Facilitator Development
What About Facilitation Makes a Good Leader?
In our Technology of Participation courses, we always start out talking about styles of leadership. There are hierarchical styles and facilitation styles. Neither one is better than the other but in my profession of facilitation, we are obviously focused on the facilitative leader framework. In this blog we’ll talk about some of the key ways…
How to Unplug & Recharge – Facilitator Self Care Practices
A colleague recently shared an article with me about creating “white space” in your life. The article was about intentionally scheduling “do nothing” days (posted in resources section below). Thanks to Lyn Wong in Singapore for sending me this. The reason I think this is important to pay attention to as facilitators and leaders is…
Masterful Facilitation Under Any Circumstances Using 4 Levels of Connection
Today I woke up thinking a lot about connection. If you aren’t connected, you cannot facilitate. As facilitators of group process, we need to be connected at so many levels. It is our lifeline in times of trial and tribulation. Connection allows us to be fully present to whatever arises in the group. It requires…
Decision Making Authority: When You Have It and When You Don’t
If you search on the phrase “ladder of decision making” on the internet, you find some great graphics. The graphic overview handout we provide you today (free download link is below) is only one version. You can find ones that apply to schools, citizen involvement, leaders in a corporate setting and so on. Our version…
We Are a Community! Keys to Thriving as a Facilitator
Today, I’m going to blog about community. I’ve been surrounded by community for the last few weeks. It has come up in conversations I’ve had with colleagues. Even in the course we taught last week, there was a sense that the group needed to create a community of facilitators to practice with and share lessons…
Seven Facilitator Tips to Make Your Training MUCH More Engaging
You have your training plan ready and you realize you want it to be more engaging. Typical training is about passing on learning and content, in small or large blocks. It provides theory, information, and ideally activities to help retain the information. But the emphasis is on a hierarchical model where the trainer is the…
Facilitating When Senior Leaders Are in the Meeting
We’ve all been in meetings where our direct boss is attending or there are very senior leaders in the room. That’s a real facilitator dilemma. You the facilitator should have full control of the group, but you may not feel you can do this with senior leaders in the room. This is a common question…
Finding the Silver Lining… for that Facilitated Event Gone Wrong!
What do you do when you have a facilitated an event that has gone badly? It might just be one moment in the whole event that you keep dwelling on after the fact. You realize you made a mistake. And you don’t exactly know what you could’ve done differently. This blog is about many stories…
Becoming a ToP Facilitation Trainer and Other Questions About ToP Methods
Recently we ran a Technology of Participation (ToP) training for a school district. It was really wonderful to work with principals, consultants and department staff together on an issue of importance to them. We were asked a few questions about Technology of Participation training. This blog answers a few general questions they asked plus tells…
Finding Your Passion – Two Intuitive Tools to Launch Your Annual Plan
This blog will focus on two intuitive tools to assist you in thinking about your big picture planning for this year. These are great tools to use with yourself, coaching others, and facilitating any groups who would benefit from having a clear vision and purpose. The first is a brand new one that our son,…
