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Learning how it feels, not what to do

August 30, 2011 By Facilitation, Improv, Learning One Comment

A great insight from Johnnie Moore on learning facilitation:

I’ve done quite a bit of facilitation training this year, loads of it with Viv. We’ve pushed to get the sponsors to accept less emphasis on learning lots of techniques and tips in favour of lots of activities where participants try stuff out. One area where we play around a lot is the “difficult people” situation.

We resist offering standard tricks for this. So we don’t offer formulaic models for managing difficult people, however comprehensively researched. Instead, we ask people to recall or imagine their encounters with the inevitable impossible participant and then recreate it as an improv scene, and ask them to play it out. And then we play around, asking them to try and play it in different ways. Or we introduce “tagging” where other participants step into the scene to try different responses.

If anyone in the audience comes up with a clever analysis, we tend to stop them and say, great, go play that idea out. Funnily, their first response is mild panic – as they realise it’s one thing to do the theory and another to do the the practice.

What this play encourages, I believe, is a growing willingness to try stuff and realise nothing is written.

via Johnnie Moore’s Weblog: Holding uncertainty, living forwards.

Power and listening

August 19, 2011 By Design, Stories 2 Comments

A great quote from a post by Mark Simon:

The more
power you have,
the more people will lis ten respectfully
to your story.
Consequently,
listening to some one’s story is a way
of empowering them, of validat ing
their intrinsic worth
as a human being.
~ Kay Pra nis

A very important principle for design work.

Taking some time off

August 18, 2011 By Uncategorized

We have had a strange summer on the coast. People have complained that it hasn’t really felt like summer at all weather wise, and while it has been cooler, it has not been overly unpleasant. Mostly what is striking has been the quality of the air, which has never seemed to get warm enough to hold heat in the evenings. As we sleep outside in the summer time, this is not at all a problem, and the sleeping weather has been divine.

But it has been a strange summer for me on other scores as well. I have been working more than usual this summer, although not traveling, and while I appreciate the chance do some great work, I have missed my routine of long warm days at the beach, diving into a book, snorkeling in the coves and weed beds of Bowen Island and watching the berries ripen.

So this week we are on holiday, spending a few days at Harrison Hot Springs Resort with family for a birthday which is a lovely throwback in many ways (some of which require you to endure the resort’s traditions of diminishing quality – the Jones Boys and Red Rose Tea come immediately to mind) and from here we will head up to Princeton for BCs only real folk festival, the Princeton Traditional Music Festival.. Come there if you are nearby this weekend. It’s free and a phenomenal experience of traditional music in its proper setting – sung and shared by people. There is only an arbitrary line between performer and audience, and it’s wicked fun to erase it from time to time.

So it’s nice to have some time off. Apologies if you have been trying to reach me.

Location:Esplanade Ave,Harrison Hot Springs,Canada

Three core practices for creative leadership

August 15, 2011 By Conversation, Design, Emergence, Facilitation, Invitation, Leadership 2 Comments

From an interview with my dear friend Peggy Holman on enhancing creative leadership:

Q: What is one practice that people could start applying today to bring more creativity into their work or their business Ӭorganization?

Holman: If I were to pick on practice that is simple to apply and powerful in its affect, I’d say: welcome disturbance by asking questions of possibility. Creativity often shows up in a cloak of disruption. It makes sense when you stop and think about it. If there were no disruption, there’d be no reason for change. And change opens the door to creativity.

Great questions help us to find possibilities in any situation, no matter how challenging. Here are some of their characteristics:

  • They open us to possibilities.
  • They are bold yet focused.
  • They are attractive: diverse people can find themselves in them.
  • They appeal to our head and our heart.
  • They serve the individual and the collective.

Some examples:

  • What question, if answered, would make a difference in this situation?
  • What can we do together that none of us could do alone?
  • What could this team also be?
  • What is most important in this moment?
  • Given what has happened, what is possible now?

Some tips for asking possibility-oriented questions:

1. Ask questions that increase clarity: Positive images move us toward positive actions. Questions that help us to envision what we want help us to realize it.

2. Practice turning deficit into possibility: In most ordinary conversations, people focus on what they can’t do, what the problems are, what isn’t possible. Such conversations provide an endless source for practicing the art of the question. When someone says, “The problem is x,” ask, “What would it look like if it were working?” If someone says, “I can’t do that,” ask, “What would you like to do?”

3. Recruit others to practice with you: You can have more fun and help each other grow into the habit of asking possibility-oriented questions. But watch out: it can be contagious. You might attract a crowd.

Those last three practices are terrific.

via Innovation Weblog

The week’s tweets

August 14, 2011 By Notes