Gentle, Cooperative Facilitation

Gentle, Cooperative Facilitation

more
 | home
 Next date to be agreed

This two-day workshop is organised by Tobias Mayer and facilitated by Francis Laleman. This page describes the in-person implementation of this workshop. For the online version click here.

Express Interest

Workshop Abstract

By all means, facilitation is a gentle activity. To be honest, nobody is really sure what it means to facilitate or to be a facilitator, but most certainly it has something to do with making stuff easier.

Most surely, of dictionary definitions, there are many:

  • Facilitation is the designing and running of successful meetings and workshops in organizational settings.
  • Facilitation is the process by which an organism profits from the presence of another, such as nurse plants that provide shade for new seedlings or saplings.
  • Facilitation is the increase in postsynaptic potential evoked by a second impulse in neurons.
  • Facilitation is the tendency for people to perform differently when in the presence of others than when alone.

What isn't said, is that facilitation is a job for the humble. Decidedly, a court jester is very present and conspicuous, but he is the last to deem himself funny. What isn't said either, is that one cannot facilitate and manage at the same time. Or that facilitation does not mean leadership.

The programme of this workshop will follow a gently facilitated baseline.

  1. Who are we? What is it exactly that we do? How do we handle hierarchies, if any? What is the meaning of making things easy?
  2. What is the object of what we do? What is it that we facilitate? A status-quo? Processes? Transformations? Learning?
  3. Which are the means for a facilitator to deliver upon her promise? Approaches? Methodologies? Techniques?

And of course there will be plenty of facilitation done. By everyone.

Making stuff easier for ourselves and for each other.

Takeaway

After these two days, expect to have explored a kaleidoscope of cooperative learning. Expect to have become a jester. Expect to have rung your bell and turned your mirror. Expect to have become stronger in your facilitator's job—but also more gentle, perhaps more kind.

About the Facilitator

Francis Laleman started in the 1970s, travelling, researching, writing, storytelling and teaching Sanskrit, then moving on to working with the downtrodden in the urban slums of Northern India and spending extended periods of time in Buddhist monasteries.

Ever since, picking up inspiration from a variety of sources (from Helen Pankhurst, Mieko Kamiya and Rabindranath Tagore to Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal) Francis has been looking for novel methods and new meaning in the fields of education adult learning, and the facilitation of transformational dynamics—always preferring cooperative models over teacher/student duality, and practical implementation over theory and documentation.

Today, Francis keeps being on the move, from India to Japan to Europe and vice versa. He mainly works as a designer and facilitator of cooperative learning processes and learning cultures, and as a gentle facilitator of (Agile) transformation processes, all the time sourcing ideas from educational philosophies, (Zen) Buddhism, the shuhari learning process in traditional Japanese craftsmanship and other weirdly connected frameworks of thought.

Most probably, however, you will find him in a garden.

Organiser Note

This is a rare opportunity to learn from a seasoned facilitator, whose deeply human-centric values have touched many of us in our recent interactions at the Reimagine Work and Scrum Exchange events. Highly recommended for scrum masters, educators, and anyone who works with groups.

Express Interest

Date & Time

This is an online workshop, spanning two full days. The next date will be determined by the participants themselves. Express your interest in this workshop to be included in the date decision.

Cost

Corporate rate: £750 + VAT
Self-pay: sliding scale from £600 to £250 + VAT
Workshop limited to 16

Location

Zoom. The access link will be sent on registration.

Contact Information

  • text message
  • email
  • linkedin

  • Image: Cover art from Rokto Kobori by Rabindranath Tagore
    Content: Francis Laleman, 2019/2020
    Page last updated: 02/09/2020