Adventures In Facilitation

Hello Friends!

Welcome to Adventures in Facilitation – a blog about my journey as a process design facilitator.

I began a more dedicated practice of facilitation 9 years ago all while teaching at a community college. Within the last year, I had the unique opportunity to facilitate more than 13 discussions, workshops, and listening sessions on a variety of topics including social unrest, diversity, COVID, and psychological safety with work teams - all from my home office (“ahem” my guest bedroom). These encounters were incredible learning experiences for me. They taught me about the most effective ways, and the NOT so effective ways to lead crucial conversations, manage group dynamics, and organize productive meetings and workshops for both virtual and in person formats. I learned that thoughtful meeting facilitation is the most useful tool for any meaningful group experience.

These encounters, coupled with my love of process design led me to conceptualize a project I call, the "colloquial exchange collaborative (cec)". The cec is a partnership of culturally-competent facilitators who believe in the power of dialogue to transform world-views, experiences, perspectives, and help groups achieve better outcomes. I am creating cec for three reasons:

1) No one should have to suffer another painful meeting experience

2) As the late great Maya Angelou said, “When you learn, teach, when you get, give! and

3) The best contribution I can make to the world is by sharing the skills I’ve developed.

The project is currently being baked and the website is under development, but once we are ready, I would love for you to join us at the launch. In the meantime, I invite you to come along for the many escapades - that will undoubtedly prove to be interesting - at Adventures in Facilitation. I will provide a play by play of my pursuits in facilitation, and my everyday capers as I attempt to practice my art as well.

There are sure to be stumbling blocks and pure epic fails along the way, but somewhere in between there will also be delicious wins! Either way it will be such fun, and I am looking forward to sharing them all with you! And don’t worry, I promise there will be something for you too. After all, who doesn’t want to learn something new to make meetings and discussions so much better? So, let’s all learn together!

If you want to come along for the ride or peek in from time to time, please join me at Adventures in Facilitation. Hope to see you there!