Durell Coleman followed up our first session at the 2024 Facilitation Lab Summit with his dynamic workshop, “Building Consensus Amongst Multiple Stakeholders: Current State/End State.” This session focused on building consensus among stakeholders with diverse perspectives, a timely theme that resonated deeply with attendees from various sectors. Durell, known for his innovative approach to human-centered design, engaged participants in a series of activities designed to illustrate the power of collaboration in a fragmented world.

The workshop kicked off with an invigorating activity dubbed “Enemy Defender.” Participants scrambled around the room, assuming the roles of electrons in a chaotic dance of movement. This exercise was not just about physical activity but served as a metaphor for navigating the unpredictable nature of human interactions. As Durell guided everyone through this imaginative scenario, he laid the groundwork for a deeper exploration of consensus-building in complex environments.

Durell’s talk delved into the essence of effective facilitation, emphasizing the need for empathy and inclusivity. He drew on his extensive background in design thinking to discuss how these methodologies can be applied to real-world challenges. Durell highlighted the transformative potential of inclusive dialogue by sharing examples from his work, such as initiatives to combat multi-generational poverty and enhance community engagement through strategic design.

One of the key highlights was the group activity centered around defining “current states” and “end states” for specific societal challenges. Participants were grouped by persona—ranging from district attorneys to community leaders—to debate and define the desired outcomes of social interventions. This exercise illuminated the diverse viewpoints within any community and underscored the importance of every voice in the conversation about change.

Feedback from the audience was overwhelmingly positive, with many highlighting the practical applications of the lessons learned in their professional lives. The workshop’s interactive format kept participants engaged and fostered a sense of community among them.

In his concluding remarks, Durell reflected on the broader implications of the day’s activities. He reiterated the powerful quote from John F. Kennedy, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” and challenged participants to consider how they might act as catalysts for such a tide in their own spheres of influence.

Durell Coleman’s session at the Facilitation Lab Summit was more than just a workshop; it was a call to action for all attendees to think critically about their roles as facilitators in their communities and organizations. His engaging delivery and thought-provoking content set a high bar for the rest of the event, leaving participants inspired and equipped to bring about meaningful change.

Watch the full video below:

Transcript

Durell Coleman:

Hello. Hi everyone. Well, it’s great to be here and good to see all of you. I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of you better, and I’m excited for the next 90 minutes that we get with each other. Can you all hear me okay? Wonderful. Love it. The title of my talk is Lifting All Boats. As you know, this is really about how to build consensus amongst stakeholders with different perspectives. How do you bring people together in a world of difference?

But before we dive into that, I want to dive into an activity that I really love to start with, which in my background we call a Stoke. What I would love for everyone to do is to push, stand up if you can, and push your chairs in, move your bags in. We’re going to be moving through this space. We are going to need trip-free lanes. What I want you to do right now is I want you to begin moving around the room in a sort of unpredictable pattern. We’re a little bit constrained because we’ve got the tables, but I want you to imagine right now that you are an electron. You move randomly in your electron cloud.

Why don’t we just begin doing that? Everyone scramble. Go. All right, so you’re moving as if you’re an electron, but you’re actually, you’re a human being. I want you to find someone out of the corner of your eye, but I don’t want you to let that person know that you found them. Find a new person. Keep going, keep moving. Don’t let them know. Don’t let them know you found them. Keep moving. You see them out of the corner of your eye. They don’t know that you found them, but you’re watching them. As you go everywhere in this room, you keep your eye on that person. Keep moving. Keep moving. See if we can pick up the pace just slightly.

Okay, yeah. This is our New York pace now. I like it. All right. The reality for you is that the person you found out of the corner of your eye is actually your deepest, most mortal enemy, and you want to keep your eye on this enemy. Keep on moving, please. Yeah, keep your eye on that enemy. As you walk around, notice where they go, notice how they move. And now I want you to do a challenging task. Your enemy doesn’t know that you’ve chosen them, that you’ve found them. I want you to find another person out of the corner of your other eye, and I want you to keep your eye on that person. Go ahead and find someone. And again, don’t let them know that you found them. So you have your eye on your enemy and you got to find someone else too.

The person you’ve just found is your guardian angel. They are your hero. Your job is to keep your hero between you and your enemy. Go. Our patterns become a little bit less unpredictable. And scene. All right, stop. Freeze. Everyone, please point to your enemy. Some people are… Okay, and please point to your hero. Is anyone standing right next to their enemy? I got a few people. You’re standing right next to your enemy. Raise your hand if you’ve managed to keep yourself away from your enemy by keeping the hero in between. Raise your hand if your enemy is in close striking proximity to you. All right. All right.

That activity, we call it Enemy Defender. It’s just a fun activity. It’s a Stoke activity, and it really feeds into the mindsets of human-centered design, design thinking as a methodology, but also I think creative problem solving. We are here as facilitators to help encourage and guide people through processes of creative problem solving. As I believe with most activities, they’re not complete unless you do sort of a debrief on it. My question for you is how does that activity, we just did relate to the state of our world right now?

Audience:

The unpredictability around you and how you navigate through that.

Durell Coleman:

Yeah, great.

Audience:

Irrational.

Durell Coleman:

It’s irrational?

Audience:

Yeah.

Just the very framing of enemies and non allies, I guess.

Durell Coleman:

Yeah, great. So the framing itself is tied to the way that our world works.

Audience:

So of course, my enemy didn’t know that they were my enemy and I ended up being her hero.

Durell Coleman:

Oh, wow.

Audience:

I feel like there’s a message in there somewhere.

Durell Coleman:

I feel like there’s a deep message. What do you think the message might be?

Audience:

I mean, you just don’t know how others are perceiving your actions and how their intent perhaps, like what’s behind it. It’s all through your own filter.

Durell Coleman:

Right. Right. Wonderful. We’ll give you… Oh, [inaudible 00:05:30].

Audience:

It’s really superficial. It’s very superficial.

Durell Coleman:

Yeah.

Audience:

I was going to say having to be reactive more than proactive, and a lack of control.

Durell Coleman:

Tell me more about that.

Audience:

I can’t predict where my enemy or my hero are going, so I’m just having to react to where they’re moving and it’s not always in the right space, and it’s not always within my control to produce the result I want.

Durell Coleman:

Yeah, great. There’s a variability here, and we can’t do it all by ourselves.

Audience:

I actually did not like how much attention I was paying to the enemy, and I wonder how that plays out and how much emotional energy I’m actually expending in those negative relationships.

Durell Coleman:

Yeah, yeah. We might focus in on our enemies. Yes.

Audience:

I felt like before you asked us to find an enemy or a hero, there was a flow in the room and then it felt when the divisiveness started, there was a repelling energy with everyone around me. Everyone sort of was just repelling from each other.

Durell Coleman:

This level of having an enemy and then choosing who your defender is or whatever the thing is that’s supposed to save you from it, created this sort of… We had this silo here that jockeyed back and forth, definitely a lot less free-form, free-flowing movement, a lot of intentional positioning. Maybe there’s some abstract elements of that that relate to how we relate to one another when we’ve decided that you’re my enemy and this is my hero and this is my ally, and that’s the bad guy and that’s the good guy, and all of those things. Thank you all for that.

I’m going to ask you in a moment to return to your seats, sort of. What we are going to need to do is form tables of five. I’m going to ask you if you’re at a table with more than five, please find a few people at that table who are willing to get up and go join a new table. There are some free tables that no one’s been at just yet. If you are at a table with less than five, then invite somebody to come join you. Thank y’all.

All right everyone, thank you so much for engaging in that Stoke activity. I want you to keep some of those mindsets in your mind as we move through the rest of this activity today. We’ve got some fun activities here, but also I took the conversation into a more serious direction in some ways. Some of our conversation today is going to move into that direction. The title of this talk is Lifting All Boats. There is a commonly known quote, which is that “A rising tide lifts all boats.” As I was thinking about the origin of that statement, it was made popular by John F. Kennedy, and he was fundamentally talking about how policies that improve outcomes for a group of people in Michigan or Alabama actually are things that can help all of us. There are things that can benefit the state as a whole. It can benefit the nation as a whole.

What I thought was really interesting though as I thought about this was that a rising tide only lifts all the boats that are in the water, all the boats that are close to the water, all the boats that are included in that economic system using John F. Kennedy’s example. I actually think that we are in a world where we are not always including all boats in the water. We are not always making sure that that rising tide touches everyone. I want to talk today a little bit more about how we can go about moving through this world, facilitating conversations that include everyone, that bring everyone along so that everyone is truly lifted to the place that they need to go.

As I thought about this talk and this session that we’re going to have, I will be honest with you that I was in a state of deep reflection about our world. I look around us and I feel in many ways that we are facing a crisis of leadership. I look around at inflaming war in the Middle East, I see the fall of DEI, I see conflict about what’s happening out at the southern border in the United States. I see just the discourse and the division between political parties here in this country that we are in right now. I’m a believer that we can exist within a world of difference and sameness at the same time, but we have somehow inflamed difference to the point where we are on the verge or we are in the midst of war and conflict and strife all the time.

And so as I’ve looked at these conflicts around the world, I wonder, where are the leaders who can de-escalate these conflicts to design solutions that benefit everyone involved, that benefit as many people as possible? Today, my hope is that we can go through an exercise that we use at my firm to do that type of work. I can introduce it to all of you and then we can have a dialogue about how that might apply to the world that we’re in, how that might apply to the facilitation work that you all do going forward, and any other thing that comes up along the way.

I want to tell you a little bit about who I am and what my company does. My name is Durell Coleman. I’m the Founder and CEO of a company called DC Design. DC Design, our mission is to eliminate multi-generational poverty and uplift black, brown and low-income communities. We really look at the opportunity to help the country as a whole rise as something that we can engage in if we really focus on the areas that have not received the level of support that they need. We want to go in and we want to work with organizations as we do to help them address the root causes of multi-generational poverty.

We partner with social sector organizations, governments, foundations, and nonprofits to do a number of things, but primarily to help them succeed at their missions, to help those who are trying to fulfill their purpose and potential in life, but who are often challenged by the structures around them. Some examples of our past work, I want to give you four quick examples just so you understand how we apply this. The first is around housing. We worked with the City of Newburg to help them recognize that their process of code enforcement, which is the process of condemning buildings, was making 12 families homeless every single month.

They didn’t know this because often we think about the actions that have to be taken. You can’t have people living in condemnable buildings, the floor is falling in, the roof is falling in, there’s no hot water, the windows are broken, there are children living in these locations, it’s unsafe. But often, we don’t consider who’s most impacted by the actions we might be taking. This unknown was something that was unearthed through the course of our work together, and then we help them come up with a plan for how to repair and restore low income housing as well as secure $776,000 from a state-led grant. That grant came in the form of payments from those who had paid for the housing crisis back in 2008 to be able to address this problem.

Another example was working with the City of Newburg, New York, I’m sorry, not Newburg, the City of New Haven Connecticut to help them decide how to spend $53 million of the American Rescue Plan funds. Really the goal here was really around saying how do we invest these funds in a way that benefits our community, that uplifts those who are at the lowest socioeconomic conditions in our community? How do we help close the racial wealth gap by making sure that as we distribute these funds across the entire town and everyone benefits, that we also make sure that we benefit those who haven’t always benefited from previous measures.

One of the things that we learned was that in the City of New Haven, 41% of high school graduates don’t go to college after leaving high school, but there’s no viable business that can support that many non-post-secondary educated folks in town. So you have a lot of joblessness, you have a lot of low employment, and there’s a number of other social challenges that come when you have joblessness and low employment. One of the strategies we helped them develop was the creation of systemic pathways for vocational and trade-based jobs. How do you really set up the systems to help people become those vocations, the plumber, the construction worker, the other jobs that are desperately needed in New Haven and which are very hard to find right now, but that there’s no pathway for? We help them think through that and design the basics of that system.

Last two examples I’ll give. One is the Milwaukee Boss platform really focused on wealth creation. We worked with a number of CDFIs in Milwaukee. These are credit unions who are focused on increasing the flow of capital to under-invested business owners. One of the things that they really wanted to do was increase funding overall. When we went and talked with the entrepreneurs, we learned that their primary challenge was figuring out how to incorporate their business. It was figuring out how to get into a brick and mortar, how to shift from selling their shirts out of the back of their truck to a more established form of business.

The quote that I think really stuck out to me was, “I don’t want more debt bondage, but I need someone who can walk with me to help me on my journey. I don’t know where to find the resources I need. I don’t have an example of a positive role model who’s done this before.” And so in response to that, we created the Milwaukee Boss platform, the one-stop shop for Milwaukee’s entrepreneurs of color to find the resources needed to build, operate, scale, or sustain their business. It is a place where those who have the service, who have the specific course that is able to help you figure out how to incorporate your business or how to get the loan that you need or how to move into a brick and mortar can put their services and then the entrepreneurs themselves can actually go and use this platform to find those as well.

The last example, which is going to be relevant because we are going to do an activity today that engages with this topic was around criminal justice reform in Santa Clara County, California, really focused on helping figure out how can this county not build another jail but instead reduce the number of people that they have incarcerated? We worked with leaders across the criminal justice system to understand what their needs were and help develop a strategic plan which they’ve been implementing for the last five years to success.

I wanted to give you these examples mostly to say these are the types of challenges that the work that we’re going to go through today, the session we’re going to go through today is useful for. I think we are in a state of conflict frequently around challenges like this, things related to the human needs of different individuals where we’re trying to prioritize what does this person need, what does this person need? What does that group need versus this other group over here? I believe that we can actually create systems that serve everyone.

What is our agenda today? We did a Stoke activity. Thank you all for that again. I talked a little bit about the state of our world and I didn’t mention you as the solution as fully as I wanted to, but implicit in the statements I made before was the idea that I believe facilitators are what is needed to address a lot of these challenges, people who can wade into these challenging conversations and help guide us to a narrative and an outcome that really speaks to the inner voices that everyone has and it enables those people to come to the table to find positive solutions.

Did a little introduction. We talked about what is design thinking, and then we’re going to dive into an activity together on current states and end states. We’re going to move through a scenario and a prompt, and then you’re going to get a chance at your tables to really use this process itself. Okay, so what is design thinking? I’m in a room full of facilitators. I imagine there’s a lot of people who are like, “Of course we know what design thinking is. We’ve got this,” but maybe there’s someone in here who is also like, “I don’t know what design thinking is.” So can someone throw out a definition for design thinking for me? A tangible visualization.

Audience:

Yeah, that’s all.

Durell Coleman:

Wonderful.

Audience:

That was my guess.

Durell Coleman:

Yes. Yeah.

Audience:

It’s a way to collaborate and solve complex problems.

Durell Coleman:

Great.

Audience:

Designing, beginning with understanding the end user.

Durell Coleman:

Wonderful. These are all fantastic, fantastic definitions, everyone. Those are all true and there’s a lot of ways that you can define this process. I define design thinking as a way to solve complex human problems that have many possible solutions. It’s a human-centered approach that utilizes empathy and experimentation, understanding a user correctly from an issue and creating an innovative solution. The way I think about it is we use design thinking when we are trying to solve certain problems and not others. If we want to figure out how long it takes for a spaceship to get from here to the moon, that’s not a design thinking problem. That’s a math problem and a physics problem.

If we want to figure out how to design the conditions for the astronauts on board, where should the bathroom be? What’s going to be the easiest flow of work for them while they do what they need to do? Where should they sleep? How should they sleep that’s going to make it comfortable for them? Those are design thinking problems. As we think about that, we recognize there’s not one way to lay out a spaceship. There’s not one way to design that solution, but what we do need to consider are the specific individual human needs of the people who are going to be on board. We might even need to consider the range of different professions and roles that those astronauts are playing while they’re on board in order to truly design something that’s accommodating of that group of people.

I think the more stakeholders you start talking to, the more complex this gets. But that approach is a little bit more of what we’re going to be doing today. We’re going to be thinking about how we can consider the needs of multiple stakeholders at the same time. At the same time.

This is a version of that process. If you’ve seen this before, you’ve probably seen it laid out in hexagons. It may have been five hexagons in a sort of pattern. We like to put it in this circle here, but the main pieces are empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Iteration is an implicit element within this, which means that you constantly cycle through it. Empathy is about understanding the people that you want to design for, and we’re going to be using some of that today. Define is about defining clearly what the problems are that you want to address. What are the problems that those people have? What are their needs?

Ideate is about coming up with as many ideas as possible for how to address the challenges that you’ve defined. Prototype, it’s about building something tangible and real. Testing is about figuring out is the thing I built, does that work or does it fall apart? If it doesn’t work, I get to iterate and I get to go back to any of the previous phases to figure out what to do next. I give you this again as a background framing. We’re going to move beyond this design thinking frame into application current state and end state.

One of the things that I learned when I left the design school and I went to try to apply this to really complex issues is that there were some additional elements that needed be brought into it in order for it to work in an equitable way and in a way that really addressed the needs of everyone that we were working with. Current state and end state is one of those developments, so I place it as a natural follow-on from this. I want to give you an overview real quick and we’re going to move from the section where I talk to you a whole bunch into the section where you talk to each other a whole bunch very soon.

This is the overview of current state and end state. This process answers a question, how do we set goals in a way that helps the world transition from its current state of existence to its desired end state? We know that we live in a world full of challenges and I imagine if I just went around the room, we could all list off a number of challenges that we’re facing. But we also know that we have visions maybe as individuals or as groups of what we want the world to look like. What do we want it to feel like? If you’re familiar with the design thinking framework of a “how might we” statement, it’s useful because it gets a lot of people on the same page asking, how might we solve this problem? How might we approach this? But it doesn’t create consensus amongst people.

It gets a lot of ideas flowing, but it doesn’t build a common narrative of what we’re aiming for in the end. The purpose of current state end state is to do that, is to build consensus amongst a number of different people in order to get them on the same page about what world we’re trying to build. Defining these statements, current state is a statement written in the present tense that describes the current situation including its challenges and is juxtaposed with the end state, defining the status quo.

Here’s an example from work we did in Cincinnati focused on black infant mortality or infant mortality as a whole. Infant mortality as an issue affects women all across the board, affects families across the board, but statistically it affects black women and families at twice the rate of the rest of other groups. So twice the national average, about 10% compared to 5%. In Hamilton County with a predominantly black population, that is the framing for this statement. Black babies are dying because mothers and their families are disproportionately affected by systems steeped in racism.

A lack of equitable access to information and care is producing negative health outcomes for black mothers, fathers, infants, and communities. This statement is one that we worked on in collaboration with a powerful organization called Cradle Cincinnati that has already reduced the infant mortality rate by 42%, and was working with us to figure out what to do for the next five years. How do we go further into that? Where can we go deeper? The end state is a statement written in the present tense that describes the status quo. It describes the status quo and the hypothetical reality that you want to create. This is your goal.

If we look at our end state for this statement, whereas the current state describes what’s happening right now, there’s a lack of equitable access to information and care, which is producing negative outcomes for these groups, black mothers, fathers, infants, and communities. The end state which was developed by this community, was every black pregnant woman feels joy and safe because they honestly expect that the people they will encounter will echo that in their performance and interactions, and that they will honor and protect them. Black women are not worried about resources, access, quality care support for child-rearing. Black trauma is no longer a topic because it does not exist. And ultimately, black babies live to their first birthday. That is the goal with this end state here.

I see some snaps from folks in the audience, which I appreciate. This is an example of a current state end state. I want to give you one more example of a current state and end state as well and we can circle back to any of these examples. The main point here is that this reality does not exist right now. It is not true in almost any place in our nation, unfortunately. And so it’s something worth continuing to work toward. Once it’s true, we will know we have arrived at the place that we want to be. We will know that we have produced the outcome we want to produce.

As a second example using the military families work that this conference is here to support, I developed a current state and an end state that is not complete, but is an idea of how it could function. The current state, finding connections for military family members in locations, that lack of military installation is difficult to do, resulting in a lack of child care, employment, emotional, social and emotional support for military family members. Statement about the current state. That is the challenge that we learned about in many ways. We know that the micro-credentialing process is meant to address part of that.

It’s a solution to some of the challenges faced here, but it’s not the entire solution, because we can recognize there’s a number of things in this current state, a number of challenges in this current state that still would need to be addressed for military families to have what they ultimately need. And as an end state for that, military family members have the resources and support needed to thrive. They actively receive family support, employment, educational, social and emotional support from their surrounding community. They feel valued and cared for when moving to new locations.

In some ways, a flip side of our current state, but in other ways, there’s other things we want to add in there to characterize how the end state we’re trying to build feels. Is this making sense to everyone? Yeah. Awesome. I love it. Great. The point with these examples is that the end state can be written about anyone. There’s a lot of turmoil right now about terms in this country, about which groups we’re talking about and which groups we’re not talking about. I think there are a lot of groups… Actually, I think everyone should be included in our vision for the future. At times, we have to focus in on one group. We focus in on another group. So in the previous example it was black mothers. In this example, it’s military families, but we can also build statements that include everyone in them. We’re going to work on moving more toward that again today.

On your tables, there are a set of personas. Yes, they have orange banner at the top of them. What I want you to do is I want you to pick one at random. I want you to just pass them around to folks at your table and I’m going to walk you through very briefly what they are. Don’t get overly choosy with them, just kind of randomly distribute them to people. There’s a number of personas here, and the reason I didn’t have you read through each one is I kind of want your identities to be known, but I want your values and your belief systems to be held by you. So you’ve got your persona. You can say what your role is, but I want you to kind of protect a little bit the information that you have in front of you.

We have six personas. We have our district attorney, an incarcerated person, the leader of a community-based organization, a public defender, a leader of the local church and a sheriff. Now your table, as I see people are exchanging, they’re like, “I don’t want to be this person. I want to be this person.” Your table only has five people at it, so someone’s not going to be in your conversation, and that’s okay. I don’t want you to optimize too much for that. I want us to discuss that at a later point. Each of you should now have a persona in hand. There’s also on your table a prompt. I will read the prompt to you up here on the screen. You have it on your table so that you can return to what our activity’s ultimately going to be about throughout today as well.

The prompt here is this. The United States incarcerates 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. This is a true fact in case you didn’t know that. Of all the people in the world, 25% of them are incarcerated in America. Due to a new law, many people who are incarcerated at the state level are being sent back home to the county jail. Your local jail does not have the capacity to incarcerate these additional individuals. Your jail is not big enough. It doesn’t have enough space for everyone who’s coming. Your town has decided to try to reduce the number of people in your jail rather than building another one. But you have to decide what must change to make that happen.

The personas that you have are all local personalities. They’re all local individuals and they’re pulled from real examples based on real people that we’ve encountered throughout the course of our work. We did a similar project to this in Santa Clara County as I mentioned before, but we’ve also done other work in criminal justice overall. Each of these personas has a different perspective about what has to change, what’s important, what matters to me, why do we have so many folks incarcerated in the first place? Those are some of the conversations that I want you all to have at your table.

Your persona, your paper in front of you, gives you some details about the perspective I want you to embody. I think that the activity that we just did before where we learned a little bit about inner voices is something that we can think about as we engage this work. What are the inner voices of the persona that you have in front of you? What are they thinking about? What are they aiming for? What are they trying to accomplish in their own lives as well? What I want to do is I want to give you a moment to read over that and then we’ll have a moment where we center on those personas and then we’re going to move into the activity itself. Everyone take a moment to read through in depth the persona in front of you before we move into the next activity. You’re going to want to grab some Post-It notes as well, and a Sharpie from your table.

Here’s what we’re going to do. Current state, define the current state so that you can eventually define the end state. You’re going to have a chance to do this in your groups, but you are going to start by really sinking in to our persona. I want everyone to close their eyes for a second, and I want you to think about your persona and I want you to imagine embodying them, thinking about their experiences. Think if you can recall having a conversation ever with someone who is that persona, think about what some of the inner challenges that you might be facing having lived your life as that person. We’re going to dive in. Thank you all.

There will be places here where you find yourself reaching, you find yourself adding things, making up things, you’re not completely sure. My request is you try to stay as authentic as possible to what you think someone might be thinking or feeling. But recognize also that in this role play, we can’t be perfect embodiments of anyone else and we’re not trying to. We want to be honorable and be respectful of those roles so that we can represent them as authentically as we think we can now. We can reflect on where there are gaps in our knowledge and understanding later.

All right, so first activity. Spend the next three minutes thinking from the perspective of your persona and writing on Post-It notes some of the existing problems that you see leading to your county’s high jail population. Given what it says there on that sheet, some of those answers are written already on the sheet itself. You can write those out on Post-It notes. Others might be things that come to mind for you, and I’m sure you have thoughts on this already. Try to add those to Post-It notes as well, again from the perspective that you might be embodying. Okay, go.

I see some of you’re still writing, which I love. You’re still generating ideas, perspectives, content. Some of you have finished. That’s perfectly okay. What you’re going to do now is you’re going to enter into conversation. As a group, I want you to spend 15 minutes sharing your individual perspectives with one another and building on each other’s thoughts to come up with one current state. You should start by essentially sharing what your perspectives are. Go around your group and share a little bit more about these causes. What is it that’s driving your current jail population being so high? What are the challenges that are being faced in the current system? Listen to your fellow table mates as you think through this and take note of any areas of overlap or commonality and perspective that you’re hearing.

Okay, about 15 minutes, I’m going to circle around as well and sort of just see how those conversations are going. All right, ready? Go. If you haven’t yet, go ahead and start thinking about how you want to craft a current state. How can you describe it? Know that the current state can be four sentences, it can be five sentences. It’s okay to have more than one or two within that. Begin to write that statement. Think about how you can bring in these different perspectives you’ve heard at the table. All right, I’m going to call attention and we’re going to hear some current states from folks before we move on.

Give me one word to describe that activity. I would love to hear from some different tables.

Audience:

It’s difficult.

Durell Coleman:

Difficult. Give me a few other words. We got difficult.

Audience:

Real.

Durell Coleman:

Real. Others?

Audience:

Emotional.

Durell Coleman:

Emotional.

Audience:

Hard to stay in the persona sometimes.

Durell Coleman:

Hard to stay in the persona. That is a challenge for sure. The point being that we are different people and we’ll have different perspectives.

We heard a number of current states difference, but with overlapping elements to them pulled from these personas. I also heard that it was difficult at times to find the commonality. Well, we’re going to ramp that up just a little bit more as we talk about the end state now. Our end state, we want to remember that this is the outcome we’re trying to achieve. What I want you to do is spend three minutes really quickly, again, thinking about from your perspective, what is the world that you want to live in that your persona wants to live in? What does that look like? How would you describe that if things were solved?

Example, jail is a last resort form of criminal punishment. Someone might say that. There’s probably a few different statements that someone would discuss, that someone would put down from their perspective. I want you to spend three minutes writing those down. Think about your current state as well. Some of them will be counters to the current state, some of them might not be. They might just be different ideas. Okay, three minutes. Go. Think personally, what does this persona care about? What do they want to protect?

All right, I know you’re still writing a little bit on that, which is okay. You can bring it in through discussion as well. Now you’re all experts at this. We’re going to go back to our group conversation and share a little bit more about what we think the reality we’re trying to create in our town is. Realize that you are all bonded together. You live in the same community. Go ahead and craft that vision. Really aim toward creating that one to four sentence end state as you move forward. Go.

If you shared, work toward writing one end statement now. Write one end state. You have five minutes as a group to come up with and agree on that statement. If you have done that already, then awesome. If not, try to get something succinct. Three to four sentences max. We’re almost there. We are moving into the final phase of our activity, and so I would love to hear some end states from folks. Which table would be excited to share their end state? Okay, we got volunteers right here in the back.

Audience:

Yes. So our end state is a safe and thriving community where we prioritize the needs of the least resourced as in that way we built the equity to offer liberty and justice for all by giving support to the people that were incarnated through better legal representation, having more flexible options for legal enforcement than only reincarnation or for adequate housing and job support so that they feel more valued and can contribute again to that community.

Durell Coleman:

All right, thank you.

Audience:

Foster a sense of community where individuals feel safe and supported while implementing robust programs aimed at both assisting individuals post-incarceration and preventing incarceration altogether.

Durell Coleman:

Powerful. Great. Great job. In those statements, something I’m hearing, I’m hearing these elements of what a solution would need to entail. It doesn’t say exactly what the solution is, but what I’m hearing is there’s a focus for some on post-incarceration and release. This was not a conversation you all had with each other before coming in this room, but I’m hearing this idea around maybe we should create ways for people to exit jail appropriately and be able to live. Then I’m also hearing things around reducing the inputs, the entry, which is actually called no entry as well. It’s a very descriptive name. There’s another table.

Audience:

Our community sees the end state. Our community sees the incarcerated as valued members of the community and not as a threat. Our community believes rehabilitation is a human right and that we’ve all failed and deserve a path to re-enter society. Our community has created an effective and holistic rehabilitation system free from inequalities that starts during incarceration, rooted in the community, includes child care, mental health, career, substance treatment, funding, housing, legal and spiritual support.

Durell Coleman:

Wow. All right. Snaps around the room. Let’s get one more table. Yes?

Audience:

We choose and work to welcome each person back into our community with honor and dignity. We understand the systemic nature of this problem and allocate funds and resources more strategically to provide housing and transition support. Law enforcement options are a combination of proven alternatives with incarceration as only one in the last resort. We believe the strength of our community is shown by the strength of our network solving this challenge.

Durell Coleman:

All right, thank you. Let’s talk. I want to talk realism real quick, and then I want to talk your thoughts, your reflections on the activity that we just had. In your statement, it was interesting because I heard incarceration as only one of the solutions. I’m curious which persona pushed for that piece of it? The DA. Okay, that’s powerful. We often find people have their biases in certain directions. I thought you actually were going to say the sheriff as one of the possibilities for who that is as well, but the DA, that also tracks in a lot of ways.

What I have found having grown up here in Texas, the conservative bastion of America, having lived for 12 years in the Bay Area, California, the liberal bastion of America, having great people in my life from both those places, I have yet to meet people, when you meet them one-to-one… I don’t know if I have yet to meet people, but I have not met very many people, I should say. .001 maybe percent of people who don’t actually want good outcomes for other people, who don’t want other people to succeed and thrive if possible. I find that often we characterize the sheriff or the DA or these certain people in ways that removes their point.

I’ll give you the story is I was in a room with a community leader who said “People with mental illness shouldn’t be incarcerated.” Then I had a sheriff say, “My job is to maintain public safety.” But the reality was, when we broke the conversation down, they were just talking about their individual roles and their beliefs. They weren’t actually disagreeing with each other. The sheriff wasn’t saying, “Yeah, we should lock up way more people with mental illness.” He was saying, “I don’t have alternatives to incarceration.” And so I think the job of a facilitator, and in using an activity like this, is to get past some of the preconceived stereotypes about people to understand where we can actually agree.

Where do we have a commonality? I have these conversations frequently with people with varying political views, and we often find in those tabletop conversations, points of commonality, points of commonality, points of commonality. Differences remain, but there are things we could agree on that could actually help reduce some of the tension that I see elsewhere. I want to hear any final reflections from all of you before we close here. What are folks’ thoughts? Yes. Oh, here comes your mic.

Audience:

I have no personal experience with any of this, and so all my ideas just come straight from things that I read or other opinions on the matter, and I found that a little bit disturbing.

Durell Coleman:

Reflecting on your own personal-

Audience:

Just putting things down on paper that I am thinking could be the problem, even from the personal of a fictional reverend, because I don’t know. I have not had any personal experience with this topic.

Durell Coleman:

Yeah, I think it’s a really powerful point. There’s a discomfort in an activity like this if we don’t feel like we have a personal basis to speak through this. It was interesting though. I walked around to certain tables and I heard so many words that I have heard in other rooms before as you embodied these characteristics. I heard from over here this element around not knowing what to do when I’m released, not knowing where to go, not knowing who to talk to and where to get resources.

I heard a bunch of things about reentry solutions that I’ve heard in rooms with other people, and you might’ve just been playing off the personas, but there’s things in these end states, I did not put in these personas that you all pulled together. There’s two things to this. I think one side of it is it’s uncomfortable and can be challenging to engage in. I appreciate you for stepping into that. I think the other is any space that is really tense like this where we don’t have those personal relationships or that personal empathy, those are opportunities to go meet people, talk to people, learn from people directly to see what are their perspectives.

It’s not like it’s necessarily your job to go do that all the time, but if you have the chance to bridge some of those gaps going forward, then that’s an opportunity that you can take up as well.

Audience:

I am considering bias here and I’m considering from a facilitation standpoint how I hold that bias, because as our work was unfolding here, I’m making the assumption, check me table mates, that we are pretty biased towards what we consider the beneficial outcome is here, the end state. As I consider my bias as a facilitator, it seems this might be one place where I can leverage whether it’s optimism or intention in the room to support finding common ground. That that’s where I would lean in as a facilitator.

Durell Coleman:

Right. I think yes to that. Our biases do come into this and I think that’s a safer place to lean in. Did anyone at their table not have a sheriff as a persona? Any tables not have a sheriff? Anyone not have an incarcerated person at their table? Those biases are also extra prevalent when we don’t have all of the right stakeholders in the room. There’s an activity we do before this called Stakeholder Mapping where we figure out who are the right people to make sure that we have a rounded perspective. We also think about who are the people with veto power. People who, if they’re not included and they learn about this six months from now, all that work was worthless. The sheriff is one of those people actually, generally. They have the power to raise enough political pressure against what you’re doing to cancel it.

And so anyway, that’s a really important point. I think leaning into points of commonality is helpful. One move we also make is to take the end state, even if we didn’t develop it directly with people, and take it to all of those stakeholders to get their buy-in and help them shape it. In this work that we did before, we took the end states to the Department of Corrections. They made one change, which was to add a line to alternatives to incarceration that said, while maintaining public safety. And that was it. But that was enough to get the buy-in from the entire Department of Corrections for the entire plan moving forward.

This process works really well if you can enter into a frame of collaboration. It’s not always a frame people want to enter into. It is a frame that leaders can put people into. If you have a certain amount of power, for example, you can say, “Look, we’re going to do this differently,” because you have the power in that system to call for collaborative solutions. But to your point, how do you elevate the voices of folks who are often left out? I think as a facilitator, it’s your job to think about and understand who those people are.

When we did this work before, we originally started with 27 leaders in criminal justice, and it was the sheriff, the DA, the public defender, all of these different people. These are, like I said, based on real folks. At the end of that exercise, when they had talked about what’s gone well and what still needs to happen, I asked them this question. I said, “Who’s not in this room? Whose perspective is missing from your answers?” And it was a move toward exactly what you’re talking about. The answer they said was, “Well, we actually don’t have incarcerated people here.”

So had one of your tables not had that perspective, I would’ve been asking you who’s missing? I’ll come back to the sheriff in one second as my final closing comment. Basically, it’s a way. I think it’s important for you to hold those voices in mind. If you forget them, you likely will not have good solutions. You likely will not have something that actually works, and that’s foundational to human-centered design.

I think my closing questions or things for you to ponder, throw out a quick answer. What’s the difference between this activity and running it as a facilitator? Running this activity. You were at your tables, you are all facilitators, versus you stepping into a space where you’re facilitating another group through this. And they’re not playing personas. They are those people. Separate question, where do you think this approach could be useful?

Audience:

Wherever divergent perspectives exist.

Durell Coleman:

Wherever divergent perspectives exist. Awesome. I guess I want to close it, just bringing it back around to Leah’s point earlier, which is if we want to make peace, we have to look at the source of our wars. I think this is an activity that helps us move past some of the reflexive or reactive reactions that we have that create those wars, create those tensions, keep people from getting the resources they need to actually bring them to the same page.

All right, so hopefully this was helpful for everyone. Thank you so much.

The post Building Consensus Amongst Multiple Stakeholders appeared first on Voltage Control.

Liya Jamies led the first session at the 2024 Faciliation Lab Summit entitled “Navigating the Inner Narratives: Enhancing Relational Dynamics.” Liya encouraged participants to explore and manage their inner voices. She emphasized how these often-overlooked internal dialogues significantly influence our perceptions, actions, and relationships. The workshop blended theory with practical exercises, helping attendees recognize and harness their inner narratives to foster better communication and empathy.

Her approach was personal and engaging. She shared her journey of self-discovery, illustrating how confronting internal dialogues can lead to profound personal growth and enhanced interpersonal connections. Her experiences as a leader dealing with conflict and miscommunication provided practical insights into the power of self-awareness and empathy in facilitating change.

Key workshop activities included interactive sessions where participants examined their internal narratives, role-playing exercises to demonstrate how different “inner narrators” affect communication, and group discussions on relational attunement—the ability to sync with our own and others’ inner dialogues. This concept was likened to bird migration, where coordination and responsiveness within a group are crucial for success.

Liya also highlighted the impact of these narratives in a professional setting, using a marketing campaign brainstorming exercise to show how different internal perspectives can influence teamwork and creativity. Participants learned to identify and adjust their inner dialogues, promoting more effective collaboration and decision-making.

In her closing remarks, James stressed the importance of continuous self-awareness and engagement with our inner voices. She advocated for viewing internal dialogues through a lens of curiosity and compassion, emphasizing their role in shaping our relationships and personal well-being.

Watch the full video below:

Transcript

Liya James:

Hi everyone. I am so excited to be here today. This topic is so dear to my heart. When I first became a leader, a people manager, I was very young, and the idea of conflict disagreement was anxiety provoking for me. Now, as facilitators, leaders, we’re managing relational dynamics all the time, right? So the invitation that I want to make to you today is think about relational breakdowns, like miscommunications, differences, as a doorway. As a doorway to get to know ourselves better, as a doorway to get to know each other better, and as a doorway for more compassion and benevolence to towards ourselves and each other.

Relational breakdowns are a part of every day, but how do they start? It starts within us. It starts with a voice. Sometimes it’s projecting into the future and saying, “Ooh, are you sure you want to do that?” Sometimes it’s advice, it sounds like my mom. And sometimes it’s trying to be helpful. “Hey, if you just put this person’s needs first, they’re going to show up for you later.” And guess what that does to my relationships? I would do things for people when they didn’t even ask, and then they don’t show up for me when I need them, and I resent them. And guess what? I lose a friend. I lose a colleague that I actually want to be in relationship with.

So this inner voice is coming up with strategies on how to get me what I want, but a lot of times it doesn’t work out. Today we’re going to call this inner voice our inner narrator. Studies show that about a quarter to a half of our waking lives, we’re talking to ourselves like this. When we’re not aware of them, they take over. So I’m about to show you a clip from one of my favorite comedians. It’s called the perfectionist ends a call.

TikTok clip:

You know, I was going to tell you yesterday after I… Oh, sure. No problem. Bye. How did that feel? Okay, except for the ending. Well, you know how we like to end a call? Casual, affectionate, and cool. I know. The call is behind us. Now, what’s our course of action? Do over? Bingo. Okay, let’s stick that landing. Stick the landing. Hey, it’s me. I was just wondering if I could say goodbye again. Stick the landing. It was really great talking to you and catch you later. Bye. How did that feel? I don’t know. It was casual, but not very cool. Should I apologize? I think that’s your only recourse. Okay, stick the landing. Hey, I just want to apologize. What? Casual. No, I just mean… Give me the phone. Hi. Listen, what we need to do is put… What happened? She hung up. Oh no, this is hard. What do we do? Delete her from your phone.

Liya James:

So I said relational breakdowns start within us, right? This is how the inner narrator works. We’re just going about our lives. Having a meeting, talking about a project, having a good time, calling my friend. She didn’t pick up. And then the inner narrator starts developing a story. “She never picks up. She doesn’t care about you.” And then the story sometimes contains what I call a distorted threat. For me, someone not caring about me brings up my 8-year-old inner narrator. You guys are getting to know me really well today. Growing up, my mom was really busy, not available a lot. I have this memory of stomping on my bed trying to get her to come, and she just can’t come because she’s busy. And at about eight years old, I developed this strategy. I have this inner narrator coming online, and this inner narrator is like, “Just be helpful and she’ll pay attention.”

So this friend, I’m helping her a lot, but she’s not picking up. She doesn’t show up on time. So I start to be like, “she doesn’t care about you.” Now I have a distorted threat that says, this person is not available. When I was eight and I didn’t have much resources, that was a threat. When we let our inner narrators perceive threats, they might be greater than what that threat really is to us today as grownups. Because when the inner narrators were first formed, they weren’t as resourced. The fact that mom wasn’t there for me used to be a huge threat, but as a 40-year-old, friend not calling me back, not that big of a threat. What happens though is if I don’t check that, I get activated.

And so I’m going to give you an example and I kind of need your help. I want you to get involved in this one. So I’m in a session with my client, Tom, and he’s brought a really anxiety-provoking situation to my attention, and we’re working through this, okay? I’m going to give you a snippet of that conversation. So I want you to help me figure out what those potential threats are in his story, all right? This is an important concept. I want to make sure you really get it. So it’s causing him a lot of anxiety. I’m just going to give you a minute to take it in. What’s the potential threat in his story? Anybody have a guess?

Audience 1:

Is it the perception of performance of his job?

Liya James:

Yeah, yeah. He’s perceiving a threat to his job, the way he makes a living. Yeah, that could be a big threat, right? Thank you. Anybody else?

Audience 2:

Failure.

Liya James:

Yes, failure. Lots of talk about failure here.

Audience 3:

And it sounds like he’s perceiving that she’s doing it to him.

Liya James:

Oh, purposefully. So there’s a mal intent in the story, and he’s not in control of it. Oh, we’re not in control. That’s really hard for some people, right? Yeah. Anything else?

Audience 4:

He doesn’t feel heard.

Liya James:

Say again?

Audience 4:

He doesn’t feel heard.

Liya James:

He does not feel heard. I’m going to come back to that. You just nailed a big one there. He does not feel heard. I love talking to facilitators. You just went way here. You got us to the bottom of it. All right, lots of threats. Right? Now, we call it a potential threat because we don’t know, right? This is really personal to Tom. We work through that. But when we perceive that there is a threat, our nervous systems get activated. There are two pathways running up and down our bodies who’s responsible for a timely reaction to threats. And it’s not just neurological, it’s not just cognitive, it is physiological. Because in the olden days, our timely reaction to a threat meant life or death. Our hunting and gathering environments have changed a lot, but our nervous system functions about the same.

Now, the perceived threat, how we perceive it is very different depending on our lived experiences. Me and you could be in the same meeting, the same sequence of events are happening. I am activated. I’m about to flight. Actually, my default is fawn. That makes me a really good consultant, really good listener, but it gets me in trouble. So I am activated and I’m about to respond to whatever this inner narrator is saying. And you’re not. You’re calm. Nothing’s happening. We’re just having a meeting. So this reaction is very personal, depending on how we grew up and what the messages were, how our needs were met or not met. So relational attunement is about being in relationship with these inner narrators, not in a way that pushes them away or shutting them up. We have to be in compassionate relationship with our inner narrators if we want to be in compassionate relationship with ourselves and with other people.

And so relational attunement is about getting to know these parts of us and how they behave and what they want for us so that compassion is accessible so we can be attuned with ourselves and others. And when we can do this, we’re more like these birds. These birds migrate from one side of the world to another. This beautiful motion is created simply with one bird saying, “I need food right now.” She goes down to get food and another response. And it’s with this responsiveness that they’re able to go from one side of the world to the other without a plan, without a leader, without any strategies and keeping each other safe while they do that.

Imagine what’s possible if we can be more like this, if work can be more like this. And it comes down to every single one of us doing this work, being attuned. Being attuned with ourselves and others. But we can’t do that. We can’t travel with a common purpose because we disconnect from that purpose when our inner narrators are online, because we get drawn to address their concerns. We disconnect from the group. Sometimes we disconnect from ourselves. Now, here’s a really important thing to remember. We all have inner narrators. It’s part of our survival mechanism, and they all have good intentions. The most important thing is to remember, “They want something good for me, and I want to know what that is, and I want to move toward that good thing.” Some of my inner narrators just want me to belong because I had experiences moving to this country where I didn’t feel like I belonged. It’s really important to me that I feel belonging.

And when I work with clients, I get them through this exercise where they check in on which needs are being threatened. We’re not going to go into that today. I’m not going to have you do this in public with a bunch of strangers. The thing I want you to remember is no matter what those needs are, all of us are stumbling toward wanting to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved. Even the bully, even Tom’s colleague who he thinks is going around him and threatening his job, even her, just finding her way back to love and connection. So here’s some common inner narrators that I think most people are kind of familiar with, right? Yeah, maybe a little bit? Okay. Not just me? Okay, good. Thank you, thank you. I’m not just up here talking about my voices. Okay. All right. So I want to get you guys working with me on this. Let’s start with an easy one. I think the perfectionist we’re all familiar with. So what’s the perfectionist’s good intention? What’s the perfectionist want for us? Anybody? Yeah?

Audience 5:

A job well done.

Liya James:

A job well done. Do a good job. Yeah. Go ahead.

Audience 6:

Preserving your reputation.

Liya James:

Reputation, yeah. Look good, right? That can be really important at work. If you want a promotion, if you want to be seen as a leader, good intention. Oh, here’s a harder one. Catastrophizer?

Audience 5:

Never be disappointing.

Liya James:

Yeah, I don’t want you to be disappointed. I’m going to make sure you know what the worst thing that could happen is, right? Yeah. Hira? [inaudible 00:13:32]. Yes, protect us. Protection is a really big job for these guys. This whole cast is all about protection actually. Let’s do one more. What about the pleaser? Oh man, this one I know really well, so I can talk about this one all day, but what about you guys? What do you think the pleaser wants for us?

Audience 7:

To preserve relationships?

Liya James:

Yes.

Audience 8:

Harmony.

Liya James:

Harmony.

Audience 9:

Support.

Liya James:

Support, yes. Connection, harmony, support. Yeah. And just remember, I may have an inner voice as a pleaser. This other person might have one, but they could be fairly different flavors because remember, they were developed and grew up in a way trying to get our unique needs met. So they might sound a little different, but here’s typically what they want for us; really good intentions. All right, so now I’m going to have some volunteers come up and help me act out some relational dynamics. And don’t worry, I have a script for you. You don’t have to make up anything on the spot. This is not improv. I know improv scares a lot of people. Do I have two volunteers? So as we’re getting set up, it’s two people in a meeting talking about an advertising campaign idea. Here’s your script. Person one, who wants to be person one?

Person one shares an idea and person two is reacting. And we do the same meeting twice. And I don’t expect you to be actors-

Person 2:

I’m an actor.

Liya James:

But you are? Okay. I’m like, well, lucky me. But try to take in that what they’re saying and the feelings and get into it as well as you could. Just so you know, who is person one?

Person 1:

Me.

Liya James:

You are person one. So I just want to have their inner narrators kind of just hold it so they know which one you are. And here’s your inner narrator. So this one is the perfectionist. They’re not talking, the people are talking in a meeting. All right? They’re just hanging around. Okay, go ahead.

Person 1:

We could buy billboard ads all over the country and advertise the digital fluency program.

Person 2:

That’s really expensive.

Person 1:

Okay, well, how about radio ad spots? Those should be cheaper.

Person 2:

Do people listen to the radio these days?

Person 1:

Well, where do you think people spend time?

Person 2:

I don’t know. Maybe online?

Person 1:

We could buy online ads?

Person 2:

Ads can get expensive. They don’t always work, in my experience. Why don’t we think of ideas that are more cost-effective?

Person 1:

Okay.

Liya James:

All right. So people were laughing. What did you notice? What was person one doing? Speak up. Speak up. Go ahead.

Audience 1:

“We going to make it work.”

Liya James:

Yeah, yeah. Appeasing. Trying to go with it. Flowing with it. Okay. Anybody else?

Audience 10:

Trying to break through.

Liya James:

Yeah, trying to break through. Trying so hard. Person one is trying so hard. Okay, so I am going to have you do this again.

Person 2:

Thank you.

Liya James:

But now your inner narrators are offline, so I’ll take those from you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service. Pixie and puff. So now they’re offline and watch what happens.

Person 1:

We could buy billboard ads all over the country and advertise the digital fluency program.

Person 2:

That can get really expensive really quick.

Person 1:

The fact that that’s the first thing that jumped out at you makes me think that’s an important constraint, but it hasn’t come up yet. Can you say more about that?

Person 2:

Well, we spent so much on the last campaign and got no results.

Person 1:

I see. That’s helpful history. What happened?

Person 2:

Honestly, we had these consultants working on it, and I just assumed they knew what they were doing. So I approved the campaign, but I should have asked for more data before signing off on it. I’m coming into this a little more cautious. I just don’t want to make the same mistake again.

Person 1:

That makes sense. Can you think of other experiences or constraints we should consider before we get back to the brainstorming?

Person 2:

Yeah, but I’m not the only one who has perspective on this, I think. Maybe we should get the team together and come up with a list of constraints.

Person 1:

It really is a great idea. That’s a great idea. Sorry. Breaking the fourth wall, is it called? Yeah, that’s a great idea. I’d like your help to come up with a list of people. Sorry. Sorry. I’d like your help to come up with a list of people that have the right background and experiences. Could you help me with that?

Person 2:

Of course.

Liya James:

Oh, thank you. Give them a big round of applause. Thank you so much. The acting was wonderful. First-rate. Thank you so much. I’m going to have you. Okay, hopefully these don’t roll off. Wonderful. So what’s the difference? What did you notice?

Audience 5:

Curiosity was a big part of what helped to diffuse and create more connection.

Liya James:

Oh, yeah. The second one, when the inner narrator is not online, not activated, she was being really curious and asked very good questions. Go ahead. She was. She was validating her concerns, and she didn’t get activated because she felt heard. She felt heard. Anything else? Yeah?

Audience 11:

Can you say it was more about understanding and solving the problem or [inaudible 00:19:36]?

Liya James:

She was engaged in the problem at hand. She was not off solving something else. Another need that she has. To be liked, perhaps. When we don’t have our inner narrators activated, what happens is we can stay engaged with the conversation. And what’s available to us is benevolent curiosity. We are genuinely interested in what the other person has to say. We’re saying back to them, and they feel like we care. If Tom’s coworker were to talk to him like this, Tom would feel like she really cares. Even if we didn’t solve the problem in that meeting, they have a path to the solution. When the pleaser was offline and she was genuinely engaged in the dialogue, the other person senses safety here. So now I can really say what I think. Yeah. Amazing, amazing. Great observations.

All right, so now I’m going to have you guys try to really embody this, what we’re talking about. I’m going to play two games. The first game, really easy. You just have to be yourself. No stuffed animals, no stuffed animals. They’re done. So we’re going to try to get into groups of three. And when you get into a group, just pick a letter, A, B, or C. Doesn’t matter. Just pick a letter. And this is the game. Douglas sent an email out yesterday that we’re all kind of engaged in this next two days on this challenge with the ACC digital literacy program. So we’re going to use that as just fodder for this exercise. Okay? So the ACC digital fluency program is just basically, in case you didn’t watch the video. Of course you all did, right? You all know what this is about. You researched it.

But just in case there’s one person, it’s a program that teaches military spouses computer literacy skills like Word, Excel, things like that. And it’s working really well here, I think locally. Right, Douglas? It’s working really well. And because it’s online, anybody can do it. You don’t have to be in Austin. And so they want more awareness all over the country. And so we’re going to get ourselves engaged in this problem, in this challenge. So what I want you all to do when you get into your groups of three is person A is going to come up with a campaign idea. Just think about a campaign idea. Any idea, it doesn’t have to be good, okay? Any idea.

The exercise is not about the idea, okay? It’s just about the conversation. Going to socialize it with person B. And person B just has to ask supportive questions to tease the idea out. Don’t add your ideas, right? Basically just be yourselves, be the good facilitators that you are, okay? And we’re going to go back and forth for about five minutes. Person C, observing, taking notes. And I just want you to notice what happens when the person’s not activated? What does that space feel like? Okay, clear? Any questions? All right, go ahead, get into groups of three. [inaudible 00:23:04]. All right, so let’s bring you back. What are you present to? Lots of laughter. What are you present to? What are you noticing?

Audience 5:

Authenticity, inspiration, real potentials.

Liya James:

Oh my goodness. Are you going to give this talk the rest of it? Okay. Authenticity, real potential. We did that in five minutes. I did my job. Going home. Oh my goodness. Anybody else? Don’t be intimidated by that. Yes, Hira? [inaudible 00:23:57].

It was intentional. You felt flow. Oh my God, you guys are good. What else? Go ahead.

Audience 11:

I think there’s a lot of vulnerability in providing new ideas, so there was no activation [inaudible 00:24:25].

Liya James:

And I would say that’s a little bit of a voice that kind of was like, “Oh, make sure your idea is good.” But then you had a moment of, “No, this is safe.” So that is the power when we feel safe, when we know that the other people are trying so much as possible in five minutes when we’re calm and regulated and we have a supportive partner. I’m about to cry. So let’s move on and play another game. And now this time our inner narrator is going to be activated, and I want you to play into that. So this time we are doing a little improv. Okay? Same groups. Change your letters, pick a different letter. So we’re going to rotate. Person B is going to open this envelope and you need to share, there’s one for each table. And there’s cards in there, and I’ll tell you what you’re going to do in a minute, but I’m going to need a volunteer again, just one volunteer. And I’m going to need mic C. I’m going to have a volunteer come up and actually help me demo this game. Okay?

Go ahead. Thank you. Not afraid of improv. Yes. I thought I’d have a few. So this is your envelope and you’re going to randomly pick a card. So I’m going to put the instructions up. I’m just going to walk through this and then we’re going to act it out. So game two, inner narrators, fully activated for person B. Person A’s job is to come up with a totally ridiculous, unworkable idea. I’m really good at that, so I’ll show you how that works in a minute. Totally unworkable, but I want you to love it. Really love it. Please don’t let it go. Do not let it go. Love it so much. And person B’s job is to take a card, go ahead and take a card out. And on the card there is these orange letters on the bottom.

If you’re colorblind, it’s on the bottom, that says automatic reaction. And your job as person B is to stick to that automatic reaction. Do your best job that you can. You cannot be too exaggerated. There’s no such thing today. Exaggeration is welcomed, person B. Okay, so person C, same. Observe. Here’s some prompts for you to observe with. Notice what happens. All right? So we’re going to do that right now.

Solomon:

Am I B?

Liya James:

You’re B. I’m A.

Solomon:

So I’m doing doing the…

Liya James:

Automatic reaction. I’m going to come up with the ridiculous unworkable idea that I freaking love.

Solomon:

Okay.

Liya James:

All right?

Solomon:

All right, here we go.

Liya James:

And I actually don’t have the idea yet, so I’m thinking about it. So military spouses, they have kids, probably families. You know how there’s these animal zoos, petting zoos they take around to markets and stuff with rabbits and hedgehogs and things? What I think we should do is on the same day get a million of these zoos and we’re going to send them to all the military families, like around dinner time, so the kids can be playing with the animals, petting, stuff like that. And then we can talk, like Tupperware parties from the 70s. Now we can talk to the parents about this digital fluency program. And they’re going to be so excited because everybody’s doing Instagram, Facebook, that’s just like nobody’s going to notice. So animal zoos, I think that’s it. That’s it.

Solomon:

Okay. All right. So the first thing we need to do then is just start mapping out all of the communities that we’re going to do this and start calling those petting zoos so we can make a spreadsheet. So you can start with a spreadsheet that’s going to get all of these petting zoos together. And then I think what we’ll do is we’ll have Brenda look at where we can get donations for hand sanitizer so that all the parents will be willing to have this stuff come in. So she can do that. She’ll start getting all the donations for the hand sanitizer to come in. And then we probably also need a sponsor.

Liya James:

Can we just talk more about the idea though? I just want to flesh that out some more because I think it’s such an amazing idea.

Solomon:

It’s a good idea. We got to get these tasks oriented because there’s a lot to coordinate here. We have to figure out, all right, in which city, what routes we’re going to have these folks go on.

Liya James:

I just don’t want Brenda to be concerned about the cost. I want to make sure this idea is really awesome and she really gets how it’s going to work.

Solomon:

But we want it to happen, so we need to get people assigned to the various things. Like, who’s going to look at what the traffic patterns are so that the animals aren’t in their vans longer than they should be, right?

Liya James:

Oh my God.

Solomon:

We need to make sure that this is happening because we want the idea to happen, right?

Liya James:

Why are you always such a damper? I just want to talk about how awesome the rabbits are and stuff. They’re so freaking cute and like… Okay, you get it? You’re getting it? Okay. Good stuff. Thank you so much. Thank you, Solomon. Thank you so much. Awesome. That was so good. So it’s not hard. If I can do it, anybody can. So get into your groups of three. A, B, C. All right? And B, randomly pick a card and I’ll give you guys five minutes. [inaudible 00:30:12].

All right, go ahead and wrap it up. Okay, so what’s coming up for you guys? There was a lot of laughing, I noticed. What else is going on? Did you feel any physical sensations?

Audience 12:

Yeah, at the end I said I need a water break. I was the observer in our interaction, and even just my first personal feeling was like, “Where did we decide this was the idea?” This is a terrible idea. She’s running with it, but I just want to be like, “No.”

Liya James:

So you’re the observer and you’re like, “Oh my God.”

Audience 12:

God, I couldn’t hold it in. The activation was just like, “Stop. We have to stop this.”

Liya James:

Are you familiar with that feeling, that voice?

Audience 12:

Constantly.

Liya James:

Constantly.

Audience 12:

I am the brakes.

Liya James:

You’re the brakes. Yeah, yeah. No, the good thing is inner narrators, they make us really talented at things. Some of mine make me really good at certain parts of my jobs, and so that’s why we don’t want to villainize them. That’s why we’re having fun with them and we’re getting to know them, because they’re not bad. They’re not bad. They’re so helpful. They make us so talented. But if we just kind of go with what they want or their concerns, we kind of wreak havoc in our lives and our relationships. Go ahead.

Audience 12:

Well, I thought it was so interesting because I kept, as the observer, I kept waiting for her to give up on her idea because she was so committed to it and she was such an optimist about it. She literally said, “I’m not going to give up on this idea.” Where it was like, it was just breaking the word. And so it was just fascinating to watch that dynamic of I guess visionary sort of mindset of, “Well, I’m just going to commit.”

Liya James:

Admit it, how many of us have been in a meeting where we are observing something and we’re like, “When is this going to blow up? It’s any minute now, right?” The funny thing is, I told you to come up with a really exaggerated idea, but frankly, a lot of times we’re sitting in a meeting and we’re like, “This VP is saying some really ridiculous stuff,” and it just sounds like this ridiculous. Do you know what I mean? And so that can spiral out really fast. And as facilitators, we’re meeting these moments all the time, and if we are not aware that people have these inner narrators and what they’re trying to accomplish and their intentions, what happens is we’re just like, “Oh, what do I do?”

And you feel like it’s your job. So then your inner narrator comes on as a facilitator like, “What’s my job? Do I shut it down or what do I do?” And then you read a manual that has 100 bullet points about what you should do in this scenario or that scenario, and you can’t remember what they are. What’s nice about knowing this, having this awareness, is you can approach the situation with common clarity. It seems like something’s activated and we can change the course of how things unfold just by being present to this phenomenon that is the human condition. Right? Awesome. Go ahead.

Audience 13:

So in the situation, I’m supposed to be acting, right? But then when you have an activated individual, it naturally brings out your inner narrator. So I wanted, even though she was trying to shut me down with her expertise, I eventually became a pleaser because I didn’t want to give up my idea. So I sacrificed on pieces. So everybody gets activated in that conversation, or it could if you’re not aware.

Liya James:

Absolutely. That’s what happens when the person’s inner narrator comes on, you actually, there’s a part of you inside that’s really good at tuning into that. That’s why we call this attunement. And what we’re tuning into is a lack of safety because they’re not for you anymore. They’re not present to what we’re trying to do anymore. And that disengagement feels unsafe because we’re no longer working on a shared purpose. So then you get activated, whatever your default activations are, to try to save that situation. Because the thing about shared purpose is if we don’t all work together on it, we inherently know it’s not going to work. And if it doesn’t work, it automatically threatens something that we’re really invested in or we need our livelihood or reputation, whatever it might be. Anything else? Eric?

Eric:

I noticed how many potential opportunities there were for a shift. If there’s just one person, “Tell me a little bit more about how to either side,” what that would’ve done, even toward the end.

Liya James:

Yeah. So when I train people on this, they always ask me, “What do I do?” I’m going to have a little bit of that for you guys. So they want to go get training on how do I respond with the correct question. But the most important thing, if we remember to be compassionate with the other person and they’re all trying to be seen, heard, and loved, is to just ask that magic question. “Tell me more.” Amazing. You guys are so good. All right, so what do we do? What if we’re activated? What if there’s a breakdown? What if there’s some unresolved tension with someone? Here are three simple things. This process is pretty complex. Someone might have an inner narrator that’s been there for 40 years and we’re working through, it might take a few months to get into this compassionate relationship I’m talking about. But to start, there’s three things we can do.

Become aware of it, practice slowing down in the moment, slow down the reaction. And the third thing, much harder but doable. You guys did it today. Practice benevolent curiosity. Somebody actually called that out earlier. They noticed when we’re calm and safe, that’s available. So here’s a few things that you can explore when you’re trying to get to know these parts of you. I have people draw their narrators, because it makes it tangible. Each of these inner voices have their own unique physiological reactions. It’s amazing these physiological reactions, sometimes it’s a headache or sometimes it’s energy that moves. Sometimes it’s like a stomach tightening. So getting to know that reaction can help you know when they’re automatically happening. And then if you explore a little bit what their fears are for you, what their concerns might be, they might also have automatic reactions. So when people talk about I have this pattern, that’s what it is.

I’m working with people, they know what the pattern is and they’ve been trying to change it for a long time, and they also are aware of what the results are of that pattern. Like my helper, when people don’t show up for me, I get like, “I helped you so much.” They don’t know. They had no idea I was going out of my way to do all these things for them, so I don’t do that anymore. But that used to be like 80% of my life was doing things for people and they didn’t know and they didn’t know I expected them to show up for me when I needed them. It’s coming back now. I’m having an activation just thinking about it. So very important to be compassionate with yourself. I’m feeling the feeling. So I’m like, “Ooh, compassion.” And very important to know, like I said earlier, what their good intentions are.

“Oh, they’re trying to get me to be supported and feel connection to the people in my life. What are some ways that that’s where creativity and new strategies can be developed? As a 4-year-old, here are my automatic reactions, but as an adult now, what’s available to me?” And I engage with my resources, what’s available to me often is myself, what I’m capable of. But also I can get people involved in brainstorming new strategies. So this is a way to get aware and just to be aware also of when they come online, for some people it’s a physical sensation you can feel. For other people, your brain starts to go and do solutions to get ahead of this problem. So get familiar with that sensation, whatever that is. Slow down. That’s the other practice. Sounds really simple. It can be kind of hard because some of us have been reacting to these concerns for years and years and years.

I was just talking to a client of mine yesterday and he’s like, “I haven’t changed it yet.” And I’m like, “Well, we’ve been at this for about two weeks and this protector has been around for 45 years, so let’s have some compassion for it taking a little bit of time to slow down.” So slowing down. And if you’re not that activated, because a lot of our inner narrators feel like problem solvers, so you don’t necessarily have to be like full-blown reaction mode. And so actually noticing those is really helpful because they are the ones that lead us astray because they show up as if they’re really helpful sometimes. And so checking that and checking the outcomes and the results is really going to help us. And so what we need to do is instead of reacting, breathe. If it’s not super activated, we can just breathe through it.

Don’t engage in the reaction. But if it will really activate it, like my anxious helper is one that I get really anxious and I’m like, “I just want to say yes, I want to take this. I want to do this with a person,” I slow down. I say, “I know this activation is happening. I know I’m about to engage in my helper tendencies. I’m going to tell this person I’m about to do that. I’m actually just going to tell them. And then I’m going to ask for some time.” Then I’m going to go back and I actually do contemplation. Just a quiet meditative contemplation. I bring up the scenario, I bring up the inner narrator and I say, “Let’s have a chat. I see you, I hear your concerns. But if we do this, what would happen?” And I’m actually in compassionate dialogue. And I remind my inner narrators because they’re at a certain age, and sometimes they’re not aware that we’re like 45 years old and not three.

So I’m like, “As a 45-year-old, I have these resources. Here are the support that we can get. Here are ways that we can approach this.” So we engage in creative brainstorming and strategies. So when people will say, “I have this behavior pattern, I want to change it,” this is how you do it. Lastly, if a relational breakdowns happen, we have to reengage with the person. And sometimes that is activating all by itself. How do I reengage? So one simple way we can do that is just go back and reengage with the person and say, “I got activated. But my real intention is to be engaged in this project in a way that can move us forward. That’s really what I want. What I did yesterday doesn’t get us that. So I want to reset.”

So Tom, instead of all those assumptions he was making about his colleague, he can check those assumptions. He can say, “Can you tell me more about your perspective? Why don’t you want this change? Tell me more.” The magic word. And if we are calm and not activated, we can engage like the actors earlier. We can engage in a real dialogue and authentic communication with the other person and really get to the crux of the problem and move the conversation forward. And in the midst of doing that, we can also, by genuinely showing curiosity about their experience, we can express a sense of safety without saying, “I want to create safety.” They just know it, because you care. You want them to be heard and seen.

Real quick, all of you have some printouts on your desks, and you can take that with you because these are tendencies that we have when our inner narrators are activated. We do things like we make assumptions about other people. We might try to change their minds. We might be really engaged in convincing, solutioning. None of that creates safety. However, if you do the do column, you do steps one and two, and then you come back and reengage and you do these ways of listening and asking questions, what happens is that they feel safe. And the data that you need to get that project moving forward, the data that you need to feel a sense of connection to your daughter, the data that you need to create the relationships that you want to create is going to be available to you and you’re going to develop better adult strategies to create the results that you want in your life.

So we’re going to do a contemplation exercise, and we’re just going to have a moment to journal. I want you to think of a recent relational dynamic, a relational breakdown, maybe something you want to redo, a recent relational conflict with somebody at work, in your life. Use that conflict. You could close your eyes and replay it in your head like a movie, relive it. And I want you to just notice what thoughts or voices are coming up for you, what thoughts or voices, and then use these prompts to kind of get to know that voice. We’re going to do this and then we’re going to wrap up. You can draw this, draw the inner narrator if you want, if it is available to you, or you can just write down the questions and respond to it. Okay?

And just a quick reminder, if you’re looking at a question and nothing’s coming up, a really helpful technique is just to close your eyes, ask that voice the question, and let what emerges emerge. Just sit quietly with it. All right, go ahead and come back to us. And again, if you need these templates and things, just drop me an email. I’ll put my email address up in a little bit.

And we don’t have time to do this exercise, but once we slow down, you have this printout on your table. One really helpful thing is just say, “How do I automatically react?” Just circle one. Really simple. “Oh, I make assumptions about them. Oh, I try to fix the problem by jumping to solutions. That’s my automatic reaction. Well, what do I want to do instead?” So on this do column, circle one, and then you go into practice, practice it, and be really compassionate with yourself when you don’t do it right. Okay? Those are available for you.

Any questions, reflections, one or two? Okay, I’m going to wrap up and I like to end with this. Pema Chodron says, “If we want to make peace with ourselves and with the world at large, we have to look closely at the sources of our wars.” I want you to remember that war and peace starts within us, and we’re all just stumbling and wobbling and trying to get our way back to love and connection. So I want you to remember that we all deserve a little compassion and benevolence for ourselves and each other. Thank you.

The post Mastering Inner Dialogues appeared first on Voltage Control.

Comprised of facilitators from around the country and tuning in virtually from around the world, our community provided valuable interactions, feedback, and wonderful connections. We all realized the impact we can have on one another and how that impact can be inspirational and inspire change and innovation.

Insights

From Rose, Thorn, and Buds from our community about the event (we are always striving to be better, grow further, and learn more!) to wonderful and kind messages from presenters and attendees alike, we wanted to share some insights about the event with you all. Let’s start with the award-winning choreographer, Bradley Rapier wrapped up the summit, on February 7th, with a groovy dive into the rhythm we all feel within. Movement, beats, and music are a wonderful way to connect, and this last exercise of the day wrapped up Control the Room 2023 with energy, and great vibes! Check out the insights about the conference Bradly shares below!

Our Community never disappoints, especially when we all get together, virtually, or in person! This group shares insights about how facilitators collaborate, how we work to immerse one another, and how we can boost one another to achieve great things!

As a “frequent facilitator” in my multiple roles and jobs, I find it is a stress reliever for me to collaborate with other people doing the same work. There is a “meta effect” when facilitators collaborate. The Control Room Summit had just that effect in spades: Expert facilitators, facilitating facilitators collaborating. I loved the immersion, learned a lot, and look forward to more collaborations sponsored by my friends at Voltage Control.

– Eric Olson, PhD, Professor, Industrial Technology Director, Central Coast Lean, Cal Poly – Orfalea College of Business

Life often presents us with career shifts, and opportunities to level up, and throws us curveballs where we are expected to pick ourselves up out of the ashes. Our community always finds support within one another, we find ways to encourage collaboration and peer learning, and we lean into inspiring one another to truly reach our full potential!

This year’s Control the Room was an extraordinary experience that exceeded my expectations. I learned more than I ever thought I could, and now I feel like I can take on the world… or at least the conference room. The conference was filled with amazing speakers and valuable insights that left me feeling energized and inspired.

One thing that stood out to me at the conference was the emphasis on connection and collaboration. It was clear that the organizers had put a lot of thought into creating a welcoming and inclusive environment. This was because attendees could connect with one another and share their experiences. As someone who values community and connection, I appreciated this focus and felt that it helped to make the conference a truly special event.

One of the presenters that resonated with me the most was Renita Smith. Renita’s story and her journey were incredibly inspiring, especially as a person of color in the field. Her words were not only impactful but also relatable, and they reminded me that I have a distinct perspective and valuable contributions to offer.

Overall, one key takeaway from the conference that meant the most to me was the importance of seeking out a mentor to help support and sponsor me as a growing leader. A mentor can provide invaluable guidance on how to navigate the challenges of leadership and can act as a sounding board for creative and innovative ideas. The mentor talk was particularly impactful for me, and it has motivated me to actively seek out a mentor who can help guide me in my career. I guess it’s time to start a mentor search, so wish me luck!

The community at Control the Room was supportive and inclusive, and I am honored to have been a part of it. I connected with fellow attendees who shared similar interests and challenges. These connections have inspired me to continue collaborating with others and seek out new opportunities for growth and development. I left the conference feeling more connected and empowered than ever before, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

– Joshua Johnson

Community members flew in from across the nation, and we love seeing everyone in real life! The energy ran high, the vibes were positive, and true networking was seen happening across the room, and within our virtual rooms!

So enjoyed being part of this gathering — thanks to you, Douglas Ferguson, and the entire Voltage Control team for hosting such an engaging learning experience!

– Kellee Franklin

It was such a privilege to present alongside such amazing, talented facilitators. What a fantastic experience and thought-provoking event!!!

-Zach Montroy, SPHR

“There’s a freedom you begin to feel the closer you get to Austin, Texas.” — Willie Nelson

It was a great visit this week in the vibrant City of Austin.

Thanks to Douglas Ferguson and the Voltage Control team for hosting the 5th Annual Facilitator’s Summit where I met and reconnected with many amazing professionals doing transformative work across the world — J Schuh – PBA, PSM I , Taylor Cone, Jimbo Clark, Benjamin Herndon, Ph.D. , and Lloyd Dangle — and so many others!

Three important reminders about the significance of the leadership skills showcased at the summit for me were that effective facilitation: Creates connection, Builds community, Inspires innovation.

Kellee Franklin

Control the Room 2023 Conference was FANTASTIC this year! Huge shout out to Douglas Ferguson and the staff at Voltage Control for showcasing world class speakers again this year!

Learning, reflection and fun was had by everyone who attended.

J Schuh

In a time when companies are seeking leaders who can bring their people (in-person and virtual) together, design a shared vision, and reimagine business possibilities — it was wonderful to see the diverse talent that are helping and supporting others in achieving these ambitious aspirations and business necessities.

Virtual Speaker, Marisa Davis, shared valuable insights, favorite quotes, and key takeaways with the community, you can read her full recap here.

What a wonderfully fun and engaging day with this incredible ‘Zoom Crew’ of virtual participants at the Control the Room Facilitation Summit. Thank you to my partner-in-collaboration Mark Tippin for co-piloting this virtual/hybrid experience, helping to build our interactive summit Mural space, and connecting the many dots and impacts from all of our speakers today!

It’s so much fun to be a part of an event with facilitators – my favorite part of our virtual session was the attendees’ willingness to jump in and co-create the experience with Mark and me. One example of this was when we built out a new Mural section to allow everyone to share emerging topics they wanted to discuss, then launched a choose-your-own breakout room segment for those themes over the lunch hour. We hadn’t specifically planned it, but together, we made it happen.

Thanks for an impactful day and I am thrilled to connect with so many new facilitator friends!

Shannon Varcoe

Our #ZoomCrew was amazing this year, as it always is! Our Vice President of Programs, Shannon Varcoe, and Mark Tippin, the Director of Strategic Next Practices at MURAL, were the perfect hosts for the occasion. As a longtime Voltage Control collaborator, participant, and friend, Mark brought a wealth of experience and expertise to the event.

Huge shout out to Mark Tippin from Mural and Shannon Varcoe for their online collaboration at the Control the Room conference lead by Douglas Ferguson and the Voltage Control team!

This was an amazing event both in person and online.

J Schuh

We have an amazing team here at Voltage Control, and our Executive Assistant, Jamie LaFrenier stood out from the crowd for her dedication, her empathy, her hard work, and overall making the event a wonderful experience for our guests! We have captured a few thank yous here, and we have so much appreciation for Jamie! We would not be able to do it without her expertise, her kindness and humility, and her spirit!

Jamie,

Fantastic job this week.  For those of us participating the event was flawless.  You and the team kicked ass. I hope you all give yourselves a few day’s rest to celebrate and breathe with ease again. Warmly,

Amy Luckey

First off, THANK YOU SO MUCH for making the magic of Control the Room happen. It was my first time speaking at something like this and I was terrified, but y’all really did the most to make it such an incredible experience. Thank you times a million!

Robin Arcia

Thank you again SO MUCH for all the work you and the team did to make yesterday such a success. It’s such a wonderful community and I was honored to have time on the stage and among the group in the room.

Taylor Cone

At Voltage Control, we are constantly working towards expanding and diversifying our community, while also prioritizing equity and inclusion. We understand that in order to truly foster growth and innovation, we must create an environment that values and celebrates the unique perspectives and backgrounds of all individuals.

We are thrilled to share that our Control the Room was an event to remember, and we are excited to see how much further we can go in the upcoming year. With each passing day, we are gaining a deeper understanding of what it means to create a truly inclusive space, and we are committed to continuously learning and evolving in this regard.

As we look forward to the next iteration of Control the Room, we can’t help but feel a sense of anticipation and excitement for what’s to come. We know that our community will only continue to expand and thrive, and we can’t wait to see the incredible ideas and perspectives that emerge as a result. We are confident that with our shared commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we can make a meaningful impact and create positive change within our organization and beyond.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Work Now 2023

After going remote during COVID-19, many organizations continue to offer remote or hybrid options to workers in higher numbers than ever before. This survey is a snapshot of that work, offering snapshots of the lived experiences of both hybrid and remote workers. Of the 210 individuals we surveyed, most or all identifying as leaders in remote or hybrid workplaces and teams, we share herein the stories from the data that will help readers understand the current trends in remote and hybrid work and, even more importantly, what the future holds for hybrid and remote workers.

Get It Now

The post Control the Room 2023 Insights appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2023 was a remarkable occasion that presented many valuable opportunities for connecting with others. Beginning with the annual facilitator summit on February 7th, the event featured a week-long series of virtual speakers. This year’s summit was centered around the theme of IMPACT, prompting us to consider the ways in which we impact our clients, our professions, and one another. Overall, it was an unforgettable experience.

This year’s event saw the return of our virtual space, which was once again seamlessly integrated with our live space. Our Vice President of Programs, Shannon Varcoe, and Mark Tippin, the Director of Strategic Next Practices at MURAL, were the perfect hosts for the occasion. As a longtime Voltage Control collaborator, participant, and friend, Mark brought a wealth of experience and expertise to the event. Together, Shannon and Mark formed the dynamic “Zoom Crew,” guiding our live audience through reflections after every three speakers. This allowed for a deeper connection between the audience and the speakers, which made for a more engaging and interactive experience for all involved.

Throughout the event, both the virtual and live audience were engaged with a variety of prompts and activities. These included sharing impactful resources with each other, connecting our unique superpowers, and even sharing our set-up selfies. The result was an atmosphere that was both collaborative and inclusive, with participants feeling a sense of belonging and connection to each other. For those who missed the event, the full MURAL is available to view online.

Read on for the recordings of each reflections section, and the full transcript accompanies each.

Reflections Round 1

Transcript:

Douglas:
Reflections will be coming up periodically through the day with Shannon Varcoe, the VP of Facilitation
Programming here at Voltage Control. Awesome, Shannon, and a long-term friend, Mark Tippin. He was
actually a guest at year number one of Control the Room and has been with us ever since. I think he has
not missed a summit since.
Back by popular demand, we’re doing Reflections with Mark and Shannon’s going to be helping. We’ll be
doing that in a Zoom. We’ve got the QR code up there. Sorry, we’re going to be doing that with the
Zoom folks in a Mural. If you want to follow along on a laptop or a device, you can. That’s the QR code,
but we’re also going to have the Zoom folks up on the screen. You’re going to be able to hear them.
Anyone that wants to talk with folks in the Zoom, I’ll be passing this microphone around. If you want
them to be able to see you, there’s a camera right there by that TV. You can walk up to it and actually
have an experience with them. With no further ado, we’re going to switch over to the Zoom. Mark and
Shannon, let’s take it over.
Mark Tippin:
Hey, great to see everyone. Oh, that was probably very loud. We’re joining you from either edge of the
United States right now. I’m in Portland, Oregon, and Shannon is …
Shannon Varcoe:
Here in North Carolina. So excited to be on all ends of the country with everyone today. It’s great.
Mark Tippin:
We’ve had an incredible lively discussion online, and we have some plug and play ways to bring focus to
this moment after the three speakers. This one, the theme that seemed to emerge for us is around self-
impact. It’s a great place to start. Everyone’s been asking us to be curious about ourselves, to
understand the voices in our head, and how since we can observe them, we’re not actually the voices in
our head.
I would invite you, there in the room, if you have a device, come and check out the Mural because it is
chock-a-block with books and recommendations and observations and insights, and it’s an asset that
you can take with you.
I wanted to say, Shannon, what was one of the things that really stood out for you from our three
speakers?
Shannon Varcoe:
I think just this theme around, as you said, thinking about impact and the impact that things we choose
to do have on ourselves, I thought was a really interesting thread. I think about impact that our actions
have on others or the external has on ourselves, but I think there is a really interesting thought going for
me about, it’s actually also the impact that my own thoughts, my own actions have on myself. That was
definitely something that really stood out for me around the impact we can have on ourselves, just as
much as we can have on other people. How about for you, Mark?
Mark Tippin:
There was one quote that was shared in Zoom chat and it says that you don’t know what your
authenticity would do for someone else. Even in the process of getting clear with yourself and trying to
do the work of being authentic and getting from a two to a three, or getting from an eight to a nine, that
work and that journey in your personal life, you never know the impact that that conversation or that
struggle you’re having is going to benefit other people.
Shannon Varcoe:
It’s so true. I think Renita mentioned Lizzo, and there was a lot of love for Lizzo in the Zoom chat and in
Mural. I think about that. Even just what you’re saying is that Lizzo, we use her as such an icon for the
impact that she’s had on body positivity in the world and on so many women, but also I can imagine that
didn’t just come easily for her. The impacts that her own authenticity for herself and the thoughts that
she has and the way that she presents herself into the world allowed her to be able to impact everyone
in this large way. I love that.
Mark Tippin:
Absolutely. I’d love to see a show of hands in the room, because I’m not currently screen sharing, but for
those of you that don’t have a device in front of you, if you’d like, I can share the Mural just so you get a
visual sense. Show of hands, would that be of interest? All right, Douglas.
Here, allow me to. You tell me if you are able to see. Everyone in the room, okay, cool. I just wanted to
give a shout-out. I don’t know if this is 100% from the folks online, but this is what I’ve learned over the
years, Douglas. This is an artifact I come back to, year after year, and reference. I’d encourage people, if
you are taking sketch notes, upload those things into the Mural. Feel free at any time to come in and
add your own observations.
People are sharing things, like when we were talking about time management, Pomodoro technique and
timers, and books, and we’re playing along online as well. That’s a reminder, for those of you, that our
speakers are going to be taking the stage this afternoon. You have a vibrant community of 130 plus folks
here as well that are having a whole parallel, amazing conversation online, and we are just here to try
and bridge that gap.
Also, just wanted to offer the opportunity, if there’s someone on the Zoom side, if you had something
you wanted to share, feel free to unmute and share. If there’s anyone in the room that wanted to ask a
question to the virtual community, feel free.
Douglas:
Any questions or any reflections on the talks that anyone wants to share? I saw Kaleb’s hand first.
Mark Tippin:
Awesome.
Kaleb:
I just wanted to say the comment about… You said it. Self-care is being selfish. I had a family member
recently pass away, and she didn’t do enough self-care because she felt like it was selfish, and it’s just
really powerful. So, be selfish. I’m selfish as hell. Be selfish.
Mark Tippin:
Do we have anyone else in the ground?

Jay:
Yeah, zoom crew. Boom, go. I’ll say that, you guys rock. I got to get on Zoom the last couple of years,
though I’m now in person, but one of the things that we’ve been talking about… We went to dinner last
night and we talked about identity. That was the thing that we talked about and how people define us
by the things we do. I had an opportunity to have the universe intervene with me and a wise person in
her seventies. PhD from education who used to be a principal told me, “Sometimes we get so locked in
human doing instead of human being.” As facilitators, we’re always doing, doing, doing, and sometimes
we miss the things beside us, because we’re going so fast and getting things done as opposed to being
with the people and around the things. We miss the peripherals and we miss opportunities, so that’s
something to just throw out there.
Mark Tippin:
I have to ask, was that my friend Jay? Certainly sounded like him.
Douglas:
Yes. Disembodied Jay for all the Zoom people.
Mark Tippin:
Fantastic. Last call for anyone on the Zoom crew that has a question or observation to share. Remember
to unmute.
Shamay:
Hi.
Mark Tippin:
Hi.
Shamay:
My name is Shamay Lucas and I just wanted to say thank you to Miss Renita for seeing me. Something
small about a shared or lived experience can go a long way, so that humidity with these edges, yes. Then
I wanted to thank Matthew, wherever he is right now, for wearing his pronouns, they as well. Small
things go a long way in your different experiences. Thanks.
Shannon Varcoe:
Fantastic.
Mark Tippin:
Thank you, yeah. How are we doing on time, Douglas? I don’t want to overstep.
Douglas:
We got 10 minutes, if you want to fill it. We could also go to break if you want to, so you got 10 minutes
should you choose to use it.
Mark Tippin:
I was going to say I would love to huddle with the Zoom crew online and figure out how to prepare for
the next wave of speakers, but if anyone there in the ground has any questions, feel free to hop in
Zoom, in the chat. Other than that, we can give some time back, I think.
Douglas:
All right, great. We’ll be back from break and I guess we’ll now be… What’s the official time? We’ll be
back from break at 10:40 Central.
Mark Tippin:
Sounds good, thank you.
Shannon Varcoe:
I’m going to mute the room.
Mark Tippin:
Thank you.
Shannon Varcoe:
We’re good. Okay.
Mark Tippin:
Awesome.
Shannon Varcoe:
Awesome. Zoom crew, hello.
Trish:
Hello.
Shannon Varcoe:
Everyone, thanks for jumping in. I know the beginning was we didn’t get a chance to huddle up right at
the start, so just so glad that everyone is here. Thank you for joining us and hopping into the chat and
into the Mural and all of these things. We’re just so glad everyone is here and hope you enjoyed the first
segment of speakers.
Mark Tippin:
I’d love to hear any and all feedback so far, especially anything that we might need to communicate and
bridge to our friends that are co-located there on the ground in Texas. Can you hear the speakers okay?
I saw a comment about trying to share the slides as well. I know they’re trying to do some camera
switching, Shannon.
Shannon Varcoe:
I know there’s a couple questions about trying to get slides shared, but it’s sort of like either it stays on
slides the whole time and we never see the speaker or we can do the shifting. I think we’re going to try
and do the shift and then hoping to just grab screenshots of slides where we can and just drop them into
the Mural so that you can see them in there, I hope, but everything’s …
Trish:
I have some thoughts and questions about that. Is it possible to just ask the speakers who are coming up
… Hey, it’s okay if your slides change, but can you just share them in Mural or in a Google Doc or
something like that. We don’t have to wait until the presentation to see the slides, but if they really feel
like they want to wait, then maybe you can immediately be sharing them on the fly as opposed to
waiting until afterwards when we’re not connecting with them as much. That’s one thought. Should I
pause and listen because I have a totally separate thought.
Mark Tippin:
Oh, no, I just wanted to acknowledge and thank you because you’re reminding me last year we actually
had them in advance and I had a separate Mural with all of the slides dumped out, and then I pasted
them as the speakers were going.
Trish:
Cool.
Mark Tippin:
So you, you’ve reminded me of lost knowledge from last year.
Shannon Varcoe:
I can see if I can see if that’s still a possibility. We could try to make that happen over this break.
Trish:
I know sometimes speakers want to keep changing their slides or feel self-conscious about that, so
whatever you can do, it would be helpful. I want to be empathetic to how it feels to be up there.
Mark Tippin:
Absolutely, thank you. We’re on that. Trish, what’s your other contribution?
Trish:
One of the great things about attending in person is those relationships that we build over lunch, et
cetera. Last year I attended and I felt like we hadn’t figured out the whole hybrid thing yet because a lot
of us were online last year. Now the group is smaller. I would love to have little breakouts or ways to get
to know the people here. Tim, Jeff, Mike, Jose, I see your names, Jonathan, Andrea, Nancy, and then I
see some initials, Matt, G P G P B.
I don’t know who any of those people are, but if we could just create some norms that work for this
group, maybe sharing LinkedIn profiles or having some quick little sub breakout groups, where we can
start to meet some people. Or having a space in the Mural where we can create your own little profile
where you put a happy face and I’m into innovation or I’m into fostering diverse conversations or
whatever someone’s into that we can be attracted to each other and find each other in the same way. In a different way, actually, maybe even in a better way than we would in person because we have the
luxury as virtual attenders to maybe be able to multitask a little bit.
Mark Tippin:
That’s right.
Trish:
Let’s use that to our grand advantage and discover each other.
Mark Tippin:
Again, thank you, Trish. I will point out that on the Mural, there’s an area almost all the way to the right
that says let’s make an impact together. I see people are already throwing in links to their social profiles
and things there. You’ve also made me think there, we might be able to open up breakout rooms
randomly if that’s something maybe in the chat, if we could see. Yes, if that’s something you’d be open
to do, just let us know. We could create an arbitrary number of breakout rooms and then leave them
open and bring everyone back to plenary before the session starts.
Trish:
I like that.
Shannon Varcoe:
I’ll jump in there too, Trish love the ideas. I think to your point, it’s also just we have this opportunity
that is different and so where we can maximize that, I just love that concept. I think, so lunch is actually
a spot where there’s not any programming for us virtually. I think that would be an awesome time for us
to do some breakouts. We can have those lunch tables going within Zoom. We’ll use that time.
The other thing I wanted to mention just kind of as a high level thing is that feel free, jump in, jump out.
We disabled the waiting room so you won’t get caught into a waiting room if you need to leave or come
back. I think for lunch, if we can have people who are on and want to be a part of breakout rooms and
then if you’re not, maybe bounce for a bit and then come back for the next speakers and we can do
some of those breakout times over the lunch break.
Trish:
I have a thought. I’m sorry to keep throwing stuff out, but to make your life simpler, if it’s possible to
give people the freedom to go in … Set up a bunch of breakout rooms and let people freely go into
whichever ones they want, but in the Mural, maybe create a series of boxes with just numbers for the
breakout rooms and if people have a topic they want to put into a box, then you can see. Maybe we can
put names and say, “Hey, I’m going to go into that breakout with Broom with you over lunch.” Just a
thought. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, by the way, as you can tell. I’m looking to create
communities doing this kind of online connecting and networking. I haven’t figured it out, but I’m just
throwing out some possibilities to put a little lubricant in the muffin pan there.
Shannon Varcoe:
Thank you for sharing your ideas. We are all about experimenting and trying new things and giving
things a go.

Eric:
Can I point out something here?
Shamir:
I had one more.
Shannon Varcoe:
Hang on, sorry, we’ve got too many people talking at once. I think, Shamir, you had your hand up. So I’m
going to go to you next and then Eric, you’ll go after him.
Shamir:
Thank you Eric for that. Yeah, I just wanted to mention I had an idea around the presentation slides
because being able to see it clearly is quite helpful. I think what’s happening is because it’s sending
through the video, what happens is Zoom normally reduces the quality of video. But when we share
screen, it makes sure that the quality is clear. If you could share the video that’s coming in from the
stream from Texas over the shared screen, they have an advanced feature that’s content from second
camera, it normally sends it much better quality from there.
I don’t know if it’s possible with the tech team, if you could have a word with them to do that, then
probably the slides should be, my assumption is that it should be clear. Maybe that will work. Just
wanted to throw that out there in case it’s possible.
Shannon Varcoe:
That’s helpful. I’ll pass that note along. I’ve got a text start going with the people on the AB side, so I will
shoot that over.
Shamir:
Thank you.
Shannon Varcoe:
Thank you.
Mark Tippin:
Cool. On the board Shannon and I are putting together, you’ll see some hexagonal shapes. I’m going to
give them numbers and we’ll set this space up and feel free to … I’ll drop numbers in each one. Not sure
how many breakout rooms we’ll have. We have 130 people. I thought I’ll air on the side of more than
less, but feel free to drop a suggested topic maybe on a note in the middle of one of the rooms. I’ll drop
some numbers in here. I have some handy dandy numbers I can use.
Shannon Varcoe:
Lindsey, go for it.
Lindsey:
Hello, I just wanted to thank y’all for opening this up and welcoming feedback. This has been great so far
and I wanted to give a little bit of feedback about that. It was kind of frustrating that one of the in-

person activities was designed without offering the Zoom people access to the phone number. If it was
meant as a demonstration of what inaccessibility feels like, then I understand that. I just wish the
speaker had explained that afterwards, but if it wasn’t intentional, then I just wanted to reach out and
ask that It would be great to keep Zoom access in mind going forward for any other activities. Thank y’all
again. I really appreciate it.
Shannon Varcoe:
Lindsay, thanks for sharing that. I think it’s a great point, and we’re definitely trying to find those ways to
bridge the gaps between in-person and remote, so definitely appreciate that thought. I think it’s
important for our speakers to be able to think about both too. So yeah, thank you.
Eric:
I could throw out sort of another thing. I found it a little disconcerting. I couldn’t hear the clapping when
the speaker was done. That’s kind of a little weirdness.
Shannon Varcoe:
I sent that note over actually to the team. We were like is it happening? You can see it, but you can’t
hear it. I don’t know if we can try and get them to hold the mic up just so we can at least hear little or
we have to, maybe I’ll do a virtual clap track.
Mark Tippin:
Hit the right one here.
Shannon Varcoe:
Got to get that, because I agree with this a little bit. Are they there? Is it happening?
Mark Tippin:
Thank you Eric for that.
Okay, cool. I see a topic being suggested already, so that’s great. I think one of the observations is we’ve
been in a pandemic and remote so long. I think as Douglas said, at the top, it feels good. It feels like
we’re back, but part of moving forward is not actually going back to the ways we used to forget
everyone that wasn’t located in the room and those centers of power and influence that we broke free
of and got into this new space of collaboration. That would be an interesting topic actually to go into
some is how do we actually pull the whole conversation forward, taking what we learned as opposed to
suddenly just getting back into old habits?
Shannon Varcoe:
Yeah, so agree with that. I so agree with that. Couldn’t agree with you more.
Mark Tippin:
I know. Folks in the Zoom crew may not know, but Shannon could be there in person and she willingly
volunteered to hold down the fort virtually and stay here and not be part of that community because
this community is as important. I certainly appreciate that.

Shannon Varcoe:
I love, I think it was Erin’s comment, but we want to create the FOMO for people who are in person
here. I experienced that last year. I’m not going to lie to you. I spoke last year and I remember feeling
like there’s this whole world happening on Zoom that I’m not a part of, and I was excited about it. I was
excited to join this year and help make it happen. Rachel.
Rachel:
I just want to say thank you because it was so fun last year and also what you’re doing is exhausting.
Both of you, I really, really appreciate you being able to be on the screen all day to facilitate this space.
Shannon Varcoe:
All good. Also a good thing to note is that important, somebody said too, is that important to take
remote breaks as well? I know we’re going to be joining back for the next speaker at 10:40 Central.
Want to make sure that people take a break, grab some extra coffee, grab a snack, whatever you need
to do to get yourself ready for the next segment. Also too, the day on Zoom is really long, and so we
don’t necessarily expect everyone to join for the entire time. If you are joining, you’re going to get
videos of the speakers and things. Feel free to do what you need to do, take care of yourselves as we
heard from our speaker first, do what you have to do, take care of your day, your energy. If you want to
jump in, jump out, do whatever you need to do. Greg, question?
Greg:
It’s not a question. I just wanted to applaud the Zoom crowd. I’m finding that what is being put on the
Mural board and what’s being put into the chat is actually elevating the content significantly. One of the
side conversations I’ve been having with my team is, wouldn’t it be nice if everybody in the room was on
a tablet or something taking notes on the Mural board like this group is? I think that there’s an awful lot.
I’ve noticed E.J., who is an amazing source, a fount of reference material and rec book recommendations
and insights. I just think there’s so much brain power and lived experience in the room, virtually all of
the rooms that we’re sitting in and the room in Austin. I just wanted to applaud the group and say thank
you for all the content that you’re providing. That’s sort of meta level of value that’s being added. So
thanks for that.
Shannon Varcoe:
Thank you, Greg, appreciate that. It’s so true, right? It’s not just the speakers that are the ones that are
the experts today. It’s also everyone here and everyone has amazing resources and things to share.
We’re glad that we have a space to do that. So, thanks Greg.
Mark Tippin:
Thank you. I couldn’t agree more. I do a lot of this for a living, but I am so humbled every time I show up
in this community. When I was there in person in 2020, I was telling Douglas, I feel light-headed. I feel
like I’m breathing pure oxygen because everyone I talk to is in this zone on this journey. As you said,
there’s so much, not only resource knowledge, but lived experience knowledge that it really is
something. I come into intentionally beginner’s mind and blank slate. It’s the thing that manifests online
in the chat on the Mural board, that’s magical. That’s why I love facilitation. I don’t have to have all the
answers. I just create a space and I’m always blown away.

Shannon Varcoe:
Totally.
Mark Tippin:
I’m guessing now would be a good time. We’ve got about 10 minutes. Now would be a good time for
people to get some fresh oxygen, stretch your legs and refill coffee and or water. I’m going to do that
and I’ll be back in probably about five minutes and we’ll strike up the conversation and get ready for the
next round of lightning.
Shannon Varcoe:
Excellent. Excellent.
Mark Tippin:
All right.
Shannon Varcoe:
Be back in a bit.
Mark Tippin:
Back in a bit.

Reflections Round 2

Transcript:

Douglas:
All right, we’re getting close to lunch. We have a few more reflections here. So we’re going to turn it
over to Mark and Shannon. Mark and Shannon, are you out there?
Mark:
We are indeed.
Shannon:
We are here.
Mark:
So share my screen. Always blown away by the journey that a lightning round can take us on. I just
wanted to share my screen, and again, let people know that this is a resource that’s being built, and it’ll
be available to everyone from here on out.
But I just… There were some interesting points between the three of these that I wanted to stitch
together. And this lens that we were going to use is looking, really, at the conditions for impact. And the
Zoom crew has already been sharing their observations around impact. But just one by one, I wanted to
say that Taylor’s points resonate with me as someone who’s been struggling in design, and product
management, and development for so many years. And how many times have you done a retrospective,
almost robotically, and there’s a sadness there because what you’re doing is acknowledging all the stuff
that didn’t work right? And what potential there is to use the gifts that we have around being present on
the teams where we’re working, to bring that presence to observe what’s happening now and try and
influence what will happen next to improve the ability for those outcomes. I just really wanted to thank
Taylor for that.
Benjamin, I appreciated AI as a topic that I’ve been curious about. And it just seems like in the last year,
it went from an interesting thing, to almost consuming the world faster than software consumed the
world, and these other waves from Alvin Toffler and Future Shock and Third Wave back in the day. It’s
just these waves are now coming so quickly.
I just want to thank Benjamin for highlighting, especially, looking at the conditions for impact there is
understanding where our conversations happen. In his talk, it was observing if AI is seen as a technology,
and it’s thrown into a tech area, that’s not really looking at it for the strategic impact that it has. And I
think that’s a lesson that we certainly resonate with every time we’re trying to lead a powerful
conversation, and we find ourselves not close to any centers of power. Having amazing conversations
with passionate people that are there and willing to have them, but not being seen for the strategic
potential it has, to create the connections and the community and bring the imagination, increase the
imaginal capacity of an organization. So that was something I wanted to thank Benjamin for.
And Yvonne, so many things. I mean, this board is… Our observations around the conditions are littered
with things just at the flurry at the end of your speech. And appreciate, especially, again, hitting on
authenticity, but also vulnerability. And every time I find I’m not being effective in my role is usually
when I’ve put up a wall and I’m not being authentic, I’m not being vulnerable, and I’m not really putting
my energy back on the crowd and focusing out there. There’s something where I’ve pulled it back for
one reason or another. And I think that vulnerability is a quick way to put the energy back in the room
and ease back into that supportive role.
Shannon, I wanted to invite you as well. Some of the things that we’ve seen in the chat, or some of your
own observations.

Shannon:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Mark, and appreciate your thoughts on all of those. I think as we were
imagining around conditions for impact, I also think about, especially when you’re talking about the AI
and just that whole presentation and just the impact that the technology has had so quickly. Thinking
about what conditions were in place for so many users to start using AI technology as soon as it was
launched, I think there’s some interesting, I don’t know the exact statistics, but number of users that
were using ChatGPT was just absurd compared to how quickly other users were using other
technologies that have hit the market. And I think about, what conditions were in place for that to have
the impact that it had? And what conditions continue… Do we develop to allow people to use those
technologies in new and different ways? And also, how are we communicating those?
And then I think too, just around this topic with facilitation, just thinking about, what conditions are we
setting for our participants to be able to fully participate and be impacted by the things that they’re
learning, the conversations that they’re having, the people they’re connecting with?
And then on the flip side of that I’ve also been thinking about too, with all of these connections and
things that are happening with participants here in the Zoom Room, but also participants in the room, is
that, what are the conditions for us when we’re a participant? Not just as a facilitator, but what are the
conditions that we allow ourselves to be in to be impacted, to listen, to hear those stories, to get that
information? What conditions are we, in a learning environment, or in a conference, showing up as, that
allow us to show up as great participants?
So we’ve got some really amazing participants in the Zoom Room too, so I want to shout everyone out.
And if there’s other reflections or things that people are thinking about when we think of the conditions
for impact, curious, in the room and also in Zoom, if anyone wants to jump in with your thoughts.
Mark:
Douglas, any questions from there in the room or observations?
Douglas:
Scanning the room for hands. I haven’t seen any yet.
Mark:
What a hungry faces there, staring at you. We stand between them and food.
Douglas:
I kind of have a question both for Ben and Yvonne, just listening to this notion of audience deserve to
feel the facilitation. What’s your facilitation story? And Yvonne talked about… Or I’m sorry, and then
Ben, we’re talking about some of the artificial intelligence to say, “This isn’t how I would’ve done it as a
human,” in terms of what the AI says. And for me, I was thinking instantly, is that not diversity? Is that
something that kind of takes us out of our… And I’d be really interested to sit around a campfire with
Ben and Yvonne and ask the question, “What is AI for diversity? What might AI for diversity mean? And
what might AI do for realtime facilitation story development?” Ben and Yvonne, I’m just going to call an
audible. Let’s meet over here at the camera and do a little quick little roll with that.
Mark:
Rock and roll, Doug. Thank you.

Douglas:
Over here at the camera, if y’all would, yeah. Ben and Yvonne. Yeah, let’s do it. Awesome. So just some
comments on what [inaudible 00:07:31] had to say.
Yvonne:
Okay. Where am I facing?
Douglas:
Camera.
Yvonne:
Camera, okay. Yeah, at the camera. Yeah, that thing. Right. So do you want to answer initially from an AI
perspective, and then I will jump in?
Ben:
Yeah. I think from an AI perspective, I think it’s important to think about what we mean by diversity. Is it
a different kind of cognition that we need to open our minds up to if we’re going to accept it as a
partner in our work? Absolutely. But like any other partnering or human collaboration, you have to
assume that it’s not going to be perfect. It will be biased. It’s incumbent upon us in those partnerships to
be mindful of where that bias might arise and what it might look like.
The other thing I want is with AI, we obviously all believe that encouraging diversity is critical for
ourselves, for our organizations, for our communities. I don’t think we need to go out of our way to
bring in AIs necessarily, but it can challenge us to think in different ways, which is, I think, part of the
value of diversity.
Yvonne:
Thank you. I think that’s absolutely correct. I will also say that I’m glad you brought up bias, because as
human beings, every single one of us alive is biased. Whether that’s based on current, or past lived
experience exposures, or lack thereof, there’s bias in all of us. And those programming AI, those
designing for AI themselves are biased. So I think it’s incredibly important to be responsible to try to
mitigate bias as much as you possibly can. And one way of doing that is to engage in community and to
expose what you’re trying to build to others so that their vantage point is thus included, because they
have a better understanding of the potential pitfalls and harms that can occur if their perspectives aren’t
included. So I think that that’s critically important. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
All right. I’d like to add something as someone who studied AI in college to that perspective about
diverse perspectives, if that’s okay. If we think about where AI comes from, it comes from whatever
learning sets it’s been fed. So while we might in some cases think of the AI as a different perspective, it
could actually help us with diversity in innovation by recognizing that in a lot of cases it’s the common
perspective. So it could help us to question, “Hey, if that’s the common perspective, or that’s what
emerged from the learning set, how might we think about it differently than the AI came up with?”
Yvonne:
Yeah, I think that presents a very interesting dialogue. I think one of the things that myself and my team
are focused on, especially when it comes to AI and the dialogues on it is, what are we doing to ensure
that not only there are multiple perspectives and voices at the table and the design work, but also to
make sure that we’re not upholding continued systems of oppression and marginalization that have
occurred in our society that are kind of like the pillars in many respects of our society. And how can AI
help to overcome those barriers and those challenges, but not feeding into the existing systems,
creating more challenges and barriers that we already have?
Ben:
Yeah, that’s a really great point. I mean, I think, again, back to the initial conversation and my talk,
there’s very real sense that this is dangerous and this is threatening. There’s a very real sense that this
represents an opportunity, and I think that’s what we’re talking about. It’s really both at the same time. I
think our biggest enemy with AI is urgency. I mean, there’s such an urgency to do something impactful,
to do something big to get ChatGPT out there that sometimes we don’t stop and think about, where
might we be making mistakes, or taking advantage of people, or instilling biases. And I think a lot of
times, with our clients, I tell them, “We have to slow down to speed up.” Because if you push a model to
market too quickly and it’s got some problem with it and it hurts somebody, that’s oftentimes
unrecoverable. So yeah.
Yvonne:
Yeah. It’s fiduciary responsibility 101.
Mark:
I wanted to extend an invitation to Taylor. I mean, if he also might have anything to… Or questions for
Taylor as well.
Taylor:
I was getting my product placement out.
Douglas:
There you go.
Mark:
There you go.
Taylor:
So the one thought that I had related here, when it comes to measurement and the things that we’re
trying to turn into metrics that dictate the outcomes that we’re looking for, when we begin to list out
what we want to measure, we have to be really aware of, are those things are on our list because
they’re just assumed to be the things that we should measure? And put another way, is there sort of
inherent bias in the things that we believe we should be measuring as opposed to what truly, A,
equalizes and, B, actually leads to the outcomes that we’re looking for? So as we reflect on the activity
that we did, or if you are going to go back and do it again, maybe with your team, each of the
measurement pieces, each of the metrics that you list, make sure you challenge yourself to say, “Okay, is
this measurement, is the assumption that this measurement is based on an inherently biased
assumption?”
Mark:
Wonderful. Thank you very much, Taylor. Yeah, great talks. Just real quick, I just wanted to draw folks
attention to some activities that you can check out. If you’re doing sketch noting, some people are
already sharing some of their visual sketches. We have a place for you to drop them there. People’s
social media connections, that’s happening, so there’s community and connect.
Shannon:
Hey, Mark.
Mark:
Oh.
Shannon:
You’re not sharing your screen, just real quick.
Mark:
Oh. Oh, yeah. Here, sorry about that. There we go. Just drawing your attention over here on this side, if
you have any sketch notes you want to share, if you want to drop your social media connections in here,
and maybe even flag a note specifically with your name, if there’s someone in particular you want to
connect with. We also have an area here to share your setup selfie. So if you are remote, we’d love to
see your… If you want to share, what are your setups? What do you use? What’s critical? And if you’re
there in the room, what’s your mobile setup for when you go into these spaces and try and capture all
this wonderful knowledge?
I also wanted to do a shout-out that at lunchtime, Zoom Crew is going to be hosting some virtual
breakouts, and the topics have been suggested here. So feel free, once you have your lunch, if there’s
some time left, there will be some breakouts if you want to jump in Zoom, and we’ll get you situated in
one of these impromptu unconference breakout rooms. Okay, that’s it, Douglas. Back to you.

Reflections Round 3

Transcript:

Douglas:
And that brings us to another Reflections with Mark and Shannon. We can see if we can get Mark and
Shannon back on the screens. Are you all there?
Mark:
We’re here. Oh my gosh. We’re here
Shannon:
We’re here. We are strong. We’re confident.
Mark:
We’re confident. The Zoom crew. We can do anything. I’m going to share the screen, but I’m going to …
Shannon, would you mind kind of kicking us off? You’ve been the inspiration behind this particular focus,
ripples.
Shannon:
For sure. Yeah, thanks Mark. So let me make sure I can see what you’re sharing. I can see it.
Mark:
Oh, yep. And here and share.
Shannon:
I’d say what a kickoff of three speakers to bring us out of lunch. I think in the chat somebody had said
with the box activity, even though we weren’t able to fully participate with boxes on our own heads, we
had some people with the different masks and things in Zoom and trying to create our own version of it.
But it was certainly fun to see a room full of people with boxes on their heads, even from afar. So really
appreciate getting to interact with that and just keeping the energy alive post-lunch sometimes can be
difficult. So just appreciate being able to feel that energy coming from the space in Austin.
But yeah. So we’re going to jump through and talk a bit about this concept of ripple effect. And so this
was something that, as Mark and I are planning some of these debrief sessions, we were just talking
about the different kinds of impact and what can happen when we think of impact, what comes up and
ripple effect was one that came to mind for me is this idea of that kind of classic image of a drop of
water and the ripples that come from the impact of that drop onto the water surrounding it.
And so we wanted to use this as an opportunity to have everyone share what impacts were these last
three speakers on you, what impacts existed for you there, for those in Mural, jump in and just kind of
drop some of those initial impacts in the middle of the circle. And then think about what are the ripple
effects of those impacts on you, on others, and how they often start to relate and kind of build on onto
each other. So we’ll pause there, Mark, happy to have you share some more thoughts too, but give it a
chance for people to drop in. And if those people in the room too have some thoughts and impacts,
we’re happy to add those as stickies into the mural for you, if you aren’t able to join in Mural in person,
but want to think about what are the impacts, immediate impacts of listening to these talks and some of
the takeaways and then how those might turn into the ripples that happen today, tomorrow, next week,
next month from the things that we’re learning and the ways that we’re connecting today.

This transcript was exported on Mar 03, 2023 – view latest version here.

Mark:
Yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to share a little bit about what might be missing there in the room is
some fantastic authentic responses and some of them quite humorous. Like some people saying, “Be
right back, I’m signing up for eHarmony after Corey’s amazing share.” But again, the conversation that’s
blending the real time synthesis has been so impactful. We even had someone holding down the
shouting on our end. Most of us were muted, shouting to our significant others and family in our space.
But we’re following along here. Yeah, I’ll zoom in right here, as people are adding and to see Douglas,
are there any observations from there in the room? Those with just three amazing speakers back to
back.
Douglas:
I’m looking for hands. Kaleem.
Speaker 4:
So the box, Mr. Clark. Yes. Like lean on me, Mr. Clark. Something though for me though about the box,
probably a little bit opposite of what a lot of people were feeling, but for some reason I felt like we were
all the same. I felt like I could do some silly shit and no one would know it’s me. So it was kind of a really
cool superpower. So I don’t know if you want to try to throw some of that in there, but especially I grew
up in Maine for some of you that don’t know, so it’s the whitest state in the country. Sometimes being
the same is super, super helpful. When you’re looking around, we all have boxes on our heads, so it was
really cool. Thank you.
Douglas:
Was there a hand? All right. We got another one.
Mark:
All right.
Speaker 5:
Hi, I’m Liberty. I took notes on Jimbo’s talk because I was so just invigorated by just the demonstration
that you did and the energy that came off of it. So I just thought that you did such an incredible job of
integrating all of the things we’ve heard today and really having that interaction. It’s one of the first
times I’ve seen interaction go so well in a space like this, so I feel really jazzed about how I can
incorporate that. But just connecting the dots that we’ve all been seeing. And then it was built on by
Corey and Matthew, and so thank you for inspiring us. This has been an incredible time and I really
appreciate all the effort that went into that box activity and getting us all to interact, so really appreciate
that.
Douglas:
Awesome.
Shannon:
We’ll open it up to anyone here from Zoom that wants to share impacts or thoughts, feedback,
questions.

Douglas:
I think we got another one in the room here.
Mark:
Okay.
Speaker 6:
For me, when Matthew said to change how we talk to our children about what success means, and
instead of telling them what success means, asking them what it means to them, that hit so hard home
for me. Because I think a lot of us, I know in my group, a lot of us said that we thought success is trying
to make our parents happy and doing what we think our parents want us to do. And so much of our life
is built inauthentically because we’re trying to make other people proud of us and other people happy.
And I think that’s the biggest sin of life, is abandoning our own truth to make others happy. So thank
you, Matthew.
Shannon:
It’s such a great share and I think such a great element to bring up too is the power of changing the way
that we talk to our children about what success is, is about asking. And just thinking about, and again,
back to this ripple effect is like what are the effects that then has on how they imagine success, how
they talk to others about it, right? So they’re just the ripple effects of those things, and they have impact
on us just even reframing those things. But also the impact of changing the way that we do something
can have for a long time, and on people.
Mark:
That resonates so much with the talks that we’ve heard today that are about getting your own kind of
mental house in order, in the way that you deal with a momentary conflict or a big disruption in life. But
that being selfish and taking the time to actually give yourself the space to deal with that, you are also
demonstrating that behavior to everyone around you and making that possible, whether you realize it or
not. And certainly presenting options.
So many things have been said today that hit each of us in different times in different ways, but
something that wasn’t even in our imagination suddenly we’re made present of that, like changing the
way we talk to our kids, something we weren’t really thinking about or thinking about how we got to
this space today and how things are going to go and then suddenly we elevate our consciousness around
these things and realize the impact that we all have throughout a day. Even in moments, you don’t
notice, ways you manifest frustration or not, or deal with adversity in the line at Starbucks or something.
These are all ways in which you’re getting yourself in order and then making other ways of being
possible for other people.
Shannon:
So true. And I think about that, especially as facilitators, how the ripple effects of choices that we make
and how we’re showing up, how we’re caring for ourselves in how we show up in those spaces and
when we’re facilitating, to your point too is. But also it made me think when you’re saying that too, is
how the ways that we talk to our participants or when we choose to add a thought or add a comment
here or there, just how that can also change the way that they’re thinking about something or how they
might move through an activity or move through a learning experience, that even something that seems
maybe small can also sort of have these ongoing effects from them, in good ways and in bad, right? I
think there’s always kind of the positive side of that too.
Mark:
Yeah. Well, once again, we created a space. I think we were trying to be organized coming in and have it
all planned and mapped out, but we created a space and it’s been filled in incredible ways.
Shannon:
Yeah. And it looks like Alexis has her hand up, so I want to give her [inaudible 00:10:17].
Mark:
Oh yeah, please.
Speaker 7:
Yeah. I just wanted to share. Thank you so much. These last three sessions were wonderful. Something
that really stood out to me was the vulnerability that started off with Jimbo’s talk and he said, if I have
to see through to you, I have to let myself out. And even just opening the eye was so powerful, and I
think that that just started to ripple from his talk down to Corey’s talk and then the vulnerability of that
conversation onto kind of this curiosity in the last conversation. I thought just the way that everything
flowed also really hit me, so I thought it was great. Thank you.
Mark:
Yeah, thank you, Alexis.
Speaker 8:
So I was joking with my table and saying that I didn’t know that we were going to have a therapy session
today, but I appreciate the last three speakers because Jimbo, you created a moment where every …
you’re right in front of me, of sameness, so I appreciate that. Corey lived experience through abuse, had
to gather, still trying to gather those experiences and those feelings and what it means. Matthew, we
have a shared experience as well. And one, I realize that I’m down the street from this man. He lives in
Winston-Salem, I live in Greensboro, so thank you for making that connection. And then two, you helped
me realize that my experience similar to yours in elementary school. Woo. Sorry y’all. Is a double edge
sword because without it, I wouldn’t be sitting right here.
Mark:
Thank you.

Reflections Final Round

Transcript:

Shannnon:
Well thank you all again just so much. From the Zoom side of things, we just appreciate everyone for
being here, hanging with us all day long. And I was just amazed. I should just say one quick thing was I
was amazed at the end in mural how quickly people were putting things in. I was about to do something
and add a book to the board and it was already there, and I was just like, “This crew is on it.” It was
amazing. Just so appreciate everyone being here and just diving in and being part of our team today. It’s
been amazing.
Speaker 2:
Can we all come off mute and just give a big woo-hoo?
Shannnon:
Yes. Yes. And also if you want to come off-
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:00:37] at each other.
Shannnon:
If you want to come off camera too, I can take a screenshot, get a little picture of us. So if anyone wants
to jump on camera quick.
Speaker 3:
No [inaudible 00:00:52] is needed now.
Mark:
That’d be great. Off camera.
Shannnon:
So if you want to join on camera, even just for a minute, I’ll just quick snag a pick of everybody.
Mark:
For the board.
Shannnon:
Join us, join us. Everyone good?
Mark:
Good.
Speaker 3:
How about we do the proper audio applause?
Speaker 2:

Oh yes, go Shamir. Do it.
Speaker 3:
No more fake applause. Unmuted myself-
Mark:
It’s being recorded. It is being record.
Shannnon:
All right, ready? Everyone smile. Three, two, one. All right, excellent. Okay. I’ll do another one too. We
can make funny faces or whatever.
Mark:
[inaudible 00:01:36] too late.
Shannnon:
Too late. Yeah, with a box on your head.
All right, ready? We’ll do one more. One, two, three. Awesome. All right, thanks everyone.
Mark:
Yeah, thanks. I’ve been with Mural for what, seven years now and this is what good remote
collaboration looks like. I mean this is really one of the best examples I’ve seen of a cohort just jumping
in and making stuff happen.
Speaker 2:
So Mark, are we all… you dub us official Mural designated content curators? We can put that on our
LinkedIn now?
Mark:
You bet. Yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn and I’ll give you the gold star you can put on. No, but
seriously, this is fantastic and I appreciate it very much.
Shannnon:
Yeah, so fun. Appreciate everyone so much. And I know there’s been a couple questions about feedback,
and so we will definitely be providing a link for some feedback survey stuff. I don’t have it on me right
now but I’m sure you’ll get it by email, so definitely check out your email by the end of this week for that
because we’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback. If you’ve got some top of mind right now, drop
them in the chat. You can even direct message them if you don’t want to post them to everybody, that’s
totally fine too.
But yeah, again, just loved all of the experiments and thoughts and ideas too and just the willingness to
jump in on those. That was, I think, probably one of my favorite parts of working with be today. So
hopefully those will be the things that will kind of be the foundation for how we might plan this next
time, so I really appreciate that. And yes, the mural will be available following… We’ll probably continue
to add some more things to it, so definitely check back and use it as a resource moving forward too.
Cool. All right.
Speaker 5:
Are we doing a Zoom happy hour or was that a joke I saw in the chat?
Shannnon:
Oh I mean, I’m happy to hang. I’m here.
Mark:
I’d love to.
Shannnon:
Brooke’s been up for like 12 hours, but…
Speaker 5:
Well I wanted to respect that. If you’re exhausted, no worries. We can wrap up
Mark:
I’ll abruptly shift from coffee to Jim Beam or something and then catch up with you guys.
Speaker 2:
I put that in there, but it’s like 3:00 PM my time, so all y’all on the East Coast, just enjoy or a nightcap.
Speaker 6:
It’s 11:00 PM here, so onto the nightclub is fine by me.
Mark:
Very good. I am actually going to wind down and make sure I’ve got chat saved and various things end of
day, but please reach out, connect LinkedIn, would love to stay in touch and appreciate this community
very much. Thanks everyone.
Shannnon:
Thank you, Mark.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, Mark.
Mark:
Huge shout out to Shannon. I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Shannnon:
Teamwork. Teamwork makes the dream every time.

Mark:
That’s right.
Shannnon:
Appreciate it.
Mark:
Take care everyone.
Shannnon:
All right, see you Mark. Bye.
Thanks everyone. Bruno, so good to see you.
Bruno:
Yeah, we’ll see a lot of… Not the last time you’ll see me.
Shannnon:
Yes, for sure.
Arianna:
Bruno and I wondering what we won, Shannon.
Shannnon:
You know, it’s a great question. I [inaudible 00:04:55]
Arianna:
Somewhere at the end sort felt like it was building up to something good.
Shannnon:
Yeah, they’re announcing-
Bruno:
I love the true prize part.
Shannnon:
I honestly don’t know. So we’ll find it out.
Arianna:
I would love to win the AI course if that’s possible.
Shannnon:
I’ll see what I can do. Sounds good. Bruno, how about you, because you won something too, right?

Bruno:
Yeah. Me and Arianna, we are doing everything together. So if you can put this both in the same one, we
are fine with that.
Shannnon:
All right. I’ll see what I can do.
Arianna:
That’s so weird. We’re like voltage controlled twins.
Shannnon:
I love it. That’s awesome. I know, I feel like I do see you guys on a lot of the same things.
Arianna:
I know.
Shannnon:
Except for [inaudible 00:05:32].
Bruno:
You know that we’re even connecting offline without you guys. We’re great behind your backs as well.
Shannnon:
Missing out. Missing out. No, I’m so glad. That’s great.
Arianna:
Thank you, Shannon.
Bruno:
It’s a lot. It was amazing.
Arianna:
[inaudible 00:05:44] Good job. I know how exhausting this is. You just absolutely did such a great job. I
kept saying it, but it’s not enough. You guys-
Shannnon:
I appreciate it. Thank you so much. The part that’s so weird after these virtual things, it’s like you feel so
connected all day and then you close it and you’re like, oh, I’m alone in the room. It’s so weird. But I
appreciate it as much… Just even this couple of people talk, it’s like, oh, there’s real humans over there,
so it’s great.
Arianna:
Hopefully you can sleep for two days.

Shannnon:
Yeah, definitely.
Bruno:
Bye bye.
Shannnon:
All right. Bye everyone. Thank you so much.

Thank You

Big thanks to the community for making each retrospective exciting, engaging, and fun! Thank you to the Voltage Control team for the hard work and dedication, to Mark Tippen for making our retrospectives a unique experience for everyone, AND to Shannon Varcoe for being a master facilitator of fun, creativity, and inspiring memorable conversations.

We hope you all have found value in each retrospective, one of our core values is buliding community, and this event was a shining example of the power of community, networking, and knowledge sharing! We are looking forward to seeing everyone at next year’s event!

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Work Now 2023

After going remote during COVID-19, many organizations continue to offer remote or hybrid options to workers in higher numbers than ever before. This survey is a snapshot of that work, offering snapshots of the lived experiences of both hybrid and remote workers. Of the 210 individuals we surveyed, most or all identifying as leaders in remote or hybrid workplaces and teams, we share herein the stories from the data that will help readers understand the current trends in remote and hybrid work and, even more importantly, what the future holds for hybrid and remote workers.

Get It Now

The post Control the Room 2023 Reflections appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2023 was an unforgettable event filled with meaningful moments of connection. On February 7th, we hosted our annual facilitator summit, followed by a week of virtual speakers. The theme for this year’s summit was IMPACT, which encouraged us to reflect on the impact we have on our clients, our careers, and on each other.

This year’s event was hosted in a hybrid space, with 14 facilitators participating both in-person and remotely through Zoom. The entire event, including the post-event virtual speakers, was a hub of idea sharing and community strengthening. Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session, and their talks were enlightening, inspiring, and full of practical ideas that can be utilized in our own facilitation practices.

The summit was an opportunity for facilitators to come together to learn, connect, and grow. We were able to hear from a diverse group of speakers who shared their experiences, insights, and strategies for facilitating impactful meetings and events. The post-event virtual speakers were an excellent addition to the summit, as they provided an opportunity for us to continue learning and growing even after the live event had ended.

Overall, Control the Room 2023 was a memorable and valuable experience for all participants. We look forward to next year’s summit and the opportunity to continue building our facilitation skills and strengthening our community. Read on for a summary of each of the lightning talks delivered by our speakers.

Sana Akhand

Sana Akhand began her lightning talk by asking the audience what freedom means to them. Is freedom about having control over your time, energy, or creativity? How can we take charge of our time and foster freedom within ourselves, our families, and our communities? We live in a society with rules, expectations, and pressures that can make us feel the need to impress or not disappoint others. However, success built solely on seeking external validation or approval will never feel fulfilling. A truly worthwhile life is one that aligns with our own values and purpose.

Sana encouraged the audience to balance their lives with energy fillers rather than just energy drainers. It’s crucial to break out of autopilot and move away from survival mode, even if it feels safe. Doing so will change our habits and transform our lives. The first step is to let go of our attachment to approval from others, our limiting beliefs from upbringing, and unlearn everything we thought we were to discover who we truly are. Everyone’s journey will be unique, but ultimately, we all seek a fulfilling, happy, purposeful life filled with peace, joy, connection, and love. The only way to achieve this is by learning how to overcome our own mental obstacles.

Renita Joyce Smith

Renita Joyce Smith led the group in an exploration of authenticity. She encouraged us to evaluate our own authenticity and asked us to rate ourselves. How many times had we said “I am not ready” and delayed our personal desires? “Be Authentic” was a familiar phrase that we saw on our vision boards every year, but despite our intentions, we often found ourselves still feeling disconnected from our true selves.

However, Renita believes that enough is enough. In her lightning talk she provided the group with actionable and supportive tools to begin the journey of discovering our authentic selves. We understood that the journey towards authenticity was not for the faint of heart, and it could be daunting. But with a roadmap and the tools Renita provided, we were able to begin the process of unlocking our true selves.

Renita asked each of us to create an internal voice and give it a character. She encouraged us to use this voice as an inner mentor, allowing us to separate ourselves from it and use it as a tool for reflection. Renita taught us how to utilize these moments of internal mentorship to evaluate situations, to understand what is true, and to identify what we want to gain from them.

Vincent Perez

Business consultants and facilitators have typically been a high-cost service, making it difficult for Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color (BBIPOC) and underrepresented minority (URM) communities to access them due to financial constraints and prioritization of business needs. To address this issue, Kwerk is promoting facilitation and mentorship as a service, offering brand workshops, business development support, product creation assistance, and more. Kwerk’s mission is to empower these budding entrepreneurs and small business owners to solve core business problems creatively and independently, without the need for excessive spending to grow and scale their businesses.

Kwerk Co-Founders Jamae Lucas and Vincent Perez have firsthand experience facilitating for these entrepreneurs and recognize the value it brings to underrepresented communities. They believe in the importance of a social impact model in the facilitation world. In this lightning talk, attendees explored potential solutions to the following statement: “How can we empower traditionally underrepresented startups and entrepreneurs to creatively solve their core business challenges?”

Taylor Cone

Achieving the desired impact depends on our “impact potential” – the probability of producing the intended change. This potential evolves due to several factors and conditions, and measuring and identifying them is not a common practice. However, it is crucial for sustainable impact. Imagine being able to track your impact potential throughout your project, just like ESPN tracks the win chances for each team during a game. With this knowledge, you could make real-time adjustments to enhance your impact potential when it matters most, like coaches do. Taylor challenged us to ask, ‘how can we innovate effectively?’ We learned that measuring our impact potential during projects, rather than after, and focusing on the factors and conditions that influence it are key takeaways.

Benjamin Herndon

Benjamin Herndon, Chief Strategy Officer at Kungfu.ai, introduced the topic of artificial intelligence and prompted the audience to share their thoughts and perceptions of it. The responses were diverse, with some people viewing AI as an opportunity for growth and others seeing it as a shortcut to leisure, while some expressed concerns about its potential threat to human jobs and even its perceived scariness.

To further explore the human cognitive perspective on AI transformation, the discussion delved into the individual, cultural, operational, structural, and organizational aspects of this transformation. By examining these different dimensions, the group was able to explore how AI can enhance and augment human work, rather than replacing it.

A key point of the conversation was the need to shift from a fear-based and negative mentality towards AI, towards one that recognizes its potential to improve our lives and work. This shift requires shedding old assumptions and biases about AI, and embracing new ways of thinking about its impact and possibilities.

Overall, the discussion highlighted the importance of approaching AI with an open and curious mindset, while also being mindful of the potential challenges and limitations of this technology. By doing so, we can unlock the full potential of AI and leverage it to create a better future for all.

Yvonne Alston

Facilitators today cannot solely focus on knowledge transfer as the world becomes more complex and uncertain. They must use engagement tactics that create deeper connections and more meaningful outcomes during critical conversations. Audiences are seeking more honesty, transparency, and compelling storytelling that connects with them on a deeper level. It’s essential to allow audiences into your heart and soul, not just your head, to resonate and impact them more deeply. Yvonne’s guidance helped us ask crucial questions, such as “what do audiences deserve?” and “what areas are you looking to impact?” The audience shared valuable insights, including the importance of ensuring everyone has a chance to speak, playing, not feeling alone, and realizing they have something to offer. Yvonne left us with this powerful reflection: “It is by sharing your authenticity that you can make a real impact, and as a facilitator, it’s your responsibility to expose some of these inner workings.”

Jimbo Clark

Have you ever been told to “think out of the box” but had no idea what the box even represented? Well, Jimbo Clark has come up with a solution to this problem by creating a physical box that embodies the limitations of your current thinking. Through an immersive session, Jimbo gave us our own personal box, and in doing so allowed us to map out our current thought patterns and then break through those boundaries with fresh, new ideas. This innovative approach offers a tangible way to visualize and challenge our own limitations, empowering us to approach problems with a more open and creative mindset. So why not give it a try and see how far outside the box you can go?

Corrie LoGiudice

Corrie shared an emotional and touching story to demonstrate how many of us can feel so overwhelmed that we become unsure of where to start. She emphasized that it is common to feel “stuck” when we experience overwhelming situations in our personal and professional lives. However, she believes that feeling overwhelmed can actually be a positive sign, indicating that something in our current strategy may need to be adapted to better suit our current reality.

During her talk, Corrie identified five “overwhelm culprits” that can impede our progress, and she provided practical solutions for each of them. These culprits can include things like guilt and shame, emotional abuse, a lack of focus, insufficient resources, unclear priorities, fear of failure, and an inability to say no. By recognizing these culprits and taking actionable steps to address them, we can break through feelings of overwhelm and move forward with renewed energy and motivation.

In addition to sharing her insights on overwhelm, Corrie also provided the audience with a useful framework that they could implement right away when they find themselves feeling overwhelmed. This framework empowers individuals to take continued action, regardless of their circumstances, by breaking down complex tasks into smaller, more manageable steps. With this approach, even the most daunting of challenges can be tackled with greater ease and confidence. Overall, Corrie’s talk offered valuable insights and practical tools to help individuals overcome overwhelm and make progress towards their goals. Corrie left us with this inspirational piece of advice, ‘If you want to live an extraordinary life it takes extraordinary actions.’

Matthew Reynolds

“When was your first run-in with the word ‘success’?” Matthew asked us this question to explore how much of our authentic thinking is our own. Through shared stories, Matthew invited us to think about what it means to buy into success. When we deep dive into this concept, we realize that it has nothing to do with belonging. Which truly brings you joy: success or belonging? Matthew believes that we, as humans, can be so much more. We have inner potential that can come forward and into the world. The magic that we cultivated when we were children, more connected to this planet and all its wonders, is not lost. Matthew hopes that after his session, we may have encountered tools that can help us create what we need to be authentically ourselves, and thus live our biggest, fullest, and brightest lives.

John Rabasa

The first rule of improv is known as “Yes and.” This rule encourages participants to accept and build on the ideas put forth by their fellow improvisers. The next important aspect of improv is the offer, which prevents “Yes and” from becoming chaotic. John, a well-known figure in the improvisational theater community, gave us the tool known as “the magic circle,” an imaginary space that contains any conflicts that may arise during the improv performance.

Going beyond the warm-up games and the “Yes, and” principle, there is a core principle about improv that comes from Keith Johnstone, the founder of Theatersports. Many people believe that the main benefit of improv is its ability to inspire “out of the box” thinking since it is off-script and off-score. However, the true importance of improv lies in what happens in the room, specifically the group dynamics that emerge among the participants.

The principles of improv go beyond just being off-script or off-score. It’s about how participants work together as a group, accepting and building on each other’s ideas in a contained and supportive environment. With the “Yes and” rule and tools like “the magic circle,” we can create an atmosphere that encourages creativity and collaboration, leading to an engaging and memorable improv performance.

Amy Luckey

Amy Luckey kindly invited us to participate in “Inclusion in Action”, an interactive workshop focused on creating a more inclusive environment. During the workshop, we were split into small groups and given the opportunity to share instances where we felt welcome and a sense of belonging. These discussions led to profound insights and revelations, which we all shared with each other.

As facilitators of this workshop, we possess a unique ability to guide our clients towards more inclusive organizational practices. From the initial design process through to the event and follow-up, our choices and approach signal to participants the extent to which we value their full participation.

This highly interactive workshop was unexpectedly intimate, and participants co-learned with their colleagues in small groups. The experience enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges of creating an inclusive environment and motivated us to strive for even more inclusive experiences in the future. By actively incorporating these insights and revelations into our work, we can foster an environment where all individuals feel valued and included.

Eric Brown

Eric Brown, drawing from his extensive experience in Special Operations, presented a systematic approach to the group known as the Green Beret Approach. This approach involves a repeatable process for addressing any opportunity or challenge, which includes the steps of imbed, learn, and discover shared experiences. By following this process, Eric argued that even the greatest problems faced by the nation could be solved by small teams.

Eric’s approach is rooted in the idea that no challenge is insurmountable if approached with the right mindset and methodology. By embedding oneself within the problem, whether that be a new business venture or a complex societal issue, one can gain a deeper understanding of the problem at hand. From there, the learning process can begin, allowing for an exploration of the various factors that contribute to the challenge.

Once a thorough understanding has been gained, the process of discovering shared experiences can take place. This step involves identifying and leveraging existing knowledge, skills, and resources from both within and outside of the team. By tapping into these shared experiences, solutions can be developed that are innovative, effective, and sustainable.

Eric’s message to the group is clear: no problem is too big to be solved with the right team and the right approach. With the Green Beret Approach, any opportunity or challenge can be tackled systematically and effectively, leading to positive outcomes for all involved.

Robin Arcega

Mentorship is the process of sharing knowledge, experience, and skills with someone who is less experienced or knowledgeable. To Robbin, mentorship is a way to help others achieve their goals and reach their full potential. Being a mentor means taking the time to listen, guide, and support your mentee as they navigate their personal and professional growth. Conversely, being a mentee means being open to learning from someone with more experience and taking proactive steps to achieve your goals.

While mentorship may seem like a selfless act, it’s important to consider our motivations for becoming mentors. Do we want to give back to our community, share our expertise, or expand our network? By understanding our motivations, we can better align our efforts with our personal and professional goals.

As mentors, it’s essential to break down what we’re able to provide for our mentees. A useful framework to consider is the “mentor FACT” approach, which stands for Facilitator, Advisor, Coach, and Teacher. As facilitators, we can help our mentees identify their strengths and weaknesses, and provide resources to help them improve. As advisors, we can offer guidance and support as they make important decisions. As coaches, we can help our mentees set and achieve goals, and provide feedback on their progress. As teachers, we can share our knowledge and experience to help our mentees develop new skills and perspectives.

Robbin showed us mentorship is a valuable tool for personal and professional growth. By understanding our motivations and using a framework like mentor FACT, we can provide effective mentorship and help our mentees achieve their full potential.

Zach Montroy

During his presentation, Zach led us on a thought-provoking journey that explored the power of emotional intelligence in fostering meaningful connections. As a facilitator, he emphasized the importance of understanding and harnessing emotions as an emotional scientist. One critical aspect of facilitation is the ability to accurately receive emotions, both within oneself and from others. However, it’s not uncommon for our emotions to take over our experiences, clouding our judgment and interfering with effective communication.

Zach provided us with four valuable tools to help manage our emotions and cultivate a safe and supportive environment for everyone involved. Firstly, he stressed the importance of creating a “safe container,” a metaphorical space where everyone feels comfortable expressing their thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or criticism.

Secondly, Zach introduced the concept of “meta-moments,” which involves taking a step back from an intense emotional situation and reflecting on what is happening in the moment. By doing so, individuals can gain a better understanding of their emotional responses and how to manage them in a constructive way.

The third tool was the “mood meter,” which involves identifying and tracking one’s emotions throughout the day. By regularly checking in with oneself, individuals can better understand their emotional states and develop strategies to manage their emotions effectively.

Lastly, Zach emphasized the importance of building trust, courage, and connections in a facilitation setting. Trust and courage enable individuals to take risks and be vulnerable, while connections help build a sense of community and support.

In conclusion, Zach’s presentation highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence in facilitating meaningful connections. By utilizing the tools he presented, individuals can learn to manage their emotions, cultivate a supportive environment, and build deeper connections with others.

Virtual Speakers

Andrew Otwell

Andrews session showed us that as facilitators, our goal is to empower the groups we work with to effectively advocate for the ideas and decisions they have generated during our sessions. To achieve this, we aim to create an “impact” that enables them to be persuasive, memorable, and effective on their own, even after the session has ended. We recognize that every participant will have a story to share about the meeting, and by collaboratively co-authoring these stories, teams can more intentionally communicate their impact to others within their organization. To incorporate this approach into our facilitation work, we will use a product design workshop as an example and work together to identify key characters, challenges, emotions, and transformations to rewrite the story into a compelling and unforgettable narrative.

Amy Lee

Psychological Safety (PS) is a continuous process without a clear endpoint or completion. It is common to assume that the work is finished once it feels complete, but this is not the case for project teams and psychological safety. Regular retrospectives serve as essential milestones in this ongoing process. By reinforcing the importance of psychological safety throughout a project’s life cycle, teams can exponentially increase their impact, creating a contagious effect. While the innovation and change journey may have its ups and downs, focusing on crucial moments can help to smooth out the bumps. In this talk, Amy provided a brief overview of psychological safety and its significance. She also share practical tools and techniques to incorporate psychological safety into your project lifecycle, with a particular emphasis on retrospectives.

Florentine Versteeg

Participation is an essential aspect of many processes, requiring a shared understanding between individuals. Facilitators play a crucial role in breaking down barriers and promoting mutual comprehension. However, how does language impact this dynamic? How can inclusivity be fostered while recognizing linguistic diversity? What approaches and strategies can be employed to establish a multilingual environment?

Florence took us on a journey of exploration delves into the significance of native languages and examines the fundamental and practical methods of ensuring everyone feels included, regardless of linguistic differences.

Marisa Davis

As a facilitator, it’s important to make the most of every moment in a meeting, as time is limited for making an impact. Marisa created a personalized warm-up game can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your workshops and promote lasting transformation. We were all invited to experience the collaborative game that my team uses in our feedback training, discover our design process, and begin exploring ways to develop your own game. The group loved the participation, the collaboration and the team-work!

Andi Cuddington

In this workshop, the conventional belief that failure is something to be dreaded and kept hidden will be challenged. Instead, we shifted our mindset and recognize that failure is an opportunity for growth and development. Through research and personal experiences, we will explore the benefits of embracing failure as a skill that can be honed and practiced. The workshop provided a safe and supportive environment for participants to share their own experiences with failure and learn from one another. To solidify these concepts, we engaged in practical exercises where we intentionally practice failing, building resilience, and shifting our perspective on failure. The group enjoyed the workshop, and participants left with a newfound understanding of failure and we all left with the tools to turn it into a valuable learning experience.

We are always expanding our community and striving for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we cannot wait to see what next year’s Control the Room holds for us all! 

FREE DOWNLOAD

Get Our Work Now 2023

After going remote during COVID-19, many organizations continue to offer remote or hybrid options to workers in higher numbers than ever before. This survey is a snapshot of that work, offering snapshots of the lived experiences of both hybrid and remote workers. Of the 210 individuals we surveyed, most or all identifying as leaders in remote or hybrid workplaces and teams, we share herein the stories from the data that will help readers understand the current trends in remote and hybrid work and, even more importantly, what the future holds for hybrid and remote workers.

Get It Now

The post Facilitation Lab Summit 2023 Recap appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2022 was an absolute success! We hosted our annual facilitator summit alongside our partner, MURAL. Our wonderful connection between the live event and the virtual world, hosted by Mark Tippin, Director of Strategic Next Practices, Mark facilitated “Mind Shift” sessions, where he guided our attendees through a dialog about how everyone was impacted by the talks. He engaged both in-person and virtual attendees through our various activities in our conference mural. It was inspiring to have so many people joining in different ways and everyone getting the chance to communicate.

We also partnered with SAFE this year to support and honor a lost colleague, Jenni Robertson. The dedication of this summit comes after losing a coworker, mother, and friend to family violence, and Voltage Control has pledged to work with SAFE to stop family violence for everyone. We wanted to take a moment and look back on all of the moments of insight, knowledge, and growth we all took part in over the course of the summit.

This year’s summit theme was SHIFTS, and as we move into 2022 we have seen shifts in the way we work, the way we connect, and the way we honor one another.

This year we hosted 18 facilitators in a hybrid space. We were live in-person, on Zoom, and even created our own Control the Room VR space, and we must say the event, even with a few technical issues, turned out to be a hub of idea sharing and growing with each other. 

Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session, and each session was filled with a sense of community, play, and story-telling.

So the power flows in many directions. Right? And if you’re talking about power in a certain circumstance, you’re talking about maybe power over. Maybe you’re talking about power with, but you’re also talking about what are the cues that you are getting from other people to be able to determine what you are able to do? What is your agency? How many people, when they were thinking about a time that they felt powerful were like, “Oh yes, I had influence over a thing.” “People looked to me to make a decision.” That’s how we often think about power.

Nakia Winfield

What makes you powerful? What is the moment you felt powerful? What social cues did you pick up on? Nakia invited us all to look inside and feel our power, not only for ourselves but to understand how to include everyone. When you begin to understand that ‘with great power comes great responsibility, you begin to tap into your privilege and how that makes others feel within conversations. Nakia encouraged us all to acknowledge what is happening and ask how do we include everyone.

Watch Nakia Winfield speak on ‘ Exploring Complexities of Power to Cultivate Authentic Inclusions ’:

So when we talk about a time when we felt powerful, oftentimes our shoulders will be back. Our voice will be louder. We’ll be more confident in our delivery. We’ll have more eye contact and that will sometimes bubble over to the next hour, the next day, and sometimes the next weeks. We’re like “Oh yes, we felt powerful.” Conversely, if you have a time that you felt powerless and you recount it, sometimes your shoulders get hunched over, you talk more slowly, you talk more softly. You’re less confident in your decisions. You might not make eye contact. And that also bubbles over into the next day or weeks, depending on the story that you told and how impactful it is for you. So what are the ways in which we code those things? When people are like “I’m going to come up to you confidently and tell you a thing.”

Nakia Winfield

Nakia Winfield:

Thank you. Hey, y’all, I want to point out that it was supposed to be chicken teriyaki, but it was peas. That’s not okay. Anyway, hi, so glad to be with y’all this afternoon. I’m going to invite you into a discussion. So, everyone keeps asking me, “Are you nervous?” And I was like, “No, I’m not nervous. They’re having the conversation. I’m not having the conversation.” So I think maybe I read the assignment wrong. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to have y’all just jump right in to getting into pairs. And we’re going to have a little bit of a conversation about power because that’s what I do. Oh, I should probably introduce myself.

Nakia Winfield:

Hi, I’m Nakia. What I do is I look at power dynamics in social systems. I love systems accountability. I love systems maintenance. I love the word accountability. I’m like the one so I’m very weird about that, but we’ll talk a little bit about power. We’re just going to dip our toe in because 18 minutes is not a long time to talk about a subject that I could talk about for three months and still not be done with. So I am going to have y’all moving around a little bit. All right. Did the thing happen? Oh, there we go. Yay. I like it when tech works.

Nakia Winfield:

Okay. So I want you to recount a time that you felt powerful. So I’m going to give you a minute and a half. If you want to write some things down, you’re welcome to do that. If you just want to think about it by yourself, that’s totally fine. But just individually, what’s a time that you felt powerful? And not like “I climbed a mountain and I was so strong” but just what in a social situation made it so you felt powerful? What are the circumstances that set it up so that you felt that way? What are the social cues that you were able to see that indicated that you were having some power there? Were you deferred to, were you dictated to, were you centered? Things like that. Actually, I’m going to give you just one minute. Not a minute and a half, time is already gone. So one minute and then we’ll put you into pairs so you can talk about it.

Nakia Winfield:

All right, I see some of y’all are still writing some things down. Go ahead and finish up that last thought. For those of y’all on Zoom, you should be in pairs too. I think Mike or Eric is going to set it up so that y’all are able to have this conversation and join us with that. So go ahead and jump and find yourself a pair. If you are non-ambulatory, if you need to sit down and stay where you are for a minute, go ahead and do that. If you are somebody who likes to move around a lot, make sure that you find those people. We take care of each other here. So go find a pair. You’ve got three minutes total to find somebody and talk about your experience.

Nakia Winfield:

What stood out? What did you notice? And this is popcorn. I told y’all, this is a discussion. And if y’all are on Zoom, go ahead and throw some things in chat. Don, who is my amazing assistant today is going to be collecting jewels from chat and asking them in the room. So what did y’all find? What did y’all notice? Yes, [inaudible 00:03:26].

Unnamed female participant 1 :

With great power comes great responsibility.

Nakia Winfield:

With great power comes great responsibility. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?

Unnamed female participant 1 :

Well, it’s Spiderman. But it also invites us to take very seriously the choices we make when we’re in a position where power is conferred on us. That is not something to be held lightly. It’s something to be taken very seriously.

Nakia Winfield:

Power is not to be held lightly. What is the power that is conferred on us? Yes. Other things, yes.

Unnamed male participant 1 :

We have different definitions of power. And that defined the relationship aversion. Some of us didn’t like the words “power, influence, impact”. And then it differed in terms of how that power was either deferred or projected on us versus the power that we felt of influence in our own direct sphere.

Nakia Winfield:

Yes. What is power defined as? Can we even agree on what that means? And is it fraught with implications that are larger? You need to come to a larger workshop. We’re going to talk a whole lot about power. Yes.

Unnamed female participant 1 :

Back to how power’s defined, I actually dismissed the first thing that came to mind, which is, I feel power and empowered almost in my daily interactions, especially retail customer service. But the way you phrased it like, “Are you centered? Are you deferred to?” And I was like, I don’t even think of that as power, but that’s power that I feel all the time.

Nakia Winfield:

Yeah. Are we centered? Are we deferred to, and how we do not think about that as power. Power is often invisibilised when we have it, and you have to go searching for the places that you are powerful because we just don’t notice it when we have power. Other thoughts. Yes, Annie.

Annie:

And power is also this reciprocal relationship. It takes the other to be involved in that relationship.

Nakia Winfield:

Power is a reciprocal relationship that takes another person to be involved in. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Annie:

I’m sorry to call you out, but he’s a coach to his daughter’s basketball team and he was talking about how he has the power to be both a coach, but it totally depends on them to play the game for them to win. And I was just thinking of so many power dynamics where we forget about this flow.

Nakia Winfield:

Yeah. So the power flows in many directions. Right? And if you’re talking about power in a certain circumstance, you’re talking about maybe power over. Maybe you’re talking about power with, but you’re also talking about what are the cues that you are getting from other people to be able to determine what you are able to do? What is your agency? How many people, when they were thinking about a time that they felt powerful were like, “Oh yes, I had influence over a thing.” “People looked to me to make a decision.” That’s how we often think about power. I want us to think about power in a couple of different ways, but we’re not going to have time to go into a whole lot of them, because we got eight minutes left, y’all. Power is real.

Nakia Winfield:

So when doing this exercise, I often have people talk about a time when they feel powerless as well. When you think about a time when you feel powerless, you often have more nuance, you have more complexity in the observations that you make. So I’m going to encourage you all to think about a time that you felt powerless at some point in time that’s not in this room right now. Or maybe a little bit later, maybe with your colleagues, maybe at home, you’ll be able to find a richer conversation. Because again, when we have power, we often don’t notice it. We don’t see it.

Nakia Winfield:

When you think about a time when you felt powerless, often people will say “People didn’t make eye contact with me. People interrupted me a lot. They didn’t even notice that they were interrupting me. People’s body language shifted away from me.” And again, maybe they didn’t even notice it. “I tried to come and talk to a group of people and they just dissipated and I couldn’t make a connection with anybody in the room.” There’s a lot of different ways when we’d feel powerless that we’re able to see nuance and specific things.

Nakia Winfield:

Oh, you know what? I’m not going to do that yet. So how did your body feel when you were talking about a time that you felt powerful?

Unnamed female participant 2:

Shy.

Nakia Winfield:

Shy? Okay. Tell me more about that.

Unnamed female participant 1 :

I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t like the word power, But as I kept talking about it and I saw that they felt the same, I started getting straighter. Like, it’s okay. I can talk about this.

Nakia Winfield:

Yeah. Sometimes when we think about power and we’re like, “I don’t want to have power.” That seems like the bad people thing. And I just want to be responsible for my own things. And so we feel a little bit shy about it. How about other people when you’re thinking about a time that you felt powerful, how did your body feel? Thank you, Doug. Just getting it to people.

Unnamed female participant 3:

I felt confident because the thing that was driving my power is something that I’m passionate about. And so, because of that passion, I have the confidence. But without that passion, I would feel powerless. Yeah, I imagine so.

Nakia Winfield:

Yeah, thank you. So when we talk about a time when we felt powerful, oftentimes our shoulders will be back. Our voice will be louder. We’ll be more confident in our delivery. We’ll have more eye contact and that will sometimes bubble over to the next hour, the next day, and sometimes the next weeks. We’re like “Oh yes, we felt powerful.” Conversely, if you have a time that you felt powerless and you recount it, sometimes your shoulders get hunched over, you talk more slowly, you talk more softly. You’re less confident in your decisions. You might not make eye contact. And that also bubbles over into the next day or weeks, depending on the story that you told and how impactful it is for you. So what are the ways in which we code those things? When people are like “I’m going to come up to you confidently and tell you a thing.”

Nakia Winfield:

Like if they do that in a job interview, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” This is a confident person. They know what they’re talking about. It means that they’re competent. It means that they’re trustworthy. They’re making eye contact with you. That means that you can trust me. I’m not hiding anything from you. But if I’m shy and I’m looking away, we code that as untrustworthy. We code it as non-confident. There are bigger implications in the way that we come off. And those things show up in our room.

Nakia Winfield:

When we are facilitating, the way that people show up is they bring themselves into the room with them. So a lot of times when we are facilitating, we will try to flatten hierarchies. When you’re talking about liberating structures, I love liberating structures. And the idea is you’re trying to flatten the hierarchy. So the boss isn’t the only one that’s got the ideas. We’re going to get everybody’s ideas, but we bring ourselves into the room and we bring our own hierarchies that we have. And so those patterns that we have of discussion and engagement come with us. So if you have a room that has four women and one man, theoretically, who’s going to be talking more? If you were looking statistically, guys are going to take up a lot more space and they’re not going to notice. And this goes for any power dynamic. This doesn’t just have to be for gender. Any power dynamic that is present in the room. People who are in the dominant will take up more space. They will not notice. All of these things will come out as we’re going through this.

Nakia Winfield:

So one of the things that I think is really important is instead of just building a container where people feel powerful, we have to build a container where people do not feel powerless. And that’s a different thing that you’re looking at when you’re thinking about “How am I going to make people powerful? I’m going to give them all the power to make all the decisions.” You don’t necessarily have to do that. What we do have to do is think about what are ways in which that subtle nuance comes in and how do we diffuse it in the room? How are we engaging in those microinteractions that make it so that people have a sense of safety, dignity, belonging, worth, value, humanity? All of the things that we’ve been talking about today, does that make sense, y’all? Yeah, right.

Nakia Winfield:

So one of the things that I want to encourage y’all to do is when we think about these amazing stories where you’re like, “Oh, this is so inspirational.” So how many people have seen this video where there’s a woman who is taking her friend out to dinner in a very fancy restaurant? The friend is blind and it’s her birthday. And the friend who is taking her out has conspired with the wait staff to come out with little chocolate drops in braille that say “happy birthday” before they bring the cake out. So he is like “Aw, that’s super sweet.” This is a way of inclusion. The woman was so happy. She was like, “Oh, you guys.” She couldn’t believe it. She was so excited.

Nakia Winfield:

And it is inspirational. It’s also a systems fail because for most of us, when we get a menu, it’s in a language that we can read. This is not a surprising thing for us. What it is is an opportunity for us to be inclusive. And it is a highlight that this person has not been included so often that literally just getting little chocolate drops that say “happy birthday” is mind-blowing. And we know that this is the case for so many people, because everybody on the internet was also like “Oh my gosh, this is so great.” What I want you to do is I want you to acknowledge those times that happens, which is amazing. And then go, how do we fix the systems that are holding this together? How do we make it so that this is not a one off, but this is a regular thing?

Nakia Winfield:

And one of the ways that we have to do that is by looking at our own privileges and where we have our own power. Everybody can read that sign in this room, theoretically. How are we making sure that we’re including other people in this? Because when you can get people of the room to feel a sense of their own power, to feel that inclusion, it lays the foundation for more authentic, inclusive, and generative conversations. We can just have better outcomes and better experiences if we include everybody in the room. Thank you.

The post Exploring Complexities of Power to Cultivate Authentic Inclusion appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2022 was an absolute success! We hosted our annual facilitator summit last week and our makeup sessions alongside our partner, MURAL. Our wonderful connection between the live event and the virtual world, hosted by Mark Tippin, Director of Strategic Next Practices, Mark facilitated “Mind Shift” sessions, where he guided our attendees through a dialog about how everyone was impacted by the talks. He engaged both in-person and virtual attendees through our various activities in our conference mural. It was inspiring to have so many people joining in different ways and everyone getting the chance to communicate.

We also partnered with SAFE this year to support and honor a lost colleague, Jenni Robertson. The dedication of this summit comes after losing a coworker, mother, and friend to family violence, and Voltage Control has pledged to work with SAFE to stop family violence for everyone. We wanted to take a moment and look back on all of the moments of insight, knowledge, and growth we all took part in over the course of the summit. 

This year’s summit theme was SHIFTS, and as we move into 2022, we have seen shifts in the way we work, connect, and honor one another.

This year we hosted 18 facilitators in a hybrid space. We were live in-person, on Zoom, and even created our own Control the Room VR space, and we must say the event, even with a few technical issues, turned out to be a hub of idea sharing and growing with each other. 

Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session, and each session was filled with a sense of community, play, and story-telling.

The Generation Trap: Moving Past Dated Labels

They went to people and asked them to identify what generation they thought they were in. Y’all, they even gave them options. They weren’t asking them to just make up some cohort. They were asking their option and most people could not put themselves in the right group. So if that doesn’t tell you that this is a completely artificial construct that does nothing but limit us and keep us apart from one another, I don’t know what else you need. It’s aggravating.

Jennifer Houlihan

Generational divides and identity are not real. When asked what ‘generation’ they fall into, a surprising number of people will pick the wrong one. Narratives like ‘Boomers are bad at new technology’ or ‘Millennials are entitled’ contribute to ageism and create constraints in how we treat our own potential. Reverse mentoring is something we should all keep in the front of our minds. If you do not have a mentor that is younger than you, you need to get one! Keep yourself relevant, inspired, and on a path of lifelong learning! 

Watch Jennifer Houlihan speak on ‘ How To Lead Trauma-Informed Meetings The Generation Trap: Moving Past Dated Labels :

There’s an example that Douglas was talking about the other day, this idea of a physical histogram that you might put people together in your organization and say, “All right, all the people who love Joni Mitchell come to the front.” They’re all not going to look the same. They’re all not going to be the same age. There’s going to be a wide variety in your organization so can you start playing with that?

Jennifer Houlihan

Jennifer Houlihan:

Hello, my friends. Oh, there is so much to tell you, but let me start here.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Once upon a time, it was my first day of school and I had my new jeans on. I had my new sneakers. I had my big red backpack and I was ready for the first day of school.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Unfortunately, I was late. So when I got into the classroom, there was only one seat left and it was right in front of where the teacher had all of their stuff set up. And I squeezed my way in just trying to be cool, being late, being the last person there. And I managed with my new big red backpack to knock over some water that immediately went spilling toward the teaching materials and I panicked.

Jennifer Houlihan:

I’m the oldest daughter in an Irish Catholic family. So of course I decided I would fix this. And I ran out to get paper towels. Couldn’t find them anywhere. Eventually found my way to a kitchen where there were some paper towels. Got them, realized I was lost and could not find my way back to the classroom.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Eventually got back into the classroom and victoriously flung open the door, had the paper towels ready to be of service, ready to help. And it was already cleaned up because there was a classroom that already had paper towels in it ready for just this sort of thing. But everybody knew my name by the end of the first day of class, which was great because I was 54 years old when I did that. Sherry knows because she was there. It wasn’t Sherry’s computer the water was heading for, fortunately.

Jennifer Houlihan:

But that is not where I thought I was going to be when I was 54 years old, running around like a crazy person with a big red backpack and sneakers looking for paper towels. That is not what I thought 54 was going to look like.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So I will invite you to take a moment to think back when you were a kid. Maybe you’re old enough to have remembered, “I wonder what I’m going to be like when it hits the year 2000?” But a lot of you are not old enough to do that.

Jennifer Houlihan:

But think back when you were a kid, what did you think being older was going to look like? What did you think you were going to look like when you were older? Because my bet is that you were wrong. My bet is that you have turned out to be someone much more glorious and interesting and exciting than you ever would’ve imagined at that time.

Jennifer Houlihan:

But what I’m going to be talking about today, yes, we’ll be talking about generations certainly. But one of the things I want to point out is that there is so much money being spent on this kind of thing. I hope there are no generational consultants in the room. The US businesses spend more than $100 million a year on generational consulting.

Jennifer Houlihan:

The flip side to that is that when there was meta-analysis done of 20 different studies looking at more than 20,000 different people, their attitudes, their perspectives, how they chose to live their life, how they chose to operate in the workplace, they’ve found that generations basically didn’t exist.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So officially, I guess my presentation here to you today is to talk about the generation trap. But I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this. So if you’re on Zoom, maybe don’t listen, but generation are bullshit, y’all.

Jennifer Houlihan:

That is what I’m here to tell you. They are arbitrary. They come from nowhere, they are marketing tricks and they do not bear any resemblance to the humans that you are going to be encountering in your life, in the groups that you’re facilitating and the groups that you’re working with.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So let’s just put that out there now. We’ve maybe given this image, but it is useless. It is not something that is going to help us at all. The fact is that there was a big study done by Pew and they’re they’re fancy, right? Pew Research. They know what they’re doing.

Jennifer Houlihan:

They went to people and asked them to identify what generation they thought they were in. Y’all, they even gave them options. They weren’t asking them to just make up some cohort. They were asking their option and most people could not put themselves in the right group.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So if that doesn’t tell you that this is a completely artificial construct that does nothing but limit us and keep us apart from one another, I don’t know what else you need. It’s aggravating.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Here’s a quote I love because it doesn’t have square words in it, but I still love it. And it’s that, “The idea of generations is marketing. It’s a modern form of snake oil. It is a way to try to explain the ills in society.”

Jennifer Houlihan:

“Oh, millennials don’t care about this.” “Oh, boomers are a pain in the neck.” None of that is true. And all of it is reductive and it makes us small. And you know, I hate that.

Jennifer Houlihan:

The fact is that we’re all aging. We’re all getting older. And one of the things that is so important, Matthew talked about it; Steven talked about it today, is the sense of belonging… That if we want forward momentum, if we want movement, if we want progress, if we want to advance toward our aspirations, people need to feel as though they belong with one another and to one another.

Jennifer Houlihan:

And aging, if we are all so fortunate, is the only group that all of us are eventually going to be part of, right?If we play our cards right, we eat the healthy food provided by Voltage Control, and we don’t eat too much of that rice, although gosh, it was good, wasn’t it? We are going to age.

Jennifer Houlihan:

And the great thing is a lot of businesses now are paying attention to this, but not enough. Well, DEI programs are on the rise as they rightfully should be. As we begin to start to recognize the whole human as they come into the workplace.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Only 8% of companies are addressing ageism as part of their DEI efforts because it’s kind of invisible, right? These generational labels that we use as shorthand are just taken for granted that we can talk to each other that way and say, “Oh, we need…” They used to have bean bags over here and Josh would say, oh yeah, because the millennials want bean bags. Well, not necessarily. Millennials don’t necessarily want a particular kind of furniture.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So here’s my sigh of relief that I have around issues like this. And this is a quote from Zaza… Oh shoot, didn’t I practice this too? Kabayadondo… Kabayadondo from Sesame Workshop. And her perspective is this: that design is implicated in all social problems.

Jennifer Houlihan:

The reason for that is because oppression and exclusion and cutting people out and making people feel less than, or small or different than, or othered is not part of the natural order of things. That’s something we create. And if we can create it, we can uncreate it. Yes, so I knew I was with my people.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So my invitation to you, as we continue to explore these things is to think about where design and design thinking might come into play. And some of these more thorny issues in our workplace, even when it comes to things like policy, we’re all probably pretty familiar with this basic framework, but I just want to share it with you.

Jennifer Houlihan:

I’m a pretty new facilitator myself so I appreciate the reminders. Sometimes there are a lot of frameworks out there. So the design framework we’ll be talking about today starts with empathizing, right? You want to get into the mindset of the people that you are trying to serve and connect with. You want to define what the issues are. You want to ideate, brainstorm, come up with some solutions and then hopefully prototype and test. We’re not going to do all of that today, unfortunately, but I’m working on a longer workshop.

Jennifer Houlihan:

But we’ll start here. Right? So let’s talk about empathizing. This is a great place to start. If you think about your workplace or think about the team that you work with, it is so important to remember that ageism and age bias doesn’t just move in one direction.

Jennifer Houlihan:

HR complaints, more than 40% of those come from people who are under 40 in the workplace who are being made to feel less than, who are made to feel that their contributions aren’t significant, that they aren’t ready to participate in those conversations. Comments like, “You girls, could you take that chatter over to… I’m trying to work here.”

Jennifer Houlihan:

That kind of thing, you might not necessarily think of it as ageism. There’s some misogyny in there too. There’s there’s probably a whole bunch of intersections happening, but that’s a real thing that happens. It is not just people on the older end of the spectrum who are being marginalized. It can also be people who are newer to your organization, who perhaps don’t yet have the confidence to speak up.

Jennifer Houlihan:

And there is a lot to unpack here because when you think about it, yes, there’s a lot of external work that we could be doing, but internalized stereotypes are so powerful.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So one of my invitations to you is to see if there’s a way that you can start a conversation about that when you’re working with a group of people; if you’re noticing the folks on the younger end of the spectrum are not participating perhaps as vocally or as actively.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Is there a way that you can reach to them? There is a profound disconnect for so many young people in their belief in the contributions they can make in terms of reverse mentoring.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Anybody here over 30? Anybody here over 40? All right, if you’re over 40, you need a mentor under 30. And obviously, you can start here. I try to keep a couple on deck at any given time. And I’ve got a 16 year old and an 18 year old who help me keep it real. But thank you. Yeech is the word of the… Yeech is so over. Okay.

Jennifer Houlihan:

The next thing we want to move into is starting to define what the problem is, knowing your landscape. And I want to do a little bit of myth busting while we have our time together today and here are a couple things. There’s a lot on this screen, but the one I really want to call out is about young people. Young people are the ones learning new things. Sure, but so is everybody else.

Jennifer Houlihan:

When you look at the studies that are out there and people who are interested in self development, people who are pursuing new interests, you see that number does not decline significantly over a lifetime. It hangs out about 60%.

Jennifer Houlihan:

No matter if you’re talking to people who are just out of college, people who are thinking about grad school, people who are getting ready to retire or people who are thinking, “I’m not going to retire, I’m going to do this other super cool thing.” It’s about 60% of people are actively interested in learning new things.

Jennifer Houlihan:

There’s so many of these generalizations that we have been fed from the time that we were small and we’ve been talking about it all day, but we’ve got these opportunities as facilitators to help people unlearn some of these things and perhaps relearn something new, something fresh.

Jennifer Houlihan:

Then we want to ideate, and I would like to give you, yeah, you’ve got a couple of minutes. I would like you to give you the opportunity to get together at your tables and think about one of these opportunities in your workplace. Oh my goodness, and these glasses are new. I can’t read that. Let me go over here.

Jennifer Houlihan:

The idea is that we’ve got three options, right? The first thing that you can think about disrupting is the policies and procedures in your workplace. That might be something you want to tackle. That could be everything from family leave and what happens with childcare issues if school gets canceled. Apparently some schools have already been canceled in Austin for Friday. They’re just proactively canceling. So good luck with your childcare, y’all. So that’s one set of things you might look at. Let’s see what the other things are. Because you know, I can’t read those because they’re really small. All right.

Jennifer Houlihan:

The next one is to think about, do you have something in place in your organization where you can start to avoid generational emphasis? Do you have a young employees group? Do you have a group especially for people over 40? Do you have a boomers club or something like that in your organization? And if you do, how might you unpack that?

Jennifer Houlihan:

There’s an example that Douglas was talking about the other day, this idea of a physical histogram that you might put people together in your organization and say, “All right, all the people who love Joni Mitchell come to the front.” They’re all not going to look the same. They’re all not going to be the same age. There’s going to be a wide variety in your organization so can you start playing with that?

Jennifer Houlihan:

When I did this workshop previously, one example of a group I came up with was the idea of playlists and having different ages of people put playlists together and seeing what kind of variety of music that everybody found compelling.

Jennifer Houlihan:

And then the last one is, are there some opportunities? You may not be at the top of the org chart or in a position where you can change organizational policy, but you can model, right? You can lead by example. So maybe that’s something that you can think about.

Jennifer Houlihan:

How might you lead by example in busting some of these myths and getting people to shift their thinking away from boomers, always and millennials, never to thinking about the actual individual humans that you’re working with.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So if you wouldn’t mind, just have an informal discussion. In your Zoom rooms, you might want to do more of a thoughtful reflection or a journaling, or you can certainly put it in Mural. Thank you to our sponsor. But I’ll give you two minutes, two minutes for that.

Group:

[inaudible 00:17:02].

Jennifer Houlihan:

All right, let’s bring it back. All eyes on me. I didn’t wear this dress for nothing. Thank you.

Jennifer Houlihan:

So let me just close with a couple of pro tips. If you want these, I’m happy to send you these slides. There’s way too much text on here. But the main important thing is finding that mentor… The mentor who’s not you. You’re not your user and this is a perfect example.

Jennifer Houlihan:

I want to share with just someone who inspires me. You’ve probably seen this meme a time or two. How did you feel as kids? This is our friend, Steve Buschemi. And I am pleased to tell you that this Halloween, this is from Halloween 2021, he dressed up as that meme and gave out candy on his front step because he’s a badass. If you’ll notice the Twitter account is Wu-Tang Is For The Children, which is an important Twitter account to follow.

Jennifer Houlihan:

If you want to talk to me about TikTok, I’ll talk to you about that. Whatever you need I’m down with the kids. So thank you. Thank you for listening.

The post The Generation Trap: Moving Past Dated Labels appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2022 was an absolute success! We hosted our annual facilitator summit alongside our partner MURAL. Our wonderful connection between the live event and the virtual world, hosted by Mark Tippin, Director of Strategic Next Practices, Mark facilitated “Mind Shift” sessions, where he guided our attendees through a dialog about how everyone was impacted by the talks. He engaged both in-person and virtual attendees through our various activities in our conference mural. It was inspiring to have so many people joining in different ways and everyone getting the chance to communicate.

We also partnered with SAFE this year to support and honor a lost colleague, Jenni Robertson. The dedication of this summit comes after losing a coworker, mother, and friend to family violence and Voltage Control has pledged to work with SAFE to stop family violence for everyone. We wanted to take a moment and look back on all of the moments of insight, knowledge, and growth we all took part in over the course of the summit.

This year’s summit theme was SHIFTS, and as we move into 2022 we have seen shifts in the way we work, the way we connect, and the way we honor one another.

This year we hosted 18 facilitators in a hybrid space. We were live in-person, on Zoom, and even created our own Control the Room VR space, and we must say the event, even with a few technical issues, turned out to be a hub of idea sharing and growing with each other. 

Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session, and each session was filled with a sense of community, play, and story-telling.

How To Lead Trauma-Informed Meetings And Workshops

We are going to talk about how we as facilitators can approach our work from a trauma-informed perspective. Why this topic? Well, to state the obvious, COVID-19 has disrupted so many aspects of our lives and its impacts our felts in the deterioration of our mental health as a society and globally. It’s vital that in our work and in our personal lives, we go beyond business as usual and really start to see each other and look out for each other’s safety. We can do that.

Sandra Molinari

In an incredibly important conversation, Sandra invited us to begin practicing how to lead trauma-informed conversations. This summit was dedicated to Jenni Robertson, a beloved coworker, mother, and friend who was lost tragically to family violence. Sandra, the Director of Stop Abuse For Everyone (SAFE), spoke on how we can all look for signs in our co-workers, friends, and family to prevent these tragedies from happening. She called on us to acknowledge that safety is everyone’s responsibility, and how important it is to not be the hero but to care. Being seen, heard, and validated is the most important thing to remember when using your tool kit to help keep those in your life safe. 

Watch Sandra Molinari speak on ‘ How To Lead Trauma-Informed Meetings And Workshops ’:

Let’s acknowledge that we are all going through collective trauma, as I mentioned earlier. Between the pandemic, between climate change, between racial trauma and oppression that’s been going on of course for centuries in our country, but has been really talked about much more in the last two or three years, there is so much going on. Trauma can be defined as an experience that makes it really difficult to cope. It prevents regular coping mechanisms, if you will. Again, remember that trauma is not the event in itself, but our reaction to the event. It makes us feel powerless. It makes us feel disconnected.

Sandra Molinari

Sandra Molinari:

Well, good afternoon, everybody. You made it, you made it to the end of the day. I’m Sandra Molinari, my pronouns are she/her/hers. I’m delighted to be here with you this afternoon. I get to follow this amazing lineup of speakers with a very sobering topic, as you know and as Douglas has said.

We are going to talk about how we as facilitators can approach our work from a trauma-informed perspective. Why this topic? Well, to state the obvious, COVID-19 has disrupted so many aspects of our lives and its impacts our felts in the deterioration of our mental health as a society and globally. It’s vital that in our work and in our personal lives, we go beyond business as usual and really start to see each other and look out for each other’s safety. We can do that.

I don’t know if you know this, but studies in the… This was towards the beginning of the pandemic, showed that we one out of every three workers left their jobs because they felt that their companies didn’t care about them as people. We can do better.

In our work at SAFE, and as you’ve heard, we know that during the pandemic, interpersonal violence and abuse was exacerbated. Even in “normal times,” at least one out of every four women and one out of every seven men experienced domestic violence at some point in their lives. Of course we know the story of Jenni Robertson who was lost tragically last year, here at Voltage Control.

Domestic violence thrives in silence and in the shadows. To work towards ending this more insidious pandemic, it is vital that we bring it into the light. It’s vital that we understand how domestic violence manifests and find ways to provide a measure of safety to people who are experiencing danger.

The good news is that we as facilitators have a number of superpowers. Do you agree? Some of our superpowers include listening and connecting with people. I can assure you that these are tremendous skills to deploy when we want to support people who may be going through violence and abuse. Today, in the next few minutes, I’m going to offer you some simple tools for navigating awkward conversations where you feel like you may need to be supporting somebody who may be going through trauma, which it could include domestic violence.

I’d like to start with a story. I’m going to ask you to put yourselves in the shoes of this person who’s experiencing this, and then I’ll pose some questions for you. Kim is part of a 10 person team you’ve been working with for the past three months on a short term project. They’re one of the most engaged members, generally upbeat and confident sharing their ideas. However, after they were out sick for several days last week, you noticed a change in their overall demeanor. They seem sullen and withdrawn, distracted. Today, during the weekly team meeting, Kim leaves their camera off and doesn’t say much even when prompted. You don’t want to meddle, but you’re worried about Kim’s wellbeing. You don’t know what to do.

Just so for your mental inventory, what if Kim were going through some intimate partner violence at home? Now you might think this is a huge leap based on what we’ve just seen. We don’t know much about Kim, but it is certainly a possibility. It is certainly a possibility. What if they were going through something at home? What if the fact that you stepped out and asked them how were they were doing? If you meddled just a little bit? What if that helped them feel seen and valued and cared for? What we’ve learned in our work in almost five decades at SAFE… I have not been there for five decades, but what we’ve learned from all of that work at SAFE with survivors over and over again, is that being seen and heard and cared for even in the smallest ways can make all of the difference. We need to bring it out of the shadows, bring domestic violence out of the shadows and break the silence.

What we’ve also heard is so many survivors tell us, people at work, they knew something was going on. People in my family, nobody wanted to say anything, but people knew it was going on and nobody ever did anything. Nobody wanted to step in. Nobody thought it was their business. Yet that would’ve made all of the difference in the world. I’m here to tell you, we need to step in. We’re going to look at how. We’re not going to meddle, we’re not going to play the heroes, we’re not going to rescue, but we’re going to care for each other and look out for each other.

I want you to reflect for a moment, maybe a show of hands. Have you ever experienced something like this? I’m not asking if people have experienced domestic violence. I’m asking you, have you experienced something like this person who’s looking out and is concerned about Kim because something has changed? Have you ever seen this either in a group you’re in, in a workplace, with friends? I’m seeing a lot of hands. Yes, it’s very common. Anybody want to say a word or two about how that made you feel? Seeing somebody who is going through something that is distressing to them and you just don’t know what to do. What does that feel like?

Speaker 2:

[inaudible 00:06:34].

Sandra Molinari:

You feel very helpless, absolutely. All right.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:06:40]

Sandra Molinari:

Desperate. Helpless. I don’t know what to do. I want to help this person. I care for this person. Absolutely.

This is what we’re going to look at. Let’s acknowledge that we are all going through collective trauma, as I mentioned earlier. Between the pandemic, between climate change, between racial trauma and oppression that’s been going on of course for centuries in our country, but has been really talked about much more in the last two or three years, there is so much going on. Trauma can be defined as an experience that makes it really difficult to cope. It prevents regular coping mechanisms, if you will. Again, remember that trauma is not the event in itself, but our reaction to the event. It makes us feel powerless. It makes us feel disconnected.

I’m going to talk about one for form of trauma, which is domestic violence. I’m going to talk about it very briefly. Mind you, this is usually something we do in about an hour. I’m going to give you some very basics. I know a lot of you probably are familiar with some of it, but I would like us to ground for a moment. I’m going to take about 20 seconds, I’m going to have everybody… You can keep your eyes closed, or you can close your eyes if that feels comfortable or not. Please feel your… if you’re sitting down, feel your seat, feel your feet on the ground. Let’s take a big belly breath in… and out. Maybe another couple of breaths on your own. Then open your eyes if they were closed. I want you to look around the room and just mentally note some of the things that you’re seeing. I want you to understand that you are safe in this moment because these are the types of conversations that we have that can be very triggering. A lot of us have either gone through violence and abuse, know somebody who has, and this can set us back. Right now, look around. If you feel yourself being pulled away, look around the room, get up and move if you need to. Certainly step out if that’s what you need to do for your self care.

Domestic violence is basically a pattern of behaviors used to establish power and control over another person. For the purposes of today’s conversation we’re going to be talking about intimate dating, intimate partners in this case, or dating partners, if you will, but it could be other family members in the home. Abusive partners use a number of different kinds of tactics purposefully to exert that power and control and manipulate their partners. They do this through fear, through intimidation, isolation, which is really important. When we’re going to talk about being connected with people, it’s because they are feeling disconnected and isolated. There’s often a lot of humiliation. There could be emotional and psychological humiliation, or it could be sexual humiliation, and then threats and use of violence. It’s important to know that there is not always physical violence.

We have people… I used to… Well, I can’t say this anymore, but we used to have people in our shelter at SAFE that were there that were terrified, and they had been threatened with severe physical violence, but had never actually experienced the physical violence. The threats were enough. Unfortunately, these days there are such violence levels that we don’t have enough room for everybody. We have to take the people with the highest levels of violence, but we still have a lot of other services for folks.

As I said earlier, this affects at least one in four women and one in seven men, and people of all gender identities. It occurs across classes, across religions, ethnicity, sexual orientation, you name it. Now, it is an equal opportunity form of abuse, unfortunately. At the same time, what we see is that abusive partners prey on the vulnerabilities, or perceived vulnerabilities, of their partners. I’m going to give you a couple of examples and maybe you can come up with some others.

Again, vulnerabilities might be based on a person’s identities, maybe marginalized identities or health issues. For example, if somebody is an undocumented immigrant and a vulnerability for them might be the fact that they’re undocumented and that they don’t want to be deported. What some abusive partners might do is say, if you leave me, I’m going to take the children and I’m going to have you deported. Either, or, or both.

Another vulnerability could be if a person has substance use issues, but they’re able to have a job. Well, that partner again, could threaten them with, if you leave, if you don’t do this, if you don’t do that, I’m going to out you to your employer, or I’m going to keep the drugs away from you. All sorts of things to manipulate that person and keep the power over them.

Economic abuse is very common as well. You have somebody who cannot leave their partner because the partners holding the strings, they don’t let them have the job or they let them have a job and they keep all of their resources. Just to give you a few examples. Are there other examples that people have heard of or seen, of ways that abusive partners might exert that control over their partners? Yes. I’ve got a couple examples here. You need a mic?

Speaker 4:

One that I’ve heard is a common one, making them feel like they wouldn’t have anyone else without them.

Sandra Molinari:

Absolutely. That’s part of that isolation. Thank you.

You’re all alone in this world and I’m the only one who can help you. I’m the only one who can save you and you’re going to be completely dependent on me. Yes.

Speaker 5:

I was going to say a similar thing, limiting their relationships.

Sandra Molinari:

Absolutely. Limiting their relationships. Again, nobody else is going to understand you. Why would you want to go see your family? Am I not enough? Do you need to go see your friends? I love you, why are you leaving me all alone? There’s a lot of emotional manipulation that happens.

When we don’t understand these dynamics… And I’ve been here. I’ve been in both… I’ve experienced it, but before I experienced it, I had a good friend who was going through it. My question was, “Why don’t you just leave? Come on. You’re an intelligent person. Why don’t you just leave?” I’m embarrassed to say that I said that to her because I had no clue at the time. Of course, it happened to me 10 years later, and then I understood it a little bit better. There are a number of reasons why people can’t just leave, that we don’t have a whole lot of time to get into, but a few of the main ones are that it’s unsafe to leave. Something that you need to know, if you remember nothing else today, if you know somebody who’s in a domestic violence relationship, do not tell them they need to leave. Do not try to drag them away. Do not try to be the hero and rescue them. The time at which a person and is most at risk for danger is when they leave, after they’ve left, because that abusive partner has now lost control over them and that sends them off the rails. We have to be very careful with that.

Even without getting to that extreme, what we know is that most people in abusive relationships, not all of them, but most of them still love their partners. They just want them to change. Those partners, the abusive partners are really good at manipulating them and playing on their emotions and saying, “I’m going to change. I’m so sorry. Let’s go get therapy,” or, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that.” Maybe they pretend to change or maybe they really want to change and they start to. It brings that victim/survivor back in and then the cycle starts all over again. It’s really difficult to detach from that because these people who are abusive are not monsters 100% of the time. In fact, they can be quite charming and quite loving at certain times. Now, I’m not saying that you can ever show love through abuse, but they can have loving personalities in certain spaces and then still be controlling their partners. That makes it very, very complicated to pull yourself out of there. Then you have children. It’s not easy to leave when you have children. It’s not easy to leave if you need a roof over your head and your partner’s the one who’s… and you are dependent on your partner financially. There are a number of cultural reasons that we can imagine, and economic reasons.

What are some possible signs of abuse? I struggled with this, especially in such a short presentation because I mean, there’s a list here that is non-exhaustive. Some of the things that you want to be aware of is that, first of all, you’re going to notice these much more easily if you know the person, if you’ve been working with person for a while, or somebody in your family or your circle of friends.

Seeing somebody one off at a meeting that you’re facilitating, it’s unlikely that you will see or be able to detect a whole lot, other than the person might not be happy that day. They may be looking distressed, but you wouldn’t know if this is necessarily what they’re going through. Somebody that you do know that has lost interest in activities, that is withdrawn, that is no longer wanting to spend time with people they used to want to spend time with, a person who’s fearful, especially fearful of their partner, somebody who’s being constantly checked up on. That could be through social media, through text, receiving phone calls. A person who’s really nervous about not getting home on time. Just those sorts of things, where you feel like there’s a fear of their partner. Like I used to say to folks I would work with, survivors, you should never be afraid of your partner. You could be upset about an argument. You could say, I spent a little too much money. If you are… That person is scared, that’s not normal. There’s something going on.

What do you do if you think this is happening? I’ve got a slide here that is, if somebody does disclose abuse to you… Let’s see if it comes back. Here we go. First of all, this is unlikely unless you have an ongoing relationship with somebody and you know them. If they do disclose something, or they’re telling you something that’s going on that sounds like it could be intermit partner violence, which usually survivors won’t call it that, but you’re sensing this is pointing in that direction, you always start with empathy and belief. It doesn’t matter what the story sounds like to you. Maybe you know the partner that they’re saying is not treating them well and you’re thinking, surely that person, nah, he’s adorable. He’s such a nice guy. Or a nice woman for that matter. That doesn’t mean anything because that person can have a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality, as we call it. Believe that person. Make sure that they’re safe. Are they feeling safe now? Is there something that you can do to help with their safety? Don’t assume that they just want to leave, but maybe they need some psychological safety from you. That’s where you’re going to be most helpful Listen to them, validate what they’re saying.

We say empower and not rescue. That means follow their lead. If they’re saying no, there’s nothing I want to do right now. I just needed to get it off my chest, or I’m doing okay, follow their lead. You can say, “I’m really concerned for your safety,” if that’s what you’re feeling. If that’s what your gut is telling you, by all means, tell them that. Let them know what resources are out there and then follow their lead. What do you need? They might say, I don’t need anything right now. Then you follow up. You check in with them.

Again, this is going to be less difficult if you can have some kind of an ongoing relationship with them. Again, that’s staying connected. You want to listen, validate, and refer. You do not need to be an expert on domestic violence or trauma. These are simple things that you can do that can go a long way so that person feels seen, heard, and validated.

Again, as far as trauma informed conversations, I’m going to reiterate that. I love this quote by Brene Brown. “Connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives us purpose and meaning in our lives.” Because people who are experiencing trauma, regardless of the source, feel disconnected and feel a difficulty in coping with whatever they’re going through, we need to really stay connected to them.

Remember that trauma is a normal reaction to abnormal events. When we talk about trauma informed care, it means we ask people not what’s wrong with you, but, what happened to you? We want to try to understand what happened to them, even if they… They don’t need to tell us their entire story, but we want to understand that it’s a normal reaction to an abnormal and event and domestic violence is an abnormal event.

I’m going to leave you with some resources at the end. Before we do that, we have a few seconds. We’re coming back to this situation with Kim. I’m going to give you 30 seconds to talk with folks at your table, or think about what would you do or say, and how could you check in on Kim? This is the same situation we looked at in the beginning. What could you do? I’ll stop talking, give you a few seconds.

(silence)

Okay. Let’s bring it on back. Again, this is a very… this is very quick, I apologize for that. Could I get a comment or two on some things that you could do in this situation to help Kim feel seen and validated and cared for? Any thoughts?

Speaker 6:

I think you mentioned, just in those moments, they’re probably not going to come out and tell this is what’s going on, or I’m being hurt, or something like that. I think just saying to them, “I’ve noticed the last couple days, you seem a little down, is something going on? Is there something I can help with? I’m here.” Don’t make assumptions about what’s going on. Don’t make assumptions about what you think is happening, but just let them know that you’re here, you empathize, you care and you’re here to listen and not judge. That way, if they do have that comfort level at some point to come to you and talk to you, they know that you’re there waiting for them.

Sandra Molinari:

Thank you so much. Absolutely. Again, this idea is that they know that you’re there and they know you’re going to stick around. Because people will test us. We have another comment over here.

Speaker 7:

Hassan actually came up with this one, but he suggested, especially in the virtual world, a walk and call, instead of try to Slack message somebody or make it too public, to invite them, hey, get your phone, let me get your phone number, let’s go for a walk together and talk about whatever you want. You don’t even have to bring up the subject. I thought that was really nice.

Sandra Molinari:

Absolutely. Absolutely. This is that piece about really, really being seen and connecting with people and asking those open ended questions that Steven talked about. Awesome.

“The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed exactly as it is.” I love this quote by Parker Palmer. It is really difficult not to swoop in and try to save somebody, especially if we know that they’re going through violence at home. We want to give them resources, we want to tell them we’re there for them, and we want to take their lead, but we absolutely do want to give them resources or let them know that those resources are out there, that help exists.

There is the National Domestic Violence hotline here in the United States. We might have people calling from abroad, I’m not sure. You want to check where you’re calling from. Then the RAINN line is the sexual assault, National Sexual Assault line. In Austin, of course, people can reach out to us at SAFE. For services, everything is free, of course.

Again, if I leave you with nothing else, is that there’s a lot that we can all do. You don’t need to be an expert. Listen, validate, refer out. Then come to us at SAFE if anybody would like more information, more training, or has any questions about services. This is a 24 /7 safe line call, text or chat.

Again, thank you. Thank you for listening at the end of the day. Thank you for being here. Y’all are amazing. Thank you to Voltage Control and to MURAL. Thank you.

The post How To Lead Trauma-Informed Meetings And Workshops appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2022 was an absolute success! We hosted our annual facilitator summit alongside our partner MURAL. Our wonderful connection between the live event and the virtual world, hosted by Mark Tippin, Director of Strategic Next Practices, Mark facilitated “Mind Shift” sessions, where he guided our attendees through a dialog about how everyone was impacted by the talks. He engaged both in-person and virtual attendees through our various activities in our conference mural. It was inspiring to have so many people joining in different ways and everyone getting the chance to communicate.

We also partnered with SAFE this year to support and honor a lost colleague, Jenni Robertson. The dedication of this summit comes after losing a coworker, mother, and friend to family violence and Voltage Control has pledged to work with SAFE to stop family violence for everyone. We wanted to take a moment and look back on all of the moments of insight, knowledge, and growth we all took part in over the course of the summit.

This year’s summit theme was SHIFTS, and as we move into 2022 we have seen shifts in the way we work, the way we connect, and the way we honor one another.

This year we hosted 18 facilitators in a hybrid space. We were live in-person, on Zoom, and even created our own Control the Room VR space, and we must say the event, even with a few technical issues, turned out to be a hub of idea sharing and growing with each other. 

Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session, and each session was filled with a sense of community, play, and story-telling.

I Feel Good! It Is All About Body Image Positivity

I was an 11 pound baby. Any chance of me ever being skinny went out the door the moment I came out. And so that’s when I had that shift in my mindset. I decided I’m going to embrace who I am and embrace it to the fullest. So I decided I was going to approach it in three ways and embrace who God had designed me to be.

Nma Emeh

Faith. Family and Friends. Fashion. One of the toughest day-to-day activities that we all face is looking in the mirror and appreciating what is in front of us. Nma battled with a negative self-image, but there were three things that pulled her out of that negative space. Faith, embracing how God designed her to be. Family and friends, who could be wonderfully supportive, but who also have the tendency to be the first to point out faults. Fashion, ‘Fashion gave me a reason to be me.’ The mindset reset is triggered by the song: Put on Your Sunday Clothes from the musical “Hello, Dolly.”. Put on your best and feel your best! A loving reminder from King David ‘You are not a mistake, and that your soul should know very well.’ Psalm 139:13-14

Watch Nma Emeh speak on how ‘ I Feel Good! It Is All About Body Image Positivity’:

Find what it is that you want to use to express yourself. For me it was fashion. For you could be fitness. I have some friend that until they go to the gym, they just don’t feel like themselves. I cannot relate to that, but that’s okay. To each their own. For others, it is giving back. Finding a charity event and giving back, stepping out of yourself or it could be fun. What do you like to do for fun? Whatever it is that’s going to give you that opportunity to build that self confidence, self-esteem so that you can give back to the world the best version of you.

Nma Emeh

Nma Emeh:

Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Do you ever spend more time focusing on your physical appearance that you don’t like or more than what you do like about your body? Do you often compare your physical appearance to that of others, perhaps a public figure, a celebrity, a social media influencer? I know I do. Do you sometimes feel like your physical appearance is keeping you or preventing you from participating in activities, social events like a family reunion, maybe your high school reunion or to be specific, maybe a pool or a beach party? That beach party that they required you to wear a swimsuit and a swim trunk, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to get out of bed and put that on and walk out that door. That’s me. Do you ever feel like your physical appearance is stopping you from living out that purpose that God designed you to be? And as a result, you’re not living out your full Life.

Nma Emeh:

And lastly, let me ask you, has your physical appearance become such a significant contributor to how you see your self worth or evaluate your self worth? If you answered yes to any of these questions or at least if any of these questions resonated with you, I’m here to tell you, you’re not alone. We all got issues. Okay.

Nma Emeh:

According to study done by Ipsos in 2018, over almost 80% of American adults have confirmed that they do have some sort of dissatisfaction with their body image, women being that predominant group. As if that wasn’t bad enough when you take that down to our kids level, girls in particular, over 50% of girls at the age of 13 have expressed some kind of dissatisfaction with your body. And that number grows significantly to almost 80% by the age of 17. If that isn’t a problem, I don’t don’t know what is. I’m sure each of you know some little girl in that age range, your niece, your daughter, your next door neighbor. This needs to be addressed. That’s why mental health experts across the world agree that body image is a leading cause of social and mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, low self-esteem, low self confidence and suicide just to name a few.

Nma Emeh:

So what is body image? All of us have heard of it. What are some things that come to mind when you hear the word body image? You can feel free to throw out words. You can steal from my image. What are some things that come to your mind when you hear of body image, anyone?

Speaker 2:

Mirror.

Nma Emeh:

Mirror. Nice.

Speaker 3:

Instagram.

Nma Emeh:

Instagram. Love it.

Speaker 5:

Heart.

Nma Emeh:

Hearts. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 5:

Body parts.

Nma Emeh:

Body parts. Absolutely.

Speaker 6:

Your own size.

Nma Emeh:

Size. Yes it is. It’s all of that. You see the definition of body image is it’s the perception that a person has about their physical appearance and the thoughts and emotions that ensue as a result of that perception. You could have both a positive or a negative body image. It’s also influenced by both internal and external factors. Internal being our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts. External being social media, in fact, all forms of media, your family, and your friends.

Nma Emeh:

My own story with body image started at a very young age. I want to introduce you guys to my grandma, grandma Lucy. You see grandma Lucy and I were very close. My parents had my most of my siblings here in America. I come from a family of seven kids. Six of them were born in America and I was born in Nigeria. So when my parents relocated back to Nigeria in the late ’70s, grandma Lucy felt like she had pretty much missed out on being a grandma to her first set of grandkids. So my parents had me for grandma Lucy and grandma Lucy loved me with every single ounce of her body, every muscle in her body so much so that if you zoom in a little closer, you can see grandma Lucy flexing every ounce in her tiny biceps to hold me up.

Nma Emeh:

Why? Because I was a whopping 11 pound baby, 11 pounds, yes. I was that child that the doctor said told my mom, if you have anymore, you’re not going to make it. And so my size became one of the things that defined me, the main thing that defined me. I got tired of being described by my body, how big I was and growing up in Nigeria, if anybody knows any Nigerians, please raise your hand. You will know that Nigerians have no filters. We say things as they are good or bad. And over the years, I started to resent the fact that I was constantly being defined by my body. I knew that there was so much more to me, but why my body was a constant topic of discussion was just not acceptable.

Nma Emeh:

So I tried all the different diets. I tried to lose weight, join the gym, did everything every normal person does here in America and it didn’t work or I got tired. I would have success, but it wouldn’t last. Until one day I realized, you know what? This is not going to change. Why should it change? I was designed this way. I was an 11 pound baby. Any chance of me ever being skinny went out the door the moment I came out. And so that’s when I had that shift in my mindset. I decided I’m going to embrace who I am and embrace it to the fullest. So I decided I was going to approach it in three ways and embrace who God had designed me to be.

Nma Emeh:

The first being faith. I decided that every morning I’m going to wake up and intentionally do a mindset reset. For me, it was through faith. I wake up every morning I open my Bible and I find scripture. I’m a big believer also in self affirmation, positive thinking. Next, I was intentional about finding family and friends. Intentional about what I let them speak into my life. Some of the best compliments have come from family and friends. Some of the most hurtful have come from that same group. The thing about it, one of the reasons why grandma Lucy and I were very close is because she had a specific name she used to call me, or should I say phrase? She used to say [foreign language 00:09:38] is my first name in Igbo, which is my language [foreign language 00:09:46] means beauty. And every time she saw me, she would always say [foreign language 00:09:51] which means [foreign language 00:09:54] is beautiful.

Nma Emeh:

But much of my life, I didn’t feel worthy of that name and it seemed like she knew it. So every time she saw me, that was always what she called me. [foreign language 00:10:07]. I also decided that I wanted to find a way to express myself so that the world would know that I exist. And I’m here for a purpose and fashion gave me that permission to be authentically me. Can’t you tell? So I started designing my own clothes. I don’t make them, but I design them and fashion allows me to express how I feel and what I want and how I feel when I walk into a room and what I want to give to the world.

Nma Emeh:

One of the things that I used to love growing up was a movie called Hello, Dolly! I don’t know if you guys know that movie by Barbra Streisand. Now, if you know, it has a lot of musicals, a lot of singing and everything, but there was this one song that always resonated with me. And it was Put on Your Sunday clothes. In Nigeria, Sunday clothes are the clothes that you wear to church obviously. They were your best clothes. They were the nicest clothes. They were the clothes that you wear to make an impression. And so I wanted to invite you guys to stand up and let’s sing the song. Now I’ll tell you I don’t have a Jennifer Hudson’s voice, but this song pretty much became part of the soundtrack for my life. And I believe when you read the words or at least sing the words, you’ll understand.

Nma Emeh:

It says, put on your Sunday clothes when you feel down and out. Strut down the street and have your picture took. Dressed like a dream your spirit seem to turn about. That Sunday shine is a certain sign. That you feel as fine as you look.

Nma Emeh:

Awesome. All right. I think we did Jennifer Hudson proud, right? So this became the soundtrack for my life. I knew that dressing up was one way to really step into that confidence that I needed to get out of the bed every day. Dressing up gave me the self-esteem to go to work every morning. And over time, that became my signature thing. So today I want to talk about the shifts that we can make to gain that more body-positive mindset. It starts with the right mentality. Mindset reset is important. You know why? Because it forces us to let go of our past failures and visualize more positive outcomes. For me, it is scripture. For you it could be inspirational words. It could be prayer. It could be meditation, but you have to start with the right mentality every day.

Nma Emeh:

Secondly, be intentional. As facilitators, as leaders, we have the unique opportunity of speaking truth to people’s life. Not everybody has that opportunity. I’ll tell you a story. In Nigeria, I went to a boarding school, in secondary school it was standard in Nigeria to go to boarding school. So I went to an all-girls boarding school and everything was controlled by a bell. We were controlled by a bell. A bell told us when to wake up, went to go to bed, went to eat, went to sleep. And so this one morning I woke up and I woke up late, I rushed, dressed up. The matrons were coming to lock the dormitory so I ran out and I went to class. And as soon as I got into class, one of my classmates, she looked at me and she’s like, “[foreign language 00:14:29], what’s wrong with you? Wear your earrings. Come on, come on, go, go, go you look so ugly without your earrings on.” That one comment has taken me over 30 years to recover.

Nma Emeh:

In your role as a leader or facilitator your comments, your feedback can either build or break somebody down. You have a unique opportunity to speak truth, to be authentic and to have those words last for 30 plus years, good and bad. Be fair, no comparison, don’t look at social media and compare yourself. What we see on social media is a facade. We all know that. I know exactly how to angle a camera so I look 30 pounds lighter. And then you throw in some lighting and some other apps and everything. And then you have the perfect picture. That’s what we see on social media every day, right? What’s the point? I believe it was Theodore Roosevelt that said that comparison is the thief of all joy.

Nma Emeh:

And then lastly, be authentically you. Find what it is that you want to use to express yourself. For me it was fashion. For you could be fitness. I have some friend that until they go to the gym, they just don’t feel like themselves. I cannot relate to that, but that’s okay. To each their own. For others, it is giving back. Finding a charity event and giving back, stepping out of yourself or it could be fun. What do you like to do for fun? Whatever it is that’s going to give you that opportunity to build that self-confidence, self-esteem so that you can give back to the world the best version of you.

Nma Emeh:

And then lastly, I want to leave you with one of my favorite verses by King David. It says, “For You formed my inward parts, You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows very well.” You are enough. God did not make any mistake with any of us. You are not a mistake and that your soul should know very well. Thank you.

The post I Feel Good! It Is All About Body Image Positivity appeared first on Voltage Control.

Control the Room 2022 was an absolute success! We hosted our annual facilitator summit alongside our partner MURAL. Our wonderful connection between the live event and the virtual world, hosted by Mark Tippin, Director of Strategic Next Practices, Mark facilitated “Mind Shift” sessions, where he guided our attendees through a dialog about how everyone was impacted by the talks. He engaged both in-person and virtual attendees through our various activities in our conference mural. It was inspiring to have so many people joining in different ways and everyone getting the chance to communicate.

We also partnered with SAFE this year to support and honor a lost colleague, Jenni Robertson. The dedication of this summit comes after losing a coworker, mother, and friend to family violence and Voltage Control has pledged to work with SAFE to stop family violence for everyone. We wanted to take a moment and look back on all of the moments of insight, knowledge, and growth we all took part in over the course of the summit.

This year’s summit theme was SHIFTS, and as we move into 2022 we have seen shifts in the way we work, the way we connect, and the way we honor one another.

This year we hosted 18 facilitators in a hybrid space. We were live in-person, on Zoom, and even created our own Control the Room VR space, and we must say the event, even with a few technical issues, turned out to be a hub of idea sharing and growing with each other. 

Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session, and each session was filled with a sense of community, play, and story-telling.

Stories Are Powerful

Stories are powerful. Oftentimes, I’m asked to present a lot of information in a very short period of time. My normal presentations run between three and four hours. But when I’m presenting to a corporation or presenting to executives, et cetera, I’m forced to present lots of information in a very short period of time. In that period of time, I need to build empathy, and I’m seeking high levels of retention. And stories give me that.

Jessica Soukup

A beautiful storyteller, Jessica invited us to build empathy. In her story, My First Big Win, we were inspired by a story of patience, acceptance, bravery, and perseverance. Jessica stepped into her true self through stages, and within that process, she discovered ‘this is what it looks like, this is who I am.’ We were all reminded of the importance of sharing our own personal pronouns as a regular part of introducing ourselves. And how that can make anyone feel accepted, important, and cared for by alleviating one form of microaggression.

Watch Jessica Soukup speak on how Stories are Powerful:

As I stand here today, I want to ask some things of all of you. First of all, as you came in the door here today, how many of you wrote your pronouns on your name tags? Steven earlier talked about micro affection. When you misgender someone, even accidentally, that’s a microaggression. It causes harm. It may not feel like all that significant of an experience. But if you are misgendered constantly day in and day out, drive throughs, shopping experiences, just in public, you feel not supported. You question your own identity. By writing your pronouns on your name tag, this is you saying, “I understand you can’t assume who I am. Just like I can’t assume who you are. And I’ve shared my pronouns.”

Jessica Soukup

Jessica Soukup:

Thank you. First of all, I want to thank the previous two speakers for some pre-talk preparation and relaxation. Released the anxiety a lot. So, Jessica Soukup. I use she/her pronouns.

Stories are powerful. Oftentimes, I’m asked to present a lot of information in a very short period of time. My normal presentations run between three and four hours. But when I’m presenting to a corporation or presenting to executives, et cetera, I’m forced to present lots of information in a very short period of time. In that period of time, I need to build empathy, and I’m seeking high levels of retention. And stories give me that.

When doing allyship education, there are three standard goals. Define the community, share the experiences of the community, and discuss allyship. In my presentation … in my short presentation, I have to accomplish all of those goals, and do that with the high levels of retention I was seeking.

The story I’m going to share today is the story of my transition at work. My coming out at the office. And let me set the stage for that. At that moment in my life, I was not out anywhere. The only people who knew I was transgender was my wife and some very close family members. And I’d received a very mixed response. I’ve received a lot of questions. I received a lot of pushback. But you can imagine the potential consequences of coming out at the office. I can lose my job … my income because I’m trans. It may be difficult for me to find a new job. On top of that, I was supporting three people. And so I had the concern of their lives on top of my own personal concerns. I approached it this way.

Obviously, the concerns about coming out at the office are you are presented with … when you come up to someone, they have an initial response. And I decided to try to take the pressure off of my direct supervisor by coming out to him in a letter. But I was very concerned about coming out at the office, because people are sometimes fired. And they’re seldom fired for being trans. They’re fired for other reasons. Lack of performance, things like that. So, I waited till my annual review. At my annual review, I expected to do quite well. And I wrote him a letter.

And in this letter, I told him what I wanted. I told him that I wanted people to call me Jessica. I told him that I wanted to conform to the women’s dress code. I told him that I wanted people to use she/her pronouns. And I told him that I expected to use the women’s restroom. And then after that, I gave him some resources, and some time in order to do whatever training he needed to do.

I walk into his office, and I sit down at the desk, and we’re talking. And we go through the review. And as predicted, I did quite well. We get to the end of the review, and I have this sealed letter. He knew I had begun doing some work at the office. Some diversity training. Some diversity work. He didn’t understand why, but he knew it was happening. And so he felt obligated to say, “We’re not a very diverse group, but we try real hard.” And as I slid him the envelope, I thought, “Let me help you with that diversity problem.”

At that point, I picked up my papers and left his office. And I went on vacation for nine days. I wanted to give him plenty of time to adapt, prepare what he was going to say to me. All of that. He took the envelope, waited a little while before he opened it. And then he opened it. And it’s my understanding he had a little meltdown and called some people. But it was very important to him to get ahold of me before I got out of town to tell me that everything was going to be okay. And that was the first big win for me.

I told my supervisor. But I work with a lot of different people. And I’d spent the previous six years presenting masculine, using a different name. And all of a sudden, I was going to be showing up in a completely different way. I was concerned with how everybody else was going to respond, how I was going to be treated. All of that. What my working environment was going to be like. I had given my supervisor three months. We waited those three months. And about the last two weeks, I came out to the rest of the very close people I work with by sending an email with the same general information.

Two weeks later, I got dressed in a great orchid dress, and heels, and full on makeup, et cetera. Showed up at the office. And I’m a computer programmer. Basically, sat down and started to code. Didn’t have to interact with a lot of people, but the basic interactions were fine. So, that was okay. Two days later, though, we had the divisional kickoff. 550 people from student affairs sat in a room, listening to presentations. And as a divisional employee, they introduced everyone.

That day, 550 people learned I was trans. They were blindsided. They didn’t have any of the background information. When they presented my photo on the screen and said my name, they got nothing else. Well, a number of people from the queer community came up and encouraged me, et cetera. And then about three hours later, the vice president for student affairs wandered into my office. Now, let’s be clear. I’m a computer programmer. Vice president for student affairs. She’s like 15 levels above me on the org chart. Her wandering into my office was not something that happened. Wandering in my office and she said, “Okay, who’s giving you a hard time?”

Wasn’t exactly her language, but regardless. By doing that, she showed her support of me, and encouraged me to continue on in this space. Encouraged me to live out and loud. And I was thankful. I was able to tell her that I’d nothing but positive comments. I do wonder … it would’ve been interesting to be a fly on the wall in a lot of those offices around the division.

Two weeks later, I mentioned earlier today that I’d begun doing some diversity work. I’d been presenting with my mentor, Brandon Beck. Brandon … really all that I was doing was running the PowerPoint. But Brandon, he was the one who initially taught me that stories are powerful. I got a call that morning from professional development. Brandon was sick. The presentation was supporting transgender people in higher education. I’m thinking, “I need this presentation. I just came out.” They asked me, “Do you want to continue or not?” I’m like, “Well, I’ve seen it a few times. I’ve got slides. I’m just going for it.”

That day, I showed up ready to speak for three hours, even though really I’d only spoken for five minutes previously in my life. I was nervous. I was on the verge of melting down. The training room holds about 40 people. Normally, we would have about 20 people in that class. That day, so many people from student affairs had signed up and showed up to support me that the room was full and overflowing into the hall.

In this story, there’s a tremendous amount of privilege. I already had my education. I’m white. I’m accepted in my job. I was accepted by the people I work with. There’s a specific non-discrimination clause at the university that specifies gender identity and sexual orientation. But in that day when everyone showed up to support me, that’s when I truly felt supported, and alive, and myself.

In that story there that I just told, I defined the community. I’m transgender. This is what it looks like. This is who I am. I shared some experiences of the community. My concerns about coming out. The likelihood of getting fired. And I discussed some allyship for the community. Pronouns, using a chosen name, showing up to support, and being vocal in your allyship.

As I stand here today, I want to ask some things of all of you. First of all, as you came in the door here today, how many of you wrote your pronouns on your name tags? Steven earlier talked about micro affection. When you misgender someone, even accidentally, that’s a microaggression. It causes harm. It may not feel like all that significant of an experience. But if you are misgendered constantly day in and day out, drive throughs, shopping experiences, just in public, you feel not supported. You question your own identity. By writing your pronouns on your name tag, this is you saying, “I understand you can’t assume who I am. Just like I can’t assume who you are. And I’ve shared my pronouns.”

I’d like y’all to take just a moment and write your pronouns underneath your name. As the next stage to that … as I mentioned, you can’t assume people know your pronouns, just like you can’t assume someone else’s pronouns. When you introduce yourself, introduce yourself with your pronouns. By doing so, you open the door to listening to their pronouns. Listening to them share their identity. I’d like you to take another minute, and I’d like you to introduce yourself to the person on either side of you and share your pronouns. “Hi, my name is Jessica Soukup. I use she/her pronouns.”

And so now, I’d like to ask one more thing before I go. I’d like to ask you to approach … for the next conference you go to, I’d like you to approach the people handing out the name tags if they don’t include pronouns, and ask them to include those pronouns. By doing so, you demonstrate your allyship. Your active allyship. You validate everyone in the room. You don’t assume other people’s identities, and you open the door to people sharing who they are. And what is what allyship really is all about is belonging. How do you make people feel like they belong in a space? Thank you so much.

The post Stories Are Powerful appeared first on Voltage Control.