How often have you been asked, “What do Facilitators do?” This is an important question to be able to answer in a simple fashion. This is especially true when you’re being asked by a prospective client. And given that just about everyone could use help with their groups and work teams, nearly everyone is a [...]
Kick It Off Right
January 19, 2010 By 2 Comments
We all know the power of first impressions. Once we have an impression of someone or something, either positive or negative, we tend to believe our impressions. And for good or for ill, beliefs don’t change easy. Listen to this account submitted by one of our readers, Kim Stewart about a not so great kick [...]
Your Presence is Your Present to Your Group
January 14, 2010 By 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 [...]
Dethroning the God of Content
January 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Welcome to the New Year! I hope you had a great holiday. Something about this change in the calendar offers the opportunity to take a fresh look at the world and our lives. With that in mind, I’d like to take a fresh look at learning content for trainers and facilitators. It’s easy when we’re [...]
Ten Steps to Facilitating Major Life Change
December 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment
As 2009 comes to a close, it seems like a good time to review where we’ve been and where we might like to go next year. It’s a time to look at changes we might want to make. Also as group leaders we’re often engaged in helping our clients make some kind of change. Whether [...]
Celebrate
December 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment
As we move into Christmastime and the New Year, many of us reflect on the year gone by and the spirit of celebration is in the air. The act of celebrating naturally inspires a sense of abundance, blessing, gratitude and acceptance. So the celebrating can put us into a very positive, life-affirming frame of mind. [...]
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 [...]
See Your Group’s Potential
November 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Groups tend to evolve through a fairly predictable series of stages over time. A very popular model developed by Bruce Tuckman, calls these stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. I also particularly like author Scott Peck’s community building model which refers to these stages as: Pseudo- Community, Chaos, Emptiness, and True Community. In this week’s [...]
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 [...]
Recent Comments