Change Management
How to Facilitate a Community River Clean-up (when you are not a facilitator)
In our 2023 year end blog, we look at how a leader without facilitation training can help a community do an important sustainability project. I admit it would be easier and likely more efficient, if you can get a facilitator to help you do this. But imagine, you are a leader who uses your skills…
When the Stakes Are High – Facilitating Through Important Decision Making
Today’s blog comes from a question that somebody asked us in our Gold Academy membership cohort: What are ways to facilitate groups when the stakes feel high? Let’s define what we mean by this question. When stakes are high, the group has a lot to lose if things are not resolved. Harm could occur to…
Uncovering Opportunities – A Facilitator’s Early Response to a Global Shutdown
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, some of us are finding lots of opportunities to offer our skills and services as process facilitators. And others are not. I want to acknowledge that both are true right now. And neither is better than the other. It just is. Nonetheless, I also want to emphasize that there are…
Celebrating Black Female Facilitators
In the U.S., February is African American history month. It began as a celebration of contributions by African Americans at a time when those contributions were not remotely recognized. This month is meant to be a tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity and oppression in achieving full citizenship in American…
How Facilitators Stop Power Imbalance, Dominance and Oppression
This week marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, November 11, 1918. WOW. I was in Canada for the last 2 weeks and we passed through a small village on Vancouver Island on this anniversary date. We passed by a beautiful gathering of veterans and citizens in a cemetery. People were…
The Facilitator Role: Shifting Harmful Situations to Healthy Ones
This is a story about a woman who changed everything. She took something that seemed impossible, and turned it into the most amazing project that a whole community got behind. (See her project here: www.washedashore.org) The model of this project could be used anywhere in the world. We, as facilitators can be agents to help…
Team Collaboration – Ten Simple Tools
One dictionary definition of the word “collaborate” is “to work jointly on an activity especially to produce or create something together”. I’ve been thinking lately of the recent nationalistic actions in the US and Britain as two prominent examples of collaboration efforts that failed for many reasons. It is easy to blame. Sometimes the set…
When You and the Group Are in the “Abyss”: What to Do About It
Otto Scharmer and his team have been exploring a model called Theory U for several decades. More and more I find myself drawn to it as a metaphor for the journey I go on with a group. The Theory U team speak of a great divide, a chasm which we must cross with a group…
Little or BIG Impact – Which do you want?
Everything is in place. Your client has chosen you as the facilitator because your style and experience appeal to them. Jointly, you have collaborated on the agenda and activities to use and the pre-work information participants will receive. Are you intentional about what your impact will be or is has it been left to chance?…
I’ve Been Electrified Into a New Level of Competency!
I got this idea to write a blog about a thrilling (electrifying!) insight I got about facilitator competency from a recent cycling class! The reason I wanted to write about the difference between the four stages of learning competency is the experience I had last week.I have been taking these spin (i.e., a term for…
