Storytelling and Scenario Planning

My previous posts on scenario planning (here and here) are some of the most searched on this blog. This past weekend, I used the storytelling procedure from the scenario planning module I attended at the Authentic Leadership in Action program. That module had relied heavily on the three days of preparation that led up to our creation and sharing of future scenario stories. We had brainstormed and plotted and fleshed out current and future trends that would affect the future of leadership, created scenarios around the major trends, and then set ourselves inside these scenarios to write stories from the future.

I spent Saturday facilitating the annual meeting between The Otesha Project’s Board of Directors and staff members, and midway during the day it hit me that the storytelling method was the perfect thing to bring into the group to close off our day. Otesha, since its inception in 2002, has been a fascinating organization – one that tries to incorporate consensus models and a youth-run framework into a vision for Canada-wide change.

Particularly at this point in its history, the stories of how Otesha might go forward are unwritten. The Board and staff referred often to their five year plan, but even within that framework saw wide possibilities for meeting Otesha’s mission: to bring sustainable consumption into the mainstream of Canadian culture. As the organization goes through a major transition – both co-founders have transitioned out of their director roles and now serve on the Board, full-time staff have reorganized their structure from semi-hierarchical to a flat, non-hierarchical structure, and all remain committed to a consensus model even as staff transition in and out of the organization – there is a beautiful diversity of complementary visions for meeting Otesha’s goals in the years to come.

Recognizing the diversity in the room, and the diversity of options available, I pulled in the story creation from the scenario planning module I had attended. In our last two hours, after a day discussing organizational SWOTS, key questions around HR, finances, and programming, and some intense brainstorm/visioning sessions, we gathered in a circle. Following the character creation method used in the module I’d attended, we each selected the numbers and characteristics that made up our future character. Then we mentally fastforwarded ourselves into the lives of these imaginary people – who were they, where did they live? And in the year 2011 (when Otesha’s current five year plan comes to completion), how would these characters have been touched by Otesha?

What followed was one of the most intense half hours I’ve seen a group embrace. For 30-40 minutes, everyone spread out throughout different rooms, curled up with notebooks, and started writing their stories of who their character was and how Otesha had reached into his/her life. People were gripping their pens and pencils furiously, filling up pages rapidly, pausing to reread, examine, rewrite, staring into space as they gathered their thoughts. The rooms were silent save for the sounds of our pens on paper; for thirty minutes, everyone travelled forward in time and imagined the future they could create together.

The greatest gift that comes from this method is the sharing of stories with each other. As we gathered for our last hour together, each member of the group shared their stories. More than one story made us laugh, more than one story brought tears to our eyes. Every single story offered possibility, and painted for us all a picture of Otesha’s future, and a picture of Canada’s future. I think that this hope and possibility is what each attendee is taking with them as they head back into their regular workweeks, and as a facilitator it’s a hope and possibility that have made me feel reconnected to my work.

Coaching: Three Levels of Listening

I’ve posted earlier on some listening frameworks (here and here). The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) training added another framework, three parts this time.

Level one: Listening within your own head

Similar to the level one listening from Scharmer, this listening is all about you. As a coach, if you’re listening from within your own head, you aren’t really hearing what’s being said. You’re hearing your own inner voice wondering what question you’ll ask next, if you’re adding any value for this client, that you’ve heard all this before, that you need to pick up vegetables on the way home…

Level two: “Hard focus”

CTI calls this “hard focus” listening; it means focusing completely on the other person (i.e. the client). The other person is taking up all of your listening to the extent that it’s almost as if there is a bubble around you. We saw a few demonstrations of this type of listening from the expert coaches teaching our course – where they coached someone in front of the rest of us, but were so intent in their listening that it was as if the rest of us weren’t there.

Level three: “global listening”

Level three listening is also known as a “softer focus”, and there’s a place for it in coaching as well. With the level three listening, the coach listens to the edges around and the atmosphere within the bubble – so to speak – of the coach and client. At this level you listen for the emotion and energetic sense of the person, but also are aware of what’s going on in the room, the environment. For example, if there’s a fire truck going by, alarms blaring, during a particularly intense part of the coaching conversation, listening at level three means you’ll acknowledge it rather than pretending it’s not going on and intruding on the conversation.

I think the level three listening is a good one for group facilitators to think about in terms of distractions – I’ve often seen facilitators try (and have tried myself) to ignore distractions and proceed as if they’re not happening, forging on ahead in a loud voice and extra energy while half the group is distracted watching the facility staff arrive and set up a new flipchart (or some other interruption). Better to acknowledge, “Okay, we’re getting a new flipchart. Let’s get that set up.” It probably only requires ten seconds of acknowledged attention, but without that ten seconds of acknowledgement you’ve lost the group’s attention for a full minute or two. With that ten seconds acknowledgement, you can draw the group’s attention back and then carry forward.

Scenario Planning Links

Awhile back I posted a description of the scenario planning process after participating in the scenario planning module at the Authentic Leadership in Action program. One of the other participants, Rochell, has subsequently set up a site with posted pictures from the module, a great list of online scenario planning resources (including this fantastic resource page), and an upcoming group forum to discuss scenario planning experiences.

While I’m referencing helpful links, I’ve also been following Cindy Diamond’s Ideas for Great Facilitation blog. Her posts are brief, simple, straightforward, and make for good refreshers or idea generators for the facilitator.

Youth, Development, and Peace Network

During the World Bank’s Youth Open House in Washington, D.C. last week, the North America Youth, Development and Peace Network (YDP) – a group of youth organizations and individual youth interested in networking together on youth and development issues – met to discuss how they could advance their network.

I was asked by the YDP’s Interim Steering Committee to serve as facilitator as we heard from guest speakers, guest organizations, and invited participation from all the attendees in discussing potential processes and activities for the YDP. The two-day agenda is posted here.

It was fascinating to spend some time actually within the World Bank headquarters and see some of the behind-the-scenes on how that mammoth organization works and thinks. I’m glad to note that the YDP is careful to point out that “The YDP NA Network is an independent structure which has a relationship with the World Bank. The YDP NA Network does not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank…” Participants included individuals who had spent lots of time protesting and advocating against World Bank policies and also participants who firmly believed that the World Bank is promoting development and reducing global poverty.

Some facilitation strategies I employed over the two days were ICA’s Focused Conversation method, a Round Robin interviewing technique, Open Space technology, Dotmocracy, quick yoga exercises as energizers, an invitation to create and reflect on our conference intentions, a Gestalt activity exploring definitions of leadership, and generally a lot of rephrasing, reflecting, summarizing, and coordinating. As we concluded the two days, the YDP has a process for selecting a Steering Committee Chair and Co-Chair, a series of recommendations for the YDP structure, activities, and communication and participation strategies, and a comprehensive index of how conference participants want to be involved in each of the different recommendations, including the many participants who expressed interest in leading various initiatives.

All in all, the previous week’s silent retreat gave me lots of focus for being entirely present during the two days in Washington, but I’m always glad to be back in Toronto. I’m spending this week exploring my own approaches to conflict in a 40 hour, five day training on interpersonal mediation methods. After a day spent roleplaying different disputants in various mediation scenarios, I’m exhausted, but loving the training – more on that in a future post.

Conflict

As a facilitator focused on a group that is hearing each other, listening to each other, and making new discoveries together, sometimes I forget the value of conflict.

Brian Stanfield’s The Workshop Book reminded me (p.124):

Tension is a sign that a group is healthy and thinking.

A diversity of views is valuable to ensure that decisions are sound and well thought-through.

Groups do need to gain an understanding of the perspectives involved, resolve issues, and make choices.

Most arguments happen when people are really getting to the central questions and are moving toward choices.

Setting Facilitation Intentions

In preparation for a four day facilitated retreat this week, we had a group of four main facilitators and about six helper facilitators get together for a last minute overview of the schedule. The head facilitator brought us to the big picture level by asking us to take a few minutes in silence to reflect on what our intentions were as facilitators.

I’d never set a facilitator intention before – I’ve set goals for sessions, goals for participants, and tried to get a good night’s sleep and be well-prepared. But setting an intention brought a whole other level of clarity.

My intention this week was:
-to create spaces and opportunities for individuals and the group to discover new understandings
-to model deep listening.

Throughout the first day of facilitation, whenever I was thrown off guard in a session, felt that something wasn’t quite right, or had to adjust the plan because of extenuating circumstances, I glanced down at my intention and then I knew what to do to go forward. Setting an intention before facilitating is going to become part of my regular preparation routine from here on.

This Week’s Projects

Spending a few days designing a World Cafe discussion on leadership for the chapter presidents of Engineers Without Borders Canada. World Cafe discussions are, without fail, stimulating.

Our group of facilitators is planning on following up the leadership cafe with a few sessions on self-awareness exploration for leaders. I’m planning one of these sessions, where we’ll go wide (not deep) presenting a smattering of self-awareness tools, from learning styles to Myers Briggs to action learning theories to categories of listening to group dynamics analysis and more. We’re closing out the day with guided journalling, offering participants time, space, and some suggested structure for reflection on their first day at the leadership retreat.

hard at work on planning…

Facilitation Training – Focused Conversation

This week I took the two-day Group Facilitation course offered by ICA Associates.

The first day was spent learning and practicing the Focused Conversation method. The Focused Conversation theory is that four levels need to be addressed in group conversations: the Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, and Decisional levels. Different individuals might approach a conversation topic starting from different levels, and the group needs to move through all four levels together in order to reach a competent, informed decision that the group is comfortable with and feels ownership over. You can also used focused conversations one-on-one. ICA offers suggested focused conversation scripts on their website and in a number of books (e.g. The Art of Focused Conversation, and The Art of Focused Conversation for Schools).

To plan a focused conversation, you start by identifying the rational aim and experiential aim that need to be accomplished. Then design questions for each level of the conversation.

At the objective level, you address the “what”. What happened, what data is before us, what were the events, who were the characters. If the objective level is left out of a group discussion, different members of the group may be trying to proceed to a group decision without each member having all of the same information.

The reflective level allows space for individuals to respond personally to the facts. What’s the gut reaction? Does the current situation trigger particular emotions or remind you of another situation? What are your associations with the information before you? If the reflective level is left out, people aren’t given space to share their reaction. So their reactions and associations might come out later, outside of the “decision” conversation, or their associations might block their ability to fully commit to a decision.

At the interpretive level, the conversation questions prompt the group to analyze and draw out the meaning of both the objective information and the reflective associations. Without the interpretive level, the group doesn’t get a chance to analyze, prioritize, and consider options before moving to a decisional level.

The last level is the decisional level, where the group reaches resolution and achieves the aim(s) set out at the beginning of the conversation.

Here’s an example. I was to deliver a performance feedback summary to a manager this week, delivering compiled feedback from the manager’s team. I planned a focused conversation:

Rational aim: individual can identify changes to make as a result of feedback; individual can summarize feedback themes and subsequent actions for team.
Experiential aim: individual feels confident addressing subject with team; individual processes own reactions and can interpret own reactions before speaking with rest of team.

Objective questions:
Who participated in providing this feedback?
What roles have you played and will you be playing for these individuals?
What are some of the comments you read in the summary?
What particular words do you remember?

Reflective questions:
What comments or recommendations surprised you? Scared you? Excited you?
What did it remind you of when you heard this feedback?
Which of the changes do you want to address? Which do you want to avoid?

Interpretive questions:
What trends or patterns did you notice in the comments?
Which changes are highest priority for you? For your team? For your organization?
Which changes would require the biggest adjustments for you? Which would be easiest to make?
What does your team need to hear from you about your response to this feedback?
What support will you need from your team?
How can this information be of benefit to you and your team?

Decisional questions:
When, how, and what will you communicate to your team about this performance feedback?
What assistance will you request?

After planning and using my own focused conversation, I’ll evaluate when and how I’ll continue to use the method, either individually or with a group. My experience so far is that focused conversations have a natural and reassuring flow, and that groups respond well to them, yet I feel limited by the structure and often want to depart from the plan.

Peer Learning, Experiential Learning, Learning Styles

When I first started work as a facilitator, one of the first sessions I designed and ran was on Peer Learning. I’m running it again this week for a non-profit group, and every time I return to it I’m reminded of the basics of facilitation, the basics of learning.

The session is designed for a beginner audience, and covers principles of adult learning (intent: adults learn best when they see the utility of what they’re learning vis-a-vis what they intend to do; participatory: adults learn best when they interact with new information, through experiential and participatory learning; building on previous knowledge: adults learn best when they can bring their own knowledge and experience to the table, and have it interact with what they’re learning; physiology: understanding that the more types of and numbers of interactions with information that the learners get, the stronger the connections built in their brains – especially as we get older and need more iterations to start transferring between short-term and long-term memory).

To support an understanding of how to create new and different interactions between learners and content, in this session we go over kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learner classifications, and then create presentations maximizing our use of cues designed for each of the learning styles.

After a review and debrief, each participant gets a copy of the Facilitator’s Guide I co-created a few years ago. I just heard this week that someone who has taken this session has since introduced the Facilitator’s Guide to their workplace (a major Canadian engineering company), and the facilitation skills are spreading.

For someone like me, who believes that our understanding each other’s ways of learning and interacting together is part of creating a better world, this is good news – and a reminder that going back to the basics of learning and facilitating can have a far-reaching impact.