Facilitation Stories

In today's episode, Umah is joined by Jeff Marr, founder of The Practical Philosophy Club, to unpack the unique art of community facilitation and what it takes to design unstructured, safe spaces for deep, depolarising conversation. Moving away from top-down corporate agendas, Jeff explores how his grassroots, peer-led facilitation model grew from a casual living room meetup in Mexico into a global network hosting over 800 people a week across 28 countries. They talk about: The power of the introduction and why the first few minutes are the facilitator's most critical tool for setting guidelines on airtime, monologue-busting, and vulnerability The "jam session" approach to facilitation, shifting the practitioner's role from a rigid authority figure to a light touch that trusts adults to self-moderate and navigate their own dialogue Holding space for ideological friction and practical techniques to de-escalate heated moments, calm group triggers, and help people sit with constructive discomfort The spectrum of group dynamics, from managing large groups by scaling into small, co-facilitated tables, to knowing when to let a little healthy chaos ride. Quote highlights "I think that's one of our main issues in society is that we have these echo chambers that no one's breaking out of, and our algorithms are pushing us to go further into it." "...you want to have a strong frame of reality and a sense of confidence in yourself, so that you can hear." "We've had several people who, we could call them say problematic, right? Like a little bit quick to anger easily triggered these type of things. And I have seen them blossom... they're able to hear all these opinions without getting triggered anymore so it's been beautiful to see that." Links Today's guest: Jeffery Marr — Practical Philosophy Club Founder https://www.practicalphilosophy.club & https://www.linkedin.com/in/practicalphilosophyy/ To join a Practical Philosophy Meetup in a country near you, head to: https://www.practicalphilosophy.club/practical-philosophy-locations/ Today's host: Umah Ganeshalingam — Change and Transformation Advisor and Facilitator https://www.linkedin.com/in/umah To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧 podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk 🌐https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales Transcript: Umah: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories. This podcast is brought to you by the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Umah, and today we're going to hear about "Facilitating in Communities". In August last year, I went to Toronto and joined a meetup where I had the most wonderful time. Today's guest is the architect of that experience, Jeff Marr. He is the founder of the Practical Philosophy Club, a charity that has sparked deep discussions in communities in over 28 countries. Jeff, welcome. Welcome to the show. Jeff: Thank you, Umah Umah: So first off, I wanted you to tell our listeners a little bit about Practical Philosophy Club, what it means to you, and why you started it. Jeff: Practical Philosophy is mostly the opportunity for us to have deep discussion. We started post-COVID-ish, so 2021, at the very end of it, going into 2022, and people were hungry for conversation. And so that was more or less how it got started. And then over the last little while, it just grew exponentially more or less, and it took us about two years to set the foundations, figure out what it was that we even believed in. What were we trying to even do here? I'm a big fan of philosophy, and I wanted to have a space where people could talk. I think that what we need is more transparency and honesty and less polarisation in the world, and so that's through a roundabout fun way, enjoyable way. We're putting people into a room who have all these different opinions, all these different thoughts, and they're able to communicate with one another. And on social media and in traditional media, they would more or less consider themselves enemies. But then you get people who have very different political beliefs, and they realise they have a lot more in common. We aren't enemies to one another. I really like to see people think things through, and it's an opportunity to go deep into a conversation, both very logically, but also in the esoteric sense. I'm also a big fan of self-development, too. A lot of people, they're not necessarily open to self-development because it has a bad rap. But they come to Practical Philosophy 'cause, like, yeah, I do the practical aspect of it, and it does help people with whatever they're going through, even though they're learning different ways of thinking about situations in their life without directly confronting. And through that exploration of that topic, maybe it'll unlock different insights. Umah: You've got Practical Philosophy Club in all those different countries, and a lot of the facilitation is happening in communities where there's different cultures, different socioeconomic backgrounds, and every week everyone's talking about the same topic, and you've set that up for a reason, haven't you? Jeff: It was an accident. Umah: It was an accident! Jeff: Yeah! Umah: Tell me then, how was it an accident? Jeff: I just tried to have a meetup in my living room in. I was living in Mexico, so I just hosted a meetup, and I didn't really know how it was gonna go. The first one was just me reading quotes off my laptop and so then through iteration, it became what it became. I wasn't familiar with any facilitation, so we built it from the ground up. And then as we've gone, we've found different organisations that are doing good work and trying to see if there's anything that we can implement through our processes. The reason it happened by accident is just 'cause I was in Mexico, but I'm from Canada. Umah: Yeah. Jeff: And then we opened one in Canada. We needed to learn how to figure out how to run these and how to make them survive and how to make them thrive. And then we also moved to Valencia in Spain, and then we tried it there and it worked. And so after that, it took on a life of its own. So it wasn't really the intention. It was just meaningful. Philosophy's nerdy, and I was mostly confused for a long time. Why are people even showing up? Why are people coming to this? When we opened our first one in Vancouver in the west end of Canada, this guy came up to me and he was like, "This is very brave to call it philosophy. If you would call it deep conversations, maybe more people would come. People don't like philosophy." I was like, "Yeah, that's fair, but I personally love philosophy as a basis of everything that we are. And so if we can, I guess, reinvent the idea of what that means because I don't like the academia version of philosophy necessarily. I don't hate it, but like it's not accessible to a lot of people. How do we introduce this idea that philosophy is a way of critical thinking and figuring things out for yourself and, say they're stressed about work. This is just my opinion, but we can't rely on authority figures because things are changing so much. And so how can we indirectly help people understand that whatever your conclusions are gonna be, they're gonna have to be your conclusions because we can't rely on the government to tell us, "Oh, this is the direction to go. Go to school, go to university, get a job." It's, that's not necessarily an option, so how can we help build that together, but then as well have this community of very unique type of person who comes every week, and you get to meet some very cool people there through it. Umah: And so to build that community and have people meet others and connect in a meaningful way, you have facilitators who obviously don't lead the conversation, but, um, you have them there so that they can set the guidelines, set the scene, and ensure that good, deep discussions take place in all these different cultures around the world. And so the facilitators, they mostly do that through the introduction, right? It's quite important to you, so could you tell me why? Jeff: Yeah. The introduction the most important part, and that was again, something I didn't realise until my friend Susanna in Playa del Carmen in Mexico, she was the one who showed me that introduction sets the tone for when we split into different groups for how people are supposed to behave within this space, and our guidelines that we have is mostly like no side talk, right? Give people realm where they can speak. We want you to share your story. We want you to be as vulnerable as you're comfortable to be, but also just be aware of how much it is that you're talking. How much of your story are you sharing? Are you on a 15-minute monologue? So keeping in mind that it is a group conversation. You just share these things at the beginning because although they're guidelines, they're not hard rules, it's something that we believe helps make the conversation better. We're not here to just hear how smart and cool I am. We're here to hear new perspectives, and we want everyone to have that opportunity. We have been trying to figure out how we can do that without even having a host, and I think we will always need someone to start it up. Our Mississauga group, which is a city outside of Toronto, they've got a pretty big group, and people come consistently, but there's one main guy who gives the introduction. But if, if he can't make it, we want it to be as minimal words as we can make it to set the tone. Anyone can do this. Umah: You've got the guidelines, and you've got really good introduction on how to set the session up and that's really helpful for someone who's quite interested in doing this. Not everyone is necessarily needing to be a professional to facilitate. It's not always necessarily a qualification. Sometimes it's a skill that you can practice, and you can learn. Jeff: And I guess it's interesting or lucky That this was the decision that we decided to go with. Someone once told me that it's similar to a jam session. The point is to jam. You can't mess it up if we're all aligned on what we're doing here Umah: I like that. I wonder if it's a perspective thing in terms of what messing it up looks like. Has there been, for example, a time where a group's been particularly rowdy or it's been quite heated discussion, and whether you or the facilitators had to make a decision to step in? Or do you, facilitators as more of an observer and let the group go the direction they're going? Jeff: I like a little chaos. It's, it's tough. I do mostly focus on how is everyone else feeling with it. We don't wanna have a very rowdy group, so we do try to not get too lit around here. But yeah, every now and then, if it does get very heated, I'm like, "Hey guys, let's take a breath. Let's pause here for a second. Take a breath, and then we'll go back into it." So it's, generally speaking, it would be the main issue with facilitation. I do think we need certain people to lead the charge on it always. So say for the one that you went to in Toronto, right? We had 155 people last week, and so we can't have that many people at one table. So we split into smaller groups, and each group has its own semi-moderator, and there's different ways of doing that. So the Toronto group does moderators, and I think they do a phenomenal job, and they're irreplaceable by being open, and it helps to have someone, like everyone knows, okay, this is our moderator, this person's just gonna keep us on track. But then our Vancouver group, the way the host there, Shania, she said it, she's, "These are adults. They're self-sufficient, and they can manage the group on their own." That's what the introduction is for, and then they'll moderate themselves because when we give that agency to the group- Mm. Umah: How many have you got attending these sessions around the world? Jeff: Globally, we have about 800 a week. We're opening more all the time. We had one opened in Taipei in Taiwan, and then we also have another one in Vietnam, and then another one in Spain in Malaga. The goal that we're looking at is we want to put this in every city. Anyone who wants these conversations, which isn't everyone, but there is a certain subset of the population that's looking for these deep conversations, and we wanna be able to make that accessible to them. Umah: What are you hoping they come away with? For example, some people might go for one, some people might be a regular. Jeff: I believe that if anyone wants to do anything, it has to come from within. Mm. So having that awakening where they're like, "Oh, this is the direction to head." I don't believe that a guru makes sense. I'm a big fan of communication. Listening to perspectives, it helps. I don't wanna get too into politics, but say America, everyone's talking about Trump all the time, right? And so there's people who bring up Trump in a negative light every conversation, and it's annoying, and there's people who bring up Trump in a positive light every conversation, and it's also annoying. But if they can come together and instead of dogmatically thinking- This guy's good or this guy's bad. Is there a way that we can think about what he actually is doing or what's actually happening, what's deeper beyond what we're hearing in the news? If I were to long-term think of the goal, it would be a willingness to communicate disagreements or a willingness to listen to people with alternative perspectives to what we would consider normal or what we, what our immediate social circle talks about 'cause we don't want echo chambers. I think that's one of our main issues in society is that we have these echo chambers that no one's breaking out of, and our algorithms are pushing us to go further into it. Umah: For me, this is why what you do and facilitation is really important because we facilitate in corporate environments, but also in the community. It's easing people, the general public, hear perspectives that they might be either uncomfortable with or disagree on. It's helping people sit with discomfort in a safe environment where you're saying it's a discussion, it's not debate. Yes, there's politicians doing their thing, asking for votes. There's people also trying to convince someone to follow their rhetoric, say, but this isn't that. This is for the individual to open up their mind and think for themselves and put ideas together, hear different perspectives. I think it's already very impactful, but I feel the potential for these facilitated sessions with general public has so much of an untapped potential. It helps people go forwards without anger, a bit more calmly. Jeff: I'm a big fan of just being calm and not stressed, and so the more opinions that we hear that we may disagree with or that may trigger us, the less triggered we're gonna get, the more we encounter them. It's completely understandable if you hear something, like, completely outrageous. You're gonna get, like, that initial boost of, "I don't like this. I wanna defend it." But eventually I've seen over the course of this, I can hear these people verbally attacking me or saying I'm a horrendous person, and it doesn't bother me even if it feels like a personal attack on me. Can I listen and is there an actual point to what they're saying that I can actually implement within my life if we can take that away and listen to every piece of feedback? That's a little tough, though because a lot of people have some pretty interesting ideas that aren't useful, and so I would add a c- caveat in that You want to have a strong frame of reality and a sense of confidence in yourself so that you can hear. I do think you need a sense of confidence in who you are as a person, and so that would come through self-exploration. Then you can, okay, is there something worth hearing about here or something worth taking into consideration here? Umah: It's inevitable really that there's gonna be a difference of opinion in any group, even if it was the same kind of demographics. It's different experiences that people have had. Have you seen, for example, people blossom or change, their mindset change, opinions change? Have you seen that within the work you do yourself? Jeff: Yeah. We've had several people who we could call them, say, problematic, right? Like a little bit quick to anger, easily triggered, these type of things, and I have seen them blossom into more or less leaders of the community, and they're able to... Okay, they're able to make fun of themselves. They're more confident in themselves. They're able to, yeah, hear all these opinions without getting triggered anymore, so it's been beautiful to see that. I can see that it's happened within me too. I've heard all these different things. Now I have to actually explore these topics. If I'm gonna have a big mouth, I gotta be able to understand it or learn more so I can, if not change my perspective, understand deeper why my perspective is this way already. Umah: If this kept growing and there was no limit, what do you feel is exciting and keeping you going? Do you have a specific goal that you reach and be proud of and say, "Yep, I've got to this point"? Jeff: I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Dune series. Have you read it? Umah: Yeah. Okay. I've not read it. I've seen it, and I've played the game. Jeff: Oh, there's a game? Yeah, so I guess the Dune's about this sand world where there's a very valuable powder that pretty much allows for intergalactic space travel. Within that universe, there's people called truth sayers, and so they can hear if anyone's lying. It's a very hard thing to measure, but I think it would be a big win if we actually see politicians, like, nuance perspective, here's why we're gonna do this, and it's not, like, gaslighting. It's to look like we're gonna do this for the good of this community. Here's the drawbacks of it. So just i- if we can see more transparency with politicians or governing bodies and less shaming. Now society is filled with people who more or less know what lying looks like, know what these tools of manipulation that people in positions of power have been using. They're intuitively recognisable. Then people would have to govern for the purpose of the actual people, which is what we've claimed that we've been involved with. I believe, and giving the benefit of the doubt to people in positions of power, I do believe that for the most part they probably think that people aren't smart enough to handle the truth. Like that, that movie where it's like, "You can't handle the truth." Mm. There's someone very well known. Actually, he's not well known enough, but his name is Edward Bernays, and he's pretty much the father of modern public relations. And so he's the reason that we have fluoride in our water. He was Tasked from the smelting company, how do we dispose of this toxic chemical? And it's too expensive to get rid of, so he actually hired a bunch of dentists and health professionals to tell the public that fluoride is good to prevent tooth decay in children. So as a way to dispose of fluoride, they started putting it in the water, and he used public opinion. It's called manufacturing consent. If we can see through these things then hopefully the people who are doing them, they're like, "Okay, look, we're just gonna be straight up with you. This is why we're doing this." That'd be like a long-term thing, and I think it would be organic. I'm Umah: just looking at my bookshelf. There's a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Have you heard of it before? Jeff: No, I haven't? Umah: I think you might quite like that as a read. Jeff: It's called Bad Science? Umah: Yeah. I read it whilst I was at university, but it's very on topic to what you've said there. Jeff: And this is a bit of a conspiratorial rant, so I apologise for that. Umah: We enjoy that as a different conversation. Jeff: We wanna just go into a group and have a community within society. That's it. Just let me have a nice time. Umah: I like the deeper thought behind it. It is a space where you can ask the questions that you might not wanna ask in front of other people, or you wanna explore a topic further, you might want it broken down, or you just want to get an answer that you're not getting elsewhere. What are other topic headings that you've gone through and some maybe more outlandish or weird and wonderful ones, as well as the ones like empathy and loyalty. Jeff: So generally, when someone's starting a new group, we have a list of all of the topics that we've ever done with all of the jump-off points. And so I, I believe this is honestly Something beautiful, 'cause it's like a, it's this library of every topic and every question that goes along with the topic. It's an interesting thing 'cause it's not the thoughts of any one person, it's just, are these good enough questions to help you start thinking about things from this perspective of each individual topic. And so when someone starts a new group, we generally say that we have five to 10 topics that are just certified bangers. Everyone loves them all the time. Dating is one of them. But then there's also, like, how to live a good life. It's important that we figure what a good life means for us as individuals. Victimhood was always a good topic that we have. Love and hate, life and death, those are standard ones, and people really enjoy those conversations. More outlandish ones, we did the apocalypse a little while ago, 'cause a friend of mine went to OpenAI, and he worked with these guys for a week, and he's like, "Bro, we gotta start buying land. We're all cooked, and we need to figure out a plan for it. We need to move to Norway 'cause they have a system outside of capitalism." Canada would be good as well for it because, like, we're m- more or less a socialist country. We have to figure out what to do, and that's another benefit of we have a community now. You have a community of people who more or less are, like, open to meritocracy and actually, "Okay, what's the solution? Let's figure a solution to a problem," and not just a solution that looks good. The solution is we need paper straws. Who came up with that as a solution? Does it actually help, or did the paper straw manufacturing company say to do that? That was an outlandish one. We did this only in my home group in Hamilton, but we just talked about the Epstein files because that's a big one. Everyone else talked about ego. I remember when I was living in Manila, and side topic, we're gonna talk about the giant worm in Dune. The fourth book, the main character is a big worm, so let's do a philosophy meetup where we just talk about the worm. Wow, really? And, yeah, so we did that. But those are side sessions. We have a side group just for social events, so people do board games, they'll do book clubs, they'll do walks on the beach or whatever it is, 'cause one of our main things is community building. And so we would offer this space where people can help facilitate. Umah: You should really get the games then. There's a board game and the Dune II I used to play. It was a computer game. Jeff: I do love Dune. A lot. Umah: Just before we wrap up, we have a question from one of our previous guests who asks, what crossroads are you at right now? Jeff: With the organisation or just in life generally? Umah: However you like to answer. I'll leave it to you. Jeff: The crossroads within practical philosophy is we need each chapter to be self-sustaining. So the crossroads at the moment that we're looking at, every new group, like the one that we just started in Taipei, we start asking for donations right away. We want philosophy to be accessible, so it's never an actual mandatory, obligatory, you have to pay to show up. But it is an idea where we do need to be able to fund ourselves. And the situation in London, right, you're renting out the space, that costs money- Yeah and that shouldn't be entirely on you to pay. And so us as a community, if this is something that we want, then we need to be able to self-fund. That's like probably the big organisational change that will happen in the next couple weeks. We have this centralised aspect of it that, for the time being, needs to be centralised, and this whole thing started from just a whim, and so we've been learning as we go. And so we're a little bit less, say, professional in that sense. It's easy when it's $30 that I'm paying to rent out a space in Playa del Carmen, but then we're opening new ones everywhere, and I can't actually- so we have to be an actual organisation now, so we have to operate more appropriately like that. I guess personally it's just like with the AI thing, 'cause I run a business, my company makes videos. I've got over a decade of experience making videos, animated videos. If AI's taking that, do I just figure out AI video? And we are starting to move into AI video, but outside of that, do I wanna just leave video entirely and start new things? I'll probably still always be in like marketing/training and communications, but what would that look like? So I- I'm also thinking about just stuff like that with these massive changes that are coming. Umah: And now it's your turn. Do you have a question for one of our future guests? Jeff: What potential societal changes may affect you in the future that you need to look out for? Umah: Good. Thank you, Jeff, for joining us today. Jeff: Thank you for having me, Umah. It was lovely. Umah: We have reached the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to hear more about the IAF and how to get involved, please head over to our website, www.facilitationstories.libsyn.com, to make sure you never miss an episode. We are always on the lookout for new topics to discuss, so if you think there's a facilitator that we should talk to, or you would like to share what's emerging in your world of facilitation, send us an email at podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk. We hope you join us for more Facilitation Stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.

Todays episode explores the evolving relationship between facilitation and hosting, highlighting how both practices can create transformative spaces for individuals and communities. Peter Pula shares insights from years of cultivating community through participatory dialogue and generative journalism. The conversation delves into the distinctions between facilitation often structured and outcome driven and hosting, which embraces emergence, deep listening, and co-creation. They talk about: The difference between facilitation and hosting The use of time triads and deep listenting in group practice Learning from mistakes and adapting when things dont go as planned Moving from command-and-control to particpatory approaches Quote highlights "I feel like I am participating in the unfolding of human evolution and the evolution of community, and I don't know how that can do anything but make you smile." "And by naming the failure it becomes something else and it becomes… Something powerful… " "Before it was a passion. Now it feels like an essential work." Links Todays Guest The Subsidiarist https://peterjpula.substack.com/ Citizen Studios https://citizenstudios.mn.co/about Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterpula/ Website: www.peterpula.com Cultivating Community Gatherings (free): https://www.tickettailor.com/events/peterpula/1786857 Todays host: Sam Moon: Faciliator www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123 Edited by: Cassie Austin Leaderful Action To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧 podcast@iaf-englandwales.org 🌐 https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Transcript: Sam Moon & Peter Pula Sam: Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the Community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Sam Moon, and my guest today is Peter Pula. Peter is the founder of Axiom News, generative journalism, the Peter Borough Dialogues, and a proud member of the Generative Journalism Alliance. These days, he's mostly concerned with, in his own words, my beloved cultivating community going on six years now, and where I first met Peter during the first few weeks of COVID when I joined an online global gathering of folk exploring how we could be together apart during what was to become very uncertain times with long periods of lockdown. Peter crafted a space from which people shared experiences and stories where deep relationships began to form and has continued to do so amongst the community that first got together and others who have joined since. So honoring that my own facilitation journey has been shaped very much through Peter's commitment to life given approaches of facilitation, it is an absolute pleasure to welcome you here today, Peter, and on that note, and before we get into some juicy questions, please introduce yourself, who you are and what you get up to in your world of facilitation. Peter: Who am I? I think I will say today that I am a person who deeply cares about the wellbeing of humanity. I'm a person who's. Gravely concerned with the prevailing trends at the moment, and I believe that hosting and facilitating people in dialogue that brings to the surface. Their deepest gifts, talents, intentions, and passions in a way that encourages us to be differently together, might at one time have been a nice to have and now it's a need to have. So I'm fully committed to the practices of facilitation and hosting. With the view to, well, for me it's a calling and a critically important one. And that's why I'm glad to be here talking with you, Sam. 'cause we've travelled for a number of years. We've got a lot of, water under the bridge, a lot of experience under our belt. And, we've traveled through some of those crises together in community held in a certain way. And so I think we could say that's also what I'm up to. Sam: Thank you, Peter. You put that, in a really lovely way. And we've got some questions that we're gonna explore together, but if I can just invite you to expand a little bit more on, your experience of facilitation and hosting and how you have made a distinction between the two and how you hold those. Peter: When you look to the definition of facilitation and facilitator, there's not much there that I wouldn't say also applies to hosting. I think in a lot of practices though, there are some differences, and it might be sort of a spectrum where my idea of the practice of facilitation is that when facilitating, we are inviting people into a fairly, predetermined process and trying to bring them along to more of a predetermined outcome than you might be if you're hosting, it might be a learning outcome, for example, we want, by the end of this process for everyone to be able to say, speak French or to understand a business process or to have come to some understanding about how to better manage their relationships with their peers. And then way on the other side of the spectrum on hosting, I think there we are then trying to surface what's most alive for each person in the room. With a view to exploring and discovering almost endless possibilities. But, then ensuring that each one of the possibilities that actually wants to manifest is nurtured in a way, by the way, we dialogue and connect and decide so that they actually can come to fruition. I think there might be a little bit more wildness and willingness in hosting than there is in facilitation, I think they're arts that are closely related, they're in the same family. And I know as hosts sometimes there are moments where I absolutely must facilitate almost with an iron fist. Knowing how and when to make that call is part of the hosting art. Sometimes a super clear process is necessary. Sometimes a process set is co-created by the participants who have some skill in how to be present to one another is also necessary. So I don't think it's a, it's not an either or, it's a spectrum and there is a relationship between the two ideas. But I feel like in practice they are slightly different ideas. Sam: I really like how you describe, the wildness and willingness, that can take you into the labyrinth of hosting and discovering what's alive. Whilst also what you are saying is recognizing that facilitation process where it needs to be tighter is also about recognizing when it's important to do that around certain things, rather than being wedded to a certain way of doing something, it's about understanding when one needs to come forth, and in terms of where your, start from and where you want to go. Peter: If I could, Sam, there might be one other distinction, and it would be interesting to test this with your listeners and their experience because, I don't move in circles where we describe what we do as facilitation. So I could be completely wrong about this, but there has been some discussion in the hosting arts world around one of the suggestions that, in hosting, it's considered a very important principle that as a member of a hosting team, you also participate in dialogue, and in many facilitative sessions, it seems important that the facilitators stay observant and outside of the dialogue. So I'm just wondering if that's a distinction that holds true, or if it's not actually the case. Sam: I think it's a really good question, Peter, and I think there are different views within that, depending on the ideology that it's coming from. And I know there is that conversation that takes place around, is a facilitator neutral or not. And there's clear opinions on both sides of that, but I think in terms of the experience that we've had together and in those spaces, I would agree that the host becomes more part of that conversation and is involved in the dialogue. But it's about not influencing it. And I think for me, I probably stand on the side of that, lean more into using questions to draw things out rather than put myself forward. Peter: Right. Sam: I also find that when I put myself forward, it can deaden the air a little bit as well. Take the life out because, unless invite invited to teach, don't teach. Peter: Yes. Beautifully said. Sam: So what I wanted to kind of touch on, what is it in your world of hosting and facilitation that's making you smile at the moment? Peter: Well, you know, Sam, you mentioned in your introduction, this space we've been holding together for the last five and a half years. It's come to be known as cultivating community and for whatever reason we've been, that's every fortnightly on Fridays. For five and a half years, we've seen probably 600 different people join that space. There's a core group of, maybe 12 or 15 that come very, very regularly, and another extended group of maybe 45 or 50 that drop in, come and go, who, you know, take comfort in just knowing that the space is there. It's the group of us has started to talk about how, not only have we become a community spread across several continents that are quite committed to the community and to each other, it's, also, been spoken that it's also a practice field for how we be in community differently. From that, I've had the delight to hear from a number of members of that community. Their lives have been changed by being part of that, to such a degree that they're also bringing these practices, into their own communities and morphing and changing them to suit their own skills and ways of doing things like improv, for example, these are adjacent practices that, work to the same principles and grow together. And that group has been in so much practice for so long. It's a blessing for me, one, to be part of the community, but two, to see the effects it's having on people's lives and in the world. And three, because we're in practice so much, I can also as a host, fully participate in it. And it is for me, a healing place to be. I feel like I am participating in the unfolding of human evolution and the evolution of community, and I don't know how that can do anything but make you smile. Sam: It's certainly, yeah, absolutely It does, it is a place that gives life and gives energy. And with that, your view, were talking about the effect that it is had on people. Tell me a bit more about that and what it was around the way in which you have been facilitating, hosting that space that you think may have enabled that or created the conditions for it to have that effect on people. Peter: Yeah, and we haven't really come up with a really smart, clever way to talk about it, but we've used the idea of time triads, and for your listeners, we can maybe just describe that quickly, like we bring people into small groups of three, every person has three minutes to respond to the question of the moment, which, you know, we've got a few ones that are pretty solid, pretty tight, but we also sense into what the question is for each small group. So these are 90 minute sessions. We usually get three to four rounds of small group time triads. In which each person has three minutes to respond to the question for that particular small group without being interrupted by the two listeners. We can go pretty deep into the practice of relational presencing and what it actually means to be present to a person who's speaking without being distracted by the need to maybe cut them off so someone else can have their turn, or because you're curious about something or because something they've said triggered you. We could go for hours talking about the method if you like. So that round of these small groups and then people come outta these small groups and they're reflected as a whole, but what's alive for them now? Not a report, but a reflection of what struck them about that, time together. It's a process by which people come into contact with their inner teacher, and find their own voice, speak it in all their strength and beauty, and then take turns witnessing another, and then another. Do the same. So the complexity of the field is like tremendous. I think over time it's become something of an island of coherence. I guess another really important piece about the methodology is that it is something that happens at a consistent and regular time and has done so for a very long time. So it becomes a structural, stable point in people's lives, which makes it something they can count on, something that helps 'em co-regulate, makes it easy for them to invite others, gives them some sense of, stability and constancy. So, you know, those are some of the architectural pieces of that. And then there's the idea good questions or provocative questions. Like every small group, every time triad, presences a question that we have come to define as being these three things sufficiently ambiguous, deeply personal and anxiety producing. And you can ask a question like, at what crossroads do you now find yourself? To the same group a hundred times. Every time their answer will be different and it will be somewhat evolved from where they were before. And if a community continues to visit those kinds of questions together, people experience tremendous personal shifts. And find themselves in relationship enough with other people to take their next courageous steps into whatever it is they want to bring alive in the world, wherever they are. And that's the sort of effect we're seeing, like people are bringing this kind of work into their churches, into their workplaces. They're shifting the way they interact with their colleagues at work. They're even changing narrative practices. They're becoming less and less comfortable with the command and control paradigms in which most workplaces work, which denigrate and disregard a lot of what people have to bring. So when you develop that kind of like experience, coherence, relationship, assuredness, because you finally got to the root of what's important to you. You move in the world differently and that changes the world. You become a, a resonance center of your own Sam: Yes. And from sharing that space with you and being part of that space, that's something that I've witnessed and experienced myself. And often people will come out of a conversation, and will be feeling I didn't realize I was going to say that Peter: Yes, Sam: I didn't realize I was going to feel this and that, has a kinda real, sort of magical experience, which then people return to. And so the things you are talking about there in terms of the conditions that you are creating is that it's kinda regular, it's consistent using the sort of a method and approach of time triads, people come back and report on what they experienced. And it's on regular time and using the questions that have a structure are the things that create a container for that space, create an energy for those things to emerge and link into what has shaped the hosting practice in many ways. What was it that helped you get into that work? Tell me a little bit about your journey into that. How did you discover this way of working? Peter: I was thinking about that and there's a couple ways into the story and it seems like I always tell it differently, but, I started in news and in a strength-based environment and that led me to the point where I was leading an organization that had, between 12 and 17 people working for it at any given time. I started to realize being the leader of an organization was not something I was that interested in doing. In the old way of command and control, set the intention and take the hill, that didn't suit me at all. So I started to, given that we were doing strength-based journalism, we started to see the kinds of life-affirming patterns that you can actually start to sequence out through powerful questions. And the journalism was lifting up what people wanted to create in the world, telling a story about it, and then people would come to their assistance and then something would change, and that would be our next story. So I started to come into contact through that work folks like the asset-based community development movement and the appreciative inquiry movement and practice, and appreciative inquiry, of course, is an organizational strength-based organizational development model, which is fundamentally democratic. So I started to take some of what I was learning there, and then of course, appreciative inquiry, things like open space started to show up in the art of hosting community. And it struck me that this is a completely different way, this is a life affirming way you can lead an organization. Like you either trust the people you work for or you don't. And if you don't trust them, you're probably gonna command and control. If you do trust them, you can create different structures, you can facilitate different kinds of interactions that actually bring to the surface all the best that every person in the building has to bring to the purpose under which you're gathered. And that's what got me into it. So we turned what was then Axiom News into what became World Blue Democratic Workplace for seven years. Eventually we decided not to continue with that certification because we didn't feel their standards were high enough. You can run an organization in a deeply democratic way that cuts out the need for so much bureaucracy and so much control that because the people in the room who are committed to the cause, finding ways to work together in their own ways actually cuts through a lot of the nonsense that gets in the way. Like even the great Peter F. Drucker made the case that 90% of what we consider management is actually interference. Facilitating dialogue and connection and collaboration in the kinds of ways we can, and the ways that we are, can fundamentally change the way organizations work and the way people experience where they work. And that's what got me into it. So I tried these things out in organizational settings, a number of nonprofits as well that I was connected with and involved in. And then, um, COVID hit and uh, Sam: And here we are. Peter: And here we are. Sam: Yeah, and what you are, what I'm experiencing in terms of as you're sharing that and describing that and articulating that is how deeply powerful it is, it's not this one directional or one dimensional way of working. There's a real existential kind of aspect to that and a power to that. And the words that sort that I picked up was, trust. In terms of learn your journey of that and trust in people. And going back to where you were talking about where the hosting side of things can be wild and wooly. I can imagine and from the experiences I've had myself when I've delivered in a hosting way, trust plays a key factor in that as well. In terms of any facilitation. Peter: You gotta trust yourself. You gotta trust the room. You gotta trust the people in the room as a group, and you gotta trust the process. And the moment you don't, the thing collapses and you've gotta command and control it. It's almost like a spiritual practice, trust and trusting the people and trusting the room and trusting the process. It can take some intestinal fortitude, but once you see it work, you can have faith in it. Sam: Absolutely. So that's really interesting. What I was gonna ask there is what's the courage that someone needed to move into that space of trust rather than, I remember when I first started out in facilitation donkeys ago in particular youth work, I would have a session plan and I would work on that session plan and it would be dah, dah, even if it wasn't working, it's like, no, this is the session plan. Peter: Right. Sam: Tell me a little bit about your experience of that trust and kind of the courage that's needed around that. Peter: The name Blair Singer's coming up for some reason, but I ended up being in a thing that he was facilitating years and years and years ago, and he had this concept of as ising. And so when things started to go really wonky for me in a room, I figured I'd give it a try. And it's just like, I would just say, okay, wait, we can all sense that something's not right here. Sam: So is that is in, did you say? Peter: As is. Sam: As is. Peter: I don't even know if that makes sense, but that's what he called it. Just to see things as they are. I was hosting or facilitating and it just felt like something was wonky, something was not working. So I simply said, okay, does anyone else feel like this isn't working? All the hands go up, right? Sam: Wow. Peter: I say, okay, let's go into small groups of three and find the two people in the room, you know, the least. And let's just, without judging or critiquing what anybody in your small group says, just say what you're experiencing right now. And so they did that. And then people said, well this is my experience. Another person said, that's my experience. And what was interesting you hear four or five people, you realize they're all having a very different experience. So there's not one problem. So it becomes very complexified Sam: And what happens from there? Peter: This is something else that I think has been key for me is that I would stand in front of the room and say, well, and sometimes you have their hosting team, so you sit with the hosting team, maybe while the community's in their small groups, the hosting team sits aside and says, what's a good question for us? What's the question that wants to be asked now? Or you can also go back to the room when they come back and say, all right, what's a question that we'd like to sit with now? And then people start popcorning them up and then you whittle it down and then you find out what question the room wants to be asked, Sam: Right, Ok. Peter: and then you're back on track. So I mean, in that there is some structure, right? Sam: Such a beautiful way of shaping something as a, what do I do when things don't go to plan, when all my anxieties are kicking in? How can we reconnect with the group that we are with? Peter: There's a lot of letting go of your ego in that. Like you can go, oh, I had this brilliant plan. I was up all night thinking about it, maybe even many nights. And you, gotta let it all go and say, okay, well. 'Cause people do want the thing to work. And they do want to get something out of it. So there's a lot to work with there. And it could be that the thing's gone wonky 'cause you got in the way. So get, get out of the way. Sam: And there's a freedom there, isn't there? a freedom that you're creating. You're creating an agency. Peter: and then everyone thinks you're some kind of jedi san. But the fact of the matter is you just buggered it up and got outta the way. Sam: Yeah, and there's so much reflection afterwards from that as well, in terms of the learning. Peter: There is, it's very powerful, because each person has their voice. A friend, a colleague of mine by the name of Peggy Holman, who's a brilliant facilitator and fantastic thinker on these things, she says people resent feeling processed. Sam: Right. Peter: So if you stay with your process and it's like they feel like you're putting 'em through a spiritual meat grinder, it's right and proper that they would rebel against that. I think it's right and properly they rebel against that. So hold space for the other thing to happen that trusts that they also want this to go well, they also want to get something out of this. And your job is to, okay, if, if that path is blocked, then sit in a circle and think about what the next path is. Sam: Yeah. And there's a courage and a presence to notice that. have to Peter: But I think you have to have the kahunas to give it a try once. Sam: Yeah. And be ok. Peter: And even if it doesn't work, I mean, have a debrief because you're gonna learn something from it. Sam: Yeah. And I guess, what you are, you are touching on there is that being okay to fail in the process Peter: Yes Sam: And by naming the failure it becomes something else and it becomes Peter: Something powerful. Sam: Something more powerful, 'cause then people experience that together and in collaboration. Yeah. That is really beautiful, I mean. I guess in terms of like, one of the other questions and you know, in a way you've, you've answered it was what fluff ups have you learned from, in the practice, because this art of hosting creates more space for that I guess. Peter: I talk about the wild and the woolly of the hosting, and I think you can get, I mean, I have gotten so excited about just the process and the connection that, there have been times when I have not brought enough context at the beginning. So, I remember one event, we were like on the third morning, a guy who was actually staying at my house as a guest, said to me, I think, Peter, you need to just get in front of the room and tell us what the hell we're doing here. Sam: That's interesting. Peter: There's a bit of context and , you know, there's another, you know, just recently, like after all these years, Sam, you know how it's important to start on time. Start together is the thing, like whatever time that is, we start together and we started this thing and it was one of these digital things and people started to trickle in. So we'd started an opening circle where the dialogue guidelines had been given and then four people were in it. Then there were seven people, then there were nine people, and it just turned into a rodeo. So in order for the wild and woolly to happen, you have to remember to set the frame, and that's context and very important to begin together. So even after all these years and all the mastery available, it's still easy to miss some key points that just go wonky. Sam: I love that in terms of the reflection on that and the root to it and reflecting back on, do people know why they're here? Peter: They don't. Sam: And sometimes people don't know why they're here, but if you started in that togetherness, everybody's starting from that point, almost whether they know why they are there or not, they get to learn that together because that's where you started from. And we are coming towards sort of the end of, this lovely conversation. Peter, and I'm going to ask, from the last, podcast that went out, Olivia asked her guest, Julia Slay for a question to bring into this conversation. And her question was, how has your practice as a facilitator evolved and changed? Peter: You did send this ahead of time and I've been thinking about it and I don't know if my answer is, but this is what's come up in my contemplation of that question. I used to believe that hosting, facilitating was a better way to conduct joint human endeavor and joint activity, and I think that was fairly light. I'm feeling now that it's a necessity. So there's a valorizing in what it is to be a host facilitator. You know, in the industrial age, management and accounting we're the thing. I think in the age we're heading into, it's hosting facilitation, and narrative arts. Hosting, arts and narrative arts that are essential to human wellbeing and thriving. So I'd say that I'm taking it far more seriously. Before it was a passion. Now it feels like an essential work. So, that's what came up for me in contemplation of Olivia's question. Sam: Peter, thank you for that really thoughtful, beautiful response. Peter: I think maybe in, part of the like, span of history we explored, and the nature of your questions. And I think also Sam, 'cause we've known each other for so long now, we have a lot of shared experience. A great deal of, uh, coherence was made for me. So I'm having a sense of coherence and wholeness, which I think is actually the point of this hosting, facilitating. The idea is to create the conditions so that people can feel this sense of wholeness so they can be assured of themselves in a world that's gone crazy. Yeah, meaning coherence, wholeness. That was my experience. Anyway. How about you? Do we have time for you to say Sam: I have enjoyed this interview. It is my first podcast, as part of the new crew, and I think coming in with, you know, the anxieties of doing something kind of new for the first time and recording for the first time. I think what I'm taking away and what meaning it's having for me is in terms of, is the fun of the conversation. Peter: You got a knack for that. Sam: And I, it's almost like studying more what I have. Being involved in, I guess this is a unique conversation because we know one another and we've, shared a practice as to someone that I would be interviewing that I wouldn't be familiar with. So I think this is quite a unique experience and involved in the conversation and the shared experience of it. So it's given a new kind of a deeper understanding and a different way to explore what it is, that happens in that space as well. So I think taking away your kind of, you know, a deeper perspective of what's been experienced. Peter: Very nice. Thank you. Sam: So that brings us on to, my final question, and that is to invite a question from you for our next guest who we don't know who it will be. Peter: So let's just go with the old classic Sam, and invite your next guest to respond to, at what crossroads do you find yourself with regards to your work in the world? Sam: Beautiful. That'll, uh, give whoever it is, something to chew and ponder over. Peter: Possibly even a good place to start. Sam: Many of our conversations is exactly where it starts. So, Peter, with that, it is been a, absolute pleasure, kind of speaking with you today. Peter: Likewise Sam, always. Sam: Thank you for joining the IAF podcast. And, uh, thank you and be well. Peter: You're welcome. Thank you, sir. Sam: So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved, all of the links are on our website, facilitationstories.com, and to make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use? We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas, so if there is a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about, send us an email at podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk We hope you join us for some more facilitation stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.

In today's episode, the Facilitation Stories podcast returns with a brand-new hosting team — Olivia, Sam, and Umah — who share their stories, inspirations, and hopes for the next chapter of the podcast. They talk about: Why they joined the Facilitation Stories team and what excites them about podcasting as a way to connect facilitators and share learning. How their diverse backgrounds — from healthcare and construction to creative arts, community engagement and youth work — have shaped their facilitation practice. The power of collaboration and curiosity in creating spaces for reflection, learning, and human connection and what underpins their hopes for this podcast series And, of course, an important conversation about pets, TV guilty pleasures, and favourite biscuits! 🍪 "It's about creating space where people can make sense of their own stories — and find belonging in shared spaces." "Sometimes, facilitation is about slowing down, thinking, and making time for the conversations we don't usually have." Links Today's guests are the hosts themselves: Olivia Bellas https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviabellas/ Sam Moon https://www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123/ Umah Ganeshalingam https://www.linkedin.com/in/umah/ To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧 Email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org 🌐 IAF England & Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales Transcript Helene Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helene Jewell and for the last time I am introducing the podcast because I'm going to be passing the baton onto this wonderful new team. We have Sam Moon, Olivia Bellas, and Umah Ganeshalingam. In this episode, you're going to hear Sam, Umah and Olivia talk about their hopes for the Facilitation Stories podcast, some of the work they all do, the kinds of things they're interested in hearing about, and the conversations they're hoping to have. And it just leaves me to say thanks to everybody that I've worked with on this podcast. Pilar Orti, who started the whole thing, Nikki Wilson, we worked together for ages and it has been absolutely fantastic working with both of them and to Rena Kosh as well, who does all the graphics and stuff that go out alongside the podcast and pretty much everybody else that's been listening, all the guests we've had over the last few years, it's been fantastic. Umah Thank you, Helen, and thank you to you and the team for everything that you've done today and handing it over so nicely to us. Helene Good luck to you all. Sam We'll be standing on the shoulders of giants. Thank you Helen. So I'll kick off with the question. What brings you here, Olivia, to the new crew, why was it important for you to be here? Olivia Podcasting as a format really works for me, so it's definitely a medium that I enjoy for work, for fun. The idea of being part of a crew, a team, building a podcast is really, really exciting to be a bit more behind the scenes. I remember I was at the IAF conference in April in Birmingham earlier this year and seeing this call out to see who's interested. And that was one reason. And then the other reason was actually I tend to collaborate a lot. This year, I haven't been really up until that point and was like, oh, what's missing? And it was that feeling that I was actually, as a facilitator, doing lots of solo work, which I think has value sometimes, but I was really missing more closer collaboration with others. Yeah. What about you, Sam? Sam I think it's curiosity, which is often very much my kind of North Star towards things and serendipity and an interest in being with others, exploring and discussing what I enjoy and the room and the space to do that with others, and also an excitement and interest in talking about, talking with and sharing conversation with other people who are in the facilitation world. And I think just the opportunity to play with those ideas and experience other people's experiences. Learn a little bit about this realm of podcasting, which I'm not massively familiar with myself. I'm here with openness to the curiosity of what is possible. Really. So Umah, come to you. What brings you here, and why was it important for you to be involved in the IAF podcast as a as a new crew member? Umah Mine all started with a conversation with Paul, where I had joined as a IAF member and as part of the intro, he spoke to me about the IAF, the podcast and said, oh, if I'm keen, I could be involved in it. And almost the day I joined as a member, I say, yeah, I'll happily get involved with the podcast too. And then it was about finding other people to do it with us, and he mentioned it at the conference, which unfortunately I couldn't attend, but I'm hoping to attend this one. Coming up, in terms of my why at work, it's quite delivery. Whereas this for me is a place where I could slow down a bit, have the space and time to have conversations, think about why we're doing things. Is our approach the right approach? How do other people do things and do a bit more of that philosophizing really, that we don't always get to do? But the thing is, by exploring this with both of you, with our guests in the future, and also the audience who's listening in, it's just really good to get different viewpoints and build that community. I think that's quite key for me. Olivia I think it's really interesting around sometimes we well, we often get caught up in the doing and the delivery side of things, and it is about looking at what is it we do. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But yeah. What's my follow up question. Is there a kind of area of facilitation that you're particularly interested in, or is it more about sort of your discovering, you know, through your practice. Umah I've had quite a few different career changes. So I started off as a clinician and I was seeing pediatrics and adults with hearing and balance difficulties. And how you communicate is key in terms of the impact on their the diagnosis, the management of it. And it's how can we make them feel comfortable, give them that space to explore and ask the questions. So it's facilitating them through this process, right. So I initially started with patient experience journeys that kind of facilitation. How can we make the process better. And then afterwards I had a career change, went into construction and it became more about customer experience or passenger experience when I did airports. It's interesting that you asked me that, Olivia. So before it was the journey, whereas now it's the community, the group. What's the common? People have different needs and different things to attain. At the moment, lots of people are off in different directions. What is the commonality? It's changed that way for me. How about for you? What's your area of practice right now? Olivia And that's a good point right now adding that bit. I think it does change quite a lot. I've also dipped my toe into quite a few different working worlds. I've come from creative sector, arts culture, worked with artists a lot, and I've brought that into government spaces, charity spaces, public dialogue and also thinking about making teamwork more enjoyable, easier. But I bring a lot of play. So a lot of that kind of creativity, which is naturally how my brain works. But how do we use that as a way into the workplace? I mean, there's a lot of science and evidence that backs up that using playful approaches Really helps us in terms of fresh thinking. So I'd say at the moment I do use a lot of serious play in my work. I do use a lot of other kind of practices like walk and talks, visualization. So that side of things is where I'm focused right now. Umah Yeah. Sam, we've spoken a lot about, for example, our why. What is it that you're hoping that us together on the podcast is going to do? Sam That's a good question. My kind of world of work has been twenty five years or so in youth and community, sort of focused. So a lot of my facilitation is kind of through that, through that lens. And I'm earning the last year or so have gone full time freelance by myself. So I've been on a journey of figuring out what it is that I do in that new world. So I'm very much on that story of kind of discovery, but finding myself working a lot in the sort of community Subcommittee film co-production, lived experience, but also being drawn and developing work around kind of impact through means called ripple effect mapping. I'm very much pulled into different things and then began to get get interested in what makes me smile and what creates the energy. So I'm still very much in this discovery stage, but it's also interesting as a kind of work through things is having to remember to be me and follow the things that I like to do and create and facilitate in the way that I wish to facilitate and follow my own path. It's very easy to kind of be looking at all the amazing things that other people are doing and going, oh, that looks great, I should be doing that. And you forget to actually do the things that you do well. Focus on those on those things. And when I remember that and lean back into the things that are me and that I do, the world opens up and I find myself in spaces doing really exciting things and creative pieces of work, which then lead into to other things like this in terms of the opportunities the podcast brings and what we'd like to explore. I'm really interested in speaking to a whole range of different types of facilitation, and really looking at ways in which people can talk about what they're passionate about and what's important to them. But I'm also interested, because of my own passions in facilitation within the community world and other sort of sectors, like that kind of creating space where we're all able to talk about facilitation without competing with another facilitation style or another kind of way of doing things, because I think, well, I'll kind of start off, I might become precious about a certain way of doing things, and then I'll learn another way of doing things and think, well, actually, this really complements this way of doing things. And then you begin to see the gaps in everything that you do. I'm looking forward to creating a space where we can see how things complement one another, and that the enjoyment and what we get from it is shared with each other. Olivia I agree so much with what you said, like, it's really exciting to hear because I think with facilitation, as we know, it's quite unusual, mostly how people have ended up doing this type of work. I hear the kind of stories of like a, you know, just as we've shared now, really quite different. And so those roots there are fascinating, and they reveal a lot and give you permission to do the things that you just said, Sam. Well, I'll try it like this, but then I can layer it with this and I can look at something else. Yeah. Facilitation exists in so many different ways, and that's what I'm excited about diving into and getting those stories in the least expected places. And with the people that maybe we hear less from. I suppose in facilitation is doing big work, but maybe quiet work as well. So yeah, would definitely love to hear from people who probably don't even call themselves facilitators, but maybe identify with some of the things already said. Sam Umah, what comes to mind for you of what you'd like to experience and might be possible for the podcast? Umah I'm quite interested to look at the breadth and depth of the different things that we have available to us, what's worked, and understanding what are the true challenges that we face. We do lessons learned, and it's quite nice to get a chance to ask detailed questions of right. So when that was a challenge, what did you do? And then delve into that. And through that conversation you unlock her. Well, maybe we could maybe we could try this. It becomes it evolves doesn't it? So it becomes a new way of doing things. Let me reiterate my process. I've done this workshop many times. Never once has my workshop ever gone the same way. Different people, different outcomes, different ways of doing things. Even the three of us together, we haven't covered everything. So that's why we bring guests in hearing from audiences. What is their reveal? Something that I've not thought of yet. Sam To go a little bit deeper with a follow up question on that is what is it about your world of facilitation? What is it that makes you smile about it? What is it that gives you a spring in your step about facilitation? Umah One thing personally for me is the variety I get to learn about new sectors when I'm facilitating. I could be sector agnostic and really get something valuable for them when I'm in the session, it helps piece the world together for me. I like the variety, I like learning. We're all lifelong learners. I really like that. And exploring what there is. It's seeing when someone is hesitant to say, should I put this idea forward? And you can see that they're a little bit uncomfortable. So we facilitate as facilitators, and they build the confidence and courage to put their idea forward. And then I see them see their team members contribute and grow that idea. Afterwards, they might take it away. They might develop it. You know, we're bigger than the sum of our parts type thing. So for me, that's really what makes me smile. Sam How about you, Olivia? What gives you a spring in your step about facilitating or your world of facilitation? Olivia So two things jump to mind. So firstly, I guess it's that sort of very unknown space that I'm realize I'm quite drawn to. So a lot of the facilitation work that I have done, when it's kind of in the community engagement space, it's very unpredictable. It can feel kind of complicated and complex and messy sometimes, but it's work that I really enjoy because I enjoy that kind of sense making part of it. And it's it's weird because it's definitely a kind of uncomfortable maybe space, but I really love navigating it, whether it's in the moment delivering or before that. When you're designing and you're like, what? How is this even gonna work out? And then it somehow the pieces come together. I guess it's also like you were saying as well, how that unknownness is experienced and transformed with the others, with the group then, because we all get that sense, don't we? I also just love the fact of what makes me really, really smile is that I can just go for it and really try things out. A lot of the time with safety, of course, within the group, but sometimes I've come away and kind of go, wow, I'm really glad that we tried this particular route with the group today, and it felt right to do it then. Pushing those boundaries of exploration, of creativity just really suits me as a facilitator as well. Just sharing like we are right now, because I think sometimes if we're honest, this kind of work can feel a little bit lonely. And I think just being really honest when there are fluff ups as well, it's just like it's not all brilliant. Like there's things that are like, uh oh, that was really weird or uh oh, gotta do that again in a different way, you know? And so I'd love to hear more of that as well in this podcast. What went well but what hasn't. And actually, like, can we just share that because we're all going through it. So I think that will bring smiles to probably many people's faces. Yeah. Sam. Sam So what makes me smile, I think, is that I enjoy the freedom, particularly coming from full time employment and then deciding to move into freelance and self-employment and all the uncertainty that comes with that. So I think there's an aspect of that in terms of not knowing what I'm going to be doing is quite exciting as discovering what I am going to be doing. As I'm figuring that out and things come in. I do a lot of work with stories and lived experience and also story creation. And the ripple effect mapping work that I do is very much held within stories and appreciative inquiry, and the nature of that creates a lot of energy and a lot of connection, creating spaces that nurture relationship and spaces in which people are in relationship with one another is often a joy to experience and be part of. And what also makes me smile is creating space where people can make sense of their own stories by telling their stories, creating space where people can hear other people's stories or hear other people speak from where they're at to make sense of how they are feeling and make sense of what's going on for them. It's just always a privilege to be in a space that the impact of that and the power of that gives people their own agency in their own sort of citizenship. Kind of in that space as well. So I really, really enjoy that. And also I might do work, which is more around what might be termed as hosting, and that's about creating space for the collective wisdom to emerge from the room. And that's what shapes the decisions. I like creating spaces where I might not know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen, and being able to create space to work and fail, but be human in those spaces as well and be open going, okay, this isn't quite working, is it? And be able to name that within those spaces. So shared learning experience as well, that ongoing learning experience for me and listening to the tone of the group rather than listening to myself. It's really lovely being in those sorts of spaces. Olivia I've heard it a little bit, but this hosting difference, and if you could expand a little bit on that, like what? What would you say is, is there a host and a facilitator might be different things or do they overlap? Sam We can talk about what it means to me, and I'm and I'm conscious that we can get into some semantics here where where I start to define what facilitation is is, isn't. When I'm using the word hosting. For me, it's around where facilitating space for the collective wisdom of the group or the people you're with, and the energy naturally arises to be able to shape what might emerge, rather than what might be a more linear, focused thing. That sort of hosting approach, maybe within appreciative inquiry, relational relational practice. So it could be as simple as why was it important for you to be here? Or what is the crossroads you're at at this moment in time? And we speak to those questions and then take that back into the room and what is shared and what struck people then might shape the next question. And so it's a form of practice, but it's that gray space. And I caveat that with everyone will possibly have their own version of what that means for them. Olivia That's so helpful. Thank you. I could feel myself going down a rabbit hole. I don't know if we want to jump into something a bit silly. Sam But we did have a few personal trivia questions, the first of which was what do we do for fun? Umah I have a puppy. He's a Saluki from Abu Dhabi, and for me he is the definition of fun and any time spent with him, I really value it. I quite like gaming, strategic games, board games and going for walks, which he definitely enjoys too. How about you? Sam So I'm also quite. You made me smile. And we could we could quite actually easily just take over the rest of the podcast with this, with this now which is a danger. But I was going to say what I do for fun is board gaming. So for anybody who's listening to this podcast who's not a gamer, I'm not talking about monopoly. For those who may be uninitiated, early entry games might be things like Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan. I meet up with a bunch of friends locally, and we just really enjoy playing board games together, and occasionally we'll book an Airbnb and play games for an entire weekend and enjoy that. So that's what I do for fun. Go to the gym quite a lot now, and that might not be fun for most people, but it helps. I find it really good head clearer for me just to kind of hit the gym every now and then and go for a run. Olivia, what do you do for fun? Olivia Oh my goodness. Well, just listening to you both my cat whilst we're on the pet vibe. Ziggy she is very cool. She's fun for all the family. The other thing that came to my mind though, I don't feel like I do it loads and loads. It's just moving around and traveling actually. So whether that's within my kind of closest sphere or beyond. As my kids are getting a bit bigger, I'm sort of noticing, oh, I can actually venture out a bit more for fun. It's quite funny. It's around trash TV, so I'm gonna dive into it. I don't really watch TV as a as a general rule, but our household has just got into traitors. I felt quite uncomfortable about watching people be essentially quite like, duping each other and being quite mean to each other. Right? Because, you know, they've got to play the game. So this is kind of like a game where you're tricking people or trying to. Umah There is a game, there's a game called Mafia, which is this . Olivia So so you're watching these people like lying to each other. I found series one a really hard watch. Didn't bother with series two or three because I just thought I'm not going there. And then series four is on and it's the celebrity one. And as I'm watching it this time, I've got really into like all the biases, actually that are popping up. People are just making really weird decisions based on what, you know, because no one's actually got really any evidence. And so then it's brought up this kind of now it's more like an anthropological. Umah Yeah, exactly. It's societal. Olivia Exactly. Why are they saying that? It must be this guy? Because he's the smartest guy. What have you based that on? It's starting to come up. There's a few articles that people are going. Why isn't the media actually talking about a lot of the stuff that's happening, like first impression bias? You know, there's the kind of groupthink that happens. And, you know, you can start to relate this all to the work that we do. Umah Exactly how it comes through in the workplace. Olivia Absolutely. And so, you know, there's you can go really, really deep and into analyzing traitors, the TV show and seeing the parallels just with real life. And that actually you just look at these people and you think there are aspects that we enact as well. Just wanted to mention that as a kind of, you know, yes, it's a reality TV, but it's it's fascinating. Have a read of what's online around this kind of bias, because it's actually it's actually a little bit worrying that this is all sort of happening live on UK TV, and not a lot of people are talking about it yet. Umah Because it's a microscope, isn't it, into behaviors and you look into it and then some of them might be quite not reflective, but you see an exaggerated version of it. Olivia Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Do either of you have trashy TVs? Umah I don't, I watch K-drama, but not trash TV. Sam Sorry. What's a K-drama? Umah Korean TV series. They're amazing. Sam Oh, right. I'm not familiar with that. My trash TV habit is I'm now a sucker for Deadliest Catch on Dmax, which is the reality TV. There's twenty two seasons of them, and it's about the folks who go crab fishing on the Bering Sea, and it follows a handful of boats that go out and catch crab. It's on for like two hours every morning, and I watch thirty minutes of it whilst I have my breakfast. And bit by bit, I've just started to get to know the different characters. What I find fascinating in terms of observation of people is mainly men who are on the boat, dominantly men. I'd say ninety nine percent men, but just in terms of kind of how men are with one another in that environment, toxic masculinity and fear. And in each episode, you'd see the nuances in terms of how they evolve as people. I find myself tied to that little routine each morning as I start to find out about these fishermen, you go out and catch crab. Umah I'll watch a clip after this. Recommend me a good episode to watch. Sam I couldn't do that at first. I really didn't like it because I was put off by the toxic masculinity of it. Shall we finish with the most important question of humanity, as far as I'm concerned, is what's your favourite biscuit or snack if you don't do biscuits. I've introduced mine, but also say how I use this in facilitation myself. So my favourite go to biscuit would be a hobnob. Probably a chocolate hobnob. I also use this as an icebreaker exercise by inviting people to go around the room, shake hands, introduce themselves and say, what's your favourite biscuit? And I'm always struck in when I do this thinking, oh, this is going to be a little bit trite, a bit superficial, but what happens is everybody starts telling biscuit stories. And so the reminiscence that comes out from this activity is quite something. So with that, Olivia, what's your favourite biscuit? Olivia Um, you know, just basically every biscuit on the planet. I like biscuits a lot, so I like auburn custard cream, jammy dodger. Like it's just. Yeah, I couldn't pin it down. But interestingly, as a warm up, I've experienced it. Rather I've been a participant and it was about sandwiches. And we also had to draw parallels to the sandwich that we've chosen in terms of describing our mood as well. And again, I find these ones that, you know, I still can't work out where I am with like warmers or icebreakers or whatever you call them, because there are some that don't work very well and some that work better. But I do find that anything that's like this, that's quite comforting. Sometimes it's just, you know, what was the last thing that made you smile? And that's usually going to be a positive start. The simpler the better, I think. But I'd love to come back to this because I know many people are very like, I am not doing an icebreaker. Umah Yea, different preference, isn't it? Olivia Yeah. What about you, Umah? Umah Well, favourite biscuit again, Sam. It was really good that you mentioned that people start reminiscing because straight away one came into my mind and that was the malt biscuit, the one with the cow on and when I was a kid, whenever I was poorly, my mum would give me two of those. It was a bit of a comfort, like a blanket around me, and it felt so nice. I like that icebreaker. So, Olivia, what's the headline of what listeners can look forward to? Olivia Circling back to the start of our conversation, we're interested in stories where we discover a bit more about how facilitators got to where they are. No one studied facilitation at school, did they? Like in a very formal way or pain like this pathway that's set. So understanding that and hearing more about all the different types of facilitation, that's what we can definitely look forward to that we're all committed to drawing out in the future conversations we have. Umah Sam. Sam Absolutely. People can look forward to a variety of stories, a variety of guests, and I think we're already shaping it is quite a human space creates a feeling of belonging and connection. It'd be great if we can create a sense that we're in the room with the listeners, and the listeners are in the room with us. Umah Yeah, I think that's beautiful. For me, I would just build on that, really, and say shared enjoyment, the nerding out on different methodologies like you've already touched on hosting and facilitation, the difference just really getting into some of the semantics actually, and exploring some of that. I think you said it beautifully there, Sam, as well. So thank you. And I feel that's a really nice place for us to end our first episode together as your new host. Umah Thank you for listening to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by Umah IAF, England and Wales. Umah Subscribe, follow and like so you can get notified of new episodes. If you have a story or an idea you'd love us to explore, you can reach us at Facilitation Stories. Umah This has been Facilitation Stories.

In this episode Helene talks to Andrew Spiteri, Regional Director of the IAF Europe and Middle East Region. Andrew tells Helene about himself as a facilitator, the kind of work he does and his background with IAF. He became regional director at the start of the year and shares a bit about the work he has been involved in so far, his roles and responsibilities as director, and what he would like to see in future for the region and beyond. He tells us about the regional conference in Romania in November 2025 and about what he most loves about facilitation. You can contact Andrew at: rep.europe@iaf-world.org And Helene at helene@jewellfacilitation.com To contact the podcast team: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcasts brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. I'm Helene Jewell, and this episode is one of our quarterly chapter chats, where we talk to people leading other chapters in the IAF global community. We ask them how they see the status of facilitation where they are, and the history priorities, current projects and aspirations for their chapter. My guest today is Andrew Spiteri, IAF endorsed facilitator, consultant and elected Regional Director for the Europe and Middle East, EME region of the IAF for 2025-26. Andrew accompanies diverse groups, associations, entities, NGOs and also faith based organizations, and also often works in international settings, helping groups in collaboratively formulating vision, strategy and action planning activities. Andrew comes from Malta, is a resident in Brussels, and is in Italy for long stretches during the year. Welcome Andrew. A.S Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. H.J Every time I speak to you, you're globe trotting somewhere. A.S That's right. Yeah, that's right. H.J So tell us a little bit about you as a facilitator, and the kind of work that you do? A.S That's, it's always difficult because to start, because it's, it's so fascinating facilitation. And I think I was doing facilitation for many years without actually knowing it was facilitation. So I love to help groups work together, and what I really love is to give space to each and every person, because to manage to help that everyone contributes. Because I really believe everyone, even those who are apparently not well prepared, well suited or appear to be like a lot of the time. But I think everyone has a gift to gift and facing that challenge of helping take away all what, what blocks this, this, this participation, and creating climate where people can collaborate is really something I love, and so that's what I try to do in my facilitation. I work a lot with groups, associations, sometimes even with companies, but I would prefer normally NGOs or even associations, which could be very small or very big, international, with all the challenges of culture differences and cultural differences and even age differences. So, yeah, that's a bit what I'd like to do, and what I do usually. H.J Brilliant. And I think that thing about doing facilitation, before you know, it's called facilitation, is definitely a common theme, certainly, I think, back on all the podcasts we've recorded, and I think that's one thing that comes out in nearly all of them, fascinating. Okay, and so very international. What language do you facilitate in? Mostly, is it English? A.S Yeah, basically it's English. Not only, I know English, Italian, Maltese, evidently. So sometimes I do it in Italian. It depends on the group. I've just come from, Vienna. I had five sessions, very intense, and basically they were all in English. I had simultaneous translation in German. Most Viennese understand very well, and even speak English quite well. So it depends on the context, on the place, on the client, let's say, on how you organize. Yeah. H.J Wow. Sounds like you have a very diverse practice, which must be completely fascinating. A.S I remember once I was, like, two years ago, I was in Poland, and so this organization, sort of, they were, they knew a lot of Italian more than English. So I had two headphones, sort of from one headphone I would speak, a headphone with a microphone, and I would speak in English, sorry, in Italian. And they would they would hear me and translate in Polish. And from the other headphone, I would hear what the other people were saying in Polish translated into Italian. So it was like good, yeah. H.J Wow, that's the ultimate in a simultaneous translation. Blimey. Okay, so I should add multi-talented linguist to your list of skills, by the sounds of things. So I'd like to know a bit more about you know IAF and I know you've been involved for quite a while, so when did you become a member of IAF? A.S So that, yeah, yeah, it will go back to what you were saying before that for many years, or for many for some time, most of us actually don't know we're doing facilitation. Probably it's because facilitation is so new and even so not known so much. So I found myself in Italy for a long time helping organize big events, but not just the logistical part, but especially the content part, not the content in the sense of Creating Content content, but in helping like the group using their content to work together. And I was continually searching for, I was sure there was some sort of thing, some organization, some shared knowledge on this. And then when, finally, in 2018 I moved to Brussels, I got to know about the IAF Belgian chapter, and I was really excited. They have, they have, and it's still ongoing, a monthly meetup in Belgium. And it's, uh, being so particular in Belgium because, especially Brussels, because it's a real international city, because of all the institutions, NATO and the EU and 10s of 1000s of people who basically speak English as a common language. So the IAF chapter does all its things in English. And I started frequenting that. And I remember I never missed a meeting. It was like so important. And then in 2019 there was the Milan Conference. And so it was set then from then onwards, I nearly immediately became a member and and prompted onwards. It's history. It's sort of, it went on now. H.J Once you start finding out about all these things that go on within IAF and the wider community, you sort of slowly become more and more involved. Nice. And I realize, although I'm going to ask you in a bit about your role as regional director, I'm not actually sure, are you part of a particular chapter, given that you sort of, you're a little bit of a nomad. You move around quite a lot. A.S Yeah, actually, I still am part of the Belgian chapter. Actually, I got elected together with others on the IAF the Belgium board, so I'm a member in absentia, because, I mean, I know they meet regularly. I don't have lots of time, but I do give them all the support needed, like all the others, actually, but I have a soft spot for Belgium, I must confess, evidently, yeah, so, so that's, that's what I do. H.J Great. So officially, part of IAF Belgium. And what kinds of things have you been involved with? So obviously, you've been going, you know, you started going to the meetups in Belgium, and it sounds like you went to the Milan Conference. What else have you been involved in, either as a participant or part of organizing? A.S So, so yeah, these official meetings. I mean, the Belgian reality is quite interesting, because the meetups are like, there are two or three different types. Like the basic is where there is someone who specialized in some methodology or something he's been doing, or she's been doing for many years, and they hold a session where they share all their knowledge. And another type of session would be where there's someone who's learning, maybe a new method, and would create a safe space, where they use us as guinea pigs, sort of and, and then at the end there's also, there's always a debrief. And then the in both of these, it's so interesting, because you get to widen your knowledge of how to help groups with facilitation, yeah. Another point I forgot to mention, in my activities, I am finding myself staying quiet for long stretches in Italy, because most, some, most of my clients, are in Italy, actually. And the Italian chapter, I'm very much in contact with them. I know them, most of them, personally. They've just had this Friday and Saturday, their annual conference. It was a real big success. I had a work in Vienna, so I couldn't go there. But last year I went. It's always a really interesting event. So they don't hold monthly meetings. But for example, I got to know there is a group in Padova, in Padua, which meets every two months. They call it Facilitator Playground for one morning, and they do many the same as we do in Belgium. So every time I can, I go up and stay with them and support them, participate. So yeah, it's giving this back up is really essential. Because in these meetings, you find big community building between facilitators. You find a pool of learning with shared knowledge between facilitators and you and encourage each other, you get to know, maybe you get to know, people with whom you could actually work later on. But on the whole, you become friends with others, and I think that's a real big it's something. It's not nothing. It's a when we help each other, and you get to know differences, which can become a gift, because you widen your your personality, your knowledge, your approach to things, yeah. H.J Yeah I really love that about the IAF and just the sort of wider community as well, hanging out with other people that really love to talk about facilitation and, and all its kind of broad, you know, broad aspects, different aspects of it, and, and, yeah, you're right. You sort of, you do start to make friends and start to build up those relationships, and it's really nice. And I think, well, I guess for you, particularly, working across different countries, actually, you get to sort of have a foot in a couple of different camps, which must be nice, so true. And I really like the idea of the I think I've heard them called, like, Facilitation Labs, that kind of thing, where you talked about, with Belgium, you bring a sort of something to try out with the group. That sounds really interesting as well. A.S It's because we're all in different phases of our professional life. There are those who maybe are already quite expert in some some methodologies, and have had many experiences, you know? I mean, one thing which really strikes me about facilitation is that often we describe it as an art and a science. And I think with these things, we do exactly that, and we learn that. So science is quite precise, and you need to get to know precise things. And there are aspects of facilitation which are very functional, very specific. But it's also an art, and an art you cannot foresee it. You you do it only by experience. You can learn by experience because you never, you cannot say, okay, there will be 10 people, and I will do this, this and that. There are always so many variables and unforeseen things. And how do you respond to that? So experience helps, sharing experience helps as well, and training in this thing is really important, H.J Definitely. I think that's one of the things I love about it. You're never quite sure what's going to happen, and I know that terrifies some people. Okay, so I want to ask you now a bit more about your, the fact you are the director of the Europe and Middle East region, and I think you started, or you stepped into that role at the beginning of the year. I just wanted to know what, what that entails, what are your main responsibilities? A.S Okay, I'm still trying to find out. I mean, we're still in the end of March, so just the first quarter. First thing, I'm still alive, so that's quite something. I find there are two faces of this responsibility, of the service. So one aspect is like the grassroots, sort of helping all those facilitators in our region in any way possible where they need help, evidently, but help is such a big word, and it has so many different possibilities and connotations, so this would be one aspect. And the other aspect is representing all these facilitators in our region with their wide diversity, I think we're one of the, not the, but definitely one of the most diverse regions and all of IAF and so representing them on the wider world context, where we meet as a board, as a global board where we set directions for IAF globally. And in this sense, bringing this specific characteristic, which is ours as a gift to the rest of IAF, and also learning and and receiving the gift of the others and their cultures, their ways of approaching things, and sharing and and, and trying to bridge that with IAF regionally. I think it's, it's a very interesting experience. Yeah, these two aspects. H.J And quite challenging, probably as well. Because, I guess when I think about it, we are a very diverse region. I mean, you know, Europe and Middle East in itself is a mixture of quite a lot of different countries and cultures. So that must have a few challenges as well, I presume? A.S Oh, definitely, definitely yeah. For example, soon we're going to have Facilitation week now, and evidently, finding a slot during the year where that could be ideal is not, is not so simple, because we have so different, how do you say, cycles, different cultures and then the holidays and weathers and things which are which characterize then our actions and and how we organize ourselves as societies. And for example, in Europe, or if you say we're going to hold something in August, people would say, Oh, forget it. I mean, it's a non-starter, but if you do that in India, it could be probably quite good, or in other parts of the world. So when we meet as globally, like even when we meet regionally, actually, we're really challenged to live by what we preach and be good facilitators so that we find consensus and try to understand better what is the best solution by hearing each other well. H.J Yeah that's really interesting, sort of practicing what we preach, I suppose, and living that experience of being part of that sort of quite diverse group, and perhaps that helps us think about, you know, groups that we're actually working with, hadn't thought of it like that. So it's March, and you've only just really started the role. Is there anything particularly significant that you've been involved in so far, or is it still very much Finding your Feet? A.S No, definitely. One very significant and very important thing which I've been involved in is the annual face to face board meeting which the global board does. So we usually meet on Zoom. Previously, it was once a month. Now we've decided to do that once every quarter, and there are other meetings as well. So it's not that just once every quarter, for example, very soon we'll have this, we call it The Big We, where we as a global board, meet with many other people who are normally quite involved at a local level in bringing about and helping facilitation worldwide. So it's not just four times a year we meet. But usually all these meetings are on Zoom. So having a global face to face meeting is so important because, evidently, meeting face to face, it has its own characteristics. You cannot equate it to a Zoom meeting. Both are good, but they have differences. And so it's so nice to actually physically meet those people with whom you work with and get to know them. Get to know them much closer. Get to know what they like, how they go about, what are their characteristics, what they like, what are their challenges and together, maybe find out how we can dialogue and bring about, help each other in those challenges. Yeah, it was, we've just had this three weeks ago in Lisbon for basically three days, and it was so enriching. So personally and even as a group, I would believe, from what I heard afterwards, very, very enriching. H.J And that's the global board, and so presumably attended by regional directors from other regions as well. Who was there? A.S Yeah, definitely. So we had one type of member would be the regional director. So apart from myself from Europe and Middle East, there was one from Asia, who's actually from India right now, but it's such an enormous region, and actually we dream of eventually trying to find a solution, like creating more regions out of that region, because it's like half of the world. But anyway, myself and the Asian representative, a representative from Oceania, a representative from Africa, Central and South America, and then the North America. And then, apart from these regional directors, there was the executive committee. So that would be the chair, and the Vice Chair, where the Vice Chair actually is currently, is our ex Regional Director, Tamara, most of you know her. We had a representation of the executive administration, because we're based right now in Canada as an office. And then we had some directors for specific competencies, like, for example, we have one for learning and all the certifications, one for big events and activities, one for communications and one for member experience. So, so we're, we're quite, quite a group, and but it's, it's really interesting, because you learn a lot from each other. H.J Yeah, and it's really, really good to kind of hear or get a bit of a flavor of what that global boards and what IAF at a global level actually looks a bit more like as well, because obviously we perhaps focus on our chapters or even our region, but we are part of that much larger organization as well. So aside from that place in the global board, we also, and I say we because I am also on the Europe and Middle East leadership team. We had a face to face get together in Istanbul in November, didn't we? And that was us creating an action plan. So I guess that's the sort of, perhaps other side, or one of the other sides of your role is leading the leadership team. A.S Yeah, and that's, that's very nice, because we as a region are organized with this. So normally we're organized at chapter level. So in a nation or a space, a geographical area, 5-10 members put themselves together and create a chapter, and they help each other. They do some training activities, some social activities, some learning activities, as I was saying. And normally, we meet regularly, once a month, with all the chapter leads from all the region. And it's very enriching. Some can come, sometimes some can come another time, but it's always really enriching. Now to help these persons, to help all our members, we created some years ago, a leadership team, sort of some members who have experience and who can help the regional director. So with the regional director, there is this team, and my experience before and even now, is that we really work together and try to find out solutions, try to understand what's happening where there is necessity of health, and how to promote as much as possible, even outside the the idea of of the practice of facilitation. So like two things, helping those who are already members, and helping spread the notion, the idea of facilitation. H.J It's a really nice group to be part of as well. For me, who tends to mostly stay in the UK, it's nice to be part of such an international group. And I'm surprised you have time to do any work. A.S Even I H.J So thinking, thinking forwards about, you know, your next couple of years as regional director, what are you looking forward to, either personally or for the region? A.S Well, definitely for the region, I'm really passionate about trying to help as much as I can. And as much as we can, because I think here I can speak for all the team, and I think we are really helping each other in the sense we really want to do those two functions I was mentioning before. Like trying to help facilitators in all the region and growing them as well, because we know that if people join IAF, then they can help the local, the local and the global community with what they bring inside and learn and from an international experience, all the knowledge which there is to learn and take, to apply to your work, to your situation. So it's always a two way exchange. So one, really, one big thing I wish is to help as much with with the team, with the leadership team, to help as much as possible this aspect of our members. We I don't know you are going to ask this later on, but I can already say it, we're like 600 roughly, IAF members in our region, which makes us quite one of the big, big regional groupings, very varied. And we have, I don't remember well, but at least 40 different languages across our regions, and I don't know how many time zones we have. So there's a very big different culture and social situations, but with some very common trends, like, because human interactions are, in some ways, are always the necessity to help people listen to each other, to create space for the other, to appreciate differences, to work at solutions and where people can feel comfortable with them and fully represented. These are common trends which and necessities which cut across all the region and probably all across the world. So we have a lot of things to learn from each other, and even how we face them, what solutions we bring, even sharing those is already very enriching. H.J And that is so true, isn't it? We do think about that diversity, because it's quite obvious, I suppose, as you say, there's 40 different languages. I had no idea there were that many languages, and all the different members and different cultures and time zones, et cetera. But actually, there is so much that brings us together, and so many commonalities as well. And I guess when you get together, you meet those people, whether it's online or, you know, in real life. You sort of notice more I suppose, you start to talk about those things and what brings us together and what binds us as a community I guess. A.S Yeah, so true. H.J The other thing I wanted to ask you about is your hopes, anything else in terms of your, what you'd like to see? A.S Yeah, so I'd love to see facilitation getting a wider spotlight on it. From a social point of view, culture point of view, I think we're very young. 30 years is just a few three decades so, but we have lots of responsibilities, because I think many social problems, many work problems in other organizations, could really benefit from our help and from the way we can contribute to better understandings between persons, to better work between persons within organizations, any type of organizations, better understand reception of gifts and sharings between each other more well, all these things, I think, could be put on spot a bigger spotlight. What is the contribution of process? How can a process help us be better? Or I would word it in this way, processes have proven to help us be better, to be more functional, to arrive at better, more solid solutions. So why don't we learn from these? Why don't we learn from Why don't we put that on a spotlight? and all that is necessary to make those processes happen, like the ground rules most people like, forget that we need to be prepared for a process. They imagine that it's a machine. You press the button and out comes the coffee. But like, so all this, my great desire, my great dream, would be that this gets more appreciated, gets more talked about. People desire it, understand it. Understand this necessity, and we grow our membership so as to give an answer to this necessity. H.J I hadn't really, I mean, it's, it's, we all know that facilitation is not that well understood, I suppose. So I think, yes, shining a spotlight is so important. But I hadn't really thought about the fact it's young or that 30 years, three decades, is young, I suppose, compared to lots of other occupations, that was something that hadn't really occurred to me. So it's interesting hearing you describe it as that. I wanted to ask you about something specific, and that is the regional conference I believe we have at the end of this year. I know it's still in its infancy a little bit, but could you share a little bit with us about the conference? A.S Yeah, definitely. I mean, the concept of a regional conference is very important for us. Conferences by chapters are so good, I think. As I was saying, just a few minutes before, the Italians have just finished theirs. It's always a big success, more than 100,120, 150 people passed by. It's something which really invigorates the community, gets people to get to know about facilitation. It puts facilitation in a spotlight in that region, in that area, in this country, in the chapter. So it's always a big thing done already in a Chapter wise. I remember I personally helped organize, together with Marie from Belgium and we were in three working on this project. And we did a very small but in, it was the first time, Forum we called it in Belgium, and I think it was so important because we kick started a process. So now talking about a regional conference, it is definitely more challenging, because we, you open up, you expect more people. But it is also more, it produces, it can give more because it can help even in this wider beyond regional confines exchange and putting a bigger spotlight on facilitation. So this year, this coming year, we've had our colleagues from Romania who have been so great. The Romanian chapter right now is doing a golden moment. They have got many, many members, increasing every, every day, basically. So and they're really enthusiastic, even though it is a big challenge, but they decided to go in for it. So they're talking about something around the first weekend of November, if I'm not wrong, the dates are being confirmed in these days, but we're definitely talking about November in Romania, and it's a it's the main topic will be about facilitation, and in a wider sense, what use it has, Why, how it can be used, and what benefits it gets to both to those who need it and also to those who are participating. So yeah, and we're really enthusiastic. There is this team. We met them recently, their young team, working with great enthusiasm. And I think it's going to be a very nice event. H.J Yeah, I'm quite excited about it, and I know from having spoken, we did a chapter chat with Bob Dan a little while ago, and obviously I've spoken to him a few times, and I know he just kind of exudes enthusiasm. So I'm hoping it's going to be a very exciting conference. A.S Yeah, I remember in a very small experience, the local one I was mentioning before, in Belgium, with Marie and Laura. It was such an invigorating experience. And we had like people who were in Consultancy or a facilitation for 20 years and even more. And then we had these young professionals, maybe working with a big accountancy firm, but doing like serving small or medium sized companies who were really keen to know about the principles of facilitation, because they really needed to put them in practice. And when you put these people together, and everyone is learning from each other, and everyone is practicing, and we did this in a small scale, in Belgium, you can imagine what happens when you do it on a regional level. H.J Yeah, sounds fascinating. And, you know, quite fantastic to think about all those different people coming together. And of course, we have our conference coming up next month as well, the England and Wales conference. A.S I'm coming H.J Yay. I was gonna say that's exciting enough, but it sounds like actually, we have got a few people coming from outside the UK, which always makes it really exciting. So I look forward to seeing you there. A.S I will, and even me. I look forward to seeing you there and all the others. H.J Fantastic. So just one last question to wrap up this podcast. What is one thing that you most love about facilitation? A.S Oh, this is, I love this question, because I think it's a bit what we started off with. I love it when I see people fulfilled, because they have managed to work together well, not withstanding the challenges. Probably they would have started thinking at the beginning that they would not have achieved anything with the type of people there with, they were going to work with. And I really love it when you see the expression of their faces and the way they're speaking at the end of the facilitation, and you see that something has happened. We don't know exactly what, but yeah, there are concrete things which have come out, but something more profound in every person has happened. They've become friends, they've become but it's beyond that. They've, something happened which we are in a difficulty, actually, to formulate well, but that type of reaction, I really love it, and I think it's one of the things which really I like about facilitation. H.J Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing that. So we are going to draw the podcast to a close. Thank you so much, Andrew, for joining me. A.S Helene, thanks. It's been a real pleasure. H.J It's been lovely to talk to you. I just wanted to quickly ask how people could get in touch with you if they want to? Do you have an email address that you could share? A.S The official email address is rep.europe@IAF-world.org H.J Brilliant. Thank you very much, and we will put that in the show notes as well. Thank you very much. A.S Thank you and all the best for all the listeners. And thank you as well for doing all this. Outro H.J So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of facilitation stories, the community podcast of IAF England and Wales. N.W If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved all of the links on our website facilitationstories.com H.J To make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use. N.W We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas. So is there a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to? H.J Or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about? N.W Then send us an email at podcast@IAF-EnglandWales.org H.J We hope you'll join us again soon for more facilitation stories. N.W Until then, thank you for listening.

In this episode Nikki talks to Camilla Gordon, a process facilitator , about representation in Lego and her new "Figiverse" project. They talk about How Camilla uses Lego Serious Play in facilitation The lack of representation within Lego 'I had people of colour seeing these more representative Lego pieces and had really emotional reactions to it, because people have never seen themselves in these pieces' 'It has become so normalised that particular identities don't get represented in different spaces' Improving representation and access to more diverse Lego pieces 'recognizing that these forms of representation shouldn't be separated from the more traditional Lego pieces, but actually should be a core part of those packs' Camilla's new "Figiverse" project including how it started and future plans A full transcript is below. Links: Today's guest: www.Camillagordon.co.uk www.Figiverse.co.uk To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter: Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team: Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript N.W Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name's Nikki Wilson, and today I'm going to be speaking to Camilla Gordon. So welcome, Camilla. To get us started would you like to tell us a little bit more about you and what you do. C.G Sure. So I am a freelance facilitator, and I'm a process facilitator. So focused on getting groups from A to B, I am what I would call sector agnostic. So work across a range of different sectors with lots of different clients and groups from unaccompanied children, refugees and asylum seekers all the way through to corporate boards, and part of my approach in doing that work is trying to facilitate processes that are more inclusive, kind of recognizing power dynamics and hierarchies and rooms. I'm really clear that I'm not a D&I facilitator. For me, that's just the core part of how I work, rather than it being a kind of defined piece. And so, yeah, I do lots of kinds of work, lots of different places, lots of different processes. N.W Great. And so the focus of today's conversation is Lego. So how and why do you use Lego in your work? C.G So I'm a Lego Serious Play facilitator, or what I usually like to say, I'm trained in Lego Serious Play. I say that because I use elements of Lego Serious Play in my work. But I'm not wedded to it in a strict way, in relationship to the process and how it works. I like to take bits and pieces of different methods and tools to make it work for the group, and so use Lego in a range of different ways within the different processes that I run from using Lego Serious Play in its most formal sense, but also using Lego as a tool to explore different parts of conversations and in different ways. N.W And so while you like to use some Lego, I believe you noticed there was something that you didn't like about it. So could you tell us a little bit more about that? C.G Yeah, definitely. I started using Lego Serious Play about seven years ago, and one of the first things I noticed was the lack of representation within Lego. I saw lots of yellow faces, I saw lots of yellow hands, but I didn't see any representation of black and brown heads and hands. I didn't see any representation of disabled people. I didn't see representation in many ways, in the Lego that I was using. Following on from that, I spent a lot of time looking for some of those pieces, looking for ways to bring representation into my kit, because the groups that I work with were because the groups that I work with are from a huge range of different backgrounds with a huge range of different identities. And on that journey, I realised part of the reason I didn't have that in my kit to begin with was because very little of it existed in the world. I ended up on Lego resale websites, talking to Lego dealers, and while there were a few representations of black and brown heads, a lot of them were double printed with happy and angry on either side. And I was very aware of the stereotypes and tropes that come along with racial stereotypes, and I didn't want to feature that in my kit. And in the end, I had to get them custom printed, so I bought a whole load of heads with the formal colour being reddish brown or medium Nougat, which is the term the colour definition from LEGO. I had to get them custom printed. And obviously, recognizing representation isn't just about racial representation. I also spent a lot of time looking for other identities that could be represented. And looked at things like wheelchairs. They were also very hard to source and had only been released in one kit. And they were five pounds each for the ones that I could source and they were very hard to find. Looking for other forms of representation, things such as hijabs, different elements of different religions, different elements of different identities, they were virtually impossible to find. And so it became a bit of a mission for me to try and find more pieces like that. And I came across a statistic. These numbers are not the actual numbers but it was something along the lines of 8 to 10 times the number of yellow and white heads represented to the number of black and brown heads represented. So there was a huge disparity in relation to those pieces. Part of the reason doing this was so important to me was there is a perception that yellow is a neutral colour and that yellow represents everyone. When I get asked this question, I usually respond by asking, there is an American cartoon, The Simpsons, and they are all yellow. What ethnicity would you say the Simpsons were? Usually I get a very clear answer back, if I don't, then I ask which of the characters in The Simpsons aren't yellow? And then we find characters like the shopkeeper Apu. And then it becomes even more clear that actually that isn't a neutral colour. And time after time after time in my workshops, I had people of colour seeing these more representative Lego pieces and at times, I've had, you know, really emotional reaction to it, because people have never seen themselves in these pieces. I've had young people in wheelchairs who have never seen themselves in these pieces, and I regularly hear things along the lines of, it's me, I've never seen this before, through to young people who have taken away models of themselves and keep them on their on their shelf, because they want to keep that in sight for them, because they have never seen it. And part of the reaction when I talk to people is less about seeing themselves, but the realization that they have never seen themselves because it has become so normalised that particular identities don't get represented in different spaces. N.W Okay and so, I mean, obviously you were already taking some action within your own kit, but then you've now decided to actually take this forward and do something wider and bigger. How did you decide to do that and to do something more with the work that you'd already done? C.G Well, this has been something that's been set on my mind for two years, but I was really keen that other people should have access to these sort of pieces, from the perspective of particularly Lego Serious Play facilitators, to broaden the representation within their kits. But beyond that, I use Lego mini figure pieces at the start of almost all my workshops, whether or not I'm using Lego Serious Play in order for people to be able to build representations of themselves. What has come out of that is the number of people requesting those pieces and asking where I got them from, because they want access to them. And so over a period of time, it became really clear that people did want these pieces. And so I decided that it was important for these pieces to be on offer, not just for Lego Serious Play facilitators, but for facilitators in general, and if and when individuals want them, for families, for people who are not facilitators, and for youth groups who work with a range of identities in their spaces. And it was hearing from individuals again and again that they wanted access to these pieces that was this sort of catalyst for me moving forward with this and trying to make it happen. N.W And so how did you decide how you'd approach taking it wider, as it were? I mean, so you said that before you get custom printed figures in the designs that you want, how did you decide to kind of approach taking it wider? C.G Well, something that has changed over the last few years is Lego has improved the range of pieces that they offer. While they don't always feature in their kits, you can order them directly. N.W Right. C.G And so in me being able to access more pieces, it meant there was an opportunity to pull a range of pieces together to make, to make a product, to make something that would be beneficial to groups of people recognizing that these forms of representation shouldn't be separated from the more traditional Lego pieces, but actually should be a core part of those packs. As I say, I don't think we should be adding things on, they should just be the norm. Yeah, and so that was part of how I went about it. I did a lot of research around what pieces were available, and a number of pieces are actually no longer available. I had a number, I have a number of heads, black heads that feature Vitiligo. I can no longer find those on the Lego website. I also came across a piece with a cochlear implant on the hair, I had to order those from a Lego dealer because I could no longer source them directly from Lego. And so there's been a lot of different moving parts, but for me, it was about the research piece and looking at how we could bring the different parts together into something that was accessible for people to be able to purchase, and also gave the opportunity to give kits to youth groups and organisations who potentially wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise. N.W Okay and so what you're going to be offering is complete kits with this range of different pieces within them to people to purchase and potentially some to for people to get free if they're not able to afford them. Is that? Is that right? C.G Yeah, so the the business is called Figiverse, and there are curated packs of different size, generally ranging from for groups of 6 to 8, for groups of 14 to 16, for groups of up to 30, that include a range of mini figures, a range of heads and hands, and also different accessories. Other products that are on the market generally offer per one mini figure, one accessory. But really for this to work as a product, you need more than that, because you want people to have the choice in how they represent themselves. And so generally the kit, so for our kit, for 14 to 16 people we have over 100 accessories in that pack so that people really can choose, and they are designed to be used by facilitators. And so they come with a set of base plates so people can present their models. And come, you know, in a carry bag, trying to think about these products from all different angles to make them as usable as possible, and a number of different use cases for facilitators to be able to to use them effectively from the get go. N.W Okay, great. And so for listeners' benefit, we're actually speaking at the end of November in 2024 how and where have you got to so far with this project? C.G Great question. Well, so hopefully today, I'll be launching the website, and, broadly speaking, seeing what, what the response is. Ideally we would see in the next few weeks, in the run up to Christmas, what sort of things are popular, and then doing a bigger launch for January, wanting to make sure that we're getting it right in terms of what people want, but also being really clear that these products aren't Perfect. All the elements that we would want represented aren't there, and so over time, keen to improve that range. So while right now in the product development, we have what we can get, we're actually very limited by those things. And I've tried to find ways right now to improve that. So creating flags, like pride flags, for example, to try and represent identities from a range of different perspectives and ways. So those are currently made by me using decal but hopefully moving forward, they would be more professionally developed. So at a very early stage in the whole thing, but trying to work with a good enough mentality to try and get out there. N.W Okay, and so I was going to ask a bit about what's coming next. Well, obviously, just actually launching the website. And then you said that you've got a kind of bigger launch plans for January. Have you got any particular ideas of what you're going to do with that? C.G Yeah, I think for me, I would like to really expand what can be offered, primarily because I want to get this into more spaces for more people to be able to access. Right now, you've got the core kits. Other options that I'm looking at are things like office parties, renting a kit, organisations are really keen to move away from alcohol based social events because they're not inclusive, and so using this is a bit of a tool for that, offering rental options. But also if people want to create their models and then keep them also offering things like guest books for weddings, where people want to build themselves as a wedding guest and keep a really wonderful part of their day for them. Also options for things like subscriptions, so facilitators can keep updating the kits that they have, and getting new accessories, and maybe going seasonal accessories. So I think there's a lot of different options that are quite exciting to think about, but again, trying to start with the basics to see, to see what happens really from here. N.W And do you have any thoughts about how you will kind of prioritize what the next stages of development will be? Because obviously, you've said there's this whole range of options, and you're starting with that kind of good enough core where, how would you decide what to do next with each of those? C.G Broadly, the next few weeks will dictate a lot of that, where the interest is. At the moment, I haven't gone for kits that are smaller than sort of 6 to 8 people. I've had a lot of interest from parents, from people who look after young people, and so potentially looking at an offer there, but a lot of it is dictated on capacity. At the moment, it's just me roping in a few friends when we can, and also keen to have a look at the sustainability side of things. At the moment, 20% of the kits, up to 20% of the kits are from, include pre-loved Lego pieces, and so we'd love to play around with that, but again, right now, it's seeing what happens now, what the interest level is, and then working with that to try and build products and offers that work for the audiences that we're talking to. N.W And I guess what you're saying about pre-loved and sustainability part of the issue with that is that a lot of these things don't exist in the pre-loved market at the moment. And so you're, you've maybe got the core kits that are the more easily available pieces, and then I suppose the more that this grows, you've got more chance of being able to get pre-loved pieces. And so, I mean, you've probably hinted at this already, but what are your hopes for the project, and what help do you need to get there? C.G I think my hopes are that one day, when I take a kit such as this into a group, there'll be no reaction to it, because people will have seen these pieces, they'll be used to seeing all of these pieces in every Lego kit, and that would be my ideal one day. That might be quite far away at this point. But also, I would love for this conversation to keep going, particularly with Lego, to see if there are opportunities to work together or to really look at the range of pieces that they have and how that can be expanded in relation to other forms of identity, particularly beyond racial identity, as I think there's a there is a huge focus on racial identity, but there are also plenty of other identities that aren't represented in lots and lots of different spaces. So having more access to pieces that represent that kind of wide range of identities is really important to me, and so I'd like to keep the conversation going. If people wanted to get involved, it'd be great to have those conversations. Get in touch, join the mailing list, but also, if you're a facilitator and you're looking for something you can bring into your workshops, do think about picking up a kit. They are great for things like introducing people, but also for opening conversations around diversity and representation. I have also used them for things such as building teams. What, how would you build your ideal team? What do each of these people need and look like? And so I think there's a range of things and as I said, representation is a core part of this product. But actually, the reason I developed the product is because it's a really, really great way to open conversations with people that aren't related to representation, and these pieces are just a part of that in the way that all of the other pieces are. N.W Okay and so if listeners want to know more about this project or about you and your work how can they find you and find the project? C.G So Figiverse has its own website, which is figiverse.co.uk . I'm also hoping by the time this goes out, that there will be some social media presence. We'll see about that. But you can also find me as an individual. My website's Camillagordon.co.uk , find me on LinkedIn, and would love to chat more and find out from people what they think about this as an idea. N.W Brilliant. Well, I'm sure there'll be lots of people keen to get in touch and sort of know more about it. Sounds like a great project, and we'll put the links in the show notes as well so that they're easy to find. But thank you so much Camilla, it's been great to chat to you about this. C.G Great thanks. Nikki. Really appreciate it and excited to be able to share a bit more and a bit further and wider about the project. N.W Brilliant. We'll be looking forward to hearing more. C.G Thanks H.J So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of facilitation stories, the community podcast of IAF, England and Wales. N.W If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved, all of the links are on our website. Facilitationstories.com H.J And to make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use? N.W We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas. So is there a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to? H.J Or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about? N.W Send us an email at podcast@IAF-Englandwales.org . H.J We hope you'll join us again soon for more Facilitation Stories. N.W Until then, thank you for listening.

In this episode Helene talks to Cath about her role as Senior Engagement Advisor and internal facilitator with the Environment Agency (EA) Cath tells Helene a bit about the EA and the type of work they do. She explains how her role as Engagement Advisor includes facilitation and also how she works an an independent internal facilitator for other projects withing the EA. Cath gives some examples of what she really enjoys about her role as a faciliator including working with the public on a climate adaptation project and working alongside external independent facilitators that the EA also use. She explains that external faciliatators are often used when more complex conversations need to be had, or where there has been a breakdown of trust and someone independent is needed. She shares some insights as to how the internal facilitators network of aroudn 200 facilitators was set up and how she balances her work as Senior Engagement Advisor and facilitator. She tells Helene about a role play technique that really made a difference and about how asking good questions are crucial to her work as a faciliator. Cath also talks about how she keeps her faciliation skills up including attending the IAF England and Wales conferences, and local IAF meetups and EA facilitator learning days. She also shares some advice for other internal facilitators. A full transcript is below. Today's Guest Environment Agency - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) facilitationnetworkmailbox@environment-agency.gov.uk To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helen Jewell, and my guest today is Cath Brooks, senior engagement advisor with the Environment Agency. Welcome, Cath C.B Hi, yeah. Hi. How are you doing? Alright? H.J I'm good. How are you? C.B Yeah, good. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for inviting me. I'm Looking forward to it. H.J It's really good to have you on the podcast. Okay, so I have a whole load of questions to ask you, starting with the Environment Agency. I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about what the Environment Agency does and what your role is? C.B Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I hope that it'll inspire people. I've worked at the Environment Agency for almost 20 years, and I still absolutely love it. It's a great organisation. So we're a public sector organisation, and we aim, quite simply, to protect and improve the environment. We employ about 12,000 people, and some people work nationally across England, and then some people work in area offices. We've got 14 different area offices across England, so you either work on national issues or you work on local issues in one of our area offices. And I guess to create places for people and wildlife, we work on quite a lot of topics that people are deeply concerned about, and finding ways forward can be difficult on some of the issues, people have strong opinions about the environment and how we should be managing the environment quite rightly. So Facilitation skills are really important in that context, with some of the really difficult issues that we're managing. So some of those topics are things like managing major industry, making sure they're not polluting the environment, and waste, dealing with contaminated land, making sure water quality of our rivers and we've got enough water so water resources as well, working on fisheries, conservation and ecology, and my area that I work on is management of flood risk. So those sorts of issues are really interesting, and people have strong opinions about how we should be managing those issues. So there can be quite a lot of conflict, I guess, which is why facilitation is so important. H.J And so then, obviously that's quite a broad even under the umbrella of the environment, that's quite a broad range of different areas, and in your particular area then, in your role as senior engagement advisor, what does that actually involve? Sort of before, obviously, I guess facilitation is part of that, but I know you also do it sort of separately as well. What does your main role? What does your main role involve? C.B Yeah, so we've got engagement advisors. Obviously, the organisation's quite technical organisation, quite science and engineering led, but we also have engagement and communications experts within the Environment Agency, and I'm one of those. So I work alongside quite technical teams, and at the moment I'm working, I've worked in lots of different parts of the organisation, but at the moment I'm working in flood risk management, supporting our teams. I work nationally, and so supporting our national teams with big projects where there's, they're difficult topics, where people have strong opinions. And my job, my main job, is engagement planning. So we're whatever the project is thinking about what are our engagement aims? Why do we want to work with our stakeholders? Why do they want to work with us, making sure we're not just thinking from the perspective of the Environment Agency, my job is to help our staff to think about the impact it's going to have on on a range of stakeholders, and plan the best methods that we can for that particular project to work out, how can we get the best from our stakeholders? How can they get the best of us? How can we find solutions that work for all of us, not just for the Environment Agency? So we try to avoid taking what we've called in the past the 'decide, announce, defend approach'. My job is to help staff to be more, to sort of take a more 'engage, deliberate, decide', so to help have quality conversations about these difficult issues, really listen to our stakeholders, designing the right methods, really to help create that space for those quality conversations about what can be really difficult issues. And that's my job, is designing those sorts of engagement methods, if you like, and then facilitation sits really nicely alongside that. H.J And so when you do that facilitation, I as far as I understand, you're part of an internal facilitators network. How, how did that kind of come about? When was that set up? C.B Yeah, that's right. So when I joined the Environment Agency, back in 1996 we didn't have many people who worked in engagement roles or facilitation network. So we started really by setting up the engagement roles and setting up training for staff around comms and engagement and how to do that engagement planning like I've just talked about. And very quickly we realised actually there's another set of skills that that we need to develop as well, which is facilitation. So when you are designing methods that involve dialog, you know having facilitation skills, having skills to be able to design those interactive sessions in a way that you're making the most of that time when you've got your stakeholders in the room is really important. And it's quite a different skill, actually, than just engagement planning, being able to design a face to face or an online session where you've got people in the room making the very best of that time. So we're all really busy. Our staff are busy, our stakeholders are busy. So making the most of those opportunities, that's why we developed the facilitation skills courses. So first of all, we started off by getting some expert engagement professionals in to help us design facilitation courses that were for in-house facilitators. And then very quickly, and within about 18 months, we realised that people were going on the training, really enjoying the training, but then struggling to apply the training in their day jobs, because, you know, you could go a couple of months and not use it. And we very quickly realised that if you're going to facilitate, and you have to do it quickly, you have to do it very often, and you need, you need to support each other. So we set the network up to give people safe space to be able to facilitate internally. So to develop people's skills and create opportunities to be able to facilitate not in your day job. So that's why the network was set up, was to, so people could put forward a facilitation request and get someone who wasn't their day job, they went and practised their skill outside their day job, which, which means you can facilitate in a more pure way which was, which has been fantastic. It's, it's worked really well. H.J And I want to ask a little bit more about that, actually. But before I do, I just wanted to pick up on the differences between engagement and facilitation, and where you see the differences being? C.B yeah, I do think they're quite different skills. So I think being able to do good engagement planning across a project, you think we've got big projects that might go on for years, and they're quite technical. You need to understand the, you know, the technical context of that bit of work, what the business objectives are, what the engagement objectives are, what best methods we can apply, you know, to help people to engage with us, and for that to have an impact on on the decision making, that's quite different. You could do that, and then you can realise in that process, there's usually going to have to be some kind of series of face to face events. But the person doing that engagement planning might not necessarily have this skill to be able to run that face to face content, and sometimes actually, we do need a completely independent facilitator. So there might be a topic where we might have lost trust with some of our stakeholders, where it's not appropriate for the Environment Agency to facilitate those conversations and we do need an independent facilitator. And that is whether it's an in-house facilitator and an independent facilitator, being able to design that's more in depth, designing how to make the most of the conversation, how to create a space where people feel safe, to be able to air their concerns and feel listened to. I guess it's like engagement planning, but it's really specifically thinking about that particular conversation and what you want to get out of that conversation. So it's micro design, I guess, within a particular moment in time, and you might use that facilitator, or you might use a facilitator that then exits the process, whereas the engagement person stays throughout and they use the results of that conversation, and they kind of have to carry on, whereas a facilitator might just come in for that particular moment, then they might not be involved again. So they are quite different skills. H.J And so what determines how you choose a particular facilitator, be it an in-house one or an external facilitator. How does that process work? C.B Yeah, so we'd use an in-house facilitator for a process where, so quite often the engagement person needs to be, needs to participate in the conversation. And if the engagement person involved in that bit of work needs to be involved in the conversation, then they'd use an in-house facilitator to help make sure that, you know, they just come in, offer the service, create the space so that everyone in the team can participate. And often there's other people outside the team, you know, other stakeholders and things. And if the topic is not too controversial, it's all to do with positionality and trust and the way the Environment Agency is viewed. If there's good trust and good relationships between all the people, then an in-house facilitator can do that role. When I'm doing that, I upfront say, I work for the Environment Agency, but I'm not here today as someone who works in the Environment Agency, I'm here to facilitate and make sure you're heard. I'd work with all the different stakeholders before to make sure that the design was taken their, you know, that their needs into account. I wouldn't just turn up on the day, so do all the things that an independent facilitator. Obviously, we're a public sector organisation, so it has to make the most out of me as a facilitator and engagement expert. So I try and do that as much as possible. I'd only use an independent facilitator, which obviously costs us money as an organisation. We'd only do that in a situation where we genuinely needed that independence, and lots of reasons for that, but normally it's to do with trust and transparency and making sure that, you know, there might be awkward situations where things might have gone wrong in the past, and stakeholders would feel more comfortable if someone independent is facilitating, even just for a small period of time, just to help us through that. H.J And how many facilitators have you got as part of your network then? C.B Yeah, I knew you were going to ask, I think there's about 200 at the moment on the facilitation network. H.J Wow. Okay, and how do you manage that kind of balance of work in your, let's say, day job, versus facilitating for a different, a different project that you're not part of then? C.B Yeah so for me, I mean, we all do it differently. So we're allowed 11 development days a year. And so I use those Development Days aren't just, you just, don't just go on training courses and things. I use my Development Days to do independent facilitation for other people within the environment agency. So each quarter I have a maybe do one event per quarter for someone else, if it's a chunky event, because you need to do the planning for them, you need to facilitate and then help them with the results. So I think we all do that. We view it as part of our development, and we, you know, discuss it with our line managers and carve out time to go and do it. It's completely up to each individual facilitator to decide, and we have peaks and troughs in our work. If you're working on a project that had a lot of facilitation within that project, then you might not do any facilitation for anyone else in that quarter. But yeah, generally, people use their development time. H.J Okay. And what kind of facilitation do you particularly enjoy? C.B My favourite thing I've done in the last 12 months was when we were at the River Severn, when we did, when I have opportunities to facilitate with members of the public who are not part of the Environment Agency. And I was really fortunate, we were sort of testing a new methodology on the River Severn about adaptation pathways, they're called, so thinking about climate change and the impact of climate change, and we did something called Community panels, where we got members of the community. So an independent facilitator designed the process and needed some sort of support facilitators, and I acted as a support facilitator, and that was really, really fun. It's just a real privilege to be able to hear from members of the public who don't know anything about what the Environment Agency does, and yeah, to help them to have conversations about the environment and flood risk management, and their ideas were absolutely brilliant and really refreshing to hear. And that was, that was great, because most of my work is either internal or with partners that know the Environment Agency well. So that was something that was different for me and really stretched me as a facilitator, bringing together people that didn't know each other. We were doing it online, and, you know, I didn't know them, and it was, yeah, it was helping them to feel relaxed very quickly and heard, that was, that was really good. It was good for me as a facilitator. Good stretch. H.J Nice and how often, I guess, do you get to do something a little bit stretchy? Let's say that you actually learn from rather than, let's say a bit more day to day type stuff? C.B Probably only a couple of times a year, because it did take up quite a lot of time. It was four evenings and a whole day on a Saturday. So that's quite unique. But again, very much supported by the organisation, and was viewed as part of my development. And it was, it was a brilliant part of my development. It really blew the cobwebs off in terms of my facilitation skills. Took me out of my comfort zone, and it was really good. And I guess it would be easy not to do things like that, and it would be, you know, easier just to kind of do the day job. But where's the fun in that? You know, it really, it really helped me, and I took a lot from it back to the day job, and it reminded me about the importance of making sure people are comfortable and active listening. And it was good for me to hear how people view the Environment Agency, who don't know much about what we do. And so, you know, they came up with these brilliant ideas. Like, as an engagement person, I was able to come back in and sort of talk to people about so. But realistically, yeah, time wise, probably once or twice a year. H.J And how easy is it for you then to kind of just thinking about that there's different hats that you wear. How easy is it to be sort of, you know, independent facilitator versus engagement professional, and, you know, to kind of remember which hat you're wearing, I guess? C.B Yeah, it can be hard. I think when you're, we get quite embedded in the projects that we're working on. So I'm working on one really big project at the moment, and, you know, you have weekly calls within the technical team, and you become part of that technical team, and that's where it becomes hard to add value I think. When you're fresh and you go into a team, that's when you know you can sort of challenge in a really constructive way. So I think we just, yeah, I just I do, I need to have reflective conversations with people on a regular basis. So my manager is brilliant for that. She's quite sharp, she's really useful for me and sort of challenging me and making sure that I am still doing the job and not sort of just blending into that technical team.Because facilitators and consultants, the benefit of using independent facilitators is that they challenge on our cultural assumptions, and we have got a lot of cultural assumptions, and we do make a lot of decisions, which means that we probably sometimes can push engagement down the track a bit further than we should. So yeah, so that's it's difficult, but yeah, using, using my manager and and also independent facilitators, that's where they can really add value. I think when we're using them on projects, it's really having really useful conversations with independent facilitators about what I'm working on, and they can give really good advice and just keep you remembering about how to challenge teams in a constructive way. But it is quite tiring. I'm not part of that team. I am there to challenge constructively, and it, yeah, can be tiring, but it's, you do get a lot of rewards as well from it, but you're not part of that team. And that's, I guess that's a bit like what it's like as a consultant, is that you're not, you're not fully part of that team. You're there to kind of help them as a team, to work well together, but not necessarily be embedded within that team. H.J Which definitely has its pros and cons. So thinking about then, the kind of the learning, the development, the support that you have to work as a facilitator, what kind of opportunities? I know you said you have your development days, and that you use those to do facilitation. But what else are you able to do to kind of keep your skills up and to learn more? C.B So we get together as a network, so we have network learning days. So we've got one next Monday, so we run those about every six months where we get the whole network together face to face. We have network days more locally, like we, me and you run one in Bristol, which is really good. And the thing I love about the Bristol one that we do with the International Association of Facilitators is it's so refreshing for the Environment Agency, half the people that come are from the Environment Agency, and half the people that come are just independent facilitators doing all sorts of facilitation across all sorts of sectors, charity sectors, you know, finance sectors all around the world. You know, some of them work in Africa and all sorts of different places. And it's really exciting meeting, and really, really good for us to to be challenged and meet people that are doing facilitation in other places, and they you know that those days are brilliant, and although only a couple of hours, probably learn more in a couple of hours than you could learn, you know, in a whole day online and things and just little conversations and testimonials and, you know, different methods that people are testing out and what's gone wrong and what's worked well. That works really well. And the two day conference that the IAF run in April. So I went to the, I went to that for the first time two years ago, and I went last year as well. And then every year I'm bringing more and more people from the Environment Agency, because that's when I learn the most in the year is just immersing yourself in two days of just learning sessions and being exposed to people that are facilitating in really different contexts. But there's so much that we can learn from each other. So yeah, and just techniques that you just wouldn't even dream of, I just techniques that I wouldn't even dream of, you know, like last time I went, there was an amazing session about using your body and not talking, but just how you can just facilitate using movement and using your body and help with conflict resolution and different difficult conversations with people just using your body. It sounds really strange, but it was really amazing. It's really interesting. H.J I guess it's the same for for any of us that facilitate, we tend to do our particular thing, or even if you're an external independent facilitator, and even if you work across different sectors, you can get a little bit stuck in your own, you know, you have your preferred tools and techniques, and you use them again and again. And so any of those kind of days, you know, for me, definitely I learned so much and been to so many sessions where I think, oh, yeah, that's a thing, I've never thought about doing that. So it's definitely not just internal facilitators that have that, because I think the rest of us do as well. C.B Yeah, yeah, it's great, isn't it? It's amazing. Yeah. H.J It's really nice, the Bristol meetups you mentioned, I think that is a really nice mix of, I think it's about 50-50 split, internal and external. And I'm always amazed myself at the breadth of different types of facilitation, and the more you, you know, you talk about facilitation and what you can facilitate, you know, it's actually quite a huge array. The edges are very fuzzy, but it's really nice to see all those different methods and different conversations that we have together. C.B Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. H.J So thinking about the actual tools and techniques and all that kind of stuff, what's the one thing that you really, really love? I know you've talked about working with the public, what's the one methodology, perhaps, or tool that you really love using? Is there one or a few? Perhaps? C.B So I worked on a research project called 'adapting to a changing climate flooding coast'. It's like in difficult situations where flood defence is not the answer for lots of different reasons, but there's not a straightforward, this is how we're going to manage the problem. It was a really good opportunity to take ourselves out of our comfort zones and think, what methods within, with these communities could work? Because we've not got all the answers, actually. And so we developed some more conversation based techniques. And so we did role play simulation. I think when people say role play, everybody's like, Oh, but it's a 90 minute role play simulation where everybody gets a chance to hear different perspectives. And so that was a real privilege being involved in testing that and very emotional. So things like role play simulation and those sorts of techniques that support better quality conversations. I sort of we experienced a situation where people have been working together for years and years, like the local flood Action Group and local planners, our members of staff, and people got to the point where they didn't want to go to the meetings anymore, but because it was redesigned around this role play simulation, and they all went along and took on someone else's role for 90 minutes. At the end they, it was quite emotional, and people, I think, were able to empathise and stand in the shoes of I didn't realise I was making you feel like that. And it was a building block for completely redesigning how the different stakeholders then worked together, and then they got together after the role play simulation, said, What does this mean for the way we're going to work together in the future? And it was just, it was very powerful. It wasn't very long. It's only 90 minutes, like I said, but it was just the fact that it was like a key I suppose that sort of opened up people's eyes to realise that they'd all been exhibiting behaviours that were really unhelpful if they did genuinely want to find a way forward with each other and help each other out to find solutions. And also, everyone went to the pub afterwards, which I think also just really helped for them to see each other as human beings and to realise that it's not easy for people to just work in a professional role and take their hat off. We are all people and we, you know, we do really need to respect each other within conversations. And it was a yes, it was quite a simple technique. And in the past, I would have been one of those people as soon as you say role play simulation, I would have been one of those people that's really sceptical, but it's really changed my view on the power of standing in someone else's shoes and pretending you're that person and doing that in a safe space. So that in the last few years has probably been the technique that I think has been most powerful in helping people that are really stuck in positions and the meetings have become very adversarial and difficult, and where our staff don't want to go, the stakeholders don't want to come. You know, it's the worst situation that you sort of as a facilitator and engagement expert that you bump into more often than you'd like to. And it's trying to help people reset their relationships. And it was a really powerful technique. H.J Wow, it's good I guess that you have such a technique that you know definitely works in a given situation. And it sounds like those perhaps conflicting, difficult conversations do come up a bit, I guess, with the very nature of the work that you do. C.B Yeah, absolutely, yeah. H.J And do you get to kind of play around much with different tools and techniques? Because I presume you've got quite a lot of time pressure to actually do the facilitation and do all the rest of the work that you need to do. Do you often fall back on tried and tested things? C.B Yeah, absolutely, we absolutely do fall back on tried and tested things, especially when we're doing things in-house. I think if we were, if there was a situation like that, we would use an independent facilitator to come in and help us. Even if I was doing some of the design work, I would be working alongside an independent facilitator. Yeah, I haven't done any roleplay simulation without an independent facilitator. And I think that is really worth it, and it can make a massive difference. So yes, it's recognizing those situations, I think, where something's become unproductive and difficult, mental health wise, for everybody involved, and it is worth then the investment of we need to do something different here. So we do support those situations.Most of the time,yeah, we're just using run of the mill techniques, like we love online since covid, you know, lots of online workshops, mural boards, or, you know, whiteboards that sort of thing is our go to run of the mill. What we would use all the time, slido polls, things like that. Yeah, that's just the everyday stuff that we're doing. Although, like having to be very wary about not making assumptions about people's sort of not everybody's comfortable with using those, those sorts of techniques, you know. So having to remember that you do need, you do need to give people space to understand how to use the mural board. And I think people, yeah, so the mural boards and concept boards, whatever you use, they're brilliant, but you do have to always remember to do a little intro. It sounds really obvious, but otherwise, I think it can be a real barrier for people. Some people just don't know how to move the bits and bobs around, and just not getting too comfortable with whatever technique you're using, I think is really helpful. There's loads and loads of techniques, and I think one of my favourite ones that I learned at the last International Association of Facilitators is like the role play simulation is a difficult technique, like, as in, difficult to design, and you need to do loads of prep. But the really quick technique that I learned was called, 'I wonder if', and that was a really good technique, and it's just a different way of framing things so and that can be used at any moment with even within a meeting, you know, and that thinking about how you frame questions is maybe the, maybe the use of questions and how you frame questions is the most powerful tool that we've got as facilitators, in terms of, even within a session, that can make a real difference and turn a conversation around. H.J And I guess, particularly when you know you can't necessarily redesign a whole session each time for every piece of work you do, and sometimes, if it's about, perhaps just making those small changes, by asking those powerful questions then, and they get you the results, much easier to focus on doing something like that than thinking about sort of grand redesign and using all sorts of different tools and all the rest of it, which is nice, and I think does keep us kind of interested. But actually, there's a question about, I suppose, who are we doing that for? Are we doing that for us as facilitators, because it's interesting, or are we doing it for the participants? C.B Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I love a new technique. H.J I was gonna just a sort of extra question, really, about that online versus in person? What's the kind of balance? C.B Oh, yeah, like 95% online now, I would say. We've always been really careful, I think, as an organisation in when we get people together because of the carbon footprint. So, you know, ever since I joined the Environment Agency, there's, there's always, quite rightly, does this have to be face to face? Yeah, and we obviously use the trains and things like that. And, yeah, now is, since covid, I think it's, I guess, you know, we've realised the potential of online and invested in, you know, the government, just generally, I think, has invested more in sort of tools and techniques to help us as as people working for the government that to use those sorts of tools and techniques to have more effective online meetings. So the vast majority of the comms engagement work I do on projects is online workshops, rather than bringing people face to face. And that's a big change in the last five years, because when I was working on the National Flood and coastal risk management strategy four or five years ago, we did bring stakeholders together, at key points for face to face meetings. I think if we were doing that now, a lot of that would be online, so you still have, you still have meetings with people, but you know, they're virtual, which brings its opportunities and challenges. It's more inclusive for some people, because they don't have to travel. And, yeah, it's, but it's, there's something magical about having people in a room, and that's the bit you miss. H.J Yeah, definitely. I was going to just pick up on the challenges bit. So I've asked you about what you enjoy about facilitation, and you know, nice, all the nice stuff, but what are the main challenges of being an internal facilitator? C.B I think the main challenge is, I'm working on a project where, you know, where I'm always, whatever I'm working on, when you're working on the project, and you're part of the project team and you're the engagement advisor on it, how independent can you be? And that's a challenge. And so identifying when I need to bring in another in-house facilitator, or when I need to bring in an independent facilitator is really important, and I do, I do have to do that often on the big projects I work on. So, yeah, so that's that's a challenge, is recognizing when you need that and being able to see that far enough in advance so you know, so you can plan for that. And the other challenge, I think, is it's easy to get really busy on your day job and on your projects and that they are it is busy, and there is a lot to do,making space for me to go and be an independent facilitator for someone else, when you're really busy making space to do that as often as I can. Otherwise, I don't keep my skills fresh, and six months can go by and I realise I haven't gone and done something. I've done lots of facilitation, but I've not done anything for someone else that's completely independent of my day job. And so that's what I have to check myself on, is making sure that I am, I am still doing that, and when I do it, it's so brilliant. And that's when, like I said earlier, that's when you get taken out of your comfort zone of facilitator, which is what sharpens us up, I think. Because facilitation is hard, it is it's exhausting, but it's brilliant as well, when you have those magic moments, when people have understood, you know, understood each other better, and you've helped, by the way, you've designed that meeting and created that space. You've helped people to move forward more in a more positive way, and that's worth it. H.J Definitely. That's a definite similarity. I think, you know, as external facilitators, exactly the same. Well, certainly for me, you know, it's that feeling, I guess when you've you've done something right, you know it's gone well. And you know that people have come to a good place at the end, it's like, yes. Nice, big glow. C.B Yeah, ready for my Mars bar at the end. H.J Yeah. And so, I guess, last question really is, what advice would you give to anybody else that is working as an internal facilitator. Any words of wisdom? C.B Yes, I would say, keep taking opportunities for training, because I think formal training has its place. And I think going and doing more formal training, it's easy to sort of just do your training initially and then never do any more formal training. I think formal training has its place as facilitators. So going and regularly doing formal training. Definitely mixing with other facilitators who are not part of your organisation. So the International Association of Facilitators provides that perfect opportunity in April. It's you know, and so if you're able to go along, even if it's just for a day, not the whole thing, I think that's really helpful. And then the last thing is, as often as you possibly can, is to facilitate outside of your day job. And I know that's difficult, it's difficult to make the time, but that is, I think, where you'll build your confidence as an independent facilitator. And getting, you know, getting feedback, I guess, is the last bit that links to that other one. So yeah, that's the things I would encourage people to do. H.J Brilliant. Thank you. It's been brilliant to talk to you today, and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and bits and pieces about all of your experience and all the stuff you love about facilitation. C.B Thank you too. H.J So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of facilitation stories, the community podcast of IAF, England and Wales N.W If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved, all of the links are on our website. Facilitationstories.com H.J And to make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use? N.W We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas. So is there a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to? H.J Or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about? N.W Send us an email at podcast@IAF-Englandwales.org . H.J We hope you'll join us again soon for more facilitation stories. N.W Until then, thank you for listening.

In this episode Nikki talks to Claire Pearce about Journaling and Writing. Claire is a writer and facilitator who runs journaling and writing workshops and she also has her own radio show. They talk about: Why Journaling is a powerful too that facilitators could use themselves; "Externalising the internal is probably my favourite expression to describe it" Claire's journey with journaling and how it has changed for her; How to start journaling and writing regularly; "I think just start really small is my main bit of advice" How Journaling can be applied in facilitation work with groups; " It's kind of like whatever people share they're ultimately sharing something about being human" The writing activities that Claire uses in facilitation; Facilitation tools and frameworks such as the GROW model. A full transcript is below. Links Today's guest: http://ClairePearce.uk To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter: Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team: Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript N.W Hello, and welcome to facilitation stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Nikki Wilson and today I'm going to be talking to Claire Pearce. So welcome, Claire. C.P Hello, Nikki, thank you for having me. N.W No problem. So first of all, um, could you tell us a little bit more about you and what you do? C.P Okay, so I do lots of things, which I've, I've begun to reconcile myself with. So in terms of journaling, and writing, I run journaling and writing workshops. One workshop I do is more about just writing for fun. And I call it writing for fun, even though it's sort of morphed out of journaling, I'm using prompts and things to get people just to write freely and have a bit of fun with it, and see where their pen goes, which is great for if people are sort of blocked or just want to have a bit of fun writing, heaven forbid. And then the other leg is more sort of self help, I suppose. So I do a monthly workshops that has a theme, like in January, I always do my, what's your theme workshop? So what's your theme for the year? So we reflect back and we look forward and sort of develop a theme or get to something near a theme. So it's that kind of thing. So there's the two different kinds. But yes, they are all with the idea of getting people writing because fundamentally, whether you write, journal or something in between, it's all good for you. At least it is for most people. N.W And beyond that, obviously, I know you also as a facilitator. So is there anything else that you want to say about your facilitation? C.P I guess, yeah, I do freelance research work. I really enjoy it. I love sort of learning about something completely new, kind of going, Oh, wow, this is interesting. And yeah, so I do that as well. And I do do an odd bit of coaching. And I do have my own radio show. But that is obviously a voluntary,not obviously. But it is a voluntary thing that I do, because I love it. What else Oh, and I write, I've written a few books, I'm writing a few more. And I'm just getting into copywriting. It's going to be another string to my bow, because I've realised I really enjoy it. So yes, lots of things, I'll probably be something else the next time I speak to you. N.W I know that's that feeling Claire, don't worry. But today, we are going to be talking about journaling and writing.Both are something that facilitators might do on a personal level, also as an approach that we could use with groups. So thinking first of all about on an individual level, what is it that you feel makes journaling and writing so powerful? C.P Externalising the internal is probably my favourite expression to describe it. And that's exactly what it does. And you know, I'm trying to find a way to capture that thing. You know, when people say a problem shared is a problem halved or whatever , there's something so true about that. And whilst it's not as powerful as speaking to a person, because that is the ultimate, you know, if you're struggling with something, or even if you just want to offload doing it with another person, there is something about the energy, I think, that passes out of you to somebody else that's different than if you write it down. But writing it down is the next best thing. And you can do it 24/7, because you've always got a pen and a piece of paper to hand. So you're not having to rely on it, I suppose it is a bit about self reliance, probably a part of my own personal journey with it. But yeah, just getting stuff out so that you can see it in a different way, you get a different perspective. And yeah, it just makes you feel better. And you can, you know, see things that you wouldn't have thought if you had just kept it in your head, you know, it stops the spin cycle. It helps you get a bit of respite, if you know if something is whizzing around in your head like that tumble dryer type effect. It gives you a bit of respite from that. And like I say, you look at it, and you get some different perspective. And just the energy of writing it, getting it out of you releases something, I think. N.W Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. Listeners won't know but I'm a regular in your workshops, and really kind of learned the power of journaling over the past year and a half, two years. I think there's also something about the kinds of patterns spotting where I've probably identified things that come up again and again and again. And I have no idea that they were quite so regularly going to be coming up, you know, like, I knew that they'd been niggling away for a while. But when I look back, I think, oh, you know, how is that theme or things related to it continue to resurface, then there's a chance to kind of dig deeper into that. C.P And also, depending on how you use journaling, and like you say, if you're the sort of person who will look back and reflect over a period of time, there's so much you can learn. You know, you can see you're likely to see themes and recurring patterns and recurring dynamics and start to see, oh, there's a one common thing here and that's me. So it's not saying everything's my fault, but it's starting to see that there's something about the way I'm reacting or creating something, you know, that is relevant. And yeah, but there's, there's so many benefits, we could spend probably hours talking about all the benefits. N.W And so I mean, what's been your own journey with journaling? Have you always journaled or is it something that you've particularly found that has evolved over recent years? C.P It's definitely evolved. I probably started journaling properly about, I'm gonna say 10 years ago, without overthinking it too much. But I was in therapy at the time. And my therapist recommended, it was called something like freeform writing for therapeutic something another at the Gestalt centre. I think she still runs it, actually. And I thought, Oh, she's just trying to get a course out of me. I was quite cynical, honestly, because I just thought, oh, writing is not my thing. Because my sister was always the writer and I was more sort of arty, whereas we've swapped which is really interesting over the years. So I went to this writing thing, thinking a bit, feeling a little bit. And I absolutely loved it. And I use some of what I experienced in that workshop as my inspiration for the way I run workshops, because there's a lot of pair work, and it's all about just getting stuff down and sharing it because we're all the same underneath. We've all got the same neuroses and anxieties, and, you know, hopes and dreams, you know, we're not as different as we think we are. And when you share with people, which is what I do in my workshops with the journaling, it's amazing how people connect, and it's almost like I can, I can see the relief sometimes with people where they're like, oh, it's not just me, you know, whatever it is. Sorry, back to my journey. So yeah, I did that a weekend and I just loved it. I made everybody I knew do writing with me, free writing, I suppose, essentially where you just let go into the pen and just keep going. And then I started the workshops. But yeah, so on a personal level, it was just that weekend, the stuff you know, and I always talk about stuff with a little asterisk, which is just all the pent up, unprocessed, unfelt, unacknowledged feelings, emotional responses, you know, all this stuff in me that had nowhere to go, I didn't even know it didn't have anywhere to go. But I realised during that weekend of writing, it's like oh wow there's stuff that needs to come out here. It was really dark. And there was a lot of swearing, and but it was all, you know, you could kind of just go for it. And I really got into it after that. So I'd say that was you know, I had a diary when I was a kid. But it was so dull. I kept one page of it just to remind me how dull it was. I had tea, I went to bed, went to school. It was so dull, I didn't get it. So yeah, and like you say, evolve it, you know, it has really evolved my journaling. And funnily enough, recently, I was reflecting, I haven't journaled anywhere near as much in the last year or so, but I've written a lot more. And I've sort of realised that my journaling has more evolved into writing. So I get the same, I think I get the same thing out of writing that I did out of journaling, it has definitely changed over time. Yeah. N.W And so for any facilitators listening who haven't tried journaling before, or perhaps are doing it but aren't aware they're doing it, what would you suggest in terms of getting started, you know, just having a go? C.P Well if they're doing it, and they're not aware they're doing it, then they don't need to do anything, I'd say. It doesn't really matter, I don't think what you call it. If you, if people haven't tried it, there's a few ways in, one of them is just to pick a, first of all, pick a time that works for you, don't try and do it, don't sort of fall into that, oh, I should be able to get up in the morning and at least do half an hour, you know, that never works. So find a time that works for you. It could be on the hoof, you know, it could be like five minutes at lunchtime if you have a lunchtime. So just a time that works for you, just pick you know, think tomorrow when is going to be a good time and pick that moment. And then just write for five minutes. Maybe just write about how the day has been so far. Just just to get started. I mean, a really good prompt is "I noticed" and Nikki, you would have heard me use that before in workshops. But it's a really interesting one because it's completely different. If you just write what did I do today, or it brings up completely different things I notice. So I noticed as a good prompt, I guess it depends what people want to get out of it. Because I'd say whilst ultimately just pick up a pen and write some stuff down. If you're wanting to journal in a way like you do, where you write over a period of time and then you review back and you're looking to learn about yourself or you know your habits, how you do things and learn about where you can make your life easier, really, I'm not going to say improved because I think we're all fine just as we are. But then that's a very different. You might want to be a bit more regular and a little bit more, I'm going to leave it for a month and then I'm going to look back and see what's there. Personally for me, the journaling I've done the most is what I call medicinal journaling, which is basically in the moment. So if you're feeling stressed or anxious or angry, anything that's a bit difficult. I mean some people find excitement difficult so let's throw that in there as well. You know that in the moment ,what's going on? Why am I feeling anxious? Sometimes we don't know. So that's when I am most likely to pick up my journal or get my phone out if I'm out and about and type, you know, just type it in and just describe it. You know, where is it in your body, how you feeling? What's going on? Just what's going on in your life because it can be so obvious sometimes, but you don't see it always. But when you start writing it down, it will pop up. And you'll go, Oh, yes, that's what this is about. So that's really helpful to know. Because then you can do something about it. So medicinal. But then, you know, I say that I started doing that after I had journaled more regularly. So maybe, maybe it's not easy to start with that? I don't know. But yeah, I think it does depend on what you want to journal for. But yeah, I think just start really small is my main bit of advice, because if I had a penny for everybody who said, I can do at least half an hour, and I can get up a bit earlier, that's not much to ask, well, but it's the same with any habit and you don't do it, you might do it for a few days, but then you'll stop. And then you'll feel bad because you've stopped and then you won't do it again. So start with a minute, you know, literally just go a minute in the morning and just go, how am I feeling today? Just name it. N.W And I think there's definitely something powerful about getting started as well, actually finding the minute to put the pen to the page, sometimes it then becomes an hour and you hadn't realised, but you would never have intentionally carved out an hour to do it. It's just that once it starts Oh, I can't stop now, maybe that's just me, but. C.P Yeah, no, that's absolutely what happens. But if you said, you said I'm going to do an hour, you'd be like, Oh, God, I don't want to do that. That's too much. I've got too much to do, blah, blah, blah. N.W And so thinking more about our roles as Facilitators, and working with groups, I mean, obviously, you've you've mentioned pair work already. But often we're in a situation where we're trying to get people to talk to each other and to interact better. So with that in mind, why would you encourage Facilitators to consider bringing writing activities into a group situation? C.P Well, I guess the most obvious place, I would think it would be a great thing would be in a sort of icebreaker context. Because I just think, you know, I've been on lots of workshops, and I've run lots of workshops. And you know, and, and so is everybody listening to this, and so have you, you know, and good ice breaking is so powerful, can change the whole session, whatever, whatever it is. And for me, when people turn up, one of my favourite exercises is what I call 'The Whine Bar', which I think you've done, which is just to have a good moan and a good whine about anything in your life, just get it all out. Because I think this is half the problem. We don't allow ourselves to be honest, even with ourselves. And I think journaling has really helped me with that actually going back to your earlier question. So really kind of just getting stuff out. So that's a nice thing to do. Because it just allows people, it's kind of going you're allowed to be human here, I think, I mean I didn't plan it. I didn't think about it before I did this exercise. But on reflection, I think that's part of it. So it's a real, you're allowed to be human, you're allowed to moan. Doesn't mean you're gonna dwell in it for the rest of the session or whatever, but you're just allowed to get it out. And then by putting people in pairs to share, and I always invite people to either share what they wrote, or just talk about how it was because not everybody wants to do that, obviously. And there's just, I think it's, there's just something magical that happens, because when people come back, and I see their faces in person as well, people have such an energy, most, you know, 99% of the time. And you can see they shared something with their fellow human being. Even I mean, I don't know, because I don't get to hear what people say to each other. But it's just that humaneness. It's kind of like whatever people share they're ultimately sharing something about being human, whether it's like, oh God, I felt like it was, like I say, so it's that whole it wasn't just me that, you know, is crazed about the election, or, you know, whatever, or that feels like I'm gonna lose my mind on a daily basis, or whatever it is. And that privacy of the pair, which again, I know, I don't need to tell this to this audience, because you'll all know about, you know, the individual, you know, if you put people in threes, they just won't share as much and somebody could still not talk. Whereas pairs, people have to say something, even if it's, I don't want to say anything. And there's something about that that's liberating. It's kind of like, Yeah, you don't have to fine. So I just, yeah, like I say, when I see those faces, when people come back, it's a beautiful thing. And, and they've just shared something more than, you know, knocking about an idea. And I don't think there's any context that is out of bounds for that, I guess, if you're dealing with people, maybe where people are struggling with mental health, for example, if you knew, if it's an explicit situation where that's being talked about or worked on, I guess you would kind of maybe approach it slightly differently. I probably still do the same kind of thing, but maybe in a slightly different way. But so I think it's really powerful for that and as we work through a workshop, you know,it just continues to do that same thing. People are seen and heard, you know, and people can go a whole year without being seen and heard and you know, immediately even if it's irrelevant to the topic, I think that's the thing as well. It's just the magic of that being seen and heard and listened to and witnessing somebody else, you know, you get to witness somebody else and realise, again, that we're all human and flawed, worried we're getting it wrong, desperate to get it right, all of that nonsense, you know, we realise that it's not just us. N.W What is it you say about kind of starting that with some writing rather than just saying, you know, have a good whine to your partner, whatever? What is it about the writing part of it that you think particularly allows for those, that kind of opening up? C.P Yeah, that's a good question. So I think when you write stuff down, you can just be much more honest than if you were speaking out loud. You know, if I asked you a question, and you gave me the answer, or I said to you write down what you think about, you're going to be much more, again, 99%, the time you're going to be, everyone's going to be much more honest, in what they write down on a piece of paper, because it's private, it's for them. And I always say to people, you know, write it for yourself, first decide afterwards, if you want to share any of it or not. So it is it's that honesty, it's that, you know, and I can still, I can still edit myself and journal. And I think we might have even had this conversation, but it's still possible to completely be editing yourself, but to suddenly realise I'm still editing what I think and what I'm allowed to say. And journaling does give you that freedom and just think you're gonna, you're going to be more honest. And then when you share it, you're more likely to sort of take a bit of a risk. And people are often quite surprised by what they write down, things that they haven't seen will come out. So people want to share that, they want to go Oh, God, I can't believe I wrote that. I can't believe that, I thought I dealt with that thing. But here it is. And it's, they want to share what surprised them, I think. N.W And so you've talked about the wine bar,as a kind of opener activity. What other sort of favourite activities do you have that you use with groups? C.P Well, as you well know, 'what does the radiator think?' is probably my favourite, which is where we use dialoguing, which is a journaling technique. It's so powerful and maybe you can say something about your experience. So let's say we've just written about, let's go to the New Year workshop, and you've just written about the year gone by and reflected on this that and the other. And then I'll invite you to sort of go pick an object, and I'm sitting here looking and there's, I'm at my friend's house, he's got lots of gold animals. That's a whole nother story. Anyway, there's a golden parrot sitting there on this lamp, you know, and I might choose, you know, you just pick an object that you kind of are drawn to. And then I'll say right now what does the parrot think about what you've just written. So now I write as if I'm the parrot having just observed me writing about what I've just written about. And it just you have to try it if you're listening, because it's just endlessly useful. And you could literally, every object in your room, every inanimate object in your room, a door, a lamp, ironing board, it doesn't matter what it is, but you'll get something different from each of those things. And a good example of that, is when people pick plants, or trees or flowers, they tend to have like a nurturing voice. So it accesses this nurturing part of them that is always there. Of course, it's always there, but they wouldn't have found that bit of them in another way. I mean, there probably are other ways to find that, but it's just a really quick and easy way. So people will be giving themselves this amazing advice that's going to help them from a plant sitting on their desk. And then they're kind of going oh yeah, I can do this for myself, you know, and it's, it's so powerful. And the perspectives that one gets, I mean, a really good example of this, and it might be a little bit personal, but it was so good that I just have to share it. So I have this whole fantasy family where and it's a really good thing to do for journaling actually where you just pick people who would be your ideal uncle or your ideal grandparents or whatever, cousin ,second cousin, I've got a whole load. And that's just a fun thing to do anyway, it's like a game I made up one Christmas I think just like fantasy family, who would they be? And then I've a few times I've used them in journaling as another dialoguing thing because obviously you don't know those people but you know if you've picked somebody you're familiar with. So Charles and Caroline from Little House on the Prairie are my fantasy parents, probably everybody's fantasy parents assuming people know who they are. So the other day I was really struggling, I've, you know, we've all got these situations where it's just there's no easy answer sometimes and you have to sort of accept there's nothing I can do about this right now. I just have to be within. So I wrote to Caroline and Charles. So what should I do, like what I didn't really say that much about the situation but what should I do? And they replied, and Caroline just went,the mother obviously, she just went go lie down dear, go upstairs and lie down for a bit. Just forget about it. And I was and I know that sounds so simple, because I've had much more complicated and fascinating dialogues with characters but it was exactly what I needed. I just needed to be told just stop, just stop. And that was the end of that conversation. I didn't need anything else. It was like, oh, yeah, and it was so, so useful. So it's just got so many potential uses from something, you know, like that to, to getting the radiator to say to you, you know, you're over worrying about this, just get a grip. Or, whatever it is, you know. And in fact, what was it the other day? Oh, it was something Yeah, it was the radiator. It was something about that the radiator was saying, you know, I'm stuck here on the wall, I can't do anything, I can't go anywhere, but you can, but you feel the same as me. And you know, something like that. It's just kind of like Oh god yeah, there's a real, it really helps to pin down that feeling. Obviously, you can relate that into whatever your session is about. You can play around with it. Let's say you're facilitating something about a strategy for a business, you know, you can ask the business what it thinks. So you could get everybody to talk about it, write about it, whatever about it, and then go right now think about the business, the product, what does the product think, and again, the stuff that can come out of that just can be amazing. So it's got no bounds, that exercise and I will never tire of talking about how fabulous it is. N.W In fact, some listeners, if they were there, might remember the very first time I encountered that specific exercise was in an IAF conference workshop. C.P Oh, yes. N.W We were in the depths of lockdown. C.P Yes, we were. N.W My lovely radiator was very kind to me and said, you know, that it could see me kind of struggling away being stuck on my own computer. And you know, all of the different things I was doing. And I mean, it sounds, it feels crazy to talk about it in this way. But I would say that it just gave that different perspective. And I think one of the things that I do more regularly, like one of the activities I would do in journaling, is more of a kind of dialoguing now, but it's even more like a conversation with myself. So I'm imagining there's somebody else there going, So why is that? You know, could you tell me a bit about that? You know, again, it sounds like talking to yourself, but C.P It kind of is? Yeah, it kind of is really it's kind of, but it's a much more sort of constructive way to talk to yourself. N.W Yeah and to work through things I think as well. Like it's progressive, isn't it, it helps me certainly get out of a loop. And I can imagine, as you said, in a business scenario, or you know, work scenario, you can get quite entrenched in your own role in something and actually pulling in that different perspective and going, you know, what does the customer think? What does the factory think? Whatever it is just kind of shakes that up a little bit. Okay. So then, I mean, we've talked quite a lot there about different things that a facilitator could do to introduce some writing into their workshops. Have you got any sort of thoughts or advice on how to convince clients that it's a good idea? You know, if you've got any suggestions for that? C.P Do you mean in terms of a proposal for a workshop? N.W Yeah, like giving an outline or getting people to buy into it once you're in, in that scenario? C.P But well I think that I'm not sure I'm gonna cleanly answer this question. But I can tell you that if you're in the situation, and you're already there, it's kind of, I mean, again, I think the whole, you know, I've read quite a lot about sort of with mental health and writing and well being and that kind of thing. And you do have to be a bit more careful. But I think as long as you name everything, it's fine. But I did a team building workshop with some pharmaceutical sales reps who were not impressed when it was announced that I was there to do some writing journaling with them, there was lots of folded arms. And it was quite a scary looking room. But I thought, Well, I haven't got anything else so this is what we're doing. And when it just does the work for you, you know, even the first exercise I just said to them, just write about everything you've done to get here this morning. And they were literally all of them didn't stop the pen moving. And I think that's an interesting point, actually, that people who don't normally reflect or don't normally write either or tend to take to it easier, because there's nothing in their way. Whereas you'll find people who write, if you had a group of writers in the room, they'll struggle much more with it from my experience, because they're worried about how they write, they're thinking more about what they're writing and how they're writing it, versus just getting stuff out. So that's an interesting thing to think about. But I still think just sort of go for it. But yeah, they, you know, their reflections and of course, again, I put them in pairs and this was the first just the first thing I did after lockdown in person. And you know, just them getting together in person talking about, you can feel the energy in the room that they just you have to take a leap I think with it sometimes because you're not gonna get people's buy in and people aren't gonna go Oh, yes, please I'd love to do that. It's like, Just do it. And then see what happens. And yeah, there's no situation I dont think I wouldn't do it. And I realised I forgot what your question was. N.W It was just more about convincing clients as well. Like if they give an outline, this is what we're going to be doing. How would you propose, particularly if they'd said we want everyone to talk to each other lots. And intuitively, you might assume that if say everyone's writing, they're not really interacting, but you know, we've discussed that a bit, but how? C.P Well I guess it is that isn't it, it's like you're gonna get everybody's voice heard in the room guaranteed because you're gonna, A, like we were talking about earlier, they're going to be more honest, when they write stuff down, then when they share, they're going to probably say something slightly different, that's more connecting, not necessarily, but they might, and everybody's voice will be heard, you know, not necessarily by the whole room. But again, when I've done workshops, you know, with some very quiet people, what's brilliant is, is when you come back from a pair, I'm thinking particularly about zoom here, I guess, because I've done more of it in the last few years. And then people will speak for the other people, they'll say, oh, so and so wrote this really interesting thing about such and such, and that person would have never necessarily volunteered to have it. But that person then will share for them and, and you can see, they're quite happy for that to happen. I mean, I guess this could happen that somebody wasn't happy, but I've never seen that happen. So I think that guaranteed to get voices heard for people to open their mouths and speak words, you know, and be involved and get them involved, right from the get go to me would be, that's, that's the thing I would try and sell. But if I felt like they were going to be resistant, I probably just call it something else and not go into detail about what it was, you know, just call it something innocuous and then bust it out when you get there. N.W And are there any sort of facilitation tools or frameworks that you think can particularly work well, with journaling and writing activities kind of built into them? C.P Yeah, well, I think so I have done coaching and I've used journaling, slash writing with coaching and that you can you know, the GROW Model, obviously, the most straightforward of all the coaching models and people know that model, you can sort of follow that with a situation. So that's how I'm going to self coach myself, that's sort of my go to, apart from medicinal journaling I talked about earlier. So literally, with the GROW, so goal, you know, it's like, what, what's the situation you're in? What do you want to happen? write about that, then the reality bits really interesting, because you can look back at what you've written, and kind of go through and go, Well, what's actually real here? What's my assumption? What, what's my generalisation? What's my judgement I'm making, in what I've just written? And that again, you can see that much easier than if you try and just say it or think it, you know, you just can't separate it out in that way. And normally, by that point, to be honest, I know, in my experience, and I know other people's as well, you already know what you need to do before you've even got probably even sometimes to reality. So that model is quite good. And then of course, if you do carry on options, you can write about options, you can ask the radiator, or whatever it is you choose, in that moment. The problem itself, ask the problem itself, what it would do?, you know, again, using those sorts of things for the options, and then the what's next, obviously, you just have to pick that. But so I guess in a coaching way that model, but you can pretty much use it with any model, I think, to be honest, because you just instead of talking about or brainstorming or whatever, you can just insert the writing where you would put brainstorming or just getting down the facts of the situation, you know, that people are in so. N.W Great well, thank you so much Claire . I think that's probably the sort of end of my questions, and I have to kind of curve myself otherwise, I could keep asking all day, which as you know, I'm quite prone to doing. But if anyone who's been listening would like to find out more about your work or get in touch with you, what's the best place that they can do that? C.P ClairePearce.uk. So it's CLAIRE, and then Pearce is PEARCE .uk There's no code it is specifically just UK. I've got two names that need spelling out, which is unfortunate. I have thought about changing my name but. N.W That would be extreme. C.P Anyway, that's where you know, my email is and all of that stuff. N.W And thank you again, it's been really great to chat to you today. C.P No problem. It's been a pleasure. And I hope some of that was useful for people and I'm very happy to answer people's questions if they want to ask me anything about it. Outro H.J So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of facilitation stories, the community podcast of IAF England and Wales. N.W If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved all of the links are on our website facilitationstories.com H.J And to make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use. N.W We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas. So is there a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to? H.J Or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about. N.W Then send us an email at podcast@IAF-EnglandWales.org H.J We hope you'll join us again soon for more facilitation stories. N.W Until then, thank you for listening.

This episode is one of our quarterly "Chapter Chats" where the team talks to leaders of other IAF Chapters. In this episode Helene and Nikki chat to Sara Tremmi Proietti and Andrea Panzavolta from IAF Italy. They talk about How the chapter began in 2013 and the successive leaders since then; Initiatives to extend the reach of the chapter in Southern Italy: The co-leadership model used for the past two leadership terms; "Our jobs are a little bit different. So it's very interesting because we see things from very different perspectives. And this is also always very, very rich, and something that I really, really recommend" (Sara on co-leading with Giacamo) The Chapter's Annual Conference- its volunteer-led model and support provided to people who'd like to run a session; Working collaboratively with other Associations in Italy; Twinning with other IAF chapters including Romania and Syria; Plans and aspirations for the future of the Chapter; "we would like the chapter to be a point of reference at the national level for organisations who are seeking facilitator facilitation services or just want to learn something more about it" A full transcript is below. Links Today's guests: Sara Tremmi Proietti: saratremmiproetti@gmail.com IAF Italy website: https://iaf-italy.org/ IAF Italy email: italy@iaf-world.org Today's subject LinkedIn Article about Co Leadership by Andrea and Deborah: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stepping-leadership-iaf-story-deborah-rim-moiso-fmdwf/ To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. I'm Helene Jewell (HJ) and N.W I'm Nikki Wilson (NW) H.J And this episode is one of our quarterly Chapter Chats, where we talk to people leading other chapters in the IAF global community. We ask them about how they see the status of facilitation, where they are, and the history, priorities, current projects and aspirations of the chapter. Today, we're joined by Andrea Panzavolta (AP) and Sara Tremmi Proietti (SP), co chairs of IAF Italy, welcome. S.P Thank you, Helene. A.P Thank you so much for the invitation and also for your perfect pronunciation. H.J Thank you so welcome to you both. And to start off with, we would like to know a little bit more about both of you and about the kind of work you do. So if you could tell us a bit about yourselves, that would be great. S.P Thank you Helene. Okay, so my name is Sara, and I live in Rome, which is in centre of Italy. I have been working in public administration for over 10 years now, and for the past three years, I've been drawn to the world of facilitation, first attending a course and then starting to work also in in this field, public administration, I focused initially on economic programming, but then I turned more on teams like innovation and process optimization. So that's how I met facilitation, because during an office reorganisation attempt, we met a lot of conflicts and resistances and difficulties with our team. And so I understood that I needed to, you know, to discover and to learn something more about people, about relation, about group working. So that's how I met it and how I am. A.P So may I introduce myself, and first of all, thank you for the invitation and for this amazing initiative, because I also listened to the past podcast and were very, very, very well done. I'm not the actual chapter leader. I was the past chapter leader with Deborah Rim Moiso. So thank you also, Sarah, who invited me to join you. And I'm an urban planner and the facilitator, of course, our 20 years that I practise as a facilitator. I'm a founder of the formative collective, that is a project that focuses on the team of non violent communication. And of course, we use the participatory techniques, methods. And I was awarded with the Platinum Award 2020 by the International Association of Facilitator. So I'm very proud about this, in a project that I follow it by region Emilia-Romagna, that is my region in the north of Italy, and the team was about the Community of Practice on participatory policy making. So that's all for me. H.J Thank you. Really interesting to hear how you both got into facilitation and congratulations on your award too, Andrea. A.P Thanks so much. It's a past award. N.W Great. So today we're going to be talking about IAF Italy, which we know had its 10 year anniversary last year. So what can you tell us about how it started and how the chapters developed over that 10 year period? A.P Yeah, thank you for the question Nikki .The Italian chapter born in 2013 on the initiative by Giancarlo Manzone and Gerardo de Luzengerger that I imagine you know very well. And from 2019 to 2021 was coordinated by Paola Martinez. That is another IAF member, very active. And since May 2021, has been coordinated by me and Deborah Rim Moiso. And now the coordinators are Sara Tremmi Proietti and Giacomo Petitti. And the chapter started to create collaboration between facilitators, and mainly to explain what the facilitator do. At that time nobody in Italy know the term, the word facilitator. And I was scared to present me as a facilitator, because nobody, nobody could understand what I did. So this is our first mission in that time. H.J Thank you. Really interesting. Sorry, Sara, did you have something to add? S.P Yeah, I would like to, just to add that the professional facilitator now it's spreading a little bit more in Italy, but still, we have a lot of resistance among organisations. And there is a great concentration of facilitators in the north of the country. So we are our initiative now is also to bring facilitation to the southern regions of the country. And we are quite pleased about an initiative that came from our members, which is a small initiative, because they just decided to have a WhatsApp chat called like facilitators from the South. And the nice thing is that this initiative came from a Canadian girl, who is a member who lives now in the south of Italy, and but, and she's a member of IAF Italy, and she formed this WhatsApp chat, and we are quite proud of this, even if this is a small step, but it does mean something for us. H.J Wow, that's so interesting. And also that kind of organic movement of yeah, people starting up their own, yeah? Well, WhatsApp chat S.P Exactly, exactly, yeah. H.J And I think what's interesting actually for us is, the more we do these Chapter Chats, we hear a bit of a consistent theme, actually, in this people don't really know what facilitation is. That certainly, when we spoke to Bogdan from IAF Romania, that was one of the things he was talking about as well. So it's definitely and in the UK. So it's definitely not, uh, not something, uh, specific to where we are, which is interesting. Okay, so, um, thinking then, uh, well building a bit on what you were saying, Sara about, you know, you've got some new initiatives. Can you tell us a bit more about the chapter as it is today? S.P Yeah, sure. So the chapter today has about 30 to 35 members, as I was saying before, with the predominance in the north of Italy. So it's like 20 to 22, members in the north, and four of them are certified facilitators. So now we still have two co-leader, a co-leadership. It's me and Giacomo Petitti. We have been holding this role for a year now, so it's midterm kind of. And what we do is we basically carried on the work, the job that was began by Andrea and Deborah, because we hold monthly meetings. So it's pretty regularly. It's like the third Monday of each month we meet. And we also provided IAF Italy with a Zoom account so that we can, we could, uh, ensure you know this regularity. And this is a place, this is a moment of the month where people can meet and discuss and also participate in building and nourishing the community and to identify together goals and activities. So we wanted to be a participated chapter, no. So since we are kind of scattered among, you know, along the country, across the country, we cannot hold, like in person events so frequently. So we have our national event, which is held in Milan every year. So we keep it, you know, online, mainly. And then we we have, like, some activities, like, you know, things that we participate in, in events with other association for the promotion of the participation, or for the promotion of facilitation as well. Like, we went to an event last September in Bologna. So we travel a little bit, me and Giacomo sometimes. And then to, you know, to keep up with members, we have this WhatsApp chat, and then we have a sort of newsletter. We can call it like monthly, where we give, we keep them updated to with the international events and initiatives that are going on into the IAF Ward and yeah and that, that's pretty much it. And then we have, you know, like a specific also, activities that we were following, but maybe Andrea will tell you more later about it. N.W And you touched on the kind of Co-leadership model that you follow. What do you, have you found works well in making that work when you're co leading? A.P Yes, before the 2021 the chapter had always been led by an individual, but when Gerardo asked me to became the chapter leader, I was very scared. And in that period I had less time to dedicate to the association. So I asked to Deborah Rim Moiso to help me, and she joined, and she was very happy to join this experience. And we together were inspired by experiments in Co-leadership adopted by the global ecovillage network and and we not, we're not sure, but they may have too been inspired by the Kurdish democratic and federalism practices. So this was our approach, and it's very simple. Our co-leadership started, I don't know if now work at the same, but I think it's very similar. And any leadership position is taken at the same time by two people of different genders. So we suggest different genders, both are leader together. And you know, as IAF you need to have only one reference, one the chapter leader, but I was the person who did the senior tour. But for me and Deborah, we have the same power. And for me, was very important to share the season and to share also that after the meeting with the IAF International. And was very, very useful also to define the future strategy, also to when we decided to engage more members from the south of Italy, we decided together this and we decided to to have regular meetings with us, with me and Deborah. We call the coffee time meeting, or the beer meeting, the beer time meeting. So every week, we had a short meeting of half an hour to share ideas and also to share information that we took from from different meetings that we participate. So we shared also the duties you know about, to be a chapter leader. And so was a very good experience, and we suggested this managed model to all the chapters. H.J Nice, and for you Sara, does that, is it a model that feels nice working alongside somebody else? S.P Yeah, very much. I really appreciated this initiative. And when Andrea proposed me to take the role and told me that Giacomo was in as well, I was really relieved. I was like, Okay, now, now I know that I can do it like this. You know, in pairs. Yeah, I think it's very interesting to be together. And also you can, you know, divide activities, such as the previous one I was talking about, when you have to travel around. And also you can, you know, share meetings where you have to, that you have to attend, but mostly you can discuss and share fears and projects for the future. And also Giacomo and I have very different backgrounds. How are you know, we live in different places, in different type of communities, our jobs are a little bit different. So it's very interesting because we see things from very different perspectives and this is also always very, very rich, and something that I really, really recommend. So I'm really, really enjoying this. And also the nice thing was that at the last general conference, we kind of hosted the conference, which is organised by Gerardo every year. But also we decided to have a session together for a session. So we brought a workshop so we could test, you know, our Co-leadership in person and during work. So that's nice. H.J So it sounds great from sort of lots of different perspectives. And yeah, interesting thinking about that diversity perspective that you both bring two sort of different mindsets or different ways of facilitating to your leadership. And I can absolutely, having been passed England and Wales chapter chair, I can absolutely relate to that being a bit scared of doing it by yourself. So if you've got somebody to work alongside with that must feel really good. So the other thing you you've just mentioned again, leading us nicely onto, my next question is about your annual conference. It would be really nice to hear a bit more about about the how that works, about your plans and past conferences as well. You tell us a bit more. A.P Yeah, maybe I could introduce some themes related to the past conferences. And what I could say a lot of subjects. We started with 'the collaboration era' was the title of the first Italian conference. Was the first conference to make know better the professional facilitator, and to start also the collaboration with different professional you know. At the time, each facilitator was very jealous about his work ,his profession, because it was, was something very precious, so we decided to start collaboration to share experience methods and what what we know. In our conference, everyone bring his or her experience and the share methods could offer a free workshop so you have to share something of your professional experience also. And another theme that I loved, it was "where the donkey falls". So when you are a facilitator, you do everything very well, but when you start to converge to the, to take the decision, here come the problems. So how we could take good decision, how we could go in the conversing way and respect our participants or the group's members. And after that was very good for me, the covid free editions conference, because we shared all we learned in these months of pandemic situation also about the online. But were moment to share those feelings as professional, as individual, as a member of a family, and what does. Also the last conference we organised were about the facilitate in a few words, so no verbal facilitation. How to use the body, arms? You know, we are Italian. We could was very, very well para verbal. But you never stop to study. You have to improve your skills. So we decide to face this team. And the last in the in 2024 the team was neutrality in facilitation. I mean, it's possible to be really neutral as a facilitator in a group, how you can do to be natural, what methods, what you have to do before the groups works before the workshop or after, to be more neutral. And at the end, one of the most nice for me experience of the conference was the agile and facilitation conference that was there during the European Middle East, original conference of the IAF, so was a very, was an international conference. We mainly, not mainly, all the conference has been organised in Italian language. This was the only conference can I organise in English. Always in Milan was dedicated to Agile. So to work with an agile methods, and also to go in deep in the Agile methods that it's not only for person that work with computer and engineers but it's also good for design thinking, the facilitator. And I don't know if Sara wants to add something more about this experience? S.P Yes, thank you Andrea, it was very exhaustive. Yeah, what I would like to add is more like a personal, maybe, point of view for in a way, because I, as I said before, I met facilitation three years ago. So I just attended a couple of conferences the last two. So the first one was, yeah, the one like facilitating in a few words, and that, for me, was really amazing, because I just met facilitation and I had no idea, like not no idea, but I was very young in facilitation. So experiencing facilitation through the body and through paraverbal was very enriching for me, because I could learn a lot and experiment on myself a lot. And the second one, and the very nice thing for me was that I was asked by Andrea, I think by Andrea, or by Delfino, I don't remember, to to facilitate the open space technology that we always have during the conference. And it was the first time for me, and that was absolutely amazing experience. And in general, the great thing about the conference is that it brings together very different people, and you get to know that, other words, you know, exist in facilitation. And this is something that being new. It's always you know, something to discover. So it's very interesting. And another thing that I would like to add is that in the this year, last conference, which was held in March, the one about neutrality, was organised in a slightly different way, because there was like a preparation path conference. And people were, are kind of supported and not tutored, but supported in their planning and designing of the workshops that they wanted to to offer. And these, and they were like, they were like feedback, attentions, so that people could improve and take care of, you know, details supported by by a team of, you know, facilitators, and these ensured great quality of of workshops during the conference. It was really, really, really high quality. And I believe that it helped also young facilitators to, you know, to offer workshops with less anxiety. I don't know how to say that, you know, so, yeah, that was really, really nice. I think A.P If I put up just a very practical thing that is not obvious, the conference is all organised by volunteers, and this is a choice, because the fee is very low, so it's about 180 or 150 euros. It depends about the year. So we want to be very open also to person that are not facilitator, are curious about facilitators or facilitation methods and stories, and that's all. H.J Sounds kind of similar to the conference that we put on in England and Wales, actually there's, yeah, definite similarities. Nice. Thank you. N.W Brilliant. And so I suppose building again on that kind of peer led nature of the work the chapter often builds collaborations and partnerships, both within Italy and beyond. So if we just start off with Italy, could you share some examples of some recent and current collaborations that you're involved with? A.P Yeah, thank you, Nikki for the question. Yes. When I became chapter leader, together with Deborah, we decide to enforce relation with National Association, because we understood that we have to grow, and to grow we have to enforce the relation to know more association that are interested in the same subjects. So mainly we did intervention to explain what I effectively do and what are the core competencies, support, facilitator, and, you know, just to present ourselves and to explain what a facilitator is. We invite all the members of different association to share information and objectives, to find common ground. So we work, in particular with IP two, that is an association in Italy that work on public participation. And if the members are more academic, are more are not professional facilitator, but like to work in the field of facilitator and the public democratic choices. So they are very engaged about what IAF is. And also, we decide to start collaboration with Association like Facilit Ambiente, that is an association, a private association that is offered by the Chamber of Commerce of Milan Monza Brianza Lodi. And it's a sort of service offered for preventing environmental conflicts through facilitation. So they trust in facilitation. They want to support and promote the facilitations approaches and also IAF approaches and the core competencies. So also we work with the open gulf consultation, that is the national consultation, that aim to engage citizens, normal citizens, in the decision related to the government. And there is a national platform, online platform, and you can vote, you know, like this deal, but it's a national platform. So very, very hard to participate because you need, you need to use a lot of personal data to vote before, but for us, was a must. As an international association, as a national association of facilitation, we have to speak also with the Italian government about these, these subjects. H.J Thank you. Sara, was there anything to add from you? S.P Yeah, just that this, we are with the associate association that Andrea mentioned, the Association for Public Participation. We are now reviewing the Participation Charter, which was elaborated, created 10 years ago. So after 10 years, this charter has been reviewed. And the Charter is a document promoted by IAF Italy, and this AIP through association with other associations that establishes principles and objectives and guidelines for promoting public participation in decision making processes and the process of reviewing this charter just ended. So we will present this work at the Festival of the Participation, which would be held soon in Italy. So we are quite, quite proud of this. And yes, in general, we try to connect with the associate Association in order to spread facilitation, and also to promote the recognition of the facilitator, facilitator profession in Italy, because this profession is not yet recognised here. H.J Amazing, Wow. Sounds like you've got lots and lots of Yeah, lots of work that you're doing, and perhaps lots more to do, just thinking about collaborations, but more specifically about the twinning that you've been doing with other chapters. I wanted to ask you a bit more about that. So we spoke to Bogdan, as I said before, from IAF Romania in a previous Chapter Chat and we know that you've twinned with IAF Romania, and you have started, I think, to twin with IAF Syria. And I just wondered if you could tell us a bit more about that. S.P Yeah, yeah. We, Giacomo and I, decided to carry on this, this initiative that was started by Andrea and Deborah with the Romania when but we did with this training with Syria. And it was a very, very enriching experience for us, because it could help us expand our horizon, you know, also beyond, beyond the Western culture. And so we had a series of virtual workshop, online workshop with with Syrian, in order to share knowledge, resources and best practices between our chapters. We had four meetings about the first one was like, like, the role of facilitation in post disaster recovery. And this was really interesting, because we exchange different stories, and we could see how different it was to, for example, recover after natural disaster. Like it was like in Italy, because we have, we had a few earthquakes in the last few years that and then we had to rebuild, you know, buildings and communities. Whereas in Syria, they had to rebuild after war, and then also after earthquakes. So we could share this experience, and we would see the differences and the great job that they did, and that we also tried to do here in Italy. And also it was very nice because each, each each meeting, the other meetings, were about the conflict management and cultural diversity. So it was, it was very nice to because there are, there might be great differences, you know, in culture, especially when you, when you compare Italy to Syria. So it really makes you think and reflect even out of the session. You know, you have to think about cultural diversity at the basis of the relation. I don't know how to explain it better. And it was nice because we had the chance to co facilitate. So it was an Italian and a Syrian facilitator. And so it was really enriching and but what I saw and what I really liked is that, because I did facilitate one of these meetings, and it was the openness and the human connection that we could find and share when doing something that we really liked. So it was something that went beyond cultural diversity and went beyond the barrier, also the language barrier that you can meet when you go facilitate. You know, maybe Andrea wants to tell us a few more about the Romanian experience. A.P But, yeah, sure. Just something to add about the idea, the idea, when we decide, with Deborah to propose this twinning during a meeting of the European chapter, we decide to propose a twinning that was composed about three, four meetings, thematic meetings. And of course, that will not take more than two years twinning, because, from our idea, also the Chapter must be in charge for two years. And every two years we want to change chapter leaders and as well, co chapter leaders. And so the twinning at this time about the Romania was amazing because was the first twinning so we decided together, also with bogdan and his and their colleagues, we decided also to share how it's different the professional facilitator in Romania and Italy. So starting from, what are your clients? What are your fees? And something very, very practical, but also if you work more in the private or public sector and what you did, what are your institution? So the line was to enrich each other with methods, but also take inspiration how to work in a different way with different clients that together are not you don't know. And so was very fun also to understand that we are in the same boat, so everything is the same in your nation. So a very good experience that I suggest to each chapter to start. H.J Thank you. So then thinking about, actually, I just wanted to pick up on one thing you were talking about there, the language, which obviously we as native English speakers have as the kind of luxury, if you like that, when things are in a shared language, they are often in English, which is quite easy for us. How does that, How hard or easy is that to for example, work with Romania, work with Syria and have to use for both of you to be using a language that isn't your own. S.P Well, actually, I mean, I do really like languages so and I think it's fun to when you meet someone who is not a native English speaker, to find your own vocabulary, like you build up your own vocabulary, which maybe it's not even English, it's not Italian, it's not Syrian, it's not Romanian, but somehow you understand each other, and that's fun. But I have to say that sometimes it can be a barrier, because, like maybe not all the, not all our members felt confident to facilitate in English. So, yeah, so you really need to encourage them that you will find a way to build up your vocab, vocabulary. And also, I think that during the sessions, there is this, at least for me, like, kind of worried that I may not understand well what people are saying, and maybe I my facilitation could be, you know, so and so. And so, you really need to trust yourself, I think, a little bit more, but also, and that's why I really like facilitation, you can always rely on your co facilitator, so if you or make a joke about it, so if you are two, if it's two, you know facilitators not speaking English as a native language, I think it's a lot easier to to manage that. A.P If I could share, I remember my first online meeting with the monthly meeting with the European Middle East, and I was so scared about the language, because I never studied English, so I learned by myself. So I was so scared or what, what I could say with these facilitators, so professional facilitator. And there was, I met Andrew Spiteri, you know, in a breakout room, and he was so polite, so friendly, that I was very relaxed. And after that meeting, I said myself, everything will be okay. Don't, don't, don't be scared. Don't worry about the English. And you can also use para verbal and don't speak. H.J Yeah,that's always a fall back, isn't it? Wow, yes, I've delivered training in a different language. Anyway, moving on. So yeah, looking ahead, what's happening in the near future in IAF Italy and yeah, how would you like to see things develop over the next few years? S.P Okay, so looking ahead, so our focus, I think, remain on strengthening the culture of participation and participation in general. For sure, public participation is, you know, something that is important for us. And also, yeah, having this thing that I mentioned before that having the professional facilitator formally recognised. So something, yeah, it's like to we would like, yeah, this profession to be seen and understood and recognised at a, you know, an institutional level. This is the general, you know, the frame. So in the near future, of course, there is the next general conference. I know it's we are a year ahead, but it takes a lot of work. And of course, the conference is organised by Gerardo, but it's in collaboration with the Chapter. So we are working on improving the model, the new method that we experimented last year. And so we want to see where it goes if we keep working on that. So with this preparation path, and try to trying to scout a little bit new facilitators and see if they want to put themselves to the test, you know. So that it can be the annual conference, can be a place where people, even less experienced facilitators, can can try it, can grow, can know facilitation better and know themselves better as facilitators. This is Yeah, in the near future. In the long term, I think we would like to, the Chapter to transform into a proper, real, like community, where facilitators can share, can support each other, can network and also create work opportunities together. We what we would like is that people feel free to ask each other for help, for support, if they are short of ideas or about a session or a method or something like that. Then we want people to rely on each other, and we want to facilitate this trust building process, I don't know. And also, we would like the chapter to be a point of reference at the national level for organisations who are seeking facilitator facilitation services or just want to learn something more about it. So we would like to be Yeah, like a subject, someone people facilitators and organisation can rely on and can go and ask for help or information. H.J Great. Anything else from you Andrea? Any other thoughts on the future? A.P Of course, you know, I'm not now the chapter leader, but I absolutely have some ideas. And Sara had said something very important for me, so support the facilitator and to give them visibility. Organise moment to present facilitator to clients, to to factories, to person that don't know facilitator, and have to know and have to use facilitator because it's better. And when you try facilitator, you ask to yourself, why I didn't do it before. So I want to that IAF Italy support also the professional part of the individual facilitator and for me, it's very important, because in Italy, we need to grow with numbers. And I mean, also in Europe, but in our case, we have to make grow the knowledge of facilitators. S.P I would just like to add that, I mean, my personal dream is also, of course, since I work in public administration, to bring facilitation in public administration, you know. So this is something that I try to do, you know, very, very small things in my everyday life, at work, but this is, it's more a personal dream this, but I would like to mention that as well, because I think we really need that. We do have, I think that facilitation is kind of entering institutions at a small, at the municipal level, so, you know, town hall level. But in the bigger institution which I belong to, I don't see that much, and I think we really, really, really need that. And also I think that for the for the chapter, something that we should try to, should invest on is young facilitators, of course, and this is also a campaign that IAF global is carrying on. We know that some of our members did join initiatives that have been carried on at the global level. And we are very happy about that. And I also, I would like to maybe this is also a personal, a personal dream. But I really like the share and learn idea, you know, the series that we have at the global level. And I would like that to have that maybe at a chapter level, maybe Italian, maybe even in a more structured way, maybe easier. So something that not felt like kind of overwhelming by people, but that can be, you know, a way to to exchange between peers, N.W Great, well, lots of big plans and you've got a big work agenda ahead of you, but it sounds like some, some great ambitions there, and really interesting different things that you're getting involved in. So just before we wrap up then, where should we go if we want to find out more about you and the IAF Italy Chapter? S.P We have a website, and then we also you can reach us, reach us at our email. So the website is, of course, www.Iaf-italy.org , and the email Italy@IAF-word.org so you can always write to us, we always answer and see, check our emails. And you can also write to me. My email is s.tremmiproietti@gmail.com and yeah, this is, this is our contact. H.J Thank you so much. So I think it just leaves us to say thank you for joining us today, Sara and Andrea. It has been really fascinating talking to you and hearing all about IAF Italy, past, present and future. And hopefully we'll get a chance to speak to you again soon. S.P Thank you. Thank you Helene and Nikki for the invitation. It was my first experience, and I'm really happy about it. A.P Thank you so much for the invitation. H.J So listeners, we've reached the end of another episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast for IAF, England and Wales. N.W If you'd like to find out more about the IAF and how to get involved, all of the links are on our website, facilitationstories.com H.J And to make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use N.W We're always on the lookout for new episode ideas. So is there a fabulous facilitator you think we should talk to? H.J Or something interesting emerging in the world of facilitation you think listeners need to hear about. N.W Send us an email at podcast@IAF-EnglandWales.org H.J We hope you'll join us again soon for more Facilitation Stories. N.W Until then, thank you for listening.

In this episode Helene talks to Paul Brand, Director of Risk Solutions and part of the IAF England and Wales Leadership Team, Board member and conference team member. They talk about The IAF England and Wales facilitators and friends Facilitate 2024 Conference (April 26th & 27th 2024) and what it is all about. Who is on the organising team and what Paul's role has been What is different from last year's conference What kinds of sessions we can expect What he is looking forward to A bit about the participants some of whom are coming from outsde the UK How the IAF England and Wales conferences have grown over the years and what makes them successful "it is a bit like a buffet and having taste of this and a taste of that." "what really makes me happy about the whole thing, and inspired by it, is watching people enter into it and throw themselves into it. Watching them having conversations with people they've never met and would never meet and, and go away taking whatever it is they've taken from the conference". A full transcript is below. Links Today's guest was Dr Paul Brand https://www.linkedin.com/in/drpaulbrand/ paul.brand@risksol.co.uk https://risksol.co.uk/ Today's subject The Facilitate 2024 Conference https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/facilitate2024-growingtogether-tickets-733547288687?aff=oddtdtcreator To find out more about the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript Hello and welcome to facilitation stories brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Helene Jewell and today I'm talking to Paul Brand,a management consultant whose work focuses on public policy. He often works on long term engagements across entire sectors for multi organisation communities, and uses facilitation extensively in his work. He's also an IAF England Wales board member, certified professional facilitator and a member of the conference planning team. Welcome, Paul. Good morning. It is morning. It is morning. Good. It is morning. It is morning. So my first question is just to ask you, really to tell us a little bit more about you as a facilitator and your involvement in the IAF. So I came into facilitation like a lot of people, not quite realizing I was doing it, doing a lot of public policy consulting things, and needing somebody who would lead groups of people through discussions. And then that became a better understanding of what facilitation as a profession was all about. And that grew and grew over the years. I did a long piece of work in the about 2011 2012, working with a very senior IAF board member. We did a lot of events together, and during that time I understood what the IAF was about and realized I needed to actually make my facilitation skills part of my professional development formally. So I did the IAF certified professional facilitator thing in 2012, which was quite a developmental experience in itself, and I keep that up to this day. And then over the last four or five years, I've become more and more involved in the workings of IAF, in England and Wales particularly, and have also had the privilege of attending a couple of the european conferences in Paris and Milan, finding out how our colleagues across the channel do it. So it's been an arc of development. Yeah, an arc of development slowly, slowly coming further and further in. And obviously we're here today to talk about the about conference. So let's start off with the kind of, the basic stuff. So IAF England and Wales conference in April, I guess. What do we need to know? The dates, where it is, what is it all about? So it is Friday and Saturday, the 26th and 27 April. And for quite a few years now, we've done this Friday Saturday mix seems to balance that. Some of the people, depending on their work and professional lives, some of them can, you know, share those two days, rather than it being two days out mid week or two days at a weekend. It is in Birmingham it is at a venue called the Priory rooms, which is quite close to the middle of Birmingham. It's very easy to get to, and it's two full days, the Friday and the Saturday. It is quite broadly based. We had about 70 people last year. As of yesterday, we've got 100 people coming this year, and we're going to have to cap it at 120 for venue reasons, which is a really nice, really nice set of challenges to have. That is. That is. So there are a few more tickets. We are recording this a little bit before the conference, obviously, but there are, at the moment, a few tickets left. It's about 20 whole two day tickets left. We have to stop it at 120 because just moving that many people around the venue, because of the safe of it, becomes a limit on that. You can book single day tickets. So even after full tickets closed, there might be some one day tickets left. There's about ten or 15 people coming on one day or the other, but most people are there for the two days. Fantastic. And so obviously, a lot of work goes into organizing the conference. I know that we worked quite closely together doing the hybrid conference of years ago. Tell us a little bit about the organizing team. Who's on it? What do they do? How have you kind of made things work from behind the scenes? So the conference team is all volunteers. Obviously, everything in this group is. It is so two thirds people who are also on the England and Wales leadership group. So they have wider interest in the if group and some people who just do the conference. The core of it, of course, is the people who put the program together, which is a team of three or four people. And so this year, with this sort of numbers, we're running four parallel tracks during most of those two days. And there are four very, very broad sort of types of session. They're all interactive sessions. There's no big lectures at this conference, but there's a thread which is learning facilitation tools, techniques, skills, that kind of thing. There's a thread which are sessions which are about growing and personal development and reflection. There's a thread which is about work and business, professional development, everything from how to run a business, because quite a lot of people are freelancers in this thing, as opposed to working in house. And what the differences are there, even down to, you know, how do we think about charging for our time, depending on the context? And then we've got a fourth thread this year, which is actually on the whole area of diversity, inclusivity, lived experience, and what do we need to learn as facilitators in this generation about how we handle those issues, even if that's not the topic of the discussion. You might be doing a session on something very engineering or very management based, but how are you managing diversity, inclusion and dealing with people's lived experience in different areas? So there's quite a variety of stuff. There's four parallel tracks. There's no big lectures. There's some opening and closing sessions and any sense of how many. You probably do know this, I expect it's written down somewhere. But how many different sessions are there altogether? 30 ish, because we're running, apart from the opening and closing each day, we're running four tracks all the time from, like, from when we set off on the Friday morning until Saturday afternoon. And there's a closing plenary, so there's about 30 dishes to take from the buffet and you can go to about a quarter of those. If you. If you went to a session in every slot, you could go to about a quarter of that number. But then there'll be other ways of accessing some of that material and talking to other people and stuff. So it is a bit like a buffet and having taste of this and a taste of that. That sounds like there's so much to choose from and that's the important thing, isn't it? You're not sort of channeled in a particular direction. You can choose what you want to suit you. I would say what's quite interesting, because I was at a session this morning talking with some of the session leaders. We've got quite a few people who are not only coming for the conference for the first time, but they're jumping in the deep end and are doing a session and this is their first contact with IAF. So that's quite exciting and quite brave of them. It is. I was going to ask, actually, how many people doing sort of offering sessions have not done it before? Because some people do offer sessions sort of fairly regularly at the IAF conferences. We counted it up last year and we reckoned it split about a third. A third? A third. A third of the people were, you know, connected into IAF. They were probably members, they were involved in something, that kind of thing. There was about a third who we might count as IAF friends. They. This wasn't their first IAF event experience. They. Maybe they come to meetups or they'd been to a previous conference or they knew somebody. And about a third of the people last year, they had just heard of this conference, they just heard of IAF and they came along, and that was their first baptism of fire, if you like. So I don't know if the balance is the same yesterday, but there's certainly, there's that breadth coming that's really nice and really good that there's sort of some, I guess, old hands, if you like, that are sort of really familiar with. Very politely put, helen, very experienced facilitators who are coming back to share their wisdom again and some new faces. My really strong memory last year was a young woman who came from another country. We'll talk about that in a minute. She contacted us very hesitant, said, I'm not from the UK. I studied in the UK. I want to come over and see my university friends. I want to come to the conference. What do you think about me doing a session? Would it be okay? I'm not that experienced as a facilitator, and I'm really new to IAF, so we encouraged her to come over and go for it. She was really quite frightened when she turned up on the day. She was brilliant. It was a lovely session. It was really, really good, because one of the things that happens is everybody coming to this conference in the past, they realize that they've been on the other side of this. So there's a willingness to explore new ground with someone who's been trying to facilitate something and encourage them and go along with their process and their game or whatever it is. So it becomes a very positive place even to try something completely new, even if you're very nervous. And I'm sure that will happen again this year. We'll have someone doing that. And I know I've always felt, when I've gone to the conferences before, really felt that actually, that it's quite, the phrase is a little bit overused, safe space to actually explore and experiment and have a go. And it's a really supportive community, isn't it? So, you know, nobody's going to turn around and go, oh, no, I didn't like that. You know, there may be some reflective comments and all the rest of it, but it's all very, very supportive. So, yeah, if you are jumping in for the first time, and that's an intentional sort of cultural feel of the conference that I think we've tried to maintain certainly since, I mean, the first one I went to was 2019, and that feeling was already there, you know, and when you've got people who are everything from, you know, the kind of work I do in the public sector with being industry clients, but we've got people who are deeply involved in social. Social interaction, you know, social issues of mental health, all those kind of areas, or they're working with people in deprivation. You've got people working in the private sector, and there's an openness to say this is interesting. It's not the kind of work I do, but I really found what you did there really thoughtful, and maybe I can translate that back into my world. That's one of the things I love most about these two days. And I guess that's facilitation in general, isn't it, though? It's such a broad array of different, you know, there's so many different ways to look at it, different takes on it. So it's really nice that there's that appetite to kind of bring that huge range together in one place. Nice. Okay. And are you able to. I know you're doing a session, aren't you? I was just going to say, could you maybe give us one or two, a flavor of one or two of the sessions you think are coming up? Tell us about your session, maybe from the four tracks. I know there are people coming and teaching particular skills. I think we've got someone doing some of the ICA facilitation technique stuff and demonstrating some of that. There are people. There's one. One. Someone's going to do something on the thinking organization, which I'm pretty sure is based on the work of Nancy Klein. Go Google, Nancy Klein thinking organization. We're going to do one myself and one of my fellow resolutions, Helen and Amelia Wakeford, who's also in the IAF group, we have found as a little trio that a lot of what we're doing now could be put under the very, very broad umbrella of systems thinking. It's thinking about how different parts of an organization fit together to do something, getting people out of siloed organizations in local government or central government or charity, whatever. And it's a big focus in the public sector now, particularly from the chief scientific advisors. So we're going to do a session that looks at the breadth of what falls under that umbrella of system thinking, everything from rich pictures right the way through to people who actually put numbers and money and things into them. We'll have a little go and we'll probably go into the area of what if the system is complex, or we'll talk about wicked problems and stuff like that. How far can you go with this, especially? Maybe you've got limited time and energy and money and actually start to deal with the complexity in systems rather than simplifying it out and then ignoring it and then wondering why it doesn't work. Well, it's because you took all the complexity out of it. So that'll be a fun hands on session, and it's something we do a lot of. Brilliant. I think I quite like the look of your session, actually. The program is coming out for the conference very, very soon. It's being formed up now, so very soon it'll be on social media and everybody will be able to see what's going on. Great. Okay. What specifically are you looking forward to? I think you sort of mentioned a couple of minutes ago that, you know, that the whole sort of diversity of different, you know, seeing lots of different people doing different types of facilitation. But what else are you looking forward to from the conference? Probably don't say it being over and you not having to organize it anymore. No, that's not really a big thing. Everybody's tired on the Saturday night. Yes. Content side. I like the fact that over the weekend I can go to something intentionally that I think I know nothing about what they're going to do. It's going to be completely alien. Let's go and see. Let's go and play. Let's go and explore that. And whenever I do that, something completely different to what I do, I always come away with maybe two or three bullets. And I'm thinking, that's really interesting. I can use that in what I do. The second thing, and I'm going to give you three. Good to have threes. Second thing is I love watching other people do it. I know people at the conference, but then you go and watch them do a session, and there's always something to learn about it could be the style they do it, the way they talk about it. It could be the method. It could be this way. I love watching other people facilitate because we don't always get to do that. You know, so often you have to do your stuff and do your way, and watching anybody doing it the way they do it gives you some interesting things to learn. And then the last thing is, because of the nature of the conference that we've talked about, I'm just really enthused over two days to watch people eating and drinking, if you like. I don't mean the food, I mean the content of the process, the energy we put into organizing it. There is a lot of energy in putting the content together. But what really makes me happy about the whole thing, and inspired by it, is watching people enter into it and throw themselves into it. Watching them having conversations with people they've never met and would never meet and, and go away taking whatever it is they've taken from the conference. We will never know all the things, but I've really enjoyed over the three or four I've been involved in, watching the people go in, eat effectively, eat and drink the context of the experience, and then go away full and enthused. And then you watch the communications in the weeks afterwards on social media, on LinkedIn or whatever, you're in contact with them and how the buzz carries on. And, you know, last year we had 70 people. This year we've got 100. We haven't even announced the program yet. That is word of mouth. A lot of it is people who came last year or the year before and have said they're coming and have told somebody else, and now they're coming, too, which I think is brilliant. And that says quite a lot about us as a community. I think about how we kind of interact with each other and how we talk about all this stuff. And I do remember thinking about that, your sort of third thing you're looking forward to last year, certainly feeling that energy, and you're right, that buzz afterwards. And it is a very energizing and, you know, slightly exhausting as well. But there's always two sides of the same thing, but that sort of real energy, feeling very energized. And then, as you say, yeah, just talking about it for ages afterwards and meeting some amazing people, it's a really great space to do that. Okay. And thinking about the people then that are coming. I think this year we've also got quite a few people, or some people at least, who are coming from outside the UK, quite a long way outside the UK as well. We're, of course, immensely privileged in running a conference in English as our home language. And never forget that english people, how privileged you are about to have that in that. That means other people, if they've got English as a second language, can come and join in, which is more challenging. I would be really challenged this week at the conference in Italy because that's going to be in Italian. So we often had people, I remember people coming from Holland last year with Belgium and one of the others. This has been very interesting. There's someone coming from, if Italy, Tanzania, South Africa, Hong Kong. And we might have somebody coming from one of the Middle east chapters. We're not quite sure. These are people who've got to get visas to come to the UK. They can't just jump on a plane and come. Those are the four or five. I know about. There might be others because I haven't seen the full ticketing list. And these are people who want to come and get some of what we've been talking about before and take it home. So I talked to people last year from one or two other countries. One of their objectives of coming was to say, we've heard about the way this conference runs. We'd like to come and experience it and then maybe take a bit of that back and do that where we are. And one country particularly, I don't think it had a conference for some years, and this year in May, they're doing one day as a start, but they're going to do that. Another, they don't know they're doing conferences in their country, and they've taken bits of what we've done and said, oh, yeah, we could do a bit like that as well, mold it to their own culture and their own local needs. So that's a real privilege to have people coming in for those reasons. That's amazing and really good that those people and other people presumably see it, see this conference and see, you know, what's been happening over the last few years when we've been doing conferences as something that is, I don't know, maybe inspirational, maybe, you know, it's something that other people can take something from, as you say, which is really exciting. So it's not just the day or two days. It's got legs. It's, you know, reaching out a lot further. I went whatever year it was, I went to the european IAF conference, all the european chapters in Milan. And so because it was a european conference, they did it in English, not in Italian. Normally they do it in Italian, and it had a very similar feel in some ways. They were obviously tapping into some of the same things that we're seeing as valuable in terms of their choice of venue and the way they ran it and stuff. This very, very open approach to conference for facilitation, I think has some real payoffs, real benefits. And so I think this is about maybe the 7th or so England and Wales conference that we have put on, because I remember quite a few years ago there being sort of large meetups that have slowly, over the years, morphed into actual big conferences like this. And I know there have also been several IAF european conferences as you just sort of talked about. Obviously, they've grown. They've become, you know, it sounds like they've become definitely more of a, you know, people know about them a lot more. You know, what do you attribute this success to. Why do you think the, if England and Wales conferences are successful, have become successful, hopefully continue to be successful? There's probably a few things. One is it's easier to do this if you've got a single common language and a big pool you can draw on. So that's easy. There's been a series of leaders in IAF, England and Wales since way before my time, who have started to foster this idea of the conference. It's only one of the things IAF does, does the podcast and meetups, and this kind of thing being something that the local chapter in the country sees not as a gathering just for the members. It's not a club meeting. It's part of the expression of the IAF aim of promoting the power of facilitation and promoting professional development for facilitators. And so it's become very intentionally IAF England and Wales, and friends, and the friends are as important as the members in this, in terms of their contribution to the event. So it's a community, it's based around the IAF England and Wales chapter, but it's got a large open tent at the sides. The comparison I did, someone said a little, it's like going to a music festival. Go to Glastonbury, there's the people who are in the tent. If you go to the big tents of Glastonbury, there's always another 4000 people just around the tent, and they're enjoying the concert and taking part in it as well. And they're just as much a part of it, even though theyre not, or not yet perhaps members in that sense. But weve got people deeply involved in the conference programme who are not IAF members, but theyre deeply committed to the if England and Wales and friends community. And thats been an intentional principle, at least back to 2017, 1819, somewhere around there. And so its done from an attitude of generosity and giving, you know, as the eye of England and Wales, not as a, a club, and you must be a member. And all this kind of thing, which we love people becoming members, we love people using the professional development in IAF. I do it all, but it's a possession then to give, not to hold it all tight. So makes it a little bit messier, a little bit untidy, and I think all the better for it. But if we avoided all the messiness and untidiness, we'd never do anything. We'd have an association that was, you know, constantly trying to work out where its next ten members came from. And I think that always. It does feel like that's always been. Ever since I've been part of IAF, certainly the England and Wales chapter, there's always been quite an inclusive way of doing things. So all the meetups, you know, invite other people, you know, it's never been an only member's sort of way of doing things. And I think it's really nice because also, facilitation is huge, isn't it? It's got, as you say, where's the tent stop? That concept reflects the nature of the job we do in facilitation as well. And, you know, some of those people, if you think of it like an onion, people come in, some people come into the edge of it and come to a conference and they go away. We never see them again, or they come to a meetup. And some people get much closer in. Some people are very embedded in the if England and Wales and friends community, and some of those people become members. We also get people who become members of IAF and come to the community through that door. And one thing I always say to people about membership is come to receive and to learn, but come to give. If you look at the IAF competencies and principles, quite a few, quite a bit of it is about what you're giving to the profession of facilitation and encouraging other people, particularly, obviously, as you go on and perhaps gain more experience. And you never have a bigger shovel, as they say, when you start giving to a thing like this, you always get back more than you shuffled in. Definitely. No, it sounds really exciting. I'm really looking forward to coming, and I'm really looking forward to meeting some people I know and chatting about stuff that, you know, we know about. And also, I think, more importantly, meeting people that I don't know, hearing new stuff, hearing about new ways of doing things. I think it's great that there's, you know, there's four different tracks and four different options. I am going to struggle to decide what to put on my buffet plate because I always do. But, yeah, really looking forward to it. Thank you so much, Paul, for talking to me today. Any last plugs? Anything else we need to know about the conference before, before we wrap up? I think the big question we're having at the moment in the conference group is, what on earth do we do if more than 120 people want to come next year, what would we do? But that's a problem. For further down the line, the program is pretty much done. We're now getting into the stage of there's a list of small things that need to be done, like what do we need to print and all that kind of thing. But it's just been wonderful to see the people booking in and the variety of people. It's one of my most enjoyable weekends of the year. Yay. I'm really excited. Well, I look forward to seeing you there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Helen. Good to talk to.

In this episode Helene talks to Deborah Deborah Rim Moiso from SessionLab about their recent survey and report. Deborah shares her experience as a freelance facilitator and discusses her mentoring program with IAF and her passion for facilitating multistakeholder projects on nature conservation, climate change, and youth training. She talks about how in 2022, the first global survey of facilitators was conducted by Session Lab, gathering data on who facilitators are, where they are, and their age. It was initiated by Session Lab to address the lack of data on facilitators, despite reports existing for other professions like UX design. This survey looks at Facilitation trends and insights from a global survey. Facilitators were surveyed globally, with 1000 responses from diverse regions, including Japan. The report was well-received, with new questions added to better understand learning pathways to facilitation, and feedback from contributors and experts. Deborah talks about the role of expert commentators and how they condensed the data and provided insights, asking questions and challenging assumptions to open discussions and conversations. Deborah describes some of the key findings from the report including Facilitation industry trends and AI adoption. One standout reflection from the report is the generosity of the facilitation community in providing answers, despite the lengthy survey process. Deborah discusses some of the other insights from the report including: Online vs in-person sessions Facilitators delivering shorter sessions Representation, professionalisation and diversity The facilitation industry and accreditation programs The importance of including younger perspectives in the facilitation profession To contact Deborah: email deborah@sessionlab.com To read the 2024 State of Facilitation Report: https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/?utm_source=IAF-Podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=sof To help SessionLab promote the project: https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/promo-kit/ If you have any questions about the report or the data behind it, or want to contribute to the next edition, get in touch with us at state-of-facilitation@sessionlab.com. Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/ Connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org

Today we're introducing a new quarterly feature "Chapter Chat". As many listeners know, the England and Wales chapter is just one of the many IAF volunteer-led chapters globally, all working within 6 regions across 65 countries. While all chapters are united under the IAF vision and operate in accordance to the IAF Code of Ethics they are all run in a slightly different way, and reflect the context they're working within. So alongside our episodes capturing individual facilitators' stories, each quarter we're going to chat to people leading other chapters, about how they see the status of facilitation where they are, and the history, priorities, current projects and aspirations for their chapter. To kick us off, we have a special episode reflecting on a year of facilitation in the EME region, where Helene and Nikki talk to Tamara Zivadinovic Regional Director of the Europe and Middle East Region of the IAF. Tamara talks about her own facilitation practise, how she got involved in IAF and her her journey to becoming Regional Director. She explains to Helene and Nikki what are your main responsibilities are as regional Director and what has been happening in the Region over the last year. She talks about celebrating the many IAF volunteers and about her proudest moments as Regional Director. Tamara shares what is coming up in 2024, her hopes for the region and finishes up with an ask for the members of the region. You can contact Tamara on: rep.europe@iaf-world.org or find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-zivadinovic-4975384/

In this episode Nikki talks to Rosie Carnall about Philosophical Inquiry. It's a way of engaging in a conversation explorating into philosophical questions. Rosie has used Philosophical Inquiry in a range of situations, from Art Galleries, to pubs, to workplaces. Nikki and Rosie talk about how to choose stimuli for discussions and learning from a specific example of when Rosie ran the same session back to back, online and in person for a hybrid team. The full transcript is below. Links: Rosie's website: www.rosiecarnall.co.uk Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/ Connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org NW Hello and welcome to facilitation stories brought to you by the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Nikki Wilson and my guest today is Rosie Carnall. So welcome, Rosie. So to start off with, could you tell the listeners a little more about you and what you do? RC Thanks, Nikki. So my name is Rosie Carnall, and I'm a Freelance Creative Facilitator. My background's in mediation and conflict resolution and from that, I learned quite a lot about facilitation and developed that as an interest, and I've also worked in things like Project management. And then, more recently, in my work, I've been able to focus more on facilitation, and in particular, using both creative methods of facilitation to get people thinking and talking, but also facilitating creative sessions. So I typically work with creative writing and the creative field but I'm also really interested in art -based work. So quite a broad range of interests, but at the core of it all, is facilitating interesting and engaged conversations. NW Fantastic. And we're going to dig in a little bit more about that, in this episode. So you and I met at the IMF conference, and I discovered that you include philosophy for communities in your practice. So I had a really positive experience as a participant in the past, and I was really keen to, to find out a bit more about how you use it. So for listeners that aren't familiar with P4C, could you tell us a bit more about it? RC Yeah, that's great that you had a positive experience. I'd love to hear more about that another time. So Philosophy for Communities is a method of holding a Philosophical Inquiry. And Philosophical Inquiry is kind of what it sounds like, it's a way of engaging in a conversation that takes forward questioning and exploration into philosophical questions. And philosophical questions are all around us in life. And P4C, Philosophy for Communities is a way of, it's a method to enable people who aren't academic philosophers who don't wouldn't consider themselves to be philosophical necessarily, to discover big questions, and discuss them together. NW Okay. And so, when did you first encounter P4C and what appealed to you about it? RC The first ever time I encountered P4C was when my son took part in it in a P4C inquiry as part of a youth group. And I was just a parent on the edge kind of thing. I wasn't participating. And they, they had in any P4C inquiry, you would have a stimulus, so that's the starting point for whatever the discussion is going to be. But the stimulus always has quite a lot of different ways to go. And the stimulus on this occasion was a children's story, Michael Morpurgo story. And it was the one about the Christmas Truce, the story where in the First World War, there was a truce called on Christmas Day, and the English and German soldiers played football together. And then the young people, including my son, read the story. And then they asked questions, and then they discuss the questions they came up with. And then they went on to create a Christmas play, to put on arising from their discussion. And the thing that really struck me was how they engaged in such depth with what the story meant. So when they put on the play, they weren't rehearsing lines, they were conveying meaning. And it just felt such a rich form of learning that I thought, well, I really need to find out more about this. So and that, that brings up the the idea that P4C also stands for Philosophy for Children, and it's used in a lot of schools in Britain. It's an international movement. It's a way of teaching thinking skills and critical thinking. And it's also a way of engaging children in kind of social learning, and how to disagree agreeably. And Philosophy for Communities is the exact same thing. It's just with adults in community rather than children. NW Yeah, excellent. I mean, I, as I said, I encountered it as an adult first of all, but hearing that it had been, you know, the stem of it was from, from kind of school based learning, I just thought I wish that we'd done this at school, it would have been so valuable, I think to, to kind of build those skills, as you said that that whole idea of being able to discuss and sit alongside other people and kind of draw out that meaning. And so how did you I mean, obviously, you you learned about it as an observer, how did you first come to try facilitating it in practice? RC Well, Ijust, I was already doing facilitation. And I was interested in using it at that time, I was working as manager of a team and a national organisation and I started trying using a bit in that kind of team context. And I also used it in community, I'm a Quaker, as it happens, and so at our Quaker meeting, we offered a couple of P4C inquiries, and I was lucky that I had a friend who's very skilled and knowledgeable about P4C, and the thing that happens straight away, in that classic learning journey is that soon as you start trying to actually do something, you learn so much more about what you don't know about doing it, You know, it looks so easy, "Well, I'm going to give that a go", and really quickly I was like I need to do some training in this if I want to get really good at this, or even, you know, even as a starting point. I began to understand and for example, in facilitating a group to come up with questions, I just needed to do a much more deep dive into like, "What is a question? And how do we get to good questions?" So I did some training with an organisation locally, who, who mainly trained teachers in Philosophy for Children, but I came along and said, "Well, I actually don't work in a school I'm going to, I'm going to use it with adults, mainly. So that was how I did the training. NW Excellent. And so since then, obviously, you trialled it in practice, and then kind of did this bit of training. But where have you used it since then? Are there any contexts where you feel it particularly works well? RC Yeah, so I've used it, I've used it a lot with Quakers, for interest and for kind of, not teaching so much as learning. So getting a group together and inquiring into a shared question, it means that people are sharing their knowledge and their ideas and their thinking, and that fits really well in that context. So that kind of community learning together. And I've used it in pubs. So I set up and run a Philosophy in Pubs group in Sheffield, that's been going, coming up for five years, in fact, and that's just an open access group, anyone who's interested can come along, and each month, it's a monthly group, and I bring a different stimulus, and we'll see where that goes. And during the pandemic, I moved that online. so I've used it online as well as in real life, so to speak. And I've used it as part of a more creative focus or cultural focus, as part of the Sheffield Year of Reading, which was a whole year the library set up, of getting people into reading and thinking. And for that we used different excerpts from books or a poem. I've used it as, I do creative writing, and Creative Writing facilitation. So I use it as a way into creative writing, but also as a way of people engaging with each other's writing to critique. So something I call creative critique. So we use people's passages of writing as the stimulus for the inquiry, and it means they get a sense of whether what they're writing is actually landing with the listener. And I now also offer P4C sessions in a local art gallery and a few art galleries and I call that "Philosophy in the Gallery", and so then in that case, it's again, it's an open access session where people would come and we look at an artwork together, and then evolve our thinking arising from looking at the art, so not so much a focus on learning about art, art history, or even the kind of painterly strokes, but what does it mean to us? So always it's about what does it mean to us? And then I've also done some work with organisations. So then right back to the beginning, in a way of working with a team and using it as a way of bringing a team or colleagues together to think about questions and issues together. NW So kind of building on that, where do you look for the stimuli that you would use in these sessions?, RC Ah that's an interesting question. I look for them everywhere. So in the Art Gallery, my job is easy, because I go into the Art Gallery, and then I can have a look and choose one. For the sessions in the pub, I try and have a really varied range. So, in fact, I did a session on Tuesday this week and our stimulus was an excerpt from a book called Bright New World, which is about climate change, and what we know about how to manage and mitigate climate change. It's a very positive book. And there was a section about trave and I just thought, "Oh, that's interesting. It's got lots of different thinking in it". and then the group came up with their question they wanted to ask. And I use poems, I use short videos, I used a Hey Duggee episode, which is a children's cartoon, and they had I use it there is in fact, I Hey Duggee on philosophy, but I use the one on collecting, and so thinking about what does it mean that humans collect things. And I might also use something from a philosophy book, but I'm not an academic philosopher. So I don't tend to get you know, I'm interested in people's own philosophising, rather than, you know, I'm not bringing that into the room, we're finding out where that comes from. And with the teams or an organisation or community group who have a particular theme they want to explore, then I will be thinking about "how can I, what can I find that would open up questions on that theme without being didactic?" So it definitely needs to be something that's open ended and isn't arriving with a moral opinion into the room. Although, if there is you know, maybe it's hard to get totally away from morality, but people need to have the sense that they can disagree as well as agree. NW Yeah. And that there's presumably that there's sufficient scope within that stimulus to go in lots of different directions and kind of take it their own way. RC Yes, exactly. And that is a very common experience. And, you know, in fact, what's quite common, is that I think "Oh, that's really interesting". And whatever it is, that's interested me, in the passage I choose, or the artwork I choose, it turns out, you know, no one else finds that interesting, you know, that people will come up with these really different questions, and not what I was expecting at all. And that's one of the glorious things about the process. NW But I suppose with that in mind, though, are there situations where you'd hesitate to use this kind of technique? RC I think it's a tricky question, isn't it? Because in one way, I want to say "no, it can be used everywhere. You know, it's such a rich possibility. And it's so open", and with my background, in mediation and conflict resolution, you know, it's one of the reasons why I got interested in Philosophy for Communities. But I think, as a mediator, I became a bit frustrated with the idea that people thought, "oh, you know, we need a mediator". And they typically thought that a lot further on into a conflict, when they may be, you know, if you're going to have a mediator get one early, but also that there's, there's a desire within the idea of having a mediator for a solution and an answer and someone an expert to come in. And so what I'm really interested in as well, maybe if we could all talk to each other more and disagree agreeably, and be able to accept that someone has a different opinion than us, and that's okay, it's just interesting rather than threatening, then that might, it's kind of the groundwork of conflict resolution in a way. So it's almost like the antithesis of social media where people get into these terrible conflicts because they're, they're just getting reactive and up against each other, where P4C or Philosophical Inquiry is about staying alongside each other without having to agree. And so perhaps that means that I'm a little bit more willing to take risks. Because I think, I think a lot of people are really alarmed by the idea of conflict or alarmed by the idea that people you know, people might get upset. I don't want to upset anyone, but neither do I want to quash emotion, because emotion is part of our human experience. And emotion is part of how we know what we think about something. You know, that's a really clear route, if you hear some information, and it invokes a strong emotional response in you, then, you know, that's telling you something about what you think about that information. For me, that's part of the rich potential for Philosophical Inquiry. That said, in terms of my responsibility, as a facilitator, I would always want to be sure that I could create a safe space, or a brave space or an appropriate space for sharing within any community. So I would want to do a dynamic risk assessment of you know, you know, what's appropriate, and thinking back, I suppose, partly to my mediation, training or thinking about power imbalance. And if, if power imbalance can't be managed within the group, then it's not going to have the ethos that I would want. So I would be looking to manage that process but so far, no one's asked me to do a Philosophical Inquiry in a situation where I've said, "No, that's not going to work". And in fact, family Christmas a couple of years ago, we were just sitting talking, and then we kind of got into a question and really, I was facilitating an inquiry, you know, it was just an area of interest for the five of us, you know, that's possibly quite a bold move, to introduce it completely socially. I mean, there wasn't such a structured thing there. And I always say that in in terms of this practice, that I feel like I've really developed my own thinking, you know, we talk about teaching children thinking skills, but I definitely feel that my own thinking has improved, and that it's doing P4C has made me better at arguing with my husband. I don't know whether he appreciates that or not, but I feel very strongly that, you know, it's I'm, I'm able to think more clearly and to understand more about how I'm feeling and you know, what is the actual question I want to discuss? NW Right and so, with all of those different directions that you've taken it, including into the domestic environment, this might be a difficult question to ask, but where would you like to go next with it? RC And well, I'm really excited about my work with Art Galleries and Museums, and opening those spaces out to more people. And particularly with Art Galleries, I have this strong aspect to my practice, where it's really important to me that you don't need to know anything about art to experience art, and so the Philosophical Inquiry, I think, can really help. I know, it does help people to, to open that up to like, "Oh, my ideas and thoughts are the same and different as other people's, and that that's an equal process. And we're just going to look at the art, and then respond to it." So that's a really exciting area of interest for me. And in getting people, it can be quite social in that way, in that way, can help with reducing loneliness and isolation. As a social, I always say, "Do you like meeting new people, but you don't really do small talk? You know, P4C is for you". So I'm interested in that community based work, and particularly with Art Galleries and Museums, and I'm also really interested in the workplace, and teams and colleagues, and bringing people together to think together about what underpins their work. So I think often in the workplace, you can be so focused on action, and practical steps and getting things done, that it can be really helpful to take that step back and think about, well, "why am I doing this? What you know, what is it that brings us together? What are our shared interests and concerns and opening up those bigger questions about the ethos and value of the area of work?" And thinking that through in the background, I think that's very interesting how that works. NW Okay. So I mean, obviously, quite different contexts there, I suppose showing that kind of breadth of where P4C can apply and equally have value, and so I suppose thinking or drawing that right back to a very specific example, when we had our initial call about this podcast, you were just about to run the same P4C inquiry twice with a morning online and an afternoon in person. So I'm kind of curious as to how that went. RC Yeah, that was a great day it was, was for a national organisation who are now of course, much more dispersed than they were before. So that change into a lot of people working from home and coming back to the office, and how does that workplace community function in those ways. And so that was the reason why we had an online session, as well as an in person session, and using the same stimulus and the same session plan, but of course, getting different thinking. So that, in fact, the stimulus or use that was a short film, about how trees communicate. So there's this thing the Wood Wide Web, that trees, you might see trees as individual trees, but in fact, they communicate through their roots and through the soil system, and they can create complex communication. So we had that as a stimulus on each occasion, and then looked at what the concepts were that were coming up, and how that related to the idea of a community of colleagues, and particularly colleagues who now don't necessarily see each other so often. It was a great day, that some of what I noticed about it was the difference between online and in person. And in particular, I've got an interest in the fact that in online sessions, especially in a group, is quite difficult to laugh, and to have humour. Because just purely because of, if someone's speaking, someone else can't be speaking, you know, you get that kind of disjunct between and timelag, you know, whereas in the room, it's much more easy to have that kind of humour and laughter happening. Not that people online, didn't make jokes or enjoy, but there's something different in that in how that works. And it was interesting as well, because when we were looking at what concepts people drew out, that's the kind of starting point they watch the stimulus together, and then think about what are the important concepts here., and there were a lot of commonalities between the morning and the afternoon, but there were differences as well. And so then that led to different questions being asked, and a slightly different focus to the sessions, at the same time as having, you know, a lot of common interest as well. NW It sounds fascinating to have that that opportunity, really, to actually get that real close comparison of the two, the two sessions so close together. So thinking back then, what was your key learning that came out of that that session? RC I think what was was really interesting about having two sessions together, was in future, I would want to bring them back together more. So that it was able it's a very effective process for being able to pull out some learning that's de-personalised. So because you're taking this philosophical approach. And it's asking big questions about the nature of, of life and thinking and attitudes and values, then it does actually really effectively bring out ideas and thinking rather than comments and opinions. And that felt really helpful to me that for in a work, colleagues situation. And often what you're wanting to find out is that thinking that's behind someone's opinion. So that was really useful and in the future, I would want to develop a clearer way to bring that back round together and to share it between the two groups. I was able to do it, but it was, you know, as you learn that process, It's having some shared learning that's coming out of it together. And I suppose ideally, would be to, in some way, bring everyone together at the end. NW Okay, so lots of big thinking to take away then Rosie and no small challenge of kind of working out how to draw all those things together when people are so dispersed, as you said, I think that's, that can be quite a challenge when you know, some people are in the room, and some aren't as well on that whole hybrid way of working. RC Yeah. And I think as well, because of the, there's a stage and an inquiry process where groups come up with questions, and those questions often and then you choose one question to focus, a conversation, the kind of dialogue part of the inquiry. And often, you know, if you've got four or five, six questions, they can sometimes they're all really great questions, and in fact, what you really want to do is take them away and create a curriculum. So that there's something about that the questions that come up can be a really important part of what the learning is, and offering them back in to future team meetings or discussion groups or, you know, staff conference or an intranet piece, I think that there's something about the questions that come up can be, this can be really mind for a lot of interest. NW Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Rosie. It's been really interesting to hear a bit more about it as I said, I had this one idea of what it was going to be like from my perspective, but so many different avenues that you've taken it ,so I'm sure we could talkl all afternoon or evening about it. But then, thank you so much again. And so if listeners are interested to find out more about you or to connect him with you house, what's the best way for them to do that? RC So I have a website, www.rosiecarnall.co.uk . That's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me or to find out a bit more. NW Excellent. Well, thank you, Rosie. It's been great to talk to you bye for now. RC Thank you very much. Thank you. And that's the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on whatever podcast app you use. And if you would like to contribute to the show, you can get in touch via email podcast@iaf-englandwales.org Or you can get all the other links from our website facilitationstories.com. This has been Facilitation Stories brought to you by IAF England and Wales.

Welcome to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. In today's episode Pilar Orti talks about running circles (spaces for dialogue) with Jindi Mann, founder and facilitator of Leader Brother Son and coach and organizational consultant at The Selfish Leader. Jindy recently ran the Men at Work survey as part of his work with Leader Brother Son, where he works with groups of men. The work has the potential of benefiting mental health and diversity. The Men at Work survey in particular, was a way for them to gather some insights into the male experience at work. In particular, it highlighed what men find hardest to talk about at work and what can help them show up more fully at work. To explain the roots of his work, Jindy talks about his early life, growing up in a British Indian family, his two business degrees and masculine cultures in the business world. He came to realize that he had an opportunity to work with this, as he was seeing the same thing repeatedly: the idea of taking up this role of "man" without interrogating what that means. Alongside some other coaches, Jindy started offering free online groups two and a half years ago. They'll be starting their 10th group in early August. There is a short application process for joining the groups. Intersted participants first make an enquiry on the company's website, and this is followed by a short conversation to align expectations and understand the principles behind the sessions. There are typically, eight to twelve people in each group and at least two facilitators in each session. As the work comes from a personal space for Jindy, he often feels the tension between leading or guiding the group and just allowing the space to be what it is. Jindy and the other facilitators are not the ones who have the answers, they are not defining what a man should be or what Masculinity is, but they are holding the space by contributing and holding the principles and the shape of the conversation, rather than telling it where to go. Throughout this work, Jindy still feels that tension of when to take some sort of action as a facilitator or when to contribute or when to say anything. He uses the coaching acronym WAIT – why am I talking? Jindy has started to refer to himself more explicitly as a "facilitator" when starting doing this work with men, but he has used facilitation in different ways in his consulting career. As to how the work with the circles and his co-facilitation have evolved, Jendy shares that when the groups started they introduced specific topics for discussion, but soon they started to invite the group to say what it wanted to explore. He shares some of the theories and practises that have influenced him including the idea from Wilfred Bion of that there are thoughts present in the group, but they haven't yet found a thinker. It can sound almost mystical, but the unconscious is always present, is always active in a group. And collectively things can emerge in a group. (For more on this read any of Jung or Freud's work and Experiences in Groups by Wilfred Bion.) Jiindy has trained as a facilitator with Way of Council and in the conversation he shares his experience there and its overlap with psychodynamic theory. Jindy talks about his co-facilitators Aaron, Mark and Russell and how they met, and how they all bring something slightly different and have different influences. But that they have an important chemistry between them. The team are not taking their work into organisations. The work here will be different as the dynamics in organisations will be different than in an open group. People there will have assumptions about each other, and there will already be a sense of status and hierarchy. Jindy shares the pros and cons of doing these groups in person and online and about AI in coaching and wraps up with a couple of broad reflections: firstly, the conversation about men and masculinity is growing. Secondly, there is an increasing need for great dialogue and for great facilitated spaces for all of the things we're facing as a society. If you want to find out more about Jindy's work, you can go to Leaderbrotherson.com. And also you can also check out his other organization called The Selfish Leader. He is on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jindymann/ Men at Work Survey https://www.leaderbrotherson.com/resource/men-at-work-2023-survey Leader Brother Son https://www.leaderbrotherson.com/about You can connect with Pilar Orti on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilarorti/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/ And connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories