Creativity

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…

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Four Steps to Elegant Meeting Design

Recently I have been thinking a lot about designing. For months, I’ve been designing a three-part series for people who want to learn the essence of elegant meeting facilitation. There is nothing more satisfying to me than designing an agenda, or a curriculum. It is a creative and logical process that uses every once (gram!)…

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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?…

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Are Learning Styles Really Going Out of Style?

It all started when I read an article re-posted by my Australian colleague that was titled, “The concept of different “learning styles” is one of the greatest neuroscience myths”. Like many of my colleagues, I have been a proponent of using a variety of participation formats in all my meetings. And, I have no doubt…

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People Dozing in Your Meetings? 7 Ways to Get Their Attention

There are some interesting statistics about meetings that I’ve been coming across while creating two new simpler levels of Meetings that Rock online course that are going to be launched in the next few months. For example, one statistic said that 91% admit to daydreaming in meetings and 39% admit to dozing off! Here is…

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If you love your client, you will…

Recently, I’ve been realizing that I really love my clients. How do I show this? There may be a couple of things that you are already doing but I’ve decided I want to be more conscious about what I do and will share that with you now. I’m going to talk about the top 5…

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Ten Tried-and-True Team Building and Trust Building Techniques

The point of having a good synergistic team is so that when times are tough, the team really pulls together and are able to pull themselves out of tremendous challenging situations. Other reasons for having team and trust building activities as a regular part of your meetings and or organizational culture initiatives include: – People…

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Recipes for Energizing Your Team Celebrations!

Who doesn’t love to celebrate?! And it’s an important step for our teams and groups as well. I want share with you three meaningful “games” for three different scenarios. These activities are related to celebrating an aspect of the team or organization. I will include the learning theory behind the game, the process for delivering…

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How to Find Out if You Have Enough Tools

At every course I teach, I hear participants say, “I want more tools for my facilitation toolkit or meetings.” Even if you are an experienced facilitator, you may be surprised at what you learn in this article. Do you know what type of tools you need? Do you have enough of each type of tool?…

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The Motherload (Ultimate) of All Interview Techniques

Last week, I co-faciltiated a large group event where I did not use any of my usual tools. We designed something that was completely different from anything I’ve done in my last 20 years. It was so much fun. I think it is a good practice every once in a while to challenge yourself to try different…

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