Meetings and presentations are a necessary part of doing business; too often they are dry, boring, unfocused, or simply unproductive. Gain a strategic edge by sharing your vision and creatively engaging your audience using visual facilitation tools. Why rely on words and text for so much of our group work and communication when 75 percent […]
Tag Archives: Facilitation Tools
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Some interesting research indicates that our body posture and movement affects our behavior. For example, expansive body postures – like standing tall with with hands on your hips – increases confidence and assertiveness. One study showed that people who hunched over a smart phone or tablet exhibited less assertive behavior immediately afterward than those who […]
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In this TedX talk, my colleague Brandy Agerbeck describes five steps to using visual & spatial tools for shaping your thinking. I love her combination of both flip charts and PowerPoint. I love the simplicity of her outfit. I love the way she uses the space onstage. I love her visual mnemonic, using the fingers […]
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When training new facilitators, a concept I want them to “get” early on is the difference between content and process. Folks who are drawn to become facilitators and mediators tend to be interested in the underlying dynamics of group process. It’s easy, when learning a new facilitation technique or meeting structure, to want to use […]
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I recently read Simon Sinek’s book Start With Why after watching this TED talk…later that week, walking through the hall at work, I saw Sinek’s diagram on another person’s whiteboard! Talk about serendipity! Sinek’s key point is that WHY you do whatever you do is more important to your target audience or customer than WHAT […]
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When I am asked to help an organization improve its meeting culture, one of the “symptoms” often cited is a lack of participation – according to the meeting planners, not enough people are showing up. In another client organization, one of the stated problems is too MANY people showing up to meetings in which their […]
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As a facilitator, I have often worked with groups in the process of clarifying their common values. Inevitably, there is someone in the group who questions the value of this exercise. It is true that there are a lot of generic, meaningless values statements gathering dust in drawers across the nation. So how do we […]
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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 […]
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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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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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