Thirty years in, I rediscovered the magic of facilitation, and the courage to bring all of me to the room.

The very first time I felt the hum of facilitation, I didn’t have language for it. I had a liberal arts degree in sociology and French, a head full of ideas, and absolutely no idea what to do next. I stumbled into a tiny tech writing firm in the early 90s, DA Consulting, doing procedural documentation. It was a great gig out of school, and I learned business by interviewing people about how they did their work. But after cranking out massive three-ring binders and watching them collect dust on someone’s desk, I knew something was missing.

The binders weren’t changing behavior. People were still doing what they’d always done. One day, I marched in and said, “What if we build training instead of just documentation?” That was the pivot. The company took a chance; we shifted from just tech writing to include training services, so I took a 2-day workshop, and suddenly I was the trainer. The only trainer for a while. I was maybe two weeks ahead of everyone else, and somehow that made me the internal director of training. I didn’t know enough to be scared. That helped.

I grew up in a family of academics, so learning was our family sport, but not just learning for learning’s sake. The question was always, how does this apply? How do we get our hands dirty? So I went hunting for anything that got people involved: tactile activities, social learning, experiences that moved the body and the brain. I did magic tricks at Exxon. I had executives lie on the floor to meditate. I didn’t know it was weird. It just worked. People laughed, put their guard down, and, most importantly, remembered.

Then I found Accelerated Learning. University of Houston had this specialized program centered on whole-brain learning, music, color, movement, environmental design, social dynamics. It felt like I’d found my home language. I had a mentor who traced much of the method back to language learning, and it bridged everything I cared about: creativity, rigor, and making learning visceral and alive. I didn’t stick to the protocol forever, but the threads from that program are still in my work thirty years later.

Along the way, people shaped me. Gail Heidenhain, then president of the Accelerated Learning Association, a German language instructor working across corporate contexts, modeled a kind of joyful precision I still admire.Thiagi’s spirit of short, playful, relevant activities stacked nicely with what I was doing and made it stronger. I also experienced first hand the power of experiential simulations, working with my long time colleague and friend, Keith Lewis, who was at the time an Eagle’s Flight instructor. This kind of learning really resonated deeply for me: gathering people, holding space, designing the container, and trusting what happens inside it.

From Handouts to Whole Humans

As my curiosity deepened, I shifted from “teaching content” into “designing experiences.” It started small. Instead of lecturing, I built hands-on exercises. I let music do some of the lifting. I rearranged rooms. I asked real questions and waited long enough to let people answer. I paid attention to the environment: light, color, pacing, props. And I realized people didn’t resist learning, they resisted being talked at. Give them something alive to do, and they’ll meet you there.

Accelerated learning gave me a permission slip I didn’t know I needed. I tried weird things because they were human things. If someone learns by building, we’d build. If someone learns by listening, we’d invite silence. If someone learns by moving, we would get out of our chairs. It pulled learning out of the binder and into people’s bodies. In retrospect, some of those early experiments in corporate spaces were a little outrageous. They also stood out, and they worked.

Around that same time, I watched masters at their craft. Thiagi showed me how to pack impact into short bursts. Gail showed me the logistics behind the magic, how environment, sequence, and timing can amplify the learning you’re trying to surface. I started to see a throughline: design the container with care, and what happens between people will do most of the work. I didn’t have to be the star of the show. In fact, the moment I stopped trying to be, the work got much better.

Eventually, I followed the work to larger systems. DA Consulting, my little family firm, went public and ballooned to a thousand people. The shift was dramatic. It stopped being fun. Around the same time, I lost a coworker unexpectedly. It shook me awake. Life is short. So when someone at Shell invited me into a learning role, I said yes. I spent three years inside Shell’s massive machine in the late 90s and realized quickly that the sheer scale wasn’t for me. When they offered me my same role as a contractor shortly after, I grabbed the flexibility and never looked back.

Choosing My Jolt

For two decades, I consulted broadly, Chevron, Marathon, Home Depot, lots of energy sector work. Then, in 2020, Shell asked me to support a global team building digital capability in exploration. I came in for adult learning. What they truly needed was process facilitation, helping teams make decisions, solve problems, and collaborate across borders. We committed early to all-virtual sessions across time zones using Teams and Mural (and fought the ongoing battle to keep our whiteboards). I fell in love with holding the container: inclusivity, safety, creativity. The work felt like magic again.

But somewhere between the pandemic pivots and a particularly brutal reorganization project, I started to drift, feeling like I was just going through the motions. 

That’s my signal, when I start sleepwalking through my work. I lose the flow, the sense of being fully in it. I wanted to quit and do something totally different. But I’ve learned my cycle. Every 18–24 months, I need something to wake me up. A conference, a new method, a community. I needed a jolt.

I’d heard about Voltage Control through friends, Keith Lewis and Pixie Raina are both in my circle, and I’d poked around the site before. This time, I was looking with intention. My first impulse was to go straight to the Master Facilitation Certification (thirty years in will do that to your ego). After some honest reflection, I decided to start with Foundations. I wanted to reset, sharpen my language, and re-anchor my practice. The minute I decided, I signed up. No drama, just clarity. It felt like oxygen.

The Rooms Where It Happened

Foundations did exactly what I hoped: it woke me up. The readings alone were a waterfall of new thinking and reminders I didn’t know I needed. I’d read something in the morning and try it with a client that afternoon. It was that immediate. The portfolio deliverable, something I’d never stopped to compile as an independent, forced me to gather my work and name it. It sounds simple, but codifying how I talk about my practice changed how I show up with stakeholders and participants.

The cohort was its own ecosystem. During the asynchronous weeks, a handful of us set up optional weekly touchpoints. I needed those anchors. We traded use cases across wildly different contexts, arts, NGOs, oil and gas, and somehow it all resonated. I coached someone in Foundations who lived in the Middle East. Different landscape, shared language. Those conversations were energizing in a way that’s hard to explain. It’s like finding your people in a sea of calendars and budget approvals.

When I moved into the Master Facilitation Certification, I chose a website rebuild as my project. Blank screens overwhelm me, late-in-life ADD diagnosis has helped me understand that better, but give me a few prompts and I’m off. ChatGPT became a drafting partner. SessionLab helped me design clearly. The act of writing about my work forced me to integrate parts of myself I’d kept separate. I didn’t realize I’d been compartmentalizing the “corporate me” and the “ceremony maker” me until I saw it on the page.

There were moments I can point to that changed me. One was a conversation with Eric, and feedback from Renita and Chris. I’d been describing myself in two lanes: corporate facilitator and ceremony maker. Eric reflected back the phrase that now sits at the center of my website and my practice: bridging structure and heart. It was like hearing a chord resolve. I could be both. I am both. The bridge is the work.

What I Brought Back With Me

Since certification, I use the phrase bridging structure and heart as a design question. What are the rituals this team needs to feel like a team? Where do we bring in celebration, appreciation, and grief? What tools create enough scaffolding so we can be brave? It sounds lofty, but it shows up in really practical ways. I use pipe cleaners in almost every session as fidgets; people make art while they listen and talk. Photos of that art are all over my site. It’s silly and it’s serious at the same time, the kind of serious that connects us.

I’m clearer about facilitative leadership now, too. Before, I carried this quiet belief that my role was to deliver something to a group. Now I see my job as guiding people back to the wisdom already in the room. With meeting owners, I coach them on facilitative leadership, how to set conditions, mirror the purpose, and share ownership, so that when I step away, they still have the muscles. The certification reframed my craft not as a niche but as a leadership posture anyone can learn.

On a concrete level, I’ve become more fluent with tools that remove friction. ChatGPT helps me past the blank page. SessionLab gives me visual clarity and a shared artifact with clients. I still prefer Mural for virtual collaboration (despite the ongoing economizing pressures to move us into Whiteboard). Those aren’t just technical choices; they’re equity and inclusion choices. They open doors for the quiet thinkers, the visual processors, the second-language speakers, the folks joining at midnight from another continent. That matters.

There’s also the pride of putting something into the world that feels like me. On Foundation Day, sharing my portfolio felt like a personal milestone. Launching my website felt bigger. I asked for help instead of trying to do it all myself, another growth edge. My college-age kid, who’s turning into a baby facilitator, partnered with me on language, images, and the tedious bits, and it transformed our relationship. We collaborated. We argued about adjectives. We celebrated hitting publish. And then I reached back out to couples whose weddings I’d officiated and clients from years past for testimonials and permissions. The feedback I got, “This feels like you”, was the best kind.

The Courage to Bring It All

The biggest capability I gained wasn’t tactical. It was courage. For years I’d kept my more spiritual, ritualistic side in a separate bucket, my “flakier aspects,” as I half-joked, and saved them for weddings, birthdays, and personal milestones. Corporate was over here. Ceremony was over there. Through the master program, I realized I don’t want to live split like that. It’s all the same muscle: marking transitions, inviting meaning, designing moments that connect us. I can do that in a boardroom and in a forest. I can build structure and tend heart.

This shift changed how I say yes and no. That reorg project taught me valuable things about “standing in the fire,” and the book by that title gave me language to stay centered when the room gets hot. But it also showed me what I don’t want: work that prioritizes speed and cost over people’s lives. If I’m going to step into conflict-heavy spaces again, it’ll be for a cause that feeds me and aligns with my values. Boundaries are a capability, too.

Finally, I came back to the “container” with new reverence. When I’m holding a space that’s inclusive, safe, and creative, groups do astonishing things. Siloed teams create together. “Robotic” work becomes meaningful. People see each other. It doesn’t always land perfectly, but when it does, it’s unmistakable. That magic is why I started and why I’m staying.

A Season in the Woods

What’s next surprised me. Because of Dutch labor laws, Shell requires I take a six-month hiatus. My first reaction was dread, momentum! teams! all that scaffolding we built!, and then I realized I don’t care enough to fight it. They’ll reorg again. The machine will machine. And I haven’t had more than a month off since I started working. So I’m taking the hint. I’m giving myself a true sabbatical.

I’m channeling that time into something I’ve wanted to do for years: a practical, heart-forward workshop in the woods. We’re going to gather for a few days and finish the adulting we postpone, last wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, while also eating well, walking among trees, and making a ceremony out of the courage it takes to face those choices. It’s part life planning, part communal ritual, and very much facilitation. We’ll likely run it the last week of April or first week of May. After that, I can see a path where my facilitation centers more around life milestones and rites of passage, places where structure supports heart and heart transforms structure.

I don’t know if my title will always say “facilitator,” or if it will shift to something like “ceremony maker,” or both. What I do know is the skill set travels. Whether it’s a cross-disciplinary team in exploration or a circle of people contemplating legacy under a canopy of oaks, the work is the bridge. I’ll keep building it.

When I think about the future of work, I keep coming back to ritual. We don’t pause enough to mark beginnings and endings. We don’t grieve together when projects sunset or teams change shape. We rarely stop to say, “We did that,” and let the pride land. I want to change that in the rooms I touch. Small practices, a shared breath, a gratitude round, a song, a story, change the temperature of a space. They make more possible. That’s where I’m heading.

I used to believe the value I brought was the content I could deliver. Today, I believe it’s the way I invite people toward each other, and toward what matters. That feels like a pretty good north star to follow into whatever comes next.

I’ll leave you with this: if you’re considering certification, jump in. Then really jump. Commit to the readings that spark you at 6 a.m., the cohort calls that keep you accountable, the experiments you’ll try the same afternoon. Let the program jolt you awake. It will, if you let it. And when you’re awake, use that energy. Build the portfolio, launch the website, rewrite your story, say the brave no, take the brave yes. Bring all of you to the rooms you lead. The world needs that.

If you do, you just might find, as I did, that the bridge you’ve been looking for has been inside your practice all along. Structure and heart aren’t opposites. They’re partners. Voltage Control helped me remember that. And I can’t wait to see what you’ll remember, and what you’ll make, when you give yourself to the work.

The post From Binders to Bridges appeared first on Voltage Control.

I never set out to become a facilitator. In fact, for years I didn’t even think of the word as having anything to do with me. Yet if I look back, there were clear signs. One moment in particular stands out: I was 28 and working at the University of Texas at Austin, standing in front of a room full of colleagues at a retreat I’d been asked—out of nowhere—to “help lead.” I remember glancing around and thinking, Why me? I’m not the expert here. But as the session unfolded, something strange happened: people started opening up, responding to prompts I had improvised on the spot, building on one another’s ideas as if the room itself had shifted. It wasn’t polished, and I made plenty of rookie mistakes (e.g. stacking questions if the silence lingered, offering an opinion here and there, overbuilding the agenda), but I walked away with the feeling that something had just clicked—something I couldn’t yet name. It took many more years before I understood that moment for what it was: the beginning of a path I didn’t even know I had already been walking.

Looking back, the dots connect more clearly. My career has zigzagged across geographies and job functions: sales assistant at an oriental rug gallery; clerk at a used CD store straight out of High Fidelity; concert production manager in Washington, D.C.; English teacher in Querétaro, Mexico; performing arts administrator in Austin; and eventually a program officer at a major family foundation in Arkansas. On paper, it reads like restlessness or a lack of focus. In reality, each stop taught me something about people—how they gather, how they express themselves, how they struggle to understand one another, and how much hinges on the quality of the spaces we create for dialogue.

Along the way, I kept finding myself drafted into roles that had me designing or running gatherings: first conference sessions, then professional development workshops, followed by staff retreats. Lots of little pockets of structured conversation inside larger events. Almost every year someone new would approach me and say, “Could you help us plan a retreat?” or “Would you be willing to facilitate this session?” I never quite understood why they asked me, but I always said yes. I liked watching people think together. I liked figuring out how to get people to open up. And I especially loved the moment when strangers suddenly heard one another differently because of how the space had been shaped.

Part of this instinct came from music. I grew up playing piano and guitar, drifted away from it for a while, and then rediscovered it with real commitment as an adult—especially jazz. Improvisational music taught me how to listen in a way that feels similar to what facilitation demands. In jazz you’re constantly balancing: knowing when to play and when to lay out, catching subtle cues, giving others space, supporting the ensemble rather than spotlighting yourself. A good gig isn’t about your virtuosity; it’s about making it possible for everyone else to play well. When a group locks into that shared groove, something emerges that none of you could have created alone. I didn’t realize it then, but this was my earliest training as a facilitator.

There were other clues. I’ve long been drawn to bridging—linguistically, culturally, socially. I learned Spanish and Portuguese largely because I wanted to understand the people and artistic traditions of Latin America, whose music and culture kept popping up in my life and later, work. My social circles always blended MBAs and MFAs, philanthropists and musicians, academics and entrepreneurs. I loved translating between worlds, finding the common “notes” across different languages or disciplines. And anyone who has spent time in the arts knows how much the environment matters: location, lighting, seating, acoustics, food and beverage—all the invisible structures that set the tone for how people will relate to a painting, a song, or a play.  For years, I absorbed this subconsciously.

But I also witnessed the opposite of good facilitation: panels squandered by moderators who wanted to be panelists; sessions derailed by unclear purpose and worn out prompts; events where the physical setup all but guaranteed superficial conversation. I remember sitting in conference rooms thinking, There was so much potential in this room—and yet most in the audience are staring at either their phones or the door.  Those moments stayed with me. I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate what was wrong, but I knew when the structure failed the group.

So when the pandemic hit and I found myself scrolling the web more than I care to admit, I kept pausing on Voltage Control’s LinkedIn posts. Douglas’s short videos caught my attention—not because they were flashy, but because the questions he posed were the same ones I was asking myself. I had been “facilitating” for years without calling it that, using instinct and accumulated habits rather than an intentionality or methodology. I was craving rigor, language, structure—a way to build on what I already did well while filling in the gaps I had been skating over. More than anything, I was hungry for a community of people who cared about this work as deeply as I did and who genuinely had fun doing it.  

Curiosity pushed me to enroll first in the Core Certification program and then Master Certification. Curiosity has always been my compass, the trait that has kept my career interesting and my life expansive. At the time, I also felt the faint pull of something bigger—an intuition that investing in facilitation wasn’t just professional development, but a realignment with a part of myself I had neglected. I signed up for Voltage Control’s Facilitation Certification not because I needed a credential, but because I wanted to understand what this craft really was.

I’ll admit I was skeptical at first. I am, by nature, an in-person person. I draw energy from rooms and shared physical presence. The idea of building a cohort online felt like trying to have a jazz jam session over Zoom—technically possible, but spiritually incorrect. I was wrong. The cohort was vibrant, generous, and full of people who approached this work from wildly different angles. We built trust quickly, swapped ideas freely, and formed relationships that continue today through the Hub and beyond.

The program gave me language for instincts I’d had for years, but it also challenged me to expand beyond what felt comfortable. I became more intentional in how I designed sessions, more aware of the cognitive load of participants, more skillful in selecting methods rather than defaulting to my favorites, and more reflective about my own presence. Voltage Control didn’t teach me what to think—it taught me how to think about facilitation as a discipline.

It also introduced me to tools I now consider essential. Mural, Workshop Design Canvas, SessionLab—all platforms I had either ignored or dismissed before the course—became extensions of my practice. Even more surprising was how the program influenced my everyday interactions: weekly standing meetings became small laboratories for better design; dinner parties became opportunities to craft prompts that elicited stories rather than small talk; hallway conversations with colleagues became moments of micro-facilitation that helped surface what people were really trying to say. Facilitation wasn’t just something I did anymore—it was becoming a lens.

One of the places I felt the transformation most vividly was during a workshop I facilitated for the founders of the DAG Foundation. The family behind the foundation was in the earliest stages of imagining what their philanthropic identity could be. They had passion and a desire to give back, but no shared language yet, and a sense of purpose not yet fully articulated.  I used what I had learned in the certification—affinity mapping, structured prompts, pacing techniques, emergent synthesis—to guide them through the messy early phases. Predictably, we hit the “groan zone”: the moment when the energy dips, the ideas blur together, and the group questions whether any of it makes sense. Previously, I might have panicked or rushed them through it. This time, I trusted the process.

We took a break. People stepped outside, grabbed coffee, talked about music (and favorite instruments). Something loosened. When we reconvened, the conversation shifted noticeably. Insights sharpened. A shared purpose began to emerge from what had felt like noise just an hour before. Watching them see their own alignment for the first time felt like witnessing the group “find the pocket” in a jazz combo—the moment when everyone is listening, adjusting, responding, and something larger than any individual voice takes shape. That session wasn’t perfect, but it was unmistakably different from how I would have facilitated it before Voltage Control. I could feel the difference in my confidence, my presence, and my choices.

Somewhere during that project, I found myself thinking about the word facilitate. It comes from facilis—easy—and ultimately from facere—to make or to do. Facilitation is, at its heart, the work of making something possible: easing a path, lowering friction, clearing space for what wants to emerge. But it’s also an act of creation: you are helping make something happen that otherwise would not. That dual meaning resonates deeply with how I see myself now. My instinct has always been to support, to serve, to connect dots others haven’t yet noticed towards their ultimate aim of making or doing something, not just thinking about it. The certification didn’t give me that instinct—it helped me claim it.

Since completing the program, my facilitation practice has expanded in ways I couldn’t have predicted. I’ve stepped into both formal roles—leading retreats, strategy sessions, and design sprints—and informal ones, where the “small f” facilitator in me brings clarity and connection to everyday moments. I’ve paired this work with training as an executive and leadership coach, broadening my range so I can support individuals as effectively as I support groups. For the first time in my career, I feel like all the seemingly unrelated chapters—arts, philanthropy, language, teaching, music—are converging into something coherent.

I’m now preparing for a new chapter, one where facilitation moves from the margins of my job description to the center of my professional identity. It feels less like reinvention and more like alignment—finally naming the work I’ve been doing all along and choosing to pursue it with intention. I don’t know exactly where this path will lead, but I recognize the feeling I had in that early retreat years ago: the sense that something fitting, something meaningful, is unfolding.

If there’s any guidance I’d offer someone considering Voltage Control’s certification, it’s simply this: follow your curiosity. You don’t need to have the title “facilitator” to begin. You just need to care about helping people think better together. The tools matter, the frameworks matter, but what matters most is the mindset—the willingness to listen deeply, design thoughtfully, and trust that groups are capable of more than they realize when given the right conditions.

I used to think of facilitation as a side skill. Now I see it as a craft, a practice, and a way of making something possible—something easier, yes, but also something meaningful. And in that sense, this journey doesn’t feel like an ending at all. It feels like the beginning of the next chapter.

The post Apparently This Thing Has a Name appeared first on Voltage Control.

The first time I felt the spark of facilitation, I was in middle school, sixth or seventh grade, some elective I can’t even name now, and we were doing the classic marshmallow-and-toothpicks tower type challenge. Working this way was completely different from the “every person for themselves” rhythm of school. For once, we weren’t being graded on our individual aptitudes;  we were invited to build something together. This way of mutual creation stuck with me.

Looking back, that little scene was a hint of what I’d later crave: the energy of people co-creating towards something, and the friction that comes with it. In school, the system trains us to excel alone, then tosses us into society and expects us to collaborate gracefully. Sure, team sports give us a taste, but most of our education doesn’t teach the more nuanced skill of working together, how to listen, plan, revise, and stay in it when things get challenging.

At Parsons, I studied product design and learned the foundations of design thinking process and methods. One project that stands out is designing toys for visually impaired kids. We visited specialized schools in New York City, played with students, and tested ideas with them. It was my first experience with collaborative design that wasn’t speculative. Our decisions were directly shaped by the people who would use what we made. This truly aligns with my values: the world is something we create for and with each other.

In school, I made a conscious transition from traditional industrial design to what is now called creative technology. I always say I entered school designing chairs and sanding furniture, and left school designing installations and rigging projectors. This led to a decade of lights, sound, and video for events across the spectrum, from raves to museum exhibitions. I learned how to design experiences at scale, shape attention, build spatial narratives, and orchestrate awe. This work was beautiful, inspiring, and a fun challenge to create. 

I was inspired by artists like Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Olafur Eliasson, Robert Irwin, and James Turrell. I recall especially Lozano-Hemmer’s border project with searchlights that let people on both sides “speak” to each other with beams of light. That kind of art didn’t just entertain; it connected people into a shared phenomenon that hinted at policy, identity, and place. Work such as this led me to question, “What if the experiences could support people to act and create, not just feel and reflect?”

Years later, as a strategist at Leftfield Labs, I got a front-row seat to a different kind of collaboration challenge. I was on a well-funded project with ambitious goals to expand access to resources for female and BIPOC entrepreneurs. Powerful intentions. Something that remained with me throughout the project was that the thing we were building would likely be a solution to a systemic issue, rather than really addressing why this is a problem in the first place. While everyone wanted to do the right thing and support underrepresented business owners, the framework for creation and collaboration didn’t allow a systemic approach to be the path. It really made me wonder how collaborative system innovation can be orchestrated. I started to sense the actual value of facilitating collective change.

Tracing the Thread Between Art and Agency

In the decade of audiovisual design, I co-led a studio with my good friend, Lua Brice, called Hovver. Our work really was about directing attention to the commonly overlooked phenomena of light and sound. We worked with light smoke and mirrors literally, but not to trick people, to invite them to experience things that are all around them but usually ignored. This was a beautiful time of collaborative creation, and so much of what I know about working with others comes from that collaboration and from times working with festival-scale teams. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to create ample light and sound installations, and, towards the end, I felt like something was missing for me personally.

In 2019, I made the hard decision to leave our practice and hand over the studio to Lua, who leads it independently and masterfully to this day. I didn’t have a neat next step. The only criteria I could articulate were: I want to design experiences that create tangible impact, I wasn’t interested in systems change, and I wanted to do it with people. Admittedly, I had a lot of “figuring it out” to do. And then COVID happened, and I had a lot of time on my hands, almost too much.

I drifted between film, dance, and virtual web events, then circled back to my roots in product design, which led me to that project at Leftfield Labs. The work taught me a lot about how large initiatives can be funded and how they can progress through multiple agencies to be realized. The experience that influenced me the most came from watching Natalie Patterson, a DEI consultant, interact with and lead teams as they investigated their own relationship to the work. There was a way to hold a room, invite personal reflection, and name tensions, a way to build shared reality. Her way of working to connect humans with themselves and each other really struck me.

At the same time, I was in a constant mode of research and collection (and still am). Then I was diving deep into people like John Vervaeke, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Kate Raworth, Nate Hagens, and Yancey Strickler, all of whom were theorizing and addressing the Meta/Polycrises of our planet through different financial models and ways of sensemaking together. Then I was also diving deeper into Systems and change theory through Donella Meadows, Gregory & Nora Bateson, and the incredible resources at the Systems Innovation Network. And I was constantly collecting facilitation methods and tools from Adrienne Marie Brown’s “Emergent Strategy” to Emergent Futures Lab’s “Innovating Emergent Futures” to Strategizer’s business innovation resources. All of this was swirling in me, how to help the world make the change it’s calling for.

At the same time, I kept thinking about my background in the arts. So much of what I loved in experience design, attention, emotion, and choreography also felt critical for collective work. But I wanted more participation, more voice. I kept remembering a performance I did at a small Irish festival called Drop Everything. At one point, I played a recording of a rare Amazonian bird call in complete darkness. The crowd spontaneously called back with their own sounds. The room became a chorus of voices. It was unplanned and somehow more moving than anything else we’d done that night. The best moment wasn’t me “delivering” an experience, it was us encountering something together, live. I started to ask myself: how do I bring that same felt-sense & quality into rooms where real decisions are being made?

There’s been a dual thread in my work over the last five years, artful, human experiences on one side, and structural, outcome-oriented thinking on the other. 

These approaches were initially separate because of where and how I was interacting with them. But I kept feeling the pull to merge them. How could I close the gap between designing for human connection and designing for clear, tangible outcomes? That question is one of the few at the center of my practice.

Choosing the Container That Would Stretch Me

After the Leftfield Labs project in 2021, I knew I needed to build my capacity for group process. I wanted language, tools, and, frankly, reps. I’d already stumbled onto Voltage Control’s work. The framing of practice over perfection, systems awareness, human-centered design, and a healthy respect for the messy middle all resonated with me. I dragged my feet because the tuition would be the most I’d ever spent on professional development. It was a threshold moment for me, committing to something I was becoming. I hovered around the deadline, danced with my doubts, and then sent in my application right at the end.

What ultimately nudged me wasn’t just content; it was the promise of a container for practice. I needed a safe and honest space to try things, get feedback, recalibrate, and try again, with people who weren’t exactly like me. I’d also heard that the cohort was diverse, both geographically and professionally, and culturally. It was important to expose myself to a range of perspectives. That felt essential if I was serious about working at the intersections of art, business, and systems change.

Another factor was Voltage Control’s emphasis on the “how” behind the methods. The stance you take in the room, the way you ask questions, and how you set frames and boundaries. All the intangible things that aren’t flashy, but create the conditions for a group to do its best work. That’s what I’d witnessed through Natalie. 

I’ve witnessed this pattern in me. I resist growth and change. Honestly, I think we all do. We resist becoming who we’re becoming because it’s inherently new and will be challenging, but I knew signing up for the program meant growth, and that felt right.

What Shifted Me Inside the Certification

Those three months were dense in the best way. On one side, I dove deeper into systems thinking. Donella Meadows’ work helped me recognize patterns I’d been sensing but couldn’t name. On the other side, I was reading Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, which resonated because I’d spent a decade in experiential events. Her case studies, community rituals, and participatory theater clarified something I had witnessed: that gatherings can either reinforce the status quo or unlock something new. I began to establish a new toolkit and language for designing collaborative experiences.

I also picked up Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind and listened deeply to John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis lectures. Those threads helped me articulate an intuition: 

We are sensing organisms; we sense ourselves, our environments, and each other. We are thinking organisms; we think independently, together, and through our environments. All of this shapes how we make sense of what is changing and how to change together. We’re connected, and our collaboration processes must acknowledge this. These insights evolved how I design sessions and, more importantly, how I attend to my own relationship to a group.

Voltage Control’s Facilitation Lab gave me a chance to test ideas with a live audience. I hosted a session on systems thinking and swapped the classic iceberg model for a tree. It sounds simple, but it landed. Most people don’t have a lived sense of icebergs. But everyone knows leaves tell you something about the soil. The tree helped folks map events, patterns, structures, and mental models in a way that felt embodied, connected, and intuitive. Seeing that click for people was a highlight.

The cohort itself was a gift, folks across Africa, Europe, the States, and beyond; multi-decade corporate leaders alongside independents, and founders. Sharing early drafts of workshops and getting feedback from people outside my context sharpened my thinking. It’s humbling and energizing to design for humans with different idioms, constraints, and cultural references. That feedback loop is gold.

There was also the portfolio project. I interviewed a friend working at the New York Times R&D team about a real organizational challenge, then designed a theoretical workshop series to address it. Building that proposal forced me to think about multiple paths through a session. What if the group stalls? What if the problem definition shifts? It helped me get more precise over sequencing activities and designing choice points so we could pivot without losing the thread. That alone changed how I build sessions.

From Methods to Muscles

When the program ended, the most significant difference I felt was less about knowing more methods and more about having stronger intuitions. I started applying these inside Mural, where I took on innovation work. It taught me how ideas move, or resist, within large organizations; where strategy meets reality; and how facilitation is a workshopping skill and a leadership stance. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do as a facilitator is name the water: “We’re trying to innovate while our incentives reward predictability. What do we want to do with that truth?” That’s facilitation as an offering.

The Master Certification later deepened this, especially around conflict. The “Difficult Conversations” book was so practical. I used those concepts just a week ago. “Standing in the Fire” helped me stay grounded in challenging moments and work with my own nervous system so I don’t become part of the volatility I’m working to hold. Those helped evolve what leadership means to me. Leadership is like dancing: yes, at times you need to be clear about where you want someone to move, and at other times it’s listening to what their needs are and working to orchestrate a movement together.

I also leaned into embodied practice through Social Presencing Theater (from the Presencing Institute and Theory U). It offered a way to sense into what’s emerging in a system that doesn’t start with stickies. When I bring even a little bit of that into a room, more silence, more sensing, more use of space, people often discover clarity they couldn’t reach by speaking more. I’ve noticed I’m better at inviting ambiguity and giving people space to inhabit it without panic. That’s become a quiet superpower, personally and professionally.

Parallel to all this, I was building a workshop with my friend Jason Bacasa called Whole Vision, and I started shaping a platform to hold work like that called Togethering. In the Master Cert, I got stuck trying to describe Togethering in “proper” professional language. It felt stiff and confining. So I wrote it poetically instead, more stanza-like than a spec sheet, and shared it with my cohort. They all shared that it resonated with them in a felt sense while understanding its intention intellectually. That was the point, and honestly, it made me proud. It affirmed that the work I want to do lives at the intersection of clarity and feeling.

Crossfading the Practical and the Poetic

Right now, Togethering is the lab where I’m working to fuse the two threads of my life: the practical, tactical work of product innovation and the relational, embodied work that helps groups actually move as one. I’m building it with my friend Max Lauter and with consulting support from my partner, Natalia Villalobos. In the near term, we’re focused on engagements with clear outcomes, new value propositions, service redesigns, and strategic choices, because those are legible to organizations and easy to validate. But the theory of change here is bigger: if you only build outputs without shifting the relational field that produces them, you’ll keep arriving at the same answers.

So the plan is to crossfade and intersperse. Start with the tangible, then steadily bring in more of the relational and embodied practices that help groups sense together, not just plan together. That looks like moving beyond user stories and roadmaps into practices that help people see themselves inside the systems they’re shaping. The art is in knowing when to turn each dial. Most firms pick one end of the spectrum because it’s easier to message. I believe the value is in the hard work of blending the two.

I want Togethering to be a practice that supports teams, organizations, and communities in creating the change they seek by feeling and sensing with one another and creating an actionable strategy. Where we can take on a product innovation challenge, and also work deep in the soil to repair root causes, enabling innovation to emerge on its own. Where we can borrow from art, attention, thresholds, and the poetics of experience, to make organizational gatherings that actually change how people relate. That’s the future I’m working towards, and I’m trying to build it in a way that stays grounded in what works.

In some ways, I’m still solving the middle-school puzzle: how do we create spaces where people get more done together than they ever could alone, and enjoy the process enough to keep doing it? I’m also answering the question I was working through during my art days: how might we create experiences that allow people to reflect and co-enact change? The difference now is that I have a deeper set of tools, a community of practice, and a clearer sense that the “how” is the product.

Middle school collaborations taught me the value and fun of solving problems together. Years of art and technology have taught me how to design and offer experiences that foster deep personal reflection and awe. Product innovation work taught me how to deliver tangible outcomes. Voltage Control gave me a way to weave those lessons into a craft. The next chapter is about making that valuable craft at scale, without losing the human heartbeat that makes it worth doing.

If you’ve gotten this far, I suspect a part of you might be asking for the same thing.

I’ll end with what I tell anyone considering the certification: your personal experience is already enough to begin. You don’t need to know everything before you start. Follow the questions, and let practice do its work on you. The highest value of your time is exactly where you are, not in some imagined future where you’ve “earned” the right to try.

If you feel that tug toward facilitation, toward designing spaces where people can see, sense, and act together, step in, we’re here for you. Find a container that lets you practice, not just learn. Voltage Control was that for me, and it might be for you. Say yes, even if it scares you a little. Especially, if it does.

The post From Birdcalls to Boardrooms appeared first on Voltage Control.

The Beginning

If you glanced at my college transcript, you might assume this story begins in a drafting studio. Residential architecture was my first love. I didn’t have the language then for what drew me in, but I do now: function and purpose layered with an intentional aesthetic experience. A building has to stand, serve, and shape how people feel when they walk through it. That tension—structure plus experience—has been the throughline of my entire career.

I didn’t become an architect. Instead, I pivoted into business and eventually earned a master’s in organizational communication—choices that looked like sharp left turns but ultimately gave me the two languages I still speak every day: how humans organize and make decisions, and how technology actually works. Early in my tech roles, others noticed my ability to translate between deeply technical teams and business leaders before I noticed it in myself. I could sit with network engineers and then walk down the hall to explain the story to a CFO without losing anyone along the way.

My first decade unfolded at a major networking company from 1997 to 2007—routers, data centers, and a brand-new thing called the internet. Then came the telephony shift: voice riding on data networks. Suddenly, I was facilitating peace talks between “the phone people” and “the data people.” Later, I moved into the emerging collaboration space, helping shape the early generation of smart-room and meeting technologies. Across all of it, I played the same role: bridge builder, translator, convener of cross-functional worlds that don’t naturally speak to each other.

But consulting has limits. You can influence, but only from the outside. I craved being part of a healthy culture where transformation could actually take root. In 2015, I joined Progressive Insurance, drawn by its genuinely human-centered approach to collaboration and problem-solving.

A few years later—right before COVID—leaders in the organization asked me to stand up a new enterprise-level forum focused on cross-functional alignment around technology and readiness. They saw something in me I hadn’t fully named yet: the way I convene people and help them see the whole picture. Four weeks later, the world shut down. That forum became a critical space for helping tens of thousands of people transition to remote work, and my role evolved from technologist who can talk to humans into someone who designs environments where people can have real, candid conversations about value, risk, and possibility.

Looking back, I now see the pattern clearly: I grew up professionally on the edges of market disruptions—early internet infrastructure, unified communications, modern collaboration, and now AI. The constant wasn’t the tools. It was facilitating transformation. It was designing temporary worlds—sessions, rhythms, and forums—where function meets experience. Where people can tell the truth, get energized about possibility, and challenge what’s unclear. Those rooms—not me—are where the real intelligence lives.

Finding Myself in “Professional Facilitator”

The moment I thought, “Oh… I’m a facilitator,” happened during the pandemic. I read Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, and when she used the phrase “professional facilitator,” something clicked deep in my nervous system. I had been doing this work for years without naming it. Suddenly, the pattern was undeniable: I wasn’t organizing meetings; I was designing human experiences.

Around that time, I helped redesign a complex technology-evaluation process at my company. We needed to make something high-stakes feel human and workable—because governance isn’t exactly everyone’s happy place. I reached out to partners at MURAL and eventually connected with a facilitator from Voltage Control. Together, we built DWG World, a visual journey—a game board—for how innovation moves through a large enterprise. Playful but rigorous. And it changed the way people engaged. The visual space leveled hierarchy, clarified expectations, and made the invisible visible.

That project awakened something in me. I began paying attention to how I opened and closed spaces, the rituals we practiced, and how the “feel” of a room shaped outcomes. The more intentional I became, the more ROI those rooms produced—more candor, better attendance, decisions people could live with, and a reputation for “that meeting felt different.” I knew I wanted to deepen the craft.

The Leap Toward Voltage Control

My manager nudged me: “You haven’t invested in yourself for a while. Take a class. Grow.” That kind of support gave me permission to pursue something that had been tugging at me for years.

Voltage Control immediately stood out. In tech, you learn quickly that your digital storefront builds trust—and Voltage’s digital storefront radiated clarity, sophistication, and humanity. Combined with a positive previous collaboration, it felt like a natural next step. Compared to traditional conferences, the depth and value were incomparable.

I applied to the Core Certification and was thrilled when I was accepted. It aligned perfectly with where my career was heading: from technologist to facilitator of enterprise-level transformation. I wanted language, frameworks, community, and accountability around what I had been doing intuitively. I wanted to be not just effective—but artful.

Language for What I’d Been Doing All Along

Core delivered exactly that. Concepts like facilitator presence, purpose-first design, and group process leadership weren’t abstract—they were mirrors. They validated what I already knew and opened new vistas. Like hiking in Colorado: one moment you’re in the trees, and suddenly you’re above the treeline with a panoramic view.

The community component surprised me most. Facilitators inside large organizations can feel isolated—embedded everywhere but rarely gathered. Voltage’s buddy system changed that. My buddies in Core and Master became the people I could share ideas with, test new methods, and even whisper insecurities to: “Am I overengineering this?” The program wasn’t built to center the instructors; it was built to center community. That energy intensified at the Voltage Summit, and I left with genuine friendships that continue to anchor my life and work.

Voltage also deepened my facilitator presence. People often tell me I create psychological safety, and I take that seriously. During COVID, I developed rituals—music at the top, warm check-ins, conversational flow, and a closing dad joke. Those rituals held us together. But after losing both of my parents within four months, I learned that presence isn’t a switch—it’s a practice. It requires self-regulation, humility, and honesty about when you’re not able to hold space for others. Voltage—and books like Standing in the Fire—gave me tools to navigate that season.

I also loosened my grip on content. My job is often to design the container, not fill it.

From Orchestrator to Amplifier

If there’s one word that captures the shift in me after certification, it’s trust. Facilitation at scale is the slow, steady work of building trust—with leaders, with teams, and across silos. The more I trust the room, the more the room trusts itself. And then something remarkable happens: a temporary group becomes a high-performing team right in front of you.

Midway through the Core program, I was asked to facilitate alignment between senior leaders and deeply experienced domain experts on the pace of digital transformation—especially as AI began reshaping familiar boundaries. It was a room filled with thoughtful, seasoned voices who each carried valuable history and perspective. I used a Voltage Problem-Solving one-pager to create a shared structure: those who needed space to surface the core challenges had it, and those eager to move toward outcomes could clearly see the path forward. The artifact helped anchor the conversation and build confidence in the process. By the end, what started as a set of differing viewpoints shifted into genuine alignment. Several people asked, “What did you do? Can you teach me?”

The feedback I value most now is simple: “I’ve never had a meeting like this.”

Practices like check-ins, check-outs, naming purpose upfront, and designing for inclusion seem soft until you watch them unlock hard outcomes. The way a group works together becomes as important as the work itself. That combination—function, purpose, and aesthetic experience—is still my fuel.

What I’m Building Next

The biggest shift Voltage catalyzed is moving from expert to amplifier. In an AI-enabled world, knowledge is increasingly democratized. My job isn’t to walk in with the answer—it’s to create the conditions where the best answer can emerge from the room.

My company has invested deeply in my development, and they’ve asked me to multiply that impact. My Master capstone is a community of practice for facilitators inside the organization—called FacilitateX. I’ve gathered ten practitioners to co-design the blueprint: the charter, identity, operating model, and launch strategy. If stars align, we’ll bring Voltage in to help embed the competencies we value most. This isn’t tucked away in HR; it’s elevating facilitation as a strategic leadership capability.

At the same time, the governance forum I built in 2020 has become a model other groups reference and adapt. We recently applied the same principles to support responsible adoption of emerging technologies—diverse voices, clear cadences, transparent artifacts, and human-centered experience. It’s the same core belief: well-designed spaces help people think better together.

Looking ahead five years, I see a multiplier effect—a network of strong facilitators who can support integration efforts, digital transformation, and culture work. In an AI-accelerated world, alignment is oxygen. AI becomes our companion, not a replacement, freeing us to design experiences that feel both humane and effective. And personally? I see myself continuing to be a relational strategist, building trust across the enterprise, helping people say, “That felt different—and it worked.”

Closer + Call to Action

If you’re facilitation-curious—or you’ve been doing the work without naming it—Voltage Control will crack something open in you. It did for me. Core gave me language and community. Master is sharpening my presence and shifting me from orchestrator to amplifier. If you enjoy being comfortably uncomfortable, like an athlete training for the next season, this is your place.

My encouragement:

• Invest in the craft.
• Design the experience, not just the agenda.
• Practice self-regulation as much as you practice methods.
• Find your people—buddies, mentors, peers who reflect you back to yourself and laugh at your dad jokes.

Because at the end of the day, the smartest person in the room is the room. If you’re ready to help create those rooms—and be changed by them—come join us. I’ll see you in the circle. Bring a good but terrible dad joke too.

The post From Tech Expert to Amplifier appeared first on Voltage Control.

“Can you hear my audio? Can you see my screen?” How many times did I utter those sentences in 2020? Suddenly, the teaching, convening, and presenting work I had felt I could almost do in my sleep felt brand-new again – like I had to relearn how to walk and tie my shoes. That was not a comfortable feeling for a mid-career consultant who prided herself on creating engaging meetings and events.

Without ever calling it “facilitation,” I’ve used facilitation skills throughout my entire career as a strategy consultant to nonprofits and foundations (with a side-quest into commercial work – but that’s another story). Since founding my consulting practice in 1996, I have led countless board meetings, retreats, strategic planning workshops, Communities of Practice, listening sessions, focus groups… pretty much any type of gathering you can think of, with all sizes of groups.

It’s always been one of my favorite parts of my work – the experience of bringing people together to think creatively and expansively about possibilities, learn from each other, and co-create solutions that didn’t exist before is at the heart of why I love my work.

But things changed when the pandemic kicked off. Although I had done some online facilitation prior to March of 2020, it was quickly clear that I was going to have to really up my game if I wanted my groups to achieve their goals and objectives via Zoom. That’s when I started researching where and how I might pursue professional development.

Around the same time, I attended a webinar on an unrelated topic. When one of the speakers was explaining her methodology for generating a group discussion, another webinar participant posted in the chat: “It sounds like Liberating Structures.”

That caught my eye, so I googled… and was immediately blown away by the potential of the methodology. “Where has this been my whole life?” I asked myself while poring over the Liberating Structures site and book.

As part of my research, I soon came across the word, “facilitator.” And I immediately said, “Yes, that’s me!” Digging further into blogs, online workshops, discussion threads, and communities, I found Voltage Control, along with a few other organizations, that were offering the kinds of learning I knew I needed: how to create online spaces of focus and purpose, where people could be as creative and connected as possible to achieve big results.

I was surprised and excited to learn how many professionals globally take this facilitation stuff seriously, and particularly because we cover such a diverse range of interests and applications of the skills. I found myself connecting with product designers, IT professionals, CEOs… as well as plenty of other nonprofit professionals and consultants like me. The diversity of applications and interests meant I was learning from a wide variety of experiences; the consistency of our collective commitment to facilitation told me I was in the right place.

After attending a few Facilitation Labs online, I decided to enroll in an 8-hour online workshop Voltage Control was offering at that time on Liberating Structures. I couldn’t believe how fast the time flew during the workshop – I was used to online meetings that dragged and droned, with endless slide decks and limited opportunity for interactivity or engagement. The experience served to reinforce to me that I was definitely on the right track for taking my consulting practice to the next level.

In fact, even before the two-session workshop was done, I started bringing what I had learned into client meetings. Activities like 1-2-4-All helped me overcome the challenge of having the most vocal person dominate the conversation, while TRIZ created a fun and memorable framework for getting at root causes of deep-seated community challenges. And that was only two of the Liberating Structures – I had dozens more to try!

What’s more, my clients were noticing the difference, too. More than one long-term client made a point of telling me that “something had changed” in my facilitation – sessions were stronger, more dynamic, and more productive than before.

When I reflected on what had changed, I realized that the balance of engagement had flipped on its head. Before I started pursuing facilitation training, my sessions would be 80% of me talking and teaching, and 20% of the participants engaging and interacting. After becoming more intentional about facilitation and expanding my methods, I observed that 80% of my sessions involved direct engagement and peer-to-peer interaction of the participants, and only 20% me.

That’s when I realized: Facilitation is not about wielding control in the room. Facilitation is about creating a room with a set of rules that enables humans to connect authentically and find their collective wisdom.

Around that time, I had a client project that involved designing and facilitating six online strategic visioning sessions on different topics relating to the future of a local community. This would be the first big project with a lot of high-stakes online sessions, and I was both excited and nervous about putting my new skills to the test.

In my planning, I was tempted to try some of the more complex methods I had learned about in my Liberating Structures workshop… but I managed to resist the urge and Keep It Simple, to reduce the stress for both me and the participants. I secured a co-facilitator, with responsibility for running the technology (including Zoom and Mural boards) and providing troubleshooting assistance when needed.

And then I opened the rooms, doing what I have always loved doing: Bringing people together to envision a thriving future where kids experience summer camp, people with disabilities have full access to community life, teachers get appropriate compensation and recognition, and the professionals who make the entire community run are visible and appreciated. We co-created inspiring visions for the future in these sessions, and my elation grew with the completion of each one. It WAS possible to create online spaces of openness, generosity, and trust.

We got excellent feedback from participants, as well. One participant took the time to write on the post-event survey: “Robin’s strategic planning workshops were among the best I’ve attended — even on Zoom. They were goal-oriented, interactive, and thoughtfully designed. Robin fostered open discussion and guided participants effectively while allowing space for independent conclusions.”

And another: “Robin tenaciously sought input from a diverse group, stimulated active discussion, and provided the leadership and clarity to enable us to confidently move forward. She is masterful in her approach and dedicated to an outstanding outcome.” 

Although I felt my skills advancing and developing, I also had my eye on the Voltage Control certification program. I was able to make time in my schedule and free up budget to invest in the program, and I joined Cohort 11, convening in the summer of 2024.

The best thing about the certification program was the wonderful community of facilitators I got to work intensively with for three months. Everyone had differing levels of experience, their own particular style, and varied goals for what they wanted out of the program. But what we had in common was passion for facilitation.

My personal goals in the program were to dig more deeply into “why” – I wanted to better understand WHY many of the techniques I had developed through trial-and-error over the years worked, and at the same time how to adjust for things that weren’t working. I also wanted to better understand my own “why” – what was my purpose as a facilitator? Why was I so drawn to this work? What did it say about my professional world, my interests, and fundamentally, my values?

I answered those questions through the certification program, which gave me the framework, community, and access to expertise and mentoring that enabled me to grow. Preparing my portfolio was an exercise in bringing it all together – my purpose, my experience, the kinds of positive outcomes for nonprofits and communities I was working toward.

In fact, I keep my purpose statement printed at my workstation, to remind myself every day, every meeting, how I’m putting my values into action:

“My purpose is to create environments in which people practice being their best selves while collaboratively solving intractable problems.”

In the world we live in today, this feels like more than a profession – it feels like a calling.

Soon after I completed certification, I signed up for more: I joined the first cohort for Master Certification through Voltage Control in the spring of 2025 because I wanted to go deeper with my skills and particularly with my ability to build empathy in groups characterized by conflict or even hostility.

At the same time, I explored my frustration with the negative impact bad meetings have on the ability of nonprofits to achieve their missions. For my final project, I designed and piloted a three-session workshop series for nonprofit professionals and volunteers, to provide a foundation in the principles of good meetings:

1. Connection Before Content
2. Have a Purpose
3. Do the Work IN the Meeting

I ran the pilot with 7 participants, all of whom appreciated learning and practicing the practical skills that could help their meetings not suck! In the words of one participant, “I so appreciate Robin’s willingness to share her insight and expertise on meeting facilitation! She takes facilitation and participation to a new level. This class really addresses the frustration and boredom that can plague those of us who spend a lot of time in group meetings and brings home the idea that there is another and better way!”

While making my way through the Master Certification program, I was also applying to full-time consulting roles with firms that specialize in nonprofit and foundation work. I wanted to take what I’d developed over nearly 30 years to a bigger audience and work on larger teams, and joining a firm made the most sense for accomplishing both goals.

Soon after completing Master Certification, I joined Tangelo Tree Consulting as a Senior Consultant. My facilitation skills and the investment I’d made in developing them were an influential part of my application. And, with a talented team of other consultants, I get to work with regional and national clients on such topics as reproductive health rights, energy efficiency, affordable housing, and environmental conservation. The work is deeply challenging and feels vital at this moment, and I feel lucky every day that I get to do it.

To “facilitate” means to “ease the way.” Regardless of the direction your professional work is going, I believe you can ease the way by enhancing your skills as a facilitator. So much of what’s wrong with our world comes down to the ways humans interact with each other. We have so much creativity, so much potential for solving intractable problems, and yet so few spaces that are created and held so that people can truly listen to and work with one another.

This is the work I am honored to do as a certified facilitator. Whether it’s improving Tangelo Tree’s occasional online staff retreat, designing and facilitating a program for a hundred stakeholders, or anything in between, I feel most alive and connected when I’m helping others make connections. That’s how we have the potential to solve intractable problems. And that’s my purpose.

The post From “Can You Hear Me?” to “I’ve Got This” appeared first on Voltage Control.

I grew up in San Jose, California, in a big Filipino family that knows how to throw a party. Like, really throw a party. These gatherings weren’t just any backyard barbecues—they were full-blown community events built around a celebration called Sinulog, honoring the Holy Child, Santo Niño. It was a mix of food, faith, and family, but for me, it was also about the stage. Starting when I was just a kid, my family would have me emcee or perform dances at these events. One year, I was front and center doing choreography. Another, I cracked jokes and kept the flow going as the MC.

Even though I’d always considered myself shy, my family saw me as outgoing. I think because I could get up in front of a hundred people and make them laugh, they just assumed I was born for the mic. But really, I think I just loved the feeling of everyone being together, of helping people have a good time. That was the thread that carried through, even as I went off to community college. I started out as a teaching major (my mom and grandma were both teachers), but switched to communications after taking a public speaking class—one of two options to fulfill a graduation requirement. I chose it because it scared me the most, and ended up falling in love with it.

There was something about that class that stuck with me. My professor taught us how to write a strong slide, how to hold an audience’s attention, how to speak so people could really hear you. That was the first time I began to see that creating a moment of connection was more than just being confident—it was about being intentional. It was my first taste of what would eventually become a passion for facilitation.

At the time, I didn’t have a name for it. But the core of it was there. I loved making things clear. I loved holding space where people felt comfortable showing up. I loved bringing people in. Later, I started working at Philz Coffee on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto, tucked away in a quiet part of the neighborhood, it was the fourth store ever to open. Being in that kind of neighborhood meant we saw the same smiles every day,and that same thread showed up again. It wasn’t about the coffee. It was about knowing the regulars, building relationships, creating a little hub of community. I stayed there for three years because it felt good. That was always my north star: people, and the spaces between them.

Learning to Lead, Even Without a Map

Fast forward to my time at Strava. I started as a recruiting coordinator, then got promoted into a role called Organizational Development Manager. That’s when facilitation began to take center stage in a whole new way. I was asked to lead a mentorship program project—a huge initiative that had no playbook. Total ambiguity. I was in charge of guiding a group of people toward something that didn’t yet exist. And I could tell they weren’t buying in. They weren’t engaged. And I didn’t yet have the tools to reach them: though I tried. I even scheduled 15-minute one-on-one meetings with each person in the project to ask for feedback and figure out what I needed to do to get them onboard

So I started Googling. And honestly? It was overwhelming. I didn’t even know the word “facilitation” could unlock this whole universe of practices and techniques. I saw the potential of facilitation everywhere—in meetings that fell flat, in presentations that didn’t land, in rooms where people felt confused or disengaged. I was trying to solve these problems intuitively, but without the frameworks or confidence to back me up.  I didn’t even know what to search for, and when I did find something useful, the step-by-step instructions often weren’t enough to do it justice. Something was missing, some deeper understanding, some context, some why behind the how.

That project became my friction point. I knew I needed support. I needed actual learning. And as I started looking around, someone in our internal L&D Slack channel mentioned a program they’d done through Voltage Control. There was a ripple effect from a group of Strava PMs who had gone through the certification and loved it. They were recommending it left and right, especially for folks who wanted to uplevel facilitation skills.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I was frustrated, exhausted, and desperate for some clarity. So I started digging in.

A Signal of Safety

I’m naturally a little skeptical, so I did my research—Reddit, reviews, you name it. What stood out most wasn’t just the testimonials. It was the fact that there was a Diversity Scholarship. That told me this wasn’t just another cookie-cutter professional program. It told me someone had thought about who gets access to this type of learning. For me, that small detail signaled psychological safety before I even applied.

I needed to know that I wouldn’t be the only person of color in the room. That I could bring my full self. That I wouldn’t have to translate my experience for people to get it. That mattered more than any syllabus or schedule.  It was incredibly impactful to say something like, “my Filipino family was conflict avoidant,” and feel understood without having to explain what that meant. Even if others hadn’t lived it, they got it. That kind of understanding made me feel safer, and it made the conversations move with more depth, more honesty, and a faster rhythm.

And I was right. From day one, I felt like I belonged. The people in my cohort were from all over—someone worked for the UN, another person was based in Africa, others in tech, nonprofits, government. But we got each other. We were all learning together, from different angles. That mix made the learning richer, the conversations deeper, and the insights more nuanced.

Stepping Into My Power

The moment everything clicked for me was during a coaching session with Skye. I was still stuck in this mindset of, “I’m just a beginner, I don’t know what I’m doing.” And she stopped me. She had me list all the things I’d already done, all the choices I’d made to bring people together, all the facilitation moves I had already used—without even realizing it. And then she said: “You are a facilitator.”

That shift was huge. It was like someone handed me a mirror and said, “Look.” From that point on, I started showing up differently. In meetings, in sessions I led, in the way I talked about my work. My confidence skyrocketed. And confidence, for someone like me who has battled self-doubt for most of my life, is everything.

What changed wasn’t just how I felt. It was how I acted. I made decisions faster. I trusted my gut. I leaned into hard conversations instead of tiptoeing around them. And I had the words, tools, and frameworks to back it up. 

That session with Skye flipped a switch.  It helped me realize something I’d heard a million times—“you are enough”—but never really believed. I started to ask myself: What have I missed out on just because I thought I wasn’t ready? Is anyone really an expert before they start? No. Some people are less qualified and still go for it. So why not me? That realization cracked something open. It reframed not just how I showed up—but what I believed I was capable of.

My Toolbox, My Team, My Transformation

One of my favorite things about the program was how immediate and tangible it was. We’d read about a technique one week, then try it out in our next session. 1-2-4-All became my go-to. It’s now in my back pocket anytime I need to draw out quiet voices or avoid groupthink. This was especially important on my team, some folks hated breakout rooms. And honestly, if you’ve ever led a workshop, you know: the moment you mention breakouts, a few people instantly disappear. 1-2-4-All gave me a way to create participation without forcing discomfort. Paired with what I knew from the Enneagram, that people process and engage differently. It became a pivotal moment for me. I saw clearly: we have to meet people where they are.

I also fell in love with the Portfolio Project. It gave me space to reflect on what really matters to me as a facilitator: psychological safety, inclusion, shared ownership. It wasn’t just a collection of assignments. It became a declaration of my purpose. And that clarity translated directly into how I show up at work. Now, even for something as simple as a weekly check-in, I ask: How can I make this meaningful? How can I make sure every voice is heard?

Honestly, my whole team has changed as a result. They see the way I facilitate, and it’s influencing how they lead their own sessions. They trust me more. They come to me for advice. And yes, they pile on more work (because doing a good job tends to have that effect!). But the work feels aligned. It feels like impact.

Bringing It Back Home

One of my proudest moments recently was leading a team workshop that combined Enneagram with team dynamics. I only had 60 minutes, but I designed a flow that introduced the framework, surfaced a specific team challenge, and led us to a clear action plan. At the end, people were energized. One person said, “That was the best session I’ve ever attended.” And we walked away with a shared commitment to build a more connected team.

That’s the kind of transformation I never could have facilitated before the program. Not because I didn’t care or didn’t try—but because I didn’t yet have the clarity, confidence, or structure. Now I do. And the results speak for themselves.

Tool for Belonging

The biggest mindset shift for me is that facilitation isn’t just a skill. It’s a leadership practice. It’s a way of creating the conditions where people can be brave, take risks, and do their best work. It’s about guiding, not controlling. Inviting, not telling. Holding space, not filling it.

I’m especially passionate about how this shows up for people who don’t always feel seen. In my family, we were loud and vibrant, but we also avoided conflict. That shaped how I approached facilitation. I had to unlearn the instinct to smooth things over. Now, I help make space for the hard stuff—because I know that’s where the breakthroughs happen.

Helping Communities Thrive

Looking ahead, I see a world of possibilities. Right now, I’m in tech. But long term? I want to support nonprofits. I want to work with local bike shops (I’m a huge cyclist) to create learning spaces around adventure and community. I want to use my skills to build safer, stronger spaces for people who don’t always get them.

That vision—of helping communities thrive because someone facilitated their way through a challenge—that’s what drives me. I may not know exactly how it’ll unfold, but I know what it’ll feel like: vibrant, connected, purposeful. And that’s enough to keep going.

If you’re on the fence about facilitation certification, here’s what I’ll say: You don’t have to wait until you feel “ready.” You’ll never feel 100% confident starting out. But Voltage Control creates a space where you can learn at any level. Where you can see yourself reflected. And where you get more than just skills—you get belief in yourself.

If my story resonates, take the leap. You might just walk away with a whole new way of seeing your voice, your impact, and your path forward.

The post From Stage to Safe Spaces appeared first on Voltage Control.

I sometimes joke that my career has been a journey from geopolitics to office politics. But when I look back, I can see the thread running through it all: people trying to understand one another, to build bridges, and to work together despite differences. That thread is what ultimately pulled me toward facilitation.

When I was eight years old, my family moved into a seminary housing complex in southern California, and suddenly my neighbors were from places like India, Bulgaria, Korea, and Madagascar. It sparked in me a deep curiosity about the world and a desire to understand people across cultures. I studied French, met my husband while studying abroad in Bordeaux, and taught English at a French elementary school after my undergraduate degree. That love of cross-cultural understanding, combined with an interest in negotiation inspired by the book Getting to Yes, took me all the way through a dual master’s program in International Affairs at Sciences Po in Paris and Columbia University in New York. My compass was always set toward doing good in the world, and I started seeing my contribution in terms of helping people connect across divides.

After graduating, I got a job at the philanthropic foundation Carnegie Corporation of New York, where I worked in the international peace and security program and was steeped in grantmaking that supported dialogue and bridge-building. I was fascinated by grantee convenings that brought adversaries or skeptics into a room and created enough trust for them to imagine a shared path forward. At the time, I didn’t call it facilitation. I called it conflict management. But the seed was there.

The first time I encountered a professional facilitator by title was in an internal meeting in 2022 at Carnegie. We had invited Christa White to facilitate a conversation around how we could think more intentionally about our organizational culture. Watching her work was eye-opening. The way she structured the discussion, the way she held space for vulnerability and presence—it shifted the dynamic completely. It wasn’t just us talking at each other. There was flow, coherence, and clarity. And I thought: I want to learn how to do that.

Around the same time, I was also making a career transition from program analyst to learning and development specialist—the first such role at Carnegie. My chief HR officer encouraged me to step into it, and as I learned more about what people in L&D roles actually do, I realized I had found a path that could bring together the things I loved most about my international affairs work and apply them much closer to home. Designing learning experiences, supporting professional growth, and helping colleagues connect across differences felt like the right fit. And facilitation has been at the center of it.

Learning From My Mistakes

One of the moments that most shaped my curiosity about facilitation actually came from a failure. In May 2020, only a few months into the turmoil of COVID, I co-designed a virtual communications workshop for my own department. It was one of the first workshops I got to design by myself, and I made the rookie mistake of not securing alignment with the rest of the team beforehand. I didn’t clarify the purpose with participants, including senior staff, and when the session began, people immediately started asking: why are we doing this? I froze. I had prepared meticulously, but I wasn’t nimble in the moment. I didn’t know how to respond constructively to the resistance in the room.

That experience stuck with me. It taught me that facilitation isn’t just about designing a good workshop; it’s about having presence, agility, and confidence when things don’t go as planned. Later, when I read Magical Meetings, the metaphor of the facilitator as a Jedi resonated deeply. That’s what I had been missing in 2020—the grace, responsiveness, and calm authority to guide a group even through the unexpected. From then on, I was determined to build those skills.

After moving into the new L&D role in the fall of 2022, I took foundational ATD courses on instructional design and coaching, which built my knowledge base on effective structures for learning and engaging colleagues deeply around challenges they were facing. Facilitation still felt like the missing piece – a skillset that could address what I kept hearing in staff conversations: that we wanted stronger relationships, better communication, and more productive collaboration.

Choosing Voltage Control

When I decided I wanted formal facilitation training, I assumed I’d find something in person in New York. But to my surprise, there wasn’t much. That’s when I discovered Voltage Control. What drew me in wasn’t just the certification itself, but the ecosystem around it—the community hub, the Practice Playgrounds, and the Summit. It wasn’t going to be a one-and-done course; it was going to be a living practice.

To test the waters, I joined an online Practice Playground. I wanted to get a taste of who these people were and how they worked. Right away, I saw a group of practitioners who were willing to experiment, to try things, and to share generously. That gave me the confidence to sign up for certification, even though it was virtual. The promise of live interaction, a diverse cohort, and an ongoing community made it feel right.

Building My Presence

In the certification itself, I had two major breakthroughs. The first was the diamond of participation from The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making. Understanding the dynamics of divergence, the groan zone, and convergence was like turning on a lightbulb. Suddenly, what I had been experiencing in group settings made sense. Discomfort wasn’t failure—it was part of the process. And with the right structures, I could help groups move through it.

The second was the shift from techniques to presence. I came into the program still focused on tools: which activities, which exercises, which Liberating Structures. And those were valuable. But the deeper lesson was about me: who am I as a facilitator? What is my purpose? How do I show up? With guidance from my instructors and inspiration from my peers, I began to see that my strength lay in creating dialogue—helping people have the conversations they wouldn’t otherwise have. Once I embraced that, my confidence grew. I didn’t need to have all the answers; I needed to create the space.

The learning partners were another unexpected highlight. With Brian Buck, I went deep into identity and purpose. Debbie Baker introduced me to visual facilitation. And Robin Neidorf gave me the encouragement I needed to finish my portfolio. These relationships made the experience richer, and meeting them in person at the 2025 Facilitation Lab Summit was a joy. Walking into that room and already knowing I belonged to this special community made it one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life.

Bringing Facilitation Home

After certification, I had the chance to facilitate a full-day strategy and process-improvement retreat for my old grantmaking team. In the past, our retreats had been loosely structured and not always as productive as we wanted them to be, with some voices tending to dominate while others held back. This time, I applied everything I had learned. I interviewed participants in advance and co-created the agenda. I clarified outcomes and roles, including careful intentionality around when and how the group would make decisions. I designed a flow that balanced purpose and process.

The retreat was a success. Participants told me it was the best retreat they’d ever had—productive, engaging, and relationship-building. For me, it was validation that the skills I had invested in were real, practical, and could help groups move forward even in complex contexts. 

Alongside this, I began applying facilitation not just to team retreats, but also to organization-wide capacity-building. For example, I’ve had the chance to roll out Crucial Conversations training as a certified internal trainer. Because the course already comes with such strong content and structure, it gave me the freedom to focus on my presence in the room. The topic itself makes facilitation especially meaningful: creating a space where colleagues can explore the difficult conversations we often avoid, even though they shape so much of our work. I’ve come to see that the work of dialogue—whether in international affairs or collaborating with coworkers—always starts with yourself. The same is true of facilitation: I had to focus on my own presence and mindset in order to create the conditions for others to open up. The feedback I’ve received has been deeply affirming, with participants highlighting my openness, a nonjudgmental approach, active listening, thoughtful responses, and a warm, clear style. I truly love this work because it feels like an opportunity to practice the kind of dialogue that strengthens both people and organizations.

Leading in Community

One of the unexpected rewards of the program has been not just learning facilitation practice, but leading it. After my initial disappointment that there wasn’t a Practice Playground in New York, it was incredibly rewarding to help launch one as the regional lead for Facilitation Lab NYC. Month after month, I get to challenge myself, experiment, and build community with others who are curious about facilitation. The mix of alumni, newcomers, and curious professionals makes for a dynamic group, and I always leave energized and grateful.

The community aspect is, to me, one of the most powerful parts of Voltage Control. Facilitation can feel like an individual skill, but it’s really a collective practice. Getting to learn, stumble, reflect, and grow alongside others has made me not just a better facilitator but a better colleague and leader.

Looking Ahead

Right now, in addition to my L&D work, I’m also supporting a new initiative at Carnegie focused on reimagining the system of national service in America as a way to counter the forces of political polarization. We’re working with longtime leader in the field Alan Khazei, co-founder of City Year, to explore how service can provide more opportunities for young people and strengthen the civic fabric. As part of this, we hosted a major summit in early October with leaders across government, education, business, philanthropy, the military, faith communities, and the nonprofit and service sectors. My facilitation training has been and will continue to be directly relevant as we’ve thought through designing a purposeful gathering, creating trust, and ensuring a range of voices and perspectives are heard as we build toward a shared vision.

Long term, I plan to continue blending facilitation with my passion for dialogue and bridge-building. Whether it’s international relations, civic health, or organizational culture, I’ve learned that the work is based on the same core principles: creating spaces where people can listen, connect, and collaborate across differences. That’s the work I want to keep doing.

If you’re considering the certification, my advice is simple: do it. Whether you’re brand new or twenty years into your practice, you’ll gain skills, perspective, and community. And if you’re not quite ready, try a Practice Playground or come to the Facilitation Summit. Those experiences give you a taste of what’s possible—and you might just find yourself, as I did, saying: this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

The post From Conflict Resolution to Collaborative Leadership appeared first on Voltage Control.

I didn’t grow up thinking I would become a facilitator. My first career was actually in dance. For six or seven years, I performed professionally while also juggling different small jobs that I pieced together to make a life in the arts. Dancing nurtured my creativity and encouraged a willingness to try new things and take risks. It also required that I be comfortable in the spotlight. Even though I wasn’t the loudest personality, I learned to step into the spotlight with purpose, confidence, and presence. That experience has followed me into every chapter since and is undoubtedly a grounding foundation for my work as a facilitator now. 

Back then, when I was transitioning from dance into higher education, I wasn’t thinking about facilitation; I was thinking about college students. While working at AXIS Dance Company, where dancers with and without disabilities perform together, I oversaw interns—mostly college students. I found I loved mentoring them as they gained professional experience. Around the same time, my husband and I were involved in college ministry at our church, meeting students where they were and encouraging them in meaningful ways. Looking back, those two experiences were my first glimpses into a world of facilitation, even though I didn’t yet know the word for it.

So I went to graduate school for counseling—not with the goal of becoming a therapist, but because I wanted to be in higher ed. I loved the richness of that developmental time in life: students are asking great questions, trying things, and being vulnerable in ways that adults rarely are. After grad school, I worked in academic advising at UC Berkeley for two years, then moved into my current role at the University of Virginia as an academic coach. I’ve now been at UVA for almost seven years.

My role involves both one-on-one coaching and group facilitation. On the individual side, I meet with students about study strategies, time management, choosing a major, breaking down projects, or managing procrastination. It’s not always straightforward—sometimes students know what they need, other times I help them uncover the deeper challenges underneath the surface. On the group side, I design and facilitate workshops to support student success, such as navigating the transition, adopting a growth mindset, or using the science of learning. I also lead an accountability group for students who struggle with focus and/or organization.. In all these contexts, I began to wonder: how can I refine my skills to lead? What else is out there that could make me better at guiding these conversations and learning experiences?

Searching for Better Tools

During COVID, these questions became urgent. I was teaching a class of 150 first-year students online, plus leading a discussion section of 15 or 20 on Zoom. It was difficult to get them engaged. I remember thinking: I don’t have the tools I need to do this well. A few years later, I taught another in-person class for first-years, and although I managed some good breakout activities, I still wanted to get better. That’s when I started googling.

Somehow, I landed on the word facilitation. That became the keyword that opened up a new world. I discovered Voltage Control through one of their introductory sessions. I could only attend part of it before being pulled into another meeting, but even in that short time, I was struck by the energy, the interactivity, the way engagement was baked into every moment. That was exactly what I was searching for.

I didn’t do a ton of research beyond that. I saw enough to know that this was the kind of growth opportunity I was looking for. I wanted to learn how to design better experiences, not just transfer knowledge. I wanted tools that would help me spark participation rather than stare at blank Zoom screens. Facilitation seemed to be the bridge.

Making the Leap

In the end, the decision was fairly straightforward. I had professional development funding through my job, so the resources were available. The timing worked. The little taste I had seen from Voltage Control felt aligned with what I needed. So I jumped in.

There wasn’t one single dramatic tipping point—more of a quiet confidence that this was the right move. And I’ll admit, I was nervous. I didn’t think of myself as a facilitator at that point. I wondered if I belonged in a certification program where CEOs and senior leaders were also enrolled. But I knew that I wanted to grow, and that was reason enough.

Finding My Place in the Cohort

Once the certification began, I quickly realized the power of being in community. My cohort was filled with people from contexts wildly different than mine—executives, consultants, global leaders. At first, their titles were intimidating. But everyone was kind, and the pairing with buddies helped make the experience more personal. My instructor, Skye, had a background in higher ed, which reassured me that my context belonged in this space too.

During the program, I was paired with three great buddies from around the world. Each person was a valuable connection.: We were fellows journeying the path together, encouraging, sharing ideas and feedback, providing accountability, and more. Even though I sometimes wished there were more people from K–12 or higher ed in my cohort, the diversity of perspectives was a gift. It helped me see that facilitation is a universal skill, one that adapts across industries and cultures.

The content itself gave me several “aha” moments. Priya Parker’s work on the importance of purpose especially stuck with me. Slowing down to ask “why” before diving into planning has transformed the way I design workshops. I loved it so much that I borrowed the book from the UVA Library after giving my copy away, so that I could ask my new hire to read it so we could share the same grounding. The field guide activities were another highlight. I tried “I Used to Think, Now I Think” with a group of incoming first-years, and it worked beautifully. Such a simple tool, but powerful in helping students notice their own growth.

Perhaps the biggest shift, though, was simply starting to see myself as a facilitator. Before certification, I would never have used that word to describe myself. Now I do—with confidence.

Bringing It Back to UVA

The changes showed up quickly in my work. That summer workshop I mentioned, where I ended with “I Used to Think, Now I Think”—I don’t think I could have designed it as thoughtfully a year earlier. It felt like a workshop with more purpose, more intentionality, and more engagement. The response confirmed it. The feedback from colleagues helping to facilitate was overwhelmingly positive, and I’ve heard the Orientation Team wants to include the session multiple times next year, so more students can participate. A few students even stopped on their way out to say thank you and tell me how helpful it had been; for an 18-year-old to offer that kind of feedback unprompted meant a lot.

I have also found myself stepping into meetings and increasing leadership moments with more confidence. After being promoted last fall, I started contributing ideas in peer and supervisor meetings, suggesting new approaches, or gently redirecting conversations. I realized that facilitation isn’t just something I do in front of students—it’s a way of showing up in any group setting. Even as a participant, I can help make a meeting better. I’ve even caught myself drawing on field guide activities informally, like reframing a discussion with colleagues by borrowing language from “hopes and fears,” or inviting quieter voices in the room with a facilitation move instead of waiting for someone else to steer.

Looking Ahead

For now, I see myself staying in higher ed. Maybe at some point I would consider a move into talent development, but for now I still love working with college students and I love the vibrancy of this developmental stage..Wherever I go, whether in work or in my personal life, facilitation skills will translate. I know I’ll keep drawing on these tools whether I’m teaching, coaching, or leading meetings.

I also hope to keep connecting locally. I attended the first Facilitation Lab Charlottesville meetup, where I ran into colleagues from UVA I didn’t even realize had gone through the certification. That was energizing, to see how this work is sparking connections even on my own campus and within my context. I’d love to keep building those networks and practicing together. It reminded me of the joy of bumping into fellow learners unexpectedly—like discovering a shared vocabulary that makes collaboration easier. Knowing there are others nearby experimenting with facilitation gives me energy and courage to keep practicing, not just alone but as part of a living, breathing community.

Facilitation has given me new confidence and new language for the work I’ve already been doing. It has shown me that what I do matters, even if my context looks different from others in my cohort. If you’re considering certification, my advice is simple: reach out. I had a one-on-one call with Eric before joining, and his validation gave me the assurance I needed. Don’t be afraid to ask, does this fit me? The answer might surprise you.

And once you’re in, start your portfolio early. It’s time-consuming, yes, but worth it. The process forces you to reflect, to capture your growth, and to own your voice as a facilitator. For me, that was the real gift of certification: not just learning new tools, but learning to see myself differently. And now, whether I’m in a classroom, a meeting, or a community gathering, I carry that with me.

The post From Stage to Seminar appeared first on Voltage Control.

I don’t remember when I first heard the word facilitation. But looking back, I can see how it found me. I began my career in health education, working at a free clinic in Los Angeles that served homeless and runaway youth. That work demanded deep listening, empathy, and the ability to draw connections across community needs, systems, and services. Later, after moving to Sacramento in 1988 and starting a family, I transitioned into education. It was a pivot that happened organically: as a stay-at-home mom, I told the principal at my kids’ school, “I don’t bake cookies, but I can write grants.” That was enough to get me started.

One of my first grants was for arts education. We used the funds to launch a school-wide Shakespeare festival. Every grade level prepared a performance, with sixth graders even writing their own Seinfeld-inspired parody. There were turkey legs and storybooks kid versions of Shakespeare plays for sale. It was magical—not just because of the grant, but because it tapped into what the community already cared about. That was a lesson I would carry forward: the most powerful ideas don’t come from funder guidelines; they come from people.

Over time, I came to realize that facilitation was at the heart of good grant writing. You have to bring people together, gather their voices, understand what they need, and tell their story with clarity and heart. The funders can tell when you’re bluffing. You can read a grant and know instantly if it’s real or not. I used to review federal and state grants, and it was obvious which ones were just parroting back language. The authentic ones had depth—and that only comes when you’ve facilitated honest dialogue.

I called it guerrilla dialogue back then. You couldn’t always get people to come to a meeting, especially after school. So I would show up wherever they were and start asking questions. I’m a curious cat by nature, and I would talk to parents, teachers, cafeteria workers—anyone who had a perspective to share. I listened with an ethnographic lens. The physical space of a school told its own story, too. The cracked pavement, the posters on the walls, the sounds in the hallway—it was all data.

Later, as I started working with high-poverty schools and refugee families, I learned to adapt even more. I ran listening sessions in Farsi, Pashto, Spanish—whatever language the community spoke. That required close partnership with interpreters, attention to cultural dynamics, and sometimes changing what I wore or how I showed up as a woman. But if you ask parents about their kids, they’ll talk. Everyone wants a better life for their children.

Rediscovering the Power of Structure

The challenge, over time, was that things started to shift. It got harder to get people to talk together. The climate changed—socially, politically. Mistrust was in the air. In educational spaces, I started to feel the strain. People weren’t just reluctant; they were polarized. I facilitated a session on school safety once where students spoke powerfully about not wanting police on campus. Officers in the room sabotaged the process. The district ultimately ignored what the students said. I left that project with a deep sense of betrayal.

That experience wasn’t unique. As facilitators, we sometimes get used. We create safe space, people open up, and then leaders go back to the plan they always had. I realized I needed to be clearer in my contracts, to protect not only myself but the communities I serve. That realization was a turning point. I wanted better tools, better ways to hold space, and more skill in client management.

Around that time, I started noticing Voltage Control in my feed. I think it was the algorithm doing its magic. I joined a few Facilitation Lab sessions and immediately felt at home. There were people from all kinds of industries—tech, academia, aerospace—and they were grappling with some of the same questions I was. It was energizing. One guy had like six computers. Another was a university professor. I loved the cross-pollination.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed having a community. As a grant writer, I was often the only one doing what I did. Same with facilitation. So finding a space where people were asking the same kinds of questions—even if they were solving them differently—was a huge spark. When I saw the certification program launch, and Eric (a fellow educator!) was involved, it felt like a no-brainer.

Learning New Tricks

I joined the very first cohort. The timing was perfect. I was winding down my formal career and stepping into a new chapter. My certification project pushed me to think not just about skill development, but about my identity and offerings as a consultant. We focused on my LinkedIn profile, using it as a way to refine my narrative. I started posting regularly, curating book recommendations, and testing what resonated. I eventually slowed that down, but the clarity it gave me was invaluable.

I remember getting some real pushback from my cohort: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” It was exactly what I needed. The feedback was honest, generative, and kind. Phil and I became close collaborators, and others in the group brought such different lenses—a psychologist, a business founder, someone calling in from Asia in the wee hours of the morning the middle of the night. That diversity was the magic.

What I also appreciated was how the program helped me formalize what I had been doing intuitively. I’d always followed my nose, but now I had a more structured process. I took the Magical Meetings course, fell in love with SessionLab, and began building agendas that were strategic, inclusive, and actionable. I started designing activities that spoke to power, meaning, and affect—the full range of communication styles. It wasn’t just about getting through a meeting. It was about creating real engagement.

Sparkable Moments

One of the biggest things that shifted for me after certification was how I work with young people. I’ve always had a strong rapport with students, but now I was more intentional about building spaces where they felt truly heard. When you bring in the right activities, the right groupings, the right rhythm—it works. It really works. Those kids hug me at the end of the session. It’s real.

Another area where I’ve grown is in cross-cultural facilitation. I think deeply now about how I show up, not just what I do. That includes being intentional with check-ins (even if they feel like a “time suck”) and pulling inspiration from books like The Art of Gathering to structure the space with care. I also became more proactive about navigating power. I had a session where I had to stop an adult in their tracks for going after a student. That protective stance is something I now claim unapologetically.

What I Choose Now

Today, I’m mostly retired—but not inactive. I just wrapped a two-year project with my former school district, where I worked with a team of teachers,  guiding them through equity-based design work using the Liberatory Design framework. We worked deeply with one school, building capacity across the year and even creating a custom field guide for the team to carry the work forward.

I’m also working with another district to reimagine their alternative education pathways. It’s fascinating to think about what school could look like for students who don’t fit the standard mold. We’re applying futures thinking, design tools, and, of course, facilitation. I do it because it’s sparkable. If it’s interesting, if I can help unlock something, I’m in. Otherwise, I go on field trips with fourth graders. I do what I want.

Learning Forward

What keeps me energized is what’s next. I still love learning. I’m halfway through Voltage Control’s course on futuristic thinking and eager to dive deeper. Futures Wheels, liberatory design, AI applications in equity work—these are all areas I’m curious about. I’m following Jeremy Utley from the d.school and exploring how we might use AI for good instead of just efficiency.

I may be an old dog, but I still love new tricks. What I want most is to keep asking better questions, creating better spaces, and helping people imagine what they haven’t yet imagined. Especially in education, where the stakes are so high and the systems so slow to change. It’s hard to sell design thinking in a system obsessed with 11-point fonts and funding compliance. But that’s exactly why we need it.

Learning and connection. That’s what I got from the certification. And that’s what I would offer anyone considering it: don’t underestimate the power of being in a room (or a Zoom) with people who ask the kinds of questions you ask. Even if they’re in tech or aerospace or consulting, if they care about how people come together to solve problems, you’ll find kinship.

This work is never done. But it gets richer when you’re not doing it alone.

The post From Guerrilla Dialogue To Liberatory Design appeared first on Voltage Control.

In school, I never hesitated to volunteer. I remember being a cheerleader for basketball despite being 4 feet 11 inches tall and definitely not the fastest on any field. Sports weren’t exactly my thing, but I loved bringing energy, pulling people together, and making sure everyone felt connected. Even though it was a tiny school, with only about 70 students in my graduating class, there were plenty of committees and clubs—Pep Club, FBLA, Student Council—and I ended up holding a governance role in nearly all of them. By senior year, I was the student body president, coordinating events, and rallying people around shared goals. It wasn’t ambition; it was simply a love for building momentum and energy.

I think a lot of that came from the way I was raised. My mom always pushed me to get involved, try everything, step out of my comfort zone. Being curious, eager, and willing to dive into new things just became second nature. It shaped my instinct to step into leadership roles, even though at the time I wasn’t really thinking about leadership or facilitation at all.

When I was at DHL, our vice president asked me to present at an internal department meeting. I was one of the most junior people in the room, but I stepped up and delivered my content my way—casual, interactive, conversational. I had everyone laughing, engaging, and openly giving feedback. Months later, at an all-hands meeting, she singled me out, saying, “Our best presenter is Kristi.” I was stunned. I hadn’t been intentionally performing; I had just been myself. But that moment sparked a curiosity. I began to wonder: what exactly was I doing differently? How could I refine it and become more intentional about creating engaging experiences for others?

I brought this mindset into our sports marketing initiatives. At baseball games, we didn’t just put up a DHL banner—we created a story. We dressed up as DHL drivers and delivered pizza to fans in the stands; we made it fun, memorable, and immersive. We had to create moments where people felt part of something bigger, moments that would linger long after the game ended. This wasn’t just brand building; it was community building, story building, and momentum building.

Later, when I transitioned into internal communications, I faced the challenge of getting people aligned around internal goals and strategies, which is notoriously difficult. I instinctively leaned into workshop formats—though, again, I wasn’t explicitly calling it facilitation yet. I realized traditional presentations weren’t going to move the needle. I needed engagement. That meant interactive activities, structured conversations, and visual ways of working.

It was around this time I started working with a coach, Mary Beth Mains, who became both a mentor and a good friend. She continually reinforced what I was naturally good at. I often overlooked these skills because they came easily to me, but she encouraged me to see them clearly, to acknowledge them as valuable, and to build on them intentionally. That encouragement was a crucial pivot point—it validated that my natural instincts were worth honing and deepening.

When the Format Becomes the Force

Moving to WHO brought a new level of complexity. Here I was, trying to help teams implement global health solutions in wildly diverse contexts. Every country had its own starting point, its own political landscape, its own tech capabilities. There was no single implementation plan that worked for all 194 member states. You couldn’t just roll out a policy and expect it to land.

I started to notice where things were breaking down: our meetings. Teams would say, “We’ve had five meetings and nothing’s moving.” And I’d ask: “What happened in the meetings?” Usually, they’d show a slide deck, ask a few questions, and… nothing.

So I started intervening. Asking: what is the actual purpose of this meeting? Is this about informing? Co-creating? Making a decision? Let’s get clear on that first. Then let’s create space for the people in the room to actually participate. Even at academic conferences, where the norm is to present and move on, I began experimenting with embedded 1-2-4-Alls or structured prompts to turn passive listening into idea generation.

I wasn’t trying to overhaul everything overnight. But I did want to inject curiosity, experimentation, and shared authorship into the way we gather. Not just to feel better, but to actually get things done.

One memorable example came during a major WHO workshop originally planned as an in-person, three-day event. Due to unexpected funding cuts and travel freezes, my team had to rapidly pivot to hosting the event completely online. Everyone around me was skeptical, convinced it couldn’t be done effectively virtually. But I had just begun the Voltage Control facilitation certification and was learning powerful methods like Liberating Structures, particularly 1-2-4-All. I told my team, “We can do this.”

Despite resistance and logistical challenges—like no access to Zoom and limited familiarity with Microsoft Teams whiteboards—I methodically began to apply the facilitation techniques I was learning. We rehearsed, troubleshot, and experimented relentlessly. The result was a huge success. We didn’t just meet our objectives—we exceeded them. Participants engaged fully, contributed rich feedback, and left energized rather than drained. It was a revelation to my colleagues: facilitation wasn’t a nice-to-have; it was transformational. From then on, they trusted me to structure interactions differently, understanding the power of a thoughtfully designed meeting.

Clicking Through the Chaos

I found Voltage Control the way a lot of people do: by Googling. It was the fall of last year, and I was searching for facilitation programs. Voltage Control kept showing up on all these curated lists. Coming from a marketing background, I know lists can be bought. So I was skeptical at first. But I kept seeing them again and again. Either they were very rich, or very legit. (Spoiler: it wasn’t the former.)

What stood out was the length of the certification. Most other programs were a couple of days or weeks. This one was three months. That felt like the right depth. I’d done a creativity coaching program the year before and realized how valuable it is to stretch learning out over time. It lets you try things, apply them, and come back with questions.

So I applied. I didn’t overthink it. I tend to ask questions later and trust my gut.

Learning by Doing, Not by Lecture

I’ll be honest. I showed up to the first day of the certification without fully understanding what I had signed up for. Skye kept referencing the final portfolio presentation, and I kept thinking, “Wait, what are we working toward again?”

But I loved that it was experiential. There were no lectures on theory. We’d read something, then immediately use it—Troika, TRIZ, 1-2-4-All. There was no lengthy breakdown of the method; we’d just try it, reflect, and move on.

It affirmed what I’d always felt. I’d rather run a meeting with a handful of liberating structures than with a polished deck. PowerPoint makes me break out in hives. I’d rather people interact with each other and the content than just sit through slides.

The cohort itself was also a gift. We clicked quickly, and that made the solo weeks in the middle of the program harder. When we returned to the final phase, there was real joy in seeing everyone again. The feedback and encouragement I received, even from people I hadn’t worked with directly, was incredibly validating. It reminded me: this isn’t just something I enjoy, I’m actually good at it.

Prototyping Change in Real Time

During the certification, I was building a real-time workshop for WHO. Originally, it was going to be in-person over three days. Then came the travel ban. Suddenly, we were going remote. My team panicked. “There’s no way this will work online,” they said.

But I was in the middle of certification and knew it could work. I started slowly—shifting our planning meetings to be more participatory, getting the team familiar with breakout groups and digital whiteboards. They were skeptical, but I kept going.

We didn’t have a Zoom license, so we used Microsoft Teams, which is famously clunky. Our consultants logged in with personal Gmail accounts to practice. We ran rehearsals. We built the whiteboards. And we pulled it off.

The virtual workshop exceeded expectations. We didn’t just gather feedback; we co-designed implementation pathways. Participants shared what would and wouldn’t work in their contexts. They offered open-source code, shared plans, and talked openly about collaboration. It worked because we created space for them to speak.

From Host to Catalyst

Since the certification, I’m being asked to help more teams—not just run meetings, but design gatherings that work. I’m doing diagnostic work with colleagues: What is the real purpose of your meeting? What kind of engagement are you inviting? Is your format actually aligned with your goals?

In the middle of our reorg, I’ve been working with leadership on what happens after the org chart is published. What kind of culture do we want to create? How do we design the space to live into that culture?

The certification helped me name and strengthen something I was already doing intuitively. It gave me tools, vocabulary, and the confidence to stand by my choices. When someone pushes back—”People won’t do 1-2-4-All,”—I now know how to hold my ground and say, “Let’s try it. Let’s see what happens.

Bringing Intention to the Unknown

Looking ahead, I want to do more of this strategic work. Not just facilitation, but guiding teams through the full arc of convening—before, during, and after. Helping them set the right questions. Helping them listen better. Helping them design with their stakeholders, not just for them.

WHO’s mission is to convene. My work is about making those convenings matter.

Whether I’m designing a multi-country workshop or supporting leadership through change, I want to make sure we’re not just informing, but transforming. That people walk away not just with information, but with ownership.

If you’re on the fence about the certification, I say: jump in. Try it. See what happens. If you’re like me, you’ll ask questions later. But you’ll learn by doing, and you’ll leave with more confidence than you walked in with.

This isn’t a traditional classroom. It’s an experience. And if you’re someone who finds energy in ideas, who likes bringing people together for a reason, then you’re going to love it here.

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