IAF Europe Newsletter
Jan. 2010
INDEX
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# 11 NOVEMBER 2011
Europe is one of seven regions within the International Association of Facilitators. The IAF Europe team members volunteer their time to plan and support activities and services for IAF members living in Europe, supported by Entendu Ltd. Contact us at pamela.lupton-bowers@iaf-europe.eu; robert.verheule@iaf-europe.eu; kristin.reinbach@iaf-europe.eu; rosemary.cairns@iaf-europe.eu. IAF Europe is currently the only region to benefit from having its own Administrative Office. Please make this your first point of contact for matters relating to your membership, the upcoming IAF Europe Conference or other activities in the region. Ben Richardson or Bobbie Redman are available during normal European working hours by calling +44 (0)1923 400 330 or just email office@iafeurope.eu.
ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER The IAF Europe Newsletter is published monthly by the IAF Europe Regional Team for members of the International Association of Facilitators living within Europe. Editor: Rosemary Cairns Design: Christian Grambow | www.christiangrambow.com Contributors: Carolien de Monchy, Elif Gonen, Maureen Jenkins (IAF Methods Database), Pamela Lupton Bowers, Slađana Milošević, Tatjana Obradovic Tosic, Kristin Reinbach. Photographs by Sieglinde Hinger, Marina Kurdova, Galina Ovsyankina, Jean Philippe Poupard, Edwin Sutedjo, Jamie Thompson, Rosemary Cairns. Cover picture: There are many ways to share information and the participants in Valeria Efremova‖s ―Bridge to the People‖ workshop during the 2011 IAF Europe conference in Istanbul had to use all of them to communicate information. Sometimes we had to mime, sometimes we could use words (but not the word the group had to identify), and sometimes we drew. Here Kristin Reinbach is drawing a picture of a concept for team members Jan Lelie and Stuart Reid to identify. Valeria, who lives in the Russian Federation, developed this game herself; it can be adapted to teach many different kinds of concepts.
Please send your contributions to your Newsletter to rosemary.cairns@iaf-europe.eu
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CONTENT
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# 11 NOVEMBER 2011
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―THROWING A LINE ACROSS‖ - BUILDING BRIDGES IN ISTANBUL AND AROUND EUROPE By Rosemary Cairns
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JUMPSTART INTO FACILITATING 80 PEOPLE
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GENEVA WILL HOST THE 2012 EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
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ERICH NEULAND AT 70!
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HOW FACILITATION IS CHANGING WITH GENERATION Y By Elif Duru Gönen
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CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEWEST CPFS! By Lindsay Wilson
By Tatjana Obradovic Tosic
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By Pamela Lupton-Bowers
CONNECTED - PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON TEAMWORK WITH MAUREEN JENKINS By Carolien de Monchy
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PROMOTING PROFESSIONAL FACILITATION IN THE BALKANS— A NEW GUIDE By Slađana Milošević and Bojan Đurić
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‘Throwing a line across’ Building bridges in Istanbul and around Europe By Rosemary Cairns
Istanbul is a city of bridges, brilliantly lit at night, that span cultures and languages as well as land. But even the simplest of bridges begins with someone‖s desire to jump a barrier that separates people. In the jungle, people work together to collect and weave together vines. Then some brave soul goes high in a tree, throws the first line across, and makes that first perilous journey. Then, once both sides have been linked, the bridge can be strengthened so many more people can cross.
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That striking image – screened for us by Robert Verheule, who works in transportation in the Netherlands when he is not volunteering with the IAF Europe leadership team as the person in charge of conferences and professional development – became as enduring a theme for the 2011 IAF Europe conference as the Istanbul city bridges we saw during an evening cruise on the Bosphorus.
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Photographs by Edwin Sutedjo, Sieglinde Hinger, Marina Kurdova, Jean Philippe Poupard, Jamie Thompson, Galina Ovsyankina, Rosemary Cairns
In fact, it may be a fitting symbol for the International Association of Facilitators as an organization. IAF began in the mid-1990s, in the United States, with a few facilitators wanting to build a bridge so that many more facilitators could share and hone their knowledge and expertise. Lines were thrown out around the world and the original IAF nucleus grew into regions, and then most recently, into chapters – local gatherings at which facilitators meet and share. The work of volunteers But at every level, the line-throwing is done by volunteers – volunteers who serve on the global IAF board, volunteers who serve on regional teams, volunteers who organize chapters, volunteers who organize conferences, volunteers who produce newsletters, and volunteers who present at conferences. Thus, in the truest sense, IAF is a bridge made up of people who give their
time to serve a growing and largely selforganizing community of facilitators and those with an interest in facilitation. As it has grown into a professional organization, that volunteer effort sometimes fades into the background of the well-organized conferences, newsletters, and chapter activities. We sometimes forget that a great deal of hard work, and effort, goes into this apparently seamless activity, at every level. And in focusing on the tip of the iceberg that is visible, we sometimes forget the part of the iceberg that lies below the waterline. The IAF Europe leadership team was created in the fall of 2008, picking up where Jim Campbell had left off as the European regional representative after four years of service. Since that time, we have put out a monthly newsletter, worked with local groups to organize conferences in Oxford, Helsinki, and Istanbul, stayed in touch with members, encouraged the growth of local chap-
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Photographs by Rosemary Cairns
ters within Europe, and shared knowledge about facilitation work opportunities. The importance of support Organizing our work has been challenging as we rarely are able to meet in person and must meet virtually, through conference calls. In 2010, we reached an agreement with a UK-based company, Entendu Ltd., to support our work administratively by managing European memberships and supporting chapters (a pilot project agreed to by the IAF global board) and organizing conferences, and this help has been a tremendous support to the leadership team. The finances of this arrangement, experimental at the time, have become clearer as we have worked together over the past two years. Participants in the 2011 IAF Europe conference in Istanbul saw the fruits of this hard work – in a growing number of chapters and growing interest in forming chapters, and in a well-
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organized event that was full of energy and a great spirit. While local participation was more limited than we had hoped, the local committee believes that this event will help to kick start facilitation as a profession in Turkey. And we came away from Istanbul with the venues of the next three European conferences set – Geneva, Denmark, and Russia – as well as renewed energy for the growth of more chapters around Europe. We hope that you will enjoy these pictures from the conference, which were taken by various participants. We want to thank you as conference participants, and as IAF members, for your support for IAF and the work of the European region and European chapters. And we want, on our behalf as well as yours, to say a special thank you to Ben Richardson and Bobbie Redman of Entendu for their dedicated work in helping us to ―throw a line across‖ and ―build bridges‖ for facilitators in Europe.
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Generation Y
By Elif Duru Gönen
Generation Y says: • “Career Path: I’m in charge, not the company. Want/need freedom to explore what interests me.” • “Communication: Clear goals and objectives, tell me what I need to know” • “Communication: Constant feedback” • “Feedback, feedback, feedback!” • “Communication: Honest, open, transparent —“ • “Stop the opaque, cryptic, politically correct, safe approach: Encourage dissension” • “Know Me, Understand Me: What motivates me, what I want, what I need” • “Loyalty is to Self, Team, Project, Customer — (the order of those four may switch depending on our personal priorities, but loyalty to company usually is last after all of those)” • “Success: I co-define it — I don’t buy into the company‖s sole definition” • “Training and Development: Very personalized to me” (www.HackingWork.com) Gen Y employees are born between 1981 and 2000. This segment of the employee population includes entry level workers that are new university grads as well as employees who have been in the work force 11 years or more. Their learning style is a hot topic within the field of Training and Development. The central question is how to prepare these young people for their role in the workforce.
dia - than their parents. And it is through the use of digital media that the Y generation will develop and superimpose its culture on the rest of the society. They are learning, playing, communicating, working and creating communities very differently than their parents. They are a force for social transformation. According to one theory, Generation Y is independent but dependent, confident but requires constant assurance, needs active learning and individual attention. These sometimes contradictory traits make training of any type more difficult, prompting changes in development programs at all levels. Gen Y participants: • tend to place less value on content/cases/ examples that are more than 2 - 3 years old • perceive less value in the experiences of other industries • place a MUCH higher value on discussion • see less value in small group or breakout exercises • prefer peer learning to learning from the "sage on the stage” • are sick of PowerPoint, especially when used as a replacement for speaker's notes • need to play a role in directly shaping the agenda and driving the content In designing a program for Gen Y, it is important to consider the values of this generation and how they impact learning and professional development choices. Here are 7 tips for facilitators:
Different from adult learners Generation Y is different from the classic “adult learner” model in a number of ways. For the first time in history, children are more comfortable, knowledgeable, and literate with an innovation that is central to society – digital me-
Tip 1: Customization Customized program and customized approach is essential. Gen Y are ―prosumers‖, not ―consumers‖. They consume but they also want to be part of the production process. They want something special for them.
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How facilitation is changing
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GenY workshop photographs courtesy of Elif Gone
If you understand Y Gen, you will understand the future. You will also understand how our society and institutions need to change today.�
The facilitator must be a really good listener and process observer. If you don‖t know needs ahead of time, ask questions often during the program and motivate them to give revealing answers. This helps you steer the course and flow of information directly towards needs, instead of towards your need to present a complete course. With this technique, you can give more time or detail to topics that participants (program partners) are interested in, and sometimes even skip topics that they are not interested in.
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Gen Y participants are expert consumers of information. If they don't think the information you are about to present will apply to them, immediately, they will turn off and you will lose their attention. When working with Generation Y audiences, be careful not to have the whole agenda carved in stone. It's important to be flexible and carve out space for the impromptu in your agenda. Tip 2: Collaboration Our experience with younger groups has been that collaboration is the key. Carefully formulating an objective, and having them work together to find a solution acceptable to all of them, is a kick! Discussion forums, instant messaging, blogging and emailing are not only expected in training design: they are becoming an integral part of the design. These communication tools allow for collaboration. Another collaboration opportunity is, during discussion sessions, to let them contact people outside their own group to solicit input. iPhones and iPads are whipped out to contact their network outside the company.
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GenY workshop photographs courtesy of Elif Gone
Discussions and group projects will appeal to Gen Y. Be careful to design the training so that each group member has an equal role to play. Tip 3: Entertainment The young generation has grown up in a media context - whether it is online video or even contemporary talk shows or reality TV – in which there is an expectation that information, however serious, should be presented in a simple, engaging and lively way. They want unscripted and relaxed (funny). Human interactions are critical for getting the right kind of response from participants. Minimize and modify the use of Powerpoint. It is considered "old hat". Speakers who use Powerpoint slides as a substitute for their notes are a huge turn-off for the Generation Y crowd. Tip 4: Speed “Elevator speech” generation. These people grew up with the attention span of a gnat. I don't mean this unkindly. But they are truly the product of the 30-second sound-byte, coupled with the instant click of the mouse for results. They want it, and they want it now, or
you've lost them. So keep your topics short, to the point, and use relevant examples or you will lose them. They will be bored within 10 minutes. Keep sessions and messages short. Repeat key messages. Create modules and sub-modules to ensure that the information is delivered in bites. Allow for review and for modules to be taken out of sequence for best results. Remember K.I.S.S.S (Keep it Short, Simple and Sweet.) Tip 5: Fresh – Current – Relevant Start with what is directly relevant to the group's industry and company TODAY. Generation Y participants will tend to dismiss content that is less than two or three years old as out of date and irrelevant. Until the group has a chance to grapple with and explore content that they perceive as immediately relevant and usable, information about other industries and lessons from the past will be a huge turn-off. Gen Y is really a generation of "What's In It For Me," more than any other. They expect information and technology to cater to them, not the other way around. Gen Y comes to
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learn how the session caters to their way of working or meets their needs. Tip 6: Mental breaks Whenever they lose the connection with the content, they will take the mental breaks. Because Gen Y grew up with technology, they are quite adept at multitasking and will often email and/or text during sessions. This doesn't necessarily mean you have lost them. So if you see your Gen Y participant texting and emailing as you present material to them, don't be offended. They are doing what they do everywhere, as natural as breathing. Although it also could mean that you are either taking too long to make your point, or the information you are presenting does not apply to them. Tip 7: Social media How good is a gladiator without his shield, sword and body armor? Well, before he could put all that on in the first place, he had to train for years, even practice with a wooden sword. At some point he reached a high level of preparation that made him strong mentally and physically. Right there, that‖s how good he is. Getting the latest armor will not necessarily make him the best against others. The shield and the sword are simply extensions. They protect him, make him reach farther and win more battles.
GenY workshop photographs courtesy of Elif Gone
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Social media is just our extension. Do you check your participants‖ social media extensions or when did you Google your name? You will be Googled before the session by Gen Y participants. Who you really are, experiences, profession, any shared friends … OK! Do not panic! Start with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
Elif Duru Gönen is a consultant and trainer based in Istanbul who has been specializing since 2006 in designing and delivering programmes about effective management of the Y generation in corporate life. She has been a keynote speaker on this topic at many conferences through the Keynote Speakers Agency. She holds an MBA and is a member of IAF (International Association of Facilitators), PERYÖN (Association for Personnel Management), TÜHİD (Turkey Public Relations Association) and SHRM (Society For Human Resources Management). Elif has 14 years’ experience in corporate communications and marketing at The Coca-Cola Company, Swissotel, Superonline and Vakko, and held various positions including eight years of management experience. She designed and executed many training programs in communications, leadership, personal development and corporate etiquette areas during her corporate career.
Jumpstart into facilitating 80 people By Tatjana Obradovic Tosic Editor‖s Note: The Jumpstart program was a new feature at the 2011 IAF Europe conference in Istanbul that aimed to introduce participants to the key competencies of facilitation as defined by IAF. The program was developed by Robert Verheule, the IAF Europe leadership team member responsible for professional development. Sessions were delivered by conference presenters in addition to their other sessions, and we appreciate their support with this innovative initiative. Tatjana was a participant in the Jumpstart program.
We jumped and started. Two days of this program passed very quickly. Up to the very last 15 minutes, we were not aware what was awaiting us. A jump and the start, fun and joy on people‖s faces after we‖ve done our work well. I came to the first session with a high level of curiosity. There were 10 of us in this small room, and I didn‖t know any of the others. However, it soon became clear that they were the best group I could have ever worked with. So many different approaches. What a learning experience! We started with an icebreaker led by Robert Verheule. I will never forget his question: “What was the last thing you did for the first time in your life?” A funny question but so relaxing on the other side. Then Linda van Vught introduced us to the Mood board. It was another workshop, with purpose of introducing us to each other, but also imagining our current state in facilitation. I realized that I was not a lonely one. Most of us were beginners. After the Mood board, Linda presented the program and the facilitators we were going to work with. I heard about them from my colleagues. At that moment I knew that I had made the right choice in choosing this session. I was a beginner in facilitation. I would go through basic things with the best of the best. I was ready to jump.
The purpose of the first session was to understand the basic difference between a classic meeting and facilitated session and to try to clearly understand the different roles. But it soon became a session about Neutrality - the key word of facilitation, as I understood it. And then, just when we relaxed a little bit, and things started to go smoothly, Robert told us about how this program would end. Oh, that was a cold shower. Hopefully no one took pictures of us at that moment! That was something none of us could expect. How little did we know about facilitation. Tools and practice Lindsay Wilson showed us what an organized facilitator should look like. That is how I saw it. She was talking about basic tools (like what do you need to start a session, how to manage flipcharts and what are basic information gathering techniques), but she had everything arranged around her – the flipcharts, colors, tape, post-it notes, the writing. And the papers around us. I have to mention it here. I posted a question about environment and flipcharts. It presented a big issue for me, because there was everything on the walls, prepared, but the first thing that came to my mind was “how much paper will be wasted”. She was prepared for that question. Above all other things Lindsay presented to us, we were discussing how to use flipcharts in more
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environment friendly way. Thank you, Lindsay, for that. Participatory environment It was so inspiring to see Carol Sherriff and Simon Wilson continue the previous session by showing us stepping in and stepping out from different roles. Furthermore, we were introduced to the principles of participation and how to make meeting room a secure place for all participants. We talked about check-in, introduction, time management, meeting rules, buzz groups and how to use different types of activity – visual, talking, doing. Simon was explaining the importance of putting questions to the group, and Carol shared her own experience working with people who were not willing to participate and what to do in specific situations, like when you have multiethnic groups or people in the group who do not know each other. They were using a lot of tools, trying to answer all of our questions and show us what we can expect in a group. I do remember everything, but one sentence comes often to my mind - “Look out for yourself.” It is helping me, Carol – thank you for that. Dealing with resistance and complex group dynamics After the first few sentences, it was obvious why we needed Michael Wilkinson's presentation. Each of us had some difficult group that we worked with. Each of us had a situation in which he/she didn‖t know how to react. I had it a few weeks before the conference and it would have been very helpful if I had known then some of the things Michael shared with us. Michael's presentation covered many issues. We learned what dysfunctional behavior is (I can still hear us saying that definition out loud:). We learned how to separate symptom from root cause, how to consciously prevent dysfunction, and how to detect dysfunction early. Michael showed us some practical examples and shared his own experience about some strategies for addressing some of the most common dysfunctions, and what to do in
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a situation when we were attacked as the facilitators. It was very basic, but presented very well, with the learning component emphasized. I also noticed some other things that I will also use in my work. I noticed how he was managing time during the presentation by using different sounds in the background. I learned that principle 1, “preparing for success”, makes a huge difference. Thank you, Michael, for that. Working on an Assignment By now you have surely forgotten what I told you about the cold shower. Okay, so this was the final part of the Jumpstart program: we were assigned to prepare for facilitating a session on the question, “What we have learned from this 2011 conference?” And the group that we are going to work was – all the conference participants during the closing session! Now you can imagine how frightened we were on the very first day, of the very first session! However, during the afternoon of the second day, we were sitting in the circle and brainstorming ideas. It was still not clear to us what we were going to do in the morning of the following day, but somehow we were not frightened anymore. We were still confused, but full of ideas. Linda and Robert were leading us through the discussion and allowed each member of the group to practice being a facilitator and stand in front of the group. We didn‖t reach consensus, but they helped us (and members of the group who were in the role of the facilitator) on how to manage lack of consensus. On the rainy Sunday morning, we came up with the agenda half an hour before the session started, made the decision who will do what and how we were going to present it. Leena was confident enough to make an introduction, I felt confident to speak about purpose and objectives, and Helga, Osman, Yaseen, and Salih felt confident enough to do extraordinary workshops (Berna and Emre, we missed you a lot). It was a huge success. We divided people in the ballroom into groups. Each of us was in
charge of one group, and each of us was using a different facilitation tool, but we all had the same purpose and objectives. We all had extremely creative teams who made sentences, pictures, art works, a people bridge, a paper bridge, and final closing points that would remind us of what we had learned during this conference. I would like to thank all the facilitators once again for sharing their knowledge with us during the Jumpstart sessions. I would like to thank the Jumpstart group for creativity and different perspectives and the experience they brought to our work. And finally I would like to thank Robert and Linda for the wonderful session. I hope we will see each other next year in Geneva.
Tatjana Obradovic Tosic is a co-owner of Mena Group Ltd, a local consultancy company in Serbia. She joined IAF in February 2011. She works as a gender equality and mainstreaming consultant and trainer. Mena Group works to make companies and organizations more competitive on the global market while keeping their local identity. For these reasons, Mena Group offers the latest training approaches and research to assist clients in achieving their goals in local and international markets. (www.menagroup.org)
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Congratulations to the newest CPFs! By Lindsay Wilson
We are delighted to be able to celebrate the achievement of the 17 new Certified Professional Facilitators who completed their assessments successfully in Istanbul October 12-13, 2011, just before the 2011 European conference. Here some of the new CPFs are shown receiving a hearty round of applause during Friday night‖s opening banquet at the conference. Congratulations were offered on behalf of IAF by Sheryl Smail of New Zealand, the IAF global board member responsible for professional development (left), and Robert Verheule, the IAF Europe team member responsible for conferences and professional development (right). Congratulations to: Ewa Malia, CPF, Polski Instytut Facyliatcji
Anna Nilson, CPF, Avanza Bank
Kenny Andersson, CPF, Swedish Defence
Jean-Philippe Poupard, CPF, Formapart
Materiel Administration
Ali. A. Redha Mohd Al Lawati, CPF, Petrogas
Jayna Johnson, CPF, UNHCR
Aki Koivistoinen, CPF, Dazzle OY
Björn Blondell, CPF, FMV, Swedish Defence
Christine Kiliam, CPF, Kiliam Communication
Materiel Administration
& Leadership AB
Alexander Brazhnik, CPF
Sara Sjöblom, CPF, Move Management
Helle Norlev, CPF, Norlev Kommunikation
Anna Gribanova, CPF, Training Institute
Claire Bellman, CPF, International Commit-
Annika Kjellin, CPF, Logica
tee of the Red Cross Edwin I. Sutedjo, CPF
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Cecilia Rydin, CPF, Molnlycke Health Care
AB
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Geneva will host the 2012 European conference By Pamela Lupton-Bowers
IAF Geneva was well-represented at the recent IAF Europe conference in Turkey. In attendance were Liz Tayfun, Christine Zeigler, Sandrine Delattre, Raj Rana, Florence Beraud, and myself, and we met Jean-Philippe Poupard there. The programme was interesting and we all met and made new friends. As Director of Europe, I was delighted to see new interest and members from Turkey, Russia, Slovenia and Serbia as well as strong contingents from UK, Denmark, and Sweden. We also had IAF Board members from Canada, New Zealand and UK. All in all, it was yet another great conference. So it is with enormous pride and excitement that we announce that the IAF Europe Conference 2012 will take place in Geneva. Please block the dates: September 28-30, 2012, for the IAF conference and September 26-27, 2012 for preconference workshops and CPF events. Our local team will be organising a kick off meeting before the end of the year with our conference organisers Entendu, when we will begin to outline the project and pull together the project team. Given our location and the initial special focus of the Geneva facilitator network, the conference theme will be ―Facilitating across Cultures‖ The success of IAF conferences relies on the volunteer nature of the organising team as well as donations from local businesses and organisations in both financial and in kind support. Given our theme and our United Nations and humanitarian context we will be hoping to provide sponsorships to facilitators who might not otherwise have the means to attend. Next Steps People have been contacting me for information about the planning. We already have a small group of people who have committed to organi-
The Geneva team invites us for 2012!
sing; however, if you have a specific area of expertise, interest or contacts with people or organisations who might be willing to support us, we would be more than happy to hear from you. Our next steps will be: Meet with Entendu before the end of the year. We will announce this meeting and invite anyone interested in joining the organising team. Agree venue specifications – for price and facilities comparison. Contact us if you may have any possible influence regarding a suitable venue. Confirm the theme and the programme. Robert Verheule, the IAF Europe rep for Conferences and Professional Development, will collaborate in identifying the selection criteria for sessions and presenters.
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Connected personal reflections on teamwork with Maureen Jenkins By Carolien de Monchy
Editor‖s Note: Carolien is the treasurer of IAF Nederland, and worked closely with Maureen. During many years of residence in the Netherlands with her husband and partner Jon, Maureen played a key role in ―imagining‖ how facilitation could flourish in Europe and the Netherlands and then in helping to make those dreams a reality.
At the annual IAF Nederland conference in September, we celebrated the farewell of our chair(person) Maureen Jenkins, who moved to the USA. Usually in a family it is the grown up child who leaves home. At IAF Nederland it is the other way around: our ―founding mother‖ or ―godmother‖ leaves us. Can we manage? Yes, we can. We have such good memories to support us, let me share some of my own. As a parting present, Maureen had organized a spectacular closing event for our conference in September: “Theatre as a mirror”. With the actors from a firm, she had prepared three fantastic scenes about facilitation: the intake with
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a client, the running of a workshop and the evaluation with the client. After the first performance, which was very funny, the audience was asked to participate by directing the ―facilitator‖ to become more successful. This was a wild success, with the whole room (some 45 persons) participating. The play started, and then someone would shout to the ―facilitator‖: ―Stop. Do such-and-so‖. Then the play was ―wound backwards‖ to the stop moment and the facilitator would act according to the directions. We laughed as we saw the effects of the directions. Then someone else would shout: ―stop!‖ and so on and on. Why were we so involved? Well, seeing oneself mirrored as a facilitator makes one feel slightly uncomfortable, just because one recognizes the pitfalls. It makes one think about one‖s own actions and mistakes. A gift for brilliant solutions Thinking back on the conference, it dawns on me that the organization of this closing event – get the idea, choose the firm of actors, work with the actors to prepare the scenes – characterizes Maureen‖s contributions to IAF Nederland. In the board of IAF Nederland – or in one of our committees – we would get an idea, like “let us have a closing workshop in the conference”. Then we would brainstorm and work on some ideas: “At the end of the day the delegates will be tired, what would be the next learning question? Why not create a world café? Or better: first a world café and then a closing workshop.”
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Jim Campbell and Maureen and Jon Jenkins at the 2005 IAF Benelux conference. (Previous page: Maureen says farewell at the recent IAF Nederland conference.)
This went on and on until we felt lost – what can you do in a closing workshop after the world café? On such occasions we usually looked at Maureen: ―Do you have some ideas? Can you facilitate a workshop?” And of course, Maureen would come up with some brilliant solution – like this wonderful theatre event – and realize the idea. There are more examples. The roots of the present IAF Nederland lay in the IAF-Europe conference held in October 2002, in Amersfoort. Incidentally, it was the same venue ―Kontakt der Kontinenten‖ as our last conference. Imaginal Training, the firm of Jon and Maureen Jenkins, played an important role organizing that 2002 conference. I remember a dinner (or a hot lunch) during the conference when we were organized in ―tables per country‖ – so everybody could speak their own language. The start of IAF Nederland At the Dutch section, we were delighted to meet each other and we decided to meet more often. Here again we see the effect of a well designed event: create the opportunity for the facilitators to come together, and trust the wisdom of the group. Yes, Maureen was one of the organizers of the meeting for Dutch speaking facilitators in January 2003. I remember a room full of Neuland pin-boards and groups of facilitators discussing
intensely all sorts of activities and initiatives for the Dutch network of facilitators. I still have a document with the results of the meeting – a big pack of ideas and suggestions. With a small group of facilitators, we held various brainstorm sessions to shape the concept of a ―platform for facilitators‖. We had lots of ideas – what we needed was the organizational power to bring some of the ideas into action. In my memory Maureen played an important role in the decision to organize a conference for Dutch speaking facilitators, just like the format of the Europe conferences. Maureen conducted the administration of the conference. This time her experience as administrator and treasurer laid the foundation for the Foundation IAF – Benelux, currently the IAF chapter Nederland. Maureen has always been a member of the board – except in the year 2008 when she and Jon organized the IAF Europe Conference in Groningen. Looking back I realize that our work in IAF just went on that year: Maureen was always there to share her phenomenal knowledge on facilitation and running an organization with volunteers. When we celebrated her farewell Maureen accepted a membership-of-honor to the chapter IAF Nederland. So you see, we are still connected. I trust we can continue learning and working together in IAF.
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Erich Neuland ARTICLE
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Neuland has been a wonderful supporter of IAF and the draw for Neuland products at the end of IAF Europe conferences has always been a big hit. Recently, the man who started the company turned 70. Here is his story, from the Neuland website: Born and raised in Hesse, Germany, he trained to become a machinist, joined the German Armed Forces and started a family. The early stages of the young Erich‖s life would set the stage for a remarkable new adventure that would begin the dramatic success for over 40 years to come. In 1968 he established along with his brother Rudi, a company in the ancillary construction sector. He was always fascinated with raw materials, but in particular aluminum. The versatile, functional, durable, and aesthetically pleasing material captured his imagination to begin experimenting with this unique material and thus began the dynamic inventor‖s journey in the late 70s to create products that would solve a problem for an entire generation of trainers in his small workshop. The creation behind our bestselling foldable pinboards came one day when a friend who worked as a management trainer asked him for a pinboard that could be easy to transport. Within 48 hours Erich constructed an ingeniously simple product: the first foldable pinboard in the world for convenient transportation. The fact that he had created such a simple yet revolutionary product had him hooked to continue observing and supplying this emerging training
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70!
market. He met with many end users for their perspective and continued to tweak materials until he made the decision that the market was ready and indeed needed a company that looks outside the box for innovative high quality training products. “I am not a lone ranger! “, says Erich Neuland. He is fully aware that his company now of more than 140 employees, a worldwide network of partners and of course his loyal customers were integral in Neuland‖s success over these past 40 years. His two children, Sabine and Guido Neuland, are also key leaders in the company and are responsible for the Customer Relations and Sales/Marketing respectively. Erich Neuland credits his achievements to his loving family, committed staff, and for the market being ready for his inventions at the right time! In 2008 he was honoured with the “Manager of the Year” award for his standard of excellence in managing his company. Neuland has grown continuously as a company since the new buildings were built in the 90s and remarkably has been able to survive times of crisis throughout Europe without losses. The manufacturing will continue to remain in Germany. Innovation and uncompromising quality are the hallmarks of the worldwide appeal and acknowledgement of “Made in Germany” products; all of which have always been Neuland‖s signature. Erich Neuland promises to continue with this lasting German tradition! These days Erich Neuland is happy to be in his 70s and to reap what he has sown. But his passion to this day continues to inspire him to keep thinking and creating of more and exciting products to help the training industry. His commitment for his company to continue to be market leaders and remain outside of box will leave a tangible legacy for many generations of trainers to come. http://www.neuland-world.com/US/blogeintrag/ szene/erich-neuland-the-founder-of-neuland-turns70/bd2xqzo7glz.htm
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Methods of the Month:
“The Wind Blows for…” Maureen Jenkins, IAF Methods Database
A few days ago I moved from the Netherlands back to the San Francisco Bay Area where I grew up. Yesterday Halloween was celebrated here, and you cannot imagine my amazement at finding tellers in the bank, bus drivers, waiters in the café all decked out in their Halloween costumes! It took the first two or so before I realized what was happening. So much for October, and now we move on into November, getting ready to wind up the year! This month‖s method, from Teampedia (www.teampedia.net/), is a lovely little variation on musical chairs, for allowing a group to get acquainted using a bit of physical movement. It‖s called The Wind Blows For.. Purpose To learn new things about group members; to recognize similarities and differences Great as a first activity or to break up a long workshop Preparation Have 1 chair for each person (or other place marker such as a post-it note or a piece of tape). Chairs are arranged in a circle with participants sitting in the chairs. If the facilitator is going to participate, s/he starts in the middle. If the facilitator is not participating, than s/he invites one volunteer to stand in the middle removing the volunteer's chair from the circle
Steps One participant stands in the middle and says "The wind blows for...(insert statement that applies to participant here)" and then everyone to whom that statement applies gets up and tries to find an empty chair. Participants may not move to a chair right next to the one they were just sitting in. Since everyone (including the person in the middle) is looking for a new chair, one person will be left without a chair... and that person becomes the one in the middle. It is best to start off with a statement that will get everyone to move. Example statements: The Wind Blows for anyone... who brushed their teeth this morning whose parents are divorced who took the bus to get here, etc. Alternatives If you want to do this outside (or any area where don't have chairs), you can use other place markers. For example, hand out post-it notes and have everyone in the circle mark their spot with the note before you begin. Just be careful that people don't step on each other‖s toes while racing for the open spots!
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Promoting professional facilitation in the Balkans
A NEW GUIDE
By Slađana Milošević and Bojan Đurić
An exciting new development in facilitation in the Balkans occurred in October with the publication of the first comprehensive guide to facilitation written in the Bosnian language. This project, which was spearheaded by two long-time IAF members based in neighbouring Serbia, will make facilitation concepts and ideas much more widely known in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The new 95-page book, “Facilitation – An Introduction”, clearly and simply explains facilitation concepts and strategies and provides detailed instructions for how to use these skills during meetings and workshops in order to make these sessions more effective and efficient. Given that the use of facilitation is still comparatively rare in the Balkans, reviewers suggest, this manual will be extremely useful for a variety of individuals, groups and institutions in BiH. Written by experienced Serbian facilitators Slađana Milošević and Bojan Đurić, who run Mobilis Ltd in Belgrade, and their BiH colleague, Memnuna Zvizdić of the NGO ‖Women to Women‖ in Sarajevo, the book was published in October with help of Women to Women and FriedrichEbert-Stiftung BiH. It aims to promote the idea of professional facilitation in the western Balkans. “This book is much more than a ―how -to‖ of facilitation techniques,” says Dr. Paul Pasch, country director of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung BiH. “The authors have written Facilitation with entertainment and adult learning in mind. Technical explanations are supported by anecdotes and real
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life experiences. Pictures, diagrammatical explanations plus tips and pitfalls allow the reader (learner) to understand what works and what does not, based on the experience of facilitators that have been working towards IAF‖s Certified Professional Facilitator award.” A timely and useful handbook The book helps the reader understand the impact of personal preferences on our leadership and facilitation styles and that is a gift that is often overlooked, says Dr. Pasch in his foreword. He adds that rather than being a typical academic ―instructional‖ book, the guide is “a very timely and useful handbook with methodological and theoretical guidance and all the useful tips and tricks to be successful in the field of facilitation”. Reviews of the book written by two professors from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo, Professor Milanka Miković and Asssistant Professor Sanela Bašić, show the importance of this new manual. Noting that this is the first comprehensive guide to facilitation to be made available in the local language, Professor Miković says that it “will be of great benefit to the NGO sector, and for other institutions and individuals, especially for business sector, and future professionals of different profiles, for example, students of social work, psychology, pedagogy and so on, that will with already acquired knowledge, using this manual, and through exercise, better understand
and confidently learn teamwork, group dynamics and group facilitation.” “The structure of handwriting is clear and transparent, and the manuscript was written in easily, clearly and convincingly,“ says Assistant Professor Bašič. “The authors are evidently successful in their effort to present facilitation on a practical level as one of the possible methods to ‖manage‖ group and group processes, regardless of the diversity of the particular context in which this method can be applied.“
In their introduction, the authors express their gratitude to Tim Sims of the UK for introducing them to the wonderful world of facilitation, Rosemary Cairns for her support to facilitators in Eastern Europe, and the International Association of Facilitators for long term support to all facilitators in this part of the world. The book is available through Mobilis. Email: office@mobilis.co.rs
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MEMBER NEWS
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Celebrating six chapters in Europe! Kristin Reinbach, our team member responsible for chapters, put together this map for the very successful Chapter Breakfast at the 2011 European conference in Istanbul. It shows the tremendous growth of chapters in Europe during the past year – from one to six, and
more are in the formation process. As well, some affiliates are considering becoming chapters, as the IAF board has decided to end affiliate status as of 2012. If you are interested in learning more about chapters, contact Kristin at kristin.reinbach@iaf-europe.eu.
Legend: tent = chapter established ship = transition from affiliate to chapter still open
walking man = chapter in preparation „i“ = interest shown
Worthwhile Reading …. Check out several recent interesting discussions on the International Association of Facilitators group on Linked-In, and on several other sites. If you come across interesting discussions you think other facilitators would find useful, please feel free to share them with us. The value of games Elizabeth McDonnell started off a fascinating Linked In discussion about the use of games with an example of how a group of
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scientific ―gamers‖ solved a mystery that had puzzled scientists for years. See the article she posted at http://tinyurl.com/3wt5lo9 and the study report at http://tinyurl.com/3h3dkmd. See the full discussion at http://tinyurl.com/ cuwm34p Good teleconference techniques Barb Sweazey started a great Linked In discussion by asking about good teleconference techniques that brought in
many helpful hints. See this discussion at http://tinyurl.com/cfujg6u ―Where creative people come together‖ Pictures and notes from the 16th Annual International IFVP Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii which brought together graphic facilitators and recorders and visual practitioners, at http://tinyurl.com/cwnnt72. See the IFVP website at http://ifvp.org/
Can Facebook solve conflict? An interesting discussion on the Conflict/ Voices blog suggests the importance of asking the right question. In this case, asking “what is the most effective solution for NagornoKarabakh conflict?”, brought interesting and constructive responses, unlike some earlier questions. See http://tinyurl.com/cc7c9ln
Welcome, new and returning members (October2011) We would like to warmly welcome the following new members who joined IAF in October 2011: Florence Béraud, France Tim Bright, Turkey Rosalud De la Rosa, Italy Elif Gonen, Turkey Andreas Isholm, Denmark Peter Lentz, Denmark Mikhail Rossius, Russia Mette Ullersted, Denmark
Willem de Smalem, Netherlands Ljudmila Yurievna Dudorova, Russia Oya Ertay, Turkey Marianne Fich Loennee, Denmark Virginia Humud Guerrero, Switzerland Bensaid Vincent Jlil, Denmark Lisbet Lentz, Denmark Frank Little, Netherlands Ann-Dorte F. Nielsen, Denmark Terés Salmi, Sweden Josef Seifert, Germany Robert Shipway, UK
We also want to welcome back returning members who renewed their IAF membership in October 2011: Hans-Joern Andersen, Denmark Mie Doevling Andersen, Denmark Bassam Barakat, UAE Sarah Clark, Switzerland Peter Coesmans, Netherlands
Ilario Sisto, Italy Nille Skalts, Denmark Liz Tayfun, UK Sophie Treinen, Italy Arie van Bennekum, Netherlands Karin Juul Viuff, Denmark Christine Ziegler,
Switzerland
Facilitation Workshops and Meetings 2011 Find out more details about specific events listed here by visiting the Workshops and Meetings section of the IAF Europe Forum (http:// www.iaf-europe.eu) If you would like to let others know about an event you are organizing, please email rosemary.cairns@iaf-europe.eu.
NOVEMBER 2011 Introduction to Group Facilitation, Manchester, Nov. 15 (ICA:UK) Group Facilitation Methods, Manchester, Nov. 16-17 (ICA:UK) Dutch CPF event, Nov. 17, Rossum, Netherlands
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MEMBER NEWS
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MEMBER NEWS
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The Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter,
Nov. 18-20, Berlin; Germany DEZEMBER 2011 Art of Hosting Practitioner, International Learning Village, December 2-4, Copenhagen, Denmark Facilitators Practice Group, Dec. 12, London, England. For details, see their new website at http://www.ukfpg.wordpress.com MARCH 2012 Joint IAF Europe/AMED Workshop ―Building bridges through facilitation‖, March 23, Lon-
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don, England. Get your copy of the Autumn 2011 issue of e-Organisations & People, ―Building bridges through facilitation‖, online at http://www.amed.org.uk/page/autumnissu ... p-on-26-au. IAF members pay only £14 (the cost to others is £27.50). APRIL 2012 Facilitating vision creation and vision empowerment, April 2-8, 2010, Berlin, Germany