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Category Archives: Personal Stories
What if there are no walls I can use in my facilitation event?
This is a bit lighter than some of my posts, but I had a wonderful time remembering creative responses to this challenge! This week I had an email from a colleague who said “I’m working with a low budget non-profit … Continue reading →
Posted in Facilitation Stories, Personal Stories, ToP Tools
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Tagged facilitation, participation, solving facilitation problems
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Transformation of a Worldview: A Personal Story
Dr. Jean Houston Dr. Jean Houston was a deeply caring and thoughtful person who worked with groups of people to reflect on their own lives and life itself. She died in May this year, and this post is in memory … Continue reading →
Posted in Facilitation Stories, Personal Stories, Uncategorized
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Tagged facilitation, Jean Houston, leadership, stories
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Listening as a Leadership Skill
A number of current events and posts by colleagues have catalyzed my thinking about leadership. As a facilitator, I have experienced a range of situations with clients where leaders thought that leadership was about presenting their own insights and requiring … Continue reading →
Posted in Facilitation Stories, Personal Stories, Uncategorized
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Tagged leadership, listening
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A First Step in My Facilitation Journey
Someone asked me this question: If a career as a facilitator is lifelong, when did you decide you wanted to become a facilitator? When I started facilitating, there was no profession called facilitation. I started out as a teacher. I … Continue reading →
Posted in Facilitation Stories, Personal Stories, Uncategorized
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Tagged facilitation, making a positive difference, participation, teaching
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ORID Thinking to Address a Facilitation Emergency: A Participant Who Tried to Take Over a Meeting
I was facilitating the first meeting of a steering committee for a proposed province-wide public consultation on a painful and difficult topic involving abuse. My colleague and I had worked hard to find a wide range of participants who all … Continue reading →
Posted in Personal Stories, ToP Tools, Uncategorized
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Tagged facilitation, ORID, ToP methods
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Facilitating Diversity
(Photo from the front cover of The Art of Focused Conversation, Second Edition) This week in February 2026 marked significant religious events in several different traditions. Lunar New Year, the beginning of Ramadan, and Ash Wednesday all happened within 2 … Continue reading →
Facilitating Your Family 2: Another story about facilitating one’s family
In 1992, Wayne and I and our 2 sons were living in a small apartment belonging to the organization we worked for, after having lived in many places around the world in our married life. We had already decided to … Continue reading →
Posted in Facilitation Stories, Personal Stories, Uncategorized
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Tagged facilitating family, facilitation, participation, stories
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Facilitating Your Family
A couple of colleagues mentioned in social media posts before the holidays that it is very challenging to facilitate family members – that chaos can erupt very quickly. I was reminded of a story of facilitating my family years ago. … Continue reading →
Posted in Facilitation Stories, Personal Stories, Uncategorized
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Tagged avoiding conflict, facilitating family, informal facilitation, participation
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Three Quotes for Hope
In turbulent times, where there is a lot of uncertainty and all the world around you feels like it is in the midst of change with unknown outcomes, it is easy to fall into despair about things you can’t control. … Continue reading →
Where I Stand
Several weeks ago I re-posted a long negative political post on Facebook that started with “This is where I stand”. One of my childhood friends had posted it, and when I read it I agreed with pretty much all of … Continue reading →
