox, author, feminist and activist. (Feminist alert) Here’s the bit that stuck with me (the emphasis is mine):

“The revolution we wanted in the 1970s is not happening: we have not undermined the powerful masculine cultures of workplaces, politics and business, despite having more women in top positions. The feminist label is fine by me, and I work with both men and women. I am now part of the Centre for Policy Development, a Sydney-based think tank, and am exploring using the dinner party (instead of a meeting) as a new way of tapping into good ideas for a more civil future. This domestic food-sharing approach may open up discussions of a society valuing social connections, care and feelings rather than the powerful male mantra of essentially macho economies and firms.”

Yeah.

What can facilitators learn from Steve Jobs?

Here’s some quotes from Steve Jobs on design:

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have. [Wired, February 1996]

Seems to me we facilitators can learn a lot from this. Facilitation isn’t just about taking a tried and true process and using it yet again, because it worked just fine last time. It’s about connecting dots, it’s about seeing a way a group can relate to each other and to a problem in a way they might not have considered before.

Facilitation is a creative act. We need to draw inspiration from diverse sources, and continually design new ways of supporting creativity, innovation and agility. Otherwise we’ll wake up one day and find the world has moved on and left us behind.

Bodystorming rocks

I had a chance to use bodystorming with a group this week. Bodystorming is like brainstorming on steroids – or, in other words, it recognises that we bring more than just our brains to problem solving sessions.

Bodystorming involves some traditional brainstorming with three key differences that I think make all the difference.

The first is context. In bodystorming, place is important. Where is the interaction happening? Who is there? What are they doing? How are they reacting?

The second is point of view. Bodystorming takes the POV of the person using the product or the service. This seemingly simple shift can change everything. Questions shift from : “How do we change people’s behaviour/opinion/thoughts about x?” to “What’s this about?” “Why should I read this?” etc

And the third (and why it’s called bodystorming) is the enacting of various scenarios to see what happens (still from the  perspective of the user). And objects are personified – and can interact with the humans in the scene.

And what happens – even in a short session of bodystorming – is trial and error, rapid insight, getting to depth quickly, and hence new ideas emerge.

Here’s the process I used. You can probably divide the process into three key parts: identifying the design question is part 1; enacting scenarios is part 2; and then sharing insights and deciding what to follow-up. These are my own notes on bodystorming based on my own experience. This session lasted two hours and, I think, would be the minimum time you would allow for a bodystorming session. Ideally, you would allow a full day.

1. Introduction to the topic (with preferably some observation by participants in advance) and a little bit about bodystorming. I put up a poster of principles (more to remind me what to say than for anything else!) 

2. Break into groups of 5 – 8 people. Ask them to discuss and list what they notice about ‘x’. Reinforce that this phase is just about observation. No judgments. And no solutions.

3. Then ask them to identify the issues from the point of view of the users.

4. Then ask each group to select a specific design question to further explore. If it’s too big, break it down. The design question also needs to be place-based. This provides some context and avoids abstraction.

5. Then introduce the roles and enacting scenarios. Roles can be people, places, and objects. Each person needs a clear label to identify who or what they are. Objects can speak, interact, and have opinions. There needs to be one narrator – that’s the term that bodystormers use. I think the term director might be better. The narrator/director provides direction for the players, can move the scene along, freeze it, rewind, stop it, start over, make suggestions and generally provides some structure so that each enactment doesn’t descend into everyone doing their own thing with no regard to the others in the scene. There’s also emotion cards to be prepared (before enacting a scene and during). These cards are held above the heads of the players and say what they are thinking, but not saying.

6. Enacting scenes. Give the groups time to warm up to this. They will start very wordy and may need to be encouraged to move around and actually play a scene. Encourage rapid trying something, stopping it, tweaking it, and trying it again. Remind objects that they can interact, respond, have thoughts etc.

NB: I had each group simply playing scenes for themselves. If there was time and the group was up for it, you could have each sub-group play a scene(s) for the whole group. This would, of course, place more pressure on people, and it would provide a greater depth of understanding amongst the whole group. On the downside it would take a lot longer, and people may feel inhibited acting in front of their peers.

One of the key principles that’s important to bodystorming is ‘Yes, and…’ If people spend time arguing over what might or might not be a useful thing to try, they will never leave their heads and experience the benefits of bodystorming. Taking a ‘yes, and…’ attitude instead of the often-times more familiar ‘yes, but…’ approach ensures rapid prototyping or testing of ideas with the opportunity to throw out those that don’t work and maybe be surprised and delighted by what does.

7. Summarise insights and identify what could be followed up.

Bodystorming appeals as a process because it combines real-world experiences and observations with actual problems to be solved, in a way that takes into account the experiences of the users, and provides insight and ideas by acting out what happens.  It draws on, but doesn’t rely on, principles of improv, action methods, and psycho-drama – and while some exposure to these might be useful, it seems to me that anyone can do bodystorming with a bit of encouragement.

HT Harriet Wakelam and CPX Melbourne for introducing me to bodystorming.