Category: facilitation

Listening and Acceptance as Core Facilitation Skills

I’m preparing for what might be a challenging facilitation gig this month involving a very complex domain, diverse perspectives, at least three languages and rooms where the tables are nailed to the floor. I actually love the first three things. The tables nailed to the floor asks for every bit of my creativity and ability to improvise with space, sound and time. So in preparation, I’m keeping my radar attuned to things floating in front of me. This is how I get inspired. It is like a magnetic field for ideas. Here is what came across the radar today, via a link from the Applied Improvisation Network‘s Facebook Page.

Lives In Progress: Listening And Acceptance: Improvising Our Way To Relationship With The Pre-Contemplative Person.

Acceptance of their offer, even if it is tinged with hostility or hoisted by layers of defensive projections about me and what I represent to them, is absolutely essential to engagement with the group. Acceptance of their offer is most often acceptance of their worldview, which most of us will freely share with others who listen without judgment. That is the hard part. To listen without imposing our will on another person even when it seems abundantly clear that their worldview can wind up killing them. Listening and acceptance of the offer of another person’s worldview are power tools in the improvisers toolkit, the builders of meaningful connection. Because why should anyone collaborate with me about a difficult, usually painful and conflict-inducing process of change if I fail to understand the way they see their story? How can I become a part of someone’s story – and no amount of intellectualizing or information-giving influences a person’s choices unless the new message and the messenger become part of his/her story – if I set myself apart from it?

The author, Jude Treder-Wolff. goes on to quote Daniel Pink, from his new book, To Sell is Human.

“The first principle of improvisation-hearing offers-hinges on attunement, leaving our own perspective to inhabit the perspective of another,” he writes. “And to master this aspect of improvisation, we must rethink our understanding of what it is to listen and what constitutes an offer.” Digging into the meaning of improvisation exercises designed to cultivate these skills, he concludes that “once we listen in this new, more intimate way, we begin hearing things we might have missed. And if we listen this way during our efforts to move others, we quickly realize that what seem outwardly like objections are often offers in disguise.” (p. 192)

Then, of course, the magnetic field continued to strengthen and I came across a couple of Facebook posts from the amazing Kat Koppet, who probably doesn’t know that I regularly open her book (Training to Imagine) to some random page and, with that magnetic field, find inspiration and knowledge. She posted a scan of a letter that Robert Lowe sent her which contains some amazing advice to us that resonates with this idea of listening and acceptance. With permission, here are the two pages of the letter.

KoppyKat.1KoppyKat.2

 

In my work with international development agencies, people are passionate about solving global problems, feeding the world, saving the planet. With this passion can come an almost blinding form of advocacy, to be heard, to be validated, that can cripple listening, idea creation and collaboration. We SO want to be right and solve the problem, but this can become the problem. There is so much value placed on data, on solutions that we forget to listen for context and meaning. So I’m going to think hard, or maybe better yet, open my mind to what possibilities I can weave into my next engagement that seek space for listening and acceptance as the ground for working really hard, well and with joy on tough, intractable problems.

Any advice to share?

 

Edit, just a few minutes later… I see this Tweet from Linda Stone:

attentionlove

A great example of facilitation…

IMG_3776…at a restaurant! From: Foodtography: Seattle Is Not Jumping on the NYC Train of Banning Cameras at the Table. The context is Brian Canlis, co-owner of Seattle’s iconic Canlis restaurant, talking about how to deal with disruptions. In this case, the disruption is people taking flash pictures of their food! Substitute “customer service” with “facilitation.” Think about how we handle disruptions when people are meeting and working together…

Has he ever told someone to put the camera down?

“Yes, if it intrudes on the table next to them having a good time? Absolutely, I’ll do something! But I’m not going to ban it! I’m gonna look at, how can I find a new way to make this guest really happy? So if their flash is upsetting a table next to them, I’m going to invite them back to the kitchen, invite them to the wine cellar. Do you want to take pictures down there, because it’s bright and beautiful. Offer to send them my photos because I take photos of all our food here, for the website.”

Brian is certain that excellent customer service can solve any problem and he thinks completely banning photography at the table is just lazy.

“It seems like such a short sided, ego driven, silly thing to do. You’re getting in the way of people having fun. Canlis is an altar to our guests. They’re the whole reason we’re here and the whole restaurant revolves around them. I think restaurants that are doing bans like that are altars to the chef. The guest is asked to come in and revolve around them.”

When we facilitate, we want to move the “action” forward to create the conditions for groups to accomplish their goals. A pile of rules may only constrain. A creative perspective on a challenge may open up whole new vistas of understanding and work. Invite — a terrific word — these new perspectives, rather than blocking perceived disruption. Nice example, Brian. Thanks!

Zoom and Re-Zoom for Facilitators

Last month I finally got a chance to use a facilitation activity called Zoom which I found on the Wilderdom’s Game resource page — a great resource!  I deeply appreciate that they put the “copyleft” designation on all their resources. THANKS!  As I learned and read facilitation ideas from other sites, I realized I should share some of my experiences as well. Here is the description from Wilderdom’s resource page (which also includes all instructions – I’ve attached a pdf copy at the bottom for taking to an event, but please DO visit their page!):

This game is based on the intriguing, wordless, picture books “Zoom” and “Re-Zoom” by Istvan Banyai which consist of 30 sequential “pictures within pictures”.  The Zoom narrative moves from a rooster to a ship to a city street to a desert island and outer space.  Zoom has been published in 18 countries. The Re-Zoom narrative moves from an Egyptian hieroglyphic to a film set to an elephant ride to a billboard to a train.

I’ve done similar activities, but I love the multicultural perspective of Istvan Banayi’s books, so now I’ve stocked up on multiple copies of both ZOOM and RE-ZOOM, and have on my to do list to break them down and put into protective pages. I left the last set with my colleagues at ICRISAT in Hyderabad. I am also keeping my eye out for used copies, because I like the idea of leaving the book pages behind for groups to use with OTHER groups they work with. Viral facilitation and collaboration!

We did the exercise with a large group of social scientists who work in different parts of the world. Most of their work is done in smaller teams, but there was a real need to connect as a whole team as well. It was very interesting to observe the exercise. First we started with the version where you can’t show your card to anyone else. The group didn’t make much progress finding their order. Imagine if we had tried the “no talking” version! With the “no show” round, I asked if they were ready to show and see if they got it. There were some totally confident and others totally sure they did not have it. So I asked them to put themselves in order (again without showing the cards) and then we’d check.  Uh uh, not even close.

Then they used visual clues to reorder the series. This is where a few individuals really went to work and the rest of the group stood back. It was an interesting shift in agency. When there was a higher degree of “not knowing,” more of the team participated in working the solution.

When we debriefed, I did notice a shyness to share some of the observations people gave me individually as the power dynamics in the group made some of these things harder to say. I try not to be the voice for others in the room, so I had to represent my observations as just that — my observations. But I need to think more critically how to handle this during the debrief.

Here are a few angles on our play together…

zoomcollage1

 

Resources from Wilderdom, copyleft – please share with attribution out of kindness!

mar ruiz: “No se puede moderar en una red sin límites “

Mar Ruiz of Spain has been posting a series of questions and answers she has cultivated with people who have been facilitating online for a while. I wanted to answer the question she posed, but I can’t seem to get a blog comment to stick, so I’ll do it here and hope the trackback works! From:mar ruiz: life & interests: Nancy White: “No se puede moderar en una red sin límites “. The gist of our conversation was the differences in facilitating in a network, vs bounded community context.

The blog post, in Spanish:

Nancy White: “No se puede moderar en una red sin límites “

Y esta es la respuesta de Nancy White, pionera en esto de dinamizar comunidades:

“Hay un número asombroso de las similitudes y diferencias, que me parece fascinante. Pero ya que la pregunta es sobre las diferencias, aquí están mis tres mejores!

1. Ahora se trata más de redes sin límites que de comunidades delimitadas, lo que cambia fundamentalmente lo que queremos decir por “construcción de la comunidad y la moderación.” No se puede moderar en una red sin límites. Puedes influir. Puedes estimular las conexiones de red. Puedes hacer lo que June Holley llama “network weaving  (“tejer en red”) – pero no se pueden gestionar las redes.

2. Las comunidades delimitadas deben tener mayor número de propuestas de valorque antes porque la gente está recibiendo una gran cantidad de lo que quieren y necesitan en las redes abiertas (es decir, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc). No quieren tener que entrar en algún otro lugar. Por lo tanto la integración de las actuales identidades digitales (y contraseñas) es más común, pero esto también hace que se rompan algunas de las distinciones de las comunidades anteriores. Se convierte todo en algo borroso.

3. Es más difícil entrar en conversaciones más profundas en el mundo en red, mientras que al mismo tiempo, tiene un alcance más amplio y potencialmente mayor diversidad y por ello mayor riqueza.”

La verdad es que leyendo esto, me he quedado con las ganas de saber…¿y cuáles son las similitudes?
Por otro lado entiendo que ambos necesitan de profesionales que lo dinamicen y procuren contenidos. Hace días leía en twitter que sea quien sea el Community o Social Media Manager, por favor, que sea un profesional:

“Los peligros de que tu primo (o “ese chavalito que parece que sabe”) se encargue del #socialmedia en tu empresa http://bit.ly/KnYxtF #comma vía @commaradas”

At the end, Mar asked about the similarities! Here is my answer, Mar: Both communities and networks give us access to the experience and resources of HUMAN CONNECTION. Thus they are both critically important. Learning how to work with the dynamics of these different forms is therefore valuable!

 

Edit: see this related post from Jessica Lipnack on the challenges of scaling collaboration!

The web makes it possible for, in effect, infinite numbers of people to collaborate. But how do you collaborate with infinite numbers?

You don’t. You can’t. Thus network thinkers are trying to solve this problem. INSITE, the European Union’s program on innovation, sustainability, and information technology, is including this issue as a worktrack in its Masters of Network symposium later this month in Venice.

Strategic Communities of Practice for The Nature Conservancy

strategicCopsI had the great pleasure of leading a webinar yesterday with The Nature Conservancy on Strategic Communities of Practice. We focused on gaining some shared sense of what we mean by “communities of practice,” a framework fo looking at them strategically, some of the basic roles involved in communities and a quick peek at evaluation options.

There was some lively interaction in the chat. Many of these folks work in parts of the world where web based online interaction is not so great, so a wonderful thread on mobile-device-supports for communities emerged. If you know of any great examples, please share. ( I just found this one with a quick search and also suggested looking at http://www.mobileactive.org. I think some of the Twitter chats could serve as a model for a mobile-based distributed conversation by a community as well! Here are some examples in education.)

In addition, the good folks at TNC said I could share the webinar recording. I’m not sure if you can bear 90 minutes of recording, but just in case, here is the link. I’ve put the slides below as well, but as usual, they don’t make a ton of sense without the narrative. Thanks to Olivia, Nicole and Gillian at TNC for being such fabulous hosts and webinar facilitators!

via Strategic Communities of Practice.