Facilitation Stories

In this episode Helene talks to Paul Brand, Director of Risk Solutions and part of the IAF England and Wales Leadership Team, Board member and conference team member. They talk about  The IAF England and Wales facilitators and friends Facilitate 2024 Conference (April 26th & 27th 2024) and what it is all about. Who is on the organising team and what Paul's role has been What is different from last year's conference What kinds of sessions we can expect What he is looking forward to A bit about the participants some of whom are coming from outsde the UK How the IAF England and Wales conferences have grown over the years and what makes them successful "it is a bit like a buffet and having taste of this and a taste of that." "what really makes me happy about the whole thing, and inspired by it, is watching people enter into it and throw themselves into it. Watching them having conversations with people they've never met and would never meet and, and go away taking whatever it is they've taken from the conference".  A full transcript is below. Links Today’s guest was Dr Paul Brand https://www.linkedin.com/in/drpaulbrand/ paul.brand@risksol.co.uk  https://risksol.co.uk/  Today’s subject The Facilitate 2024 Conference https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/facilitate2024-growingtogether-tickets-733547288687?aff=oddtdtcreator  To find out more about the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales  The Facilitation Stories Team Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/  Nikki Wilson:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/  Transcript Hello and welcome to facilitation stories brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helene Jewell and today I'm talking to Paul Brand,a management consultant whose work focuses on public policy. He often works on long term engagements across entire sectors for multi organisation communities, and uses facilitation extensively in his work. He's also an IAF England Wales board member, certified professional facilitator and a member of the conference planning team. Welcome, Paul. Good morning. It is morning. It is morning. Good. It is morning. It is morning. So my first question is just to ask you, really to tell us a little bit more about you as a facilitator and your involvement in the IAF. So I came into facilitation like a lot of people, not quite realizing I was doing it, doing a lot of public policy consulting things, and needing somebody who would lead groups of people through discussions. And then that became a better understanding of what facilitation as a profession was all about. And that grew and grew over the years. I did a long piece of work in the about 2011 2012, working with a very senior IAF board member. We did a lot of events together, and during that time I understood what the IAF was about and realized I needed to actually make my facilitation skills part of my professional development formally. So I did the IAF certified professional facilitator thing in 2012, which was quite a developmental experience in itself, and I keep that up to this day. And then over the last four or five years, I've become more and more involved in the workings of IAF, in England and Wales particularly, and have also had the privilege of attending a couple of the european conferences in Paris and Milan, finding out how our colleagues across the channel do it. So it's been an arc of development. Yeah, an arc of development slowly, slowly coming further and further in. And obviously we're here today to talk about the about conference. So let's start off with the kind of, the basic stuff. So IAF England and Wales conference in April, I guess. What do we need to know? The dates, where it is, what is it all about? So it is Friday and Saturday, the 26th and 27 April. And for quite a few years now, we've done this Friday Saturday mix seems to balance that. Some of the people, depending on their work and professional lives, some of them can, you know, share those two days, rather than it being two days out mid week or two days at a weekend. It is in Birmingham it is at a venue called the Priory rooms, which is quite close to the middle of Birmingham. It's very easy to get to, and it's two full days, the Friday and the Saturday. It is quite broadly based. We had about 70 people last year. As of yesterday, we've got 100 people coming this year, and we're going to have to cap it at 120 for venue reasons, which is a really nice, really nice set of challenges to have. That is. That is. So there are a few more tickets. We are recording this a little bit before the conference, obviously, but there are, at the moment, a few tickets left. It's about 20 whole two day tickets left. We have to stop it at 120 because just moving that many people around the venue, because of the safe of it, becomes a limit on that. You can book single day tickets. So even after full tickets closed, there might be some one day tickets left. There's about ten or 15 people coming on one day or the other, but most people are there for the two days. Fantastic. And so obviously, a lot of work goes into organizing the conference. I know that we worked quite closely together doing the hybrid conference of years ago. Tell us a little bit about the organizing team. Who's on it? What do they do? How have you kind of made things work from behind the scenes? So the conference team is all volunteers. Obviously, everything in this group is. It is so two thirds people who are also on the England and Wales leadership group. So they have wider interest in the if group and some people who just do the conference. The core of it, of course, is the people who put the program together, which is a team of three or four people. And so this year, with this sort of numbers, we're running four parallel tracks during most of those two days. And there are four very, very broad sort of types of session. They're all interactive sessions. There's no big lectures at this conference, but there's a thread which is learning facilitation tools, techniques, skills, that kind of thing. There's a thread which are sessions which are about growing and personal development and reflection. There's a thread which is about work and business, professional development, everything from how to run a business, because quite a lot of people are freelancers in this thing, as opposed to working in house. And what the differences are there, even down to, you know, how do we think about charging for our time, depending on the context? And then we've got a fourth thread this year, which is actually on the whole area of diversity, inclusivity, lived experience, and what do we need to learn as facilitators in this generation about how we handle those issues, even if that's not the topic of the discussion. You might be doing a session on something very engineering or very management based, but how are you managing diversity, inclusion and dealing with people's lived experience in different areas? So there's quite a variety of stuff. There's four parallel tracks. There's no big lectures. There's some opening and closing sessions and any sense of how many. You probably do know this, I expect it's written down somewhere. But how many different sessions are there altogether? 30 ish, because we're running, apart from the opening and closing each day, we're running four tracks all the time from, like, from when we set off on the Friday morning until Saturday afternoon. And there's a closing plenary, so there's about 30 dishes to take from the buffet and you can go to about a quarter of those. If you. If you went to a session in every slot, you could go to about a quarter of that number. But then there'll be other ways of accessing some of that material and talking to other people and stuff. So it is a bit like a buffet and having taste of this and a taste of that. That sounds like there's so much to choose from and that's the important thing, isn't it? You're not sort of channeled in a particular direction. You can choose what you want to suit you. I would say what's quite interesting, because I was at a session this morning talking with some of the session leaders. We've got quite a few people who are not only coming for the conference for the first time, but they're jumping in the deep end and are doing a session and this is their first contact with IAF. So that's quite exciting and quite brave of them. It is. I was going to ask, actually, how many people doing sort of offering sessions have not done it before? Because some people do offer sessions sort of fairly regularly at the IAF conferences. We counted it up last year and we reckoned it split about a third. A third? A third. A third of the people were, you know, connected into IAF. They were probably members, they were involved in something, that kind of thing. There was about a third who we might count as IAF friends. They. This wasn't their first IAF event experience. They. Maybe they come to meetups or they'd been to a previous conference or they knew somebody. And about a third of the people last year, they had just heard of this conference, they just heard of IAF and they came along, and that was their first baptism of fire, if you like. So I don't know if the balance is the same yesterday, but there's certainly, there's that breadth coming that's really nice and really good that there's sort of some, I guess, old hands, if you like, that are sort of really familiar with. Very politely put, helen, very experienced facilitators who are coming back to share their wisdom again and some new faces. My really strong memory last year was a young woman who came from another country. We'll talk about that in a minute. She contacted us very hesitant, said, I'm not from the UK. I studied in the UK. I want to come over and see my university friends. I want to come to the conference. What 

In epsode Bogdan tells us about himself as a facilitator and trainer, what it means to be a playful facilitator and his journey into facilitation.  He tells Nikki and Helene about how IAF Romania and how it all began, from joining IAF in 2018 to getting intouch with other facilitatrors in Romania. With the start of the pandemic 2 years later and everyone had more time he found out what was needed to start a chapter, and started IAF Romania with Bogdan as the Chair.  Since 2020 the chaoter has grown to 27 members, with more facilitators wanting to be a part of the community. The growth has happened in terms of quality of events as well as numbers.  Facilitation is not well known in Romania and not well known in organisations.  Bogdan talks about engaging new people to the world of facilitation, organising events and enabling people to make connections and talks in more detail about some of the events they have hosted for example Open Space in HR.  They also have a group mentoring programme and how that works. They have two types of approaches - one for the community and one for the IAF Romania members. Most events are co-facilitated so there is a lot of learning.  Some examples of the events are: Training about having impact in online facilitation - Nelson from Portugal. Pop up sharing around a particular topic. Facilitators Studio - where someone can bring a new design to try out. Facilitator Lab - helping two facilitators to create something together. An example of this is AI and facilitation.  The core members of 10/12 come up with the ideas for all the events and build the ideas together. They plan to have their first in person event - a facilitation festival in the autumn.  Bogdan talks about collaborations with other IAF Chapters and explains how these have worked: Twin Chapters with IAF Italy Facilitation Lightening Talks, some of which were with IAF Ireland and IAF Italy He talks extensively about the collaboration with IAF Japan and the 9 or 10 meetings that were needed to set this up and the cultural learning points.  Helene asks Bogdan to talk about his role in IAF Europe and Middle East as part of the share and learn team and the benefits of bringing together different cultures and facilitation experience.  Bogdan talks about what next for IAF Romania - elections, continued focus on mentoring, sending chapters from the Power of Facilitation book out in their newsletter which they have translated into Romanian.  Bogdan lastly talks about his hope for the future and the facilitation festival.  To contact Bogdan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdangrigore82/ IAF Romania: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/romania https://www.linkedin.com/company/iaf-romania-international-association-of-facilitators-romanian-chapter/?originalSubdomain=ro  The Power of Facilition:  https://facpower.org/2021/06/01/what-is-the-power-of-facilitation-and-why-is-it-important/  Lightening Talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcOrr9Sj17U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tluzc03l4sM Celebrating Diversity with IAF Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FctxQou8F9w Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Find Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/  Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/   Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org  

In this episode Helene talks to Deborah Deborah Rim Moiso from SessionLab about their recent survey and report. Deborah shares her experience as a freelance facilitator and discusses her mentoring program with IAF and her passion for facilitating multistakeholder projects on nature conservation, climate change, and youth training. She talks about how in 2022, the first global survey of facilitators was conducted by Session Lab, gathering data on who facilitators are, where they are, and their age. It was initiated by Session Lab to address the lack of data on facilitators, despite reports existing for other professions like UX design. This survey looks at Facilitation trends and insights from a global survey.  Facilitators were surveyed globally, with 1000 responses from diverse regions, including Japan. The report was well-received, with new questions added to better understand learning pathways to facilitation, and feedback from contributors and experts. Deborah talks about the role of expert commentators and how they condensed the data and provided insights, asking questions and challenging assumptions to open discussions and conversations. Deborah describes some of the key findings from the report including Facilitation industry trends and AI adoption. One standout reflection from the report is the generosity of the facilitation community in providing answers, despite the lengthy survey process. Deborah discusses some of the other insights from the report including: Online vs in-person sessions Facilitators delivering shorter sessions Representation, professionalisation and diversity The facilitation industry and accreditation programs The importance of including younger perspectives in the facilitation profession To contact Deborah: email deborah@sessionlab.com To read the 2024 State of Facilitation Report: https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/?utm_source=IAF-Podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=sof To help SessionLab promote the project: https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/promo-kit/ If you have any questions about the report or the data behind it, or want to contribute to the next edition, get in touch with us at state-of-facilitation@sessionlab.com. Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/   Connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories  Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org 

In this episode Helene talks to Jamie Colston - father, facilitator, poet and systemic constellations practitioner about his work using Systemic Constellations, both Family Constellations and in organisations.  He talks about how he got into the work in the first place, the training he has done and the practise he does and some of what he has coming up next. He shares some examples of how he uses it and in terms of facilitation he suggests it is most akin to Open Space Technology.  You can find Jamie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiecolston/  Jamie Colston https://www.jamiecolston.com/  Centre for Systemic Constellations - https://www.thecsc.net/ The Whole Partnership - https://www.wholepartnership.com/      

Today we’re introducing a new quarterly feature “Chapter Chat”. As many listeners know, the England and Wales chapter is just one of the many IAF volunteer-led chapters globally, all working within 6 regions across 65 countries. While all chapters are united under the IAF vision and operate in accordance to the IAF Code of Ethics they are all run in a slightly different way, and reflect the context they’re working within. So alongside our episodes capturing individual facilitators’ stories, each quarter we’re going to chat to people leading other chapters, about how they see the status of facilitation where they are, and the history, priorities, current projects and aspirations for their chapter. To kick us off, we have a special episode reflecting on a year of facilitation in the EME region, where Helene and Nikki talk to Tamara Zivadinovic Regional Director of the Europe and Middle East Region of the IAF. Tamara talks about her own facilitation practise, how she got involved in IAF and her her journey to becoming Regional Director.  She explains to Helene and Nikki what are your main responsibilities are as regional Director and what has been happening in the Region over the last year. She talks about celebrating the many IAF volunteers and about her proudest moments as Regional Director. Tamara shares what is coming up in 2024, her hopes for the region and finishes up with an ask for the members of the region. You can contact Tamara on: rep.europe@iaf-world.org or find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-zivadinovic-4975384/ 

In this episode Helene talks to Christine Bell about a session they co-facilitated for Facilitation Week. They share some of the group’s thoughts on what authentic facilitation is as well as some of their own emerging questions on how to balance being authentic but remaining in control and whether authenticity can be learned or taught. They also reflect on their first experience of planning and facilitating together and how liberating it was to deliver a session with no required outputs and without using some of the “usual” facilitation tools. A full transcript is below. Links: Contact Christine by email: christinebell@centreforfacilitation.com Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/   Connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories  Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org Nikki Wilson (NW) Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. In today's episode, Helene Jewell speaks to Christine Bell.    Helene Jewell (HJ) So in today's podcast, I am going to be chatting to Christine Bell, Director of Centre for facilitation. Welcome, Christine.    Christine Bell (CB) Hi, Helene, nice to be with you again.    HJ And it wasn't actually that long ago that I saw Christine, because we did a session together for Facilitation Week all about Authentic Facilitation. And that's what we're going to be talking about in today's podcast. But before I lead into asking Christine, lots of questions about that and doing a bit of reflecting, I just want to ask Christine to tell us a little bit about her facilitation practice. So what kind of work do you do, Christine.    CB I mainly work with researchers and innovators and looking at different ways of doing things, different approaches, trying to get them to collaborate with each other and kind of break down some of the barriers and get to know each other so that they can start to find out interesting connections between different bits of research and then mash it together to come up with something new and interesting, that breaks through some of the challenges that we're facing, environmentally, socially, etc.    HJ Right. Okay. And we have never actually worked together, but I think it's fair to say we know each other through the IAF, or through the larger facilitation community. Yeah, yeah, we've probably, we've probably met quite a few times on the different online forums. And then at the conference, I think the Conference this year was first time we actually met in person. And then and then we met in Bristol, because I was working in Bristol.    HJ So yeah, so our paths have crossed a few times and then feed somehow, you have this great idea about doing a session in Facilitation Week, and you thought “Ah yes I’ll ask Helene”    Well, first of all, let's start with Facilitation Week, what is Facilitation Week?   CB  Facilitation Week is a week of different activities designed for the facilitation community so that we can learn and develop from each other and explore different aspects of facilitation. And, and I was very conscious that my time is really quite limited, like, you know, with my time because of all the elderly care issues that are going on for me. So I give very little back to the community. So it felt like it would be quite a small thing for me to do and quite manageable to just offer to run a short session within Facilitation Week. So that was, that was the starting point. And then I learned because I also did that for the facilitation in person event in May. And I learned then because I got involved with another facilitator to run a session there, , actually, if you're going to do it, why not use it as a learning opportunity for myself to actually work with a peer that I don't usually work with, and just learn from that person kind of share best practice together, because then it's actually a developmental experience for me, and not just me doing a free bit of facilitation. And a free bit of, you know, I can facilitate and design facilitation all day long, and that's my job, but to actually to do it with a peer that I don't usually work with just makes that more, it’s more fun. And it's more developmental as well. So, yeah, so you came into my mind, because I thought, oh, yeah, I'd like to work with Helene. I think it would be fun.    HJ It was so nice, it was like “yes, of course”, like, and I think it's true that Facilitation Week is that there's loads of different sessions, and they're hosted by loads of different people all over the world. So in a way, there's that opportunity to explore and connect, and it's fairly low risk. It's a really nice way to sort of get to know people.   And yes, I remember your session that was for the May conference, I think,and so  I was quite quite pleased. I thought, well, this is a nice opportunity, because we've connected a bit online. We've been to those meetups and the conference together. And yeah, I thought, Well, this sounds like a good idea. And I know originally, you kind of thought about two different things. I can't remember.    CB Yeah, I can't remember what the other one was. But you jumped on the authenticity and when, because I went “I’m vaguely thinking this authenticity”. And I think that was because I just finished my last piece of work for the summer, which had been avert a hybrid conference, and someone had commented about my style and approach and how different and distinctive it was to other online facilitator that they’d worked with. And I think I was reflecting on that and recognising actually, that is, one of my strengths is that I can be in the virtual environment, and I feel natural in that environment.    HJ So yeah, I remember you sending an email and thinking about these two different options. And the authenticity stuff really jumped out at me, I think, partly because a lot of the time when we talk about doing sessions, for you know, things like Facilitation Week, I think it's really easy to jump to sort of tools and techniques and sharing that kind of stuff. But I was really intrigued by this, because I thought it's something quite different. But also, I wasn't quite sure where it might go. And I'm quite, I'm always quite keen to try and explore things and see sort of what what could be. So I think when you suggested that, I thought, “Great, that's a good starting point. Let's, let's jump in there and and have a little go and see where it goes”. And it's probably fair to say that that was, that was the way our planning worked a little bit.   CB Yeah, it was, I think it was, it was a little chaotic. And then I think I had, I had a quiet period, it was just before the beginning of August. And so I started, I intellectualised about it, which is how I often go. So I did some research. And I started like pulling out all this stuff on authenticity. And it wasn't really, it kind of just made it feel quite sterile. And I thought that's not really it. That's not what I'm talking about here. Then my kind of as happens in the whole of this year, my mum went into hospital again. So I was back into a crisis period. So I didn't have much time to think about it. And so then when you got back from your holiday, we were kind of scrambling around going “right, what is it we're trying to do?” And that's when I came up with the title.    HJ It was, “Am I? Can I?  Should I?, which I think actually intrigued people in itself. So I think that was great that it was such a sort of organic. That's nice. Yeah, but it just Yeah, did it just appear? Or did you spend a long time thinking?    CB No, no, I think it just I went for a bit of a walk. And I just, and it kind of came to me. And it was because this, the way of these things is you often have to come up with your title for the marketing before you've really thought what the session is going to be about. So I didn't want to kind of make it too prescriptive that we would then have to fit into. And I think as I was thinking about it was those dialogues, those kinds of things about what am I actually authentic? You know, is that what I'm coming across here? When people say to me about how I come across as a facilitator and how relaxed they feel with me, is that about authenticity? And then the kind of what is it I do to become authentic? So that's the kind of learning piece? And is it something that you intuitively do? Or is it something that you can actually learn to do? And then the “should” bit was because I think mainly because I was going through that crisis with my mum, as you know, and, you know, there are times when I've had to just put the face on. And you know, internally, I'm crying. And actually, I've got to kind of be out there being positive and engaged Whilst this is going on in the background. And I'm worrying about it. And so, you know, in some ways, is that true authenticity, if we're having to put a bit of a mask over to our feelings? But actually, should I really be truly authentic with a big group do 60 people need to know all my emote stuff that's going on? They just like me to get on with my job and facilitate.    H Yeah, and it's so intersting, because I know, when we were talking about, you know, what do we what is this session gonna be like, what do we need to put in there, we did have a lot of conversations about that kind of stuff. And I know for from my side, it has been suggested by a couple of people that, you know, like you perhaps I'm quite, I don't know, quite energetic, perhaps quite personable in my facilitation style, quite, maybe quite relaxed, but that sometimes I need to maybe dial down my energetic-ness, that kind of outward enthusiasm for a session, let's say, because that doesn't fit with the session, because the tone of the session needs to be different. And so for me, that was one of the questions that I know, I brought into our discussions

In this episode Nikki talks to Rosie Carnall about Philosophical Inquiry.   It’s a way of engaging in a conversation explorating into philosophical questions.   Rosie has used Philosophical Inquiry in a range of situations, from Art Galleries, to pubs, to workplaces. Nikki and Rosie talk about how to choose stimuli for discussions and learning from a specific example of when Rosie ran the same session back to back, online and in person for a hybrid team.  The full transcript is below.  Links: Rosie’s website: www.rosiecarnall.co.uk Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/   Connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories  Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org NW Hello and welcome to facilitation stories brought to you by the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Nikki Wilson and my guest today is Rosie Carnall. So welcome, Rosie. So to start off with, could you tell the listeners a little more about you and what you do?   RC   Thanks, Nikki. So my name is Rosie Carnall, and I'm a Freelance Creative Facilitator.  My background’s in mediation and conflict resolution and from that, I learned quite a lot about facilitation and developed that as an interest, and I've also worked in things like Project management. And then, more recently, in my work, I've been able to focus more on facilitation, and in particular, using both creative methods of facilitation to get people thinking and talking, but also facilitating creative sessions. So I typically work with creative writing and the creative field but I'm also really interested in art -based work. So quite a broad range of interests, but at the core of it all, is facilitating interesting and engaged conversations.   NW   Fantastic. And we're going to dig in a little bit more about that, in this episode. So you and I met at the IMF conference, and I discovered that you include philosophy for communities in your practice. So I had a really positive experience as a participant in the past, and I was really keen to, to find out a bit more about how you use it. So for listeners that aren't familiar with P4C, could you tell us a bit more about it?    RC   Yeah, that's great that you had a positive experience. I'd love to hear more about that another time. So Philosophy for Communities is a method of holding a Philosophical Inquiry. And Philosophical Inquiry is kind of what it sounds like, it's a way of engaging in a conversation that takes forward questioning and exploration into philosophical questions. And philosophical questions are all around us in life. And P4C,  Philosophy for Communities is a way of, it's a method to enable people who aren't academic philosophers who don't wouldn't consider themselves to be philosophical necessarily, to discover big questions, and discuss them together.  NW   Okay. And so, when did you first encounter P4C and what appealed to you about it?  RC   The first ever time I encountered P4C was when my son took part in it in a P4C inquiry as part of a youth group. And I was just a parent on the edge kind of thing. I wasn't participating. And they, they had in any P4C inquiry, you would have a stimulus, so that's the starting point for whatever the discussion is going to be. But the stimulus always has quite a lot of different ways to go. And the stimulus on this occasion was a children's story, Michael Morpurgo story. And it was the one about the Christmas Truce, the story where in the First World War, there was a truce called on Christmas Day, and the English and German soldiers played football together. And then the young people, including my son, read the story. And then they asked questions, and then they discuss the questions they came up with. And then they went on to create a Christmas play, to put on arising from their discussion.   And the thing that really struck me was how they engaged in such depth with what the story meant. So when they put on the play, they weren't rehearsing lines, they were conveying meaning. And it just felt such a rich form of learning that I thought, well, I really need to find out more about this.   So and that, that brings up the the idea that P4C also stands for Philosophy for Children, and it's used in a lot of schools in Britain.  It's an international movement. It's a way of teaching thinking skills and critical thinking. And it's also a way of engaging children in kind of social learning, and how to disagree agreeably. And Philosophy for Communities is the exact same thing. It's just with adults in community rather than children.   NW   Yeah, excellent. I mean, I, as I said, I encountered it as an adult first of all, but hearing that it had been, you know, the stem of it was from, from kind of school based learning, I just thought I wish that we'd done this at school, it would have been so valuable, I think to, to kind of build those skills, as you said that that whole idea of being able to discuss and sit alongside other people and kind of draw out that meaning. And so how did you I mean, obviously, you you learned about it as an observer, how did you first come to try facilitating it in practice?   RC   Well, Ijust, I was already doing facilitation. And I was interested in using it at that time, I was working as manager of a team and a national organisation and I started trying using a bit in that kind of team context. And I also used it in community, I'm a Quaker, as it happens, and so at our Quaker meeting, we offered a couple of P4C inquiries, and I was lucky that I had a friend who's very skilled and knowledgeable about P4C, and the thing that happens straight away, in that classic learning journey is that soon as you start trying to actually do something, you learn so much more about what you don't know about doing it,  You know, it looks so easy, “Well, I'm going to give that a go”, and really quickly I was like I need to do some training in this if I want to get really good at this, or even, you know, even as a starting point.   I began to understand and for example, in facilitating a group to come up with questions, I just needed to do a much more deep dive into like, “What is a question? And how do we get to good questions?” So I did some training with an organisation locally, who, who mainly trained teachers in Philosophy for Children, but I came along and said, “Well, I actually don’t work in a school I'm going to, I'm going to use it with adults, mainly. So that was how I did the training.  NW   Excellent. And so since then, obviously, you trialled it in practice, and then kind of did this bit of training. But where have you used it since then? Are there any contexts where you feel it particularly works well?  RC   Yeah, so I've used it, I've used it a lot with Quakers, for interest and for kind of, not teaching so much as learning. So getting a group together and inquiring into a shared question, it means that people are sharing their knowledge and their ideas and their thinking, and that fits really well in that context. So that kind of community learning together. And I've used it in pubs. So I set up and run a Philosophy in Pubs group in Sheffield, that's been going, coming up for five years, in fact, and that's just an open access group, anyone who's interested can come along, and each month, it’s a monthly group, and I bring a different stimulus, and we'll see where that goes. And during the pandemic, I moved that online. so I've used it online as well as in real life, so to speak.  And I've used it as part of a more creative focus or cultural focus, as part of the Sheffield Year of Reading, which was a whole year the library set up, of getting people into reading and thinking. And for that we used different excerpts from books or a poem.   I've used it as, I do creative writing, and Creative Writing facilitation. So I use it as a way into creative writing, but also as a way of people engaging with each other's writing to critique. So something I call creative critique. So we use people's passages of writing as the stimulus for the inquiry, and it means they get a sense of whether what they're writing is actually landing with the listener.   And I now also offer P4C sessions in a local art gallery and a few art galleries and I call that “Philosophy in the Gallery”, and so then in that case, it's again, it's an open access session where people would come and we look at an artwork together, and then evolve our thinking arising from looking at the art, so not so much a focus on learning about art, art history, or even the kind of painterly strokes, but what does it mean to us? So always it's about what does it mean to us? And then I've also done some work with organisations. So then right back to the beginning, in a way of working with a team and using it as a way of bringing a team or colleagues together to think about questions and issues together.   NW   So kind of building on that, where do you look for the stimuli that you would use in these sessions?,  RC   Ah that's an interesting question. I look for them everywhere. So in the Art Gallery, my job is easy, because I go into the Art Gallery, and then I can have a look and choose one. For the sessions in the pub, I try and have a really varied range. So, in fact, I did a session on Tuesday this week and our stimulus was an excerpt from a book called Bright New World, which is about climate change, and what we know about how to manage and mitigate climate change. It's a very positive book. And there was a section about trave and I just thought, “Oh, that's interesting. It's got lots of different thinking in it”. and then the group came up with their question they wanted to ask. And I use poems, I use short videos, I used a Hey Duggee episode, which is a children's cartoon, and they had I use it there is in fact, I Hey Duggee on philosophy, but I use the one on collecting, and so thinkin

After over 100 episodes spanning 4 years, Pilar Orti is stepping down from her role as co-host on the Facilitation Stories podcast. In this special episode, Pilar joins regular co-hosts Helene Jewell and Nikki Wilson to reflect on her time on the show and what comes next.   How It All Began   The idea for Facilitation Stories emerged organically at an in-person meetup hosted by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) back in 2019. Pilar had given a talk on using podcasting to build community and connection in remote teams. Afterwards, some attendees suggested starting a podcast for the chapter. Pilar agreed to help get it off the ground.   Along with Martin Gilbraith's support, Pilar worked with Helene and another co-host to produce the first 4 episodes and establish a regular cadence. After some early experimentation, they settled into releasing 1 episode per month. The organic, unstructured nature of those early days established the podcast's informal, conversational tone that continues today.   Why Listeners Connect   A big part of the podcast's appeal is its sense of community. As Pilar says, it feels like "listening to your friends." Most facilitation podcasts focus on tips, tutorials, and sales pitches. Facilitation Stories stands out for spotlighting members of the IAF England and Wales community sharing stories and learning from real life experiences.   The hosts' genuine enthusiasm, warmth, and enjoyment comes across in every episode. According to Pilar, her favorite episodes are the unscripted conversations between two or more co-hosts. The rapport and natural interactions make listeners feel like they're right there in the room.   Evolution of Facilitation During the Pandemic   Pilar, Helene, and Nikki reflected on how facilitation has changed over the past few years, accelerated by the pandemic. Virtual facilitation has become more ubiquitous and accepted. More organizations recognize the need for facilitators to help guide productive online meetings and events. Hybrid events also present new challenges facilitators must adapt to.   On a skills level, facilitators have had to expand their digital literacy and learn to facilitate exclusively through a screen. Soft skills like reading the virtual room, fostering connections, and keeping energy levels up become even more crucial.   Co-facilitation partnerships have also blossomed as the complexity and demand increases. Facilitators increasingly team up with those outside the profession who bring complementary expertise.   Key Takeaways   A few key themes emerge from Pilar's time on Facilitation Stories:   Start simple - When launching a new podcast, focus on consistent execution over production value. Get the first 10 episodes done to build momentum.   Rotate roles - Swap hosting and production duties between team members. It keeps things dynamic while building everyone's skills.   Personality matters - Let your authentic style and personality come through. This attracts the right listeners who connect with the content.   Find your niche - Targeting a specific community makes it easier to grow an engaged audience, as demonstrated by the show's IAF focus.   Value enjoyment - Do it because you find joy in the process and camaraderie. Passion shines through and makes it worthwhile.   What Comes Next   While sad to say goodbye to Facilitation Stories, Pilar is embarking on an exciting new chapter. She shared some of the creative pursuits and professional projects she'll be focusing on:   Developing an audio course on asynchronous communication   Exploring the comics medium and using visual storytelling   Continuing fiction writing and other literary projects   Building her podcasting expertise through new shows and helping others level up their podcasts   Authoring books on topics like co-hosting or using Trello for podcast production   After years of client work, training, and teaching, Pilar is ready to put more energy into generating original content and productions. She remains as passionate as ever about podcasting and plans to start new shows in addition to advising others.   When asked if she had any parting wisdom, Pilar expressed full confidence that Helene and Nikki will continue taking the podcast to new heights. She may no longer be there, but the strong community built on Facilitation Stories will carry on  

Welcome to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF.  In today’s episode Pilar Orti talks about running circles (spaces for dialogue) with Jindi Mann, founder and facilitator of Leader Brother Son and coach and organizational consultant at The Selfish Leader. Jindy recently ran the Men at Work survey as part of his work with Leader Brother Son, where he works with groups of men. The work has the potential of benefiting mental health and diversity. The Men at Work survey in particular, was a way for them to gather some insights into the male experience at work. In particular, it highlighed what men find hardest to talk about at work and what can help them show up more fully at work. To explain the roots of his work, Jindy talks about his early life, growing up in a British Indian family, his two business degrees and masculine cultures in the business world. He came to realize that he had an opportunity to work with this, as he was seeing the same thing repeatedly: the idea of taking up this role of "man" without interrogating what that means. Alongside some other coaches, Jindy started offering free online groups two and a half years ago. They’ll be starting their 10th group in early August.  There is a short application process for joining the groups. Intersted participants first make  an enquiry on the company's website, and this is followed by a short conversation to align expectations and understand the principles behind the sessions. There are typically, eight to twelve people in each group and at least two facilitators in each session. As the work comes from a personal space for Jindy, he often feels the tension between leading or guiding the group and just allowing the space to be what it is. Jindy and the other facilitators are not the ones who have the answers, they are not defining what a man should be or what Masculinity is, but they are holding the space by contributing and holding the principles and the shape of the conversation, rather than telling it where to go. Throughout this work, Jindy still feels that tension of when to take some sort of action as a facilitator or when to contribute or when to say anything. He uses the coaching acronym WAIT – why am I talking?  Jindy has started to refer to himself more explicitly as a "facilitator" when starting doing this work with men, but he has used facilitation in different ways in his consulting career.  As to how the work with the circles and his co-facilitation have evolved, Jendy shares that when the groups started they introduced specific topics for discussion, but soon they started to invite the group to say what it wanted to explore. He shares some of the theories and practises that have influenced him including the idea from Wilfred Bion of that there are thoughts present in the group, but they haven't yet found a thinker. It can sound almost mystical, but the unconscious is always present, is always active in a group. And collectively things can emerge in a group. (For more on this read any of Jung or Freud’s work and Experiences in Groups by Wilfred Bion.)  Jiindy has trained as a facilitator with Way of Council and in the conversation he shares his experience there and its overlap with psychodynamic theory.  Jindy talks about his co-facilitators Aaron, Mark and Russell and how they met, and how they all bring something slightly different and have different influences. But that they have an important chemistry between them. The team are not taking their work into organisations. The work here will be different as the dynamics in organisations will be different than in an open group. People there will have assumptions about each other, and there will already be a sense of status and hierarchy.  Jindy shares the pros and cons of doing these groups in person and online and about AI in coaching and wraps up with a couple of broad reflections: firstly, the conversation about men and masculinity is growing. Secondly, there is an increasing need for great dialogue and for great facilitated spaces for all of the things we're facing as a society. If you want to find out more about Jindy's work, you can go to Leaderbrotherson.com. And also you can also check out his other organization called The Selfish Leader.  He is on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jindymann/ Men at Work Survey https://www.leaderbrotherson.com/resource/men-at-work-2023-survey Leader Brother Son https://www.leaderbrotherson.com/about You can connect with Pilar Orti on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilarorti/ Listen to our podcasts:  https://www.facilitationstories.com/   And connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories 

In today's episode, Nikki talks to Perle Laouenan-Catchpole, an Amsterdam-based facilitator and experienced designer. Perle shares the origins of Perle's award-winning, open-source workshop that aids individuals in identifying their personal climate action. Perle discusses the importance of open source in facilitation work and the impact it has on personal growth, relationship-building and work perception. She firmly believes in the need for collaborative and shared resources in addressing pressing issues like climate change. T he discussion also touches on different platforms for sharing open-source material and how they can be leveraged by other facilitators.  Links: Website https://helloperle.com/ Perle's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/perlelc/ Session Lab Template https://www.sessionlab.com/templates/find-your-climate-sweet-spot/ Nikki's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Here's the transcript of the conversation: NIKKI Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Nikki Wilson and my guest today is Perle Laouenan-Catchpole. Welcome Perle. For listeners that don't know you, could you start by telling us a little bit more about you and your work? PERLE Yeah, absolutely. So, I am Perle. I'm a workshop facilitator, moderator, experienced designer and aspiring spoken word artist. It's something I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do for a while now. And I'm based in Amsterdam. I was actually born and bred in Cornwall, so you'll notice a very British accent on me, and I've been living in Amsterdam for the past twelve years and have the great joy of co-parenting a five year old daughter. And yeah, that's about me. NIKKI Excellent. And so the inspiration for this episode came from a post you made on LinkedIn saying that you'd won a thing for a workshop you've designed. So, first of all, could you tell us a little bit more about what you won, and how that came about? PERLE Yeah, absolutely. Well, to give you a little bit more context about my work, so I went freelance in January and I was working as a full time facilitator before that. And over the past couple of years I really recognized that my skill as a facilitator is facilitating large groups online and that opportunity doesn't come along very often. So I started seeking out communities that could use my skills and landed on a community called Work on Climate, which is a 20,000 strong community of individuals trying to find climate work in climate or transition their roles into climate work.  And I facilitated a workshop for them using Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson's Ven diagram. That basically similar to Ikigai, which is the Japanese concept for finding purpose, helps you identify your personal climate action. So that workshop, 200 and something people turned up for it and it was incredible.  And the workshop design, I then submitted to a contest hosted by Session Lab, which is a facilitators platform, and then won in one of the categories. And I was just really happy to see that workshop then become an open source template for other people to use. So that's how I ended up writing a post on LinkedIn saying I want a thing. NIKKI Well, first of all, congratulations Perle, that's great news and you just touched on it there. But one of the things that had really caught my eye about that post was that you said that you'd made it into an open source template. So I wondered if you could tell us a bit more about how open source features in your facilitation work. PERLE Yeah, absolutely. And I'd say I kind of categorise it in two ways, because as a facilitator and experienced designer, I rely hugely on open source materials. I'm constantly seeking new ways of doing things, new concepts, new exercises. So I'm leaning on other people's open source material all the time - and then that then encourages me and it inspires me to do the same. And I actually believe that facilitation is an abundant skill set.  We need more Facilitators in the world. We need it in our organizations, in our teams. And I fundamentally believe that if we can support one another to grow those tools, that mindset, that approach in our work, then the world is better for it. And yeah, I just believe there's enough work for all of us. So why keep my skills, my knowledge, my understanding of how to facilitate to myself, if we can kind of trigger other people to do more with their work too, especially when it comes to climate? NIKKI Excellent. You've talked a little bit about kind of drawing from other people's work as a key tool for yourself. But how did you first start working in a way where you were sharing more of this information? And how do you go about that?  PERLE Yeah, I feel like that it kind of reinforces some of my key values as just a human being, where I aspire to be and try to be open and kind and authentic anyway. And then I have had the pleasure to work for many organisations and companies that do the same. So they either are open to partnering with lots of different partners to achieve their goals or providing services that increase access to global needs such as health care and education. So in a way, my value system makes me seek out organisations or types of work that allow me to be an open source minded person, I guess. NIKKI So thinking a bit more about what impact opening up and sharing your own work has had on you, could you tell us a little bit more about that? How has it affected how your work is perceived or the relationships you build, those kind of things? PERLE So I truly believe that if you're open with your work and your approach to work and you are authentic in that process, then you attract the same types of people and opportunities back. And I also have a fundamental belief that we are able to grow with each other. I'm not somebody who works very well individually. I really work better when someone else is able to spark my energy, grow my energy, add to my ideas, add to my body of work. And I know that I am valuable for other people in that way. So if we kind of can approach facilitation with that kind of mindset, then we only make it better for people receiving that facilitation.  So yeah, it's just a belief system, I guess. And I'm feeling the benefits of it because I meet incredible people, I work with incredible people and I do a job I love. NIKKI And so, I mean, personally, I'm really a convert to the benefits of open. Now, I was before this conversation, but you've even convinced me more. But I think when I first started to become more aware of this way of working, it felt a bit counterintuitive. And you've said that you yourself have more recently gone freelance. And I think there was a sort of mindset around, if I give too much away, how will I justify charging for the things that I do want to? And also always being aware of things like risk of copyright and ownership. And for any listeners that are kind of grappling with some of those ideas, even if they've heard about the benefits from you, what would you say to them to kind of reassure them or convince them to give it a try? PERLE Yeah, I actually want to just first acknowledge that it's a very real feeling, right? Because it took me a second to press that button and submit my template to be open source, because in the end, well, anyway, that is a free workshop that I'm offering so a couple of hundred people could join it without any monetary benefit to me. So I was already making that choice for it to be open source. And yeah, it's a workshop that I could have monetized. But I also believe there's different types of level of my work that I can monetize and there's other types of work that I can open out to people to learn myself, learn what works, what doesn't, and test new concepts, test new ideas. And so I use often my free workshops or my open workshops as testing grounds. And that enables me to get stronger as a facilitator, hone my skills. So I won't provide all workshops open source or all templates open source, because in the end, I need to also grow my paid work, my clients, I also want to be able to provide my clients with tailored solutions that work for them. And some of it can work for other organisations, and I will share the bits that could.  So in a way, it's not one or the other, it's about the gradient and just giving parts of you or parts of your thinking or your work out into the world so that you can spread a certain message or spread a certain need that the world needs. NIKKI Okay, and you mentioned that the workshop that you won this award for was shared on Sessionlab. So is that the main place that you might open out workshops and designs, or are there other places that you also share content? PERLE Yeah, Session Lab is the first. Honestly, there are a few different platforms that I'm looking at to expand my work. One of my main clients, Limelights, that I work for quite a lot as a freelance facilitator, they have a couple of Miro templates that are available really around Sprint methodology, but also using Kotter's Eight Steps for Change in sustainability teams. So in a way, there's many different avenues that work can be shared. And as facilitators, we should be looking for these platforms to put our ways of working out there. NIKKI And so if anyone is listening and they're interested in finding out more about open source and how it could apply to their facilitation, what would you recommend as kind of sources of information/first steps? PERLE Yeah, well, I feel like there's obvious spaces to look for. So in Miro, Mural, there's so much abundance of resources that are available for facilitators. And then, of course, Session Lab is my daily go to. It's a gold mine of resources. The library is free, it's open, it can be used by anyone And then actually Chat GPT, it's becoming my sparring partner and it's the place wh

In this episode, Pilar talks to fellow podcast team members Helene and Nikki, along with Penny Walker and Shanaka Dias about a global, hybrid process they facilitated together, running over 4 days with multiple languages and timezones. They reflect on planning in advance, adapting in the moment and working well as a team. The full transcript is below. All of the team can be found on LinkedIn: Penny Walker:            https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennywalker/ Shanaka Dias             https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanaka-dias-8765b51/ Helene Jewell             https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson                https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Pilar Orti                      https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilarorti/   And you can find all of the links to IAF England and Wales on the Facilitation Stories website: https://www.facilitationstories.com/ SPEAKERS PO – Pilar Orti HJ – Helene Jewell NW – Nikki Wilson PW- Penny Walker SD – Shanaka Dias   PO  00:03 Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of facilitators also known as IAF. My name is Pilar Orti and I have the absolute pleasure of recording today with not one guest, not two, not three, but four. So first of all, let me introduce fellow co-hosts of the show Helene Jewell, hello, Helene.   HJ  00:26 Hello, nice to see you.   PO  00:30 Nikki Wilson. Hello, Nikki.   NW Hello.   PO  00:33 And I then like to welcome back to the show Penny Walker who first appeared in episode two of this show. So welcome back, Penny.   PW  00:40 Thanks very much. It's lovely to be here.   PO  00:43 And finally, first time guest and someone I've never chatted to before Shanaka Dias, welcome to the show.   SD  00:50 Thank you. Thank you for having me.   PO  00:52 So to have some proper introductions, I've asked each guest to prepare just two lines to introduce themselves. So we're going to say the same order in which I introduced you so that you'll know when it's coming. So Helene Jewell, we'd like to introduce yourself.   HJ  01:06 Hello,I'm Helene. I'm a freelance facilitator based in Bristol, and I work cross sector with all kinds of clients and Yeah, mostly team organisational development and strategy stuff.   PO  01:18 Excellent. Thanks, Helen and Nikki Wilson.   NW  01:21 Hello, I'm Nikki, I'm based in Essex and I run a social purpose business focusing on facilitation, research and strategic support. And as a facilitator, I particularly enjoy working on Deliberative Public Eengagement projects and Action Learning.   PO  01:39 Thank you. Thanks, Nikki and Penny Walker.   PW  01:42 Thanks, Pilar. I'm Penny. I'm an independent facilitator based in North London, and my specialism, I suppose is working with clients to have more effective conversations about tricky things. Maybe because they're complicated or there's conflict, or there's multiple parties. And those conversations are mainly about sustainable development topics. It might be climate change, it might be biodiversity loss. It might be I don't know social enterprises coming together. So those kinds of conversations. Yeah.   PO  02:14 Thanks, Penny, and Shanaka Dias.   02:17 Hello, I'm Shanaka. I'm based in London. I'm a freelancer. I work in the social sector with charities and foundations. And I guess my specialism is bringing people together to firstly have difficult conversations and to look at ways to come together around measure mission and vision and strategy.   PO  02:40 Thank you Shanaka. Thank you very much. Right. So the reason we have you all together for this very special episode, and we're really testing the platform as well, is that you all facilitated a trilingual hybrid session back in January 2023. Is that correct?   PW That's right. PO Yeah. So I'm going to be discovering what you did along with the listener and what your challenges were. So let's start with how did this collaboration start? And maybe Penny, you can kick us off?   PW 03:12 Thanks. Yes. So I'm trained to use a particular process called the Organisational Mapping Tool, which is something that is promoted by the Ford Foundation, a philanthropic funder based in the US, and one of the grantee organisations needed to use this tool as part of the grant conditions, and because I'm on the list, they came to me and they said, could you run this for us? And they said it’s a little bit complicated, because we're going to it's going to be hybrid, and we know this, and I was not very comfortable with that. And I said, “Well, that is you know, it's going to cost you more, we're going to need a bigger team. And you know”, they said y”es, that's fine, we're comfortable with hybrid£. And they said, “Oh, and by the way, we also need to do it in three languages. So and by the way, we would like to have other meetings going on, kind of with the people who are in the room together over the time”, so I knew that I needed a big team. Nikki has worked with me before using this particular process once so I thought that she would be my first kind of “go to” person and I know that Helene had a great time helping out make the IAF England and Wales conference hybrid a couple of years ago, so I thought, I wonder if Helene will be up for being on the team. And then I asked I asked them who else they knew who they thought might be up for it and Nikki recommended Shanaka so that was how we came to be working together.   PO  04:42 Nice. Oh, I love that because of the you some of you have worked together there was a new elements into the into the four so I love it. Excellent. Nice and who were their participants then? If one of you feels like giving us just an overview of who they Were where they were located. And just a little bit of the logistics around the event. Helene.   HJ  05:05 So the participants were the staff from this organisation. And they were based in several different countries. And I can't completely remember which countries they were based in, but we had probably, Penny may tell me, I'm wrong, half of them in the room, and another half in different countries over Zoom. And so yeah, it was bringing their different different staff members from within the organisation together.   PO  05:34 And the people who were online, were they in their other countries together and online or individually online,   NW  05:41 I think it was quite a mixture, mostly on their own. Some of them were in the same country, but not sitting in a location together.   PO  05:50 Okay, so at least you had that and Penny can you do remember the countries of the participants?   PW  05:59 So we had some, we were working across multiple time zones, which was another kind of design challenge. So we had some people in Sub Saharan Africa, we had some in South America. I'm not sure if the people who were in kind of Asia Pacific managed to join us. And the other interesting thing about it was that we had some people who started online, and then were able to join us in the room, and vice versa. So there was someone who tested positive for COVID, partway through who went from being in the room to online. So that changed, so we needed to have really good understanding of who our participants were. And each morning, we would sit down with our key kind of client liaison and find out who was going to be in the room and who was going to be online, and what languages they were comfortable speaking in so that we could think about how we might do breakout groups, I can see Helene is rubbing her eyes, even just at the memory of it.   HJ 06:58 It's funny, because on the one hand, I sort of I remember, you know, I loved the challenge of being kind of quite, you know, think on our feet and all the rest of it. On the other hand, when I recall some of the elements, I think so “how did we do that?”   PO  07:11 Wow. So over four days. So that's interesting. Before we go into maybe how you prepared for it? Does that mean that during the four days? Did that look like you ,were you meeting before each session together? How are you checking in with the client who wants to have a bash?  Penny go for it.   PW  07:32 So we, it was over four days, but each day, we only worked on this particular event for half of the day. So the people who were in the room had other side meetings when they weren't in session. And that helped us overcome some of the timezone difficulties. And the other thing about it that people will be interested to hear is that three of our team were in the room, so Helene and Shanaka, and me were with the client and Nikki actually did all her work online. So our check-ins were over Zoom, so that we could make sure that that Nikki was there. And it also meant that Nikki was able to give us a really good insight as to what the online experience was like, because try as you might if you're in the room, that's that's the thing that pulls you. And it's very easy to neglect or not have a proper understanding of what the online experience is like.   NW 08:30 Yeah, I think sort of adding to that. The fact that I was purely online, and there was no temptation to even be in the room, I was in a completely different location made that a very pure experience as well. I think if we'd ended up swapping on and offline, it would have been, that would have been a bit more blurred. But it was very clear to me that I was experiencing it just as someone who was joining from anywhere else in the world apart from obviously, that English is my first language, so I didn't have that added layer, but I think that that really made it very focused on this is what the online experience is like.   PO  09:07 Yeah. And did you have interpreters as well? Is that right?   PW  09:11 Yeah. So the client tries to be, it's part of their push to be very inclusive and to make sure that they have for the work they're doing in country that it's with people who are from that country rather than, you know, white, Northern World kind

In this episode of Facilitation Stories Pilar is joined by Sue Bird, who is a European public affairs specialist and facilitator. Sue ran a session on facilitating for government at the recent IAF conference. She talks about how pleased she was to be able to attend the IAF England and Wales conference in Birmingham recently, and how it was great to be able to meet fellow facilitators and understand how they're running their business, how they do facilitation. She talks about how she does both European Public Affairs consultancy work AND facilitation.  Sue reflects on a session she attended at IAF England and Wales about structuring your facilitation business. She set up her own business a year ago, following her 30 years work for the European Commission in a number of different policy areas, and in funding programme management. She wanted to set up a business that would play on these strengths and use the training she has received in the Art of Hosting and Participatory Leadership with the European Commission. She used this in her job to help in team building process, strategy development and other areas while employed with the Commission. She still helps them out in this way still as an “Active Senior”.   On the topic of how well embedded facilitation is into the European Commission, Sue mentions that the tools they use at the European Commission are well known tools, such as the World Café. She thinks that facilitation is about marrying passion and profession.  Sue talks about the very generous training offers in the European Commission and how she was attracted to facilitated meetings and realised that this was something she really wanted to get trained in. The Commission trained people to a good enough point to try them out as internal facilitators. Her facilitation work was in addition to her ordinary 40 hour week.  Sue describes the different types of work that she is able to offer now and how facilitation links into the public affairs she gets involved in. Pilar asks how facilitation in government might be different to other sectors.  Sue explains that there are political processes that affect these different organisations and that being involved in politics is a very human experience. She talks about how uncertainty can arise and how there is often pressure on public officials. She also talks about when there are changes in the working environment and how reorganisation of services can happen every now and then. When change is in the air, there is quite a bit of uncertainty and, as in all large organisations, people’s opportunity to influence what they do is limited.   All of this will affect how people show up to facilitated sessions and how a facilitator needs to manage this. Pilar asks whether when working with people in government, people might not be able to be as open. Sue says that there would probably be a minimum amount of openness but that it will be up to the procurer of the service to set the scene. The facilitator will need to build up a trusting relationship with the client. On the subject of working as a facilitator in an institution with people of different nationalities, Sue mentions the possible challenge of language. She will be soon facilitating a session in French, and although she is fluent, this will be harder work. International organizations tend to create a culture of their own, and there's a certain understanding that broadly facilitators need to accept that and work with it. Sue shares a little about her role with the IAF Belgum chapter and their 24 members. They have two different types of meeting each month. The focus of one of them is on sharing tools that educate, while the other is called a “Facilitators Studio”, where people can experiment. One recent topic has been different decision-making tools. To connect with Sue Bird  on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-bird-037311129/ You can connect with Pilar Orti on Twitter https://twitter.com/PilarOrti Listen to our podcasts:  https://www.facilitationstories.com/   And connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories   

In today’s episode Nikki talks to Ann Nkune about her rediscovery of Appreciative Inquiry.  Ann is a facilitator working with charities, social enterprises and the public sector helping people to increase their impact and be sustainable. Her work over the last 10 years has been parent friendly start up and career development programmes for women operate in the environmental and social impact sector.  Ann describes a Linked In post that she recently wrote about Appreciative Inquiry (AI) where she was able to connect with other AI enthusiasts to talk to about it, help her work through the complexities and challenges and think about what more she could do when facilitating. And how she had fallen back in love with it having not used it for a while.   Ann talks about the premise of AI and how most theories of change are about identifying a problem or risk. Whereas AI says that change is much more likely to happen when people understand where their strengths and the strengths of an organisation are, and can have a level of enthusiasm and optimism that change is possible. So AI increases the positive energy that comes from a group even when there are tricky things so they can see their way through the difficulties.   She describes some examples of AI and the process which starts with a topic and going through 4 stages; DISCOVEREY (proud/pivotal moments and skills and qualities), DREAM (allows people to step back and see the big picture and how she encourages people to be creative) - Ann shares an example of creating playdough toilets! DESIGN (what is the reality and what are the options) and DELIVERY (commitment to action and major projects that are required to get to the dream stage).   Ann tells Nikki how she had rediscovered AI in lockdown when doing goal setting online. She remembered how she first started to use it several decades ago and how she was initially quite cynical about it, but that AI gave the people she was working with a new perspective.   She shares her observations and different uses; for individual discussion e.g. mums of young children as a way of capturing their strengths, bringing together people in teams to build relationships in new ways. She describes how energising it is in a group and to be visionary even if they don’t think they are.   Nikki asks how her thinking about it has evolved....Ann says she has a recognition that where situations are complex and there is anxiety or conflict that there needs to be a pre-briefing, something that happens pre-process so that people have an opportunity to vent and get things off their chest, and process so they can decide what is crucial to bring in and what can be left out, and to understand what is going to happen in the process.   She also describes how she discovered Time to Think by Nancy Klein and the thinking environment and how this requires a particular type of listening and questioning. Operating the AI process using thinking environment principles really improves it. She also considers conflict and Non Violent Communication as a potentially something to use before AI. She is also a fan of mindfulness as a way of preparing for these conversations.   Nikki asks about the preparation and getting to know the context when using AI . Ann says she doesn’t do this as much as she used to when she felt she needed lots of facts. But now she needs to know that people are in the right frame of mind to do the process. She prepares well but doesn’t get too bogged down in the details.   Ann shares some examples of using AI – individual work with women who have taken the leap from prevaricating to putting something in place and taking practical steps (using AI and the Lean Canvas). In terms of organisations she has done quite a few team building sessions, building relationships between board members and staff, allowing them to work more effectively.   To connect with Ann Nkune on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-nkune-6a08b211/?originalSubdomain=uk or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bloomsburybeginnings/?hl=en and her webasite is: https://bloomsburybeginnings.org/  You can connect with Nikki Wilson on Twitter @NiksClicks  Listen to our podcasts:  https://www.facilitationstories.com/   And connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories       

In this episode Pilar talks to Paul Kelly and Caroline Jessop about co-facilitation.  Caroline is a facilitator based just outside Winchester. She describes herself as a creative facilitator and enjoys the things that leave people upbeat and energised.   Paul is the founder of Pandek Group which is a Facilitation, Training and Coaching business based in the South West specialising in bridging the disconnect within organisations. He uses Lego Serious Play as one of his facilitation tools.   Paul and Caroline have recently worked together on an away day that focused on the disconnect within teams in a professional organisation. They had already had a conversation about wanting to do some work together when this piece of work came up.   Caroline describes herself as a born collaborator and how she and Paul have similar expertise but different styles. She felt this piece of work was quite serendipitous and had space in her diary to explore the “gritty” brief.   It was also a learning opportunity for them each to experience someone else working and their different techniques. Challenging, questioning, evaluating and rationalising, and reflecting on their own practise.  An example of this was in writing the plan and the level of detail, the order of the process.   Paul’s way of thinking about co-facilitation is that:  You can get someone to support you and for example get materials ready. Or they can act as a backup if there is illness or emergency.   You can have co-facilitation when you are taking turns to deliver even though there may be one person leading on contracting, delivery and design.  Joint facilitation – includes everything that is co-facilitation but the design is done together too.  Collaboration facilitation - All of the above including the contracting and even sourcing the work in the first place.   You need to have an open and honest conversation about whose brand you are going under in the first place.   Paul and Caroline’s collaboration followed the following stages  Meeting with the client to pitch together – this was quite organic, and they both asked questions to get a broader understanding of the brief than they might have done on their own.   Putting together a headline plan – Caroline was keen to use a particular methodology that she included. This was followed by some tweaks and discussions with the client.   Paul then took the lead on making it come to life and they used SessionLab to add structure to the plan.  They were able to ask each other probing questions to check the plan.   Prior to this piece of work, they were both on the IAF England and Wales conference planning team together and Paul also worked as part of a team of facilitators when Caroline brought in several facilitators for a piece of work.  Caroline has co-created sessions with a number of people and says this broadens your perspective, and the diversity of experience teaches you things you didn’t know that you didn’t know.   Creating the outline for them was okay but the client needed more detail and several iterations of the plan. It helped that two people were listening and gave clarity and confidence in what they were proposing.   Caroline and Paul were on WhatsApp, behind the scenes during the meeting with their client and this created a good flow of conversation between them. Being listened to by multiple people by the client is always a good thing.   They did the budget conversation live online with the client and they were able to use Whatsapp to do this. They had had a previous conversation about budgets and knew the suggested rate in advance.   Throughout this project, Caroline and Paul learned that:  You need a growth mindset if you are going to work in front of a peer and take the feedback. This is a good challenge to have.   Balance of clarity over how you would do it and the benefit of doing it that way needs to be as ideal as it can be for the client and this can be tough to hear that someone else may do this differently.   Because of the complexity of the piece of work it was important for them to have had a chance to recharge and share what they did and to discuss when it got really tricky.   Here's some advice for someone who is going to co-facilitate or work with another facilitator for the first time:  Do it – you are learning as you are doing.  Listen with positivity – there are different ways of doing things it’s your opportunity to share as well as experience them.  Jump in and try it.  Be mindful of what the client is asking for.   Connect with Paul Kelly: Info@pandek.org -  https://pandek.org/   Connect with Caroline Jessop: Caroline@clearmeetings.co.uk - https://clearmeetings.co.uk/  And you can connect with your host, Pilar Orti on Twitter. https://twitter.com/PilarOrti   

In today's episode, Helene talks to Catherine Wilks about her experience of running a session at last year's conference. They talk about The Shoopery, working on instinct and play, adapting the plan as you go along, the power of letting go and the plans for the April 2023 conference.  Catherine was introduced to the IAF and the idea that she may actually be a facilitator by Cat Duncan Rees (IAF England and Wales Treasurer). She set up the Shoopery with Pip and Alfie. Having met at a Mental Health organisation and used mental health services themselves, they realised that there was the need for something to happen in between waiting for appointments. They developed lots of different ideas and workshops and realised they were good at helping people let go.  Enter “the Shoop”. Everybody’s Shoop can be different – which Catherine describes as positive, upbeat, out of your comfort zone experiences. When people experience their shoop, they say that at the point of letting go they are comfortable with being themselves. People don’t just want to cope with life, but live. Through their sessions, Catherine and her colleagues help bring things out that may have been squashed for a while and this helps people know that they matter. "If you know that you matter, that changes everything in life." At last year’s conference, everybody ended up talking about lemons. Catherine explains what the lemons were about, the “toy of the conference”, and she talks about wanting to make surprising things happen.  Their session at the conference had 3 times more people attending than expected and so they ended up running it outside. The aim was to try out lots of different things and to get to the point when people start to bond and trust each other and learn to work as a group. Throughout the session, they had conversations about what letting go feels like, what gets in the way and what helps. The aim was to do something that you didn’t think you would do through little Shoop nudges.  Catherine has learnt that actually she is a facilitator and that the conference is a really wonderful space to test things out. She felt everyone was really supportive and she now feels part of the community. She has volunteered to help organise this year’s conference which is at a Quaker House in Birmingham this April 2023. Tickets are already selling and lots of people are talking about it – the forms are also out now for submitting their session ideas. Catherine will be doing another session at this year’s conference about awakening instinct. She is excited about the conference themes around professional development and peer support and talks about how facilitation is such a diverse field that there are those who don’t call themselves facilitators, but are using facilitation in their work.  Find out more about Catherine at https://www.theshoopery.com/ and on Twitter  And connect with Helene via Twitter too.  Find out more about the IAFEW conference in April and get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/facilitate-2023-celebrating-and-sharing-the-diversity-of-facilitation-tickets-493851401837 And connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories or https://www.facilitationstories.com/ 

In this episode Nikki talks to Lucy Hawthorne who for the past year has been experimenting with bringing playfulness to conversations about climate. Lucy is a facilitator by trade and an environmental campaigner by background and has been exploring the link between playfulness and climate action for around five years. In the latter stages of her campaigning work, Lucy was at her most successful, including involvement in the ban on fracking in the UK, but was also at her most jaded. She was becoming adept at political maneuvering but not really shifting people’s hearts and minds, and began to think about how to engage people more deeply in this important subject.  As she moved into facilitation she began to look for the antidote to the lack of deep engagement and realised that people were being scared into action, but crushed into apathy. Maybe plan was the antidote.  Lucy has spent a lot of time thinking about what play means and how it is both a set of tools and a mindset.  The project hasn’t developed in quite the way Lucy expected but the end point is roughly where she was expecting. Initially Lucy thought this might be like a research mission looking at different elements of play and climate, systematically interviewing people and writing up findings, and at the end of the year, she’d have a pseudo evidence-base on the benefits of play in climate action.  But being playful and iterative about the process, Lucy has found other ways forward, asking the same questions but being less methodical about recording the evidence and dived quicker into action, prototyping and testing the concepts and principles out with people. Lucy uses Lego a lot in this work as it has a low barrier for entry.  It’s familiar for people and Lucy describes it as the “trojan horse”, getting people in as they think it’s fun and whacky but then having conversations that are fun but also serious and at times quite profound. She is also interested in play more generally, and talks about techniques such as improv, drama and art as different mechanisms of playfulness. Lucy is particularly interested in how to get people involved in a conversation that they generally avoid, or avoid having as deeply as they could do. Lucy tries to use tools that make it easy to get started. Nikki asks Lucy what prompted her to put the ideas into action.  Lucy feels this isn’t really a choice: climate action is urgent and theory isn’t very useful, there’s a need to give things a go and iterate to see what works.  It’s also about Lucy embodying in her practice as a facilitator, the things she’s talking to other people about.  For Lucy, playfulness is about curiosity, experimentation and going with the flow which is counter to her experience as a campaigner.  She’s pushed herself to give things a go, to run events and have conversttions with people that previously would have terrified her- and counting that as playfulness. They move on to talk about how Lucy has used a prototyping approach.  Her first event posed the question “How playful is the climate movement?”, and this helped set up different avenues of enquiry for Lucy, both on how people relate with climate change but also how they relate with play as adults.  She’s found a network of people who’ve helped to “chew the process through”.  She then started iterating workshops, online and in person, using Lego Serious Play for different audiences, and looking at different aspects such as emotions and blockers to action  She’s also done in-house company events and lectures, talking about principles around play and how it might relate to climate action. Nikki asks about the challenges and opportunities of using a physical medium such as Lego both on- and off-line.  Lucy has found the kinds of conversations people have had have been different.  Face to face conversations have generally catalysed a sense of connection, but because online is slightly more independent, people have noted a high level of quiet reflection.  Lucy also notes that with the online work has allowed the reach of the work to be much wider, involving participants globally. Lucy talks about some of the logistical challenges, using second hand lego as far as possible and finding ways to incentivise people to return it.  It’s also a challenge to work on in 2023 as she’s keen to make this accessible to people whether or not they have Lego at home, wherever they are in the world.  Lucy has enjoyed the online sessions but also feels there’s nothing like being in a room with a table full of toys. It’s been a rich year of learning for Lucy, mainly that there is “just something about play” and the word “play” that is different to parallel words.  Lucy’s convinced that if she changed the wording it wouldn’t be as effective.  She’s found it seems to appeal more to women and this is something she wants to unpick further.  She’s also found these freeing, playful techniques are most effective when talking about the difficult emotions associated with climate change, and “moments of stuckness”. From this learning she now understands her mission to be how to make it safe, light and fun to talk about climate change, so that people can engage more deeply, honestly and creatively with the subject. Lucy and Nikki do a live demonstration of some mini Lego Serious Play exercises building on the metaphors that are the basis for Lego Serious Play. Lucy is curious to continue exploring her role in how to support people to make faster progress and move into more radical action. Lucy is ready to launch Climate Play as an organisation in its own right and will now be diving deeply into this work, particularly helping businesses to solve climate blockers and how to partner with other people working to the same ends and help them increase the impact of their work.  There will be a full series of events, more in-house workshops and exploring the broader principles of what it means to have a playful mindset.  Links: To find out more about the Climate Play project: https://www.climateplay.org/ To attend future events:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/lucy-hawthorne-founderfacilitator-climate-play-29888274577 LinkedIn for Lucy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyhawthorne Nikki on Twitter: @NiksClicks

We wrap up the year talking to three hosts of our Meetups to find out what's been going on in their regions: what common themes have emerged throughout the year and their plans for 2023.  Join our Meetups in person, or online (you can join any region when you join online!).  https://www.meetup.com/iaf-facilitators-and-friends/ 01.41mins Helene Jewell tells Pilar Orti what’s been going on in the South West facilitators meetups. 12.38mins Megan Evans, co-host of the Wales/Cardiff meetup with Tanya Nash tells Nikki Wilson about what they’ve been up to. 15.46mins Adrian Ashton tells us all about what him and other facilitators have been up to in the "We are Northern" meetup - it involves plenty of zoom selfies that you can follow through #IAFMeetup. Connect with our guests on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-evans-consultant/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-nash-7576b837/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianashton/ And follow Facilitation Stories on Twitter @fac_stories  Nikki Wilson is @NiksClicks on Twitter Pilar Orti is... @PilarOrti 

Today we have a treat for you: Nikki Wilson interviews two guests who use photography as part of their facilitation practice. Gianpietro Pucciariello and Chris Chinnock. Our first guest is Gianpietro Pucciariello, who returns to the show after appearing in episode 15. Gianpietro’s working life in the UK is divided into two: he’s a start up founder and a sole trader that covers many roles.  He supports mission-drive individuals and communities to building social environmental impact communities and ecosystems.  For this he uses creativity and innovation practices, coaching focus conversations and collective learning experiences.  His last project is called From Lens to Self, through where he connects learning from different areas in his life. He’s developed for others a 3hours outdoor walking self-development journey, using photography for self-exploration. Participants can use their cameras or phones to take photographs to visualise their problems, using metaphors to connect to the problem, and help the problem surface.  At the end of the workshop, individuals create a plan of action to take their learnings forward. In essence, photography here is a tool for self-discovery and research, in the present, within our present environment. This idea has its origins right back in Gianpietro’s childhood and adolescent. As an introverted child, he liked to observe in silence, and he used to spend a lot of time in the photography shop of his aunt and uncle. The passion for photography increased later on in life and it became a way of self-expression, especially during the time that his father’s neurological disease was worsening.  Around 2013, Gianpietro joined a photo journalist course about telling stories through photography, and this turned out to be one of the best decisions of his life. Rediscovering photography led to him leaving a job he wasn’t happy in, and led him to become a facilitator and nurturer of others.  Now he’s using photography as an organic processing for self-reflection and understanding the world around us. We need to be present in the moment, in a similar way to facilitation.  He’s now looking at blending different practices, for example from the art of hosting,  open space technology, embodiment and clean language.    Gianpietro has been running these workshops and has had good feedback, so he knows that the process works for other people as well as himself. The workshop will run in the weekends as the weather is getting colder, but he’s looking to have longer events in the spring, a kind of “Lens to Self Plus”. He’s also looking into building a community around this practice, with follow up exercises; as well as a few interactive email-based course about creative leadership, mindfulness and problem solving, all starting using photography.  There’s a lot to think about when you are in charge of a group, walking around a London area taking photographers, so Gianpietro has a list of things he does to make sure people are, and feel, safe under his care. The fact that the workshops take place in a group helps participants form their ideas through talking to others.  To make sure Gianpietro keeps his instructions clear and precise, he makes sure when he communicates each task to the participants, he only uses five words to do so.  You can find out more about From Lens to Self here: https://gianpy.carrd.co/  https://www.eventbrite.com/o/gianpietro-pucciariello-50327260933 ———— 27.06mins Nikki’s second guest on the show is Chris Chinnock, the Founder of the social enterprise Our Creative Connection, which uses photography as a tool for social change. Chris spent about five years exploring asset-based community development, travelling around the UK delivering training and attending events talking about the ways in which organisation and communities interact. His professional career has always had a thread of community development and creativity running through it.  Alongside that, he’s also been interested in photography and has worked as a freelance photographer. During the pandemic he was thinking about, in essence, what he wanted to do with his life and re-evaluating the time he was spending outside vs inside the home. He’s now able to draw on a range of things that inspire him and which he thinks are important. The role of photography in community development, or a community context was one of the first thoughts around Our Creative Connection.  “Photo voice” is a methodology applied mainly in academic research to get feedback in a visual time. Chris is now offering “photo voice” to explore how images and creating photographs can invite new conversations, without needing to start with words, or only use words. He’s also been taking portraits in people involved in an organisation celebrate its 10th anniversary, gathering their stories. He’s now opening the first dark room photography and printing workshop.  What he’s taken from his previous roles as facilitator: the mindset of how you plan for workshops, when you’re creating the space for people to develop; he’s also been heavily influenced by Peter Block’s work around the impact they have on people depending on how they show up.  Chris uses photography also to explain what he does, giving him a different starting point, a more open one. And of course, there’s not a right or wrong way to use photography in this way. Images are useful to start conversations. For example, Photo Voice is not a photography project, it’s more about “voice” than “photo”, it’s about finding your own story. Using an image to start a conversation also allows you to talk about subjects that are difficult to talk about.  One of Chris’ future projects is going to involve embedding photography into the curriculum to help with learning outcomes. He’s also interested in how organisations can use images to communicate better and using art to shine a light on different subjects.  You can find out more about Chris' work here: https://www.ourcreativeconnection.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-chinnock/ And this episode's host, Nikki Wilson, can be found on LinkedIn too: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/

Happy Facilitation Week everyone!  We are releasing this bonus episode to celebrate all things facilitation.  In this episode, which we've borrowed from the 21st Century Work Life podcast, Pilar talks to Simon Wilson about how he incorporates asynchronous communication into his facilitation processes - and the challenges this brings.  You can see the full show notes over at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/asynchronous-collaboration-facilitation To get in touch with the team behind Facilitation Stories, head over to https://facilitationstories.com/ or you can follow the podcast through @Fac_Stories on Twitter. 

For this episode, Pilar is joined by John Monks to talk about how to have a conversation with a client about whether your event or workshop should be in person or online. John is a facilitator, and partner of Curve. He coaches CEOs, and has digested his practice of many years into the book Closer Apart: How to Design and Facilitate Brilliant Workshops Online, which he's co-written with Lizzie Shupak.  https://www.closerapartbook.com/ John’s always been passionate about helping people connect with each other in order to collaborate and solve problems, and this drives much of his work.  Through facilitation and training facilitators, he looks for “where the edges are” and new ways of helping people to collaborate. Using technology is part of looking at new ways of working.  John started as a consultant - freelancing and in a large firm, where there were many opportunities to develop his skills in how to run meetings and help people collaborate. In parallel, he trained as an exec coach, helping people to come up with new solutions.  His pivotal moment in his career was attending a course at the THNK School of Creative Leadership – www.thnk.org  The whole syllabus was delivered through workshops and coaching. It’s the first time he realised that facilitation could be at the heart of a process and that there were ways in which you could become better at it. Following this, he trained as a team coach - helping individuals develop together as a team can be very powerful.  John founded Curve with Lizzie Shupak in 2017, to train people to facilitate - he found the right partner for the right need in marketing and advertising agencies, another sector John worked in.  Much of the coaching through Curve for the beginning was done online (e.g. via Skype) as they were working with global clients and teams. At the same time, they were observing the disruption and fatigue that having to travel across the world to attend workshops  caused individuals.  To investigate how to do this differently, they created the Remote Workshop in 2018, to help individuals and organisations save carbon and save money. Surely everyone would be ready to jump on it? Well, no. Nobody wanted it.  But by 2020, everybody wanted it. It was great to be able to show people what was possible in the online space.   The evolution of people’s comfort with technology has changed a lot since 2019, and even those who said they were “tech dinosaurs” became very adaptable online. This has allowed John to try new things. He’s also more aware that there is an expectation of having high production values when you are speaking online. And, he’s curious to see what facilitation in true virtual reality will look like… Back to the present, now 2022, when in person workshops have come back. John finds that how much clients want to stay online varies  - due to company culture, individual preferences and the experience they’ve had online with workshops.  He’s found that many people have kept their workshops online. John refers to the Fast Company article "This strategy can impact an entire organization" which highlights that Virtual training sessions seem to be more effective than in person workshops. https://www.fastcompany.com/90740874/this-strategy-can-impact-an-entire-organization-fast  John reckons this is to do with the attention you get when the workshop is online (and we’re talking about well-designed courses), people feel more present. There could also be something around the flexibility of attending an online course, as there’s no travel involved. (These are John’s guesses, based on his experience - but do let us know if you have any other thoughts/facts about why this might be happening, and if this is your experience.) Why do we run workshops? John puts his answer in four buckets: We run workshops to (1) learn and to (2) create/build something new, and the online space gives us the benefit of accessing people from different locations. It’s also easier to access digital tools to help with idea creation etc if you are behind a computer, than if you are in a room together. John believes human beings can be just as creative in the online space, if not more, because we can access more diversity.  John reckons that the reason why we hear so much that people are more creative when they are co-located points to the third bucket, which is to (3) build teams (building trust and connection). But John knows this can also be done online - “everything you can do in person, you can do online”. The assumption that there are some things you can only do in person comes from limiting beliefs that haven’t been challenged, or because these are not things that have been experienced directly. But John is not discounting the joy that comes from being physically together with others. Which brings him to bucket (4) building human connections, which is easier to do in the colocated (physically together) space, which removes much of the friction.   We need to be specific about why we want to choose one medium over another - it’s not all about being more “creative”, it could be about feeling physically closer to each other, and using all (or most of!) our five senses together.  22.10mins  When looking at team-away days, John’s final question of the brief with a client is “What’s the one thing you want to achieve through this workshop?” If the answer is “team cohesion”, then John suggests they do the work together online first, then get together physically and focus the sessions on trust building, empathy, etc. (He covers this in the book too!) With all the options available to clients now, John finds about 50% of people will prefer to run workshops online - even those where team members are in the same geographical location, as some now have different schedules - practically, it’s becoming more difficult to get people together in the same physical space, at the same time. John suggests that training is done online, for co-creation, he suggests 1) online 2) in same physical space 3) hybrid.  John does most facilitation in real-time and uses asynchronous processes when there is benefit to having some work done ahead of the event. Now, why did John write a book?  During lockdown, his company was inundated with requests, as there are many professions where bringing people to create together is at the core of their work. The only way to help everyone who needed help was to write a book. Their main challenge was to make the book feel as much as a workshop as possible.  The team managed to come up with a format to the book which encourages people to go through the material, reflect and put it into action, as well as giving them supporting materials. John realises that his way of writing this book had nothing to do with all the writing methods he was coming across. He worked with a fantastic coach, who helped him and Lizzie to map out the journey of the reader. Then John locked himself away in a hotel room and wrote for a weekend. He did this three times.  There is now an online course available called Facilitating Workshops Online. It’s a self-paced course for Facilitators, and anyone who needs to facilitate a workshop every now and then. We have a heavy discount for listeners! Please use the code facilitationstories with this link: https://curvecreative.thinkific.com/courses/facilitating-workshops-online  If you have any insights to share about running your own workshops, do get in touch with John through his website: https://www.curve.cc/ (and if you want to know what the .cc stands for, make sure you have a listen!)  You can find John on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmonkscurve/ And Pilar would love to connect with you on Twitter @PilarOrti You can follow the podcast through @Fac_Stories on Twitter.