Your Presence is Your Present to Your Group
January 14, 2010 by davissm · 2 Comments
I’m in beautiful downtown Madison, Wisconsin this week delivering our increasingly popular Journey of Facilitation and Collaboration (JOFC) workshop. It’s a tad bit nippy here, to say the least, so it’s really easy to working inside all day. We have a wonderfully committed and talented group of facilitators and we look forward to a great week of learning and discovery with them. Several attendees are MFJ readers and it’s a pleasure getting to know them in person! Our next workshop is scheduled for this coming June and we already have ten people on our waiting list ready to sign up. If you are interested, we’ll be accepting June registrations on the site next week. One of the most important self-facilitative skills we focus on during this workshop, and the hallmark of an advanced facilitator, is the ability to be truly “present” in our groups.
In this week’s article, Your Presence is Your Present to Your Group we explore what I mean by being present, why it’s important to facilitators and group leaders, and some tips to practice this skill with your groups. I also developed a short seven-minute video related to this subject called, How to Stay Present as a Group Leader. View it below.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) research tells us that we misinterpret others’ emotions almost 90% of the time. I fully believe from my observations over the last 30 years that one reason this is true is that people are not present in the moment, alert and aware. So leaders miss so many of the cues that could guide them to more effective relationships, communication and results.
Thanks for your lesson on breathing! Breathing is EQ’s number one tool precisely because it brings us to the present and shifts the chemicals/emotions in the body. We are much more available when grounded and present.
I appreciate how accessible and practical you made this, and how you connected it to facilitation. My work focuses on integrating spiritual practices and principles into facilitation and consulting with organizations (http://spiritofinstitutions.blogspot.com). I found you through your article in the Neuland email newsletter, which I also thought was great. Thank you!