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Mapping the field of facilitation
Do you ever find that an idea lands in your lap, and instantly opens up a new way of thinking for you?
That’s how I felt when I came across Mintzberg’s ‘Ten Schools of Strategy’. It maps the field of strategic thinking into ten different traditions - each with its own assumptions about how strategy is formed and what the purpose of it is.
3 lessons from over a decade of facilitating strategy work - and 5 of my most used activities in a cheatsheet!
As we head into the Autumn I am coming to the end of two consultancy projects - one leading the facilitation of a 6 month strategy process for a national arts organisation, and the other facilitating a collective theory of change for a group of partners who are beginning to work together and wanted a process to help them get aligned on their shared priorities.
What do professional facilitators look for in a venue?
Have you ever walked into a meeting venue and felt your heart sink? A good venue can make or break an event — here's the checklist I use to make sure it doesn't.
Why facilitation is the skill your teams are missing (and a free tool to help you level up your meetings)
Where do most team meetings go wrong?
Rewind to 2015. I'm in a meeting with my team of about seven people, high-performing, and we all work well together. And yet our meetings often looked like this:
How to adapt facilitation methods for any context: a real-world example
What do you do when none of your go-to facilitation methods quite fit the brief? One option is to get creative, and adapt one, or mix and mash a few different ideas together. Sometimes the result is even better than the original.
7 things you'll never hear me saying in a workshop
I wrote a post last week on the most common sentences you'll hear me saying in a workshop, and it led to the most amazing contributions from other facilitators, which I have been carefully reading and adding to my playbook. Here I'm sharing a list of things you'll never catch me saying in a workshop - some more tongue in cheek than others!
Top 10 pain points that show you’re already a facilitator (even if you don’t call yourself one)
I've been having a lot of conversations recently with people who don't use the label ‘facilitator’ but are coming to me with some very familiar challenges. These challenges come up again and again in the facilitation 101 training I run - and they are all things you can learn to overcome!
Facilitation tips: how to avoid ‘death by group feedback’
Last year, I wrote a LinkedIn post about a major challenge I face as a facilitator: trying to avoid ‘death by group feedback.’ The responses from other facilitators were amazing, and I've combined their advice with my original ideas to create an updated version!
What have I learnt from facilitating over 1,000 workshops?
Today I’m launching a new facilitation skills programme for people who want to grow their ability and confidence working with groups. Working as a coach and facilitator I often get asked if I can run in house facilitation skills sessions for teams, but I’ve not yet launched an open access programme for individuals who want to build their skills as a facilitator. Now, after 15 years of facilitation in different forms and well over 1,000 workshops, feels like the right time.