Group Participation, Facilitator tools, meeting dynamics,
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…
Time – The Ultimate Asset in Meetings
Today’s blog is about a topic I have never written about but it is SO important, I do not know why it has taken me 75 blogs to get to it. It also is extremely difficult to give you a really good tool for what I want to convey to you. I don’t know of…
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…
5 Big Differences Between Training and Facilitation
Why this topic? The reason I’m addressing the topic is that many of us think that training done interactively is very close to or even the same as facilitation. It can feel like that but there is an essential and critical difference. This blog will cover those differences, talk about the benefits and when to…
Are Your Phone Meeting Participants Lost in the Wilderness?
Sometimes, ok let’s be real, almost always, having to be the one on the phone call when everyone else is in the F2F (Face to Face) meeting, is challenging , boring and even a waste of your time ! This blog talks about how to change that if you are frequently running integrated meetings where…
Want to open the door of dialogue? Don’t use closed questions!
Someone asked me the other day in the ToP facilitation skills training: “Aren’t closed questions sometimes more efficient and effective?” The answer to that question, is yes! Often closed questions get you the speedy response YOU want. The real question is what is the impact of a closed question on the person you are talking…
Warning – Your Approach Is NOT Working!
Sometimes a situation gets SO bad, you just want to opt out of it. This applies to almost anything in life but what I am talking about today – a need for radical change – is about working with groups you lead. Given the current situation in the USA, some feel like opting out now…
The 5 Things That Mess Organizations Up
We looked back at archives from the last 22 years of doing strategic planning for different groups. Whew! The results are quite startling. In each case they came up with the same basic five things that really stop organizations or teams in their tracks (regardless of sector, type of team or organization; size, mission, length…
The Power of Presence and the Theory U Framework
In our recent preconference co-facilitated with Jackie Chang, at IAF Asia in Taiwan September 2016, we introduced five facilitation frameworks which use the concept of presencing implicitly or explicitly as part of their value system. In this blog, we share the one that most explicitly incorporates it. It is called Theory U. But first let’s…
A Must Have for Global Teams: >1 Virtual Facilitation Platform
More and more, I am getting requests for facilitation training that happens globally. Or, I participate in virtual team meetings with participants from 6-20 different locations, multiple time zones and cultures. Sometimes we are participating live (i.e, synchronously) or on our own time (i.e., asynchronously). This blog is for you if you have had any…
