When we try to improve or invent a product or process, we often get stuck in negativity: “Oh, no that won’t work!” Part of the problem is that we need to separate out IDEATION from EVALUATION. These are two different mental processes, using our right and left brain hemispheres, and we can’t do them both [...]
Beginnings
My last post looked at a variety of methods for closing a meeting. Now let’s take a look at openings. As meeting participants arrive, they bring with them the remnants of whatever they were doing or thinking about before they walked in the room. Each person needs to make a shift in focus, and how [...]
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All’s Well That Ends Well
Research indicates that our memory of an event or transaction tends to be colored by our experience of its ending. If the event was challenging, difficult, or boring, but wrapped up with a satisfying conclusion, we will come away with a more positive memory than if it was good in the beginning but ended poorly. [...]
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Let’s Trade Problems!
As a facilitator, I am always pushing my clients to put announcements and reports into a memo and reserve their F2F meeting time for the things that people in groups do best: generate ideas, make decisions, solve problems, plan strategy. So I am always interested in new methods for ideation and problem-solving. Daniel Pink’s blog [...]
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More toys!
I am a big believer in the power of play. Children aren’t the only ones who benefit – we all are able to learn and create more effectively when we approach our tasks in a spirit of playful inquiry. I frequently use graphic and manipulative tools with my clients – one group in particular has [...]
Presence, Practice, Awareness
I’m preparing to teach a two-day workshop on group facilitation in a few weeks. When I plan a class, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that I would love to impart to my students; I can never cover it all. So I make a practice of distilling it down to about [...]
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Tags: Facilitation Tools, Practice
The Art of Apology
Life provides us with multiple opportunities for misunderstandings, conflicts, and hurt feelings. A well-done apology can go a long way toward healing a strained relationship, while a poor one can create even more disconnection and distress. After witnessing and experiencing both very good and very bad apologies in my life, I began studying good apology [...]
Tags: Apology
Hello WordPress, Good-bye Google!
I’ve been blogging via Google’s Blogspot for awhile. Google makes me nervous. There are a lot of things about their new policies that are bugging me. I trust my local internet service provider (Sonic.net) and the open source WordPress community more than I trust Google. So, I’m moving! I’ll do all my new posting over [...]
Tags: Google Is Evil, Ranting and Raving
We’re Number Last!
I arrived at the client’s location and was being given the grand tour, as well as my hosts’ perception of the conflicts I was there to mediate. As we chatted about the upcoming session, one of them smilingly asked, “Are we the worst group you’ve ever worked with?” Almost EVERY group asks me something along [...]
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Business Lessons from Improv
I was really tickled to come across this list of Improv Tricks That Will Make You a Better Business Person. One of my declarations – “Don’t work at it, play with it!” – comes from the life lessons I’ve learned from years of studying, practicing, performing,and teaching improv. Stop for a moment and think of [...]
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