The first ed.space…watch this space!

Since my early twenties I have cared deeply about the educational experiences of children and young people. Over many years this was reinforced by my experience of working with many young people whose creativity had been stifled in an educational system that somehow alienated them. The breakthrough question that ed.space is posing ‘How do we create a learning experience that fully engages with the hearts of children and young people?’ has a particular resonance for me.Also I have a firm belief that gathering together with other people to share conversation, time and space in relation to issues that matter we can begin to change the world. That may sound a grand statement but by promoting connectedness in this way we can listen, dream, explore, sense and be present to greater possibility.

Being in ed.space felt different from the start; the virgin martini’s, just an olive in a glass gave a flavour of what the evening was going to be like! Held in the inspiring Engine Hall of the People’s History Museum in Manchester (http://www.phm.org.uk/) there was an excitement in the air.
Mark Hodierne and the ed.space team created an evening that had the perfect balance of input and varied activity. There were video clips of Sir Ken Robinson, opportunities to play with music technology using ipad, small group work and a systemic constellation to explore the wider education system. There was a high level of engagement, great conversations and some powerful ideas emerged.

ed.space is definitely a new venture to watch to learn more visit http://www.edspace.ws/

Engaging Parents

Recently Sarah was asked to design and deliver a workshop for parents in a South East London borough. The parents all have children attending schools in a particular part of the borough and form what is called a school cluster group. The Local Authority Extended Services team were keen to engage with parents in relation to increasing participation in family learning as well as ensuring that parents had a voice and an opportunity to contribute their ideas for a large scale parent’s conference that would be held in July 2010.
Sarah worked with local practitioners to design a workshop that would encourage participation and inclusion. It was important to make the workshop activities accessible to all parents. Things for consideration were the wide range of cultural backgrounds and varying levels of literacy as many participants had English as a second language.

Sessions ranged from: a creative market place of information; a dot voting and marble voting series of activities; large graffiti walls that the parents could contribute their ideas to using words, images or symbols and small group conversation sessions facilitated by local practitioners.

There were high levels of participation, lots of great ideas for the conference in July and positive feedback from the parents plus a desire to be involved in the future. It was a wonderful session to be a part of.

Volcanic ash enables virtual IAF...

Having been asked to facilitate an observed (goldfish bowl) keynote workshop on ‘The Future of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) at the Chicago 2010 North American IAF conference, Gary’s plans, and session, were suddenly in disarray due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland which put paid to flying to the USA!

With a few days to go before the session and no let up on the volcanic ash cloud, Gary along with the conference design team decided that as leaders in the field of facilitation, the IAF should be doing something different and so it was decided that Gary’s keynote workshop would be run virtually with facilitation support from a fellow IAF colleague and friend, Nadine Bell, who would be in the room in Chicago.

So come the day, 16 participants and 12 observers in a hotel conference room in Chicago, Nadine Bell co-Facilitator in Chicago, a five hour time difference and Gary in his office at the bottom of his garden back in the UK, the workshop took place.

Having chosen to do this over Skype and Skype video calling, which all stayed up and connected, with the fantastic help of Nadine Bell in Chicago, a web cam, frantic note taking on post-its stuck up around Gary’s office and a webcam in the room in Chicago, 3.5 hours later virtual facilitation workshop completed, session went really well and feedback very positive.

Now to find more ‘virtual opportunities’ and good online tools and software to support it!

University of Westminster – Resilience Research

Following many years of supporting client groups and individuals manage change and transition and building on our three year plus relationship with the Business Psychology Centre at the University of Westminster, London, this year we sponsored two research projects on resilience during major change.

The first was a theory based research project, researching the many (if not hundreds!) of resilience models and frameworks out there and identifying if there were common themes and characteristics, this project was carried out by Irene Xanthaki, a business psychology student at the university.

The second was a practical based project which researched how people handled major change well, what they did and what characteristics did they display or use. This project was carried out by Katie Roth, also an MSc student at the university and involved interviewing our client’s cross-sector and cross-industry and then reviewing and collating the findings.

Both research projects have now been finished and dissertation reports handed in!

Through reviewing the two reports we have built a ‘key characteristics of resilience’ framework that we are now using to inform our work to support both individuals and groups develop and build resilience to enable them to survive and thrive in turbulent times!

We already have a number of clients who are keen to take and extend this work further with us, and we thank both Irene and Katie for all their hard work and effort.

IAF Europe Conference – 2009

This year the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Europe conference was held in September in the hallowed halls of Keble College, Oxford, England.

Attended by over 170 Facilitators from not just Europe but all over the world, from afar as the USA to Africa, to the Philippines and New Zealand, as well as the usual strong contingents from the UK and Sweden.

It was a great weekend, having the conference in a venue where the sessions, the eating, the celebrating and the accommodation were all on the same site definitely helped build and foster a strong sense of community and being in the heart of Oxford itself meant visitors were able to see the historical beauty of the city of Oxford. The conference sessions were generally of a high calibre and conference participants could be found networking in the collegial surrounds of Keble College, sharing their learning’s from the various sessions they had attended.

And we ate in the largest college dining hall in Oxford and it was all very Hogwarts and Harry Potter!

circleindigo ran a conference session on ‘Building Resilience in Turbulent Times’, based on our recent research with the Business Psychology Centre at the University of Westminster. The session was well attended and much appreciated with participants gaining insights from both an individual and group perspective.

For more information on our resilience work please contact us.

“In between client workshops circleindigo had the opportunity to experience the ‘wow’ factor again at Turner’s Point as we spent a glorious 3 days together over the course of running our facilitation skills training programme.

The weather was perfect with balmy views across Whitstable Bay while the odd sailing boat bobbed up and down which provided the backdrop to the training event as we went on a learning journey together with our participants…
As we shared workshop tools, techniques, models and concepts alongside extending our own self-awareness as Facilitators the environment gave us an inspiring light and airy space to work and relax in. Lunch was taken on the upper deck: lots of delicious food; much of it local produce…with homemade cakes for afternoon tea to boot!

We will be running another public facilitation skills training course there again between October 5th-7th and are hoping for some Autumn sunsets!

If you’re interested contact our Jen: jennifer.austin@circleindigo.com

Leadership in Tough Times – Wavelength100 Day

On Monday, I participated in a one day workshop event titled ‘Leadership in Tough Times’ hosted by Wavelength100 www.thesamewavelength.com/pg/leadership.php and attended by approximately 100 people from diverse backgrounds and organisations, cross-sector and cross-industry.

This was an engaging, useful and timely event which included brief (20 minute) insightful ‘key note’ speeches by four session leaders; Martin Narey, CEO of Barnados and former chief of the UK prison service, Garvis Snook, founder and MD of ROK, the UK’s ;largest local builder, Sophi Trenchall, CEO of Divine Chocolate and Gerald Ratner, founder and former CEO of Ratners the Jewellers and Gerald online Jewellers.

The day encompassed four key themes under the Leadership in Tough Times heading; holding it all together, turning it around, holding on to your values and rising from the ashes. The day was an engaging mix of speaker led sessions, small group discussions, conversations in pairs, a world café type session and a ‘Tough Times’ clinic with a panel Q&A, it was energizing and thought provoking and I have pulled some key points and conclusions together on ‘Leadership in Tough Times’ as follows:

Don’t lose sight of your organisations primary purpose and vision even if you have to put in place some short-term reactive strategies, strategies must always connect with and support your purpose and long term vision

Remain visible and accessible, regularly and consistently communicate where you are going, what you are doing and why

Remain true to your company values, they are what you are, your company DNA and not to be abandoned to serve a short-term need

Ensure your people have a voice and can be heard

Wanting things to be ‘how they were before’ may in itself be limiting – new models and ways of working aren’t bad, it doesn’t have to be how it was before!

It’s ok to ‘not be sure’ and to ‘know you do not know’

And finally the only limitations are the ones we impose on ourselves

I came away with lots of nuggets, thoughts and questions to explore even further….

Research in to resilience begins

For more than three years circleindigo have had an ongoing relationship with the Business Psychology Centre at the University of Westminster, this is one of the country's leading academic bodies for Business Psychology programmes and is home to Stephen Benton, the UK’s only Professor of Business Psychology.

This relationship has seen circleindigo as part of the visiting lecturer team on the Business Psychology MSc programme, delivering sessions on managing change and transition, building resilience in individuals and teams and facilitation skills.

This year circleindigo have sponsored two research projects as part of the current MSc student cohort’s end of programme dissertation work. One of these sponsored projects is a client facing research project on ‘What makes individuals (and teams) resilient or adaptive to major change?’ and during this project the student will carry out qualitative research through a short face to face structured interview with a small number of circleindigo clients in each of the sectors we support. The 2nd is “Investigating individual/team resilience & adaptability models/frameworks”.

We are looking forward to seeing what emerges and using the outcomes and conclusions of final report to support our clients in the current tough climate, to help build resilience and to manage major change.

Whitstable Surprise

“Just before the Easter holidays circleindigo were working away at Turner’s Point – an exceptional workshop space overlooking the sea at Whitstable. Nothing can prepare you for the spacious workshop room with a wall of windows to the sea and sky. I had a feeling of uncertainty on arrival as it looks just like residential house from the entrance but it was like a double whammy of ‘WOW’: the main room being ideal for group working and the view just breathtaking with the outside space to take in the sea air almost as big as the room itself!!! The space itself enabled a relaxed and meaningful dialogue to unfold and the coffee was pretty good too!! We’re so enamoured with the place – we’re running our public training course there at the end of June…”

The Dinner Party.

On Thursday evening I attended an Inspiring Women’s Dinner organised by Carole Pluckrose, Artistic Director at Arc Theatre. It was inspired by Judy Chicago’s piece called The Dinner Party which represents 1,038 women in history.
There were around 70 women who attended the wonderful dinner ranging in age from 15 to 84! The 15 year old was Eliza Rebeiro who founded Lives not Knives in 2007 and has recently been awared Croydon Community Champion. The 84 year old was Helen Bamber who has worked tirelessly in human rights for over 60 years.
Helen Bamber (www.helenbamber.org ) was the speaker for the evening and was incredibly inspiring and humble. She shared stories of her both her recent work and her time in Belsen afer the liberation of the concentration camp. I was moved by the lessons that Helen had learnt in Belsen about courage, resilience, humanity and cruelty. One very vivid image was of a Belsen survivor who very near to death had held on to Helen’s arm and said “tell, tell, tell”. Helen said this taught her how important it was to people that their stories were heard and told and how important it was to bear withness to the pain of others. www.livesnotknives.com

Revived UK Facilitator’s Network

“On Friday, a regeneration meeting was held for the UK Facilitator’s network to explore in what way a ‘community of practice’ for Facilitators based in the UK would be of value and if yes, in what format, style etc. This meeting was attended by nearly 30 UK based Facilitators and there were at least another 30 who wanted to come but could not make the date.

It was an interesting and fruitful day, where a number of processes were worked through to identify what was required of such a network, what style and format it might take, what was needed in this day and age to support UK Facilitators.

This event was hosted by Keith Warren-Price at the Pinpoint Centre in Chalgrove, Oxon and all present were looked after with extraordinary care, right down to the small tin of food and refreshments we were each given for the journey home; much appreciated and a great touch!

The day was organised and designed by our Gary, and the process itself allowed for two content/process sharing sessions, one facilitated by Keith Warren-Price drawing on the well established Pinpoint technique and the other by Gary who ran a poetry based introduction exercise.

The good news is there are people now on board, willing to help design and shape the UK Facilitator’s network of the future, watch this space for more details as it unfolds”.

A big thanks to Etc venues

Our group size up at the last minute and the booked client site room shifted overnight from workable to inappropriate physical proximity of participants (let alone the ideas than would have been demoralised and crushed)…we were able to use Etc Venues www.etcvenues.co.uk space (Prospero House) close to Borough tube at very short notice. Even though it’s on a busy main road the first floor rooms overlooked a tree or two and lots of natural light came through to support the nicely sized and well-equipped room. The staff were fantastically responsive and a good supply of both fruit and biscuits next to an ever-flowing drinks machine made for happy brain-working conditions…

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.