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Sun enters Gemini, exact at 15:34

Posted on May 21, 2010
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The Sun enters Gemini

When the Sun enters Gemini the general atmosphere feels lighter, more open and easy-going. Issues of exchange, information, and communication are in the air.

On a mundane level, the Sun represents the general atmosphere, the predominant attitudes towards and ways of looking at life during a certain time. In the true sense of the word, the Sun throws a different light on the world in different signs.

Groupwork DVD – Hot Spots & Trickey Bits

Posted on May 21, 2010
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A great resource for facilitators on DVD is “Hot Spots and Tricky Bits” a facilitation training DVD by the Groupwork Institute of Australia. Details are here:
http://www.groupwork.com.au/facilitation-dvd/

Glen Ochre and Ed McKinley’s facilitation work has been ground-breaking through out Australia over the last 25 years and this DVD is based on their facilitation education and training with a focus on the challenging edges of facilitation. It introduces viewers to 3 typically challenging scenarios being facilitated: A multi-stakeholder community meeting around a new freeway project, a planning day where the drama of someone having been recently fired in the team emerges, and a therapy group. A series of the Groupwork’s “micro-facilitation steps” (or interventions) are demonstrated throughout these 3 scenarios.

One of the great things about this DVD is that I could put myself in the same situation and it is focused on the role of the group facilitator. For me personally, I would have loved to have seen some further discussion after each scenario on the thinking proceses of the facilitator or naming the theoretical principles underpinning the particular facilitation hot-spots demonstrated – naming the why is as important as seeing the how.

Be prepared – some of the language (or lingo as it’s called downunder) will be quite different for international audiences. For example, there is a mini-process called “Poking around”. This could simply translate as the facilitator ‘checking assumptions’ or ‘questioning for clarity’. There’s a booklet with the DVD that helps explain each of the mini-processes used.

If you are familiar and experienced with group facilitation then these scenarios and the interventions will make lots of sense. It would be interesting to have a novice view the DVD to uncover their experience of the approach. This DVD won’t hold someone’s hand through how to facilitate, particularly if they are totally new to facilitation. It will however, demonstate for them what a facilitator does and what’s available when a facilitator is at work with a group.

Touch Graph Social Network Mapper

Posted on May 17, 2010
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I came accross the Touch Graph tool today, an application for facebook that uses your photobank to create a webbed map of your social network. It’s a neat little tool to see the groupings you have in your friends list. There’s sliders to adjust the number of groupings and some other options under the advanced settings.

Try it out yourself – you will need Java installed in your browser:
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

New Issue of the IAF Journal – Now Available to Members

Posted on April 12, 2010
Filed Under Facilitation, Group Facilitation Journal, Research | Leave a Comment

Issue #10 of the IAF’s Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal is hot off the press!  “While there are many publications, both popular and scientific, that discuss groups, organizational development and group leadership, Group Facilitation is targeted directly at providing information to the professional group facilitator. It focuses on examining the “science” side of the “art and science of facilitation” in a format that is useful to both practicing facilitators and academics. As facilitators continue to investigate and explore the emerging and contemporary questions facing them, the Journal will continue to fulfill its role in the sharing of facilitation knowledge”. – Dr. Stephen Thorpe, Editor. 

This issue is full of interesting new articles. It includes a classic from Group & Organization Studies by Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen, reviewing the popular forming, storming, norming and performing model of small group development – a review that concluded with the addition of the adjourning stage. Also in this issue is an article analyzing cases of facilitators’ working ‘in the moment’, plus there is an article that revisits the Devil’s Advocate technique and offers suggestions for practice. Finally, there is the introduction of a Negotiated Performance Appraisal Model for improving organisational performance appraisal. Reviews of two new books provide food for thought. Just take a peek at what’s inside…

Introduction

• Editorial by Stephen Thorpe, Editor

Articles

• ‘In the moment’: An analysis of facilitator impact during a quality improvement process by Eric K. Shaw, Anna Looney, Sabrina Chase, Rohini Navalekar, Brian Stello, Oliver Lontok and Benjamin Crabtree
• Facilitating Problem Solving: A Case Study Using the Devil’s Advocacy Technique by Ryan T. Hartwig
• The Negotiated Performance Appraisal Model: Enhancing Supervisor-Subordinate Communication and Conflict Resolution by Gregorio Billikopf

Classics

• Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited by Bruce W. Tuckman and Mary Ann C. Jensen

Book Reviews

• Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff – Reviewed by Shankar Sankaran
• Standing in the Fire: Leading High Heat Meetings with Clarity, Calm and Courage by Larry Dressler – Reviewed by Cindy Tonkin

Download your IAF member’s only copy of the IAF Journal Issue #10 today. 

4 February 2010 – Coaching with Horses – Coaching with Presence, Hawkes Bay

Posted on February 4, 2010
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I thoroughly enjoyed Zenergy’s first Coaching with Horses – Coaching with Presence programme held on 4 February in Pakipaki, Hastings. The programme was led by Elisabeth Gleed along with the wonderful horse Plum at the Cottle Equestrian Centre. The four participants (including me) enjoyed the interlink between working in the coaching room and working with Plum in the arena. The next programme will be held in Pukekoe, Auckland on 11 June 2010. Click here for details.

PhD – The Use of Storytelling in Online Relationship Development

Posted on January 9, 2010
Filed Under Facilitation, Online Facilitation, Research | Leave a Comment

My doctoral research project explores the use of storytelling and story in the development of relationships in online groups.

Thesis
The development of relationships between group members is recognised as an important factor in enhancing the effectiveness of online groups. However, little has been written on how to facilitate and develop these online relationships. There is little established practice for the facilitation of online relationship development. Certainly this area has not been described, theorised or guidelines developed to support online facilitators.

Facilitators have found that facilitating online groups is far more challenging than face-to-face groups. Due to a lack of physical communication cues it is harder to build a team online, harder to follow meeting processes, tougher to sort out multiple communication channels and harder to converge.

The use of narrative in the facilitation of online groups potentially offers a useful catalyst in developing online relationships. It provides an accessible form for developing inclusiveness, deepening rapport and for people to present aspects of themselves in an environment lacking in information richness.

The study involves facilitators and others working in the emerging field of online groupwork coming together to research their online practice and experience in a co-operative research group. This research group offers a specific expertise in group dynamics, process development and interaction design.

The method of co-operative inquiry is used within a participative approach to investigate the narratives that occur within the online group and those the group work with in their facilitation practice. Co-operative inquiry is chosen as it produces data that has a strong grounding in participant experience and multiple perspectives of phenomena. Co-operative inquiry also aligns strongly with facilitator values of equality, shared decision-making, equal opportunity, power sharing and personal responsibility.

The thesis question is: How is narrative beneficial in building relationships in a facilitated online group?

The research makes an original contribution to the knowledge of online facilitation by investigating the potential effectiveness of narrative in online relationship development. It investigates the potential of narrative to address some of the difficulties faced by facilitators of online groups. Practical outputs for the field of facilitation are the formation and investigation of processes and techniques that can be applied in online relationship building and maintenance.

Click here for more on the research project.

Click here to go to the PhD research website – www.onlinestory.net.

21 November 2009 My PhD Now Complete

Posted on November 21, 2009
Filed Under Online Facilitation, Research | Leave a Comment

The PhD is now complete. Entitled Enhancing the Effectiveness of Online Groups: An Investigation of Storytelling in the Facilitation of Online Groups. The research method was a ground-breaking online Co-operative Inquiry and involved 18 experienced facilitators from around the world over an extended period of 14 months.

25 September 2009 – IAF Workshops in Barbados

Posted on September 25, 2009
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I co-led workshops on Multi Stakeholder Engagement (with Remedios Ruiz of the Dominican Republic and Zenergy colleague Dr. Dale Hunter), Generating a Quantum Shift in Group Consciousness and Enhancing Online Facilitation with Storytelling at the International Association of Facilitators Latin America and the Caribbean conference in Barbados on 23-25 September.

It was awesome to meet the Caribbean facilitators and a delight to work with Remedios Ruiz from the Dominican Republic.

20 September 2009 – IAF Workshops in Oxford, UK

Posted on September 20, 2009
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I co-led several workshops 18-20 September as part of the International Association of Facilitators – Europe Conference at Keble College, Oxford. Workshops included a 1-day workshop pre-conference entitled Working in Blended Realities, and a concurrent workshop drawn from my PhD findings on Enhancing Online Facilitation with Storytelling.

International Association of Facilitators - Europe Conference in Oxford

Online Surveying Tools

Posted on August 26, 2009
Filed Under Interactive Learning, Online Facilitation, Research | Leave a Comment

Web surveys can be a highly effective and an affordable way to gather feedback from people – either before or after an event, or to evaluate the sessions you facilitate.

I was asked recently for an overview on online survey tools and I thought I would share it here also.

There are several popular options that also have varying degrees of free survey options.
Here is a link to a 1-pager pdf document (135KB) that quickly covers six of the most popular online survey tools:
https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/download/schedule/a74kijv001ke

I tend to use Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com). It is reasonably simple to use and navigate around and the free version allows you to create unlimited surveys of up to 10 questions. I rarely have more than 10 questions so it works well for me. The pro version allows for customised branding.

Also designing a survey with impartial and effective questioning is an art form in itself. For more on how to go about “designing” the questioning see this great book by by Louis M. Rea and Richard A. Parker:
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Conducting-Survey-Research-Administration/dp/078790810X/zenergyglobal-20

Best regards,
Stephen

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