Episodes

  • FS 66 Facilitate 2024: Growing Together with Paul Brand

    FS 66 Facilitate 2024: Growing Together with Paul Brand
    Apr 16 2024
    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 ...
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    25 mins
  • FS65 Chapter Chat with Bogdan Grigore IAF Romania

    FS65 Chapter Chat with Bogdan Grigore IAF Romania
    Mar 19 2024

    In epsode Bogdan tells us about himself as a facilitator and trainer, what it means to be a playful facilitator and his journey into facilitation.

    He tells Nikki and Helene about how IAF Romania and how it all began, from joining IAF in 2018 to getting intouch with other facilitatrors in Romania. With the start of the pandemic 2 years later and everyone had more time he found out what was needed to start a chapter, and started IAF Romania with Bogdan as the Chair.

    Since 2020 the chaoter has grown to 27 members, with more facilitators wanting to be a part of the community. The growth has happened in terms of quality of events as well as numbers.

    Facilitation is not well known in Romania and not well known in organisations.

    Bogdan talks about engaging new people to the world of facilitation, organising events and enabling people to make connections and talks in more detail about some of the events they have hosted for example Open Space in HR.

    They also have a group mentoring programme and how that works.

    They have two types of approaches - one for the community and one for the IAF Romania members. Most events are co-facilitated so there is a lot of learning.

    Some examples of the events are:

    Training about having impact in online facilitation - Nelson from Portugal.

    Pop up sharing around a particular topic.

    Facilitators Studio - where someone can bring a new design to try out.

    Facilitator Lab - helping two facilitators to create something together. An example of this is AI and facilitation.

    The core members of 10/12 come up with the ideas for all the events and build the ideas together.

    They plan to have their first in person event - a facilitation festival in the autumn.

    Bogdan talks about collaborations with other IAF Chapters and explains how these have worked:

    Twin Chapters with IAF Italy

    Facilitation Lightening Talks, some of which were with IAF Ireland and IAF Italy

    He talks extensively about the collaboration with IAF Japan and the 9 or 10 meetings that were needed to set this up and the cultural learning points.

    Helene asks Bogdan to talk about his role in IAF Europe and Middle East as part of the share and learn team and the benefits of bringing together different cultures and facilitation experience.

    Bogdan talks about what next for IAF Romania - elections, continued focus on mentoring, sending chapters from the Power of Facilitation book out in their newsletter which they have translated into Romanian.

    Bogdan lastly talks about his hope for the future and the facilitation festival.

    To contact Bogdan:

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdangrigore82/

    IAF Romania:

    https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/romania

    https://www.linkedin.com/company/iaf-romania-international-association-of-facilitators-romanian-chapter/?originalSubdomain=ro

    The Power of Facilition:

    https://facpower.org/2021/06/01/what-is-the-power-of-facilitation-and-why-is-it-important/

    Lightening Talks:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcOrr9Sj17U

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tluzc03l4sM

    Celebrating Diversity with IAF Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FctxQou8F9w

    Find Helene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/

    Find Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/

    Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/

    Email: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org
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    36 mins
  • FS64 State of Facilitation Survey and Report with Deborah Rim Moiso

    FS64 State of Facilitation Survey and Report with Deborah Rim Moiso
    Feb 20 2024

    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 
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    39 mins
  • FS63 Jamie Colston - Facilitating Systemic Constellations

    FS63 Jamie Colston - Facilitating Systemic Constellations
    Jan 11 2024

    In this episode Helene talks to Jamie Colston - father, facilitator, poet and systemic constellations practitioner about his work using Systemic Constellations, both Family Constellations and in organisations. 

    He talks about how he got into the work in the first place, the training he has done and the practise he does and some of what he has coming up next.

    He shares some examples of how he uses it and in terms of facilitation he suggests it is most akin to Open Space Technology. 

    You can find Jamie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiecolston/ 

    Jamie Colston https://www.jamiecolston.com/ 

    Centre for Systemic Constellations - https://www.thecsc.net/

    The Whole Partnership - https://www.wholepartnership.com/

     

     

     
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    34 mins
  • FS62 - Chapter Chat with Tamara Zivadinovic

    FS62 - Chapter Chat with Tamara Zivadinovic
    Dec 11 2023

    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/ 
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    20 mins
  • FS61 Authentic Facilitation with Christine Bell

    FS61 Authentic Facilitation with Christine Bell
    Nov 14 2023
    In this episode Helene talks to Christine Bell about a session they co-facilitated for Facilitation Week. They share some of the group’s thoughts on what authentic facilitation is as well as some of their own emerging questions on how to balance being authentic but remaining in control and whether authenticity can be learned or taught. They also reflect on their first experience of planning and facilitating together and how liberating it was to deliver a session with no required outputs and without using some of the “usual” facilitation tools. A full transcript is below. Links: Contact Christine by email: christinebell@centreforfacilitation.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 Nikki Wilson (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. In today's episode, Helene Jewell speaks to Christine Bell.    Helene Jewell (HJ) So in today's podcast, I am going to be chatting to Christine Bell, Director of Centre for facilitation. Welcome, Christine.    Christine Bell (CB) Hi, Helene, nice to be with you again.    HJ And it wasn't actually that long ago that I saw Christine, because we did a session together for Facilitation Week all about Authentic Facilitation. And that's what we're going to be talking about in today's podcast. But before I lead into asking Christine, lots of questions about that and doing a bit of reflecting, I just want to ask Christine to tell us a little bit about her facilitation practice. So what kind of work do you do, Christine.    CB I mainly work with researchers and innovators and looking at different ways of doing things, different approaches, trying to get them to collaborate with each other and kind of break down some of the barriers and get to know each other so that they can start to find out interesting connections between different bits of research and then mash it together to come up with something new and interesting, that breaks through some of the challenges that we're facing, environmentally, socially, etc.    HJ Right. Okay. And we have never actually worked together, but I think it's fair to say we know each other through the IAF, or through the larger facilitation community. Yeah, yeah, we've probably, we've probably met quite a few times on the different online forums. And then at the conference, I think the Conference this year was first time we actually met in person. And then and then we met in Bristol, because I was working in Bristol.    HJ So yeah, so our paths have crossed a few times and then feed somehow, you have this great idea about doing a session in Facilitation Week, and you thought “Ah yes I’ll ask Helene”    Well, first of all, let's start with Facilitation Week, what is Facilitation Week?   CB  Facilitation Week is a week of different activities designed for the facilitation community so that we can learn and develop from each other and explore different aspects of facilitation. And, and I was very conscious that my time is really quite limited, like, you know, with my time because of all the elderly care issues that are going on for me. So I give very little back to the community. So it felt like it would be quite a small thing for me to do and quite manageable to just offer to run a short session within Facilitation Week. So that was, that was the starting point. And then I learned because I also did that for the facilitation in person event in May. And I learned then because I got involved with another facilitator to run a session there, , actually, if you're going to do it, why not use it as a learning opportunity for myself to actually work with a peer that I don't usually work with, and just learn from that person kind of share best practice together, because then it's actually a developmental experience for me, and not just me doing a free bit of facilitation. And a free bit of, you know, I can facilitate and design facilitation all day long, and that's my job, but to actually to do it with a peer that I don't usually work with just makes that more, it’s more fun. And it's more developmental as well. So, yeah, so you came into my mind, because I thought, oh, yeah, I'd like to work with Helene. I think it would be fun.    HJ It was so nice, it was like “yes, of course”, like, and I think it's true that Facilitation Week is that there's loads of different sessions, and they're hosted by loads of different people all over the world. So in a way, there's that opportunity to explore and connect, and it's fairly low risk. It's a really nice way to sort of get to know people.   And yes, I remember your session that was for the May conference, I think,and so  I was quite quite pleased. I thought, well, this is a nice ...
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    34 mins
  • FS60 Exploring Philosophical Inquiry with Rosie Carnall

    FS60 Exploring Philosophical Inquiry with Rosie Carnall
    Oct 10 2023
    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,...
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    27 mins
  • FS59 - A new Chapter

    FS59 - A new Chapter
    Sep 20 2023
    After over 100 episodes spanning 4 years, Pilar Orti is stepping down from her role as co-host on the Facilitation Stories podcast. In this special episode, Pilar joins regular co-hosts Helene Jewell and Nikki Wilson to reflect on her time on the show and what comes next.   How It All Began   The idea for Facilitation Stories emerged organically at an in-person meetup hosted by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) back in 2019. Pilar had given a talk on using podcasting to build community and connection in remote teams. Afterwards, some attendees suggested starting a podcast for the chapter. Pilar agreed to help get it off the ground.   Along with Martin Gilbraith's support, Pilar worked with Helene and another co-host to produce the first 4 episodes and establish a regular cadence. After some early experimentation, they settled into releasing 1 episode per month. The organic, unstructured nature of those early days established the podcast's informal, conversational tone that continues today.   Why Listeners Connect   A big part of the podcast's appeal is its sense of community. As Pilar says, it feels like "listening to your friends." Most facilitation podcasts focus on tips, tutorials, and sales pitches. Facilitation Stories stands out for spotlighting members of the IAF England and Wales community sharing stories and learning from real life experiences.   The hosts' genuine enthusiasm, warmth, and enjoyment comes across in every episode. According to Pilar, her favorite episodes are the unscripted conversations between two or more co-hosts. The rapport and natural interactions make listeners feel like they're right there in the room.   Evolution of Facilitation During the Pandemic   Pilar, Helene, and Nikki reflected on how facilitation has changed over the past few years, accelerated by the pandemic. Virtual facilitation has become more ubiquitous and accepted. More organizations recognize the need for facilitators to help guide productive online meetings and events. Hybrid events also present new challenges facilitators must adapt to.   On a skills level, facilitators have had to expand their digital literacy and learn to facilitate exclusively through a screen. Soft skills like reading the virtual room, fostering connections, and keeping energy levels up become even more crucial.   Co-facilitation partnerships have also blossomed as the complexity and demand increases. Facilitators increasingly team up with those outside the profession who bring complementary expertise.   Key Takeaways   A few key themes emerge from Pilar's time on Facilitation Stories:   Start simple - When launching a new podcast, focus on consistent execution over production value. Get the first 10 episodes done to build momentum.   Rotate roles - Swap hosting and production duties between team members. It keeps things dynamic while building everyone's skills.   Personality matters - Let your authentic style and personality come through. This attracts the right listeners who connect with the content.   Find your niche - Targeting a specific community makes it easier to grow an engaged audience, as demonstrated by the show's IAF focus.   Value enjoyment - Do it because you find joy in the process and camaraderie. Passion shines through and makes it worthwhile.   What Comes Next   While sad to say goodbye to Facilitation Stories, Pilar is embarking on an exciting new chapter. She shared some of the creative pursuits and professional projects she'll be focusing on:   Developing an audio course on asynchronous communication   Exploring the comics medium and using visual storytelling   Continuing fiction writing and other literary projects   Building her podcasting expertise through new shows and helping others level up their podcasts   Authoring books on topics like co-hosting or using Trello for podcast production   After years of client work, training, and teaching, Pilar is ready to put more energy into generating original content and productions. She remains as passionate as ever about podcasting and plans to start new shows in addition to advising others.   When asked if she had any parting wisdom, Pilar expressed full confidence that Helene and Nikki will continue taking the podcast to new heights. She may no longer be there, but the strong community built on Facilitation Stories will carry on  
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    45 mins