Facilitation: the art of enabling a group of people to achieve a common goal. IAF England Wales brings you a show by facilitators, for facilitators and anyone interested in using facilitation for change. We'll share guest stories, experiences and methods. Plus, we'll bring you up to date on what's happening at our Meetups.
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🎙️FS85 - Authenticity and Accountable Grounding with AI
Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 25:55
What does it mean to be yourself on purpose as a facilitator, especially in a world increasingly shaped by AI?
In the latest episode of IAF England & Wales' Facilitation Stories, Sam Moon sits down with Hannah Boneham, Co-Founder of Facilitate Sheffield, for a conversation about authenticity, accountability, community and belonging.
They explore what inspired Hannah to set up Facilitate Sheffield and how facilitation communities can create spaces where people feel a genuine sense of connection and belonging.
They also talk about authenticity in practice, finding your own way of holding a room, and staying grounded and accountable as AI becomes increasingly part of our work. And, continuing the thread from the previous episode, Hannah reflects on learning from mistakes and what those experiences have taught her along the way.
Quote highlights
"What I will never do is use it to design workshops end to end, or plug in outputs from client workshops and ask it to do the analysis without me also separately having done the analysis."
"You can really be yourself. You can be authentically you, so long as you are in a place where that authenticity helps bring people together to solve the problems that they have in front of them."
"There are some absolutely tremendous people, wonderful talent, and so very generous with their skills and experience... it brings so much joy and it makes facilitation not just a profession, but a community that I really love."
Sam: Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as the IAF. My name is Sam Moon and my guest today is Hannah Bonham. Hannah is a facilitator specialising in change management and organisational development, and as a CEO of Leadwell, a social enterprise and consultancy based in Sheffield.
So, Hannah, to kick off with tell me what, in your world of facilitation is making you smile at the moment?
Hannah audio: Thank you, Sam. And can I say, first of all, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for having me.
Sam: Thank you, Hannah.
Hannah audio: what's making me smile? So, the obvious and, first answer that rushed to my mind when you asked the question was the community of facilitators that I've gotten to know over the last few years.
There are some absolutely tremendous people, wonderful talent, and so very generous with their skills and experience and this network, this space that we've all chosen to occupy together. It brings so much joy and, it makes facilitation not just a profession, but a community that I really love that.
Sam: Tell me a bit about what you love about that. What does that mean to you, Hannah?
Hannah audio: Well, I'm an extreme extrovert and I don't say that lightly. I really do, like, at the end of a day's facilitation, I come home absolutely pumped because I've just spent the day interacting with people the whole time and I really enjoy it. It's something I have to watch and manage in terms of how my energy can come across and I can be a lot.
So my husband tells me from time to time and the fact that there are a huge range of different kinds of people from different walks of life, the different backgrounds and skills and perspectives and who present different challenges and ideas. It's such a rich tapestry facilitation with so many amazing different people and it really feeds me.
I get a huge amount from it and I hope I give a lot back to it as well. 'cause I get a lot of enjoyment from spending time with those people.
Sam: Say and in danger of putting you on the spot here. Is there anything that comes to mind that have been highlights of this shared community and, the gifts that you discover when your inner community of facilitators and things that surprise you that you weren't expecting?
Hannah audio: Yeah. Yeah. So I was one of the co-founders of Facilitate Sheffield, which is the Sheffield branch of the IAF, the meetup. I co-founded that with Jane Clift, who has been a guest on this podcast herself. And Jane and I starting that off, we literally met for a coffee and we were like, we can't be the only facilitators in Sheffield.
Who else is here? How should we find them? And growing that from that conversation, just the two of us to the next, I think it was the next month when we had nine or 10 different people come along, two of whom agreed to then be co-lead. So I now co-lead along with Angel Takooree and Helen Todd. And we now have last count, I cannot remember, something like 50 or 60 members that come to sessions every two months.
And each time we have a different person volunteer to facilitate a session, which means that we get to learn a completely new topic and we get to experience someone else's kind of key skillset. So you get two for one, right? Because you're not just like experiencing the facilitation of that person, but you're also learning how they do it.
You might pick up a new tip or a new trick or a new set of pens that would work for you that you can try and, or whatever it might be. And I think that's the thing that really stands out for me that in the last few years is that not only is this community about, but it's generous and it's willing to be expanded and wants to be probed and shared and enjoyed by everyone.
And I just, yeah I was really surprised to find that. And I'm, yeah, very happy to be part of it.
Sam: Sounds like a really powerful strong experience in terms of bringing people together. You can share stuff and share stories and kind of what they're up to. And learning from one another. I really, when, when, so at, at, there's the sessions that you meet up went after an event like that, after come together.
what do you leave with? What, in terms of, not as in product or transactional, but how does it leave you feeling?
Hannah audio: For me, very energised. Because I've spent the time with people other people have said they've felt very safe, which has been really nice feedback and very involved and included. People have told us that they leave feeling as though they've found their people, that they've recognised now that they're not alone in what they're trying to achieve.
We have a lot of, it's probably an even balance actually, of in-house facilitators. So people who have roles like project management where they do a lot of facilitation, and then other people who are freelance facilitators or have their own business like, like myself. And I think that people have made connections with others who have similar peripheral skill sets or needs or requirements, as well as the facilitation as well.
So I think people have said that coming away from it, they've made new friends and new connections that have helped support them in other aspects of their careers and their lives, which I've been grateful for.
Sam: So that sounds like a really mutual experience. As as well.
Hannah audio: I hope so. I hope so. Because you know when you get a lot out of something, sometimes there's a concern, like you stop and go, hang on, is this is feeding me? I hope it's feeding other people too.
Sam: No, it's it feels like there's a lot of aliveness in there. I'm gonna come onto the next question in the moment, but like, whilst, whilst we're here, and this is the Sheffield meetup that you are talking about?
Hannah audio: it is, yeah.
Sam: about, if anybody any, any listeners who kind of were in any facilitators and listeners in kind of Sheffield, how would they find out about those, those meetups?
Hannah audio: so it's any facilitators working or living in or around Sheffield or the Sheffield area? We call it South Yorkshire. If you're willing to travel, we'd be very happy to have you. You can find out about us by searching the hashtag facilitate Sheffield on LinkedIn, or I'll give my details at the end of this podcast and you ha very happy for you to drop me a line or find me on LinkedIn and I'll connect you up with the group.
Sam: Beautiful, and we make sure we put that information in the links of the podcast as well. So that's a beautiful thing.
So how did, what, what helped you get into this work? How did you find yourself in facilitation? What is your facilitation story?
Hannah audio: Thank you. So I think I'm one of probably many people who was a facilitator before they realised that it was a defined profession, you know, a professional skillset. So I worked in change management, project management, organisation development, programme management, those sorts of peripheral fields.
And I spent a lot of time helping manage complex groups of stakeholders who often didn't agree with each other or who agreed about what the outcome might be, but not the journey that we had to go on to get there, et cetera, et cetera. And I run a lot of workshops and it was after I'd set up Leadwell which had a focus of leadership to create thriving organisations, you know, leading well, leadership and wellbeing.
And I met Jane Clift and she she said, well, have you come across the term facilitation? And I was like, well, yeah, in various different contexts, but how do you mean? And she explained that the IAF and she talked me through the fact that it was a profession in an in and of its own rights. And it was at that stage that I realised that was a group that I could potentially identify with.
Jane told me that the next conference that was coming up was actually the Europe and middle Eastern one. This was back in, gosh, it would've been August, 2023. And so the next one was, I think it was October 23 in Berlin. And I did a load of Googling that evening, went down a proper rabbit hole, and was just, oh my gosh, I think these might be my people.
I really need to get to this place. But literally just set up the business literally in August. And so I made a commitment to myself that if I had invoiced a client at all, if I'd sent an invoice, I would treat myself to the conference as a result. And I did, about a month later, my first invoice for £100, no, £400 came in, which was nowhere near enough to cover the conference.
But I had promised myself. And so I went and I met the most amazing people while I was there, who, many of whom I've stayed very much in touch with, I've worked with, I've had work from, I've given work to, and have helped me grow and shape what Leadwell has become and my own facilitation kind of skillset and where I see myself on that landscape.
So it was the most, it was the absolute best thing I could possibly have done at that time. And then shortly after Jane and I founded Facilitate Sheffield, and it's gone from there.
Sam: What an incredible story. And like when you're talking about that first invoice, you can relate to the anxieties of the first client and the first invoice
Hannah audio: Yeah, right, that very first one. I was so thrilled to get it over the line.
Sam: That you make. And I wanna ask you a little bit about the themes that you've noticed emerge since for you. But just before I do, just tell me in terms of the, what do you feel were the conditions or what enabled you to help you step into that space? You've touched on them in terms of like discovering your way in your jour in your journey, but just say, you know, is there anything you could sort of say a little bit more to in terms of what enabled, what were the enabling factors there?
Hannah audio: Yeah I think it, to an extent, it comes down to, I've said the word generous before. I think that the facilitation profession and the people that are members of that profession are incredibly generous. But I think that facilitation has such a huge scope. It's such a broad tapestry, a landscape.
You know, we were playing with words before we join, before press record, you know, spectrum, landscape map, what are the words that you might use? And there's space for everyone who is comfortable leading a workshop. Essentially different styles and approaches and topics. But you can really be yourself. You can be authentically you so long as you are in a place where that authenticity helps bring people together to solve the problems that they have in front of them.
You can do that in the way that you feel most comfortable. And I think that is a wonderful opportunity. 'cause it means that we can constantly grow. We're always gonna be meeting new people. We're always gonna be inclusive. We're gonna be able to embrace diversity, move forward, be agile, change with the times, adapt.
You know, it's a, it's something that's gonna be around forever. And I think that was the thing that made it easy for me to join and embrace and be part of it. 'cause I was welcomed with open arms. And I try now to do the same thing for others.
Sam: Right. So it's about how people are creating space for you to be you and find yourself within that, as well as discovering rather than feeling sort of, a performative,
Hannah audio: Yeah. And you see that, right? If you go to any of the conferences, the range of topics that are available for you to get involved in while we're all together, it's astounding. Like I've never seen, I've never been to another conference that's focused in that way, that on a topic that then gives you such a huge spectrum of different activities you can be involved in.
I don't know if you have.
Sam: Yeah. and we're talking here about the IAF conference that runs each year by kind of volunteers and having experience in myself, it is a welcoming space where there is just so many gifts, passion skills, and gifts that are being shared amongst facilitators. And it's like a treasure trove of what people do.
You know, I sort of, the, my analogy is like when you go to a, a kind of a music festival and there's loads of acts on that you wanna see at once, and it's like, I can only see that one because I can't see that one. But the, the shared experience is really a really wonderful thing as well.
Hannah audio: I love treasure trove, but I've always talked about it being like a sweet shop. You go in and you're like, and you know those Yee Olde sweet shops and you suddenly, you've got the sweets from your childhood. You've got sweets that are your favourite, and then you've got sweets you've never seen before.
That's what the IAF conference is like.
Sam: That's a nice, that's a nice plug. Beautiful thing. Thank you very much, Hannah. We're gonna nail it there. So within, within this sort of world, in your journey of facilitation, Hannah, what have you sort of found or discovering is a commitment that's important for you to honour in your work during this journey?
Hannah audio: So there's a couple of things I wanted to touch on here. There's one I just want to talk about briefly and then the kind of the main one I wanted to answer with.
So I think it's really important to recognise that facilitation is a profession, it's a professional skillset and that doesn't mean that we are not really welcoming the people who wanna try the hand or get involved.
Of course we do, right? Because if you love it and you wanna explore it and you wanna become kind of professionally capable in it, then come one come all with, it's super welcoming and I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that it has its own defined definition and its own space. And we can play with that.
You know, you have facilitative coaches and you have trainers who use facilitation techniques and all of these different peripheral kind of professions that interrelate with facilitation. But I think it's important to honour the fact that there are some people who are purely facilitators and that is their professional skillset.
And yeah, we just need to recognise that it is its own profession in its own right. I dunno if you've got any thoughts on that before I lead into my second idea. Sorry. I did come up with a part two for this answer.
Sam: and see indeed. I think my, my journey of facilitation, discovering as, as a word and what it's, has almost been part of discovering what I do and how I do things. And I guess if you are asking me that question back is almost seeing facilitation as this umbrella word. And then there is a continuum of different approaches.
And I find myself leaning into different ways of doing things. And from where I've started, my background is in youth and community work from 20 / 30 years ago. So I guess from way back then, I've always thought, well, I'm doing facilitation. So when I discovered facilitation as a work, I was thinking, well, this is what I, I have been doing.
But then ever since then, I've been more focused using the word facilitation. I've gone on to discover lots of different skills. And I think what I've found is that I have shifted from maybe a, well, this is the only way of doing things to, there are so many ways of doing things, and you follow your passion and then find the different skills that work, work for you.
And it's ever and it's ever changing in,
Hannah audio: It's never gonna be stagnant. It's never gonna stay still. It'll always evolve. That's cool.
Sam: in, in that set. So, so what else is coming up for you in the world of facilitation and that you're, you are noticing and is important to you?
Hannah audio: So the, the other thing that I've been thinking about a lot is the use of Ai. And I've been encouraged quite a lot by people to use chat, GPT and others to speed up my processes. So I get a lot of consultants saying things to me like, it's all about how much you value your time, and if you value your time, you'll use these tools to make things quicker.
And I don't know, some things just never sat completely comfortably with me in that, in that regard. It's not criticism of anyone that does use it in that way, then that's great. But for me personally until I came across a term, I was speaking to my colleague Steve here, and he talked about accountable grounding, and I realised that's the kind of the term I've been, I've been searching for.
So I will use copilot really comfortably to kickstart my ideas to check timings on workshops. I might plug in some analysis and say, can I check? Like, have I missed anything in this? Or if I presented this to you, what might be your responses so that I can prepare well? But what I will never do is use it to design workshops end to end, or plug in outputs from client workshops and ask it to do the analysis without me also separately having done the analysis.
And the reason is because I think my ability to present any valid arguments and enter into conversation about conclusions I've drawn in design or in delivery or in like closed down, that's the minimum a client should expect, right? That if someone says to me, I've got a question for you. I won't just be able to answer it because someone has spat out an answer and given it to me.
But I'll understand the logic model that sits behind it, and I'll be able to validate, challenge or change my mind and understand how in changing my mind that will affect the rest of the workshop or the interaction that I've created. That does not make me the cheapest facilitator on the market. And it doesn't mean that I have the largest profit margins, but it does mean that my quality and accountability will always high.
And that for me is the commitment that's important to honour in my work day to day.
Sam: Oh, thank you Hannah. And just sort of, just to follow up on that almost is why, tell me and when I ask this, it's not because I don't think it is, but tell me why. Tell me why that is important to you.
Hannah audio: It's because we talked before about authenticity and it's about me being able to stand up and say, this is me you are interacting with, and I will use tools to hone my craft. But when you see someone standing in front of me, I will have taken the time to understand your needs. I will have taken the time to design something that I think will meet those needs, and I will be held accountable to the decisions I've made, the actions I take, the thoughts and ideas I share with you.
And I think that there are lots of ways that you could erode that accountability, that AI's just one off them. And I think it's really important to make sure that you can, you have that, that accountable grounding when you are interacting with clients, if you're going to maintain a level of quality.
That for me is what LEADWELL stands for.
Sam: Yeah. And you're being transparent and you are, you've kind of honouring the relationship, the human to human relationship that you have with a client, whoever it is you are working with. And then, and through working in that way, what I'm hearing is you are building trust and that trust, you know, builds at the speed of relationship, which you are nurturing from the first conversation
Hannah audio: Certainly hope so.
Sam: That's lovely. So, moving on to our, our little feature of the, the guest question, which
has come from a previous guest is, so this is the question that we've been offered,
"Is can you tell us about a time when it all went wrong and what did you do? What happened? "
And the person who's offered this has said, "
I'm happy if it's a great example.Or if they're comfortable sharing one that didn't turn out well we all might learn from it."
So that puts you on a bit of a pedestal, Hannah. So kind of, is there anything you know, I'm sure we can all kind of share these stories, but if there's anything that you'd like to you know, respond, you know, in terms to that question, what comes to mind?
Hannah audio: Thank you. I'm, I won't lie. I was glad I got a little bit of time on this one in advance, so thanks for that. So I think one thing I'd say is I haven't had any major disasters yet, and I say that yet because I kind of liken this to driving a car, right? If you drive a car every day, if your entire life, at some point you're gonna get, you're gonna get into some sort of, hopefully very minor, but some sort of smash, you're gonna reverse into something or someone will crash into you.
It's gonna happen because of the time you spend on the road. So the longer I spend facilitating, the more likely is that some point something is gonna go wrong. And so I don't hold myself up on a pedestal. As you said. Nobody is perfect. I'm very lucky that I've had no out and out disasters. But I have had several segments go wrong, individual activities, exercises that I thought, oh God, even in the moment, I knew it wasn't working.
So I'm happy to share a few of those. I once dropped off an online workshop I was hosting and I just couldn't get back on again. Absolute like nightmare. And I did eventually after about, I don't know, 20 minutes managed to rejoin and the group had just sort of carried on chatting generally around the topic.
They'd waited for me, thank goodness, but that could have been a disaster if I joined in. All the clients have just left. The thing I learned from that, always have a second facilitator online. That's an absolute hard line for me. I will not do an online facilitation now without a second facilitator on the call.
That's absolute, like non-negotiable. I once had a really icky experience when I was running a constellations exercise and I'm quite high energy, quite tangible focus when I'm doing my workshops. And I, no, that's not for everyone, but that's my style. A lot of fun, a lot of interactivity. And this particular exercise required quite a lot quiet reflection.
And it just, as I was doing it, it felt over earnest. I felt it felt too slow. It wasn't, it, I could tell people were looking at me and they were doing the things I was asking, but something just, it felt like I was trying too hard. And afterwards on, I always do a feedback session on the board and I did get the feedback that exercise when we were standing up and moving around the room felt a bit, a little bit over earnest.
And I thought, yeah, it did. I knew it did. The thing I learned from that is not to try to use tools or techniques that don't fit with me and my personality. I can always have a second facilitator with me if I think it's something the client really needs. And if I'm not right for a commission, I pass them on to other people. I don't try and keep hold of them.
And then the last one I would say is I had somebody and I'm, I'm really ashamed of this, so it's, it's something that I'm, I'm bringing it. I had someone feedback once that they felt physically excluded by an exercise that I had done which required quite a lot of moving around the room.
And I'm, I'm someone who prides themselves on trying to design with inclusivity in mind. And I just, I dropped the ball on that one and I was really ashamed. I reached out to them to apologise and to say if they had any suggestions for how we might improve it next time to let me know. But the thing that I've learned is that when I'm designing any exercise in any workshop I take, take the time to think about how different diverse needs might be impacted by the choices that I've made.
And I make sure I've got alternatives. That does take time. It does. But I think it's so important to make sure that on the day I can anticipate additional needs. People don't have to come to me to say, I can't do this. How are you gonna adapt? I have to think on the fly. I can say, this is how we're gonna do it.
If you'd like to, you can do it this way or this way too. And I've learned that now, and that's something I build into my practise as standard. So there you go. There's three things that went wrong that I've changed my practise as a result.
Sam: Hannah, thank you for such a human response to that, question. And I'm sure there'd be some listeners like, nodding, nodding along or kind of beginning to kind of resonate. With that. And I was kind of, you know, relating a little bit whilst on sort of, you know, whilst being kind of present in terms of what you were saying.
Hannah audio: Thank you.
Sam: it was yeah, really nice to hear how you, what I was, what I was hearing. There was a deep sense of, of, of awareness and also in terms of how you discovered your presence within each one, each one of those. But also how you kind of identified how you were feeling and what was coming up about that.
And particularly when I guess those emotions and feelings and when that last one. And I've been in sort of maybe been in similar situations where you feel that sense of like, how I let someone down and kind of
what that can do for us. And I think what also your stories there demonstrate is as facilitators, it's quite tough out there, 'cause you are, are you on there on your own and like you're wanting to make things work and then, you know, you're trying to find your way with those things as well.
Hannah audio: A hundred percent.
Sam: Thank you. Thank you for your vulnerability with those questions, Hannah.
Hannah audio: Thank you.
Sam: so we're coming to the end of our conversation.
So be before, before, before we do, I just wanna ask you if in any, if anything at all is what, if any meaning has been made for you through the course of this conversation.
Hannah audio: You know what actually springs to mind, I wondered about this because I know this is a question that you ask, and I thought, well, gosh, what if we get to this point and I can't think of anything or I can't think of anything profound. Sam, what if I say something embarrassing? But
Sam: no, there is nothing is a perfectly acceptable answer to this question.
Hannah audio: Well, thank you very much. But I think it's kind of, it's even more meta than that, Sam. 'cause I think the answer is, I am talking about authenticity and the fact that it, this community of facilitators, this profession of facilitation enables people to come and be themselves. And I felt like that on this podcast.
So I said I was nervous before this side. I don't feel nervous. Now I feel very accepted and welcomed. And listening to the other podcasts or the other kind of sessions that you've hosted and that your colleagues have hosted, that comes across I think, and I think that's the thing that's really kind of resonated for me and that I'm gonna take away from today's conversation.
That as facilitators, we are, we try very hard to be a really inclusive community. And the people really are welcome to be who they are and to express that fully. And you've given me that opportunity today, Sam. So thank you.
Sam: Thank you, Hannah. Thank you for sharing that. And so we shall finish with a question where I invite you to offer a question to a future guest in facilitation stories. So Hannah what is your question to a future guest?
Hannah audio: Thank you. Okay. So granted what we've said already about authenticity and being able to be our real selves, but obviously when we're working with clients, we've got them from lots of diverse different backgrounds. And to be inclusive, we need to adapt in order to make them feel safe in the space that we're asking them to operate in.
So my question is, what part of yourself do you have to hide, suppress, manage, or dial up to be an effective facilitator?
Sam: Thank you, Hannah. That's a, a beautiful question. It's a strong one and it's gonna give our future guests something to chew on. so Hannah, before we finish, is there anything else that you'd like to say or share that has not been said?
Hannah audio: Only that if people are interested in hearing more about facilitate Sheffield, they can contact me on LinkedIn. Hannah Boneham, you should be very easy to find. There's not many people with my surname and I look forward to meeting more people in the profession over the coming years. I meant what I said.
I'm extreme extrovert. If you fancy a chat or you'd like to connect with me, drop me a line. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna wish that I hadn't offered that. I love meeting new people, so please do say hi and thank you very much for your time.
Sam: On that. Thank you ever so much for being my guest today, Hannah.
Hannah audio: Thank you, Sam
Sam: We have reached the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to hear more about the IAF and how to get involved, please head over to our website, ww dot facilitation stories.lipsy.com to make sure you never miss an episode. We are always on the lookout for new topics to discuss, so if you think there is a facilitator that we should talk to or you would like to share what's emerging in your world of facilitation, send us an email at podcast at IAF ew co uk.
We hope you join us for more facilitation stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.
🎙️FS84 - Dealing with disruptive behaviours, with Alan Heckman
Episode 84
Friday, August 7, 2026 • Duration 29:41
In today's episode, Umah welcomes facilitator Alan Heckman to share practical ways to handle disruptive behaviours in groups, drawing on his IAF England and Wales conference workshop and his background with ICA training.
They talk about:
Common challenges, from subtle withdrawal to over-participation to barbed comments
Mango's in facilitation!
Setting informal norms and tools for helping people feel heard while keeping the process moving.
The facilitator persona
Addressing hierarchy by depersonalising ideas
Using the group to redirect off-topic derailments.
Quote highlights
"The very first thing that I say is, 'Hi, my name is Alan. I'm a group facilitator. This is what I think a group facilitator is.'"
"What you need is not for the person to stop talking, usually. What you need is to make them a little bit more of a process-aware participant."
"Usually, they're concerned about something important, something that they aren't feeling heard about or that they love or think is really critical... They keep talking because they fear it won't come out in the final result."
"If somebody steps up and is being angry or disruptive...you might try asking them...'Can I ask you a question?' followed by 'What is it that would have to take place for you to find this process worth engaging with?'"
For more information on the courses Alan runs, and to learn more about ICA:UK:
FS83 - Facilitation as a super skill with Robert Cserti
Friday, July 17, 2026 • Duration 25:24
In todays episode Sam is joined by Robert Cserti, who traces his path from a single transformative team building workshop nearly 20 years ago to co-founding SessionLab in 2013 as a side project (built during evenings and weekends while he consulted and his co-founder did a PhD) that grew into a company helping facilitators design and deliver better workshops. The conversation centers on facilitation's rising status from a "soft skill" to a strategic, organisation-wide capability tied to empowerment and employee engagement and on Robert's own philosophy of intentional process design, handling reluctant groups, and the blurry line between being a facilitator and being a participant/stakeholder in the room.
They talk about:
Facilitation is becoming a "super skill." Organizations increasingly treat it as a core leadership and organisational competency, not just a nice-to-have for running meetings.
Empowerment is the underlying goal. Good facilitation creates participative environments where people feel heard and have real input into decisions this is a cultural shift, not a one-off event.
Scaling facilitation takes infrastructure. Beyond training individuals, organisations need central "facilitation hubs," shared tools/templates, and a critical mass of skilled people.
Passion and "the fun-dar" sustain long, hard build processes. Both Robert and Sam agree that enjoying the work is what carries you through the grind of building something over years
Handling unwilling participants requires listening first. When a group doesn't want to be there, the fix is giving them space to voice frustrations, then collectively finding the overlap between the sponsor's goals and the group's actual concerns.
Quote highlights
"I'm seeing that it's becoming one of the future super skills at workplaces that if you can facilitate as a manager, as a leader as a team member, it just opens so many doors for you because you can actually help teams to work effectively and achieve their goals."
"We were organising a large event and a person came who was called a trainer and then a lot later I understand that what actually we had was not training. it was pure process facilitation to help our team align and really understand each other better, build bonds, flesh out potential friction points and build trust while we did hands-on work together."
🎙️FS82 - Facilitating in communities with Jeffrey Marr
Episode 82
Sunday, June 7, 2026 • Duration 23:21
In today's episode, Umah is joined by Jeff Marr, founder of The Practical Philosophy Club, to unpack the unique art of community facilitation and what it takes to design unstructured, safe spaces for deep, depolarising conversation.
Moving away from top-down corporate agendas, Jeff explores how his grassroots, peer-led facilitation model grew from a casual living room meetup in Mexico into a global network hosting over 800 people a week across 28 countries.
They talk about:
The power of the introduction and why the first few minutes are the facilitator's most critical tool for setting guidelines on airtime, monologue-busting, and vulnerability
The "jam session" approach to facilitation, shifting the practitioner's role from a rigid authority figure to a light touch that trusts adults to self-moderate and navigate their own dialogue
Holding space for ideological friction and practical techniques to de-escalate heated moments, calm group triggers, and help people sit with constructive discomfort
The spectrum of group dynamics, from managing large groups by scaling into small, co-facilitated tables, to knowing when to let a little healthy chaos ride.
Quote highlights
"I think that's one of our main issues in society is that we have these echo chambers that no one's breaking out of, and our algorithms are pushing us to go further into it."
"...you want to have a strong frame of reality and a sense of confidence in yourself, so that you can hear."
"We've had several people who, we could call them say problematic, right? Like a little bit quick to anger easily triggered these type of things. And I have seen them blossom... they're able to hear all these opinions without getting triggered anymore so it's been beautiful to see that."
Links Today's guest: Jeffery Marr — Practical Philosophy Club Founder https://www.practicalphilosophy.club & To join a Practical Philosophy Meetup in a country near you, head to:
🎙️ FS81 - Abimbola Olajide - Tactile, hands on practice
Friday, May 15, 2026 • Duration 32:39
In today's episode, Olivia is joined by Abimbola Olajide, serial social entrepreneur and Chief of Play, to explore tactile, hands-on facilitation and what it means to work with the whole person in the room.
With a background spanning community convening, grief support, and corporate consultancy, Abimbola shares how she found her way into facilitation and why embodied, kinesthetic approaches are at the heart of everything she does.
They talk about:
● paying close attention to embodied feeling when listening to stories ● how personal experience led to founding a CIC supporting people through life transitions ● her consultancy grounded in human-centred work, congruence, and her àjọṣe ("let's do it together") practice, using tools like LEGO Serious Play & modelling wax ● how metaphor, play and physical materials open up focus, emotion and better decision-making, even in corporate spaces.
Quote highlights "The power of metaphor, but also using tactile with that, just allows people to go from 'fine'to actually 'this is what this model is saying today'... it gets from zero to deep really quick"
"A decision doesnn;t have to be 'I need all the data, and then I need to be stressed... I can play about this'. The term would be blue sky thinking, but I call it purple cloud thinking"
To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales
🎙️ FS 80 From Facilitation to Hosting: Creating Transformative Spaces with Peter Pula
Monday, January 19, 2026 • Duration 27:18
Todays episode explores the evolving relationship between facilitation and hosting, highlighting how both practices can create transformative spaces for individuals and communities. Peter Pula shares insights from years of cultivating community through participatory dialogue and generative journalism. The conversation delves into the distinctions between facilitation often structured and outcome driven and hosting, which embraces emergence, deep listening, and co-creation. They talk about:
The difference between facilitation and hosting
The use of time triads and deep listenting in group practice
Learning from mistakes and adapting when things dont go as planned
Moving from command-and-control to particpatory approaches
Quote highlights
"I feel like I am participating in the unfolding of human evolution and the evolution of community, and I don't know how that can do anything but make you smile."
"And by naming the failure it becomes something else and it becomes… Something powerful… "
"Before it was a passion. Now it feels like an essential work."
Sam Moon: Faciliator www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123
🎙️ FS79_Julia Slay & Ending Sessions Well
Episode 79
Friday, December 5, 2025 • Duration 34:01
In today's episode, Olivia is joined by Julia Slay, founder of Facilitation 101, to explore an often-overlooked part of facilitation: how we end sessions well.
With 15+ years' experience across social policy, consultancy and learning design, Julia shares her journey into facilitation and what sparked her growing fascination with powerful endings.
They talk about:
Why endings matter,and common mistakes at the close of sessions — rushed checkouts, lack of closure, and clunky feedback moments.
How to design meaningful endings, using buffer time, reflection, grounding and action planning. The power of circularity too.
Extending the ending beyond the room, with follow-ups and reconnection sessions.Plus creative closing practices, from body-based grounding to sound and movement.
Quote highlights
"A strong ending creates a feeling of completeness."
🎙️ FS 78 – Relaunch Episode: Meet the New Hosts; Umah, Sam, Olivia
Episode 78
Friday, November 21, 2025 • Duration 28:25
In today's episode, the Facilitation Stories podcast returns with a brand-new hosting team — Olivia, Sam, and Umah — who share their stories, inspirations, and hopes for the next chapter of the podcast.
They talk about:
Why they joined the Facilitation Stories team and what excites them about podcasting as a way to connect facilitators and share learning.
How their diverse backgrounds — from healthcare and construction to creative arts, community engagement and youth work — have shaped their facilitation practice.
The power of collaboration and curiosity in creating spaces for reflection, learning, and human connection and what underpins their hopes for this podcast series
And, of course, an important conversation about pets, TV guilty pleasures, and favourite biscuits! 🍪
"It's about creating space where people can make sense of their own stories — and find belonging in shared spaces."
"Sometimes, facilitation is about slowing down, thinking, and making time for the conversations we don't usually have."
To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 Facilitation Stories website: 📧 Email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org 🌐 IAF England & Wales:
Transcript
FS 77 Facilitation in the Agile Space with Farah Egby and Çiğdem Saka Jackson
Tuesday, May 20, 2025 • Duration 41:39
In today's episode Helene speaks to Farah Egby and Cigdem Saka-Jackson about Agile. They talk about:
Agile as a set of working practices that prioritises people over processes and tools;
Farah and Cigdem's previous work and journeys into Agile facilitation;
The roles and functions that the "Scrum Master" and "Kanban" play in Agile;
Roles and techniques in Agile facilitation and tips on how to do it;
"I think you need to care. You have to be a caring person. I definitely don't believe it is, it is a rule book and just a set of applicable guidelines. You have to care about the people you work with and the team you're working with".
How Agile can be applied in different contexts including personally.
"There are things that you can also apply to your own life individually, you can stop and have a moment to reflect, even if you don't do it with a formal process".
FS 76 Chapter Chat with Andrew Spiteri EME Regional Director
Tuesday, March 25, 2025 • Duration 39:18
In this episode Helene talks to Andrew Spiteri, Regional Director of the IAF Europe and Middle East Region.
Andrew tells Helene about himself as a facilitator, the kind of work he does and his background with IAF.
He became regional director at the start of the year and shares a bit about the work he has been involved in so far, his roles and responsibilities as director, and what he would like to see in future for the region and beyond.
He tells us about the regional conference in Romania in November 2025 and about what he most loves about facilitation.
Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcasts brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. I'm Helene Jewell, and this episode is one of our quarterly chapter chats, where we talk to people leading other chapters in the IAF global community. We ask them how they see the status of facilitation where they are, and the history priorities, current projects and aspirations for their chapter. My guest today is Andrew Spiteri, IAF endorsed facilitator, consultant and elected Regional Director for the Europe and Middle East, EME region of the IAF for 2025-26. Andrew accompanies diverse groups, associations, entities, NGOs and also faith based organizations, and also often works in international settings, helping groups in collaboratively formulating vision, strategy and action planning activities. Andrew comes from Malta, is a resident in Brussels, and is in Italy for long stretches during the year. Welcome Andrew.
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Umah: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories. This podcast is brought to you by the England & Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Umah, and today, we're going to hear about dealing with disruptive behaviours. This year at the IAF England & Wales Conference, I had the privilege of attending Alan Heckman's workshop on dealing with disruptive behaviours.
His insights into managing group dynamics were both enlightening and practical. Alan is a seasoned facilitator with over 20 years of experience in designing participatory processes and events, particularly in the public and charitable sectors. He's known for fostering genuine engagement where every voice contributes effectively towards decisions that everyone commits to.
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Alan Heckman to our podcast. Welcome, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Umah. Thank you so much for having me.
Umah: Alan, your session at the IAF conference was really insightful. Could you share with our listeners a little bit about the work that you do and what brought you to facilitation as a career?
Alan: So I'm unusual in the field of facilitation in that I was doing it from a relatively young age. I took a year out of university when I was 20 to do a year-long volunteer internship with the ICA in Phoenix, Arizona. Many of your listeners might already know that ICA is a community organization deeply involved in participatory practice, and was helpful, among other things, in founding the IAF, but also in setting facilitation as a field and in taking participatory approaches and running trainings in facilitation as well.
So from that internship in, a long time ago, I had various roles that were related to participation and facilitation. I haven't been a full-time facilitator ever since. But I did move into independent practice as a freelance facilitator in 2015, which is now 11 years ago. So I've been doing this for quite a long time.
Umah: Thank you. That's really interesting to know about the background and the connection with ICA and IAF as well.
Alan: It is interesting. ICA probably doesn't have as good of a profile or as big of a profile as perhaps it should, but it is really interesting.
Umah: At the conference, in your presentation, you spoke about different behaviours
and I just wondered if you could share maybe a few of the common ones that you've encountered and how you handled them.
Alan: Absolutely. So I run these two-day group facilitation methods courses through the ICA here in the UK, and I love running those training courses. And by far, the most common question I get on those training courses is some version of, "what do you do when it all goes wrong?"
What do you do when things go pear-shaped? So that thing that you saw at the IAF was really a development from my set of answers to that question. Often, I've included it within the course. So now, your actual question was some of the behaviours I have seen. I work almost entirely in the public and charitable sectors.
It's often professionals that I'm working with. And so the behaviours that I tend to see, especially here in the UK, are a little bit more subtle. There's rarely threats of violence and relatively rarely shouting or angrily becoming overtly aggressive. It's often subtle, more shutting down because they don't like something that's happening, or irritation or barbed comments.
So various kinds of non-participation. And then the other one that everybody talks about, because it is so common, is over-participation, and I wanna emphasise that this is not over-participation in the sense of being dominant on purpose. Usually, it's being dominant, I have to say it, if we can call it innocently, in that the person hasn't thought about their effect on the group and the process.
It's usually they're concerned about . something, that they aren't feeling heard about, something important, something that they are worried about or that they love or that they think is really critical, and that they don't think that the group is going to successfully take into account somehow, or that it won't come out in the thing, so they keep talking.
Umah: Mm-hmm.
Alan: And that's so common. You know, it happens. You don't want to assume, but there's one in nearly every group of 20 or 30 people, somebody who hasn't really thought about their impact on the group. And to be fair, I've invited them not to worry about that. I'm claiming that role for myself as the facilitator.
I'm the one in charge of process. I'm inviting them to just worry about what their content is. So I regard these people as innocent in the sense that they're almost always not trying to wreck stuff on purpose.
Umah: One of your tips where, which I think a few of us use quite often, is the car park, but do you have any guidelines that you set beforehand?
Alan: It's really interesting. I would imagine most of the listeners to this podcast will be in the habit of setting some kind of ground rules or norms at the beginning of a session. And I do that, but I do it very informally, probably less formally than anybody else. They don't get flip charted. So I tend to say, "You wouldn't mind turning off your phones," et cetera.
Umah: Right.
Alan: So I don't set the car park up ahead of time. I tend to not use it until it's needed. In fact, it tends to not even be a thing that I pull out 90% of the time. I have another way of thinking about the car park. Should I tell you about that now?
Umah: Yeah, go for it.
Alan: What is the car park? Now, I would imagine your facilitation-aware audience knows already, but just in case, let's say what the car park is.
You might do it a different way. You might call it the bicycle stand or whatever, but the key thing there is that you are taking participants' concern of their issue, their thing they're worried about, and inviting them to not talk about it, because you need to carry on. And in order to reassure them that it won't get lost, you can put it in the car park.
The idea is that you're reassuring them that we will come back to it, and giving yourself permission to not talk about it right now. Now, that can be very helpful indeed. Of course, what it does mean is that you have to come back to it if you're gonna be an honest and fair facilitator. But you might be able to come back to it at the end of your day, or you might be able to invite them to set a new meeting, depending of course on what the group is in relation to that.
If you come back to it under any other business at the end, 50% of the time it's like, "Nah, it's fine." But you do need to check. The car park is a way of managing an impossible problem that we face all the time as facilitators, which is how do we help somebody feel heard when they're not feeling heard, and also move on when we need to move on?
And of course, if they're oversharing or talking too much or whatever you might call it, in a way that's disruptive to the process, I need to help that person be reassured that whatever they're concerned about will be adequately considered, and I also need to get them to stop talking about it. So those two things are in contradiction to each other.
So a car park is a way of doing that. It's acknowledging them and moving on at the same time, right? You've said it's important, and also in doing so, you're setting out the boundary or the standard that we're not talking about it right now. That's not what we're doing.
Umah: Yeah.
Alan: So there's other ways that you can solve that impossible problem of both helping somebody feel acknowledged and also moving on, and it is hard, right?
One way that I really love is, is mangoes. Now, this is silly. I ask my participants this sometimes, "What's a mango?" And they look at me like I'm an idiot.
Umah: Juicy fruit!
Alan: Yeah, right. It's a juicy, delicious fruit, and of course, for many of us, a mango might be really exciting and really sweet and juicy and delicious.
And I make up a silly story. I tell them, "Look, if you could imagine for a moment that we're all walking down a forest path on a journey to somewhere in, you know, some kind of fantasy land, and we see there across the valley a mango tree full of ripe, juicy, delicious mangoes. You know that we would all love nothing more than to go and sit under the mango tree for the afternoon eating delicious mangoes, but we still can't.
We can't do it." 'Cause we have to carry on our path to carry on and make it to our destination. Now, that's obviously a pretty contrived story that's a little bit silly. But what you've done there is you've said, "I think maybe that topic that you've raised is a bit of a mango. I think it's exciting and juicy- Yeah
but we still can't talk about it right now." So by telling that little micro story, you've found a new way to solve the problem of helping them feel acknowledged, feel heard, but also moving on. You like specifically said, "Boy, that's a juicy one. That's interesting. I'm sure we would love to talk about that all afternoon, but we still can't."
It's just a verbal trick in the end, but I've had it become an inside joke for my participants. I've come back six months later and had them say, "Isn't that a bit of a mango?" It's a thing that I find myself using more often than the car park, and of course it does depend on being willing to tell a slightly contrived, silly story to the group.
Umah: It's good if it brings them together and they're on page there, doesn't it? I have in my notes a little question for you on it. You mentioned about turning up and turning down the facilitator persona.
Alan: Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Umah: What does that look like? How would I do that?
Alan: I'll tell you what my approach is, right?
Umah: Yeah
Alan: So we're facilitators, and what that means is we're in front of the room. It means I'm being essentially a neutral... It sounds a little bit over-egged, but a neutral sort of guardian of process, right? I'm leading the group through a process, but I'm relaxing into not being a participant in their content.
And so as a facilitator, I'm the one in front of the room. If there's 100 people in the room, I might have to be a really big character sometimes to hold the whole room together. But ultimately, it needs to not be about me. Like, it's not the Alan Show. I need them at the end to feel like they've accomplished something, not me, right?
And my job is to support them to do that by providing the process, and sometimes that means getting out of the way. So as facilitators, we all find ourselves on this scale. How big of a person, how big of a presence, how big of a character do I need to be in the room right now? And I imagine that most of us do this, thinking about it or not thinking about it.
You know, where do I need to be right now? Is it helping the group if I'm standing in the middle and waving my arms about, or is it actually hindering the group, and what I need to do is sit down, move back, and get out of the way and use a quieter tone of voice? Now, in dealing with difficult behaviours, of course, you might need to adjust it one way or the other depending on what's going on.
You might need to be a much bigger character, of course, when you're drawing all the group together, or if you're working with a much larger group. And of course, you might decide in response to some behaviour to turn the dial down. I would imagine for you and for any of us who are facilitators, when we are in front of the room, physical room or maybe a Zoom room or whatever, when we're the one in front of the room, we are a certain version of ourselves, right?
We're not, I hope, inauthentic, but nonetheless, we're a different version than we are on the couch at home or out with our friends or whatever. We're a version of ourselves. And thinking about what that version of yourselves- self is in order to best support the group is a valuable exercise that I would recommend anybody to.
And it's not a static point. That version of yourself, you might call it the dial or the turning up or down your facilitator persona. And when it's up, you know, you're wearing loud clothes, you're waving your arms about, you're a big presence in the room. You need to do that to hold the group together, not because it's about you or your ego, I hope.
And when it's down, the group is having their conversation and they might forget you're there. So you need to manage time or something, of course.
Umah: So say you've got someone who is maybe naturally an extrovert and talking quite a bit, which you touched on earlier, and then you've got an- another few who are introverts, or say it's something like hierarchy going on where the senior person's talking and everyone else is maybe in agreement, something like that. What would turning up and down the dial look like then, or what else would you do?
Alan: Sure. So if you've got a character who's dominating because of the force of their personality, you might dial up to meet that character in order to, I wouldn't say push back against them, but to hold the space, right?
Now, what I would say, though, is that the other situation you've described, and we've perhaps all run into it, the chief executive in the room is being a bit too chief executive-y or whatever, right? What I would tend to, I would tend to use different methods than that one to try to approach that situation.
Certainly, I would probably end up breaking into groups, which I imagine many of us would do, but we'd use some kind of leveling process, and also some kind of process that aims to detach the idea or the opinion or the conclusion from the person whenever we can. So you may be familiar with ICS Consensus Workshop Process, and one of the things I love most about that process is that the ideas that come into the process are not anonymous, but they are sort of depersonalised.
They're no longer connected to the individual in the space, and that's a nice way to start, begin to deal with issues of hierarchy in a space.
Umah: And something else I've noted down is ' using peer pressure'. That's a bit shocking to read just by itself!
Alan: So before I tell you about this one, it's probably worth providing that caveat, right? As facilitators, we're standing in the front of the room, and I'd invite all of us to think about this as a position of power. I myself am a tall, bearded, white male, so people can pay attention to me, and I could be claiming a kind of power that wouldn't necessarily be helpful to the group.
So I particularly, and I imagine all of us, have to be exceedingly careful that the power that I'm claiming at any given point in my role as a facilitator is for the sake of the group. It's helpful. It's helping them accomplish their aims. It's helping them be heard. It's helping them be engaged. It's helping them genuinely participate in the decisions that affect their lives.
So I just have to keep this, if not at the forefront of my mind, at least in the back of my mind at all the time. I'm trying not to claim power over their final product or their content, but I am claiming a lot of power over what we do. Do we break into groups next? Who speaks next? What question are we addressing next?
That's my role, and that's a pretty powerful role. So why have I brought that up? Because as we are talking about some of the items on these lists, you could abuse that role, right? If you were not values-based or if you were not aware of what you are doing as a facilitator, if you've got the social awareness and some experience, you could manipulate a group, and we're seeking to not do that.
That's our job as a facilitator is to not manipulate the group. So some of these As we move on to this, might be, I think they're edging onto considering how you use them and why and when, because you wouldn't want to shut down somebody because- Yeah ... they've irritated you, right? Okay. Now let's talk about using peer pressure.
So as a facilitator, in general, what I want to do is avoid the dynamic where I'm the stern teacher telling off the naughty student, right? And probably everybody's familiar with that dynamic 'cause they saw it during their school days, and probably a lot of people have bad feelings about that dynamic.
But eventually you get to the point where you have to openly address something, of course. But fundamentally, I like to go as far as I can with making the problem go away before it's me as an authoritarian controlling their behaviour. So how could I do that? I've got a variety of verbal tricks, and I'm sure everybody has their own, that I might use in a moment to just phrase something in a different way.
And one of the, one of the things you could do is that instead of you being the person shutting down a behaviour, is you could invite the group to do it for you. There were a couple occasions when I was running public meetings for a local authority. Sometimes people show up to public meetings 'cause they're mad about something.
The classic examples are something about the bins or something about dog poo or something about youths congregating at the end of the street. Maybe it was libraries shutting down in your neighborhood. That's not a nice thing, and people are probably mad about that anyway. It might or might not have anything to do with the already tough subject that you're there to discuss.
But if they start talking about bins, but you could imagine saying, "Well, sounds like this is really valuable and important," and then say to the whole group, "We came here to talk about libraries, but it seems like it might be really useful to talk about bins and bin pickups. Should we switch to that instead?"
Umah: Yeah.
Alan: And of course, the whole group goes "No! We came here to talk about libraries." Now, what have you achieved if you've done that? You've got the group to be the authoritarian telling the person off rather than you. What you've done, if it works, is you have, you've gotten the person to moderate their behaviour without you being the one who's told them off.
I would prefer not to be the one seeking to control somebody's behaviour overtly, because if they rebel and they're mad at you, it turns off their participation. And of course, that's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. I don't want their participation turned off. Sometimes I might need it turned down a little bit, but if I've turned it off, then I've failed, right?
I haven't achieved what I've set out to do as a facilitator with a participatory process.
Umah: And you mentioned addressing things more directly. So-
Alan: Yeah.
Umah: Tell me about that. What are good phrases that aren't too standoffish?
Alan: So, okay, well let's talk about this. The world is messy, so eventually you maybe get to the point where you have to openly address it, even if it's uncomfortable. Now, this'll show me in the podcast light, but one thing that I do is I'll take the person behind two ferns during the break or whatever, rather than addressing it publicly. It depends on the circumstances, but if you can, during the break is better, isn't it? And I would try first by saying, "I'm worried about everybody else's ability to participate. Could you help me make sure they participate?"
Umah: Mm.
Alan: But if you're worried that even that won't be direct enough, you might need to be a little bit more direct. Now, this is gonna show me because I won't be able to actually tell you the rigid words or the process, but there's something called non-violent communication. Fundamentally what it is, it's a very short set of processes that would say, "Here's what I'm seeing. This is how it's affecting me," and in my case, I would probably talk about how it's affecting what I need to achieve with the group, "and here's the change I need."
I've done a poor job of representing non-violent communication there, but that sort of careful and thoughtful approach to trying not to blame them, trying not to raise their hackles to the extent that you can.
Umah: Yeah.
Alan: And also being clear about what the situation is as a result of that, and making a request about what you need.
Now, what you need is not for the person to stop talking usually. What you need is to make them a little bit more of a processor when they're a participant. So we don't want their concerns to go away. We don't want them to be brushed under a rug. We don't want them to leave feeling like they've been bamboozled.
We want them to be heard, and also we need everybody else to be heard as well. And then we need to work on something to being moving forward with that. So if the behaviour is such that other people can't be heard, that's when it becomes a problem.
Umah: So it's clear obviously that you're very well-equipped to deal with different things. Do you still have a moment where it's, "Oh, what do I do?" Or is it a little bit more, "Oh, I pretty much know how to deal with everything now"?
Alan: There's no guarantee that every single one of my sessions is perfect. Sometimes stuff happens, right? That's often the situation.
Umah: Yeah.
Alan: And I will usually have an idea at least of what might be done, and I think it's not that I'm so perfect that I always feel confident or comfortable.
Sometimes I do, but I, I don't necessarily always feel confident or comfortable that I know exactly what to do. But what I do feel good about, and I would recommend this to anyone, is I'm maintaining the framework in my mind about what's happening now, what's the situation, what might I try first? What might I try next? What might it get to? If we need to give this person five extra minutes, can I adjust it so they can? Will that do it? It's that meta level that I imagine many of us are running in our heads, as we're facilitating is really valuable, and that does come with experience. So it's not so much that I'm always sure.
Umah: Mm-hmm.
Alan: But a, a lot of times it's whether or not I'm sure, I've got a framework for trying to do something.
Umah: Sometimes a participant is trying to get a rise out of you to see how you react. So then in those situations, do you detach a bit? What would you suggest for someone who is new into facilitation, how they handle it so that their confidence isn't wrecked for the next time.
Alan: If you get somebody who's really challenging, what we're usually talking about is a couple of situations. One is somebody who's angrily doubting the utility of participating in the process at all.
Umah: Hmm.
Alan: Or who I suppose a very closely related but slightly different role is angrily doubting or denying your right to be in the role of the facilitator with that being in charge of process. You know, who are you to tell us what to do? Why do you get to be...? Now some of that's because these are professional people who have their jobs rely on being professional in a room full of professionals, right?
So certain behaviours are expected. They're not all nice, these behaviours, but certain things are fairly normal. Usually, the very first thing that I say is, "Hi, my name is Alan Heckman. I'm a group facilitator. This is what I think a group facilitator is." 'Cause if you Google group facilitator, it could be an awful lot of things.
People are doing stuff, much of which I respect deeply, but it's also not the same thing that I am doing. The second sentence out of my mouth after introducing myself is to tell them what I think my role is, and I always say that my role is to be in charge of process so that you all can relax into providing the ideas, hearing each other, coming to consensus where possible, finding themes and threads, making decisions, making plans. That's your job. My job is not to do that.
And I think just that reassurance right at the beginning before we've done anything else, I think that's part of contracting with the group, right? I'm making a promise to them implicitly or sometimes explicitly that they're gonna get a chance to be heard, that their input is valued, and just that alone will deflect a huge amount of that kind of challenge before it arises. I'm explicitly declaiming that I have any right to have a say about the content of what they're talking about. Yeah.
Umah: Yeah.
Alan: I think that goes an awfully long way.
Umah: Hmm.
Alan: However, if you get to the point where somebody is saying, "Who the heck are you to tell us what to do?" Or, "Why should we be here? What are we doing?" I mean, one option is that they go, right? It's not nice, but if they're not in the right room and they don't wanna be there, well, who's making them? Not you. Maybe somebody is. Maybe we can sort it out so they don't have to be there.
The other thing is that a lot of times you'll get people where somebody's angrily doubting whether or not this-- we should even be doing this thing that we're doing, either because they think it's a whitewash or they think they're being manipulated sometimes, and maybe they've had an experience of participation, you can't see, but I'm doing air quotes, that wasn't real, that was manipulative. So that's what they're expecting from you as a facilitator. One thing you can do is essentially ask what would make it worthwhile for them. Many facilitators will be familiar with a facilitator called Ingrid Bens. She's written some books, and I met her years and years ago. Gosh, I think it was at the IAF conference in Helsinki, whatever year that was.
I really liked one thing that she said at that conference, and she called it the long question. Now, sorry to Ingrid Bens if I misrepresent the long question 'cause it's been a lot of years since I heard you say it. But what I recall as her insight is that if you've got somebody, especially somebody who's angry, one thing you can do is ask them a detailed and long question because they have to calm down enough to hear your long question.
Now, Ingrid Bens recommends actually splitting it into two questions, if I recall correctly, and the first one is, "Can I ask you a question?" Which I think is great, because if they say no, they've exposed themselves as being unwilling to be reasonable. The second question then is some version of what is it that would have to take place for you to find this process worth engaging with? You could craft your own version of that question. You're also saying, "What are your ransom demands," right? Like, what do you actually need to do? What needs to happen for this to be worthwhile for you? That could be, if asked in the wrong way, it could be kinda forthright as a challenge there. I mean, you would already be in an uncomfortable situation if you got to that point, I think.
Umah: Yeah.
Alan: But if somebody steps up and is being angry or disruptive, in that kind of situation, you might try it because they might tell you their answer. And if they do, of course, it doesn't make the problem necessarily go away, but it is a start.
On one particular occasion, somebody said some version of, "If I thought the Board was gonna actually listen to what we had to say, then I'd say fine." And it's like, wow, okay. Actually, that's a totally reasonable request. If you think that you're in this room and that you are being asked for your opinions for the board to do strategy, but the board isn't gonna listen to what you say, of course you're angry. And I can't make that anger go away necessarily, but what I could do in that specific situation was essentially rely on two things. One of them was I could say, "Well, the board's not in the room, so I can't tell you what they're gonna do. But what I can tell you is the process that I've planned to carry out strategy with the board and how I'm gonna bring your content in, and that this is your opinion to share."
And I can also essentially make a little argument from my values. But I can say, "Look, if this was fake participation, I wouldn't participate in it. That's not what I do." In my early career when I was desperate for work, I turned down very little. But probably what I did turn down, even then, was situations where I thought they didn't really want real, genuine participation. So it worked. I asked him this long question. He said what it would take, and I kinda persuaded him that my values wouldn't let me to participate in a process if it wasn't genuine, and that was enough in that case.
Umah: We had a question from one of our previous guests, which I'd like to ask you. It was, "how do you measure or know when your facilitation has made an impact?"
Alan: So this was a theme at the conference as well, wasn't it? We had a few conversations that were talking about impact. What does impact really mean in facilitation? How can you tell you're having an impact? And I will give you two answers, and one is satisfying, and the other one is probably not satisfying.
I'll be aware as I say this that we're talking about a specific kind of impact. I will say That the thing that really drives me as a facilitator is when at the end of the day, somebody comes up to me and says, "We never could have gotten this much done. I can't believe we got through this. We've gotten so far on our strategic plan in one day."
And variations of this, I imagine many facilitators have heard, and I love that, right? So is that impact, at the end of the day, they feel really good about what we did. That's exciting. And then of course, the question is, do they then go out and do it? Has it made their lives better? Has it made their work better? Do they implement the strategic plans?
I think they do, at least most of the time, but it's hard to tell, right? It's hard to really tell. I don't have any formal way of going back and checking with my clients six months later and saying, "How did it go?" I do hear from my clients again, usually because they tend to say, "Can you come back again?" Which is really, it's a lovely way to measure impact, is to say, well, they must have at least thought it was really good, 'cause they want me to come back and run something else. Or they recommend me for stuff. I'm barely active on LinkedIn, and my website is there. It's a brochure site. Yeah. It's not super active. It doesn't change very often. My marketing plan as a facilitator is entirely reliant on other people recommending me for what I do. They had a good experience, right? And so I need them to do that if I'm gonna stay in business, so it's, it's also very rewarding, and I guess also it's a measure of impact.
And every once in a while, I have come across someone who says, "Do you remember that strategy day that you ran with a bunch of stakeholders?" "Oh, yeah, sure. I remember that." It's like, "We've been running based on that ever since then." And now somebody created a new area of outstanding natural beauty as a result of that strategy day, which is a big impact, right? That's a major thing that happened years and years ago that now somebody's come back and they specifically approached me at an event where they didn't have to tell me.
Umah: Very nice. That's a good feeling.
Alan: I will say, though, that to some extent, and this is the unsatisfying answer, I don't know.
Umah: That's an honest answer!
Alan: I hope they go forth and do the things they said they were gonna do, because that's what impact would really be. They're out there meeting their aims in a better way than they would have because I was in the room for that day or that half day or whatever. And I think they do, but I don't really check, so I don't really deeply know.
Umah: I was in your IAF workshop, and that was one hour, and I'd say for me, that definitely did make an impact, so I could tell you that.
Alan: Wow. Oh, thank you.
Umah: And you have been brought on to the podcast to go through it in a bit more detail with me, so thank you so much. Just before we wrap up, I wondered if you could leave a question for our next guest.
Alan: Now, to be fair, you warned me ahead of time that I would do this, and I was thinking about it, and I think I would love to ask a question in keeping with our theme today. I don't know who the next facilitator or person is, so my question for them is, "can you tell us about a time when it all went wrong? And what did you do? What did you do? What happened?" And I'm happy if it's a great example, or if you're comfortable sharing one that didn't turn out well, we'll, we might all learn from it, so that's my question.
Umah: I hope you listen in and hear the answers to it next time.
Alan: I will, for sure. Absolutely, I will.
Umah: Thank you, Alan, especially on joining me on this heatwave day right in the peak of it.
Alan: It's a warm day.
Umah: We are sweating.
Alan: Thank you- so much for having me. It's been a joy. I'd love to talk to anybody who wants to talk. It's a joy.
Umah: Brilliant. Thank you. We'll put your contact details in the show notes, so-
Alan: Oh, thank you.
Umah: So everyone can have a look there.
Alan: Wonderful, thank you.
Umah: We have reached the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to hear more about the IAF and how to get involved, please head over to our website, www.facilitationstories.libsyn.com, to make sure you never miss an episode.
We are always on the lookout for new topics to discuss, so if you think there's a facilitator that we should talk to, or you would like to share what's emerging in your world of facilitation, send us an email at podcast@iaf.ew.co.uk.
We hope you join us for more facilitation stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.
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Todays guest: Robert Cserti - Co-Founder SessionLab
Sam: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as the IAF. My name is Sam Moon, and my guest today is Robert Cserti. Co-founder of SessionLab, Robert's first encounter with facilitation happened nearly two decades ago, where he was deeply inspired by how powerful a well-designed and facilitated workshop can be to shift the way people think and work together.
Over the next few years, that hands-on experience as a facilitator planted the seed for SessionLab. Robert found himself running into the same frustrations. The tools available just don't support the real creative and logistical work behind designing great sessions. So in 2013, he and his co-founder, Philip Kish started building something better.
For several years, it's a side project which eventually turned into a full business to help individual facilitators design better workshops and organizations scale facilitation and so much more that I'm sure we're likely to noodle on today. So welcome, Robert, and to get us started and add your own flavour to my introduction, what in your world of facilitation is making you smile?
Robert: First of all, thanks so much for that intro Sam, its a pleasure to be here
Sam: welcome. Great for you to be here.
Robert: And so what is making me smile in the world of facilitation? I think what is really nice to see is that facilitation as a skill is getting more recognized in all sorts and sizes of organisations. And my background is that I started as a facilitator and then as you mentioned we saw a need how we could help facilitators.
And then if I look back especially as we've worked with a bunch of facilitators at Session Lab, is that more and more large companies as well recognise that facilitation is an important skill to invest in as, and not just as a personal skill, but as an organizational skill. So, with all the rapid transformation that happens at workplaces with AI changing how various jobs are done Facilitation as a skill is getting more and more important.
In a way I'm seeing that it's becoming one of the future super skills at workplaces that if you can facilitate as a manager, as a leader as a team member, it just opens so many doors for you because you can actually help teams to work effectively and achieve their goals.
So this, this is a, great shift to see that facilitation is growing as a skill.
Sam: Yeah, that, that's really lovely how you're, framing that, Robert. And um, tell me a little bit more about why that matters to you. And is there a kind of... Do you have your own story about when that, when you had that penny drop moment for yourself in terms of seeing facilitation be important and, and then potentially be recognised?
Robert: so why is this important to me? I have, have a passion for facilitation, my love for facilitation. I see how, big impact that can make on teams how much it can help work to move forward. And that's really great to see that at larger scales as well, organisations care more about facilitation.
Say an example there is leadership development programs. Very many large organisations do have their leadership academies, leadership universities, and we are seeing that facilitation is more and more often not just yet another soft skill to train leaders on but a core skill that they find really important for people to have.
And uh, there is, there's always a space for complex workshops to be facilitated by professional facilitators whose main job, whether as freelancers or working at large companies for their primary role to be a facilitator. But then it, unlocks so much more potential when more people is able to put facilitation skills to good use to create participative environments where people are engaged.
So yeah this makes me smile.
Sam: Yeah, so what you're seeing and beginning to see emerge is organisations and perhaps wider into kind of other areas begin to recognise facilitation as something more than someone just running a session, and it being an important skill within the workplace, be it an organisation and wider, as an actual thing, as a named skill.
Robert: Yes, exactly. And, as a strategically important skill in a sense that it's having engaged people who have the chance to participate at making decisions really empowering people more to do a great job. And this becomes not just about effective meetings, but really a, an organisational differentiator.
Sam: an empowering people. And so when I hear that, that's about like culture of an organization or a culture of a thing. Empowerment isn't something you go, "Right, we're now gonna empower people.
Off we go." That's about a mindset, and that's about a culture that's being created. And what I hear you talking about here is how facilitation plays an important role in that. What I'm interested in, or what you're seeing emerge is, how does this happen?
What are you seeing or do you feel are the conditions that enable that empowerment to happen, or what enables facilitation to be recognised?
Robert: I do think for any scale of facilitation, it's important that there are some people who recognise the opportunity, that facilitation is important, and then creating the infrastructure for it and having a, critical enough mass of people equipped with facilitation skills.
Just to share an example. I have the opportunity to speak with, various organisation development leaders to understand how they look at facilitation. And for example, people expect a difference that when employee is running a meeting, they don't just want them to, put up a slide deck and, put some content on that to have one person talking, but really be more intentional what they want to achieve and have the skills and the framework how to think about it, plus having access to the right tools, the right templates, and the right infrastructure.
Because usually in most organisations, there are people who are trained as facilitators, whether they officially wear the title or, another hat then how this initial individual competence is getting into more central facilitation hubs, and then how other people are enabled to work off from the knowledge of that hub and then how then facilitation is supported through that.
There are steps to go through that and, that's a very interesting challenge to see that, more and more organisations seems to care about enabling a wider circle of people to have access to facilitation knowledge and also to train them facilitation skills.
Sam: What helped you get into this work? What was the conditions that helped you step into this space?
Robert: First of all I definitely needed inspiration. still very vividly recall my first encounter with facilitation which was a simple team building, team cohesion workshop/training session which was really a facilitated process to get a team of eight people aligned.
We were organising a large event and a person came who was called a trainer and then a lot later I understand that what actually we had was not training. it was pure process facilitation to help our team align and really understand each other better, build bonds, flesh out potential friction points and build trust while we did hands-on work together.
And when I look back after, when the day was over, it was such a just energising and transformational experience that, wow, I would love to be able to do this one day. So, that was a really good motivation, to look around at what was this person doing and how was he knowing all this?
' 'Cause, he was barely talking. He was just giving us some instructions some guidance and then it was feeling very magical how smooth it went. So then years later when I was able to put words to it what it was like, wow. And then what enabled me to get into facilitation right place, right time.
I was at that point very active in um, European youth organisation, which had a strong training and facilitation system.
And the core approach was a very facilitative one. So that, gave a lot of opportunity to practice designing and delivering sessions and then afterwards in my consulting work, I also had the opportunity to keep facilitating various workshops, which overall these years led me to understand, well, there could be better paths tools available for facilitators to really help to make the work, especially when it came to collaboratively designing workshops and co-delivering and all the preparations when you send over spreadsheet version 11 but your co-facilitator works in version 10, and, all the mess that comes with that and then also passion met opportunity as we started working on a tool to just make our life easier, and it turned out to be useful for more people too, and that's how, SessionLab started too.
Sam: Yeah. Was it something that just emerged one thing led to another thing, and you followed that? And/or was there also like a penny drop moment? Was there a crossroads sort of moment where you went, "Right, this is what I'm going to do and this is the direction I need to follow"?
Robert: It's an interesting question because I think for me it was a very, organic process. similarly as, doing more facilitation helped me to realize that there is an opportunity to make parts of that work easier, smoother, better, with various tedious aspects of the prep work around facilitating so I can focus more on the facilitation experience itself.
I think in some ways it's always a good moment when ideas come and, and when you start working on something and you see people using what you do in the room of, helping people or through a software.
Sam: And how does that make you feel when you see that happening?
Robert: Proud. think we all, are happy to make an impact. And I often feel some imposter syndrome because not a full-time professional facilitator I always love when I have the opportunity to facilitate and in my business work I'm facilitating still relatively frequently, so I wouldn't say I'm, just simply a software entrepreneur.
Sorry, what was the initial question? I think I just diverted, uh-
Sam: I was very interested in the direction that, you were going with it. What I like about these conversations is, when I'm, having this conversation with people they follow their own train of thought.
Which for me is almost more important than the question I'm asking, because people will answer. the question that they want to answer. but question was really around was there a penny drop moment that you followed and then you thought, "Right, this is what I'm going to do."
Or was there like a crossroads in having to make a decision of one way or another? Or was it just something that happened and what you talked about was that you found yourself, organically, working your way, to that, as well. So the question was, was there like a penny drop moment was there a sudden catalyst that you think, "Yes, this is the North Star, this is where I'm going"?
Robert: I would say, it just been very organic and, uh, gradually building things, both facilitation practice-wise and also business-wise for SessionLab. a background there, my co-founder and I, essentially started this as a side project and for five years, he did his PhD.
I worked as a consultant and occasionally facilitating, and we were, passionate enough to keep doing this on, evenings and weekends as a hobby. And I think that's important, to work on things you are passionate about because then, um, work can feel energizing if you care about what you do.
Sam: Indeed, for me, I call it the fundar. it needs to feel fun. when the fundar fades, that, tells you something that you need to, think about the direction you're going or what will bring, that back.
cause it's a lot of work, and what you've described is a long process and a lot of work. So unless there is joy from that, you start to question like, why am I doing this?"
Robert: That's so true, and I think, if, I reflect on this part because it's been a while we, started, um, SessionLab, as a company, as well, and, I, think for me, I always enjoyed, building things and not just in the sense of building product, but like building something where I have really the context of everything within that organization or that project.
So in, this sense, the company building part is exciting. I think that's what led me to this path from my consulting career where it was, in a way, a lot more diversity new clients, new industries to learn, and I think a frustration that whenever I felt like, "Okay, I'm finally getting the hang of this," then moving to a new project. Compared to that, building one's own business, has this, stronger feeling that I actually understand the context around- what we are doing. and that's always growing with new challenges each year. but as you mentioned, it's, really important that have that feeling of fun and growing as well.
Sam: Yes. Yeah. And on that, subject of learning, it brings us neatly onto another question in terms of that learning, and particularly if you're creating... I mean, what you're talking about is creating, your own company, your own way of working with, your co-founder.
And, the journey of that, there's a lot of bravery and a lot of courage there, as you figure that out and work out what works and what doesn't work. So with that in mind, my next questions, is what fluff-ups or mistakes, have you learned from?
If any at all, of course.
Robert: oh, yeah. think from the facilitation side, uh, to jump back to that side, I think it's a, common learning for most, facilitators, but, like, the participation must come from inside for participants. still remember in my few experiences, from my consulting years that, when a workshop, or a training session was mandated, by the manager and then you turn up there and, you have a bunch of people who just really don't want to be there. And you have a day with them, and, uh, that's extremely challenging to create space for learning and, creating when there is no motivation for it. And of course, there is always ways to use that time well and, dig a bit deeper of, the root cause of that issue.
But yeah, it's very challenging when people don't wanna be there where they are sent, for your workshop
Sam: is there a particular story or experience of having to figure that out with a, a group of people who don't wanna be there or, people in the room? Obviously, without naming names.
Robert: yeah, I think it just, I, I was in a, um, how do you say, lucky [00:14:00] situation with my first few such encounters because I had a more senior, facilitator next to me who were handling the harder parts. And, and, they just taught me so much about, uh...
I mean, I'm a big believer in, preparing, for workshops and, also in general I really enjoy the process design part, of facilitation. but also understanding that, all the work that goes into the preparation are essentially there to, uh, make you feel more confident when you need to make changes and adapt to what the group needs, and, uh, just that flexibility of, well, uh, great, we had a plan, and now that plan, is going to change based on- what the needs of the group is.
Sam: Yeah. And just a couple of notes so on the people in a, in a room potentially not wanting to be there or the feel that people don't wanna be there, I'm really interested in what, did you do? What, happened, in that case? You know, for our listeners, What did you learn from that, and what did you do, or what happened?
Robert: I think what we did for this, uh, one of the situations was, uh, just, really putting more time, at the very beginning to let people be heard and, [00:15:00] let out their, frustrations and, and, uh, so we can understand that, okay, what, were they expecting? which, is the second one of, actually understanding what, in this situation, what could we reasonably do? What expectations they have, and which are the one which we, which we have the liberty or mandate to address here? and that's a tricky situation when the sponsor is not in the room and, you are asked to do something. So then, finding that, common ground together with the group of, okay, we, we had goal X. there, there are, Y, Z, and W other issues, which, is the, common area in that Venn diagram, can reasonably address together.
And then, okay, how, to handle the rest of the issues, how to bring those, um... Luckily, it, it wasn't a one-off, event, it was part of a bigger project, so there was, opportunity to handle the, other issues too. but yeah, making people heard, understanding what the expectations are and, uh- Collectively, building that, buy-in and, consensus of, okay, so what are we going to do together? And not, told by the facilitator, not, told by one person in the group, but collectively the group deciding of what are the, issues that it is, uh, willing and able tackle in that, timeframe that's available.
Sam: Yeah. so what you're doing there is you're listening to what's coming up, and then you're asking the question of like what is it, what's going on. you're naming what's happening in the room whilst also inviting how can your own agency start to shift this so that you begin to want to be here based on being able to shape it alongside that challenge a facilitator has of, "Well, i'm here as a, my, client wants me to do this." but by holding that space with the group, you can start to work towards, both. And I think that comes onto my next question on what you said around the process of design and, SessionLab is and correct me if I'm wrong, but is like a software platform that allows facilitators to design their sessions with a whole bunch of tools that are within the, platform. So just sort of say a little bit before we come onto next question in terms of like, what is important for you about the process of design to be able to respond to, things that come up that might be harder to plan for?
Robert: considerations do I find important, uh, while designing?
Sam: Yeah. in what you were saying, you touched on the process of design as being a key learning thing and an important thing. my question is why is that important?
Robert: I think that comes from the, starting point of, just understanding so what are the needs of this group? And, building a design is, For a workshop, for a facilitated process is, the vehicle through which to really understand, like, what do I want to achieve here and, how to satisfy each of those objectives. I'm trying to simulate somewhat mentally what is going to happen in the room and understand, what are the potential issues that will arise, and what can I do now to have, the right tools available for me the right processes so I can address those. And that really forces me to understand the needs of the group deeper and deeper.
I think the other angle is nowadays I'm a lot more facilitating internally, which is another challenge when you are both a facilitator and a participant or important stakeholder in the room. Some-sometimes you as the, uh, leader of a group or a member of a group, are running the process as well and, and, and that's another challenge when you, need to be intentional that when, when you communicate, okay, am I wearing my facilitator hat now or, or my participant hat? but especially there, uh, in these type of situations, it's, just whenever I walk myself through how we are going to do, for example, a strategic planning or an offsite, it, really helps to clarify the goals that we want to achieve.
So you may be playing more a part of a host in terms of hosting that conversation for want of a, better word in a sense. I was gonna ask in terms of like how do you square that when you are participant and facilitator? But I think what you touched on there is about being clear on your goal, and that is what helps hold that.
Yeah, think being clear on the goal and, u-understanding what do I want to achieve, not just outcome-wise, but in terms of, if it's important that, there is a participative environment where people are equally heard, then, that's a consideration too when designing. And then I need to create a process, to satisfy that. so it's like what is the organization that, we want to have and what type of behaviours that mean? so what process is in line with that?
Sam: Yeah. So from our conversation, because we're coming to the end of our conversation, I've got a few round-up questions, to finish with, including our previous guest question. But what I'm picking, what I'm sort of the words I'm coming away with the moment, Robert, from our conversation is empowerment, intentional and process.
And how they influence facilitation and the important role that they, play with that. so my question to you around that before we move into the guest question, arena is, a question in terms of let it sit with you for a little bit first, if nothing comes to mind straight away.
But, what, if any, meaning was made for you through the course of our conversation today?
Robert: I found useful, this reflection on the, uh, facilitating internally versus as a real independent, facilitator and just like, I think I will ponder longer on this host versus facilitator, distinction, that you were putting. So I think I would, pick, it first, this one
Sam: Thank you. So, um, that brings us onto our previous guest question. And the previous guest question was: what book do you recommend? And I'm gonna just add to that in tell me why your choice of book is important to you, Robert.
Robert: Hmm. So, um, I loved reading sci-fi, but I probably wouldn't recommend sci-fi books now here.
Sam: Right. Okay. it's your question, and you can answer it however you wish.
Robert: just, my, go-to tool for, unwinding, from work. But it comes to more, sort of business, or facilitation relevant books, I was thinking and, then one book that, it struck my eyes on my, um, reading list was the Never Split the Difference, which I was surprised that I, would highlight this on a facilitation-focused podcast 'cause I don't regard this as a book that is about facilitation.
but I remember it had just-- firstly, it was very detailed with examples, and I always love books that, that is very detailed with, with specific cases. and I think what I really enjoyed there or what, what I found interesting is that while a facilitator's job is, not to negotiate, but what I really found interesting that it also had an angle that a good outcome depends less on logic and more on making the other person feel genuinely heard. a way it was fun to observe similarities that, Now, put it aside that I'm not a big fan of bestsellers, but still this, book with its specificities, I found this very useful and applicable for a number of things. but ultimately, it's-- I think there was this underlying similarity that both in the negotiation space and in the facilitation, there is a, a tie about, control and safety that, both as facilitators, we, want to create a safe space for participants where they feel, empowered to, uh, make decisions and, feeling rather in control than cornered. And, that is also true for negotiation situations. this gives some inspiration, es-especially for, the, the business side as well. But it was fun to observe that, something which I initially did not find so relatable to facilitation actually has, a bunch roots.
Sam: they very often do. I often find that with other books as well. But also what you're talking about there very much ties into where you were telling me about when there was a, case in terms of, struggling with a group who, initially didn't wanna be there.
And what you talked about there was that once they started to feel heard, they did want to be there. And I think there's some similar things that apply there as well in terms of, that facilitator creating space for people to be there, and then you're creating a brave space for those things to come out.
And then you can get on with the facilitation because people are in a space where they, they're being confident and being part of, I think, is what I'm picking up from what you're saying there as well. So with that, and to sort of finish with, what question would you like to ask, Our next guest.
Robert: Thank you. So, I think one question I would be particularly interested in, is related to, to the impact of facilitation, which is, by the way, also a topic that we, focused on, the latest State of Facilitation report. curious that, how do you know that your facilitation has made an impact?
that would be my question. Especially because, Uh, there is all the emotions and energy in the room, during and after facilitation, which gives an impression. But then, what helps to know that the facilitation [00:24:00] has really made an impact? I'm, I'm just very curious to hear, perspectives on that.
Sam: Brilliant. That's a lovely question, and something for our, next guest to chew on, I am sure. Robert, thank you for your time today. I very much enjoyed our conversation and getting to know you a little.
Robert: Likewise, Sam. It was a pleasure to be here, and thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation too.
Umah: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories. This podcast is brought to you by the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Umah, and today we're going to hear about "Facilitating in Communities".
In August last year, I went to Toronto and joined a meetup where I had the most wonderful time. Today's guest is the architect of that experience, Jeff Marr. He is the founder of the Practical Philosophy Club, a charity that has sparked deep discussions in communities in over 28 countries. Jeff, welcome. Welcome to the show.
Jeff: Thank you, Umah
Umah: So first off, I wanted you to tell our listeners a little bit about Practical Philosophy Club, what it means to you, and why you started it.
Jeff: Practical Philosophy is mostly the opportunity for us to have deep discussion. We started post-COVID-ish, so 2021, at the very end of it, going into 2022, and people were hungry for conversation. And so that was more or less how it got started. And then over the last little while, it just grew exponentially more or less, and it took us about two years to set the foundations, figure out what it was that we even believed in. What were we trying to even do here? I'm a big fan of philosophy, and I wanted to have a space where people could talk.
I think that what we need is more transparency and honesty and less polarisation in the world, and so that's through a roundabout fun way, enjoyable way. We're putting people into a room who have all these different opinions, all these different thoughts, and they're able to communicate with one another. And on social media and in traditional media, they would more or less consider themselves enemies. But then you get people who have very different political beliefs, and they realise they have a lot more in common. We aren't enemies to one another.
I really like to see people think things through, and it's an opportunity to go deep into a conversation, both very logically, but also in the esoteric sense.
I'm also a big fan of self-development, too. A lot of people, they're not necessarily open to self-development because it has a bad rap. But they come to Practical Philosophy 'cause, like, yeah, I do the practical aspect of it, and it does help people with whatever they're going through, even though they're learning different ways of thinking about situations in their life without directly confronting.
And through that exploration of that topic, maybe it'll unlock different insights.
Umah: You've got Practical Philosophy Club in all those different countries, and a lot of the facilitation is happening in communities where there's different cultures, different socioeconomic backgrounds, and every week everyone's talking about the same topic, and you've set that up for a reason, haven't you?
Jeff: It was an accident.
Umah: It was an accident!
Jeff: Yeah!
Umah: Tell me then, how was it an accident?
Jeff: I just tried to have a meetup in my living room in. I was living in Mexico, so I just hosted a meetup, and I didn't really know how it was gonna go. The first one was just me reading quotes off my laptop and so then through iteration, it became what it became. I wasn't familiar with any facilitation, so we built it from the ground up. And then as we've gone, we've found different organisations that are doing good work and trying to see if there's anything that we can implement through our processes. The reason it happened by accident is just 'cause I was in Mexico, but I'm from Canada.
Umah: Yeah.
Jeff: And then we opened one in Canada. We needed to learn how to figure out how to run these and how to make them survive and how to make them thrive. And then we also moved to Valencia in Spain, and then we tried it there and it worked. And so after that, it took on a life of its own. So it wasn't really the intention.
It was just meaningful. Philosophy's nerdy, and I was mostly confused for a long time. Why are people even showing up? Why are people coming to this? When we opened our first one in Vancouver in the west end of Canada, this guy came up to me and he was like, "This is very brave to call it philosophy. If you would call it deep conversations, maybe more people would come. People don't like philosophy." I was like, "Yeah, that's fair, but I personally love philosophy as a basis of everything that we are. And so if we can, I guess, reinvent the idea of what that means because I don't like the academia version of philosophy necessarily. I don't hate it, but like it's not accessible to a lot of people. How do we introduce this idea that philosophy is a way of critical thinking and figuring things out for yourself and, say they're stressed about work. This is just my opinion, but we can't rely on authority figures because things are changing so much.
And so how can we indirectly help people understand that whatever your conclusions are gonna be, they're gonna have to be your conclusions because we can't rely on the government to tell us, "Oh, this is the direction to go. Go to school, go to university, get a job." It's, that's not necessarily an option, so how can we help build that together, but then as well have this community of very unique type of person who comes every week, and you get to meet some very cool people there through it.
Umah: And so to build that community and have people meet others and connect in a meaningful way, you have facilitators who obviously don't lead the conversation, but, um, you have them there so that they can set the guidelines, set the scene, and ensure that good, deep discussions take place in all these different cultures around the world. And so the facilitators, they mostly do that through the introduction, right? It's quite important to you, so could you tell me why?
Jeff: Yeah. The introduction the most important part, and that was again, something I didn't realise until my friend Susanna in Playa del Carmen in Mexico, she was the one who showed me that introduction sets the tone for when we split into different groups for how people are supposed to behave within this space, and our guidelines that we have is mostly like no side talk, right?
Give people realm where they can speak. We want you to share your story. We want you to be as vulnerable as you're comfortable to be, but also just be aware of how much it is that you're talking. How much of your story are you sharing? Are you on a 15-minute monologue? So keeping in mind that it is a group conversation.
You just share these things at the beginning because although they're guidelines, they're not hard rules, it's something that we believe helps make the conversation better. We're not here to just hear how smart and cool I am. We're here to hear new perspectives, and we want everyone to have that opportunity.
We have been trying to figure out how we can do that without even having a host, and I think we will always need someone to start it up. Our Mississauga group, which is a city outside of Toronto, they've got a pretty big group, and people come consistently, but there's one main guy who gives the introduction.
But if, if he can't make it, we want it to be as minimal words as we can make it to set the tone. Anyone can do this.
Umah: You've got the guidelines, and you've got really good introduction on how to set the session up and that's really helpful for someone who's quite interested in doing this. Not everyone is necessarily needing to be a professional to facilitate. It's not always necessarily a qualification. Sometimes it's a skill that you can practice, and you can learn.
Jeff: And I guess it's interesting or lucky That this was the decision that we decided to go with. Someone once told me that it's similar to a jam session. The point is to jam. You can't mess it up if we're all aligned on what we're doing here
Umah: I like that. I wonder if it's a perspective thing in terms of what messing it up looks like. Has there been, for example, a time where a group's been particularly rowdy or it's been quite heated discussion, and whether you or the facilitators had to make a decision to step in? Or do you, facilitators as more of an observer and let the group go the direction they're going?
Jeff: I like a little chaos. It's, it's tough. I do mostly focus on how is everyone else feeling with it. We don't wanna have a very rowdy group, so we do try to not get too lit around here. But yeah, every now and then, if it does get very heated, I'm like, "Hey guys, let's take a breath. Let's pause here for a second.
Take a breath, and then we'll go back into it." So it's, generally speaking, it would be the main issue with facilitation. I do think we need certain people to lead the charge on it always. So say for the one that you went to in Toronto, right? We had 155 people last week, and so we can't have that many people at one table.
So we split into smaller groups, and each group has its own semi-moderator, and there's different ways of doing that. So the Toronto group does moderators, and I think they do a phenomenal job, and they're irreplaceable by being open, and it helps to have someone, like everyone knows, okay, this is our moderator, this person's just gonna keep us on track. But then our Vancouver group, the way the host there, Shania, she said it, she's, "These are adults. They're self-sufficient, and they can manage the group on their own." That's what the introduction is for, and then they'll moderate themselves because when we give that agency to the group- Mm.
Umah: How many have you got attending these sessions around the world?
Jeff: Globally, we have about 800 a week. We're opening more all the time. We had one opened in Taipei in Taiwan, and then we also have another one in Vietnam, and then another one in Spain in Malaga. The goal that we're looking at is we want to put this in every city.
Anyone who wants these conversations, which isn't everyone, but there is a certain subset of the population that's looking for these deep conversations, and we wanna be able to make that accessible to them.
Umah: What are you hoping they come away with? For example, some people might go for one, some people might be a regular.
Jeff: I believe that if anyone wants to do anything, it has to come from within. Mm. So having that awakening where they're like, "Oh, this is the direction to head." I don't believe that a guru makes sense. I'm a big fan of communication. Listening to perspectives, it helps. I don't wanna get too into politics, but say America, everyone's talking about Trump all the time, right?
And so there's people who bring up Trump in a negative light every conversation, and it's annoying, and there's people who bring up Trump in a positive light every conversation, and it's also annoying. But if they can come together and instead of dogmatically thinking- This guy's good or this guy's bad.
Is there a way that we can think about what he actually is doing or what's actually happening, what's deeper beyond what we're hearing in the news? If I were to long-term think of the goal, it would be a willingness to communicate disagreements or a willingness to listen to people with alternative perspectives to what we would consider normal or what we, what our immediate social circle talks about 'cause we don't want echo chambers. I think that's one of our main issues in society is that we have these echo chambers that no one's breaking out of, and our algorithms are pushing us to go further into it.
Umah: For me, this is why what you do and facilitation is really important because we facilitate in corporate environments, but also in the community.
It's easing people, the general public, hear perspectives that they might be either uncomfortable with or disagree on. It's helping people sit with discomfort in a safe environment where you're saying it's a discussion, it's not debate. Yes, there's politicians doing their thing, asking for votes. There's people also trying to convince someone to follow their rhetoric, say, but this isn't that.
This is for the individual to open up their mind and think for themselves and put ideas together, hear different perspectives. I think it's already very impactful, but I feel the potential for these facilitated sessions with general public has so much of an untapped potential. It helps people go forwards without anger, a bit more calmly.
Jeff: I'm a big fan of just being calm and not stressed, and so the more opinions that we hear that we may disagree with or that may trigger us, the less triggered we're gonna get, the more we encounter them. It's completely understandable if you hear something, like, completely outrageous. You're gonna get, like, that initial boost of, "I don't like this. I wanna defend it." But eventually I've seen over the course of this, I can hear these people verbally attacking me or saying I'm a horrendous person, and it doesn't bother me even if it feels like a personal attack on me. Can I listen and is there an actual point to what they're saying that I can actually implement within my life if we can take that away and listen to every piece of feedback?
That's a little tough, though because a lot of people have some pretty interesting ideas that aren't useful, and so I would add a c- caveat in that You want to have a strong frame of reality and a sense of confidence in yourself so that you can hear. I do think you need a sense of confidence in who you are as a person, and so that would come through self-exploration.
Then you can, okay, is there something worth hearing about here or something worth taking into consideration here?
Umah: It's inevitable really that there's gonna be a difference of opinion in any group, even if it was the same kind of demographics. It's different experiences that people have had. Have you seen, for example, people blossom or change, their mindset change, opinions change? Have you seen that within the work you do yourself?
Jeff: Yeah. We've had several people who we could call them, say, problematic, right? Like a little bit quick to anger, easily triggered, these type of things, and I have seen them blossom into more or less leaders of the community, and they're able to... Okay, they're able to make fun of themselves. They're more confident in themselves. They're able to, yeah, hear all these opinions without getting triggered anymore, so it's been beautiful to see that. I can see that it's happened within me too. I've heard all these different things. Now I have to actually explore these topics. If I'm gonna have a big mouth, I gotta be able to understand it or learn more so I can, if not change my perspective, understand deeper why my perspective is this way already.
Umah: If this kept growing and there was no limit, what do you feel is exciting and keeping you going? Do you have a specific goal that you reach and be proud of and say, "Yep, I've got to this point"?
Jeff: I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Dune series. Have you read it?
Umah: Yeah. Okay. I've not read it. I've seen it, and I've played the game.
Jeff: Oh, there's a game? Yeah, so I guess the Dune's about this sand world where there's a very valuable powder that pretty much allows for intergalactic space travel. Within that universe, there's people called truth sayers, and so they can hear if anyone's lying. It's a very hard thing to measure, but I think it would be a big win if we actually see politicians, like, nuance perspective, here's why we're gonna do this, and it's not, like, gaslighting.
It's to look like we're gonna do this for the good of this community. Here's the drawbacks of it. So just i- if we can see more transparency with politicians or governing bodies and less shaming. Now society is filled with people who more or less know what lying looks like, know what these tools of manipulation that people in positions of power have been using.
They're intuitively recognisable. Then people would have to govern for the purpose of the actual people, which is what we've claimed that we've been involved with. I believe, and giving the benefit of the doubt to people in positions of power, I do believe that for the most part they probably think that people aren't smart enough to handle the truth.
Like that, that movie where it's like, "You can't handle the truth." Mm. There's someone very well known. Actually, he's not well known enough, but his name is Edward Bernays, and he's pretty much the father of modern public relations. And so he's the reason that we have fluoride in our water. He was Tasked from the smelting company, how do we dispose of this toxic chemical?
And it's too expensive to get rid of, so he actually hired a bunch of dentists and health professionals to tell the public that fluoride is good to prevent tooth decay in children. So as a way to dispose of fluoride, they started putting it in the water, and he used public opinion. It's called manufacturing consent.
If we can see through these things then hopefully the people who are doing them, they're like, "Okay, look, we're just gonna be straight up with you. This is why we're doing this." That'd be like a long-term thing, and I think it would be organic. I'm
Umah: just looking at my bookshelf. There's a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Have you heard of it before?
Jeff: No, I haven't?
Umah: I think you might quite like that as a read.
Jeff: It's called Bad Science?
Umah: Yeah. I read it whilst I was at university, but it's very on topic to what you've said there.
Jeff: And this is a bit of a conspiratorial rant, so I apologise for that.
Umah: We enjoy that as a different conversation.
Jeff: We wanna just go into a group and have a community within society. That's it. Just let me have a nice time.
Umah: I like the deeper thought behind it. It is a space where you can ask the questions that you might not wanna ask in front of other people, or you wanna explore a topic further, you might want it broken down, or you just want to get an answer that you're not getting elsewhere.
What are other topic headings that you've gone through and some maybe more outlandish or weird and wonderful ones, as well as the ones like empathy and loyalty.
Jeff: So generally, when someone's starting a new group, we have a list of all of the topics that we've ever done with all of the jump-off points.
And so I, I believe this is honestly Something beautiful, 'cause it's like a, it's this library of every topic and every question that goes along with the topic. It's an interesting thing 'cause it's not the thoughts of any one person, it's just, are these good enough questions to help you start thinking about things from this perspective of each individual topic.
And so when someone starts a new group, we generally say that we have five to 10 topics that are just certified bangers. Everyone loves them all the time. Dating is one of them. But then there's also, like, how to live a good life. It's important that we figure what a good life means for us as individuals.
Victimhood was always a good topic that we have. Love and hate, life and death, those are standard ones, and people really enjoy those conversations. More outlandish ones, we did the apocalypse a little while ago, 'cause a friend of mine went to OpenAI, and he worked with these guys for a week, and he's like, "Bro, we gotta start buying land.
We're all cooked, and we need to figure out a plan for it. We need to move to Norway 'cause they have a system outside of capitalism." Canada would be good as well for it because, like, we're m- more or less a socialist country. We have to figure out what to do, and that's another benefit of we have a community now.
You have a community of people who more or less are, like, open to meritocracy and actually, "Okay, what's the solution? Let's figure a solution to a problem," and not just a solution that looks good. The solution is we need paper straws. Who came up with that as a solution? Does it actually help, or did the paper straw manufacturing company say to do that?
That was an outlandish one. We did this only in my home group in Hamilton, but we just talked about the Epstein files because that's a big one. Everyone else talked about ego. I remember when I was living in Manila, and side topic, we're gonna talk about the giant worm in Dune. The fourth book, the main character is a big worm, so let's do a philosophy meetup where we just talk about the worm. Wow, really? And, yeah, so we did that. But those are side sessions. We have a side group just for social events, so people do board games, they'll do book clubs, they'll do walks on the beach or whatever it is, 'cause one of our main things is community building.
And so we would offer this space where people can help facilitate.
Umah: You should really get the games then. There's a board game and the Dune II I used to play. It was a computer game.
Jeff: I do love Dune. A lot.
Umah: Just before we wrap up, we have a question from one of our previous guests who asks, what crossroads are you at right now?
Jeff: With the organisation or just in life generally?
Umah: However you like to answer. I'll leave it to you.
Jeff: The crossroads within practical philosophy is we need each chapter to be self-sustaining. So the crossroads at the moment that we're looking at, every new group, like the one that we just started in Taipei, we start asking for donations right away.
We want philosophy to be accessible, so it's never an actual mandatory, obligatory, you have to pay to show up. But it is an idea where we do need to be able to fund ourselves. And the situation in London, right, you're renting out the space, that costs money- Yeah and that shouldn't be entirely on you to pay.
And so us as a community, if this is something that we want, then we need to be able to self-fund. That's like probably the big organisational change that will happen in the next couple weeks. We have this centralised aspect of it that, for the time being, needs to be centralised, and this whole thing started from just a whim, and so we've been learning as we go.
And so we're a little bit less, say, professional in that sense. It's easy when it's $30 that I'm paying to rent out a space in Playa del Carmen, but then we're opening new ones everywhere, and I can't actually- so we have to be an actual organisation now, so we have to operate more appropriately like that.
I guess personally it's just like with the AI thing, 'cause I run a business, my company makes videos. I've got over a decade of experience making videos, animated videos. If AI's taking that, do I just figure out AI video? And we are starting to move into AI video, but outside of that, do I wanna just leave video entirely and start new things?
I'll probably still always be in like marketing/training and communications, but what would that look like? So I- I'm also thinking about just stuff like that with these massive changes that are coming.
Umah: And now it's your turn. Do you have a question for one of our future guests?
Jeff: What potential societal changes may affect you in the future that you need to look out for?
Umah: Good. Thank you, Jeff, for joining us today.
Jeff: Thank you for having me, Umah. It was lovely.
Umah: We have reached the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to hear more about the IAF and how to get involved, please head over to our website, www.facilitationstories.libsyn.com, to make sure you never miss an episode.
We are always on the lookout for new topics to discuss, so if you think there's a facilitator that we should talk to, or you would like to share what's emerging in your world of facilitation, send us an email at podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk. We hope you join us for more Facilitation Stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Olivia: . so welcome to facilitation stories. how do facilitators end up in the profession? What methods and techniques can we learn together and we discover it all in this community podcast, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF.
My name is Olivia Bellas and today I'm talking with Abimbola Olajide. Abimbola is also known as the Chief of Play. She's a serial social entrepreneur, passionate about the power of tactile play, fostering human-centered connection and growth, and she uses hands-on engagement to rewire mindsets in professional and community spaces.
Welcome.
Abimbola: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me, and I'm so glad to be here.
Olivia: Yeah. I am so looking forward to chatting today, and I know we have that focus area of the kind of tactile, the hands on practices, really looking forward to diving into all of that world. but firstly, I wanna actually just touch in on something.
We'll be finding out more about you, but I wanna know today, what's making you smile in your world of facilitation. Just curious about your kind of current landscape, and then we'll get into a bit more about you.
Abimbola: Okay, so, today what's making me smile in the world of facilitation I guess the connection to self, and I know that sounds very stereotypical, but I'll, I'll explain as a facilitator.
I was at a workshop last week in the London Stock Exchange and there was, This guy, Peter Ra, he was telling us about storytelling and how we capture stories and you know, methods to just tell stories at an executive level. And one thing that really struck me from what he said was, you know, when you listen to a story or when you watch something or just noticing how you feel, and just that feeling and that part, I'm holding my belly area is just above, um, as I speak, but just how you feel, how something makes you feel.
And that kind of made me stop and actually feel like, actually, you know, sometimes we. Ignore feelings or put them to the side, or we'll we'll have, whether it's chest tightening or you know, a gut feeling. Those are all indicators of our body telling us something. And him just saying, that actually made me really curious.
Like when I listen to things or when I hear things or when I experience things, what's that feeling that I feel? What is it? So I've been really kind of curious. And listening out for that feeling. So that's kind of making me smile. 'cause sometimes it's like, ooh. What's that?
Olivia: yeah. What's that? Kind of, either it might be there or it might not be there.
Abimbola: Like, oh, what's that? I'm feeling something. Or how come I'm not feeling anything?
So that itself, both of those are learning, by the way. 'cause it's discovery. Of myself. And I think when I apply that back into the work that I do, for the most part, if I'm doing work that I'm not feeling anything about, I think that also translates to the work that you do.
There will be something not as warm or not quite captivating as it could be. So yeah, just that reminder to be like, oh. What am I feeling here? So that's, what's kind of taken my attention in the last couple of weeks in the facilitation space.
Olivia: It is a great reminder, especially as facilitators, 'cause we can get drawn into so many different directions.
Mm-hmm. But as you said, you know, what's the body saying about that particular moment in the room or project? Mm-hmm. And actually as you were talking, 'cause I said, oh, you know what's making you smile? And just even me smiling in reaction to what you were saying just felt really great as well. So we don't pause enough, I think.
Abimbola: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't pause enough. We don't pause enough. Definitely. So.
Olivia: So actually was, you mentioned this particular session, The storytelling one. can we just hear a little bit more about that and what, you know, made you be at that particular moment?
Abimbola: that's a very interesting story that I'm gonna share more about, but I'll, I'll give you guys like
A bit of a sneak peek at it. So I, a friend of mine, so I'm a director in the board of another CIC called connecting stories. So they help women with financial literacy and developing themselves and their careers and also using stories to connect.
So. the founder was like, oh, there's this amazing event. Let's go.
So what it was talking about was executive presence and storytelling and how you can use storytelling to, capture a lot of things. So whether it's attention or marketing or all of that. And also the, I guess the ethical part of using it for good as well. So really going into how you could use storytelling, but also helping you to, I guess, realize how it works. 'cause there is a science behind it. And that's not a bad thing.
But you also then. the ethical thing for me, I think to do is use that for good, right? So to help people actually connect with stories and, you have to connect with it as well. So yeah, that's why I was there
Olivia: Well, I guess the, the things you were talking about storytelling, and obviously you touched on that kind of embodiment aspect that was making you smile as well. And I think I'm really interested in how your story has evolved in terms of the nature of tactile work that you do.
Mm-hmm. Very hands-on practices. Mm-hmm. Is there a kind of defining moment for you that where some of this particular work you transitioned into?
Abimbola: Um, I say there are many defining moments, so I'll tell you the story and then you can see which moments stand out for you. So I would say unofficially, I've probably been facilitating four.
Maybe 15 or so years, unofficially, I didn't know it was a term, but I was always the one to facilitate spaces, to host things, to bring people together, to ask the questions, to mc, do all of those things. And then I think almost seven years ago now. I started in every season and that's the CIC that, I, run with, my team.
And, it was from a season of bereavement, so grief, and I really wanted to get people's stories. So at the time in my early thirties and I was widowed and I was like, this is a. Journey to be going on. how do other people navigate this season? Surely there must be other people in the world navigating a season of grief.
so I started getting introduced to different people and I would interview them. So I, the first series that I started was a podcast where people were sharing their stories of being young and widowed. And then it went on to different types of. Either bereavement or life challenges and transitions.
And then six years later the what started out as a podcast and sharing stories to help and to heal has turned into a CIC where we help people and individuals transition through various life seasons. We're always going through a transition of life. For some reason or the other, and we journey with people to do that.
And a lot of the time when we think journeying, sometimes that could look like talking. But for in every season, what we've actually found is that artistic practice embodied movement alternative. Kinesthetic type practices in the doing is what's helped. And that's what's helped me. That's what's helped my family.
I realized a few years ago that I was more of a kinesthetic learner and I'm like, oh, so there's a. Thing for it, right? So I'm like, just let me get my hands on it. Let me touch it. Let me do it, then I'll figure it out. Right? So I didn't know that that was a thing. And then I realized that, oh, this is the way I learn and I've always been interested in art and trained in expressive arts and also Lego, a serious play and possibly a few other things.
And I have a way of using creative means in order to facilitate and hold spaces. So yeah, that's how I've used that. So recently we had a movement session ahead of, mother's Day. We're having a geranium making session where we're actually exploring. the art of nurturing. So what that means.
so for Mother's Day, you generally think of mothers and mothering, but not everybody is a mother, but maybe everybody has been mothered, but maybe also. Everybody has nurtured something. So it could be a person you've nurtured. It could be that you've been nurtured. It could be a business that you've nurtured.
It could be a pet that you've nurtured, but there is an art to it, and it also could be yourself, like learning how to nurture yourself. So we're exploring that as we make uranium. So, I hold community spaces within every season to do that. And then on the flip side, I have 17 years worth of corporate business experience.
And I, I didn't want that to go to waste. So in corporate spaces I also use similar. but different outcome driven methods to help organizations solve problems bring about innovation and align to their strategic goals. So again, using play, using tactile methods, et cetera. So when I say that there is a defining moment. I think , there's been so many in there, but I guess , the biggest one was probably the start of in every season that started the whole journey. But when I look back on my life, there's probably so many other points that have pointed in that direction.
So that's why I said I've probably been facilitating for long time, a longer time than I can count.
Olivia: Yeah, that facilitation experience is fascinating, isn't it? Because as you say, it's not like a, clear moment or a clear role, it's kind of something that's been natural to you , for a while.
And yeah, it seems like there's, , um, the kind of community spaces part of you in every season. Which You said kinesthetic.
Abimbola: Mm-hmm.
Olivia: Like the doing part to kind of move through any transition we might be in. And I can testify. I went to a fantastic session. Thank you so much. And I'm fascinated actually at how my experience was online.
and that was, really helpful in terms of me recovering from an operation and moving through that.
Abimbola: And then there's this other aspect where you've brought your many years of kind of corporate experience into, hands on type workshops with teams with, you know, leaders in, different settings. And I wanted to ask a bit more about, some of the principles Can I find out a bit more about those?
Yeah, sure. So, in the corporate space I work with Atúnkò. So Atúnkò is the name of my consultancy company. And, I'm from West Africa. My family's from West Africa and Nigeria to be precise. And the direct meaning of Atúnkò is to rebuild and to rewire, and that's what we help. Teams and organizations do. That's literally something I say in one of my videos like a million times. So it's just rolling off my tongue. it's true that's what we help teams and organizations do, and the, the practices that we use have developed from, I guess my, facilitation experience. my love of.
Tactile and hands-on, doing practice, also Lego serious play and also expressive arts. So I feel like there is such an intersection because as you can see, I do community work. I also do corporate work. I have an expressive arts background and I also do things like Lego Serious play and other types of facilitation.
And I feel that there's an intersect of that world, but what I would really say that. My work is grounded on is, I guess, human-centered principles where I lean a lot on, that empathetic and congruence. Congruence is a really big part of the work that I do. and it goes back to why that landed with me from the executive workshop, that feeling of, Hmm, how does this feel?
Does this feel right? Does this feel like the right thing to do? So congruence is a really big part, a big practice that underpins everything that I do. And there's also another practice that I work with and I call it the àjọṣe practice. So àjọṣe, again in my local dialect means let's do it together.
So it's a collaborative approach and I don't think. I won't say, I don't think it's a real approach. It's, it's a real approach for me and I've coined it, but it means, you know, it's something where you're journeying together and I guess it's more than just collaboration. It's more of a collective becoming, and so just journeying as you collectively come.
Because even where I facilitate a space There's an outcome towards it and I'm helping whether it's teams and leaders achieve that outcome. I also learn from that as well. there is a change within me after each workshop I do. There is something that I've noticed, whether it's, I remember I was in Denmark last month and.
It always just gets me, you're in a room with 180 people that you are helping to facilitate this space using Lego. And then, we've asked, okay, build, you know this, or build your tower, and then there's a silence in the room. That's silence. Just gets me each time. 'cause I just think, how are adults sitting here playing with Lego and being completely silent?
Like it doesn't last long, but like there is a silence that it just always gets me like, wow. their attention is so focused on what they're doing. So, there's that part of I'm also learning. Within the work that I do and I make sure that I turn things always back to me.
What have I learned from this? So I guess when I say that, I just shared practice that collective becoming and also a human centered approach based on my background in expressive arts. Trained in Lego serious play, but also that business experience and acumen that I've had over the past 17 years.
And then also the empathetic community spaces that I run. It's a merge of all of those, and I think every facilitator has a work that they do or a method that they use, but also I think no space can replicate that. Everybody's uniquely themselves. So I think my approach is very unique in that way.
I'm showing up as congruently as I can in that space.
Olivia: Hmm. So, àjọṣe let's do it together. And I love this kind of attention moment or this silence moment you talked about, kind of brief, but focused . With this kind of tactile hands-on work, I'm sure it doesn't land beautifully and easily and perfectly with every workshop you've ever done.
what are the ways that you get to that attention silent moment? You know, it, seems like quite a challenge to achieve sometimes.
Abimbola: Yeah, I think I've been lucky that in most workshops when people get their hands on the Lego, or sometimes I use other means, so I have an called wax and bricks method where I use Lego bricks and I also use modeling wax.
So it's a bit harder than Play-Doh, but it's completely moldable and it doesn't dry out and it's more natural. And what I've done in those sessions is I take sometimes. Multiple tactile things. So some people actually don't like Lego, like they don't like touching it. it's a thing and that's very Okay.
So because it is something hard, I bring about something soft as well and something that they can mold and that sometimes helps. So what I sometimes do in sessions where I'm like, I don't know whether this is gonna land or, you know, I've been given a brief about some things. I can bring two alternative means.. , which then people can choose. Which they want, or they can use both, but they're choosing essentially, but we're still going through what we need to do. But they have then a say and a choice in what they want to do. I've never had anybody refuse anything.
that's been good. And then when I've worked online, there's a session that I did. It was really powerful and actually it was a practitioners, counselors, psychotherapists, and. I asked them to bring something that they could build with, you know, ice, Lego, or bricks or blocks or modeling clay.
And people brought clay, people brought Play-Doh, people bought marshmallows. I loved the creativity, someone brought something else, like it wasn't what you would think it would, but they were still able to build, And actually that session was quite focused on.
Playing Your Way to Better Decisions, which is a program that I run, and they were able to do that, like get better decision making from that session using whatever means that they have. So essentially like.. Anything tactile is anything that you can touch.
Olivia: So that's about options. So bringing different things because not everyone, it will land that particular kind of object , and I love the marshmallows. I love the fact that people have been so creative with what they already have. So options, but also, like you say, the non-judgment and allowing for time . So. I'm just kind of jumping now to thinking about an actual workshop with you and, you mentioned that modeling wax,, you mentioned sometimes mixing it with Lego bricks, what might actually happen in a session with you?
What might those different things, tactile objects, what would they mean for me in the session with you?
Abimbola: I mean, they can mean anything, right? I always say that, essentially I feel that you can facilitate with a pencil or a matchstick, right? Anything can be anything. And, there's a quote that says Nothing is. Insignificant. So everything has meaning and everything can have meaning. So depending on the direction of our workshop. So say for example, if it was a play your way to better Decisions Workshop or play Your Way to More Congruent Decisions workshop, we would be using that modeling clay to.
Scope out the options that, look at the decision that we're making. Scope out the options, and then choose or not choose. 'cause not choosing is also an option, right? So we'd get to the end of the workshop where we've created and made and shared stories. And then We decide. Or the participant decides.
What their choice is. And not making a choice is also a choice, which is quite an empowering choice by the way. But what it does is it playfully rewires you for decision making. 'cause it means that a decision doesn't have to be, I need all the data like this, and then I need to be stressed, and then I need to have decision and then actually.
I can play about this. So yeah, we do a lot of, uh, the term would be blue sky thinking, but I call it purple cloud thinking. Right? So you could, it could be whatever it is that you want it to be your decision. You could choose to join the circus. You could choose to move to the other side of the world, like imagination is free.
You can use it. So, we would option out all of these with our play materials and then we'll tell stories around it. And I guess just notice how we feel in that moment about the decision that we're. Playing with at the time. And then also it's rewiring because now we can play with that decision. We came in with the workshop with it heavy, but now we're playing with it and actually it means we can revisit it again.
And it doesn't have to feel heavy because we don't have to have the final outcome. Now we don't have to make the decision, but we do know that we can play with it.
Olivia: What is it that using these tactile methods shifts in us?
Abimbola: you know, I have five children there's a lot of play happening and they're at different ages. So I have a teenager and then my youngest is six. and there's a lot of play happening in our house, and I think there's something that happens to us at some point that we forget to play.
as we grow up, we think actually we need to make serious decisions. Now we need to be serious in how we do things. But we forget to play. And actually play is a big part of our learning. It teaches us to create, it teaches us to fail. It teaches us how we mock things up and we are building blueprints. To make decisions while we're playing, but we don't do that enough because for the most part, we wanna get a right answer.
So when we explore that through play it can bring about a lightness. Sometimes that in itself can feel overwhelming and again, it's a practice, right?
You don't do a workshop and then everything changes.
And once you've built a new pathway for a decision through play, you have that pathway, right? So you can revisit it again
And the more you do it, the more pathways you're gonna build to make your decision making better. So. A lot of the fundamental work that I do with teams and organizations is that play your way to better decisions or play your way to congruent decisions. And it's building a continual and sustainable framework of play that allows you to be able to make better decisions by playing, by failing, by doing silly things.
That also brings about insight as well.
Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. it's kind of very much a very, Learning lab type space that you are describing very open and for yourself, right. As well as others in the room. So, I'm interested because it does feel experimental in lots of ways, what has happened in workshop spaces that maybe haven't gone quite to plan for you or have been surprises that you've learned from?
Abimbola: so when you say experimental, it's like creativity. And for me, I, I love being creative, but I also, I love creativity within a framework and a container. because I think if you're just like, be creative and be free, that doesn't give enough permission actually. 'cause it's too wide and too broad.
So, for example, if you say, make something. that's so broad. If you say make something with this paper in five minutes, I have a container to put that in on framework. so I work within frameworks for the most part, and it's creating and sharing and reflecting back. So as long as I kind of stick to that framework, it always works for the most part.
Right? Things that have happened within workshops. Good things. I mean, I, I was in a space where I had, not too long, but I asked people to build, what they felt like today and people ended up crying and actually having like a real emotional experience with that through what they had built.
So that's always humbling actually to be able to hold a space where people feel safe enough. To do that.
Olivia: and then also it's metaphor, right? So a lot of the time. when we see people, how are you? Oh, I'm fine. You are not fine. Not really.
Abimbola: you need to be able to stop and have a conversation and draw all of that out. But for the most part, we just brush over a lot of things. But when you talk about a metaphor, it's you, but sitting outside of you. And you can talk about it more clearly and direct. And then when you realize that actually it is part of me, it gets emotional, right?
Because you're looking at this mirror. So I think the power of metaphor itself, whether it's tactile I think it works better with tactile because you've built something when you make that connection of how you connect to what you've built or what you've drawn it becomes quite emotional because you then go like.
Super deep, real quick. it gets from zero to quick, zero to deep really quick, and you're like, how did we get here? So I think the power of metaphor, but also using tactile with that just allows people to go from, I'm fine to actually, this is what this model is saying today. Oh, this model has an aspect of me in there and this is how I feel.
Actually, I resonate with that model.
Olivia: Hmm. So Yes. Yeah, that's given me shivers actually just kind of going, oh wow. Like it is that metaphor, that meaning that story coming back to the story again. But like you say, it's right in front of you, isn't it? It's, it's not an abstract. In your mind discussion?
Yeah.
Abimbola: Yeah. So when things are abstract in your mind, it's one thing when you allow or release that to come out, whether you've built something or drawn something or created something, it's out there so you see it and it becomes more real. There's just something about looking at it, I guess, or feeling it, touching it and being part of that construction.
Olivia: Are there more sort of, different materials that you are curious to work with or try?
Abimbola: so I did woodwork for GCSE and I am like. maybe I need to go back into woodworking. So if you see, anything, don't, be surprised. It's all tactile, like all the things you can touch.
So yeah, maybe that. I just love trying different things and I. What you can do with that and the conversations that you can have with people and their introspection and reflection that you can get with people when they're doing and creating something I've always loved. Creating, even before I knew that I loved creating, I loved the process of creating more than anything.
I love seeing something and in seeing what it's become, that transformation process. And I love being part of that, that's actually one of my, um, ways that I. de-stress, like it could even be cleaning at home. Like I'll start reorganizing stuff, I'll start doing stuff, and then I look at it and like, oh, that looks different to how it looked before.
Oh, maybe I could do this. And that energizes me. So, I'm currently have my eye on woodworking at the moment, but, watch this space.
Olivia: Yeah, already I'm excited about like the range of wood, and it's such a beautiful natural material that I think will evoke so much in the kind of workshops you do.
So, I'm kind of thinking about you know, any questions that you might have, not necessarily for me, but we like to have that kind of connection with all of our guests that we invite onto the podcast. So. We're gonna ask next, yeah. Do you have a question that you might wanna ask the next facilitator?
Abimbola: I guess, I mean, I, I like reading. I like learning, so I guess I would ask them what have they read?
Recently that's left an impact on them. So I think that's universal. So it doesn't matter who you interview.
Olivia: yeah. And it's always fascinating that question. I've always scribbled down like, oh, someone's just mentioned this thing and da da da. I ha I unfortunately have lots of books on shelves that I haven't.
Touched yet. What's your relationship with books Reading?
Abimbola: I love to buy books. Some of them sit on my shelf feeling unloved, but luckily, I have other readers in the house who love books too. This year I've really tried to, like, I've reordered them on my bookshelf in my reading order.
You are like, you look on the book. Okay, this is what I'm reading now. Okay, then this is what I'm reading next. Okay. This is what I'm reading and my order changes and I like push other books into the queue.
But I've started doing that this year. I listen to a lot of books. So when I drive long journeys, I listen to a lot of books, but I do like reading. I love reading poetry. I think poetry is something that just I, uh, clearly and probably it's probably come through. I'm a reflective person, so I like to reflect and I could, I could find one thing that resonates and I could like ruminate on it for a little bit and just let it enter So I love reading poetry. I had a book club yesterday with, some other Lego facilitators. We were looking at this really cool book called, collaborating with Your Enemies with, Adam Cam and, He was on the call as well, so we got to ask him loads of questions, which is so cool. but that, was definitely a rewire for me.
Um, over the last few weeks that I've been reading the book, I, I've been savoring it, like reading little bits, but it just talks about, how you collaborate in spaces that are not your comfort zone. And for the most parts we want to exit and run away, but actually lean into that and stretch. And actually there's multiple shades of gray and there's no one right answer and there's no right way.
but there is still a way that you can collaborate with somebody else while being true and congruent to yourself. so I think it's a really powerful book. It made me look at like relationships. That I've had in the past, friendships, family parenting in a different lens. 'cause I'm like, okay, right.
So, I was a bit more relaxed, so my kids caught like more squash over the last few days, you know, while I'm still in the book.
Olivia: The benefits of reading particular books on those around you. Right,
Abimbola: right. So, so I love reading. I love listening to books. I don't get as much time in, in the ideal world, I just sit around reading books, but I don't have that time.
But, I do read as much as I can. and I find actually that. As much as I love a book sometimes, or it's been recommended to me and I really wanna read it, if the tone and the writing is not captivating, I'm unable to read it. And that's one thing I've had to give myself permission of recently to be like, I know you wanna read this book, but it's not engaging you in the way that you'd hoped it to be, and it's okay to not read it.
Whereas before I was used to like powering through and then it'll be like a year reading the same book and not getting anything from it. But yeah, it's either that or I speed read it.
Olivia: These are great tips, which, I'm sure will help many people will help me.
I love the ordering. That's so simple, but I hadn't thought of it and it's a really beautiful question that we will share with our next guest and. I will do as well is, to keep our conversation going a little bit when this podcast episode does come out and when it goes up and is shared with others on LinkedIn.
I will share with you a question that will have come from another guest. I don't have it with me just yet for us to sort of discuss it. However, I wanna try something which is maybe bringing it to. A kind of conversation that we might have online through chat. And that might be like a nice way to, to keep it going.
Yeah,
Abimbola: absolutely. I'm curious to hear the question that will come up.
Olivia: Brilliant. Well, listen, it's been wonderful to connect with you again today. Thank you for your time, your energy, your stories. And yeah, we shall speak again soon.
Abimbola: Thank you. Thank you.
Olivia: Thanks for listening to facilitation stories brought to you by IAF England and Wales. We like to collect stories, so get in touch. If you have an idea, the contact info is at facilitationstories.com. There you can subscribe, follow like the show so you get notified of new episodes. This has been facilitation stories.
Sam: Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the Community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Sam Moon, and my guest today is Peter Pula. Peter is the founder of Axiom News, generative journalism, the Peter Borough Dialogues, and a proud member of the Generative Journalism Alliance.
These days, he's mostly concerned with, in his own words, my beloved cultivating community going on six years now, and where I first met Peter during the first few weeks of COVID when I joined an online global gathering of folk exploring how we could be together apart during what was to become very uncertain times with long periods of lockdown.
Peter crafted a space from which people shared experiences and stories where deep relationships began to form and has continued to do so amongst the community that first got together and others who have joined since. So honoring that my own facilitation journey has been shaped very much through Peter's commitment to life given approaches of facilitation, it is an absolute pleasure to welcome you here today, Peter, and on that note, and before we get into some juicy questions, please introduce yourself, who you are and what you get up to in your world of facilitation.
Peter: Who am I? I think I will say today that I am a person who deeply cares about the wellbeing of humanity. I'm a person who's. Gravely concerned with the prevailing trends at the moment, and I believe that hosting and facilitating people in dialogue that brings to the surface. Their deepest gifts, talents, intentions, and passions in a way that encourages us to be differently together, might at one time have been a nice to have and now it's a need to have. So I'm fully committed to the practices of facilitation and hosting. With the view to, well, for me it's a calling and a critically important one. And that's why I'm glad to be here talking with you, Sam. 'cause we've travelled for a number of years. We've got a lot of, water under the bridge, a lot of experience under our belt. And, we've traveled through some of those crises together in community held in a certain way. And so I think we could say that's also what I'm up to.
Sam: Thank you, Peter. You put that, in a really lovely way. And we've got some questions that we're gonna explore together, but if I can just invite you to expand a little bit more on, your experience of facilitation and hosting and how you have made a distinction between the two and how you hold those.
Peter: When you look to the definition of facilitation and facilitator, there's not much there that I wouldn't say also applies to hosting. I think in a lot of practices though, there are some differences, and it might be sort of a spectrum where my idea of the practice of facilitation is that when facilitating, we are inviting people into a fairly, predetermined process and trying to bring them along to more of a predetermined outcome than you might be if you're hosting, it might be a learning outcome, for example, we want, by the end of this process for everyone to be able to say, speak French or to understand a business process or to have come to some understanding about how to better manage their relationships with their peers. And then way on the other side of the spectrum on hosting, I think there we are then trying to surface what's most alive for each person in the room. With a view to exploring and discovering almost endless possibilities.
But, then ensuring that each one of the possibilities that actually wants to manifest is nurtured in a way, by the way, we dialogue and connect and decide so that they actually can come to fruition. I think there might be a little bit more wildness and willingness in hosting than there is in facilitation, I think they're arts that are closely related, they're in the same family. And I know as hosts sometimes there are moments where I absolutely must facilitate almost with an iron fist. Knowing how and when to make that call is part of the hosting art. Sometimes a super clear process is necessary. Sometimes a process set is co-created by the participants who have some skill in how to be present to one another is also necessary. So I don't think it's a, it's not an either or, it's a spectrum and there is a relationship between the two ideas. But I feel like in practice they are slightly different ideas.
Sam: I really like how you describe, the wildness and willingness, that can take you into the labyrinth of hosting and discovering what's alive. Whilst also what you are saying is recognizing that facilitation process where it needs to be tighter is also about recognizing when it's important to do that around certain things, rather than being wedded to a certain way of doing something, it's about understanding when one needs to come forth, and in terms of where your, start from and where you want to go.
Peter: If I could, Sam, there might be one other distinction, and it would be interesting to test this with your listeners and their experience because, I don't move in circles where we describe what we do as facilitation. So I could be completely wrong about this, but there has been some discussion in the hosting arts world around one of the suggestions that, in hosting, it's considered a very important principle that as a member of a hosting team, you also participate in dialogue, and in many facilitative sessions, it seems important that the facilitators stay observant and outside of the dialogue. So I'm just wondering if that's a distinction that holds true, or if it's not actually the case.
Sam: I think it's a really good question, Peter, and I think there are different views within that, depending on the ideology that it's coming from. And I know there is that conversation that takes place around, is a facilitator neutral or not. And there's clear opinions on both sides of that, but I think in terms of the experience that we've had together and in those spaces, I would agree that the host becomes more part of that conversation and is involved in the dialogue.
But it's about not influencing it. And I think for me, I probably stand on the side of that, lean more into using questions to draw things out rather than put myself forward.
Peter: Right.
Sam: I also find that when I put myself forward, it can deaden the air a little bit as well. Take the life out because, unless invite invited to teach, don't teach.
Peter: Yes. Beautifully said.
Sam: So what I wanted to kind of touch on, what is it in your world of hosting and facilitation that's making you smile at the moment?
Peter: Well, you know, Sam, you mentioned in your introduction, this space we've been holding together for the last five and a half years. It's come to be known as cultivating community and for whatever reason we've been, that's every fortnightly on Fridays. For five and a half years, we've seen probably 600 different people join that space.
There's a core group of, maybe 12 or 15 that come very, very regularly, and another extended group of maybe 45 or 50 that drop in, come and go, who, you know, take comfort in just knowing that the space is there. It's the group of us has started to talk about how, not only have we become a community spread across several continents that are quite committed to the community and to each other, it's, also, been spoken that it's also a practice field for how we be in community differently.
From that, I've had the delight to hear from a number of members of that community. Their lives have been changed by being part of that, to such a degree that they're also bringing these practices, into their own communities and morphing and changing them to suit their own skills and ways of doing things like improv, for example, these are adjacent practices that, work to the same principles and grow together. And that group has been in so much practice for so long. It's a blessing for me, one, to be part of the community, but two, to see the effects it's having on people's lives and in the world. And three, because we're in practice so much, I can also as a host, fully participate in it. And it is for me, a healing place to be. I feel like I am participating in the unfolding of human evolution and the evolution of community, and I don't know how that can do anything but make you smile.
Sam: It's certainly, yeah, absolutely It does, it is a place that gives life and gives energy. And with that, your view, were talking about the effect that it is had on people. Tell me a bit more about that and what it was around the way in which you have been facilitating, hosting that space that you think may have enabled that or created the conditions for it to have that effect on people.
Peter: Yeah, and we haven't really come up with a really smart, clever way to talk about it, but we've used the idea of time triads, and for your listeners, we can maybe just describe that quickly, like we bring people into small groups of three, every person has three minutes to respond to the question of the moment, which, you know, we've got a few ones that are pretty solid, pretty tight, but we also sense into what the question is for each small group.
So these are 90 minute sessions. We usually get three to four rounds of small group time triads. In which each person has three minutes to respond to the question for that particular small group without being interrupted by the two listeners. We can go pretty deep into the practice of relational presencing and what it actually means to be present to a person who's speaking without being distracted by the need to maybe cut them off so someone else can have their turn, or because you're curious about something or because something they've said triggered you. We could go for hours talking about the method if you like. So that round of these small groups and then people come outta these small groups and they're reflected as a whole, but what's alive for them now? Not a report, but a reflection of what struck them about that, time together. It's a process by which people come into contact with their inner teacher, and find their own voice, speak it in all their strength and beauty, and then take turns witnessing another, and then another. Do the same. So the complexity of the field is like tremendous.
I think over time it's become something of an island of coherence. I guess another really important piece about the methodology is that it is something that happens at a consistent and regular time and has done so for a very long time. So it becomes a structural, stable point in people's lives, which makes it something they can count on, something that helps 'em co-regulate, makes it easy for them to invite others, gives them some sense of, stability and constancy. So, you know, those are some of the architectural pieces of that. And then there's the idea good questions or provocative questions. Like every small group, every time triad, presences a question that we have come to define as being these three things sufficiently ambiguous, deeply personal and anxiety producing.
And you can ask a question like, at what crossroads do you now find yourself? To the same group a hundred times. Every time their answer will be different and it will be somewhat evolved from where they were before. And if a community continues to visit those kinds of questions together, people experience tremendous personal shifts.
And find themselves in relationship enough with other people to take their next courageous steps into whatever it is they want to bring alive in the world, wherever they are. And that's the sort of effect we're seeing, like people are bringing this kind of work into their churches, into their workplaces. They're shifting the way they interact with their colleagues at work. They're even changing narrative practices. They're becoming less and less comfortable with the command and control paradigms in which most workplaces work, which denigrate and disregard a lot of what people have to bring. So when you develop that kind of like experience, coherence, relationship, assuredness, because you finally got to the root of what's important to you. You move in the world differently and that changes the world. You become a, a resonance center of your own
Sam: Yes. And from sharing that space with you and being part of that space, that's something that I've witnessed and experienced myself. And often people will come out of a conversation, and will be feeling I didn't realize I was going to say that
Peter: Yes,
Sam: I didn't realize I was going to feel this and that, has a kinda real, sort of magical experience, which then people return to. And so the things you are talking about there in terms of the conditions that you are creating is that it's kinda regular, it's consistent using the sort of a method and approach of time triads, people come back and report on what they experienced. And it's on regular time and using the questions that have a structure are the things that create a container for that space, create an energy for those things to emerge and link into what has shaped the hosting practice in many ways.
What was it that helped you get into that work? Tell me a little bit about your journey into that. How did you discover this way of working?
Peter: I was thinking about that and there's a couple ways into the story and it seems like I always tell it differently, but, I started in news and in a strength-based environment and that led me to the point where I was leading an organization that had, between 12 and 17 people working for it at any given time. I started to realize being the leader of an organization was not something I was that interested in doing. In the old way of command and control, set the intention and take the hill, that didn't suit me at all. So I started to, given that we were doing strength-based journalism, we started to see the kinds of life-affirming patterns that you can actually start to sequence out through powerful questions. And the journalism was lifting up what people wanted to create in the world, telling a story about it, and then people would come to their assistance and then something would change, and that would be our next story. So I started to come into contact through that work folks like the asset-based community development movement and the appreciative inquiry movement and practice, and appreciative inquiry, of course, is an organizational strength-based organizational development model, which is fundamentally democratic. So I started to take some of what I was learning there, and then of course, appreciative inquiry, things like open space started to show up in the art of hosting community. And it struck me that this is a completely different way, this is a life affirming way you can lead an organization. Like you either trust the people you work for or you don't. And if you don't trust them, you're probably gonna command and control. If you do trust them, you can create different structures, you can facilitate different kinds of interactions that actually bring to the surface all the best that every person in the building has to bring to the purpose under which you're gathered. And that's what got me into it.
So we turned what was then Axiom News into what became World Blue Democratic Workplace for seven years. Eventually we decided not to continue with that certification because we didn't feel their standards were high enough. You can run an organization in a deeply democratic way that cuts out the need for so much bureaucracy and so much control that because the people in the room who are committed to the cause, finding ways to work together in their own ways actually cuts through a lot of the nonsense that gets in the way. Like even the great Peter F. Drucker made the case that 90% of what we consider management is actually interference. Facilitating dialogue and connection and collaboration in the kinds of ways we can, and the ways that we are, can fundamentally change the way organizations work and the way people experience where they work. And that's what got me into it.
So I tried these things out in organizational settings, a number of nonprofits as well that I was connected with and involved in. And then, um, COVID hit and uh,
Sam: And here we are.
Peter: And here we are.
Sam: Yeah, and what you are, what I'm experiencing in terms of as you're sharing that and describing that and articulating that is how deeply powerful it is, it's not this one directional or one dimensional way of working. There's a real existential kind of aspect to that and a power to that. And the words that sort that I picked up was, trust. In terms of learn your journey of that and trust in people. And going back to where you were talking about where the hosting side of things can be wild and wooly. I can imagine and from the experiences I've had myself when I've delivered in a hosting way, trust plays a key factor in that as well. In terms of any facilitation.
Peter: You gotta trust yourself. You gotta trust the room. You gotta trust the people in the room as a group, and you gotta trust the process. And the moment you don't, the thing collapses and you've gotta command and control it. It's almost like a spiritual practice, trust and trusting the people and trusting the room and trusting the process. It can take some intestinal fortitude, but once you see it work, you can have faith in it.
Sam: Absolutely. So that's really interesting. What I was gonna ask there is what's the courage that someone needed to move into that space of trust rather than, I remember when I first started out in facilitation donkeys ago in particular youth work, I would have a session plan and I would work on that session plan and it would be dah, dah, even if it wasn't working, it's like, no, this is the session plan.
Peter: Right.
Sam: Tell me a little bit about your experience of that trust and kind of the courage that's needed around that.
Peter: The name Blair Singer's coming up for some reason, but I ended up being in a thing that he was facilitating years and years and years ago, and he had this concept of as ising. And so when things started to go really wonky for me in a room, I figured I'd give it a try. And it's just like, I would just say, okay, wait, we can all sense that something's not right here.
Sam: So is that is in, did you say?
Peter: As is.
Sam: As is.
Peter: I don't even know if that makes sense, but that's what he called it. Just to see things as they are. I was hosting or facilitating and it just felt like something was wonky, something was not working. So I simply said, okay, does anyone else feel like this isn't working? All the hands go up, right?
Sam: Wow.
Peter: I say, okay, let's go into small groups of three and find the two people in the room, you know, the least. And let's just, without judging or critiquing what anybody in your small group says, just say what you're experiencing right now. And so they did that. And then people said, well this is my experience. Another person said, that's my experience. And what was interesting you hear four or five people, you realize they're all having a very different experience.
So there's not one problem. So it becomes very complexified
Sam: And what happens from there?
Peter: This is something else that I think has been key for me is that I would stand in front of the room and say, well, and sometimes you have their hosting team, so you sit with the hosting team, maybe while the community's in their small groups, the hosting team sits aside and says, what's a good question for us? What's the question that wants to be asked now? Or you can also go back to the room when they come back and say, all right, what's a question that we'd like to sit with now? And then people start popcorning them up and then you whittle it down and then you find out what question the room wants to be asked,
Sam: Right, Ok.
Peter: and then you're back on track. So I mean, in that there is some structure, right?
Sam: Such a beautiful way of shaping something as a, what do I do when things don't go to plan, when all my anxieties are kicking in? How can we reconnect with the group that we are with?
Peter: There's a lot of letting go of your ego in that. Like you can go, oh, I had this brilliant plan. I was up all night thinking about it, maybe even many nights. And you, gotta let it all go and say, okay, well. 'Cause people do want the thing to work. And they do want to get something out of it. So there's a lot to work with there. And it could be that the thing's gone wonky 'cause you got in the way. So get, get out of the way.
Sam: And there's a freedom there, isn't there? a freedom that you're creating. You're creating an agency.
Peter: and then everyone thinks you're some kind of jedi san. But the fact of the matter is you just buggered it up and got outta the way.
Sam: Yeah, and there's so much reflection afterwards from that as well, in terms of the learning.
Peter: There is, it's very powerful, because each person has their voice. A friend, a colleague of mine by the name of Peggy Holman, who's a brilliant facilitator and fantastic thinker on these things, she says people resent feeling processed.
Sam: Right.
Peter: So if you stay with your process and it's like they feel like you're putting 'em through a spiritual meat grinder, it's right and proper that they would rebel against that. I think it's right and properly they rebel against that. So hold space for the other thing to happen that trusts that they also want this to go well, they also want to get something out of this. And your job is to, okay, if, if that path is blocked, then sit in a circle and think about what the next path is.
Sam: Yeah. And there's a courage and a presence to notice that. have to
Peter: But I think you have to have the kahunas to give it a try once.
Sam: Yeah. And be ok.
Peter: And even if it doesn't work, I mean, have a debrief because you're gonna learn something from it.
Sam: Yeah. And I guess, what you are, you are touching on there is that being okay to fail in the process
Peter: Yes
Sam: And by naming the failure it becomes something else and it becomes
Peter: Something powerful.
Sam: Something more powerful, 'cause then people experience that together and in collaboration.
Yeah. That is really beautiful, I mean. I guess in terms of like, one of the other questions and you know, in a way you've, you've answered it was what fluff ups have you learned from, in the practice, because this art of hosting creates more space for that I guess.
Peter: I talk about the wild and the woolly of the hosting, and I think you can get, I mean, I have gotten so excited about just the process and the connection that, there have been times when I have not brought enough context at the beginning.
So, I remember one event, we were like on the third morning, a guy who was actually staying at my house as a guest, said to me, I think, Peter, you need to just get in front of the room and tell us what the hell we're doing here.
Sam: That's interesting.
Peter: There's a bit of context and , you know, there's another, you know, just recently, like after all these years, Sam, you know how it's important to start on time. Start together is the thing, like whatever time that is, we start together and we started this thing and it was one of these digital things and people started to trickle in. So we'd started an opening circle where the dialogue guidelines had been given and then four people were in it. Then there were seven people, then there were nine people, and it just turned into a rodeo. So in order for the wild and woolly to happen, you have to remember to set the frame, and that's context and very important to begin together. So even after all these years and all the mastery available, it's still easy to miss some key points that just go wonky.
Sam: I love that in terms of the reflection on that and the root to it and reflecting back on, do people know why they're here?
Peter: They don't.
Sam: And sometimes people don't know why they're here, but if you started in that togetherness, everybody's starting from that point, almost whether they know why they are there or not, they get to learn that together because that's where you started from.
And we are coming towards sort of the end of, this lovely conversation. Peter, and I'm going to ask, from the last, podcast that went out, Olivia asked her guest, Julia Slay for a question to bring into this conversation. And her question was, how has your practice as a facilitator evolved and changed?
Peter: You did send this ahead of time and I've been thinking about it and I don't know if my answer is, but this is what's come up in my contemplation of that question.
I used to believe that hosting, facilitating was a better way to conduct joint human endeavor and joint activity, and I think that was fairly light. I'm feeling now that it's a necessity. So there's a valorizing in what it is to be a host facilitator. You know, in the industrial age, management and accounting we're the thing. I think in the age we're heading into, it's hosting facilitation, and narrative arts. Hosting, arts and narrative arts that are essential to human wellbeing and thriving. So I'd say that I'm taking it far more seriously. Before it was a passion. Now it feels like an essential work. So, that's what came up for me in contemplation of Olivia's question.
Sam: Peter, thank you for that really thoughtful, beautiful response.
Peter: I think maybe in, part of the like, span of history we explored, and the nature of your questions. And I think also Sam, 'cause we've known each other for so long now, we have a lot of shared experience. A great deal of, uh, coherence was made for me. So I'm having a sense of coherence and wholeness, which I think is actually the point of this hosting, facilitating. The idea is to create the conditions so that people can feel this sense of wholeness so they can be assured of themselves in a world that's gone crazy. Yeah, meaning coherence, wholeness. That was my experience. Anyway. How about you? Do we have time for you to say
Sam: I have enjoyed this interview. It is my first podcast, as part of the new crew, and I think coming in with, you know, the anxieties of doing something kind of new for the first time and recording for the first time. I think what I'm taking away and what meaning it's having for me is in terms of, is the fun of the conversation.
Peter: You got a knack for that.
Sam: And I, it's almost like studying more what I have. Being involved in, I guess this is a unique conversation because we know one another and we've, shared a practice as to someone that I would be interviewing that I wouldn't be familiar with. So I think this is quite a unique experience and involved in the conversation and the shared experience of it. So it's given a new kind of a deeper understanding and a different way to explore what it is, that happens in that space as well.
So I think taking away your kind of, you know, a deeper perspective of what's been experienced.
Peter: Very nice. Thank you.
Sam: So that brings us on to, my final question, and that is to invite a question from you for our next guest who we don't know who it will be.
Peter: So let's just go with the old classic Sam, and invite your next guest to respond to, at what crossroads do you find yourself with regards to your work in the world?
Sam: Beautiful. That'll, uh, give whoever it is, something to chew and ponder over.
Peter: Possibly even a good place to start.
Sam: Many of our conversations is exactly where it starts.
So, Peter, with that, it is been a, absolute pleasure, kind of speaking with you today.
Peter: Likewise Sam, always.
Sam: Thank you for joining the IAF podcast. And, uh, thank you and be well.
Peter: You're welcome. Thank you, sir.
Sam: So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved, all of the links are on our website, facilitationstories.com, and to make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use?
We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas, so if there is a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about, send us an email at podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk
We hope you join us for some more facilitation stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.
Olivia Bellas Welcome to facilitation stories. How do facilitators end up in the profession? What methods and techniques can we learn together?
And we discover it all in this community Podcast, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Olivia, and today I'm talking with Julia. S. Julia is the founder and director of Facilitation 1 0 1, which began in 2023 after a simple request for a two hour session, which turned into a three day intensive.
This is the course that now distills everything she wishes she'd known when she first started facilitating previous to all of this. She held a range of different roles, across social policy and charities, meaning now 15 years of experience designing and leading workshops, strategy sessions, and learning programs.
So everything from away days and team development to full strategy. Retreats and international events. And in my opinion, also I must follow on LinkedIn for her generous and human sharings on navigating the world of facilitation. Julia, it's great to have you. Welcome.
Julia Slay Oh, lovely to be here. And that was a very kind, generous introduction as well. Wow. Yeah. Thank you.
Olivia Bellas Well, welcome. Welcome. So really looking forward to chatting today, and I know that we have a focus area. Mm-hmm. Which we will get into. So that focus area is looking at endings in workshops and why they're valuable, how we can do them. But for that, I wanted to kick off with, something that makes you smile.
So thinking about your world of facilitation at the moment, what's making you smile?
Julia Slay Mm, well, lots of things. I often feel like I have somehow landed doing a job that doesn't really feel like work. And surely that's like the dream. Well, it is for me anyway, that it's, , each day mostly. There are some small exceptions that mostly I feel really.
Energized, focused, joyful with the work. But something that does always make me smile is when I'm running the training side of the work, I do the facilitation training through facilitation 1 0 1, and I'm in a room with really brilliant facilitators who often come from quite a wide range of disciplines, and they bring in their experience and I get to see and learn from them.
Which is, which is kind of the. For me, one of the secret joys of running training is that you are learning all the time as well. And there was a course I ran a couple of weeks ago and someone who comes from a kind of theater background and has done a lot of work with, um, theater of the Oppressed was running an activity with the group and I just.
Had a smile all over my face. She did an incredible job. And I kind of walked away thinking, yeah, I mean, I got to learn something new today that I've never seen before, and I absolutely loved it. So that, that brings me a lot of joy in my work at the moment.
Olivia Bellas Hmm. Yeah, so you get the opportunity to, to have multiple smiles because of all of those, different perspectives of facilitators you are encountering.
And actually, I'm quite. Intrigued by that. So you had someone from a theater background. , What other kinds of facilitators are you encountering?
Julia Slay Yeah, well it's, it's getting much more diverse. Mm-hmm. I would say a year ago I was primarily working with and training people who were freelance. So, uh, self-employed, , people who often had a combination of kind of coaching, consultant facilitator roles.
They had what I would call capital F facilitation. So they were kind of identifying and marketing themselves as a facilitator and much more. Now, certainly in my orbit, I am meeting people who. Talk about themselves as using facilitation skills, but they are not necessarily,, freelance and they're they're often more kind of internal.
I have had people recently coming on training from the navy, from big tech companies, from um, you know, kinda team leaders and senior managers who are thinking a lot about, , the way they run their team meetings and their away days. I'm really enjoying seeing people connect with the skill and, , making connections between the work they do and facilitation skills and being able to see how. Powerful it could be when they brought it into their orbit. And I've also, I guess, I mean I do, as you said at the beginning, I do a lot of LinkedIn posts.
I spend quite, quite a lot of my time on there, and I have really enjoyed. Getting more international exposure through that. Um, and, and seeing and learning from people who are applying facilitation in very, very different contexts. Um, some brilliant facilitators in, uh, New Zealand, in North America. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago about some facilitators in Mexico who you had connected with, and I'm very keen to get their names from you as well.
Quite a lot in South Africa and in India. So I'm really, I, I feel like. You know, I'm very exposed to a, not even Eurocentric, like British centric way of thinking about facilitation. And I think through LinkedIn I'm . Learning a lot more about different, , countries, different , cultures and how they approach facilitation as well.
Olivia Bellas But you made a really interesting distinction between facilitation as a skill and I think probably. There's also the facilitator as a, a job or a role as, as well. , So I think it's, it seems like people are noticing the value of those skills in particular a lot more, , which is really, really exciting.
And. And so how, how did you get here? Very interested in that. Lots of different paths and journeys I know facilitators have had, , to get to where they are. . Can you say a bit about . Yours?
Julia Slay Yeah. Well, I. It, it was, I think, I think I know very few people. In fact, I dunno if I know anyone who woke up one day and was like, I wanna be a facilitator.
So I think like lots of people, I kind of came into it by accident and was using the skills before I really knew the word existed. But, , I came through two roots. I think one was, well, maybe three. One was I had done a lot of work in my. Twenties working in a kind of think tank and consultancy, running training and workshops.
So a lot of those workshops I would never have used the term facilitation. We talked about kind of hosting round tables and running events, but really we were trying to make them much more participatory to bring in structure, to bring in, you know, interesting ideas about how to prompt thinking and dialogue.
So there was the kind of training, and I did some train the trainer training at that point in my life. And then I did some coaching training and went quite deep into team coaching and quality improvement coaching. Um, and that to me, there's like a very fine line between group coaching and facilitation.
You know, that's quite blurry . , So those were I guess, the two skill sets that felt very facilitation adjacent. And then, , when I left my last kind of quote unquote proper job, which was at the Greater London Authority, so the GLA kind of policy role there, I went freelance and was labeling myself as like a strategy research policy consultant.
Actually what people started employing me for was facilitation. And uh, people started saying, can you facilitate this away day? Can you facilitate this strategy process? Can you facilitate this community of practice? And one day I remember changing the signature on my email and thinking, you know, I didn't even know this word existed two years ago, and now apparently I am one.
So it was almost kind of. By by accident. I guess it was the main skill I was using as a consultant, and I do think a lot of people who are freelance consultants are using facilitation skills, whether or not they call themselves a facilitator, that is like a really core skillset for them.
Olivia Bellas I think a really interesting point you made was that exactly, there's lots of people that are essentially doing this kind of thing already without necessarily knowing it and giving it a name. And actually you mentioned the GLA, which is where we actually met and we're working there.
And similarly. Working in social policy, community engagement, doing this work around better conversations and kind of dynamics between groups, but not, not necessarily having a label.
Julia Slay And, and I would say not necessarily having as much skill or structure as I would've liked.
I certainly, I definitely look back now at some of the engagement events, at some of the workshops, at some of the away days, we were kind of running ourselves and think. If I knew now, then what? I know now, there's a, I mean, I would've done things very differently and I think having these skills when you are working in organizations with teams is so.
Powerful. And um, and also at a board level, I mean, I did, I've sat on a couple of different charity boards and NHS as a kind of non-exec director, and I sometimes think about how formal and quite stale those meetings can be and how just some very simple. Facilitation skills that bring a bit of kind of like structure or powerful questions or moments for people to pause and reflect could really transform those spaces.
I mean, it is a big, , focus of my work at the moment is trying to. Bring facilitation skills into organizations .
Olivia Bellas I love that that aspect of, you know, helping people navigate essentially who, who need that skill, but might not necessarily know it yet. And actually coming onto that, then coming onto those nice techniques and sort of tips, .
Let's start going into this idea of workshops and, um, facilitated spaces and how actually we end them well, because I think there's a lot,, that we can talk about in terms of how we start well, and you know, all those different activities that we can get excited about in that core middle section.
And then there's that ending part. Which I know I'm guilty of, have maybe not dedicated enough time to, so that's what I'd love us to dive into a bit more now. Yeah. What's, what's kind of bubbling for you at the moment in terms of the power of endings in workshops?
Julia Slay Hmm. Well, you are right. I mean, I have become kind of mildly obsessed with this topic and have, uh, looked, you know, looked and reflected on a lot of my own endings of workshops and trainings and events. And I'm also a regular participant. I mean, one of the ways I try and. Keep my practice fresh is by being a participant in lots of other spaces where I can be facilitated by different people.
So I've started, I've got a lot of kind of creativity and inspiration from some of those people as well. And I guess the reason I became so fixated on it is because I have had some really bad experiences of endings and they weren't catastrophic, but they were probably quite. Common. So, uh, let's go through Yes.
Some of those, yeah, I think we identify so well. I would say that they're, they're probably things that every, I don't, I know that on, on a bad day, my workshops would run like this as well. You run late, so not. You don't actually run late, but the session que, you know, it goes on and on and squeezes your kind of ending checkout time quite tightly.
Mm-hmm. So you might find yourself just with kind of three minutes to go to try and do a bunch of stuff. So I think it can feel well, I think. A bad ending for me feels quite rushed and, , not spacious, which is how I like my work to feel for people I guess relaxed in some ways.
If you have an ending that isn't closed, well, it can feel like you're kind of untethered. Like we didn't close everything that we opened. Um, there isn't time to process and reflect collectively. There might be individuals might well walk away and be reflecting there themselves, but there hasn't been a kind of collective moment, which is quite important in the way I facilitate.
And I'm really influenced by some of the neuroscience behind this, and in particular something called the peak end rule, which shows us that what people remember from events is the highs and the ends. And it is, it is. That, which I think has really got me thinking about how do I make sure that the endings are really powerful.
So I, I am kind of. Struck by if, if part of the intention of your work is to create an impact and I think the work that I do, which is often around a kind of more structured workshops and events, then the ending does really matter.
And there, I think there are several things that you can do to create a really powerful lending. And it kind of depends partly on what you're doing. The thing I all, I'm now trying much more to avoid is that kind of very rushed, three minutes at the end on Zoom, where in a panic I might say, okay, one word in the chat or one emoji and how you're feeling leaving this session.
Olivia Bellas And then it's just kind of over and which has its place, right. The checkout, those checkout words are lovely, but like you say, it's about, is it about ring? How do you ringfence that time, you know? Yeah. . And how much time would you give it? I, I guess depending on,, the session.
Julia Slay Um, yeah, that's a good question actually.
I mean, it does, I think, well, how do you ringfence it? One of the things I've started to do, two things I've started to do, I have found quite helpful. One, is to just be much more generous in my planning around how long to leave for the, for the ending. So in a one hour session, for example, online, I might angel leave 15 minutes and, and if I, if I ended up with 10, I'd be happy.
The other thing I've seen people do and I quite like doing now, is using buffer time. So in a workshop plan, deliberately planning in buffer time for either q and a extra breaks if people need them, a session to go on a bit longer or a bit more to at the end. And I don't think I've ever been left.
Too much time at the end. So my assumption is always, if there's time it can be usefully spent, right? Like it's like a helpful thing. And if you can finish five minutes early, actually they're gonna be love you. Yeah. They're gonna love you. It's like having a snow day at school or something. People are like skipping out.
Think I've got five minutes to make a cup of tea or hang up my laundry. Um, so. Yeah, I think I, I am more and more conscious about trying not to rush things or to do, I mean, one of the many activities I would do as part of a kind of ending section would be a checkout, and I think with the kind of one word in the chat, or share your reflection in the chat, it can be very effective if you don't have time to go around and hear people, but actually they don't have time to read it.
So often what I find is people are sharing these brilliant insights and we, as the facilitators are left. With them and we can read through them and go, oh, that's lovely. That's really interesting. But they're often just pinging it in and then heading out of the room. So it feels like for me, part of the intention of a checkout is that it's collective sense making and a moment of collective connection.
And if I'm doing like add something in the chat, they're not getting the benefit of that necessarily, unless they're being really diligent and staying and reading through everything.
Olivia Bellas So there's a, there's a connection part,, a social part I guess, remembering who's there, how we sort of started this very kind of human aspect.
I'm just thinking about. Um, the value of what meaning has been made, you know, kind of a learning transfer aspect I suppose that might more sit with training or is there a differentiation?
Julia Slay Well, yeah, , I do think, I feel quite strongly, and I know other facilitators will have different views on this.
I think, I feel that there is always collective learning. From almost any kind of session. And I don't, I don't think that's limited to training. I think that often we learn through hearing other people articulate things that are different to us or that validate something else, or sometimes it's naming something we hadn't that, you know, we hadn't even found the words for yet.
So there is, I think. In every, we are using the word session quite loosely here, but it could be a meeting, it could be a team away day, it could be, um, a planning session could be almost anything really. But the chance to talk about both, like the process and the content feels like an opportunity to deepen learning and to.
Yeah, I, I think to, to have a more kind of reflective space that mm-hmm. Is, is about learning, is about connection is about, I think about this sometimes with my quality improvement hat on, where I used to coach teams in the NHS kind of an hour a week in a GP practice, and we would always do a review at the end of the one hour meeting, which was just a very quick in five minutes.
What went well about the meeting and even better if, and everyone would share their, what went well and even better if, and through that we were making these micro adjustments to how we worked as a team. And how those sessions were useful for the team. So it didn't have to be a big whole scale three month review, although you could do that.
It was this kind of like slight tweaking, recalibrating, and a chance, uh, to just make things a bit a bit better. So I think I sometimes do think about it as both the process and the content. So, um, a checkout and a, and a process of reflecting can be, , both about. What did I learn today? What insights am I taking away?
What reflections am I taking away? And how did I feel this session went? What might we do differently next time? And I think there is often, for me, because I'm a coach and I know you are too, I quite like to combine reflection with action.. So that there's a reflective component and then there's a kind of, what action am I taking away, or what's my next step?
I also think there's a bunch of other logistical stuff that you do in an ending that's quite important. So there's stuff around kind of what's happening next, like where is, you know, what is the kind of next stage of this, if at all? , There's kind of sharing materials. Often I think we forget that participants we are with this is, I'm more in the space of if you're facilitating groups who aren't already in a team or organization.
They often are like, we wanna be connected and we forget that. We need to give them the space to have that conversation and figure out what they wanna do, where they wanna take their, their connections, if at all. , You might be running an evaluation. So often when we rush out endings, the evaluation or the feedback is the first thing that gets cut.
Olivia Bellas I'd say probably some of the fluff ups I've had in terms of not ending as I would've liked to, are around this kind of feedback bit, , like it feels clunky to me. It feels like we've just sort of shifted from me and us to you, or you know, suddenly there's this kind of weird moment of like, oh, right now we are looking at the session, and what was the workshop actually?
Julia Slay Yes. Yeah. And I think that's, and I think sometimes doing feedback or evaluations can feel quite well, it's like an admin task.
It's an admin, yeah. Everybody gets their phone out and they scan the QR code, or they get the piece of paper and the pen and it's a bit quiet and it does shift the energy and the mood. People might have been in this lovely, you know, reflections and connection space, and then suddenly you're like, and here's the feedback form.
And I do think it's really important to do it in the session because your data quality is so much better. , It's interesting which way round would I do it? I do a little bit of the kind of process evaluation, so what went well?
And I usually do that before the final checkout. I might, for example, if we've had a bit of a group agreement at the beginning, might revisit that and say a bit of kind of like, how did we do against this? Which bits do you think we really stuck to?
Which bits might we have slipped a bit on? What might you change for next time? So I probably would try and do that before I then did. And what's your final checkout? So I try to leave a checkout for the very, very end, and then I might just do one final. Grounding activity, and this is where people have such different skill sets.
You know, I ran a training on, I ran this first day of a trauma informed training that I'm doing with a group of psychotherapists. We ran it this week and they did a final grounding activity that was very somatic, very physical. It was a kind of body scan. That's not the kind of thing I ever really do because it's, it's not really part of my practice.
But I do sometimes you might cringe at this, I do sometimes read out like a poem or I might do something more physical, like a game. Like there's a lovely game, like a hand sink clap game. Oh yes. Which is a really lovely way to like build energy and just bring a bit of like movement back in at the end.
Uh, but again, you need time for these things. So you'll often be thinking someone, actually again, the theater person who was in this training I ran in November, she ran a fantastic activity at the end of one of the days, which was building a sound machine of facilitation. So it was like, oh, it was so cool, and it was like, for a minute I was like.
The, is the group gonna go for this? Because she was inviting people up to kind of make a motion and a noise, and there was about five seconds where I was like, Ooh, where's this gonna go? And then someone jumped in and then they all piled in and it, yeah, the energy just went from like 50 to a hundred in the space of 60 seconds, and that was all it took really.
Olivia Bellas Amazing that, this, brilliant, sound activity and the poem that you mentioned. Yeah. You know, we might put these at the start, right? Like they actually feel, like things that might be more familiar there when actually putting them at the end, or even thinking about topping and tailing, is there value in connecting that beginning and that end?
Julia Slay Well, it's interesting you say that because I, I mean, I said I've become mildly obsessed with this. One of the many things I've become a bit obsessed with is the concept of circularity and or what in improv and comedy they call reintegration.
So where you bring something back from the beginning at the end. Right. And I love this concept. I came across it, I did some training, last month in Berlin with chaos pilots around experience design, and they introduced this concept of circularity so that you do something at the beginning of an activity, at beginning of a workshop or an event, and then you bring it back at the end.
So in the training, they had this kind of little yellow. Airplane that you wrote an intention on and something just cut kind of a couple of prompts and then at the end we came back to that. So it's just a very, it's a very simple way of doing. It doesn't have to be, uh, elaborate. On um, Tuesday when, when we ran this trauma informed training, uh, one of the facilitator, one of the trainer team got people to write down anything.
They just wanted to park things that they just wanted to leave outside the space. And she gave them envelopes and paper and they put what they wanted to park in the envelope and they gave the envelope to her. And at the end of the day, she gave it all back and it was this lovely moment of like.
Actually, and, and I really have done that activity before and really experienced it as a participant, as like it mentally just shut off some of the noise. It was really powerful.
Olivia Bellas Oh, I love that. So you literally just put it in an envelopes and it's held by the facilitator during the duration and then it's. Given back and that's it. It's just as simple as that.
Julia Slay Yeah. And someone, someone was like, I don't even know if I wanna open. I'm not gonna open it now. You know, which is, you know, fair enough. Yeah. But it's be powerful. It's the physical embodiment of, of things. Right? Like it's one thing. And I do think it's also very powerful to say out loud, uh, I want to park X.
Yeah. But there is something I think even more powerful about physically writing it down, putting it aside and saying, I'm gonna come back to that at. Whatever, 5:00 PM today. And it's just, it's there and it's, you know, parked and the, and this kind of concept. I mean, that is, I think all just generally parking stuff and having a way to give people a chance to say, this is on my mind.
I need to just go with that is very powerful. But this concept of circularity I really love because I think it does do. Just help you achieve. One of the key things I think I'm looking for when I run workshops or events or training, which is uh, com kind of a completeness, a kind of, and it's not to say things have to be tidy or neat, uh, they, but it's, it's the kind of anchoring effect of bringing something full circle.
Olivia Bellas It's quite sort of reassuring, satisfying. Intentional as well, I'm just remembering I did one accidentally but I got that feeling as a facilitator.
So I had started the session and, . Had a picture up actually of just my hand, you know, with, with kind of five digits. And it was really just to remind me that I wanted in my intro to say five quick things about me and move on. And then at the end we ended up doing that debrief that I think, you know, where you draw around your hand and each finger is a of reflection prompt.
And although that was accidental, there was something that like has that sensation as well for the whole group. Participants and facilitator and I guess I, that just made me think a, another thought there is this sort of worry, fear of like ending, which might be another unraveling, you know, like how can we end well without it possibly going into a another direction.
Julia Slay Yes, and I am always aware, I mean, I can. I have heard facilitators talk about that as a fear before, and I think sometimes there are, there are certain phrases or words that I would probably avoid bringing in right at the end. Like, is there anything else you wanna talk about?
But I think there is something interesting because when you run the kind of process review reflection stuff, or you do a checkout that's more learning orientated, I think implicitly in the way we structure it, there's a boundary around it.
So even if someone says something quite revealing or challenging in terms of process feedback, like, oh, I actually didn't think we did that very well, or, I'm feeling a bit frustrated by the way this happened. , It's like the group understands we're not necessarily going into that now.
This is like insight and information, but we are not necessarily open up. So I think that there, if it's phrased and framed in the right way, it's naturally quite contained, even if stuff comes up and you think, well, that could be like a two hour conversation.
Whereas, yeah, I definitely have been guilty in the past and try not to do now. Saying to the group, and it almost sometimes can slip out. You know, you, you've done your checkout and then you kind of go, oh, is there anything else? And you're like, no, no, don't do that.
I think with teams who are connected to each other, uh, that can come up a little bit more. So someone will be maybe right at the end after they've done a checkout, oh, but we didn't talk about this. Or should we talk about that? And because they know they're gonna see each other again or later
It can just feel slightly different. , There's also something I think about acknowledging that. When we close a session, right, and we kind of end the session, but people will still be processing and reflecting sometimes for hours, days, and weeks afterwards. So their ending might not be for two weeks time. Um, and I'm curious, I've seen some facilitators try to.
Accommodate that by extending the ending and sometimes kind of sending an email a week or two afterwards saying, uh, would love to hear where your reflections landed on this. And it's almost like part accountability coach, part acknowledgement that they might have still processed quite a lot of insight post session.
, Or something I've started doing in the training I run because I had an experience of it that was really positive is, you know, you do a three day training and then. Two months later, or maybe six weeks later, have just like 45 minutes online to come back together and just do a bit of a kind of recap and review.
So acknowledging that there's lots of things that bubble up and learning and processing doesn't end when we shut the Zoom. And how can we think about our ending as a more extended version of that? Yeah, absolutely. The ending isn't necessarily just in that time that you've all spent together.
Olivia Bellas It can carry on and if you have scope to reconnect, brilliant. , That's not always the case. , Of course, and like you had said,, that next steps piece, , it will feel like it might, need to be heavily discussed with the client and where are they coming into it, , and that kind of ending, , might need to be sort of shared a little bit with, with, with others as well.
So I, I've actually got, a question and then I'm gonna ask you for one, so Uma and Sam, who were the other hosts, and I had a chat recently and we were saying, . Wouldn't it be nice to, , get some of our brilliant guests to share a question they'd like to pass on to the next guest?
So I'm gonna do that and ask you that, but first I've got a question that we wanted for you. So we're gonna start, and it's actually really connected to what we're talking about right now. , So the question we were thinking about was, , what meaning. Has been made for you, if any, as a result of the conversation we've just had now?
Julia Slay Interesting. Yeah, I think I, there is something I, um, mulling over about the very practical timing aspect and. How, how long is the right amount of time to spend on an ending? And that's like just hit home for me a little bit about, , how long would it take to do something really meaningful?
Could you do it in three minutes actually I dunno if it's quite the word meaning, but yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we can talk about the value of closing well, how we do it, but like you say, being really clear actually about it, having that dedicated time
Olivia Bellas Okay. So what question would you like to ask our next guest who, we don't know who it is yet, so it's a kind of, it's a surprise for everyone. Is there something.
Julia Slay I, I would love to know how their practice as a facilitator has changed as they have gone along their facilitation journey. So how has their practice evolved and changed?
Olivia Bellas Love that. You know, I mean, it's almost a question I'd love to ask every facilitator I meet because I, I can see in myself the way it's totally changed over the years. Yeah. And I am very curious about that journey for others too. . And how it could, um, be fast sometimes and slow other times, you know, that sort of rate of change is just,, different every time.
Julia Slay Yeah. And how we unlearn things. I mean, I think there is some assumptions maybe that I had at the beginning of my facilitation. Career inverted comm when I first started, which I would, which have certainly changed and things I used to do that I thought were really important that now I, I hold much more lightly.
Olivia Bellas So, yeah, I'm very curious to, to listen to the episode and see what they say, what gorgeous that is. A lovely point of circularity actually. They're bringing in something from before. I think that's a lovely activity to do. Oh, well thank you so much for that question and the conversation today. Thank you. I know that's helpful for a lot of people.
Julia Slay Thank you. That was really lovely conversation.
Olivia Bellas Thanks for listening to Facilitation Stories - brought to you by IAF England and Wales. We like to collect stories, so get in touch if you have an idea - contact info is at facilitationstories.com There, you can Subscribe, follow, like the show so you get notified of new episodes.
Helene Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helene Jewell and for the last time I am introducing the podcast because I'm going to be passing the baton onto this wonderful new team. We have Sam Moon, Olivia Bellas, and Umah Ganeshalingam. In this episode, you're going to hear Sam, Umah and Olivia talk about their hopes for the Facilitation Stories podcast, some of the work they all do, the kinds of things they're interested in hearing about, and the conversations they're hoping to have. And it just leaves me to say thanks to everybody that I've worked with on this podcast. Pilar Orti, who started the whole thing, Nikki Wilson, we worked together for ages and it has been absolutely fantastic working with both of them and to Rena Kosh as well, who does all the graphics and stuff that go out alongside the podcast and pretty much everybody else that's been listening, all the guests we've had over the last few years, it's been fantastic.
Umah Thank you, Helen, and thank you to you and the team for everything that you've done today and handing it over so nicely to us.
Helene Good luck to you all.
Sam We'll be standing on the shoulders of giants. Thank you Helen. So I'll kick off with the question. What brings you here, Olivia, to the new crew, why was it important for you to be here?
Olivia Podcasting as a format really works for me, so it's definitely a medium that I enjoy for work, for fun. The idea of being part of a crew, a team, building a podcast is really, really exciting to be a bit more behind the scenes. I remember I was at the IAF conference in April in Birmingham earlier this year and seeing this call out to see who's interested. And that was one reason. And then the other reason was actually I tend to collaborate a lot. This year, I haven't been really up until that point and was like, oh, what's missing? And it was that feeling that I was actually, as a facilitator, doing lots of solo work, which I think has value sometimes, but I was really missing more closer collaboration with others. Yeah. What about you, Sam?
Sam I think it's curiosity, which is often very much my kind of North Star towards things and serendipity and an interest in being with others, exploring and discussing what I enjoy and the room and the space to do that with others, and also an excitement and interest in talking about, talking with and sharing conversation with other people who are in the facilitation world. And I think just the opportunity to play with those ideas and experience other people's experiences. Learn a little bit about this realm of podcasting, which I'm not massively familiar with myself. I'm here with openness to the curiosity of what is possible. Really. So Umah, come to you. What brings you here, and why was it important for you to be involved in the IAF podcast as a as a new crew member?
Umah Mine all started with a conversation with Paul, where I had joined as a IAF member and as part of the intro, he spoke to me about the IAF, the podcast and said, oh, if I'm keen, I could be involved in it. And almost the day I joined as a member, I say, yeah, I'll happily get involved with the podcast too. And then it was about finding other people to do it with us, and he mentioned it at the conference, which unfortunately I couldn't attend, but I'm hoping to attend this one. Coming up, in terms of my why at work, it's quite delivery. Whereas this for me is a place where I could slow down a bit, have the space and time to have conversations, think about why we're doing things. Is our approach the right approach? How do other people do things and do a bit more of that philosophizing really, that we don't always get to do? But the thing is, by exploring this with both of you, with our guests in the future, and also the audience who's listening in, it's just really good to get different viewpoints and build that community. I think that's quite key for me.
Olivia I think it's really interesting around sometimes we well, we often get caught up in the doing and the delivery side of things, and it is about looking at what is it we do. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But yeah. What's my follow up question. Is there a kind of area of facilitation that you're particularly interested in, or is it more about sort of your discovering, you know, through your practice.
Umah I've had quite a few different career changes. So I started off as a clinician and I was seeing pediatrics and adults with hearing and balance difficulties. And how you communicate is key in terms of the impact on their the diagnosis, the management of it. And it's how can we make them feel comfortable, give them that space to explore and ask the questions. So it's facilitating them through this process, right. So I initially started with patient experience journeys that kind of facilitation. How can we make the process better. And then afterwards I had a career change, went into construction and it became more about customer experience or passenger experience when I did airports. It's interesting that you asked me that, Olivia. So before it was the journey, whereas now it's the community, the group. What's the common? People have different needs and different things to attain. At the moment, lots of people are off in different directions. What is the commonality? It's changed that way for me. How about for you? What's your area of practice right now?
Olivia And that's a good point right now adding that bit. I think it does change quite a lot. I've also dipped my toe into quite a few different working worlds. I've come from creative sector, arts culture, worked with artists a lot, and I've brought that into government spaces, charity spaces, public dialogue and also thinking about making teamwork more enjoyable, easier. But I bring a lot of play. So a lot of that kind of creativity, which is naturally how my brain works. But how do we use that as a way into the workplace? I mean, there's a lot of science and evidence that backs up that using playful approaches Really helps us in terms of fresh thinking. So I'd say at the moment I do use a lot of serious play in my work. I do use a lot of other kind of practices like walk and talks, visualization. So that side of things is where I'm focused right now.
Umah Yeah. Sam, we've spoken a lot about, for example, our why. What is it that you're hoping that us together on the podcast is going to do?
Sam That's a good question. My kind of world of work has been twenty five years or so in youth and community, sort of focused. So a lot of my facilitation is kind of through that, through that lens. And I'm earning the last year or so have gone full time freelance by myself. So I've been on a journey of figuring out what it is that I do in that new world. So I'm very much on that story of kind of discovery, but finding myself working a lot in the sort of community Subcommittee film co-production, lived experience, but also being drawn and developing work around kind of impact through means called ripple effect mapping. I'm very much pulled into different things and then began to get get interested in what makes me smile and what creates the energy. So I'm still very much in this discovery stage, but it's also interesting as a kind of work through things is having to remember to be me and follow the things that I like to do and create and facilitate in the way that I wish to facilitate and follow my own path. It's very easy to kind of be looking at all the amazing things that other people are doing and going, oh, that looks great, I should be doing that. And you forget to actually do the things that you do well. Focus on those on those things. And when I remember that and lean back into the things that are me and that I do, the world opens up and I find myself in spaces doing really exciting things and creative pieces of work, which then lead into to other things like this in terms of the opportunities the podcast brings and what we'd like to explore. I'm really interested in speaking to a whole range of different types of facilitation, and really looking at ways in which people can talk about what they're passionate about and what's important to them. But I'm also interested, because of my own passions in facilitation within the community world and other sort of sectors, like that kind of creating space where we're all able to talk about facilitation without competing with another facilitation style or another kind of way of doing things, because I think, well, I'll kind of start off, I might become precious about a certain way of doing things, and then I'll learn another way of doing things and think, well, actually, this really complements this way of doing things. And then you begin to see the gaps in everything that you do. I'm looking forward to creating a space where we can see how things complement one another, and that the enjoyment and what we get from it is shared with each other.
Olivia I agree so much with what you said, like, it's really exciting to hear because I think with facilitation, as we know, it's quite unusual, mostly how people have ended up doing this type of work. I hear the kind of stories of like a, you know, just as we've shared now, really quite different. And so those roots there are fascinating, and they reveal a lot and give you permission to do the things that you just said, Sam. Well, I'll try it like this, but then I can layer it with this and I can look at something else. Yeah. Facilitation exists in so many different ways, and that's what I'm excited about diving into and getting those stories in the least expected places. And with the people that maybe we hear less from. I suppose in facilitation is doing big work, but maybe quiet work as well. So yeah, would definitely love to hear from people who probably don't even call themselves facilitators, but maybe identify with some of the things already said.
Sam Umah, what comes to mind for you of what you'd like to experience and might be possible for the podcast?
Umah I'm quite interested to look at the breadth and depth of the different things that we have available to us, what's worked, and understanding what are the true challenges that we face. We do lessons learned, and it's quite nice to get a chance to ask detailed questions of right. So when that was a challenge, what did you do? And then delve into that. And through that conversation you unlock her. Well, maybe we could maybe we could try this. It becomes it evolves doesn't it? So it becomes a new way of doing things. Let me reiterate my process. I've done this workshop many times. Never once has my workshop ever gone the same way. Different people, different outcomes, different ways of doing things. Even the three of us together, we haven't covered everything. So that's why we bring guests in hearing from audiences. What is their reveal? Something that I've not thought of yet.
Sam To go a little bit deeper with a follow up question on that is what is it about your world of facilitation? What is it that makes you smile about it? What is it that gives you a spring in your step about facilitation?
Umah One thing personally for me is the variety I get to learn about new sectors when I'm facilitating. I could be sector agnostic and really get something valuable for them when I'm in the session, it helps piece the world together for me. I like the variety, I like learning. We're all lifelong learners. I really like that. And exploring what there is. It's seeing when someone is hesitant to say, should I put this idea forward? And you can see that they're a little bit uncomfortable. So we facilitate as facilitators, and they build the confidence and courage to put their idea forward. And then I see them see their team members contribute and grow that idea. Afterwards, they might take it away. They might develop it. You know, we're bigger than the sum of our parts type thing. So for me, that's really what makes me smile.
Sam How about you, Olivia? What gives you a spring in your step about facilitating or your world of facilitation?
Olivia So two things jump to mind. So firstly, I guess it's that sort of very unknown space that I'm realize I'm quite drawn to. So a lot of the facilitation work that I have done, when it's kind of in the community engagement space, it's very unpredictable. It can feel kind of complicated and complex and messy sometimes, but it's work that I really enjoy because I enjoy that kind of sense making part of it. And it's it's weird because it's definitely a kind of uncomfortable maybe space, but I really love navigating it, whether it's in the moment delivering or before that. When you're designing and you're like, what? How is this even gonna work out? And then it somehow the pieces come together. I guess it's also like you were saying as well, how that unknownness is experienced and transformed with the others, with the group then, because we all get that sense, don't we? I also just love the fact of what makes me really, really smile is that I can just go for it and really try things out. A lot of the time with safety, of course, within the group, but sometimes I've come away and kind of go, wow, I'm really glad that we tried this particular route with the group today, and it felt right to do it then. Pushing those boundaries of exploration, of creativity just really suits me as a facilitator as well. Just sharing like we are right now, because I think sometimes if we're honest, this kind of work can feel a little bit lonely. And I think just being really honest when there are fluff ups as well, it's just like it's not all brilliant. Like there's things that are like, uh oh, that was really weird or uh oh, gotta do that again in a different way, you know? And so I'd love to hear more of that as well in this podcast. What went well but what hasn't. And actually, like, can we just share that because we're all going through it. So I think that will bring smiles to probably many people's faces. Yeah. Sam.
Sam So what makes me smile, I think, is that I enjoy the freedom, particularly coming from full time employment and then deciding to move into freelance and self-employment and all the uncertainty that comes with that. So I think there's an aspect of that in terms of not knowing what I'm going to be doing is quite exciting as discovering what I am going to be doing. As I'm figuring that out and things come in. I do a lot of work with stories and lived experience and also story creation. And the ripple effect mapping work that I do is very much held within stories and appreciative inquiry, and the nature of that creates a lot of energy and a lot of connection, creating spaces that nurture relationship and spaces in which people are in relationship with one another is often a joy to experience and be part of. And what also makes me smile is creating space where people can make sense of their own stories by telling their stories, creating space where people can hear other people's stories or hear other people speak from where they're at to make sense of how they are feeling and make sense of what's going on for them. It's just always a privilege to be in a space that the impact of that and the power of that gives people their own agency in their own sort of citizenship. Kind of in that space as well. So I really, really enjoy that. And also I might do work, which is more around what might be termed as hosting, and that's about creating space for the collective wisdom to emerge from the room. And that's what shapes the decisions. I like creating spaces where I might not know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen, and being able to create space to work and fail, but be human in those spaces as well and be open going, okay, this isn't quite working, is it? And be able to name that within those spaces. So shared learning experience as well, that ongoing learning experience for me and listening to the tone of the group rather than listening to myself. It's really lovely being in those sorts of spaces.
Olivia I've heard it a little bit, but this hosting difference, and if you could expand a little bit on that, like what? What would you say is, is there a host and a facilitator might be different things or do they overlap?
Sam We can talk about what it means to me, and I'm and I'm conscious that we can get into some semantics here where where I start to define what facilitation is is, isn't. When I'm using the word hosting. For me, it's around where facilitating space for the collective wisdom of the group or the people you're with, and the energy naturally arises to be able to shape what might emerge, rather than what might be a more linear, focused thing. That sort of hosting approach, maybe within appreciative inquiry, relational relational practice. So it could be as simple as why was it important for you to be here? Or what is the crossroads you're at at this moment in time? And we speak to those questions and then take that back into the room and what is shared and what struck people then might shape the next question. And so it's a form of practice, but it's that gray space. And I caveat that with everyone will possibly have their own version of what that means for them.
Olivia That's so helpful. Thank you. I could feel myself going down a rabbit hole. I don't know if we want to jump into something a bit silly.
Sam But we did have a few personal trivia questions, the first of which was what do we do for fun?
Umah I have a puppy. He's a Saluki from Abu Dhabi, and for me he is the definition of fun and any time spent with him, I really value it. I quite like gaming, strategic games, board games and going for walks, which he definitely enjoys too. How about you?
Sam So I'm also quite. You made me smile. And we could we could quite actually easily just take over the rest of the podcast with this, with this now which is a danger. But I was going to say what I do for fun is board gaming. So for anybody who's listening to this podcast who's not a gamer, I'm not talking about monopoly. For those who may be uninitiated, early entry games might be things like Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan. I meet up with a bunch of friends locally, and we just really enjoy playing board games together, and occasionally we'll book an Airbnb and play games for an entire weekend and enjoy that. So that's what I do for fun. Go to the gym quite a lot now, and that might not be fun for most people, but it helps. I find it really good head clearer for me just to kind of hit the gym every now and then and go for a run. Olivia, what do you do for fun?
Olivia Oh my goodness. Well, just listening to you both my cat whilst we're on the pet vibe. Ziggy she is very cool. She's fun for all the family. The other thing that came to my mind though, I don't feel like I do it loads and loads. It's just moving around and traveling actually. So whether that's within my kind of closest sphere or beyond. As my kids are getting a bit bigger, I'm sort of noticing, oh, I can actually venture out a bit more for fun. It's quite funny. It's around trash TV, so I'm gonna dive into it. I don't really watch TV as a as a general rule, but our household has just got into traitors. I felt quite uncomfortable about watching people be essentially quite like, duping each other and being quite mean to each other. Right? Because, you know, they've got to play the game. So this is kind of like a game where you're tricking people or trying to.
Umah There is a game, there's a game called Mafia, which is this .
Olivia So so you're watching these people like lying to each other. I found series one a really hard watch. Didn't bother with series two or three because I just thought I'm not going there. And then series four is on and it's the celebrity one. And as I'm watching it this time, I've got really into like all the biases, actually that are popping up. People are just making really weird decisions based on what, you know, because no one's actually got really any evidence. And so then it's brought up this kind of now it's more like an anthropological.
Umah Yeah, exactly. It's societal.
Olivia Exactly. Why are they saying that? It must be this guy? Because he's the smartest guy. What have you based that on? It's starting to come up. There's a few articles that people are going. Why isn't the media actually talking about a lot of the stuff that's happening, like first impression bias? You know, there's the kind of groupthink that happens. And, you know, you can start to relate this all to the work that we do.
Umah Exactly how it comes through in the workplace.
Olivia Absolutely. And so, you know, there's you can go really, really deep and into analyzing traitors, the TV show and seeing the parallels just with real life. And that actually you just look at these people and you think there are aspects that we enact as well. Just wanted to mention that as a kind of, you know, yes, it's a reality TV, but it's it's fascinating. Have a read of what's online around this kind of bias, because it's actually it's actually a little bit worrying that this is all sort of happening live on UK TV, and not a lot of people are talking about it yet.
Umah Because it's a microscope, isn't it, into behaviors and you look into it and then some of them might be quite not reflective, but you see an exaggerated version of it.
Olivia Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Do either of you have trashy TVs?
Umah I don't, I watch K-drama, but not trash TV.
Sam Sorry. What's a K-drama?
Umah Korean TV series. They're amazing.
Sam Oh, right. I'm not familiar with that. My trash TV habit is I'm now a sucker for Deadliest Catch on Dmax, which is the reality TV. There's twenty two seasons of them, and it's about the folks who go crab fishing on the Bering Sea, and it follows a handful of boats that go out and catch crab. It's on for like two hours every morning, and I watch thirty minutes of it whilst I have my breakfast. And bit by bit, I've just started to get to know the different characters. What I find fascinating in terms of observation of people is mainly men who are on the boat, dominantly men. I'd say ninety nine percent men, but just in terms of kind of how men are with one another in that environment, toxic masculinity and fear. And in each episode, you'd see the nuances in terms of how they evolve as people. I find myself tied to that little routine each morning as I start to find out about these fishermen, you go out and catch crab.
Umah I'll watch a clip after this. Recommend me a good episode to watch.
Sam I couldn't do that at first. I really didn't like it because I was put off by the toxic masculinity of it. Shall we finish with the most important question of humanity, as far as I'm concerned, is what's your favourite biscuit or snack if you don't do biscuits. I've introduced mine, but also say how I use this in facilitation myself. So my favourite go to biscuit would be a hobnob. Probably a chocolate hobnob. I also use this as an icebreaker exercise by inviting people to go around the room, shake hands, introduce themselves and say, what's your favourite biscuit? And I'm always struck in when I do this thinking, oh, this is going to be a little bit trite, a bit superficial, but what happens is everybody starts telling biscuit stories. And so the reminiscence that comes out from this activity is quite something. So with that, Olivia, what's your favourite biscuit?
Olivia Um, you know, just basically every biscuit on the planet. I like biscuits a lot, so I like auburn custard cream, jammy dodger. Like it's just. Yeah, I couldn't pin it down. But interestingly, as a warm up, I've experienced it. Rather I've been a participant and it was about sandwiches. And we also had to draw parallels to the sandwich that we've chosen in terms of describing our mood as well. And again, I find these ones that, you know, I still can't work out where I am with like warmers or icebreakers or whatever you call them, because there are some that don't work very well and some that work better. But I do find that anything that's like this, that's quite comforting. Sometimes it's just, you know, what was the last thing that made you smile? And that's usually going to be a positive start. The simpler the better, I think. But I'd love to come back to this because I know many people are very like, I am not doing an icebreaker.
Umah Yea, different preference, isn't it?
Olivia Yeah. What about you, Umah?
Umah Well, favourite biscuit again, Sam. It was really good that you mentioned that people start reminiscing because straight away one came into my mind and that was the malt biscuit, the one with the cow on and when I was a kid, whenever I was poorly, my mum would give me two of those. It was a bit of a comfort, like a blanket around me, and it felt so nice. I like that icebreaker. So, Olivia, what's the headline of what listeners can look forward to?
Olivia Circling back to the start of our conversation, we're interested in stories where we discover a bit more about how facilitators got to where they are. No one studied facilitation at school, did they? Like in a very formal way or pain like this pathway that's set. So understanding that and hearing more about all the different types of facilitation, that's what we can definitely look forward to that we're all committed to drawing out in the future conversations we have.
Umah Sam.
Sam Absolutely. People can look forward to a variety of stories, a variety of guests, and I think we're already shaping it is quite a human space creates a feeling of belonging and connection. It'd be great if we can create a sense that we're in the room with the listeners, and the listeners are in the room with us.
Umah Yeah, I think that's beautiful. For me, I would just build on that, really, and say shared enjoyment, the nerding out on different methodologies like you've already touched on hosting and facilitation, the difference just really getting into some of the semantics actually, and exploring some of that. I think you said it beautifully there, Sam, as well. So thank you. And I feel that's a really nice place for us to end our first episode together as your new host.
Umah Thank you for listening to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by
Umah IAF, England and Wales.
Umah Subscribe, follow and like so you can get notified of new episodes. If you have a story or an idea you'd love us to explore, you can reach us at Facilitation Stories.
Every time I speak to you, you're globe trotting somewhere.
A.S
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
H.J
So tell us a little bit about you as a facilitator, and the kind of work that you do?
A.S
That's, it's always difficult because to start, because it's, it's so fascinating facilitation. And I think I was doing facilitation for many years without actually knowing it was facilitation. So I love to help groups work together, and what I really love is to give space to each and every person, because to manage to help that everyone contributes. Because I really believe everyone, even those who are apparently not well prepared, well suited or appear to be like a lot of the time. But I think everyone has a gift to gift and facing that challenge of helping take away all what, what blocks this, this, this participation, and creating climate where people can collaborate is really something I love, and so that's what I try to do in my facilitation. I work a lot with groups, associations, sometimes even with companies, but I would prefer normally NGOs or even associations, which could be very small or very big, international, with all the challenges of culture differences and cultural differences and even age differences. So, yeah, that's a bit what I'd like to do, and what I do usually.
H.J
Brilliant. And I think that thing about doing facilitation, before you know, it's called facilitation, is definitely a common theme, certainly, I think, back on all the podcasts we've recorded, and I think that's one thing that comes out in nearly all of them, fascinating. Okay, and so very international. What language do you facilitate in? Mostly, is it English?
A.S
Yeah, basically it's English. Not only, I know English, Italian, Maltese, evidently. So sometimes I do it in Italian. It depends on the group. I've just come from, Vienna. I had five sessions, very intense, and basically they were all in English. I had simultaneous translation in German. Most Viennese understand very well, and even speak English quite well. So it depends on the context, on the place, on the client, let's say, on how you organize. Yeah.
H.J
Wow. Sounds like you have a very diverse practice, which must be completely fascinating.
A.S
I remember once I was, like, two years ago, I was in Poland, and so this organization, sort of, they were, they knew a lot of Italian more than English. So I had two headphones, sort of from one headphone I would speak, a headphone with a microphone, and I would speak in English, sorry, in Italian. And they would they would hear me and translate in Polish. And from the other headphone, I would hear what the other people were saying in Polish translated into Italian. So it was like good, yeah.
H.J
Wow, that's the ultimate in a simultaneous translation. Blimey. Okay, so I should add multi-talented linguist to your list of skills, by the sounds of things. So I'd like to know a bit more about you know IAF and I know you've been involved for quite a while, so when did you become a member of IAF?
A.S
So that, yeah, yeah, it will go back to what you were saying before that for many years, or for many for some time, most of us actually don't know we're doing facilitation. Probably it's because facilitation is so new and even so not known so much. So I found myself in Italy for a long time helping organize big events, but not just the logistical part, but especially the content part, not the content in the sense of Creating Content content, but in helping like the group using their content to work together. And I was continually searching for, I was sure there was some sort of thing, some organization, some shared knowledge on this. And then when, finally, in 2018 I moved to Brussels, I got to know about the IAF Belgian chapter, and I was really excited. They have, they have, and it's still ongoing, a monthly meetup in Belgium. And it's, uh, being so particular in Belgium because, especially Brussels, because it's a real international city, because of all the institutions, NATO and the EU and 10s of 1000s of people who basically speak English as a common language. So the IAF chapter does all its things in English. And I started frequenting that. And I remember I never missed a meeting. It was like so important. And then in 2019 there was the Milan Conference. And so it was set then from then onwards, I nearly immediately became a member and and prompted onwards. It's history. It's sort of, it went on now.
H.J
Once you start finding out about all these things that go on within IAF and the wider community, you sort of slowly become more and more involved. Nice. And I realize, although I'm going to ask you in a bit about your role as regional director, I'm not actually sure, are you part of a particular chapter, given that you sort of, you're a little bit of a nomad. You move around quite a lot.
A.S
Yeah, actually, I still am part of the Belgian chapter. Actually, I got elected together with others on the IAF the Belgium board, so I'm a member in absentia, because, I mean, I know they meet regularly. I don't have lots of time, but I do give them all the support needed, like all the others, actually, but I have a soft spot for Belgium, I must confess, evidently, yeah, so, so that's, that's what I do.
H.J
Great. So officially, part of IAF Belgium. And what kinds of things have you been involved with? So obviously, you've been going, you know, you started going to the meetups in Belgium, and it sounds like you went to the Milan Conference. What else have you been involved in, either as a participant or part of organizing?
A.S
So, so yeah, these official meetings. I mean, the Belgian reality is quite interesting, because the meetups are like, there are two or three different types. Like the basic is where there is someone who specialized in some methodology or something he's been doing, or she's been doing for many years, and they hold a session where they share all their knowledge. And another type of session would be where there's someone who's learning, maybe a new method, and would create a safe space, where they use us as guinea pigs, sort of and, and then at the end there's also, there's always a debrief. And then the in both of these, it's so interesting, because you get to widen your knowledge of how to help groups with facilitation, yeah. Another point I forgot to mention, in my activities, I am finding myself staying quiet for long stretches in Italy, because most, some, most of my clients, are in Italy, actually. And the Italian chapter, I'm very much in contact with them. I know them, most of them, personally. They've just had this Friday and Saturday, their annual conference. It was a real big success. I had a work in Vienna, so I couldn't go there. But last year I went. It's always a really interesting event. So they don't hold monthly meetings. But for example, I got to know there is a group in Padova, in Padua, which meets every two months. They call it Facilitator Playground for one morning, and they do many the same as we do in Belgium. So every time I can, I go up and stay with them and support them, participate. So yeah, it's giving this back up is really essential. Because in these meetings, you find big community building between facilitators. You find a pool of learning with shared knowledge between facilitators and you and encourage each other, you get to know, maybe you get to know, people with whom you could actually work later on. But on the whole, you become friends with others, and I think that's a real big it's something. It's not nothing. It's a when we help each other, and you get to know differences, which can become a gift, because you widen your your personality, your knowledge, your approach to things, yeah.
H.J
Yeah I really love that about the IAF and just the sort of wider community as well, hanging out with other people that really love to talk about facilitation and, and all its kind of broad, you know, broad aspects, different aspects of it, and, and, yeah, you're right. You sort of, you do start to make friends and start to build up those relationships, and it's really nice. And I think, well, I guess for you, particularly, working across different countries, actually, you get to sort of have a foot in a couple of different camps, which must be nice, so true. And I really like the idea of the I think I've heard them called, like, Facilitation Labs, that kind of thing, where you talked about, with Belgium, you bring a sort of something to try out with the group. That sounds really interesting as well.
A.S
It's because we're all in different phases of our professional life. There are those who maybe are already quite expert in some some methodologies, and have had many experiences, you know? I mean, one thing which really strikes me about facilitation is that often we describe it as an art and a science. And I think with these things, we do exactly that, and we learn that. So science is quite precise, and you need to get to know precise things. And there are aspects of facilitation which are very functional, very specific. But it's also an art, and an art you cannot foresee it. You you do it only by experience. You can learn by experience because you never, you cannot say, okay, there will be 10 people, and I will do this, this and that. There are always so many variables and unforeseen things. And how do you respond to that? So experience helps, sharing experience helps as well, and training in this thing is really important,
H.J
Definitely. I think that's one of the things I love about it. You're never quite sure what's going to happen, and I know that terrifies some people. Okay, so I want to ask you now a bit more about your, the fact you are the director of the Europe and Middle East region, and I think you started, or you stepped into that role at the beginning of the year. I just wanted to know what, what that entails, what are your main responsibilities?
A.S
Okay, I'm still trying to find out. I mean, we're still in the end of March, so just the first quarter. First thing, I'm still alive, so that's quite something. I find there are two faces of this responsibility, of the service. So one aspect is like the grassroots, sort of helping all those facilitators in our region in any way possible where they need help, evidently, but help is such a big word, and it has so many different possibilities and connotations, so this would be one aspect. And the other aspect is representing all these facilitators in our region with their wide diversity, I think we're one of the, not the, but definitely one of the most diverse regions and all of IAF and so representing them on the wider world context, where we meet as a board, as a global board where we set directions for IAF globally. And in this sense, bringing this specific characteristic, which is ours as a gift to the rest of IAF, and also learning and and receiving the gift of the others and their cultures, their ways of approaching things, and sharing and and, and trying to bridge that with IAF regionally. I think it's, it's a very interesting experience. Yeah, these two aspects.
H.J
And quite challenging, probably as well. Because, I guess when I think about it, we are a very diverse region. I mean, you know, Europe and Middle East in itself is a mixture of quite a lot of different countries and cultures. So that must have a few challenges as well, I presume?
A.S
Oh, definitely, definitely yeah. For example, soon we're going to have Facilitation week now, and evidently, finding a slot during the year where that could be ideal is not, is not so simple, because we have so different, how do you say, cycles, different cultures and then the holidays and weathers and things which are which characterize then our actions and and how we organize ourselves as societies. And for example, in Europe, or if you say we're going to hold something in August, people would say, Oh, forget it. I mean, it's a non-starter, but if you do that in India, it could be probably quite good, or in other parts of the world. So when we meet as globally, like even when we meet regionally, actually, we're really challenged to live by what we preach and be good facilitators so that we find consensus and try to understand better what is the best solution by hearing each other well.
H.J
Yeah that's really interesting, sort of practicing what we preach, I suppose, and living that experience of being part of that sort of quite diverse group, and perhaps that helps us think about, you know, groups that we're actually working with, hadn't thought of it like that. So it's March, and you've only just really started the role. Is there anything particularly significant that you've been involved in so far, or is it still very much Finding your Feet?
A.S
No, definitely. One very significant and very important thing which I've been involved in is the annual face to face board meeting which the global board does. So we usually meet on Zoom. Previously, it was once a month. Now we've decided to do that once every quarter, and there are other meetings as well. So it's not that just once every quarter, for example, very soon we'll have this, we call it The Big We, where we as a global board, meet with many other people who are normally quite involved at a local level in bringing about and helping facilitation worldwide. So it's not just four times a year we meet. But usually all these meetings are on Zoom. So having a global face to face meeting is so important because, evidently, meeting face to face, it has its own characteristics. You cannot equate it to a Zoom meeting. Both are good, but they have differences. And so it's so nice to actually physically meet those people with whom you work with and get to know them. Get to know them much closer. Get to know what they like, how they go about, what are their characteristics, what they like, what are their challenges and together, maybe find out how we can dialogue and bring about, help each other in those challenges. Yeah, it was, we've just had this three weeks ago in Lisbon for basically three days, and it was so enriching. So personally and even as a group, I would believe, from what I heard afterwards, very, very enriching.
H.J
And that's the global board, and so presumably attended by regional directors from other regions as well. Who was there?
A.S
Yeah, definitely. So we had one type of member would be the regional director. So apart from myself from Europe and Middle East, there was one from Asia, who's actually from India right now, but it's such an enormous region, and actually we dream of eventually trying to find a solution, like creating more regions out of that region, because it's like half of the world. But anyway, myself and the Asian representative, a representative from Oceania, a representative from Africa, Central and South America, and then the North America. And then, apart from these regional directors, there was the executive committee. So that would be the chair, and the Vice Chair, where the Vice Chair actually is currently, is our ex Regional Director, Tamara, most of you know her. We had a representation of the executive administration, because we're based right now in Canada as an office. And then we had some directors for specific competencies, like, for example, we have one for learning and all the certifications, one for big events and activities, one for communications and one for member experience. So, so we're, we're quite, quite a group, and but it's, it's really interesting, because you learn a lot from each other.
H.J
Yeah, and it's really, really good to kind of hear or get a bit of a flavor of what that global boards and what IAF at a global level actually looks a bit more like as well, because obviously we perhaps focus on our chapters or even our region, but we are part of that much larger organization as well. So aside from that place in the global board, we also, and I say we because I am also on the Europe and Middle East leadership team. We had a face to face get together in Istanbul in November, didn't we? And that was us creating an action plan. So I guess that's the sort of, perhaps other side, or one of the other sides of your role is leading the leadership team.
A.S
Yeah, and that's, that's very nice, because we as a region are organized with this. So normally we're organized at chapter level. So in a nation or a space, a geographical area, 5-10 members put themselves together and create a chapter, and they help each other. They do some training activities, some social activities, some learning activities, as I was saying. And normally, we meet regularly, once a month, with all the chapter leads from all the region. And it's very enriching. Some can come, sometimes some can come another time, but it's always really enriching. Now to help these persons, to help all our members, we created some years ago, a leadership team, sort of some members who have experience and who can help the regional director. So with the regional director, there is this team, and my experience before and even now, is that we really work together and try to find out solutions, try to understand what's happening where there is necessity of health, and how to promote as much as possible, even outside the the idea of of the practice of facilitation. So like two things, helping those who are already members, and helping spread the notion, the idea of facilitation.
H.J
It's a really nice group to be part of as well. For me, who tends to mostly stay in the UK, it's nice to be part of such an international group. And I'm surprised you have time to do any work.
A.S
Even I
H.J
So thinking, thinking forwards about, you know, your next couple of years as regional director, what are you looking forward to, either personally or for the region?
A.S
Well, definitely for the region, I'm really passionate about trying to help as much as I can. And as much as we can, because I think here I can speak for all the team, and I think we are really helping each other in the sense we really want to do those two functions I was mentioning before. Like trying to help facilitators in all the region and growing them as well, because we know that if people join IAF, then they can help the local, the local and the global community with what they bring inside and learn and from an international experience, all the knowledge which there is to learn and take, to apply to your work, to your situation. So it's always a two way exchange. So one, really, one big thing I wish is to help as much with with the team, with the leadership team, to help as much as possible this aspect of our members. We I don't know you are going to ask this later on, but I can already say it, we're like 600 roughly, IAF members in our region, which makes us quite one of the big, big regional groupings, very varied. And we have, I don't remember well, but at least 40 different languages across our regions, and I don't know how many time zones we have. So there's a very big different culture and social situations, but with some very common trends, like, because human interactions are, in some ways, are always the necessity to help people listen to each other, to create space for the other, to appreciate differences, to work at solutions and where people can feel comfortable with them and fully represented. These are common trends which and necessities which cut across all the region and probably all across the world. So we have a lot of things to learn from each other, and even how we face them, what solutions we bring, even sharing those is already very enriching.
H.J
And that is so true, isn't it? We do think about that diversity, because it's quite obvious, I suppose, as you say, there's 40 different languages. I had no idea there were that many languages, and all the different members and different cultures and time zones, et cetera. But actually, there is so much that brings us together, and so many commonalities as well. And I guess when you get together, you meet those people, whether it's online or, you know, in real life. You sort of notice more I suppose, you start to talk about those things and what brings us together and what binds us as a community I guess.
A.S
Yeah, so true.
H.J
The other thing I wanted to ask you about is your hopes, anything else in terms of your, what you'd like to see?
A.S
Yeah, so I'd love to see facilitation getting a wider spotlight on it. From a social point of view, culture point of view, I think we're very young. 30 years is just a few three decades so, but we have lots of responsibilities, because I think many social problems, many work problems in other organizations, could really benefit from our help and from the way we can contribute to better understandings between persons, to better work between persons within organizations, any type of organizations, better understand reception of gifts and sharings between each other more well, all these things, I think, could be put on spot a bigger spotlight. What is the contribution of process? How can a process help us be better? Or I would word it in this way, processes have proven to help us be better, to be more functional, to arrive at better, more solid solutions. So why don't we learn from these? Why don't we learn from Why don't we put that on a spotlight? and all that is necessary to make those processes happen, like the ground rules most people like, forget that we need to be prepared for a process. They imagine that it's a machine. You press the button and out comes the coffee. But like, so all this, my great desire, my great dream, would be that this gets more appreciated, gets more talked about. People desire it, understand it. Understand this necessity, and we grow our membership so as to give an answer to this necessity.
H.J
I hadn't really, I mean, it's, it's, we all know that facilitation is not that well understood, I suppose. So I think, yes, shining a spotlight is so important. But I hadn't really thought about the fact it's young or that 30 years, three decades, is young, I suppose, compared to lots of other occupations, that was something that hadn't really occurred to me. So it's interesting hearing you describe it as that. I wanted to ask you about something specific, and that is the regional conference I believe we have at the end of this year. I know it's still in its infancy a little bit, but could you share a little bit with us about the conference?
A.S
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the concept of a regional conference is very important for us. Conferences by chapters are so good, I think. As I was saying, just a few minutes before, the Italians have just finished theirs. It's always a big success, more than 100,120, 150 people passed by. It's something which really invigorates the community, gets people to get to know about facilitation. It puts facilitation in a spotlight in that region, in that area, in this country, in the chapter. So it's always a big thing done already in a Chapter wise. I remember I personally helped organize, together with Marie from Belgium and we were in three working on this project. And we did a very small but in, it was the first time, Forum we called it in Belgium, and I think it was so important because we kick started a process. So now talking about a regional conference, it is definitely more challenging, because we, you open up, you expect more people. But it is also more, it produces, it can give more because it can help even in this wider beyond regional confines exchange and putting a bigger spotlight on facilitation. So this year, this coming year, we've had our colleagues from Romania who have been so great. The Romanian chapter right now is doing a golden moment. They have got many, many members, increasing every, every day, basically. So and they're really enthusiastic, even though it is a big challenge, but they decided to go in for it. So they're talking about something around the first weekend of November, if I'm not wrong, the dates are being confirmed in these days, but we're definitely talking about November in Romania, and it's a it's the main topic will be about facilitation, and in a wider sense, what use it has, Why, how it can be used, and what benefits it gets to both to those who need it and also to those who are participating. So yeah, and we're really enthusiastic. There is this team. We met them recently, their young team, working with great enthusiasm. And I think it's going to be a very nice event.
H.J
Yeah, I'm quite excited about it, and I know from having spoken, we did a chapter chat with Bob Dan a little while ago, and obviously I've spoken to him a few times, and I know he just kind of exudes enthusiasm. So I'm hoping it's going to be a very exciting conference.
A.S
Yeah, I remember in a very small experience, the local one I was mentioning before, in Belgium, with Marie and Laura. It was such an invigorating experience. And we had like people who were in Consultancy or a facilitation for 20 years and even more. And then we had these young professionals, maybe working with a big accountancy firm, but doing like serving small or medium sized companies who were really keen to know about the principles of facilitation, because they really needed to put them in practice. And when you put these people together, and everyone is learning from each other, and everyone is practicing, and we did this in a small scale, in Belgium, you can imagine what happens when you do it on a regional level.
H.J
Yeah, sounds fascinating. And, you know, quite fantastic to think about all those different people coming together. And of course, we have our conference coming up next month as well, the England and Wales conference.
A.S
I'm coming
H.J
Yay. I was gonna say that's exciting enough, but it sounds like actually, we have got a few people coming from outside the UK, which always makes it really exciting. So I look forward to seeing you there.
A.S
I will, and even me. I look forward to seeing you there and all the others.
H.J
Fantastic. So just one last question to wrap up this podcast. What is one thing that you most love about facilitation?
A.S
Oh, this is, I love this question, because I think it's a bit what we started off with. I love it when I see people fulfilled, because they have managed to work together well, not withstanding the challenges. Probably they would have started thinking at the beginning that they would not have achieved anything with the type of people there with, they were going to work with. And I really love it when you see the expression of their faces and the way they're speaking at the end of the facilitation, and you see that something has happened. We don't know exactly what, but yeah, there are concrete things which have come out, but something more profound in every person has happened. They've become friends, they've become but it's beyond that. They've, something happened which we are in a difficulty, actually, to formulate well, but that type of reaction, I really love it, and I think it's one of the things which really I like about facilitation.
H.J
Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing that. So we are going to draw the podcast to a close. Thank you so much, Andrew, for joining me.
A.S
Helene, thanks. It's been a real pleasure.
H.J
It's been lovely to talk to you. I just wanted to quickly ask how people could get in touch with you if they want to? Do you have an email address that you could share?
