Stage 3: Explorer

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…

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The Facilitator: Sage on the Stage or Guide on the Side?

In one of our recent public courses to teach facilitation skills, someone used the phrase “sage on the stage or guide on the side”. I think they were having an aha moment about the job of the process facilitator. It is not to be a lecturer or the wise knowledgeable expert, but a person who…

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Facilitation Methods vs. Tools: Making Your Facilitator Journey Easier

Today, at risk of repeating ourselves, we are going to talk a bit more about your journey as a facilitator. It is an amazing journey, a “hero’s journey” (mythologist and author Joseph Campbell came up with this term) of sorts. Each one of us will have a different journey, depending especially if we start it…

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Energizer: Positively Connecting the Group

True to my word, we are keeping the blog very short and sweet for the next little while. Here is a quick energizer I’ve used in various formats for many years. I learned and adapted it from my Portland colleague Paula Manley! It is also based on the “flow” concept of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It works…

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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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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…

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The 7 Stage Facilitation Journey – Which One Are You On?

This blog is for you! Whether you are just figuring out what process facilitation is or whether you have reached the pinnacle of your career as a professional facilitator. It is for you if you occasionally lead team meetings in your own organization and want more OR if you have your own business as a…

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