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Recruit the First Follower

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How many times have you experienced a great learning or insight and returned to your workplace wanting to share it with everyone only to be met with a lukewarm response? This is a common concern we hear from those who attend our Journey Workshops…If only I could give my colleagues at home even a taste […]

Polish or Deflate the Elephant?

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In this week’s article we include a description of a challenge sent in by one of our readers along with my response. While this particular issue is around conflict in the workplace, the framing of question speaks to the opportunity we have as facilitators to invite groups to refine any unhealthy or unproductive process that […]

Polish or Deflate the Elephant?

Dear Steve… I am facilitating a great number of teams in my organization and what I am finding lately is that people are very harsh and come across very aggressive with me and with their managers. I facilitated a session last week, where the manager came under attack when he responded to an incorrect and […]

Five Ways to Facilitate Group Conversations

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Have you ever felt ‘stuck’ in a conversation with three or more people that just wasn’t going anywhere? People are droning on and on about this and that, leaving you bored and wishing you could just slip away? This is an all too familiar social situation – we’ve all been there and, chances are, we’re […]

The Coach (Intervention)

Intervention is as much an art as it is a science. Like improvising in music, there’s no one right way to do it but there are some helpful guidelines. Our working definition of Intervention is… Any interruption by the facilitator to further the goals of a group and the health of its process, using as light […]

Recognizing and Resolving Barriers to Collaboration

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Collaboration is key to achieving results in organizations. Yet cultural programming and the pounding mantra to compete from every sector of society often overshadows the possibility of collaboration. Thankfully today there seems to be a growing interest, along with a growing need to collaborate. In this article, we explore several societal norms that impede collaborative […]

Give Your Groups a LIFT

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This week’s article, Give Your Groups a LIFT is extracted from Barry Shapiro’s new book, Casting Call in the Theatre of Corporate America…the role of the extraordinary facilitator. The book serves as a practical guide to asses, measure and develop facilitators to insure that their extraordinary impact in the classroom translates to extraordinary outcomes at […]

Transmitting Self-Cooperation

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A couple of years ago, I attended a weekend workshop on the Alexander Technique. The Alexander Technique works with your body awareness to help identify and release bad habits of movement that you have built up over a lifetime of stress. This tool is especially useful for singers, musicians, actors, dancers or athletes to help […]