Facilitation Stories

In this episode Pilar talks to Penny Pullan, Director of “Making Projects Work” and author of “Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Success with Remote or Hybrid Work and Teams”, just out in its second edition, and in 2021,  “Making Workshops Work: Creative Collaboration for Our Time”. Penny explains that Making Workshops Work was originally contracted and due to be published in 2016 but then the pandemic hit and she focused on writing the book to help people, not necessarily certified professional facilitators, who needed to collaborate. Penny talks about seeing her role as a catalyst for collaboration, making it easy for groups to do the best work they can do. They move on to talking about when Penny first called herself a facilitator.  Penny explains that it began when she was running a session for a group where a Senior person said in front of everyone, they were going to leave at lunchtime if the session didn’t improve. Penny opted to give the group a break and admitted to this senior person that

Just saying hello, we'll be back with a proper episode soon. Let us know you're listening!  We're @fac_stories on Twitter Check out facilitationstories.com

In this episode, Pilar talks to Anish Hindocha, who has recently taken the IAF Endorsed Facilitator assessment process. They talk about Anish’s experience through the process and then move on to talk about the challenges of being truly inclusive.  (You can check out an earlier conversation they had, in episode 08 of Facilitation Stories. https://facilitationstories.com/fs08-what-happens-at-our-meetups-and-first-steps-in-facilitation ) Anish is a change consultant with a passion for culture transformation. He started using facilitation through his work as  a business analyst, bringing teams together. He progressed to bringing different people together, with different opinions and helping them to solve problems together. At the same time, he created a Meetup for Spanish speakers wanting to practice English and viceversa, which also brought in another level of facilitation. Anish started looking at the IAF's endorsed route when he became freelance. He realised that a lot of the proposals he was putting out t

In this episode, Pilar interviews Helene Jewell CPF about her experience of going through the CPF Certification Process as someone already experienced in facilitation. Helene has been working for 7/8 years as a freelancer, with a background in international development and Speech and Language Therapy where she started doing training and working with groups. Pilar asks Helene what she did to develop and continue learning before becoming certified.  Helene talks about the ICA UK training courses and other training courses she has been on, networking with other facilitators, IAF meet ups and conferences (Helene is the Chair of the IAF England and Wales board), structured learning and finding out from others and watching other facilitators. Helene talks about a growing awareness of what CPF is, that initially cost put her off and that being around others who have done it have nudged her forwards. She was encouraged by Simon Wilson, and Trevor Durnford (who mentored her through the IAF mentoring scheme). She also

Today’s host is Nikki Wilson, talking to guest David Bishop, bilingual trainer and facilitator, based in France. David’s adventures in facilitation started about 10 years ago, when he was training managers on presentation and negotiation skills. His own practice took him towards being a meeting host, and a facilitator (though he wasn’t aware of that term at the time). He’s been with IAF for 3 years, which he joined because he wanted to support the great work they were doing. Celeste Brito (who guested in episode 15 of this show) asked David to become part of the IAF Europe and Middle East. David’s been running the Facilitation Insight series, which takes place the first Thursday every month, 1700 UK time, where facilitators share their experience on different aspects of facilitation and the business side of being a facilitator. An opportunity for facilitators to learn and share. He’s also organising “The Business of Facilitation” for IAF members, set up after members asked for support on the business sid

In this episode, Pilar talks to three of the co-authors of the book The Power of Facilitation, which was released this summer of 2021. Our conversation today is a little bit different, as it's an edited recording of the meetup that took place on 7 July 2021, a panel discussion with the authors, with contributions from the other attendees. The three panelists you'll hear from are Martin Gilbraith, who co-authored The Power of Partnership Between Facilitation and Communication with Michael Ambjorn ,  Héctor Villarreal Lozoya who wrote The Power Of Facilitation For Team Development and Chitra Chandrashekar, who contributed with an illustrated summary to some of the chapters. And if you want to download the book, you can find it over at the book's website https://facpower.org/ Asking questions were Mike, Susannah, David Bishop, Jane Mitchell and Penny Pullan, who has recently published a book herself: Making Workshops Work, Creative Collaboration for Our Time. I hope she'll be able to join us soon here on the po

We have two guests joining our host Nikki Wilson in this episode: Steve Yorkstone, talking about IAF Scotland and Ewen Le Borgne, who talks about process literacy with Liberating Structures. Steve Yorkstone, tells us about how he got involved with the IAF and how he's ended up running the IAF Scotland chapter.  Since he's taken the baton, Steve has set up a website for the chapter, where people can sign up to the mailing list and receive updates about what's going on.  https://www.iaf-scotland.org/ Steve and some of the other members of the chapter are coming up with many ideas about how to develop the chapter.Steve works in a university, facilitating as part of his job in process improvement, and so he's keen to hear from people who use facilitation in all sorts of ways. A retreat in the Scottish Highlands (or a castle in Spain!) for people to take the time to focus on what facilitation is and how to learn from each other, is one of Steve's ideas. Meanwhile, he's hoping to bring people together in Edinbu

In this episode Helene talks to Alex Williams Lead Trainer and Facilitator for nature-based learning at Muddy Feet.   All Alex and her team’s facilitation is outside, taking groups of all ages out to urban and rural wild spaces encouraging nature connection.    Helene asks why Alex chooses to work outdoors.  This is largely as the focus of the work is linking people to their environment.  It started when Alex did Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in the Philippines .  There all planning and group work was outdoors.  She then returned to do environmental projects in Manchester.  This involved taking communities out to look at, and engage with their environment and think about how they could improve it.   Helene recalls training before her own VSO, much of which was about using the natural environment, rather than using things that were inaccessible to people.   Alex still uses all natural resources such as sticks, leaves and pebbles, although this can depend on the environment as sustainability is also importan

In today’s episode, Pilar and Helene both join a conversation with Vinay Kumar.  Vinay is Chair of IAF Global, based in Bangalore, India. He is a Certified Professional Facilitator, Coach, Organisational Development Consultant, Founder of C2C and host of podcast “Shiny Happy People”. They start by discussing how in 2006 Vinay began calling himself a Facilitator and became interested in the IAF.  They talk about what changed in his practice as a result of starting to call himself a Facilitator.  He explains how he began to learn and design more for the human dynamics of facilitation, creating a safe environment and then using methods that enable equity for everyone to participate.  He also believes he became a better observer. They then explore the impact of hierarchy and what Vinay puts in place to allow everyone to be involved.  Vinay talks about how he adapts the tools to the context, for example being very explicit that senior stakeholders speak last in brainstorming and reinforcing this through actions. 

This is a short, bonus episode to let you know about how we've changed the organisation of our Meetups over at Meetup.com. See below for more details.  Join us here: https://www.meetup.com/IAF-facilitators-and-friends/ Next set of meetups: Tuesday, June 8, 2021 Midlands facilitators monthly online coffee meet-up https://www.meetup.com/IAF-facilitators-and-friends/events/jswzjsyccjblb/ Wednesday, June 9, 2021 South West facilitators monthly coffee meetup https://www.meetup.com/IAF-facilitators-and-friends/events/lcgzjsyccjbmb/ Tuesday, June 15, 2021 UK & Ireland facilitators virtual coffee meetup https://www.meetup.com/IAF-facilitators-and-friends/events/sthkjsyccjbtb/ Friday, June 25, 2021 Ireland facilitators networking & learning meetup (from our friend group Ireland Facilitators and Friends) https://www.meetup.com/IAF-Ireland-facilitators-and-friends/events/278401212/ ----- We are glad to be able to share with you a change that will make finding and attending the various Meetups much simpler

In today’s episode, host Helene Jewell talks about returning back to face-to-face facilitation after a year spent moving facilitation online due to the pandemic. Helene first talks to Camilla Gordon, freelance facilitator, trainer and consultant, and a winner of an IAF Facilitation Impact Award, about her experiences about face-to-face facilitation in the past year. Camilla talks openly about her need to be with clients face to face, as she wasn’t built for an office job, or to be stuck behind her desk. She also talks about how ensuring people keep distanced in sessions goes against everything she believes in as a facilitator who is bringing people together. During their conversation Camilla talks about the practical steps that she took to ensure that the space was covid-secure. That included having the right materials for each person, as well as ensuring that the workshop was delivered in the most appropriate space. She also talks about the need to design the process around people who are distancing, for exa

FS31 Clean Language and Metaphor In today’s episode, host Nikki Wilson takes a deep dive into clean language and metaphor, and talks to three guests about their uses of them in their facilitation practice. First Nikki talks to Judy Rees about how she discovered clean language and metaphor and how they feature in her work today. Judy started exploring the use of metaphor as a child, when her father was studying its use in education. Following reading the book “Metaphors We Live By” by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson as a teenager she then talks of her further exploration on metaphor and clean language during her career as a journalist. Judy talks of her experience of using clean language as a key part of her engagement with freelance facilitation clients. Using a combination of clean language and metaphor allows her clients to express their needs for their requirements, which in turn allows Judy to understand whether she is the right person for them. She also talks about how she uses clean principles in her tra

In today's episode, Helene Jewell talks to Lindsay Sumner and Simon Wilson about the IAF's Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) assessment process and how it has moved online. Lindsay Sumner (CPF M) is the  IAF Director of Certification Operations. She shares with Helene her own certification process, which was a testing one! The process continues to test facilitators skills and processes. There is writing, interviewing and observation involved.  CPF is an in-depth peer review of their facilitation knowledge, experience, skills and practice. It's a multi-staged process which takes about three months. The IAF's philosophy is "test to pass", that is, that everyone is given a fair opportunity to show their skills.  Stage 1 involves reviewing the documentation. If there is not enough evidence yet, they won't be invited to Stage 2.  What about becoming a CPF Master? Once you are a CPF, you can re-certify by writing about your practice over the last four years, to show that you are still facilitating, and l

This episode features three initiatives from members of the IAF England and Wales Chapter. First, Nikki speaks to Mike Clargo about “Leading by Adventure”, a series of weekly adventures of around 15 minutes each, to offer people a different perspective.  They talk about where the idea came from, and how Mike was struck with the thought that we need something to support us to engage with change as a game, having fun, while building skills for the future.  Mike tells Nikki about some of the adventures so far, and what’s to come, revealing that having generated ideas from his network, he has two and a half years of weekly adventures ready to share! Mike explains how to find out more and get involved, simply by signing up at leadingbyadventure.com to begin receiving a weekly inbox adventure and to see the adventures that have already taken place. Next, Pilar reminds us about the range of meetups run by the IAF England and Wales Chapter, all currently online and open to Facilitators and Friends wherever you are. 

FS28 Exploring Metaphorum with Judy Rees – Show Notes Today’s episode starts with an overview of upcoming IAF meetups from Pilar, with a specific invitation to join a Networking and Learning Meetup at 9.30am GMT on 20th January, hosted by Helene Jewell and Sue Windley following up on a session Helene ran in International Facilitation Week on making online events accessible. https://www.meetup.com/IAF-South-West-England-facilitators-and-friends/events/fpkdvrycccbrb/ We then move on to a conversation between Nikki Wilson and Judy Rees, reflecting on the fifth “Metaphorum”, a 13 hour virtual event focused on Clean Language and Metaphor which took place on 4th December. Judy has been running Metaphorum as it’s “benevolent dictator” annually, and she first explains to Nikki how the idea came about and moved from an idea into action.  Judy reflects that her initial interest came from learning about “Open Space” and deciding to experiment with taking this online, with the global “Clean Language” community. The con

Helene Jewell hosts this episode about the skill of online facilitation and the importance of Facilitation to make your celebrations go with (or without) a pop!   We also have two voices from our virtual coffee meet-ups: Gordon Mullan and Jane Mitchell share their thoughts about online facilitation following the IAF conference in October. And Helene introduces the new England and Wales IAF Board, and thanks the outgoing Chair and Treasurer! Two Twitter handles for the coffee inserts: @gordonmullan and @janemitchcomms Helene’s first guest for this episode is Claire Mays.  Claire has a background in facilitating health promotion and is has recently re-engaged with “the facilitator in her” during lockdown – lots of opportunity that wouldn’t have had if not for the pandemic! Since April – Claire has been part of an online facilitated programme that has engaged over 200 people as part of the Barts NHS Acute Trust shielding online programme. Barts Shielding Community was started to support those members of the Bart

In this episode Pilar talks to the rest of the podcast team (Vic Hopkins based on the Cambridge Suffolk border, Nikki Wilson in Danbury in Essex, Helene Jewell in Bristol and Cat based in the North West) as they celebrate and reflect on the IAF England and Wales on line facilitation conference. We also hear from Penny Walker, Chris Massey, Jamie Colston and Fiona McBride – it’s a great episode! The team start off with a big cheer for Susannah Raffe who lead the conference organising team. Then Helene talks a bit about the behind the scenes organising and how it all worked including using Basecamp for the team to communicate when planning, having a point person each day and using the Meetup platform to schedule the sessions. Cat commented on the variety in the week but also that she could identify a thread about what it means to be a facilitator going through the whole week. Vic noted that it felt like a “living breathing programme” as influences were taken from one session to the next. Penny Walker talks abou

In today's episode, Helene Jewell talks to TWO guests! First to Susannah Raffe and then to Cat Duncan-Rees and the episode focuses on the IAFEW Conference 19 - 23 October 2020. These show notes include a transcript, below usual summary.  On Twitter, we are @fac_stories and @HeleneJewell https://curatorsofchange.com/ You can register now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/annual-conference-2020-the-power-and-practice-of-facilitation-registration-97307526431 There are concessions available for IAF members, and those in need of support.  Susannah Raffe Susannah is a facilitator, compassion advocate and climate communicator, and co-host of London Meetups. You can find her on LinkedIn and Twitter: https://twitter.com/SusannahRaffe https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannahraffe/ https://susannahraffe.com/ hello@susannahraffe.com And bravely heading the planning of the conference, which of course this year is online. Susannah focuses on helping people have better conversations about climate change. She started doing t

In this episode Pilar is joined from Italy by Paolo Martinez, an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator, Leader of the IAF Italy Chapter and Partner at “Futour” who empower people and organisations to design a just, sustainable and joyful future through the power of facilitation. They start by talking about how the Italian Chapter adapted to the early stages of COVID by organising a virtual Open Space every Saturday afternoon using Qiqochat. This “COVID free” meetup ran for 2 months usually with 4 facilitators supporting each week. The main focus of the conversation is a survey Paolo shared in June on the IAF Slack channel, which gained 116 responses from facilitators across the globe. (To join the IAF conversation on Slack, follow the link https://join.slack.com/t/iaffacilitatorfriends/shared_invite/enQtODY4NDM0NDM4ODY4LTA0N2FlNWU4M2Y4NWZmZjM4OWRhZmM2N2Y2ZThmNmZjMjI4MzY2OWQ3ZjRiYzllZTYzNzY0MDllZTRiZGUxNzk  ) The survey was undertaken in collaboration with Mika Aaltonen in Finland looking at how facilitati

In this episode Helene talks to Jon Baker about introverts. They start off by discussing Jon’s passion for scuba diving! Jon talks about his work with leaders in organisations, who want to get more from their team, and about his survey where he discovered that about 1/3 of people say that they are not fully productive in business and that most of these are introverts. He describes the different ways that he works with people in businesses to help introverts. Helene asks Jon about statistics for introverts and extroverts and about what distinguishes people who identify as introverts. Jon talks about “people energy” and some of the neuroscience behind it which may mean that introverts get more exhausted by people energy than extroverts. He also talks about how introverts process internally and extroverts externally. From these two main features people often think things about introverts, for example that introverts are quiet. Helene asks what kinds of things facilitators need to look out for to include the intr