A conversation with Paula Rosecky, Facilitator of Paula Rosecky & Company
“I think it’s important to have silent time because each individual has something unique to contribute to the collective of the group. In order to not be influenced by what others are saying or contributing, it’s important that they listen to their own thoughts or ideas or opinions or beliefs about whatever it is that is being shared, whatever we’re trying to accomplish. So that you can have more variety, possibly more diversity, more genuine personal truth in what you’re bringing to the table.” –Paula Rosecky
In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Paula Rosecky about her extensive experience working with daughters of immigrants and helping them create a sense of belonging in their personal and professional lives. We discuss how growing up in a community of folks who did not speak English formulated Paula’s approach to facilitating safe spaces for people of multicultural backgrounds. We then take a look at three foundations for how people should approach facilitation. Listen in to hear powerful methods that help people move away from conflict and toward shared values.
Show Highlights
[1:55] Growing Up in a Multicultural Community
[6:00] Connecting with People’s Values
[10:30] The Three Dialogs of a Facilitator
[15:30] Embracing Participants’ Interpretation of an Experience
[29:40] Silent Work and the Collective
[34:40] Facilitating Energy in a Hybrid Work World
Links | Resources
Paula on LinkedIn
Paula Rosecky & Company
Paula Rosecky on Instagram
About the Guest
Paula Rosecky is a certified life coach specializing in cross-cultural issues and legacy coaching. She is certified through The Life Coach School and has over 20 years of experience in research and human behavioral science. She’s known as the culture coach and helps high achieving bilinguals and children of immigrants stop living someone else’s idea of success and start having the confidence, fulfillment, and wealth they want.
About Voltage Control
Voltage Control is a change agency that helps enterprises sustain innovation and teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.
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Full Transcript
Douglas: Welcome to the Control the Room podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out. All with the service of having a truly magical meeting.
Thanks for listening, if you’d like to join us live for a session sometime, you can join our weekly Control the Room Facilitation Lab, it’s a free event to meet fellow facilitators and explore new techniques so you can apply the things you learn in the podcast in realtime with other facilitators. Sign up today at voltagecontrol.com/facilitation-lab. If you’d like to learn more about my new book, Magical Meetings, you can download the Magical Meetings Quick Start Guide, a free PDF reference with some of the most important pieces of advice from the book. Download a copy today at voltagecontrol.com/magical-meetings-quick-guide.
Today I’m with Paula Rosecky, a certified mindset and leadership coach and independent facilitator. She’s known as the culture coach and helps high achieving bilinguals and children of immigrants stop living someone else’s idea of success and start having the confidence, fulfillment, and wealth they want.
Welcome to the show, Paula.
Paula: Hello, Douglas. I’m really glad to be here, thank you.
Douglas: So let’s start off with just learning a little bit more about how you got your work started, specifically just curious how facilitators find their path into facilitating, and really just interested in the work you’re doing with bilinguals.
Paula: Thank you. Yeah, so I noticed early on that I was very fascinated by people who were not quite like me and I loved watching people’s patterns of behavior and how they think. I grew up in a community of folks who did not speak English and I think that really formulated how I approached the world, so much so that I studied sociology and psychology and after college, I went and lived in Europe for a long time and learned a second language, it was the second language of my parents. I lived in their home country for a while and that really formed my professional approach and how I approach people in general.
And then when I came back to the states, I did get a corporate job and when people wanted to work on the fancy brands, I decided, although I was working on a fancy brand, I decided I wanted to work on multicultural work and really help people understand people of other cultures. Even in that setting, I always veered towards people who looked a little different and maybe didn’t sound like me, and I just found them intriguing. So I was always interested in learning more about them.
So that’s my path to why I wanted to help people who were bilingual or children of immigrants, as I am one of them. So that’s how I got to this particular spot. And there’s been a few things in between though, of course.
Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. So how did you first find your way into facilitation? That’s always really a fascinating moment I think, when folks start to identify with facilitation and even coaching, I would say.
Paula: Yeah, yeah. So I came to facilitation really through market research and moderation. I’m a longtime qualitative market researcher, and I had been just feeling like market research was about information gathering and facilitation to me was intriguing because it brought in different types of tools, a different kind of energy, and a slightly different level of creativity. Not that moderating can’t be creative, but I felt like just some of the tools that were used were interesting to me to try to figure out how to bring in when I’m talking to actual participants.
But I also loved the idea of using these types of tools when debriefing and coming up with overall takeaways and involving the stakeholders. So I think facilitation was intriguing to me because it just seemed to bring in a whole allotment of tools that I hadn’t been familiar with before.
Douglas: Yeah, it’s interesting to think about, it’s not just the work that we have to do as far as the product that we’re creating and contributing to the organization but how we collaborate and communicate with our coworkers. So the debrief or the report out that you were talking about, it really… hits on that point.
Paula: Yeah, absolutely. Just and understanding how you’re going to take all of the insights, collect them, and present them in a way that your end stakeholders can really absorb, internalize, and deeply connect with actually. I really always enjoyed taking the voice of those consumers or participants of our research and highlighting them and actually being the voice of the customer for the end stakeholder.
Douglas: The thing that jumps out to me there is this idea of shared values or understanding or connecting with people’s values, and if we’re using these techniques with our stakeholders, we understand what’s in it for them. So then if we understand that deeply, it’s going to influence the research we do and then it’s also going to influence how we present the research because we understand what’s important versus just like, here’s what we found. We can layer in that ‘why’ and create that connection.
Paula: Yeah, absolutely. I think connecting it back to not only the values or what the outcome is intended to be for that individual, but also for the department and for the company overall and where they’re headed and what their overall goals were. I love attaching or connecting what one individual says to how a company wants to craft the experience of what they’re trying to build and how they’re trying to move forward in their organization, and for all of us and what they’re trying to create.
Douglas: Yeah, it’s really interesting too when you tie back to the conversation we were having prior to the recording here around connection and how important that is and how much we… this is top of mind for us as facilitators. And often when we mention connection, it’s this fostering deeper connection, either visual connection or understanding of the ‘who’ we are as humans. And yet here’s another example of connection at work. It’s like we’re connecting the findings to these needs so nothing exists in a vacuum. And I think if as facilitators we can constantly be looking out for ways we can link things and bring things together, whether it’s our emotions, our feelings. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what the other kinds of connection should we be thinking about?
Paula: I love the idea of connecting data to humans, that is… it’s a huge topic right now in the market research industry and space of, we have so much information. I think sometimes all of that can get lost and when we don’t think about who it is actually touching on the back end, and who are we actually servicing with all that data? All that data really comes down to each data point, and each data point is a human being. So I actually love thinking about that, and that is one of the reasons qualitative research and facilitation of listening sessions and those kinds of things are so valuable because you’re taking this idea of big data and making it human, which that’s where all the power is.
Douglas: Yeah, it’s amazing. So much of our work is qualitative research and it’s I think easier to get lost in just the data when folks are doing larger quantitative types of studies. And It, I don’t know, maybe apparently early in my journey into qualitative studies and interviews and just trying to understand customers, I was working a project where there was actually a couple that come to mind, which were sensitive in nature, emotional for the participant. Having to think about that, the needs in multiple levels. What are their needs in that moment in that dialog, because I had to connect with them on this level of, I’m not here to be a therapist but it could easily go into that territory where I needed to offer them safety and say, “Hey, we can abort at any point or would you like me to call someone for you?”
The thing is, the reason I bring all this up is, I think a super profound shift, there was a super profound shift in my thinking and my attitude toward this work having gone through this experience is, because wow, it’s just, talk about the humanity in the work. Right? You start to really, really connect in on it and I think it just stays with you, you don’t forget those moments. I think people are just swimming in the data, it’s harder to fuel that.
Paula: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, some of my favorite research moments were when I was in an unexpected place. I found myself at a bar with people who didn’t look like me. And someone reveals something deeply personal about something they’re going through. And you’re right, there’s always three conversations going on in my mind, in whether it’s having a one-on-one conversation in research or facilitating a room actually. And that is the conversation that you’re actually having with the person. There’s the conversation that you’re having with yourself about what’s going on with that person, and about what you’re trying to get out of the conversation. But I also think about the space that we’re in as being an entity and picking up on the communication that’s going on around us, whether that’s in-person in a physical space or if it’s online. I think that space takes on its own energy that is made up of the people within that space. So, it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, is not only that individual but also, and the collective in that space. What do you think about that, Douglas?
Douglas: I think that’s super important, and I think what you’re touching on is foundational and how people should approach facilitation. It’s like thinking about, what’s the internal dialog I’m having? How am I connecting with each individual person? Then, what’s happening as a whole? We as a group are an entity and something’s happening there.
Then also there’s to your point, there’s this room, these vibrations that are in the room based on the room. The space itself, the conditions you’ve set ahead of time have an impact. Certainly, if we push people in the Zoom, they’re going to behave differently than if we put them in the Teams or if we put them in the Mural or these are choices that we have to make. When we’re in the physical space it was always, do we have tables or is it just a circular set of chairs? Is it a crescent moon? These kinds of decisions will impact how people interact, how they’ll show up and the vibrations of the room. How does the room resonate?
Paula: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We think about each of the individuals in that room and I think one of the things I love about facilitation is thinking of the design of the experience and what you want people to leave with. I just, I love that there are exercises that are designed for creating a sense of belonging for instance, or to stimulate ideation and just this idea that each one of those types… there are different types of exercises depending on what you want the feel of the room and the overall outcome to be. So I just think it’s really fun to think about the experience of the individuals, the participants on the receiving end of our facilitation.
I do it obviously for my more corporate clients but also in coaching, I think it’s really, really relevant when you’re not only on an individual level for that individual person, but also if you’re doing small groups. It’s making sure that everybody is heard and everybody has something to contribute and can walk away with, so.
Douglas: When you just brought up this notion of facilitation can… and specifically some of the activities being even designed to create more belonging, it reminded me about your points around multicultural types of work that you’re fascinated in. And it just seems to me that with your background and being a child of immigrants and having… that’s your lived experience and perhaps that fostered your interest in others who are maybe not quite like all the others. There’s an appreciation there, and there’s that lived experience around hey, I want to create environments that invite folks in and create more belonging. I’d love to hear a little bit more about that because it strikes me as interesting.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, it’s an unconscious thing I think that I’ve been living with pretty much my whole life. Then it manifests in these ways like you said, I noticed that I veer towards people who are not quite like me, or I certainly try to seek out more folks who are not like me if I’m not in an environment where that’s not possible. So creating a sense of belonging.
I think we as facilitators don’t necessarily have control over how someone perceives an experience. All we can do is do our best to try, given what we know, to create an experience that will be open and inviting to the best of our ability. Then each person, each human that shows up gets to interpret that experience however they want, given their context which comes from all kinds of places. Their culture, society, what people have told them before. We bring it all with us and in each experience, we are interpreting given our own context.
So I try to be sensitive when I’m creating a designed facilitation experience to try to anticipate what someone else’s cultural background might be. The fact is, is we just don’t know. People have gone through, especially now, people have gone through so much. I just try to be really sensitive about what other people may or may not have experienced in their life and certainly in this short time that we’re all living through together.
Douglas: So that’s a really interesting point, it reminds me of, songwriters will write songs and listeners will interpret them however they want, right? But the thing about the songwriter is that they’re not in the room with these people expecting them all to get to some outcome at the end, right? So we’re in this interesting predicament around yeah, they could lay the best plan possible but if it doesn’t resonate or if it doesn’t hit them in a way that they feel safe or connect with, and it’s still important for us to help foster that and get the team where they need to go. So I’m curious, what are some of your go-to ways to A: diagnose that maybe it’s not landing? And then B: pivoting and maybe correcting for that?
Paula: Yeah, oh my gosh, that is such a good question. As a facilitator it’s our job to hold space for everyone. I try to approach it with as much empathy as I possibly can, but like you said, knowing on the other side there needs to be some kind of outcome. So this goes back to that conversation in our heads. I’m thinking about, what’s the overall outcome? What am I trying to achieve for a client, if that’s the case? What are the humans in this space experiencing?
So honestly, I think one of the best ways I do it is just through listening, a lot of listening and conversations, and some creative exercises at least to break up the energy or create some energy around what we’re trying to accomplish. I love using just writing prompts, so having some silent time where people can reflect on a prompt, write it down so that they are grounded and solid with what their answer is before being influenced by others. Then I like people to just share on their own what came up for them. Then usually inevitably once everybody shares, then it creates this collective energy. Usually, there’s some commonalities, sometimes there’s some differences. Then we poke around in both of those areas like oh, isn’t it interesting that so many of you feel this way? What are some of the ways that people feel differently? That’s always where some juicy, juicy stuff is in that, the differences.
Douglas: Yeah, it reminds me of this idea of moving into the conflict. It’s like those juicy bits around the differences and how we can explore that together in a way that’s, I would say, courteous.
Paula: Courteous and safe. We want people to feel safe if they feel, if they have a difference. So actually, I love that idea. What do you see as ways to create safety for people when you see differences like that?
Douglas: I think questions are powerful tools as facilitators. So visualizing, so you talked about… and I wanted to come back to that too, this notion of silent writing to prompts, this silent time. And especially if they’ve written, if it’s virtually and they’ve written it in the mural, we got this visual collateral we can point back to. As facilitators, we can triangulate things that are different, especially if they’re sifting things up, and we can just point it out. We can just ask people how they feel about this. Like, this is what I’m noticing, what do you all think?
Paula: Yeah, the combination of a visual and just powerful questions is always… I mean, it seems so simple and obvious but it really works. Having something to visualize, whether that’s a physical thing. I also actually like sometimes to have people, this is a little more challenging for some folks but to create a visual in their mind and then bring it to life if they can.
Douglas: Yes, having people imagine the future and present it in a way that others can see it. So it moves from between their ears to out in the open.
Paula: That’s right, because thoughts become things. That’s how anything comes to life is, it’s an idea-
Douglas: That’s right.
Paula: … that was a thought and it needs to be said, and then it has more likelihood of actually becoming true.
Douglas: It’s not even just the other folks in the room. Internally, we got a process that was not very well defined because I was just managing it organically. I was handing that off to someone else on the team. It seemed quite simple to me and I thought I’d explained all the pieces, but because I never wrote it down as a step-by-step process, they weren’t clear on all the little pieces, the little handoffs. So the first time they ran it, it went horribly wrong. So we sat down to actually document it so they could fully understand it. Even when I was looking at it, I was like well, this is a silly way to do it, because I had just been organically doing it in my head and just having people just ping someone and say, “Can you do this now, can you do this now?” When I wrote it down, it became clear to me that two of the steps were redundant and one was out of order.
So I think just visualizing things just always helps us move forward, even if it’s just one person. Now imagine how that lack of clarity compounds when you got more people in the room.
Paula: Yeah, absolutely. I’m a big fan of process, if you have a process and you can write it down, it can be really powerful and so efficient. It might be messy in the beginning like you’re saying, if there are different pieces coming from all different parts of who knows where, but then once you collectively can organize it and share it with everyone so everyone can contribute to it and make it more effective or efficient. I mean, it just I’m sure I can only imagine that it has helped you and your business quite a bit, to really solidify those processes and communicate them.
Douglas: Oh, absolutely. I think the trick is helping people understand that that’s essentially what we mean when we say, “Hey, let’s create a sketch or a prototype or a concept for your idea.” How does it come to life? So often people want to say what it is, they want to describe its attributes, so like a functional specification. It’s going to have a 10-inch nose and it’s going to have… but that’s not very helpful from an understanding how to actually do it, if that makes sense, because the user is going to interact with the thing or other members or our team’s going to have to perform a process and if we just start listing out all the criteria, people don’t fall in love with criteria.
Paula: Right, so I think I hear you saying you’d rather focus on the what is the thing trying to do. How is that thing making that person’s life better? Not necessarily the how but what is the thing, what are we trying to accomplish in the end goal for this person, right?
Douglas: Well, the way I usually describe it, it’s interesting because a lot of people say the how is not necessary, but I think when we’re trying to leap forward and present our idea, it can be really helpful to present our view of how it could be done, but we have to marry that with the why. I think often people get stuck on the what and it’s hard to get that clarity on just what it is, but if we understand why we’re doing it and how we’re going to generally approach it, then we’ve got a really clear approach on the what comes out in that work if that makes sense.
I think too often when people sit down and think about the what, they end up writing lists and lists of descriptive… I think it’s more powerful to get the story behind how the user’s going to accomplish what they’re trying to do, especially if we’re talking about a user process. Oftentimes when we’re prototyping concepts or ideas or just getting people to come together, it’s like a product where a user’s trying to accomplish a task. An internal process that a team is having to go through or procedures. So if we really put ourselves in the shoes of the person that’s doing that stuff and thinking about how they are going to accomplish what they need to accomplish, because otherwise if we just think about the what, we end up listing a bunch of bullet points like features. The user will be able to add another user, they’ll be able to set the rules and permissions, but I want to know how they do those things because that’s when the real concrete solution starts to present itself.
Paula: Yeah, so this is so interesting because it’s like, wherein the process? Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, wherein the process do you put the what and wherein the process do you put the how? I think starting with the why is always really, I mean, you just always want to start with the why. Why are we doing this thing, or why are we trying to accomplish this, or why am I trying to accomplish this?
What you’re saying is, when you’re thinking about a product, you do want to think about how a little bit earlier than I think if when we as humans are trying to accomplish something for ourselves. Now I’m taking it down to an individual level but if I’m trying to accomplish something, I might not at all know how I’m going to do it. I know why I want to do it and I have a probably a good idea of what I’m going to do, but I might not need, I might not know at all how it’s all going to come together. I just see for my future for instance, that this is what I want. Then I just take small steps to get there. The order is a little different, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Douglas: I agree, and I think that it might have to do with also the granularity of what the problem we’re approaching and how we’re breaking stuff down, because take for instance when we’re doing a design sprint. We want to be very, very clear on the why early on and we also get fairly clear on the what because we have our goal. But the question is, how are we going to accomplish that goal? Getting a very opinionated and a very specific direction on the how is important.
I think where people falter is when they take that big what, that big objective, and they break it down into tiny little what’s, because then those tiny little what’s are just still don’t have any opinion in them. They just basically decomposed it down into like okay, it’s got to have a door handle, it’s got to open, it’s got to allow airflow, it’s got to not go below 50 degrees. It’s just like okay, yes, we all can think about requirements but we need to go beyond that and really put forth our creative ideas on how this comes about in the world, even if we don’t have all the how’s figured out. We need to have some broad strokes, and if we don’t start thinking about that stuff, we haven’t really gotten in the solutioning. I agree, we don’t want to start with solutioning but once we get into some sort of solutioning, we can’t stay stuck in the what because if we keep drilling down more granular versions of the what, we haven’t really gotten into a concrete solution. It’s leaves too much open to interpretation.
Paula: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense because in the end you’re creating typically I’m imagining, a tangible thing. So that is much more of a possibly clear step-by-step way to go about it. There are some processes that just might not be quite as clear and it takes I think in prototyping, because you’re testing, you’re iterating, but actually now that I think about it, even in coaching we do that too because we’re all experimenting in life. If I’m trying to accomplish a goal for myself, well, this might be a way to do it, let me try this over here. Let’s see how close I got, if that didn’t work so well, let me just make a little change over this direction and let me try something else. The idea is to just not give up and keep going back to the why. Why are we doing this?
Douglas: That’s right, so I feel like the whole experimental mindset is jumping a little bit into the how and what if we do it this way? What if we do it this way? Not getting so stuck into trying to get a perfect what. So the perfect what is to me wonderful and doing so much, leaning so heavy into the specification.
So I wanted to come back to…because you mentioned a little earlier this notion of creating the silent writing time. I think that’s what maybe got me off on this not tangent that I’m passionate about, but I wanted to get your thoughts on why that’s so important. What do you think is happening in the room? Facilitators might be a bit skeptical about, well I thought we were supposed to have a conversation? I thought we were supposed to get people connected? Why is the silent time so important if our goals are to get people, include people, and get people connected?
Paula: Oh wow, yeah, I love that question. I think it’s important to have that silent time because each individual has something unique to contribute to the collective of the group. In order to not be influenced by what others are saying or contributing, it’s important that they listen to their own thoughts or ideas or opinions or beliefs about whatever it is that is being shared, whatever we’re trying to accomplish. So that you can have more variety, possibly more diversity, more genuine personal truth in what you’re bringing to the table.
So I think even just a little bit of that self-reflection quiet time, and that could be quiet time with… it could be writing but it could also be a small drawing just to take some of the thoughts and bring them out into the room so that you know that they’re coming straight from you and your thinking and each individual’s thinking.
Douglas: That’s awesome.
Paula: I think it makes the collective stronger.
Douglas: I agree, it totally makes the collective stronger. So the reason why we love silent work and giving everyone time to collect their thoughts and bring their best ideas forward. In the same answer, you also mentioned energy. I’d love to hear your thoughts around energy, how that plays a role in facilitation and any advice you have around energy, whether it’s observing it or maybe even influencing it?
Paula: Oh my gosh, in the lab within the past couple weeks, we were having a conversation about this, about, what are some ways that you can change the energy level of a group and being clear on what you want that energy to be and why. What is that going to contribute to the project or what you’re trying to accomplish? So this idea of silent more quiet energy is calming, whereas you might have energy that is more uplifted or fun and just being clear on why you want to change that energy. There’s just different approaches and really being attached back to the why. Why do we want to change the energy of a particular room?
Douglas: Yeah, that’s I think a power move as a facilitator, is constantly helping people connect to that why, because I think that’s one reason we might face… I would say that’s a common reason why there’s dysfunction in a group because people don’t understand the why. They don’t know why you’re asking them to do something.
Paula: Yeah, exactly. So I think actually along those lines, instructions are so important. Over my many years of being moderating, facilitating, and doing small workshops, having very clear instructions is so key. You want to tell people not always, but there are times where you really want to tell people exactly what they’re going to do and what to expect, unless you want some element of surprise, and it’s contributing to the overall good of what you’re trying to accomplish.
Douglas: Yeah, I like that, this intention surprise can often lead to the aha moments, especially if we’re trying to help teach people or help with capability building. Sometimes those surprise shocking elements will sometimes make people have those paradigm shifts or aha moments.
Paula: Yeah, so that reminds me of storytelling. When we can find something surprising in a group, and then bring that out as an example as we debrief or report on some of our insights. That helps to bring alive some insight that we learned.
Douglas: Yeah, for sure. Stories and narrative can build more connection, which we mentioned before. So I guess that was one of my questions earlier was, what other kinds of connections are there? I think there’s connections to the data and there here there’s connections to the insights. Maybe the narratives help us create those connections, so that’s cool.
Well, we’re coming up on time here. I want to ask you one more question before we go to our closer. That is, given all this stuff that we’re talking about, the general importance of facilitation and creating belonging and inclusion and some of the moves we make to ensure that everyone’s with us and all that goodness. I’m curious where you’re looking forward, as far as the future. What do you think is possible in the near term and what are you hopeful for as things continue to advance in the field?
Paula: Well, I do think it’s really fascinating to think about this idea of hybrid presentation, hybrid workshop, hybrid conferences. As I’ve been watching how things are unfolding, I think not only from the technical angle but also what connection looks like when we think about ourselves in a hybrid space. So I’m going to share a story about something that I’ve experienced lately, where it really brought home this idea of what hybrid may or may not look like.
So I’m a longtime practitioner of Qigong, which is, it’s not a martial art, it’s a way to move your energy through moving meditation. I’ve been doing it for years, it’s always been an in-person class. Of course over the pandemic, our highly skilled instructor teacher, she has had to move everything online. Now, this is a practice where it’s very visual, we’re very connected because we’re all doing the same moves at the same time. She also does some correction, so she’ll come around the room and help you with your posturing, but all of this moved online. So over the past 18-plus months, most of us have just seen each other on screens. Recently, she’s experimented to have a smaller group of people back in a room while also paying attention to people online.
So, what has been really fascinating to watch during that process and be a part of, is how she as a facilitator needs to watch her energy, watch the energy of everyone online, and watch the energy of everyone in the physical space. So I’m going to be super fascinated to see how technically do people deal with this? As facilitators, how are we going to watch and manage our own minds around all of the different spaces that we may need to pay attention to because now we’re going to have to make sure that we are taking care of and creating space for people in an online setting as well as in-person setting. I think it’s going to be just a huge challenge and really, really interesting to watch.
Douglas: Yeah, we are certainly very intrigued and have been doing our part to push things forward with the hybrid guide we released and there’s definitely going to be hybrid elements of the Control the Room Conference this year. So, super excited about all of that and just watching how things develop because I think the technology is going to get better and better to support different use cases and needs. So yeah, that’s really cool and we’ll all be watching that together and contributing in ways that we can to move it forward.
So with that, I just want to say that it was a pleasure having you on the show. Just want to give you a moment to leave our listeners with a final thought.
Paula: Well, thank you. So I do have a final thought. My final thought is, when you run across someone that you find intriguing, I want to challenge you to go ahead and approach that person, whether that’s online or in-person, and have a conversation about anything that is… whether it’s somewhat trivial in your mind or something deep, just anything that intrigues you about that person, because that is how we met actually, Douglas, is we were at a conference together, a design sprint conference. And I was fascinated by facilitation and I decided to approach you and ask you about it, and here we are. So you never know what’s going to happen you approach someone that you think is intriguing. So that’s my challenge to everyone because there are lots of possibilities there.
People can find me at PaulaRosecky.com and I currently am holding some shorter coaching sessions with the topic around how to manage your mother from another culture. This came out of some workshops that I’ve been doing recently and I see the need out there. I also spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, so I hope to see you there.
Douglas: Excellent, well Paula, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been a pleasure chatting and I look forward to talking to you soon.
Paula: Thanks Douglas, it’s been a pleasure.
Douglas: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together. Voltagecontrol.com.
