As we move into the end of yet another year together, I’ve been thinking about what I could share that would help to clarify and simplify our work in the world of group leadership and facilitation. It occurred to me that as life long learners, our field can get pretty complicated with all the models, [...]
Is Charismatic Leadership Good for Groups?
August 9, 2011 By 4 Comments
This week’s article, Is Charismatic Leadership Good for Groups?, was inspired by a dialogue with my friend, Lynn Goldhammer, a Lieutenant Commander and Quality Performance Consultant in the Coast Guard. Our discussion got me questioning the value of strong, forceful, and charismatic leadership in the world of facilitation and training. It occurs to me as [...]
Awakening Service as a Facilitator
May 17, 2011 By 2 Comments
I once attended a seminar in Boulder with noted author, psychiatrist, and professor, Roger Walsh on Awakening Service (Karma Yoga) and Ethics. I particularly enjoyed a simple eight-step process one can use to approach life in a more awakened fashion. It occurs to me that this practice would be ideal for facilitators preparing to approach [...]
Set and Setting
December 20, 2010 By 2 Comments
The continue with the holiday theme, I thought I’d send you something to stimulate your thinking around how you approach setting the ambiance for your gatherings. In the 1960′s, Timothy Leary coined the term “set and setting” referring to a context that influenced the outcomes of psychoactive and psychedelic drug experiments on his subjects. “Set” [...]
Life by Powerpoint
November 23, 2010 By 4 Comments
This past week I presented a short talk in Madison on a subject I wrote about in this journal a couple of weeks ago entitle, The Dawn of the Exformation Age. The topic for my presentation was entitled, Exformation: the Missing Link in Communication…Using context to build communication capacity. While I of course like the [...]
Be Your Material
September 8, 2010 By 3 Comments
As trainers and facilitators, it’s easy to get overly concerned about what we’re presenting to our groups. But research, as well as our direct experience shows that the greatest impact of our communication occurs at the non-verbal level. That is our body language, emotional state, and subconscious intentions are picked up through visceral channels developed [...]
Five Ways to Facilitate Group Conversations
December 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment
With Christmas just around the corner, many of us will be attending parties, family and social events. And while we think of facilitation as a skill set used only by thusly initiated group change agents, the opportunity to use at least the basic elements of this skill set is available during ordinary social interactions. Consider [...]
Facilitating Ego Surrender
December 3, 2009 By 1 Comment
I was talking with my friend Darin Harris this morning about the impact facilitation has on our personal and spiritual development. As we were talking, a metaphor came to mind about the facilitator being an instrument. While I’ve used the instrument metaphor before, today it showed me something deeper than in the past. In this [...]
6 Tips For Speakers to Better Engage Their Audience
November 5, 2009 By 6 Comments
Most of the people you address as a speaker have been conditioned to sit and listen to you as passive observers. This role they take does not usually serve their highest and best good. Perhaps more importantly, the role you take as a dynamic, high energy presenter may at times get in the way of [...]
Are Speakers Serving Their Audience?
October 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I’m contemplating offering a teleclass for speakers to help them to shift from charismatic to more catalytic. That is, using some facilitation skills to engage the audience with the speaker and with each other. Do you think there might be an interest in this among the speaker community? I’ve got some basic info on an [...]
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