“Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change—personal change, community and organizational change, planetary change. If we can sit together and talk about what’s important to us, we begin to come alive. “
—Margaret Wheatley
Why Facilitation?
We get stuck because we can’t imagine an alternative future. John Kao says, “Design is the ability to move from the existing to the preferred. The future is a design problem.”
Imagination is what fuels this ability to picture and practice the world in ways other than how they currently are. And it’s imagination that’s not only the basis of art and design, but the very heart of the empathy and innovation our world needs more of.
I like to define creativity as the imaginative ability to make that movement—moving from ‘what is’ to ‘what if?’.
We participate in the creative process when we make this move, but what makes this so difficult is that little word ‘to’. It’s the in-between, the gap between where we are and where we want to be—it’s here where all the fear, the resistance, and a thousand other internal and external barriers live.
We need someone to hold the process and the hope that, by moving toward and through the ‘to’, we might discover that everything we are looking for is on the other side of fear.
People don’t need someone to do the work of imagining their ‘what if?’, but they may need help to become agents in their own meaning making, to help prime within them a curiosity that’s stronger than fear.
I work with groups to design and host community conversations, workshops, retreats, design sprints, strategic planning, and meetings for humans to be human in.
I offer this work for groups who are:
tired of the same old strategic planning sessions
navigating unknown and uncertain futures
challenged by conflict or complexity
looking for more perspectives to be heard and better ways to work together
seeking strategic and wise action
asking some form of the question, “Is this as good as we’re going to get?”
What’s my Approach?
My work is animated by empathy and curiosity. During our pre-planning conversations I will make sure to listen well to the questions, backstory, and purpose of your meeting/gathering. All of the work that I seek to do is rooted in conversation and custom designed to meet the needs and purposes of a given group of people.
I have an unshakeable belief that the thing we’re looking for—the courage, leadership, clarity, answers—is in the people. Together we can draw out these things through conversation and collaboration. I believe we need better meetings, really, a more empathetic and efficient use of our most valuable resource: people.
I believe facilitated conversation is the need of the hour in a fractured, fragmented, and frightened world. We don’t need more experts but we do need more empowerment—to harness the collective genius of the group, to amplify rarely heard voices, to hold space for your innovation to emerge.
What’s the Impact?
Rooted in Participatory Leadership, Design Methods, and Systems Thinking, your custom designed meeting will include a combination of playful and productive interaction, powerful conversations, creative exercises, and leave you with a sense of gathered momentum. Because, we aren’t merely planning a meeting; we’re planning a harvest of insight and action—tangible outcomes your group can take and implement for real change making.
Other outcomes and possibilities:
Engage deeper listening to increase alignment so that you can work together and communicate better
Discover a shared vocabulary, focus your innovation, build creative capacity and animate wise action
Cultivate organizational health by attending to your people and culture
Find greater efficiency and stewardship of resources—your time, finances, energy, people
Increase the connection, innovation, and satisfaction within your working relationships
Make informed decisions; make real strides forward
Let’s Talk.
Book a free call to see how we could work together.
I’d love to support your team in your change making.