Drawing Your Way Through Conflict and Change

A conversation with Kristi James, Lead Change Manager at the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme

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“Where it’s wrong or where people disagree is where the conversation needs to happen.” – Kristi James

In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson interviews Kristi James, a Lead Change Manager at the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme in Berlin. Kristi traces her facilitation instincts back to childhood event planning and an early corporate career at DHL, where she discovered that sketching out processes and user journeys helped teams see where they belonged, resolve role confusion, and surface disagreement productively. She describes how a coach, Mary Beth Maines, helped her recognize creativity she had dismissed in herself, and how that shift now shapes the way she draws out scientists and doctors at WHO who are more comfortable debating than co-creating. Kristi walks through concrete practices, from visual cues and whiteboards that anchor group memory to 1-2-4-All exercises that convert passive listeners into active participants, and a recent example of using a user-journey diagram to unstick a stalled budget negotiation. The conversation closes on her core belief that visualizing a process doesn’t just clarify tasks, it gives groups a safer, more concrete way to name resistance and work through conflict together.

Show Highlights

[00:01:40] Drawing Out Prom As A Kid
[00:05:30] Team Baffled By Her Event Mapping
[00:09:00] Realizing Leadership In Her 30s
[00:13:15] Best Presenter Praise From Karen Jones
[00:17:40] Grounding Presentations In Real Stories
[00:21:20] Learning Event Craft With IMG
[00:24:50] Coach Helps Her See Her Creativity
[00:28:30] Diagramming A Stalled Budget Proposal
[00:32:10] Moving Groups From Listening To Doing

Links | Resources

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About the Guest

Kristi James is a Lead Change Manager at the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, based in Berlin, where she helps teams navigate complex global health challenges and strengthens collaboration across diverse stakeholder networks. Her background spans public health, technology and intellectual property, global logistics, and community events, with prior roles in change management, fundraising, communications, and event and sponsorship marketing at companies including DHL. She now brings that range of experience into designing interactive workshops that turn ideas into action for scientists, doctors, and program teams. Outside of her WHO role, she is a mixed media artist and creativity coach known for bringing empathy, curiosity, and creativity into her facilitation work.

Transcript

Douglas Ferguson: Hi, I’m Douglas Ferguson. Welcome to the Facilitation Lab Podcast, where I speak with Voltage Control Certification alumni and other facilitation experts about the remarkable impact they’re making. We embrace a method agnostic approach so you can enjoy a wide range of topics and perspectives as we examine all the nuances enabling meaningful group experiences. This series is dedicated to helping you navigate the realities of facilitating collaboration, ensuring every session you lead becomes truly transformative. Thanks so much for listening. If you’d like to join us for a live session sometime, you can join our Facilitation Lab community. It’s an ideal space to apply what you learn in the podcast in real time with peers. Sign up today at voltagecontrol.com/facilitation-lab. And if you’d like to learn more about our 12-week facilitation certification program, you can read about it at voltagecontrol.com. Today, I’m with Kristi James at the World Health Organization where she works as a lead change manager for the emergencies program. She’s also a creativity coach and mixed media artist. Welcome to the show, Kristi.

Kristi James: Thank you.

Douglas Ferguson: So good to have you and looking forward to chatting. I guess to start off, we can go back. In your alumni story, you mentioned that even as a kid, you are always the person bringing people together. Looking back, what do you think you understood about energy and connection before you ever knew what facilitation was?

Kristi James: I mean, as a kid, I liked creating experiences and not the decor. I would try to imagine what’s the experience of receiving the invitation? When do you receive the… What happens next? What happens next? What happens next? I like process. I love a process, but I have to draw out my processes. So even as a kid, I would draw out the steps of what I wanted to be doing, the events that I wanted to do. I was in charge of the prom committee one year and I had to draw it all out. First start talking about it here, tickets go on sale here, how do you buy the tickets? Da, da, da, da, da. So I don’t know, that’s just how I’ve always viewed the world. And I was surprised when people don’t view the world that way.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. What was one of the first events you remember doing this for? Was it the prom or were there things that came before that?

Kristi James: I’m sure it was things before that, but prom is probably the first thing that jumps out in my mind of being an event for other people. I mean, it’s one thing to have your own birthday party or do the smaller things, but prom is for everybody and it’s a big group of people, so that’s probably the first big event that was put in my hands.

Douglas Ferguson: Did that feel different, that it was for everybody? And how did that shape how you approach things?

Kristi James: So long ago, and I have to think, so much of my life happened I think by accident, but we know when you look back on it, you’re like, “Oh, that makes sense.” These things fell into place. So I don’t think in the moment I really thought too much about it. It was just somebody needs to do prom and I’m happy to do it. So I did it, but of course it is a teamwork. I was one person on that, but I was the person drawing out the process and saying, “Okay, so now we’re going to need this and we’re going to need that and we’re going to need this because these are the steps that we’re going to take.” And my more creative friends were the ones who were doing the decor. I was there making the paper flowers with them, but they were the ones like, “We need paper flowers.” So it was definitely a team effort, but for me to be able to visualize what we wanted to do from your very first experience, all the way through to the actual delivery and people going home at the end of it, that is what I brought to the group. And then everyone else had their other expertise. They can make the posters.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. What was your approach to visualizing that process?

Kristi James: I sketched things out. I still sketch things out. It’s trying to understand when I’m… So even today, I’m working on a project and people were trying to explain the problem that we’re solving and what we’re going to do about it. And so as I’m getting bits and pieces of information, I started drawing it out. What is that process that we’re trying to do? And every once in a while, I would hold up my paper going, “Do you mean it looks like this? Would it look like this?” And then they’d be like, “No, no, no, no, no, it’s… Changed that. That wouldn’t happen before…” I find it easier to draw it out because oftentimes words are just words and they get jumbled and you can write it all out, but then you forget what you read three pages ago and whatever. So I don’t know what started that in me. It’s just how I’ve always operated. I need to draw it.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. And you said it surprised you that others didn’t operate that way, so it came naturally. What have you noticed through the years around that surprise or that not everyone operates that way?

Kristi James: I think probably the first time I really realized it is when I was a manager and I had a team. And so we were planning a corporate event and I had been planning sales meetings and stuff for years and then switched jobs and moved around and we were doing an all-hands meeting and I had people helping me with that. And it kept saying, “Okay, so if I’m a participant, when am I first going to hear about it?” “Well, there’ll be an email.” Okay. And so then if I’m a participant and I know that I’m going to this location, how do I know where to park? How do I know how to get there? How do I know where to park? How do I know where to go from the parking lot to this? What happens? Do they walk in? My team was just looking at me like, “Why are you such a maniac with all these details?” And I’m like, I’m trying to walk through what my experience is going to be so that we can plan for, we need signage here, we need signage there. We need to have these things ready to go on the tables. And they just tolerated me. They dealt with me, but it was surprising. I was like, “Wait, you guys don’t do this too. You don’t visualize… You put all these things in place, but you don’t actually visualize what it means. Have we missed a step? Have we gone back? Have we missed something that would be important that makes this experience better for other people?” So that was surprising to me.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. It sounds like, intuitively, the mapping the journey was something really critical for you to identify the points of friction or the areas that we might want to lean in and make special.

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: Have you found that your process for visualizing those types of things has adapted over time or are there new tools or ways that you’re approaching that now?

Kristi James: Yeah, for sure. Well, more experience helps you understand different business processes more. So when you’re going in and you’re working with a team and they’re talking about a strategy, there’s generally a process that they’re following for that and we can make sure that they’re checking all the boxes of things that they need to do, which is different than planning an event. So you learn different processes and everyone’s just slightly different or writing guidance and how we’re going to get guidance through all the reviews and things. So there’s a process flow for how things work. But I have found that in meetings and in workshops, it’s also helpful to show the process to people so they know where we’re at so that they can provide the input that we need at that point in the process and they know that we haven’t forgotten that these other steps are coming up.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. And to your point earlier, if they see what we are visualizing and how we’re mapping things out, it’s much easier to interject corrections or tweaks versus if we’re just using language, it’s much harder to identify those things and interject.

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: In your alumni story, you also talked about being the student body president, which may have been related to the problem, I’m not sure. But the point is you kind of pointed back to that being a moment of leadership, but that wasn’t necessarily obvious to you at the time. And then looking back, you realized that some of your instincts, some of the ways that you showed up were actually strengths in the professional setting and pointing toward leadership abilities. And so I’m curious, at what point did you start to connect the dots and realize that just some of the ways you were intuitively showing up and that you were learning through doing were actually setting you up for a career that you maybe hadn’t even planned?

Kristi James: Well, first of all, nothing about my career is planned. Everything’s a happy accident. I think it was probably somewhere in my 30s. I think of my 20s as just being that negativity, that blind just like, “You want me to go up in front of a stage and deliver a speech? Sure, why not? Let me just do it,” and not even stopping to think that I should be nervous about these things. It’s just those things. But it was in my 30s when I was working at DHL and I was in a role that I actually had to lead another team, a consultancy team. And I was doing things and the feedback that I’d gotten on my review from that team was how much they appreciated my leadership. And I was like, “What leadership?” Because, again, I was just that blind nativity of youth. And so then I started thinking about, okay, what are the things that I’m doing well and where does that come from? I really do attribute it back to growing up in a small town. I graduated with 70 students. It’s small. One, you have to get along with everybody, and two, somebody needs to do it. So you just do it. And that’s been how I’ve gone about things. Somebody needed to lead the strategy for this, so okay, I’ll just do it. No one else is raising their hands, so I’ll just do it. But I recognize, going back to the prompt thing, I recognized I’m not great with the core. I’m not great at making posters. There are things that I’m not great at, but I can design the process and I know what I need, and I can get the other people involved who can bring their expertise and the things that they like to do into that process. And they know where they fit into the process and they know the value that it brings. So I think that helped me with leadership, being able to understand what the process is, what skill sets we need, how to plug people in, how to make them feel like they understand the bigger picture because they can see where it’s leading to.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. It makes me think that it’s a great lesson or observation for folks that are wanting to do more leadership. And I’m curious how to step into those moments. There’s a few patterns that I might call out. One is just taking initiative, showing up and doing stuff. Also, being able to articulate a vision. You’ve talked several times now about the ability to see the patterns, map out the overall journey or experience. And I would say the final thing that jumped out to me was this notion of understanding your own limitations. And if you can map out a vision and you know which parts that you’re not good at, it’s going to be a lot easier to step out of the way and let folks step up that can do those things. And it’s more clear of where they’re needed because, A, you can point out that there’s a gap for you there. Plus, if the vision and journey and experience is well mapped out and visualized, people see all the places where they can step up. So that’s interesting. I think that for listeners, that’s a really important pattern to maybe tap into as they’re wanting to step into more leadership or more influence because you don’t always have to have the title, that positional authority. Sometimes it’s just bringing the right perspective, the right attitude to the table.

Kristi James: Yeah, I agree. And again, I work in a multicultural, multinational organization, so I find drawing things out is a way to bridge language gaps. And it’s a way where people can see, “Oh, I belong there. I belong at this part in the process. I belong at this part in the process.” Or they can understand why they’re not in that part because they’ve already done their part or their part’s coming after, because sometimes we think we need to be in every meeting because we need to know what’s happening, da, da, da, da, but if you understand where we’re at in the process, it can help you say, “You know what? Actually, you guys need to do this, and then I’ll be looped back in at this point.” So in my drawings I find helpful just in conversations with other team members and other stakeholders when they’re like, “Why am I not there?” “Okay, this is what we’re trying to accomplish here. We’re going to bring you back in at this point.”

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, there’s a difference between being left out and being looped in later.

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: I love that. And also helping people understand the mechanisms that are in place, just sets expectations, give people more awareness, because at the end of the day, people just want to be informed and understand so that they can play their role and do their part.

Kristi James: Yeah, if they have their role clarity… When you get into a lot of facilitation, you’re facilitating some team conflict. And over and over again, it’s we need role clarity. We need role clarity. That comes up all the time. And we just go back to where are we at in the process? What do we need right now in this process? We need this. Who’s doing these things? And giving the clarity for this moment in time. Because you can do all the RACIs in the world, but it’s either so detailed that everyone goes, “No, my name’s not next to that. We’re not going to do it.” And then there’s a critical piece that doesn’t get done or it is you looked at it once and then you never look at it again. I mean, I’m not the huge fan of RACI, but I do like to have that process because your process evolves too. You think you have it, but as you’re learning more, you have to make adjustments to it. And then you have that visual that we can have that discussion and go, okay, well, we’re evolving this. We’re adding in another feedback loop. We’re adding in another approval layer because of X, Y, and Z. Here’s who’s doing the approval. But I’ve also found it really helpful to remind reviewers that they’re essentially approvers because they’re reviewing and saying, “This is okay to send to the vice president.”

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. And especially in this day of AI-generated content and human in the loop or human on the loop, this idea of reviewers and approvers is becoming more and more prevalent.

Kristi James: And everyone wants to be the approver. So again, it’s where are we at in the process? Are you approving your piece of the puzzle so that all the collective stuff goes to the director or the executive director or whoever, right?

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah.

Kristi James: So boosting or elevating their role for the importance that it has.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, and then how are we compartmentalizing so that everything doesn’t grind to a halt. Can the approvals happen in parallel and making sure that people are approving their piece and not gumming up the work somewhere else?

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: You were just talking about DHL, and I recall that there was a VP, I think, there that had labeled you the best presenter in the organization, which took you off guard.

Kristi James: Karen Jones.

Douglas Ferguson: There you go, Karen. What felt natural to you or stood out to everyone when you were presenting that maybe you hadn’t really had realized at the time?

Kristi James: Well, first, I’ll just clarify. She probably doesn’t even remember saying that, but you hear those things and it’s the thing that sticks in my head, right?

Douglas Ferguson: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kristi James: But I go back to that blind youth. I was new in the role. I just didn’t know to be nervous. But from that time, she had put me up in front of the entire department to present my strategy, and I did. You give me a microphone and I have to tell a joke or I have to do something. So I was talking about different people who had applied. I wasn’t just reading slides. I was telling a story as I was going through my slides. And I think that’s why she… People clapped at the end of my thing. Well, who does that in a business setting? But people laughed and they clapped and I was done and I was like, “Okay, well that’s done.” And I just thought that’s how you do it. I also attribute that blindness for growing up in a small town, I didn’t know anyone in a corporate job. I didn’t know anyone whose parents were in corporate jobs. I didn’t know what it meant to have a corporate job. So I really had no role models for… My parents weren’t coming home and preparing for presentations. My dad was drawing pictures. Well, maybe that’s where the process comes from. He’s an electrician and he would draw out the grids.

Douglas Ferguson: Oh, yeah.

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: So you saw schematics from a young age.

Kristi James: Yes. This is how this works.

Douglas Ferguson: There it is. Yes, that procedural thinking is a way of infecting our brains, doesn’t it?

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: Oh, man, that’s cool. And also, I mean, one thing I picked up on was this lack of nervousness. So yeah, you didn’t see these models of parents stressing out in the evenings about a big presentation the next day or it didn’t seep in that’s, oh, we have to get worried about these things. But also, I think just some people are just naturally less nervous in those kinds of situations. It’s pretty amazing how much a little bit of anxiety can send us just out of whack. If we’re not in the moment, we’re not in the flow. If that’s what’s occupying our brain, it’s going to be less energy, less cognition devoted toward doing a great job.

Kristi James: Yeah. Again, it’s a small school. I did a little bit of everything. I was a cheerleader. So there is part of me that’s like, “I’m on stage. All right, let’s go. Let’s have fun. Everyone’s smiling. Let’s do this.”

Douglas Ferguson: I heard some great advice once around speaking. I was talking about this being around the nervousness stuff. I think when folks get nervous, they get in their head that folks have poor thoughts about them or like, “Oh, Douglas is bombing this presentation,” or whatever. And then if you put yourself in the shoes, in the audience, and you think about when you saw someone really struggling on stage, whenever I’ve been in that situation, I don’t know about you, but whenever I’ve been in that situation, I’ve always felt really bad and hope that they just get back on track. It’s like they’ll right the ship any second now because it’s like, I’m not hoping they bomb. I don’t want to keep seeing them tripping up. And so I think that’s a really great thing to remember. So if folks do struggle with anxiety and don’t have this natural lack of nervousness like you stepped into, I think that’s a great thing for folks to think about is like, “Hey, the audience is really rooting for you. They came. They’re there. They cared enough to show up. So just know that they want you to do a good job. And so don’t get hung up on thinking they want you to fail or they’re judging you.”

Kristi James: Well, exactly. I mean, you do. As an audience member, you’re like, “Is somebody going to help this person?” You want to help the person. “Okay, you collect your thoughts. I’ll distract people. Whatever you need.” You want to help them. And it’s not that I’ve never been nervous on stage. Of course I have. But I think early in my career, I just didn’t know enough to be nervous. I just went out and did things. I’m told you’re going to present. I’m like, “All right, I’ll present.” I have terrible slides because, again, I don’t do posters and I don’t do decor, so my slides are terrible. This is fine because I’m not reading from them. I’m telling you a story.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, I think that’s the other thing I picked up on is not only the confidence and lack of nervousness, but the storytelling and ensuring that there’s a great narrative for folks to hang onto. And so I’d be curious there, any advice you have for folks on… I mean, you mentioned jokes. What are some other elements or criteria for a good story to make sure it really captivates the audience and pulls them in and gets that applause at the end?

Kristi James: Yeah. Well, first of all, humor can be hard, so you really have to know your audience. So if it is your peers, then fine, go ahead and make jokes, but otherwise, you want to proceed with caution. If it feels comfortable, go ahead and make a joke, but if not, then don’t. Don’t force yourself. We do a series here that’s part of our culture work called Behind the Build. And every Friday, we have a presenter, somebody who’s presenting on the work that they’re doing for the Health Emergencies Program. It’s a way for us, because we’re a global organization, it’s a way for us to have an understanding of all the different work that’s happening because oftentimes our work can be interrelated and maybe there’s an opportunity to collaborate. It’s also a way to get to know our colleagues. We have a prep call and I always remind people, it’s what is the problem you’re trying to solve? What is the problem? Ground me in something real, intangible. Tell me the story of somebody with cholera, and then tell me what your project can do to help that person. So what is the problem we’re trying to solve? Why do we need to do it now? And then, what it is that your project is doing to address that issue? Maybe it isn’t going to solve the issue, but it’s going to address a piece that makes it better for somebody. And then you start going into some of the details, but you need to ground people in that story. What is that vision? What is the purpose of the work that you’re doing?

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, I love that. And as you’re sharing that, I was thinking about how your natural intuition and instincts around mapping stuff out and visualizing. I’m curious if you visualize the narrative at all. Beyond the slides, is that something that you map out and visualize before you start building the story up?

Kristi James: Yes. I’m big on outlining. I like to outline. Even when I was doing all-hands meetings and the order of presenters, I would draw it out. This person’s doing the introductions and they’re going to present on the state of the organization and then the supporting pieces. And drawing it out helps me sometimes reorder the speeches.

Douglas Ferguson: That conceptual arc starts to shift as you start to map it out.

Kristi James: Because sometimes you try to do it by hierarchy or by whatever, and that’s not the audience experience. That’s not always interesting for the audience, and it can feel like you’re jumping all over the place. So if you draw it out… And again, I go in with my picture and be like, “Well, this is why I’m recommending this order. So we’re not going to follow hierarchy.” Usually, leadership is fine with that. When I can draw it out and show them why, why we’re presenting the information, this follows on this and follows on this, and then we’re going to segue into that, then they’re like, “Oh, well, okay. Yeah, sure.”

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, that’s a good point to think about because often I see folks struggling to convince leaders to make a change away from something they’d envisioned. And so that’s where these visuals, these maps can help articulate our thinking in a way that can get others on board. You spent some years creating immersive brand experiences and marketing campaigns. And I’m curious, did that impact your storytelling and experience design or even your facilitation work today?

Kristi James: Yeah, totally. At DHL, I oversaw the sports and entertainment marketing for the US. That’s all of our sponsorships with Major League Baseball and Miami Dolphins and US Olympic team, that kind of thing. And I had the privilege to work with a team at IMG for our agency, and they know the space forwards and backwards and how to create experiences. So working with them was great because they also got the process. So us together, we’d be like, we’re in a boardroom and we’re mapping it out and we’re identifying what are the different pieces. And then they would go back and identify even more pieces that just make it even better. And then they would handle the majority of the execution and we would get the people there. So I learned a lot from them on that process because before that, I had been doing sales events and stuff, and I was just going on my intuition. And then I’m working with other people who do think similarly to me, but have very specific areas of expertise. And so that also helped me understand those areas of expertise better. I knew I didn’t have that expertise, but really, what makes somebody who is excellent at registration, what is it about that that makes it really great? I still can’t do it, but it’s having a deeper appreciation for all those different skills.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. That’s another component, I would imagine, that you can put into the maps that you build. If you have an appreciation for those things, you can at least make an affordance for it, even if you’re not going to actually do the actual implementation pieces.

Kristi James: Yeah. Or knowing that I know that Lori always worried about these things, so let’s make sure that those are in there. And I know Justin always worried about these things and Rachel always worried about these things and all that’s accounted for in my process.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, I love that. I think those experiences as well, once you start to get a handle on what Lori’s concerned about, what Justin’s concerned about, even in future projects, you start to build an intuition around some of those things. Even if the finer details might be lost, at least we know, oh, we might want to check on this. There might be a category of things that we need to account for in this plan or in this workshop or whatever.

Kristi James: Exactly. Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: This is interesting, a nice segue. I was just mentioning our prior experiences. We learned new things that we can bring into our toolkit, new awarenesses, new things we can account for as we visualize and we bring people along. But there’s also gaps and blind spots that we have or things about ourselves that we might overlook. You were talking about your coach and mentor, Mary Beth Maines, helping you recognize some of these talents that you had overlooked. So I’m curious what your thoughts are around why is it so hard to see our own strengths sometimes?

Kristi James: It’s like a psychotherapy session at this point. I think it’s hard because we’re not really a culture that encourages us to, I’m the best at this. And are you the best? Am I the best at that? I’m not. Maybe I’m not the best at that, but I need to be able to appreciate the things that I like doing and the things that I do well. I also think that in your 20s and 30s, you’re doing all the things that everyone said you should do. You should do, you should climb the ladder, you should be getting promoted. Why aren’t you being promoted? You should have a bigger team. Y should, you should, you should. And you’re not really spending a lot of time to think about what I want to be doing and what are the areas that I’m good at? Do I really need to climb the ladder or do I really like doing this thing? I mean, the more I climb the ladder, the more I was like, well, I don’t like it here. It’s so much administrative work. I want to do creative stuff.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, I want to build and make things, right?

Kristi James: Yeah. I want to draw my pictures of a process. So I think part of it is we’re so focused on the shoulds that we’re not really focused on what I’m bringing. I always feel like I should be doing more and I’m not enough because I should. I should, I should, I should. And Mary Beth was always like, “What do you mean?” Because I actually had convinced myself that I wasn’t creative at all. Even though I draw out everything. In my head, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t creative. I’m just doing my job. And Mary Beth was like, “You’re one of the most creative people I’ve ever worked with.” And it took me a couple of years to actually recognize that because I was like, “That’s not true. No.”

Douglas Ferguson: The fact when organizations, we especially see this in agencies, there’s the creative team. And so when you have these labels and titles, it’s easy to say, “Well, I’m not in that group,” or, “I’m not doing that kind of work,” but the fact of the matter is there’s creativity in quite a lot of roles.

Kristi James: Exactly. And it took me a while to see that because I’m not a graphic designer and I can’t do decor. If you come to my house, you’ll see that. It’s eclectic. It’s just not going to be in decor. Yeah, I am a mixed media artist in other ways, but it even took me… I only started painting about 10 years ago because I had told myself that I wasn’t creative, but the creativity comes out in other ways.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m curious if that realization about yourself, and that’s to be something that’s now evident to you that it impacts everyone, has that influenced how you facilitate and how you lead and bring people together? Is that something that you try to draw from people?

Kristi James: Yes. I work with a lot of brilliant scientists and doctors, and it’s amazing when you can see them start using their hands to do things, because so often, we have very dignified discussions and they’re good. Those are great discussions. But then, when they start co-creating things together and are making something tangible, whether they’re drawing it out or using the Post-its or whatever method we’re using, how much they open up, how much they can push each other to do something. So I do lean on my creativity a lot, trying to come up with unique ways to get them doing something. It’s not always easy because they come in sometimes and they’re like, “No, I have three PhDs and I want to talk about things.” And so also trying to find that balance. It can’t be all fun and games. So discussion, game, discussion, game. In the end, hopefully there’s a little bit of fun, but getting them to make things. Also with my energy, sometimes that also helps them loosen up and be like, “All right, she’s going to sing and dance if we don’t just start doing things, so let’s make that stop.”

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, I love that. Especially folks that have gone deep, deep into specialization, it’s sometimes hard for them to break out of that myopic view they have of the world because they’ve specialized so much, they’ve actually made a dent in the knowledge that exists in the world. Their contribution has expanded the knowledge. It’s not like they’re regurgitating or they’ve learned some things. They’ve actually added and contribute to what’s the knowable, learnable stuff in the world. And when you get to that level of depth and specialization, it’s really hard to see anything, notice other things because you’re so lasered in on it. And so I love that you’re able to use games and play and just get people to maybe bust out of that, the little repetition cycle they’re maybe in.

Kristi James: Yeah. The one thing that I always insist on is there needs to be a visual cue in the room. So if we’re going to have a discussion, that’s fine, but there needs to be something visually… If we’re in the room or online, we’re using a whiteboard, there needs to be some reminders of what was said previously. If there was something that came up, because if we’re just talking, then somebody needs to be making notes somewhere that we can go back to and say, “Oh, wait, we did actually cover that before, so let’s move on,” or whatever. Because oftentimes, they just want to talk.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, I found that too so powerful to simply write down some words or phrases that seem like key milestones or key demarcations of the conversation so that as they’re having the conversation, they can tie back to those prior moments. It’s really nice grounding.

Kristi James: And part of my job as a change manager is to break things down into simple steps. So if I can take this discussion and summarize it in just a few short, simple words, and I’ll try that, and then they’re like, “No, it’s not like this,” and whatever. But then we have something that we can take back to the masses. We have something that we can take outside of that room of non-experts so they can understand, okay, what do I need to do when there’s a cholera outbreak? Or what do I need to do for meningitis? Because when you’re an expert in that, we need that. We need the people who have made that dent, as you said, but then we need to be able to relate it to somebody who doesn’t think this way, doesn’t think about these things to be able to explain the importance of it. So that’s what I try to do, and it doesn’t always win me friends when I’m trying to condense it down into something really short and simple, but I insist on having the visual cues, otherwise, it’s just things get lost.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s been a through line on the entire conversation here, the visualization piece. I am curious, I think this idea of we’ve had five meetings and nothing’s moving as a thing we’ve all encountered, and I think you mentioned it in your alumni story. When you encounter that situation today, what’s the first thing you look for?

Kristi James: When we’re having multiple meetings and nothing’s really moving?

Douglas Ferguson: Mm-hmm.

Kristi James: Well, I mean, today, we were working on a proposal, and you know how when you have a bunch of people making comments into a document, and then after a while you don’t really know what you’re making comments on anymore because there’s track changes and then there’s comments, you’re not sure if the track changes address the comments and whatever? I drew it out because everyone was getting bogged down in the budget because they had words and then numbers, but then everyone had different definitions of things. And so they were plugging in more words with numbers. And then they’re saying, “Well, no, this one shouldn’t cost this much as this.” But the other person’s saying, “No, no, no, this is what it should be.” I mean, it’s those kinds of things. So I went to the user journey and I’m like, “All right, this is a training and development thing. So step one, what is change management? Step two, how do I apply it? Step three, in-depth, master level kind of thing. And then we broke down through the user’s lens. Okay, I’m going to come here. This is online learning. It’s going to be this. What do we need to get it? If that’s going to cost this much, who owns it? And then the next step, okay, we’re going to do these courses. It’s instructor-led, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What do we need? We need to update the frameworks. We need to do these things. So I started drawing it. I can’t even show you. I started drawing it. So I had it all drawn out.

Douglas Ferguson: Love it.

Kristi James: And then I plugged it into Excel and I put it in my colors. And so I showed up at the meeting and I was like, “I’m trying to make heads or tails of this. This is what I have. What do you guys think?” And they were like, “Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. No, no, no. Change that number to this. Yeah, no, that’s everything that we need for that piece of the user journey, and that’s everything that we need for that piece, and so that’s going to cost this.” But we had rounds of reviewing. Anyway, I try to come with solutions. If we’re getting stuck on something and nothing’s moving, I try to figure out where is it that we’re getting stuck? And again, I draw. I try to visualize what a solution could look like. And then I propose this. Could this be a solution?

Douglas Ferguson: Yep. Even if it’s the wrong one, oftentimes that clarity can help folks get back on track.

Kristi James: Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. I think it also sometimes comes back to purpose. If folks are getting hung up on a pricing conversation, but there’s a more critical purpose at hand, sometimes coming in with like, “Okay, I tried to distill down everything everyone was saying. Here’s my stab at what I think that comes to.” Can be a moment to reground in purpose too, bring it back to what are we really trying to accomplish here?

Kristi James: Yeah, exactly. Which is what I was trying to do with the user journey because everyone’s like, “Oh, this costs this and da, da, da, da.” And I’m like, “Who’s it for? Here’s the different steps. The different steps in the journey, how much are we spending on each of those steps? You have different people, da, da, da.” And they’re like, “Yeah, that works. That actually, yes, it’s a now an addendum in our proposal.”

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. As we’re coming up on the end here, there are two other things I wanted to come back to. One was you had mentioned this idea of moving people from passive listening to active participation. I’m curious if you could share any examples, even small design changes that transform the outcome of moving people from that passive listening to more active participation.

Kristi James: So before I did my facilitation training, I was kind of just drawing on the same tools, running workshops just on tuition and drawing on the same processes. So when I took the training course and we were actively doing 1-2-4-All, I read 1-2-4-All. I’m like, oh, okay, sure, fine, whatever. But actually participating and experiencing it, that has been my go-to. When you have people who are just sitting back, you can’t really sit back when you’re in pairs. You have to be there. So that is often my default thing. If I find that people really aren’t participating, which the next exercise is going to be a 1-2-4-All. You’re going to write something down and you’re going to sit and talk to somebody about it.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Any small group breakouts are great at that. It’s hard to social loaf if it’s just two or three of you.

Kristi James: Exactly.

Douglas Ferguson: You described your journey as starting from this, I just like to bring people together, and that instinct or passion led you to facilitating global collaboration at the World Health Organization. I’m curious what the student body president version of Kristi would have to say about that journey and where it led to.

Kristi James: I think that the student body president of me would be probably flabbergasted. I’m like, “How on earth did you get there?” That was nowhere on my radar when I was in high school. The only thing that was on my radar was I knew that I wanted to have an international experience. I knew that I wanted to work outside of the US at some point in my career, and I had no idea how to make that happen. And even trying to do a study abroad thing, my parents didn’t have the funding, I didn’t have the money, but I went every year to listen to the speeches, and then I would get the price tag and be like, “Well, I can’t go.” And then I would go again the next year and I’m like, “Still don’t have enough money.” So that was something that I wanted that experience. We had a lot of exchange students come to our school, and I always found it really interesting to get different perspectives on how they see the world and how their interpretation of my culture is and things like that. So I knew that I wanted to have that experience at some point, but I never would have guessed that I would be living in Berlin, ever would have guessed that. I studied Spanish. And I never would have guessed that I’d be at the World Health Organization. That’s super cool to be here and super lucky to be here.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah. The thing that I’m hearing that could be helpful to point out to listeners is this idea of don’t let the logistics or the circumstances discourage you from showing up, because I assume going to those presentations kept the dream alive. It also probably gave you context on when the opportunities did present themselves. Now you’ve got this rich tapestry of knowledge that you picked up from attending these presentations and hearing the stories. Whereas if you had not have gone because you couldn’t afford it and just wrote it off anyway, you would’ve maybe missed some of the opportunities that presented themselves later.

Kristi James: Yeah, I think so. I mean, and just understanding the opportunities that were out there. There’s all these opportunities to study and what you could do and being a little bummed that I couldn’t do it again. But hello, hope, one day I’m going to do this. Somehow I’m going to figure it out. Applying, again, that blindness, sending out my resume, all kinds of companies all over the place. I have no visa to work in your country, whatever, but I just sent them. I don’t know. You throw it out in the universe and somehow, some way, it sorts itself out and maybe it takes 20 years. I don’t know.

Douglas Ferguson: Well, as we wrap today, I want to leave you with an opportunity to share a final thought with our listeners.

Kristi James: I mean, given that we talked a lot about drawing today, I would think that probably if you are stuck or if you’re with a group of people who aren’t moving, visualizations can help a lot. So draw out the process as best you can because that is where it’s wrong or where people disagree is where the conversation needs to happen.

Douglas Ferguson: I love that. Where it’s wrong or where people disagree is where the conversation needs to happen. And we often, well, I say we, lots of folks tend to shy away from conflict. That’s something we didn’t talk about much is this idea that the visuals can allow us to step into the conflict or the places of friction with maybe a little bit more ease and a little bit more care and grace because if we don’t have the words to approach it, at least we can say, “Hey, look, there’s some tension here. Let’s talk about it abstractly because we’re looking at the tension on the diagram.”

Kristi James: Exactly. You think about root causes of resistance. Oftentimes, it’s people are resisting and it’s natural. We all resist and we’re all guilty of it. We all resist in different ways. But for status, I give the example of hierarchy for an agenda. And so it could be a perceived status thing, but when you can draw it out and explain why you’re doing it this way, then it removes that threat for them. Or if you’re autonomy, like I just want to sit over here and do the thing, but if you can show them where their work fits in and where it is in the process, then they can see where they have their autonomy, but where they also need to be collaborating and doing other things. So being able to show that, it’s not like we want to look over your shoulder on everything you’re doing. We just need this check-in point. So you go do your thing, but then bring it back here because everyone’s bringing their stuff back here. We’re doing it. So you can remove some of those friction points or that resistance that you’re getting from people.

Douglas Ferguson: Love that. The other thing that’s jumping up to me is this idea of if people are feeling a lack of autonomy, but then they see the overall picture, they might better understand where their autonomy resides and they can embrace the autonomy that exists versus pushing back on where it doesn’t exist.

Kristi James: Exactly. Exactly. And again, if they disagree, that’s where you have the conversation, because sometimes people are resisting, but they’re not saying you’re threatening my status. They just are resisting because it’s an innate thing and they don’t understand it. And so they may be pushing back in ways that really aren’t important to them, but if you can show them on your diagram, this is what it is and this is how we’re doing it, it gives them the point to have that discussion, “I disagree with this step right here. I should be doing that,” and having that discussion instead of, “I’m not going to do any of it.”

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, that makes sense. Sometimes people are protecting something and aren’t even sure what they’re protecting. They can’t articulate it, but they feel this innate need to protect. And then when they can see it better, they understand, “Oh, that’s the sliver I need to protect,” they can be more precise.

Kristi James: Exactly. Yeah. And that makes the conflict less tumultuous.

Douglas Ferguson: Yeah, smooths things out, for sure. I love this idea of anytime we can bring in tools that allow us to step in the conflict with more grace and more care, because conflict doesn’t have to be tumultuous, like you say, or fraught. And so anytime we can bring tools to the table that allow us to step into it in a way that feels very human and very intentional without… We make it less scary, less dangerous, we make it more safe.

Kristi James: Exactly. And I’m saying drawing, but if you think you can’t draw, I mean there’s really boxes and arrows. Anyone can do it. Flow charts are a miracle, right? Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: If this, then that.

Kristi James: Yep. Here’s our decision points, da, da, da. Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson: Exactly. Amazing. Well, Kristi, it was such a lovely chatting with you today. I know we could go on and on here, but we will have to at least pause for now. Just want to say thanks for joining me, and we’ll talk again soon.

Kristi James: All right, thank you so much. This has been fun.

Douglas Ferguson: Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Facilitation Lab Podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a review and be sure to subscribe and receive updates when new episodes are released. We love listener tales and invite you to share your facilitation stories. Send them to us on LinkedIn or via email. If you want to know more, head over to our blog where I post weekly articles and resources about facilitation, team dynamics, and collaboration. Voltagecontrol.com.