ERIS WEAVER

Graphic Facilitator & Group Process Consultant

Tag Archives: Communication

If you want to support someone…you need to ASK them what actions they would actually find supportive. Well, duh, you might say. Isn’t this obvious? Perhaps not. I’ve seen a lot of faux support circulating on social media recently, starting with the whole “wear a safety pin to show you’re an ally” meme on Twitter […]

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When NOT to Ask “Why?”

By: Eris Weaver | Date: January 31, 2017 | Categories: Community & Communication

One of my key skills as a facilitator and consultant is my ability to craft good questions. The right question can prompt reflection, create connection, open doors, encourage disclosure, motivate action. It can surprise, delight, or sooth. It can open space for possibilities. The wrong question can frustrate or frighten, closing both minds and doors. […]

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A quick visual exercise can utterly transform how a group understands itself. I recently worked with a Board that perceived themselves as very divided. One camp was supposedly dedicated solely to the organization’s Program H and placed an extremely low value on Program C; the other camp reversed these values. They told this story over […]

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One of the things I love to do as I run my local rural roads is to observe the animals I pass by. I am especially interested in the variety of their responses to me.  Cows strike me as curious critters. They turn and watch my progress. If I stop to tie my shoe or […]

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about listening. I’ve realized that in so many of the communication trainings that I have been involved in focus more on how to express yourself than on how to listen. Even when we trainers give lip service to the importance of listening over speaking,  our practice exercises and examples […]

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At a recent meeting, I was reminded how hard it can be to separate the quality of an idea or the validity of a fact from the popularity or authority of the person expressing it. Have you ever suggested something at work and been pooh-poohed, only to have someone ELSE suggest the same damn thing…and […]

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How you phrase the question influences the answer(s) you receive. We all know this intuitively. Our senses go on alert when we hear that question that seems to contain within it a judgement about what the right answer might be. Then there are the poll-takers, with questions and multiple choice answers that point to a […]

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How Not to Say the Wrong Thing by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman is easily the most brilliant thing I’ve read all year. I will summarize it briefly but you owe it to yourself to go read the whole thing. Basically, when someone is in a sucky situation – their dog died,  they have cancer, […]

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I spent all day Saturday doing landscaping work with my cohousing neighbors. I actually don’t like gardening all that much. I have very little experience or knowledge, having lived all my adult life in trailers, apartments, and condos. But the foliage was threatening to take over and so the troops were assembled and armed with […]

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In a previous post, I shared a list of Twenty Declarations – things I absolutely know to be true. I’ve added to them over time: 21. Ain’t no way out but through! 22. Don’t pre-plan your bummers. 23. You can’t think outside the box if you don’t know what box you’re in. 24. Creating and […]

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