Virtual Archives + Voltage Control Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:48:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://voltagecontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/volatage-favicon-100x100.png Virtual Archives + Voltage Control 32 32 Control the Room 2021 https://voltagecontrol.com/blog/control-the-room-2021/ Tue, 16 Feb 2021 23:44:05 +0000 https://voltagecontrol.com/?p=12810 Control the Room 2021: a recap of our 3-day virtual facilitator summit. [...]

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The 3rd annual Facilitator Summit

Control the Room is now Facilitation Lab Summit


We hosted our annual facilitator summit last week alongside our sponsor MURAL, but this time, it was virtual. Instead of gathering in Austin’s Capital Factory, 172 eager learners, expert facilitators, and meeting practitioners gathered online for a 3-day interactive workshop. Our mission each year at Control the Room is to share a global perspective of facilitators from different methodologies, backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations, cultures, and ages. We gather to network, learn from one another, and build our facilitation toolkits. 

This year’s summit theme was CONNECTION. Human connection is an integral component of the work we do as facilitators.

When we connect things become possible. When we are disconnected there is dysfunction. When ideas connect they become solutions. When movements connect they become revolutions. 

Control the Room is a safe space to build and celebrate a community of practice for facilitators, which is paramount to learn, grow, and advance as practitioners and engaging in a dialogue that advances the practice of facilitation. We must learn the tools and modalities needed to foster connection and be successful facilitators in the new virtual landscape. 

“We must establish a personal connection with each other. Connection before content. Without relatedness, no work can occur.” —Peter Block

This year’s summit consisted of 18 expert facilitator guest speakers who presented lightning talks and in-depth workshops, where they shared their methods and activities for effective virtual facilitation. 

Read on for summaries of this year’s Control the Room Summit presentations. Each speaker delivered a 20-minute lightning session in the morning of their following 90-minute facilitated session that afternoon. 

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Voltage Control founder Douglas Ferguson started the summit with an introduction to the importance of connection in the virtual landscape and the critical role facilitators play in it. 

He encouraged the group to not only soak in all of the great information provided by the guest speakers but to network with guest attendees and experts alike to gain as much perspective as possible. 

The first round of lightning talks and workshops consisted of Van Lai-DuMone, Mohamed Ali, Leslie Forman, Michael Wilkinson, Emily Bowen, and Erik Skogsberg.

Van Lai-DuMone

Incorporate Creativity Into Your Virtual Facilitations

Van Lai-DuMone, the founder of Worksmart Advantage, discussed incorporating creativity into virtual facilitations. Creativity allows facilitators to make people feel heard, that their ideas matter, to express themselves, and to feel connected. Van’s workshop was focused on how incorporating creative tools can not only serve to harness the attention of the group but also serve as a practical tool for: Team Building and Development, Collaboration, Idea Generation, Problem Solving and Trust Building. 

“Creativity allows you to make people feel heard.”

Van encouraged participants to tap into their own strengths in order to identify the creative tools that will optimize their facilitation skills.

Mohamed Ali

You’re That Audience

Mohamed Ali, Service Designer and Facilitator at Independant, discussed how self-interest can create engagement and participation for your audience. Mohamed taught workshop attendees how to prepare an audience for a workshop, long before they show up. The questions attendees answered together were, “how might we effectively onboard participants without overwhelming them with the exercises and time needed to conduct the workshop? How might a beginners’ mindset assist an audience to contribute what they really wish to?” 

“Self-interest for an audience is beneficial; engage your audience as much as possible.” 

Mohamed Ali
Mohamed used MURAL in his workshop to teach participants how to prepare an audience for a workshop.

Leslie Forman

Secrets, Constraints, and Emojis

Leslie Forman, Senior User Experience Researcher at Linkedin, spoke about secrets, constraints, and emojis. By implementing the 3 Cs (concrete, colorful, and constrained) we can produce the best results from our team. Leslie discussed practical techniques that facilitators can use to guide participants into deeper discussions, especially about ambiguous or sensitive topics. 

Leslie Forman
Leslie used three stories to illustrate how to use the 3 Cs (concrete, colorful, and constrained) to produce the best results for teams.

Michael Wilkinson

Consensus Building: Techniques for Getting to Yes

Michael Wilkinson, CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies presented techniques to getting to “Yes” in a disagreement; understanding the issue is key to coming to a solution. According to Michael, three reasons people disagree are due to information, different experiences/values, and outside factors. Exploring the type of disagreement – information, different experiences/values, outside factors – and asking questions are instruments to solving the disagreement. In his workshop, Michael equipped attendees with a clear understanding of the three reasons people disagree, three methods for establishing a consensus-focused process, and five techniques for getting to “yes” when disagreements occur.

Michael Wilkinson
Michael illustrated understanding disagreement with a husband and wife scenario.

Emily Bowen

Peace, Love & Understanding

Emily Bowen, Holistic Leadership Consultant and Educator at The Peace Nerd, discussed how to facilitate using peace, love, and understanding. By remaining present and in the moment, facilitators can engage best with their users. Emily showed workshop attendees how to create lightness and ease when facilitators want to connect people to each other and build trust when working remotely.

“Take a moment to breathe and be in this space.” 

Emily Bowen
Emily showed participants how to loosen up and have some fun–an essential component to foster connection in virtual facilitation.

Erik Skogsberg

Learn to Transform

The last lightning speaker of the day was Voltage Control’s own Erik Skogsberg speaking on how the best learning experiences are learner-focused. Erik informed the group that the best facilitators, whether they know it or not, are Learning Experience Designers (LXDs). LXDs bring the best of user experience design and the learning sciences to bear on creating transformation: whether in a meeting, presentation, workshop, or course. Participants were guided through some hands-on practice in these methods for use in a meeting, workshop, or training of their own and then were introduced to how to design for better learning experiences and lasting change in their future facilitation work.

“It is up to the facilitator to move and adjust to the learners in the room.”

Erik Skogsberg
Erik’s MURAL explaining Learning Experience Design.

Day one ended with special prize giveaways and a virtual happy hour with all participants. 

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

After an introduction to open up the day, the second round of lightning talks and workshops consisted of Jennifer Marin Jericho, Kaleem Clarkson, Caitlin Loos, William Aal, Solomon Masala, Alison Coward. 

Guest speakers: Jennifer Marin Jericho, Kaleem Clarkson, Caitlin Loos, William Aal, Solomon Masala, Alison Coward. 

Jennifer Marin Jericho

How to Pivot When Things Go Wrong

Jennifer Marin Jericho, Co-Founder and Design and Communication Strategist of Jericho Vinegar Works, presented tactics for Effective Facilitation and Facilitation Pitfalls on some of the tips she has learned along the way for when things don’t go the way you expect. We often think of facilitation as the moment when we are in the room, Jennifer said, running a workshop or meeting, but there’s quite a lot of work to be done before and after to host a successful workshop.

“The devil is in the details.”

Jennifer showed workshop attendees how to host a successful virtual workshop using MURAL.

Kaleem Clarkson & David Klasko

Fighting Isolation and Building Meaningful Relationships through the Power of Play

Kaleem Clarkson, Chief Operating Officer at Blend Me, Inc., and David Klasko, Actor, Comedian, and Founder of Artly Working, presented on what the research says about the dangers of isolation, and how playing simple (and incredibly fun) games can create meaningful human connection in the virtual workplace. Technology has provided a platform to find and foster these relationships, but it takes a thoughtful and structured approach to create a human connection. Based on improv comedy, and built for video conferencing, Artly Working has designed workshops to add humor, vulnerability, and spontaneity to the virtual world – in other words, the human element! Using games and exercises developed specifically for the platform, the goal is to fight isolation and loneliness and build bonds on our remote platforms, and not in spite of them. Participants learned games and exercises that can be implemented with teams right away.

Kaleem Clarkson
Kaleem shared some of the dangers of isolation before showing participants how to incorporate simple play to combat it.

Caitlin Loos & Jordan Hirsch

7 Hours on Zoom…In a good way!

Caitlin Loos, Director of Creative Services at Phase2 Technology, and Jordan Hirsch, Director of Innovation at Phase2, taught participants how they created a 7-hour zoom conference that was energizing, inspiring, & fun. The workshop explored how they turned their annual company conference — a deeply human, connected experience for 100+ people — into a Zoom call that lasted seven hours and spanned four time zones, but still worked. The group experimented and played with activities that helped turn a virtual event into a virtual experience.

“Embracing virtual events should engage all of the senses, incorporate the home, and recognize that virtual is not always better, worse, or the same.” – Caitlin Loos

Caitlin Loos
Caitlin shares a testimonial from a happy participant that attended their 7-hour Zoom call.

William Aal

Equity, Power and Conflict in Meeting Design

William Aal, Co-founder and Managing Partner of unConference.net, explored how to disrupt patterns of privilege and oppression that are often overlooked in meeting design in his lightning talk and workshop

 “Explore those dynamics in your facilitation practice. Have fun making the invisible visible!”

In his workshop, participants learned how to set the table for people to fully participate, taking into account the currents of power difference in the space. They also learned how to be aware of their own privilege dynamics; how to acknowledge conflict and use it as a tool to deepen community and when process becomes liberatory and when it furthers patterns of oppression.

William Aal teaches the impact of privilege and oppression that are often overlooked in meeting design.

Solomon Masala

Zip in your Zoom

Solomon Masala, creator of the Source Consultng Group, reminded participants that most humans have been conditioned to get in front of a screen and go passive. He said we forget that real learning is an active, full-body experience, and in our virtual learning world it’s critical to keep the learning juices activated. In his workshop, Solomon engaged participants in 25+ kinesthetic activities that range from 1 minute to 1 hour, guaranteed to get participants energized and enlivened, regardless of the group.

Solomon Masala

Alison Coward

Workshop Culture for a Better Workplace

Alison Coward, Founder of Bracket, closed out the day by discussing the lasting impacts of workshops. Her presentation explored the real potential of workshops in improving our experience of work, and what else that may bring. Integrating workshop culture into an environment allows for the intended products of workshops like engagement and progress as well as the unintended possibilities such as open communication and more trust. 

“Workshops bring many of the factors that we want to see in productive, engaged and positive cultures – collaboration, inclusion, motivation, creativity – so how can we take these elements beyond a one-off event and bring them more generally into the workplace?”

Alison Coward
Alison explained how to successfully integrate workshop culture into an environment.

Day two ended with prize giveaways and a happy hour with the summit’s participants.

Summit happy hour.

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Summit participants were welcomed with a warm introduction to the final day, followed by lightning talks and workshops from Madelon Guinazzo, Vinay Kumar, J. Elise Keith, Joshua Davies, Elena Astilleros, and Rachel Ben Hamou.

Guest speakers: Madelon Guinazzo, Vinay Kumar, J. Elise Keith, Joshua Davies, Elena Astilleros, and Rachel Ben Hamou.

Start our Magical Meetings course today!

Learn the methods to make your meetings magical.

Madelon Guinazzo

Facilitating Fearlessly with Heart

Madelon Guinazzo, Co-Founder of Cuddlist, addressed that all facilitators have fears, and participants all come with their own fears as well. Her experiential-based workshop explored some common facilitator fears in a safe way. Participants built resilience and the sense of connection that leads to grounded positive action in the midst of fear. Madelon showed attendees how to tap into the powerful potential of transformation that fear holds for both the facilitator and participant. She demonstrated how to let those fear fuel participants into fun and greater trust in themselves and life, and challenged them to explore how to hold fear – their own and others – with equanimity.

“Let your fear out. Exaggerate it. Give it a voice.”

Madelon Guinazzo
Participants used MURAL to brainstorm and share all of their fears of facilitating.

Vinay Kumar

Connecting People and Thinking for Shared Values

Vinay Kumar, Director of Client Engagement at C2C Organizational Development, discussed engagement and creating meaningful connections. In this new age of digital engagement and connection, accessing ways of creating that safe and brave space allows our users to form those bonds and further goals. Using the right brain is not only fun but also helps in drawing out many aspects that participants often find difficult to articulate in a group setting. This is especially true when groups are extremely diverse in terms of experience, cultures, hierarchy, language, etc. Vinay’s workshop explored two methods in creating strong connections that increase the effectiveness of group work.

Vinay Kumar
Vinay explained the difference between transactional and truly meaningful connections and their importance.

J. Elise Keith

Facilitating in Real Time, Near Time, and Far Time

J. Elise Keith, Founder and CEO of Lucid Meetings, spoke about facilitating in the present, near, and future. We can take a project from real-time excitement to near and far-time enthusiasm through creating records and remembrances of the occurrence. In her workshop, J. Elise explained that professional facilitators are pretty skilled at planning and running events. But the challenge is how to make sure that the work in facilitated events and the changes these events inspire have an impact on the everyday lives of those being served. Participants explored what it means to facilitate across different time scales and surface ideas we can all use to make a more lasting impact.

“Traditional skills are being replaced.”

J. Elise Keith
J. Elise shares her flow model for effective leadership team meetings.

Joshua Davies

Moving Minds: Exploring Conversation Maps in Facilitation

Joshua Davies, Founder and Lead Conversation Architect at Knowmium, examined how conversations operate and move in our facilitations. If we are to reach an understanding with others, we must have a path to empathy. Too many conversations are treadmills, endless, going without ever getting anywhere, or broken parallel monologues in search of true dialogue. In his session, participants explored practical techniques for better awareness and co-creation in discussions using conversation mapping, contrasting, and cadence control.

Types of conversations: understanding, problem-solving & exploring, blocking/telling, storytelling/persuading.

Joshua Davies
Joshua used conversation mapping to help participants explore practical techniques for better awareness and co-creation in discussions.

Elena Astilleros

$h*t to Hit!! Creating Meetings Participants Love

Elena Astilleros of Empoderment, discussed turning your meeting from “Sh** to hit.” Facilitators are the ones who bring the magic to the room, she said. Our users can’t go further than where we are at ourselves. Elena taught participants how they might be creating the wrong kind of drama (without realizing it) when facilitating. Elena’s workshop taught participants how to lead lively meetings where they (and everyone participating) feel alive and reinvigorated from their time together. She provided attendees with practices they can start using to trigger group genius in their next meeting or workshop and a simple way to up-level the questions they ask their team.

“Do you feel totally drained after facilitating your sessions? When you ask questions, do you get crickets…or worse, only the same handful of people answering every time?” 

Elena Astilleros
Elena helped participants first take a look at themselves in order to understand how to become more effective facilitators.

Rachel Ben Hamou & Andre Ben Hamou

Onboarding Without Hoarding

Rachel Ben Hamou, Director of Talent Development at PeopleStorming, and Andre Ben Hamou, Co-Founder of PeopleStorming, explored how to develop processes and criteria (that they will genuinely use) that allow facilitators to evaluate exercises and activities at speed. They taught participants how to ‘Yes And’ the great resources they discover, without things becoming unmanageable. By using play and creating a toolkit, we can embrace both the face-to-face interactions as well as creating a space that also includes our virtual interactions as well.

“Since everything has gone virtual, the internet is a treasure trove AND a landfill of every process and exercise humans can imagine. How do you sift through all that noise to find activities that will help YOU facilitate well?”

Rachel Ben Hamou
Rachel explained the PeopleStorming method to help teams optimize at peak performance.

The final day was wrapped with a raffle prize giveaway and a celebratory happy hour.

Our master MURAL board to keep track of and document the 3-day summit.

We’re already excited about next year’s summit. To be a part of our facilitator community in the meantime, join us for our weekly Facilitation Lab and check out our upcoming events.

Looking to connect with Voltage Control

Let's get the conversation rolling and find out how we can help!

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Incorporate Creativity Into Your Virtual Facilitations https://voltagecontrol.com/blog/incorporate-creativity-into-your-virtual-facilitations/ Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:49:00 +0000 https://voltagecontrol.com/?p=13993 Control the Room Summit 2021: Van Lai-DuMone, founder of Worksmart Advantage, discusses how to incorporate creativity into virtual facilitations. [...]

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Video and transcript from Van Lai-DuMone’s talk at Austin’s 3rd Annual Facilitator Summit, Control the Room

Recently, we hosted our annual facilitator summit alongside our sponsor MURAL, but this time, it was virtual. Instead of gathering in Austin’s Capital Factory, 172 eager learners, expert facilitators, and meeting practitioners gathered online for a 3-day interactive workshop. Our mission each year at Control the Room is to share a global perspective of facilitators from different methodologies, backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations, cultures, and ages. We gather to network, learn from one another, and build our facilitation toolkits. 

This year’s summit theme was CONNECTION. Human connection is an integral component of the work we do as facilitators.

When we connect things become possible. When we are disconnected there is dysfunction. When ideas connect they become solutions. When movements connect they become revolutions. 

Control the Room is a safe space to build and celebrate a community of practice for facilitators, which is paramount to learn, grow, and advance as practitioners and engaging in a dialogue that advances the practice of facilitation. We must learn the tools and modalities needed to foster connection and be successful facilitators in the new virtual landscape. 

“We must establish a personal connection with each other. Connection before content. Without relatedness, no work can occur.” —Peter Block

This year’s summit consisted of 18 expert facilitator guest speakers who presented lightning talks and in-depth workshops, where they shared their methods and activities for effective virtual facilitation. 

One of those speakers was Van Lai-DuMone.

Van Lai-DuMone, the founder of Worksmart Advantage, discussed incorporating creativity into virtual facilitations. Creativity allows facilitators to make people feel heard, that their ideas matter, to express themselves, and to feel connected. Van’s workshop was focused on how incorporating creative tools can not only serve to harness the attention of the group but also serve as a practical tool for: Team Building and Development, Collaboration, Idea Generation, Problem Solving and Trust Building. 

“Creativity allows you to make people feel heard.”

Watch Van Lai-DuMone’s talk “Incorporate Creativity Into Your Virtual Facilitations” :

Read the Transcript

Van:

Hello, everyone. Nice to be here today. I’m so excited to be here today, to talk to you about this concept of incorporating creativity into your virtual facilitations. So my work is steeped in creativity and still, this is something that I had to really actively learn to start doing, in March. So I’m going to do today, is share with you some of the tools that I use, to bring creativity into virtual facilitations, and then also share with you why I think it is important to use creativity in our facilitation skills. So my name is Van, as Douglas said, and my work is in team development and leadership training, all through creative integration. And what I mean by creative integration is basically, I use creativity, play and experiential learning, in everything that I do. So let’s start with this idea of what is creativity and why do we bring it into virtual facilitation?

So when I describe creativity, I talk about it as a capacity, not a skill. So for example, oil painting is a skill, opera sing is a skill, but the creativity behind those skills is a capacity and is a capacity that we all have. We’re all creative. So if there is something that we should be universally training on, it’s creativity. You can train me on accounting until we both turn blue, and I’m never really going to quite get it. You might try to train someone else on sales and they might not quite get it, but when you bring creativity into any type of learning environment, what you’re doing is tapping into a capacity that we all have. Creativity also challenges our way of thinking. It allows us to hear from different perspectives and see things from different perspectives. And I’m talking about our own perspectives, right?

Sometimes we can be singular minded, but by being creative, we can see things from different perspectives. And there’s also something about creativity that allows us to see and hear perspectives from other people in the room as well. And then finally, what is creativity? Creativity is something that gives us access to ideas that are untapped by left brain, analytical thinking alone. And oftentimes particularly in the workplace, that’s where we at. We’re in that left brain, analytical thinking. So drawing in creativity is like bringing in that hippie sister. Who’s getting great, bring all these creative ideas, these wild and crazy ideas, and that’s what we want. And then why use creativity in virtual facilitations? Number one, it keeps your audience active and engaged in their learning. It’s hard to be disengage when you’re asked to maybe sketch your neighbor, or if you’re asked to do the floss, it also leaves people energized rather than drained.

So it can be easy to leave people drained, especially now that we’re in front of a computer screen. So as facilitators, we can’t just take what we used to do in person and bring it virtually. It doesn’t really work. We have to be very intentional about how we’re talking to our audience and engaging them to leave them energized. And then there’s something very natural about creativity that creates this opportunity for connection and collaboration, because creativity is so much about idea sharing. It really offers this opportunity to collaborate naturally. And then also it offers this experience of emotional connection, and that is something that I find very beneficial to bringing creativity into this virtual environment. So there is a quote that I like to use in my facilitations, and this is it. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And that’s Maya Angelou.

So I love this quote because it really shows you how creativity allows you to make people feel heard. Creativity allows you to make people feel like their ideas matter. To feel that they can express themselves and to feel connected. So now let’s talk a little bit about the how. So, how do you bring creativity into the workplace or into facilitation? So I am aware that although we’re all innately creative, some people may not be that comfortable with their creativity. So I scaffold the delivery of my creativity into my facilitations, starting with something that helps to connect people, and there’s a low barrier of resistance. Then I slowly challenged them into their creativity, giving them a little bit more challenging activities, that’s going to walk them through their creativity, which is what we’re going to do later today in the workshop title. Hang on a second, I’ll get my thing back here. In a workshop that’s really going to show you how to incorporate your creativity and creative tools into your facilitation.

And we’re going to model it through a workshop called, Discover your unique characteristics, that make us stronger together by the sum of our differences, because of the sum of those differences that creates possibilities for ourselves and for others. So I taught just a minute ago, about this whole idea of scaffolding integration into your virtual facilitations, and starting with something that connects people and has a low barrier of resistance. So one tool I use for that is storytelling. And I’m going to demonstrate that for you right now, and to do that, I am going to go way back in time. All the way back to 1975, to Hope Village Refugee Integration Center, where my family and I found ourselves after fleeing the end of the Vietnam war, and it’s here that hundreds of volunteers showed up and donated their time, their skills and their natural characteristics and strengths to help us transition into our new country.

And there was one volunteer who took particular interest in helping the women at the camp, and that volunteer was Hollywood movie star actress, Tippi, Hedren. So back then, she was most famously known for her starring role in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds. Now she’s probably more famous as Melanie Griffith’s mom and Dakota Johnson’s grandmother, but back then she was a huge Hollywood movie star who brought her kindness, her attentiveness, and her influence, to Hope Village, to help this group of refugees. So TippI, what she decided to do is start a program that help these women learn to type and sow, so they could take those skills and start a career for themselves in this new country. But there was something else that sparked the curiosity of my mom and 19 other women at the camp. And you can see it slightly here in the picture that was Tippi’s long, red, manicured, nails.

So Tippi could easily overlook that curiosity, but she didn’t. What she did was, she was attentive, and what she did next was, she asked herself, well, what if, what if we can get these women trained and licensed as manicurist? So the first thing she did was, she went back to Los Angeles and invited her personal manicurist, Dusty Coots Butera, to come up and help these women learn how to do a basic manicure. So weekend after weekend, Dusty showed up and she brought with her, her patience and her natural ability to teach and to connect, and she taught them how to do a basic manicure. And what that did, is it made my mom and her friends, even more curious and more determined to make this their career, and Tippi was determined to help them.

So despite the fact that none of these women spoke English, and certainly none of them had any money to pay for tuition to go to school, Tippi got creative, and she went down to the local beauty school and she asked them, would you be willing to take on these 20 Vietnamese refugee women as students? And the owners of Citrus Heights Beauty College, with their compassion and their willingness to help, they said, yes.

So because of this, these 20 women, all of them passed their manicure practicum and written tests, in English in under 10 weeks. And the story doesn’t end there. There was the refugees who came after us, that learned about the profession from my mom and her friends, and then their friends from them. Some of you may know that the Vietnamese manicure industry or the manicure industry in the United States is now an $8.3 billion industry, dominated by Vietnamese Americans, who make up 53% of the profession across the country and 80% here in California. So the lesson I get from this is that it is in fact, the sum of our differences and our connection that makes us stronger together, and makes it possible for us to achieve what might seem impossible on our own. Tippi brought her kindness, her attentiveness, her influence, and her creativity. Dusty brought her patience, her natural ability to teach and to connect. The women brought their resilience, their determination, and their curiosity. And then the owners of the beauty college brought their compassion and their willingness to help.

So I share this story and this presentation for a couple of reasons. I just gave you an example of how to scaffold creativity into your virtual facilitations through storytelling. Now, clearly your story doesn’t have to be as dramatic as fleeing a war torn country, or trailblazing an entire industry, but what it does have to do is level the playing field, connect people and elicit an emotion to draw people in the room with you. And you also got to show a little bit of vulnerability, because by doing so, you allow others to do the same. And if you’re going to ask people to tap into their creativity and get a little vulnerable, it’s important that we model that first. And again, with this particular story, what I want to show you… And I hope I showed and inspired all of us to do, is draw on our natural character strings and follow our curiosities over the next three days to find ways to connect, collaborate, and create possibilities for ourselves and for others.

So why did I showed this tool of storytelling this morning as a starting point? Right? So I talked about the whole idea of scaffolding your creativity into your facilitations. So the next step after storytelling and connecting, is what I like to call transfer exercises, where you’re asking people to participate by building on or drawing with some defined shapes. So for example, I can’t see any of you, but I’m going to ask all of you to just look around you right now and pick up five things you might see next to you, just five small objects.

And I’m going to ask you to just take 30 seconds to use those objects, to build a tower. So I’ll give you about 30 seconds here, loosely 30 seconds to build a tower. Okay? So some of you may have your towers up by now, and then what you might want to do is ask them some questions, such as, how many have you built for height? How many people built for aesthetics? How many people built for a strong foundation? And now what you’ve done, is you’ve given them something to do physically, right? Now you’re doing manual tactile building, and you’ve asked them some questions that helps them learn a little bit about themselves. And what you can use that exercise now for, is to break them… You can take them into breakout rooms and use it as a way to do an icebreaker or introduce themselves.

So, that was the next step in the scaffolding. Is this idea of transfer exercises. The next step is the use of visual cues. And since you have your tower already, I’m just going to use that as an example. So as an example, you might now say, what visual cues do you see from that tower? What characteristics of that tower might make you reflect on a way to overcome a challenge that you might be talking about? So you’re looking at characteristics now and trying to force a connection between what they built or what they’re looking at, and some ideas to solve a problem. So, that’s another way you can bring in this idea of creativity to your virtual facilitations. And then the last step would really be to have people use their imagination. Now that they’re comfortable and kind of getting into this concept of using their imagination, using their creativity, you can stretch them a little bit more.

So I like to ask people to either sketch something or tell a story. So I’m going to ask you to do right now, is to sketch, sketch one thing that you can bring to the conference today to make it valuable to others. So again, sketch one thing today, that… Sketch one thing right now, actually, that you can bring to the conference to make this conference valuable to others. And it might be your humor. It might be your energy. So whatever that looks like to you in a sketch, go ahead and draw that sketch right now. And what I have to say, is that this is not an art project.

Your sketching and drawing skills do not matter. It’s just this idea of using your creativity. And after you sketch that one, I’m going to ask you to do another sketch. I’m going to ask you to sketch something that you want to get from this conference and this summit. So what’s going to bring value to you? So that might be… You might be looking for more collaborations. You might be looking for more tools to bring back to the work you do. So take a minute to do that.

And hopefully you guys show up to my workout later today. We can share those. All right. So I’m going to close with this idea, that when we meet later on, we’re going to use some of these creative tools and the scaffolding idea to bring creative tools into your virtual facilitations. I’m going to teach you some of the tools that I use in that scaffolding method, but we’re going to do it through the lens of uncovering your natural character strengths, that can be used to create possibilities for yourself and for others, just like my mom, Tippi Hedren, Dusty, and the owners of that beauty school did, all the way back in 1975, to create possibilities over the next three days for ourselves and for others, and some possibilities that are foreseeable and some possibilities that we can’t even foresee what those might be. So thank you so much for your time today. I look forward to enjoying and being part of the rest of the conference. You can connect with me on LinkedIn if you’d like to, or we’ll connect over on Zoom as well. Thank you for your time.

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