Category: facilitation

Chris Corrigan; Learning from Failure

Don't be chicken(Yes, I’m  popping my head up after a month of  heavy work and little inclination to stay at my computer as summer finally arrived in Seattle.)

I have long been a fan of learning from failures. In college, a friend of mine told me the day before I graduated, “I never met anyone who could fall down and get up so quickly.” When I picked up on Dave Snowden’s “safe-fail” experiment language I said YEAH!

Last month I happened upon a post by Chris Corrigan on just this topic. It was juicy and relevant. I work with many professionals for whom the risk of looking anything less than competent is not an option. This is a barrier. Chris sees this too.

The pressure that comes from perfection and maintaining a failsafe environment is a killer, and while we all demand high levels of accountability and performance, working in a climate where we can fail-safe provides more opportunity to find creative ways forward that are hitherto unknown.

My first line strategy is to role model. When I’m uncertain, I talk about it. When I am not sure something will work, I position it as an experiment. Just a shift in language can change the environment for risk.

Chris gets at this more clearly.

1. Be in a learning journey with others. While you are working with people, see your work as a learning journey and share questions and inquiries with your team.

2. Take time to reflect on successes and failures together. We are having a lovely conversation on the OSLIST, the Open Space facilitator’s listserv about failures right now and it’s refreshing to hear stories about where things went sideways. What we learn from those experiences is deep, both about ourselves and our work.

3. Be helpful. When a colleague takes a risk and fail, be prepared to setp up to help them sort it out. My best boss ever gave us three rules to operate under: be loyal to your team, make mistakes and make sure he was the first to know when you made one. There was almost nothing we could do that he couldn’t take care of, and we always had him at our backs, as long as he was the first to hear about it. Providing that support to team members is fantastic.

4. Apologize together. Show a united front, and help make amends when things go wrong. This is a take on one of the improv principles of making your partner look good. It is also about taking responsibility and having many minds and hearts to put to work to correct what needs correcting. This one matters when your mistake costs lives. Would be nice to see this more in the corporate world.

5. Build on the offer. Another improv principle, this one invites us to see what we just went through as an offer to move on to the next thing.

6. Don’t be hard on yourself. You can’t get out of a pickle if you are berating yourself up for being there. I find The Work of Byron Katie to be very very helpful in helping become clear about what to do next and to loosen up on the story that just because I failed, therefore I am a failure.

I like that last one. I am on part work/part vacation this week. I will have to practice that! Go for it. Don’t be chicken.

(Photo is mine from the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of California, Davis)

Acceptance in the Flow of Facilitation

Via a tweet today from @HHG I came across a blog post from author Susan Piver on Buddhism and Relationships: 3 Stages to Heal a Broken Heart. I was taken by the post  not because I am currently experiencing a broken heart, but because her three bits of advice seemed incredibly relevant to the practice of facilitation.

It is so easy to get blocked by our own feelings of wanting to both succeed in facilitating and to be accepted or “do right” as the facilitator. It is easy to get caught in the emotions of others in moments of heat and fire. It is easy to beat oneself up – and that rarely makes us better facilitators!

Open but still largely unread on my desk is the book, “Standing in the Fire: Leading high-heat meetings with clarity, calm and courage,” by Larry Dressler.  It too, is about how we accept what is happening around us as a way of staying usefully engaged, rather than consumed and frankly, burnt out and hurt.

I am deeply interested in these practices as I feel I have finally begin a phase in life where I am breaking free of  old “please the people” habits and finding more comfortable ways of holding disagreement, conflict and dissent. I want to find practices that bring in critical thinking, use the heat instead of pouring on water at the first spark.

Here is a bit from Susan’s post. I have edited out the specific material about heartbreak and out of respect for her full text. So click in and read the rest.

I have three suggestions for figuring out how to accomplish this very mysterious feat of feeling without attaching a narrative as to what it might, could, should, or dare not mean.

1. Develop a non-judgmental relationship with your mind. …When you’re under the sway of strong emotion, you come into contact with a state of being that I like to call Insane Obsessive Thinking. If only, I should have, what I really meant was, how dare she, I am a loser, you are a loser, love stinks… .Without addressing a mind run amuck, the chances of skillfully working with your feelings is kind of limited. So I suggest introducing a note of discipline to your everyday life, beginning today. Spend some time everyday, not squashing your icky thoughts and promoting your good ones, but simply watching your mind in a relaxed way—no matter how wild it gets, you can remain steady. This is what meditation teaches you how to do…

2. Stabilize your heart in the open state. When you regain some sense of dominion in your own mind, naturally your attention will turn toward that raging, screaming, 24/7 searing thing in the middle of your chest—your heart…

3. View your whole life as path. With a sense of clarity in your mind and stability in your heart, the third stage becomes something altogether different. There is no practice associated with this one. With mental clarity and emotional stability comes the ability to see your entire life as path. You have created the foundation for an entirely authentic life, one full of joy and sorrow, meetings and partings, giving and taking, and deep meaning. ..

via Buddhism and Relationships: 3 Stages to Heal a Broken Heart | Susan Piver.

How do you stand in the fire? Accept and move forward as a facilitator?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flavor32/248040902/

Debrief: the role of visuals in online community management

Today I was a guest of the Community Roundtable, sharing some ideas about the role of visuals in online community facilitation and management. This is the first of two such gatherings this month. The second will be in the context of online learning for the Knowplace event next week. Screenshot of shared drawing

We used my free Vyew.com space plus Slideshare.net (since my visual slides created a humongous file size and I was too lazy to break it apart.) I like Vyew’s white board, simple set up and the ability to easy make every participant a collaborator with access to the white board tools.

I offered a bit of context on the general role of visuals in group processes, then some stories about translating those ideas online. After that, the fun really began as we drew together. First I asked them to draw without talking. Then there is a little tool in Vyew where you can make your cursor invisible, so people could not tell WHO was drawing what.  I asked them to activate that feature. Then we debriefed. The comments ranged from feeling free to collaborate on an image, to struggling a bit with the tools, to drawing off by oneself in a corner. Some liked the anonymity, some didn’t. Then we talked about how such exercises could be used, particularly in a work context where this might otherwise be seen as frivolous.

Afterwards my hosts, Rachel Happe and Jim Storer were kind to offer (and allow me to share) their feedback. I appreciate that in return for my time in being their guest.

Rachel’s Notes:

I thought it went very well given that most of the people on the call were completely new to the idea of drawing online or together.

The different chairs as an opener gave people a framework/context that they could relate to in order to get started.

I thought the slides plus the playing were a bit hard to fit into an hour but given that I was surprised how active people were – most people seemed to jump right in and unlike the phone, people didn’t have to take turns so everyone – even if they were not collaborating per se – could participate right away which is often really hard to get them to do verbally even if you do call on them and give them time on the call.

Intentionally cutting off talking was also interesting – kind of an odd sensation since I rely so much on getting explicit confirmation from people. Really interesting to watch how collaboration unfolds without voice.

It’s definitely given me some things to think about for our own use.

Jim – other thoughts?

Rachel

Jim’s Notes

Great session! I was trying to observe and participate, which was a bit challenging. I eventually just gave in and participated. Gave me a lot of ideas on how to introduce people to one another. Since using tools like that feels a little silly, it breaks down conventions and barriers pretty quickly. I loved to see how people co-created with each other.

Too much to digest so soon… I wish more members had joined in. They would have enjoyed it.

Thanks again Nancy. I just wished I’d had a chance to tell everyone how I started following you back in 2002 (I think) when I first found your Online Community Toolkit. 🙂

I’ll return with the debrief after the Knowplace event on the 23rd!

Here are the slides:

Thinking About Visuals in Online Communities and FacilitationView more presentations from Nancy White.

A Virtual Conversation Overheard

Via the folks at TrainingZone.co.uk I saw a link to this great video. As someone who often challenges people about the false dichotomy of “real” and “virtual” or “online,” this video gave me a good chuckle. But beyond the chuckle, it is a good reminder of the assumptions we carry into both what we design and how we choose to experience in an interaction with others, be it face to face or online.

What assumptions are you carrying?

What does it mean to facilitate an online meeting?

The topic and practice of facilitating online meetings and webinars is cropping up all around my work and play life. People are asking a) when to use online meetings and b) how do to them – WELL! I am in the midst of preparing some resource materials, so I’d like to ask for your favorite resources. And to kick it off, here is a little three minute introduction Chahira Nouira of UN University in Bonn and I made this morning. We had tried Wetoku but the images weren’t so great, so we reverted to Skype and my Flip Camera. Keep it simple!

YouTube – What does it mean to facilitate an online meeting?.

Don’t forget, please share your best online meeting facilitation tips!