Late hour regrets

It's 7:30 at night. I've been getting ready all day to facilitate a one-day Forum this coming Thursday, and I am not done yet. It's exhausting! Why did I suggest a four-person panel discussion followed by a moderated question and answer session for the morning? Who's idea was it to get five speakers - none of whom I've met - in the afternoon??

It reminds me of the hour before guests arrive for the party, or two days before Christmas. You know, that "it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time" feeling.

My shoulders ache from being hunched over a keyboard all day, and despite having about fifteen days of music in my I-tunes folder, I am tired of the repertoire.

Sigh.

And yet, I know I will be high as a kite by noon on Thursday. I can only remember one session in the last year or so that made induced panic rather than euphoria. I was leading a planing session for a non-profit client with a very opinionated and ultra-democratic Board and staff in attendance. The energy and commitment was fabulous, but the session blazed off the agenda in the first half-hour. Thank goodness I had a co-facilitator with whom I could retreat to the bar at the end of Day One for an emergency re-plan.

Come to think of it, I have the same person - my old buddy Lynn Swanson - with me this coming Thursday. She can time-keep, man the Parking Lot and help me keep my notes and props in order.

I am soooo fortunate in my colleagues. I have long-time workmates to try out ideas with me, offer input on likely group dynamics, make visuals look pretty and debrief for the lessons learned over a nice glass of chilled something or other. Lucky me!

Appreciation 101

I spent several days over the Summer putting together a one-day staff conference for a client. The theme was "appreciation". A colleague and I came up with the concept of the conference and then sat on the organizing committee. My role, once the ball was rolling, was to design and deliver a workshop on how to make appreciation a personal and team habit when the day was over. I used the Dewitt Jones video, "Celebrate What's Right With the World to establish the emotional tenor for the one-hour workshop. (If you haven't seen this video, go to the Star Thrower Workshop and watch it. It is quite wonderful!) In the after-glow of the video, I asked the table groups to brainstorm the elements that make a compliment really mean something. The results across several workshops were amazingly consistent. Here they are:
1. Be sincere
2. Make it genuine
3. Give it from the heart
4. Make it timely
5. Or make it spontaneous
6. And unexpected
7. Validate something important about who they are or what they did
8. Be specific
9. Don’t have an ulterior motive
10. Give it to anyone – a stranger, a colleague, a friend, a boss

The conference was a spectacular success. About 500 people attended and no-one had a complaint! We set up a big piece of canvass and several magic markers to get immediate feedback. The most frequent words used were "thank you" and "fantastic".

I was pondering on what made it so successful, and realized (in the shower, naturally!) that is was because we hit all ten appreciation must-have's in the design and delivery of the day.

It's experiences like this one that keep the facilitation joints limber!

Planning a panel discussion

I have been thinking about a panel discussion I am facilitating for a conference one of my clients is hosting next month. I came up with the idea of having three or four subject matter specialists present their annual updates in the form of a panel discussion instead of the usual serial monologues. Attendees in previous years have given the feedback that they want to know what's been happening during the year, and to have an opportunity to ask questions. Problem is, in said previous years, virtually no one has put their hand up when the speaker has asked the conversation-killer "does anyone have any questions?" So, how to deliver the update and then stimulate a real conversation? I'm hoping that by asking the panelists questions as if they came from the floor (Peter Mansbridge style, absent the fabulous suit and tie) that I can establish the appropriate atmosphere. Before we start, I'll invite attendees to jot down questions that come to mind during the panel discussion, and then have them discuss these with their table-mates and choose a couple of questions that they would all like to get answered.

I have been thinking about the ORID format for structured conversations, and pondering whether or not to structure my "floor" questions using this flow. I could start by asking a panelist to give us a run-down of some of the events of the past year (Observation). Then ask a question to get them to Reflect on the response to the events. Next I can focus a question or two to get their Interpretation of the meaning to the conference attendees, and finally I could call out the Decisions made or actions taken. As long as its not too formulaic, it could give a nice rise and fall flow to each dialogue.

Boy, I love doing this! More on this later.

Facilitating Thanksgiving

I hosted our family's Thanksgiving feast yesterday. It's my favorite feast day - just food and company - no expectations of gifts or decorations beyond a handful of conkers and a bunch of flowers. Husband Tony and I bought vegetables at the UBC Farmer's Market to go with the locally raised, free-range turkey. Elka, my son Jim's girlfriend, made apple pie with windfall fruit from the neighbour's tree. Good, green, citizens of second milenium that we are!

Twelve of us sat down to eat: myself, my husband, my brother, four of our five children, their spouses and dates, our grandson and our adopted grandmother. It was the usual raucous affair with lots of laughter, chips of serious conversation, joking and teasing, and sizing up of the new dates. It was another in the series of family myth-making events. One of those "we always..." and "remember when..." events. the stuff of family history.

I remember when my grandmother presided over the table and wore the matriach's ring. Then it was my mother. I didn't come for anybody's company in particular, or for the turkey and the pie, I came for the comfort and security of feeling a member of the tribe.

Now it's my turn. I provide the space. I cook the food, load the table and fill the wine glasses. I'm the facilitator enabling the group to come together to create the magic of communion. It takes as much skill and practice as any strategic planning session. So what are the ingredients? Who participates is irrelevant, what we eat doesn't matter (although eating something does, I think). What does matter? What makes a family feast work well, or not?