Meeting Magic’s Medicine

Last night we headed into the Institute of Directors to share in the celebration at the launch of The Meeting Magic Method www.meetingmagic.co.uk. For Katherine Woods and the team their whole ethos is successful meetings made easy and this latest publication is a user friendly seven step guide and tool aimed at supporting business managers gain more effective results from any meeting. It’s also a great tool for us Facilitators serving the wider community; visually strong with simple steps to apply.

Café Conversations

World café is one of my favourite tools in my facilitator toolkit. I never fail to be moved be the power and effectiveness of this elegant method and its inclusiveness.
I recently worked with a client to support them in leading their own world café and watched from the sidelines instead of hosting myself. I did the same a few weeks later with a friend working with a community group who was keen to have everyone in the group to feel equitable and empowered in the conversations.
And then just this weekend someone approached me to thank me for introducing them to the world café process. They had been a participant in a session I hosted in January and had just finished running one themselves with great results. If you’re not familiar with the process go look at www.theworldcafe.com it is an excellent resource and community.

Boy X

Arc Theatre’s Stereo Trilogy is a powerful series of plays aimed at 12-18 year olds and focuses on the issues of knife and gang related issues. In 2008 in London alone 29 young people aged between 10 to 19 were murdered with a knife.

The latest in the trilogy of plays is Boy X. The play begins at the graveside of another 16 year old who has lost his life. It was developed with four young actors and draws upon real experiences of living in gang dominated estates.
The play was first performed on 17 February at EC1 Music Project in partnership with The Flavasum Trust, in memory of Tom Easton who was stabbed to death after leaving work there in September 2006. Sarah sat in the audience at the EC1 Music Project amongst young people, their families, parents of young people who had been murdered as well as representatives from the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office. After the performance the four young actors facilitated a discussion with the audience to encourage debate about the fears associated with issues raised in the play and also to explore possible solutions. To find out more see http://www.theflavasumtrust.org/projects/arctheatre.

Sospiro Jam

Last week I had the chance to connect with some interesting folk and get a glimpse in to the world of Sospiro at a networking event they held. After champagne, canapé and conversation, John Harle took us on a magical journey to reveal the essence of leadership and powerful communication drawing on Renaissance understanding and reframing it for a 21st century application. Through a blend of Obama’s victory speech; Duke Ellington’s masterful sounds; a nod to Daniel Barenboim Festival Hall performance in January this year along with his own saxophone, John revealed his insight captured in his Sospiro System which balances achieving both decoro - rational skills (technique, discipline and knowledge) and sprezzatura - emotional skills (ease, impact and persuasiveness) to achieve ‘grazia’ or grace. I think I got that right?! It was certainly engaging and mesmerising! For much more see www.sospiro.com

Resilience at the University of Westminster

On Tuesday night Gary was back at the University of Westminster to give his annual lecture to the students on the MSC Business Psychology programme. For this evening event he was able to give more attention to Building Resilience and drawing on Gladwell’s reference in Outliers explore for himself Hofstede's Cultural Dimension www.geert-hofstede.com on ambiguity/tolerance and resilience to change with the students who come to the programme from around the world.

Having spent the first half of the session defining resilience with the group and what makes a team or individual more or less resilient and what you can do to help build resilience I asked the group if we could 'play' a while with Hofstede's cultural dimension and put it to the test with a group of largely overseas students!

I asked the group if they felt that national and cultural differences played a part in how resilient individuals were and whether they thought some nations/cultures were better able to manage change than others and it was agreed that this could play a large part.

In revealing Hofstede's top and bottom five most/least tolerant to change nations, interestingly the Greek student absolutely agree with Hofstede’s work that Greece is one of the least tolerant nations reflecting his experience that they like order and control and that if something happened to disrupt the order and control they found this really difficult to handle.

The group also agreed that the Scandinavian countries who mostly rank high on the tolerant end do seem more resilient to change.

Our mini exploration certainly supported the research to date!

Outliers

Having just finished reading the new Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers www.gladwell.com/outliers, I was pleased to find out that Gladwell was in London and on stage at the Lyceum theatre for one night only! So having secured a ticket I found myself in amongst a hugely 'varied' audience of people from all walks of life and all ages.

Gladwell's premise for Outliers is the story of success or more specifically the fact that where you were born and raised and by whom plays a significant part in whether you are successful or not (I guess not dissimilar to the nature versus nurture debate?) Your culture, history, background and the opportunities open to you all shape your future success…Did you grow up in a supportive environment; were opportunities open to you; were you supported in some way to follow your dream by chance or by judgment?

A theme he comes back to is the 10,000 hours rule: did you put in the time (whether it be 10,000 coding computer programs or 10,000 hours practice on the court) practice and hone your skills, knowledge or experience?

What I found most interesting was Gladwell's reference to the work of Gert Hofstede and his cultural dimensions in particular; how different nations are more or less tolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty than others. This scale or dimension of least to most tolerant is an indicator of a 'national level' of resilience. Gladwell listed Hofstede's top and bottom five of most and least resilient and the results were surprising!
Now like all models, Hofstede's cultural dimension is not black and white and just because an individual is from the least tolerant nation does not mean they can't be resilient and vice versa but it gives us a framework to explore why particular nations and cultures might manage change well

Learning Maps

Our facilitator friends Holger Scholz and Roswitha Vesper based in Germany have just authored another great Learning Map published by Neuland www.neuland-world.com. These are a great resource pulling together in handy map form key facilitation methods. This latest one captures Appreciative Inquiry (AI). The illustrations are done by Martin Haussmann a Visual Facilitator extraordinaire who captured the IAF Europe Conference experience when it was held in Germany in 2006.
You can order them from Neuland’s UK partner www.pinpoint-facilitation.com amongst other facilitation tools and equipment. We all love pinpoint! Their website is full of facilitation goodies and the people there are jolly nice folk too!!!

Bridging Cultures at IAF European Conference

It was great to attend the IAF Europe conference in Groningen, Netherlands and Justine, Sarah and Gary spent a weekend in northern Holland connecting with Facilitators from across all parts of Europe, in fact from different parts of the world. The theme was Facilitation: Profession of Bridging Cultures which we explored across the event. Catching up with old friends and making many new, it was good to be back amongst the community of largely European Facilitators, all gathered to share, learn and co-create. For more take a look at www.iaf-europe.eu

Over the weekend Gary’s facilitated session on Building Resilience seemed to strike a cord with the participants reflecting on how important it is to understand and build personal resilience in particular during these turbulent times, to help ensure we can ride the waves of change and make the transition during change both shorter and less disruptive.

Meanwhile Sarah and Justine led a session on Enhancing Learning and Participation drawing on Eugene T. Gendlin’s – Felt Sense work where in his words: “Your body is not a machine, rather a wonderfully intricate interaction with everything around you, which is why it "knows" so much just in being.” As a group we undertook a journey to be present and explore what we ‘know’ to deepen our awareness to enable others to enhancing their learning and participation as we enhanced our own…

Maureen and Jon Jenkins (authors of: The 9 Disciplines of a Facilitator – Leading Groups by Transforming Yourself www.9disciplines.com ) did the Facilitation community proud leading the Dutch conference team at Hanze University supported by the amazing young people studying there.

Hope for the Flowers

This week Sarah was reminded about the importance of hope and courage when she picked up an old favourite book called Hope For the Flowers by Trina Paulus. The front cover reads: ‘a tale – partly about life, partly about revolution and lots about hope for adults and others (including caterpillars who can read)’.

It’s been a grey week in London, the skies have been grey and I confess to feeling slightly grey myself this week! I was conscious that I needed to take small actions to shift my mood and one thing I did was to read Hope for the Flowers again. It’s a short and very beautifully illustrated book that follows the journey of two caterpillars and their transformation into butterflies. It begins ‘Once upon a time…..’ and immediately I am transported into the world of Stripe and Yellow (the two caterpillars). It’s a very simple book with some very big messages that I find I need to remember.

Here are some of my favourite bits…..
“It can’t be true!” gasped Yellow. “How can I believe there’s a butterfly inside you or me when all I see is a fuzzy worm?”

“How could she risk the only life she knew when it seemed so unlikely she could ever be a glorious winged creature? What did she have to go on?
- seeing another caterpillar who believed enough to make his own cocoon
- and that peculiar hope which had kept her off the pillar and leapt within her when she heard about butterflies”

Thinking Breakfast......

The subject was Generation Y, the venue Sadlers Wells for the latest Talent Foundation Breakfast.

Simon Walker of talentsmoothie, a talent consultancy that create research based and custom training and development programmes gave a brief input piece to set off the discussion re Generation Y employees. Talentsmoothie have completed a research project– ‘Tell It How It is’ that explores what Gen Ys want from work. Simon talked about the importance of not assuming that our own generational view is right. We all see the world through our own generational lens which is formed by the landscape against which we grow up. For the Generation Ys this has been a technological landscape. They are ‘natives’ of the technological world and feel very comfortable in it.
“I see frustration among Gen Y and their employers caused by a mismatch in how they see the world” offered Simon. When we fail to understand each others generational lens it leads to frustration and limits what is possible. The trick is for all parties to understand the others generational perspective and with understanding comes the creation of possibilities and also choice. To see more on Gen Y visit www.talentsmoothie.com .

Calming, flowing water in EC1

Gary and Sarah recently visited the Inmarsat Conference Centre www.inmarsat.com/conferencecentre in London EC1 in preparation for an event that circleindigo will be facilitating later in September. The centre has a light and spacious feeling. A colour palette of white accented with blues and greens creates a relaxed, calm environment as does the sound of running water that can be heard coming from the glass sculpture in the lounge area. The added bonus is that all the rooms have large windows allowing a flow of good natural light. And the menu looks good too!

Back to School

The summer holidays are almost over and schools are almost back: time to swing in to full on work mode again…
Behind the scenes (amongst other things) we’ve been preparing for the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Conference in Groningen, the Netherlands on October 3-5, 2008 at the School of Intercultural Communications and Media of the Hanze University of Applied Sciences http://www.iaf-europe-conference.org/


We’ve also recently held several runs of our essential facilitation skills training programme for a range of clients whose feedback has inspired us to run some public courses. Watch this space for further details…although not before the spring of 2009!

Summer Fun.

circleindigo were to be found at our summer planning event playing, creating and idea generating galore in Broadstairs…the sun on our side, the sand between our toes and the sea serving as inspiration…the beach hut became our latest workshop venue and although the post-its didn’t directly stick to the wooden walls our sand-portraits were something else!

Great space - bad chairs!

We recently ran a workshop event at a hotel close to Victoria Station. Hoorah for a hotel whose conference facility is not buried in the basement! Natural light and space galore…lovely! They just need to sort out their chairs…more than one request was made for cushions to support aching backs… a great conference space but such uncomfortable chairs!!!

Usability & Warmth

Part of our way of working at circleindigo is to explore different venues for running sessions; testing out the usability and warmth of a place, whilst working on our own dreams and plans. This week we were back at Wallacespace but this time trying out their new place between Euston and St. Pancreas http://www.wallacespace.com/. It was good to experience more of the same as its original Covent Garden home. Rooms are wonderfully functional and have a touch of personality with all of the ingredients in one place for good workshopping: space, natural light, great food, refreshments on tap and a welcoming and responsive team of staff. The stairs to the very top were a bit steep for my liking (no-one else seemed to mind!!!) however, this is apparently very good for the thighs and a way of getting some exercise built in to the day…”

Outside in.

On her way to deliver a team development workshop on a hot July day Sarah wondered if the room that had been booked in a small Surrey hotel would be what was needed to support great engagement and participation. She was delighted to find that the workshop room had French windows leading directly onto the garden which had a series of small round tables nestled amongst the trees and shrubs an ideal setting for some outdoor group work and a great way to increase the size of the working space without the need for builders…

The Challenge of Hierarchies

Gary has just facilitated a three day ‘Managing Change’ workshop for a client in Bangkok, Thailand. An interesting challenge was presented by the participants that were local to the region:
We were debating how successful a programme can be if it is driven or pushed not top down, not even bottom up, but by a group of senior middle managers who then have to implement the programme to others who have not been through the same programme, in particular to more senior people back in their regions.
It was felt by the far east Asian participants that this can be quite problematical as they are often (if not always) working in very hierarchical companies where trying to influence someone more senior than you to do something can be very difficult. No easy answer but it does bring a different perspective to the Margaret Mead quote: “never doubt a small band of citizens can change the world, in fact it’s all that ever has”. I wondered what in addition might be needed to help enable people in this environment, to support the process of introducing something new.

Enchanted Evening

The nowhere http://www.nowheregroup.com/ summer party was a delight for all the senses and was held at the Delfina studios, restaurant and project space in Bermondsey St, London SE1 http://www.delfina.org.uk/. Sumptuous canapés excited taste buds, the nowhere book, tools and projects provoked thinking and conversations with friends old and new encouraged connectivity. And finally an outstanding array of entertainments by The Petebox, The Kakatsitsi drummers and the breakers from Soul Mavericks & Flowzaic crews encouraged everyone to limber up and dance the night way…

Enhancing Children's Learning

Sarah has been taking part in the CoLPI programme (community of learning, practice and innovation) for the past 7 months run by the nowhere foundation http://www.nowherefoundation.org/. Connected to this she recently went to a talk given by Judith Hemming one of the Directors of the nowhere foundation on Education.

As I stepped from the busy streets of Bloomsbury into the October Gallery http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/ I suddenly found myself in a quiet oasis. In the centre of the building I entered a large open air garden courtyard with fruit trees and shrubs and made my way up an iron staircase to the Club Room where Judith Hemming was to give a talk on Education: the development of systemic ways of enhancing life and learning for children.
Judith’s talk began with a brief meditation where the audience recalled memories of their own learning as children. This was followed by dialogue that included head teachers sharing how whole systems based approaches had successfully been used in schools with children, parents and teachers to improve learning, emotional awareness, engagement and creativity. A series of ‘tools’ that have become part of the classroom kit were also introduced and these included the ‘feelings thermometer’ that helps children identify and understand a range of emotions and develop sensitivity to their own and others feelings. This innovative research project has been developing over the past 4 years and is called enhancing children’s learning, to learn more visit: http://www.enhancingchildrenslearning.org/

Youth Act

Last (very rainy) Sunday afternoon Gary and Sarah could be found as part of the audience at The Street Weapons live debate hosted by Jon Snow. www.channel4.com/news/microsites/S/street_weapons_commission/index.html

This was an opportunity to meet with others who care deeply about the issue of gun, gang and knife related crime especially young people as so many of them are directly affected by this issue. We met young people who are taking action in their local areas to address crime on their streets and heard about the projects that are supporting them.

One interesting training project is ‘Youth Act’ from the Citizenship Foundation, the education and participation charity, for young people aged 11-18 who want to achieve political or social change in their community. One of the Youth Act groups in London is ‘Value Life’ from Gladesmore Community School in Haringey. Talking with a couple of the young people it was good to hear how the project has grown since 2003 and that now there are at least eight other schools involved in the campaign. Over the past few years the group has successfully run and organized annual marches and rallies against gun crime, each attended by over 500 people from the local community and the next one will be held on 22nd July 2008 where there will be open top buses traveling the streets of Haringey. Check out the Citizenship Foundation at http://www.citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/ for more information on Youth Act.