Tag: facilitation

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Engagement

More than just-for-fun: how playing leads to better understanding

It’s true:
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a lifetime of conversation.”  [attributed to Plato]

This was confirmed in feedback from a group of professionals for whom I recently had the privilege of providing a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshop.

This special session was designed to bring a small group of department managers and supervisors together, who work in the office and/or remotely, to connect and better understand each other in a safe, engaging way.

Verbatim comments included:

“It got me to think internally about my role and growth but also add an extra value and appreciation for my team, their roles, and talents.”

“It helped to connect with co-workers and see how they thought. To see them interact with one another and think alike was very positive.”

“Today’s session helped me experience the team’s unity. We all had different ideas, thoughts, but we were all joined in a single purpose and this is to serve our community.”

As a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator, I find it gratifying to witness the group’s progress from their initial reactions about playing with LEGO® bricks at work -ranging from skepticism to amusement – to their full immersion in the process of shared understanding and unexpected joy in the process.

[Photos by Sybil F. Stershic]

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Where to go when you need emotional first aid

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

How do we cope when we’re bombarded with crisis after crisis? Weather-related disasters, hate crimes, political and economic struggles, rampant mistrust and distrust, etc.

If you’re looking to understand how we can help ourselves and each other get through difficult times, I recommend the free online library of Global Facilitators Serving Communities (GFSC), a volunteer facilitator network providing materials, methods, and mentoring to help communities in crisis.

GFSC’s Library contains articles and guides that cover psychosocial crisis management or, more simply, “emotional first aid” topics for individuals, facilitators, and leaders, including:

  • managing grief, anxiety and stress

  • emotional recovery

  • building resilience

  • communicating, leading in crisis situations

  • caring for caregivers

GFSC’s Library materials includes insights and perspectives from different countries and cultures, with many articles available in English and Spanish.

I invite you to explore this online resource and check out one of its most popular articles: A Light in This Dark Valley Guide-A Guide for Emotional Recovery: “Fifty Things You Can Do When There is Nothing Else to Do” by Gilbert Brenson-Lazan and Maria Mercedes Sarmiento Diaz.

This is just one of many helpful articles available for individual and community development.

I also invite you to share GFSC’s Library with others you know who may be in need of emotional first aid.

[Image credit: Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay]

Categories
Engagement

A Powerful Way to Strengthen Team Culture

In today’s remote and hybrid work environments, how do you maintain connection and camaraderie among employees? How do you strengthen team culture and reinforce the message “We’re all in this together?”

One of the best ways I found to do this is to bring people together in-person, in small groups of 6-10, to safely explore and share their experiences as team members in an immersive and impactful way. As a facilitator, I’ve witnessed the power of such an experience that builds better understanding among employees using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

Unlike the traditional approach of employees sitting around a table listening to a few colleagues while someone takes notes on a flipchart, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® enables 100% participant engagement and creative articulation of ideas. It engages small groups in individual and collective discovery as they build and share models using special LEGO bricks. And in its own unique way, it answers the question:

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?” (quote attributed to Graham Wallis and E.M. Forster)

What’s most gratifying is how participants are astonished by and appreciative of this shared experience that enables them to re-energize their feelings about work in a focused and fun way.

I love the following quotes which help illustrate the workplace benefits of a facilitated LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® session:

Better understanding and alignment among team members

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a lifetime of conversation.” Attributed to Plato

“Leaping into the unknown when done alongside others causes the solid ground of trust to materialize beneath our feet.”  Daniel Coyle, author of The Culture Code

Better collaboration and innovation

“Remote work makes it all too easy to default to ‘nothing but business’ mode. But genuine interaction, playfulness, and fun are important for collaboration and innovative thinking. You can always tell when teams are joyful in their work: The quality of the work is better.” Jenn Maer, former Design Director IDEO

“As well as providing much-needed stress relief … play can end up being counterintuitively, very productive. We can make interesting, new connections between ideas when we allow ourselves to loosen up from our regular goal-driven, laser-focused, instrumental approach.” Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller, Boston Consulting Group

Reinforced employee value and empowerment

“Fun is an exhale that people experience when they’re seen, valued, and empowered … we have to recognize that fun is the expression of lots of other important foundational investments in our team that enable people to show up whole, human, and valued.” Amber Naslund, LinkedIn Enterprise Sales Leader

“Shared understanding is what empowers us more than anything.” Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut

In our post-pandemic “next normal” world, employees need to re-connect in a memorable and meaningful way. Let me know when you’re ready to make this happen with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

You’ll be amazed at how well it plays out for you and your team.

[Image credit:  Adithya Rajeev from Pixabay]
Categories
Engagement

A New, Painful Perspective

Feeling overwhelmed by work responsibilities? I was until …

I got perspective. And it hit me hard.

This awakening occurred after I participated in an online discussion with a core group of indefatigable volunteer members of Global Facilitators Serving Communities (GFSC) and several Ukrainian facilitators/consultants. It’s purpose was to better understand the challenges they face and how we might help each other. The meeting took place as part of a series of supporting discussions that followed up GFSC’s online workshop, “Crisis > Change > Choice – Building Personal & Community Resilience,”  held for Ukrainian facilitators.

Professional and personal crises

Stories were shared of their frustrations in finding work opportunities in foreign countries as displaced professionals where they’re viewed as refugees. I find it difficult to imagine their experiences:

  • escaping the trauma of war while continuing to worry about family and friends who remain in the Ukraine
  • adapting to different cultures, languages, business customs
  • uncertain of how long they’ll stay and when/if they can return home
  • struggling to be respected as professionals; as one participant commented, “I’m dealing with who I was then vs. who I am now.”

Their stories reflected amazing resilience. Nonetheless, I can’t imagine not helping them.

What can I/we do?

One of the ideas that emerged from our discussion – one I’m excited to engage in – involves reaching out to colleagues in selective professional and personal networks to make helpful connections.

Even though I’m still overwhelmed by work, I now have a different perspective given what I learned from my peers in the Ukraine. As the saying goes “It’s all relative” … and it’s worth helping where we can.

If you’re interested and want to learn more, please email info@globalfacilitators.org.

[Image by stokpic from Pixabay]
Categories
Engagement

I Don’t Need to Have the Answers

… as long as I have the right questions.

That’s one of my most important tasks as a facilitator: to carefully select the “right” questions. These are thoughtful questions that engage all participants in purposeful discussion leading to outcomes such as resolving a problem, getting everyone on the same page, setting strategic priorities, identifying resources and next steps, etc.

“Most facilitators spend considerable time looking for and thinking about a question for a particular situation with a particular group of people.” Dorothy Strachan, facilitator and author of Making Questions Work. 

That’s why I put much effort and energy into building a toolkit of engaging and focused questions – collecting them, adapting them, and coming up with new ones. It’s one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of my work.

My clients are smart 

I learned that the groups I work with have the answers – they just don’t know it. My role is to come up with the best questions and guide the process that enables clients to uncover the answers they need to get unstuck and move forward.

Sounds simple, but it’s not. I feel a tremendous amount of pressure to come up with the most appropriate questions for each group. Given the answers are unknown until participants ponder the questions, their answers cannot be presumed or predicted in advance. So the stakes are incredibly high in choosing the right questions and creating a psychologically safe space in which to pose questions that:

  • frame the issue(s)
  • provoke thought
  • provide focus and clarity
  • prompt creative thinking
  • foster idea-exchange and development
  • encourage the sharing of relevant experiences that help people learn from each other.

Coming together to address carefully chosen engaging questions, reflecting on them, building on one another’s responses, and reaching resolution is most important for the participants … and most satisfying  for the facilitator.

“I asked, ‘What would you like me to do when you feel stuck?’
She said, ‘Do what you do best. Ask questions. Help me find an answer.'” Peter Drucker

[Image credit: Pete Linforth from Pixabay]
Categories
Engagement

Volunteers Get to the Heart of the Matter

Q: How would you facilitate a meeting-of-the-minds between two competitive nonprofits?

A: Very carefully.

That was my challenge when I was asked to facilitate a special meeting of two organizations striving to enhance their impact in their community: one was a local affiliate of an established nonprofit and the other was a grass-roots start-up. Both groups were dedicated to helping people with cancer.

Concerned with competing for limited donor and volunteer resources, the established nonprofit felt threatened and candidly admitted they wanted the new organization to just “go away.” Fortunately, they accepted the new group’s invitation to sit down together and explore how they could co-exist to serve the community.

Focusing on what matters

I remember my feelings of trepidation as I prepared for the joint meeting – I was a facilitator, not a peace-keeper! But my fears dissolved after interviewing several volunteers from each organization. Their message was clear and consistent: “We don’t care who we work for as volunteers, we just want to eradicate cancer. So find a way to work out your differences.“

These volunteers provided the critical reinforcement and reminder both nonprofits needed to hear: purpose supersedes politics. It also proved to be the perfect framework for a dynamic and fruitful dialogue.

I’m happy to share both organizations took the volunteers’ message to heart as they continue to successfully co-exist and collaborate in their efforts to help people with cancer.

[Image by Lou Kelly from Pixabay]
Categories
Engagement Training & Development

“Hands down, face-to-face is the best” (pun intentional)

Confession: I have as much fun talking about LEGO® bricks as I do working with them.

I actually use these colorful plastic building blocks in team development as a Certified Facilitator in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) – a novel approach that enables participants to “think with their hands and listen with their eyes.”

I had a special opportunity to share why I find this hands-on method so powerful with fellow LSP facilitator, Peter Tonge, host of “LSP – Face-to-Face,” a podcast produced primarily for the global LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator community. Peter is a member of the Brickstorming team whose founder, the brilliant Kristen Klassen, trained me in LSP.

In our conversation we discuss some of my favorite early participant LSP models (shown here in this post) to illustrate the power of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in people’s hands. I’m amazed how deeply participants engage in individual and collective discovery as they create and share their models with each other. That’s why this hands-on approach must be held in-person — LSP’s potent immersive experience cannot be duplicated in a virtual setting.

One of my takeaways from our discussion was this insightful quote from Peter, “The [LSP] Method doesn’t require it to be complicated. The Method requires it to be thoughtful.” This quote ties in with why I cite the single grey brick as one of my favorites. Take a listen to learn more, including what the models included in this post mean.

A special thank you to Peter for allowing me to post our conversation here.

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

What I Enjoy about My “Work” as a Facilitator

How many people do you know who truly love what they do? Well, you can count me as one of them.

Combining multiple roles of “catalyst, conductor, and coach,” my work as a facilitator is complex, challenging, and gratifying. Projects may appear to be similar, yet each facilitated session is unique.

I enjoy my work on two parallel levels.

Working with people to ensure a meaningful experience:

  • helping clients create the appropriate space (i.e., opportunity) for groups of employees, customers, partners, volunteers, board members, and other stakeholders to purposefully be together
  • developing and applying the appropriate questions and flow that safely enable individual and collective discovery, shared understanding, focused discussion, problem-solving, planning, ideation, etc.
  • sharing outcomes and observed insights with clients + keeping in touch with them about their progress.

Working on myself for ongoing professional and personal development:

When it comes to my work, I’m fortunate to enjoy both what I do and how I do it.

“People don’t choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.” John Dos Passos

[Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay]
Categories
Engagement

What I’ve Learned During the Pandemic: A Facilitator’s Perspective

My most surprising discovery during the pandemic is the extraordinary sense of connection I feel with business colleagues around the globe, and it’s stronger than ever.

I’ve participated in numerous Zoom meetings the past five months with two international groups I’m part of: the all-volunteer Global Facilitators Serving Communities and the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Certified Facilitators community. I’m blown away by our sharing parallel experiences each time we meet online.

Regardless of geography or culture, we’re all grappling with similar concerns and emotions:

  • worrying about the health and welfare of our families, friends, neighbors, and communities
  • social distancing in lieu of socializing as we used to know it, especially missing in-person handshakes and hugs
  • the sudden shift to working virtually (even among those of us who have worked from home for many years) with evaporating boundaries between work and home
  • figuring out how and when we’ll be able to sustain our work and livelihoods
  • a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows while acknowledging it’s OK to not feel OK.

Each one of us is dealing with fatigue from being “hyper-engaged digitally, yet highly stressed emotionally,” according to HR industry analyst Josh Bersin. And while we have different ways of coping, I find comfort in knowing I’m not alone in this.

What hit home for me is how much I’ve come to value the strength of our connections. Even greater than being members in a professional community is our human bond in a global community.

[Image credit: photo by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay]

 

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Customer service Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Building Connections and Engagement in “Smart Women Conversations”

Connecting and engaging people in the workplace with LEGO® … just one of many fascinating topics shared in my video discussion with Smart Women Conversations’ host Yvonne DiVita, respected blogger, serial entrepreneur, and my former publisher who remains a dear friend.

Yvonne launched Smart Women Conversations to “inform, educate, create laughter and share stories of reinvention” as part of her passion to “inspire and educate smart, talented women eager for business success today.”

I’m honored and humbled to be among the impressive women interviewed in this special series and invite you to read Yvonne’s introduction or just watch and listen to our conversation below.

To learn more, please visit Nurturing Big Ideas and check out these other Smart Women Conversations.