The Best Practices for Creating Safe and Engaging Learning Environments

A conversation with Grace Losada, Vice President of Learning and Development of Change Enthusiasm Global

In this Facilitation Lab Podcast episode, host Douglas Ferguson interviews Grace Losada, Vice President of Learning and Development at Change Enthusiasm Global. Grace shares how her early experiences in peer counseling, athletics, and performance arts shaped her facilitation style. The conversation explores creating safe, engaging environments for learning, the importance of shared language, and the art of scaling intimacy in large groups. Grace offers insights on embracing mistakes, fostering connection, and designing impactful experiences, emphasizing playfulness and agency. The episode highlights facilitation as both an art and a science, rooted in intentionality, collaboration, and authentic human connection.

Show Highlights

[00:04:27] The DJ Turned Facilitator Story
[00:08:15] Beyond Psychological Safety: The Role of Enthusiasm
[00:16:52] Team Dynamics and Nonverbal Communication
[00:21:18] Advice to Her Teen Self
[00:24:02] Discovering Facilitation as a Discipline
[00:32:09] Designing for Impact in Large Groups
[00:37:38] Scaling Intimacy in Large Venues
[00:42:32] Connection as the Ultimate Outcome

Links | Resources

Grace on LinkedIn

About the Guest

Leveraging a background in learning and psychology, Dr. Grace Losada has served as an executive leader in start-up and high growth organizations at the intersection of business and social enterprise.  Well before the pandemic, she successfully built and led multi-functional national teams, both face to face and virtual, through rapid growth and change.  At the center of Grace’s work is creating professional environments that support the development of individuals and teams so people and business can thrive. 

Born and raised in Asia, Grace attended an international school that gave her a love of travel, a global perspective, and a dedication to inclusive development of people. She is grateful every day to live in sunny San Diego.

Subscribe to Podcast

Engage Control The Room

Voltage Control on the Web
Contact Voltage Control

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 of 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. 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 Grace Losada, at Change Enthusiasm Global, where she serves as vice president of learning and development, supporting individuals and enterprise clients to navigate change in a more human way. Welcome to the show, Grace.

Grace Losada:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Douglas Ferguson:

So great to have you. I’ve been looking forward to chatting. I really enjoyed interviewing you for the alumni story and seeing that get published. So I know it’s going to be a great conversation today.

Grace Losada:

Looking forward to it.

Douglas Ferguson:

So you’ve shared that your facilitation roots trace back to high school, specifically to a retreat in Hawaii where friends nudged you into a pure counseling program. When you revisited that first immersive weekend, what was the moment you realized a well-held container could transform how people show up with one another?

Grace Losada:

Yeah. It was such a powerful experience. And I wish I could remember the name of the organization who embedded in our high school and helped us get this program off the ground. Because I feel like I tell this story sometimes and I want to give them credit, and I can’t remember the name of the organization and I feel terrible. So if they’re listening out there, remind me. But I went to a few different high schools, but in this particular instance, it was a small private high school where we got to do a lot of really cool creative things, just by the nature of our size. And also, I’m going to give credit to my headmaster. His name was Pieper Toyama, and he was just a gifted educator. And this peer counseling program was set up between our high school and a rival high school in the area where we had some bad blood, to be perfectly honest.

And so they set it up so that the sophomores, juniors and seniors got trained in this particular protocol. And then we put on an event for the seventh, eighth and ninth graders. And it was an overnight event, which I think is always risky when you’re dealing with middle and high schoolers. And we all camped out in a gym for two days and had really meaningful conversations about the nature of life and where all these young people about to launch. And certainly, because of the nature of the relationship in the high schools, we also talked a lot about human relationship and what that was like for us, and what we wanted to create going forward in the world. It was just a mindblower for me. I’ve never been exposed to something of that depth at that age, and they put the kids in charge. That was the thing that was just so incredible when I look back on it.

But there were just these moments of closeness and connection that were so emotional and heartfelt, and powerful and transformative. That’s the word I really want to say. It was transformative and you could just feel it happening. And people were laughing and crying and hugging, and we were a bunch of teenagers. It was great. It was truly, truly amazing. I’m so grateful for that experience. And I didn’t really know the impact at the time. I knew I was feeling something, I was experiencing something. I had no idea that that was going to be kind of a harbinger of things to come in my life, but it certainly was. Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson:

Let’s talk about the DJ turned lead facilitator twist.

Grace Losada:

So again, I was reluctant to join this group. I had no interest. It just didn’t occur to me. But a couple of my friends were like, “No, no, no, you got to do this. We’re going to all do this. Let’s go do this together.” And so I joined the group. And still not really seeing myself as any kind of a facilitator, or leader or… I just was a kid who was into theater and soccer and whatever. And not a great student, by the way, and just didn’t see myself in that capacity. And so I show up at this thing and we’re having all these conversations and we’re setting up roles for the event. So most people were going to be facilitators, and then there were a couple of roles that I would call more like production and logistics. And there was one role that was the DJ for the event, and you got to put together all the music and lead that effort. And I thought, “Oh, that sounds fun. I’ll do that.” And I raised my hand for it.

And the adults in charge, kind of pulled me aside and they were like, “Well, if we think that maybe we could really leverage your talents in another way that was just more powerful, are you open to that?” And I was like, “All right, sure. Yeah.” I was again, along for the ride. So they did not give me the DJ role. They put me in a facilitator role. And again, I think that they saw something in me at that time, that I didn’t really see in myself yet. And that’s again, the mark of a good educator. That’s hopefully, what we’re doing for young people when we’re educating, is we’re pulling things out of them that were going to help blossom and grow. And they did that for me for sure.

Douglas Ferguson:

So I was curious how that experience shaped the way you spot and cultivate leadership in others?

Grace Losada:

Oh, that’s a great question. Well, I guess I’m probably having these thoughts for the first time, because I don’t know that I ever really thought about that, but it absolutely did upon reflection. Because what I know that I have done with young people and adults that I’ve worked with in terms of leadership development, is most often trying to create the container, I guess I’ll call it. We’re creating the conditions and the container for something to occur, and then we have to let go. We let go of the reins. So when I work with people, specifically around leadership, which is a big part of what I do, you’re looking for these flashes of insight and beauty in the way that they’re relating to others, in the way that they’re reflecting vulnerably, in the way that they’re willing to share. And then you want to pull that thread.

So the best way I know to do that is to create an environment, to create a container, to create the conditions where people feel not only safe, but we talk a lot about psychological safety, and that’s super, super important. But it’s a step beyond that, because I need people to not just feel safe, but to actually feel excited and engaged in whatever the moment is bringing. And to take risks and to reach and to quite literally, grow in real time and watch that transformation happen right in front of you. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever experienced as a professional. And really, the thing that’s kind of cool about it is it’s almost effortless if you’ve set up the environment, because people take it on themselves. They drive their own ship, so to speak.

Douglas Ferguson:

I love that. And coming back to your point around it needs to be more than just safety, I think you missed a great opportunity to point out that it has to be enthusiastic.

Grace Losada:

Yeah. Well, right. And I should be talking about that. Change Enthusiasm Global, if nothing, we are enthusiastic. And I think that that’s just, it’s a symptom. It’s a marker of great engagement. When you’ve got people sort of on the edge of their seats because they’re so into whatever it is that you’re discussing or doing, the enthusiasm just starts to flow, and then you know, then you know you’ve got them.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. So let’s talk about Parker School. Am I understanding, they champion student voice and you help recreate retreats for younger students?

Grace Losada:

That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. That school again, was just it was ahead of its time. And our headmaster was ahead of its time and very, very gifted. So another example of just empowering students, you had the opportunity to create not all, but some of your own courses. So being that it was a small school, they had sort of the core curriculum that was offered. And then if you wanted to do something that was slightly out of the box or unique, et cetera, you were empowered to design your own course. And you would find somebody on the faculty who would champion the work that you wanted to do, and you could put that whole thing together. And so, I remember one I wanted to do was photography, and I created the whole course and found a sponsor. And I did a photography course that I actually wrote that went on my transcript.

And so they were just very good about putting us in the driver’s seat. And I think for this particular peer counseling program, the idea of putting a bunch of teenagers in charge of some younger teenagers or pre-teens, that’s a really risky thing to do. You’ve got to have a lot of confidence in your ability to create that container. You’ve got to have a lot of confidence in your ability to create the condition, so that that goes well, because it could very easily go poorly. And you could easily put kids in a situation where real damage is done psychologically and relationally, and so forth, but they were just masterful. So another kind of pain point, right? So I mentioned we had 10th, 11th, and 12th graders in charge of seventh, eighth, and ninth graders. And mind you, in these schools, seventh and eighth was middle school and ninth was high school.

And so the freshmen were like, “What in the heck? You’re putting me back in middle school?” And so we were starting with a loaded situation, where people were already kind of like, “Oh.” But it worked, it just worked. And it was brilliant that they did that in the end, because it gave the freshmen this opportunity for what I guess I’ll call, like a transitional leadership. Because they were the oldest of the bunch. They were in a different sort of category in terms of their grade at school, but maybe they weren’t quite ready to lead because they were just getting their feet wet. And it gave them this sort of transitional leadership opportunity that I think initially, they felt like, “Oh, I’m being pushed back into middle school.” But then they quickly realized the ability that they had in that role to sort of stretch their own leadership wings, which was really cool.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah, that’s really neat, this idea of almost passing the torch and these ritualistic moments where people are priming for the next evolution of themselves.

Grace Losada:

Yeah, absolutely. The whole program really was essentially like a social emotional learning program. We talk a lot about that now in education. This was back in the early ’90s. And I think it was maybe just beginning to be a conversation around those things. None of those labels, I don’t remember any of those labels being put on what we were doing. But as I grew in my own career and went into the psychology and science of learning, I started to understand the wisdom and what they had set up for us and really appreciate them.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah, it’s powerful stuff. Speaking of foundational experiences, I’m always really fascinated by the influences folks have throughout their life that kind of shape who they are today, and what makes for great facilitation skills and just all the resources and experiences you bring into the work. And for you, early on, you balanced outrigger canoeing, and soccer, and dance, and theater, even playing some notable roles on stage. So I’m curious, how did the rhythm of athletics and the presence of performance train your facilitation muscles around timing, energy and reading the room?

Grace Losada:

Yeah, that’s such a good question. And again, one that I wasn’t aware of what was happening at the time. But upon reflection, I just think, “Oh, that was the recipe.” So I often talk about performance when I talk about facilitation, because I think when we think about facilitation, we think about clearing the way for participants to drive. And that’s really, really important. And I think that sometimes we forget because we’re so focused on clearing the way as a facilitator, there’s one way of thinking that maybe what we need to do is sort of fade into the background, be almost unseen as this thing starts to happen in the room with the participants. And there’s some truth to that, but I also really feel that none of it starts to happen unless the facilitator has the ability to model the energy and enthusiasm that we’re looking for in the event, in the exploration. Whatever the topic is, whatever the assignment is that we’re working on collectively, the facilitator sets that tone, at least initially.

And at some point, maybe they’re passing the baton to certain people in the room, but that’s sort of phase two. In the beginning, another thing that I’ll say a lot of times is no one’s going to learn from you if they’re not paying attention. And how do we get people to pay attention? Well, in the beginning, we kind of have to entertain them. We have to sort of pique their interest. And there should be the ability, I believe, of the facilitator to stand in front of a group of people well, to take up space and energy, and then also retreat and become smaller and be in command of that. It can’t be accidental. It’s got to be purposeful. And you learn a lot of those skills in theater and performance. So I was a dancer and I was an actress, and I loved those things, and I have absolutely brought them into my facilitation.

And when I am working with people who are learning facilitation skills, I bring that up right away. I recently led a development for a group where that was pretty much all we did. We called it a day of play and learning, and we took on different personas and they had to deliver content that they were used to delivering that they already understood really well, but they had to do it now in some kind of crazy character, and start to feel what that was to stretch and where were those points of authenticity, even when you were emulating something ridiculous, like Austin Powers. And just to really play with that and have fun with it. And it opens the door also to laughter, which is a huge connector for people.

And then when I think about the sports aspect, primarily, I did do a couple of sports early on that were individuals. I was on the swim team at one point, and I think I was just a very kinesthetic kid. I was very active, and so that was always a part of my life. But when I really got into it, was when I started to play team sports. And so it was the outrigger canoeing and soccer. These were sports where you have to be really in tune with your team and coordinated. And if you’re not pulling together in the same way with the same end goal in mind and with a certain rhythm, you won’t be successful.

So I think you learn to communicate with human beings in ways that are sometimes free of language. So you can’t always stop and sort of consult when you’re on the soccer field, or certainly not in an outrigger canoe boat. So if people don’t know what that looks like, it’s a six-man canoe and you’re all lined up front to back, straight down the row, and you have the steersman calling out the stroke changes, but you can’t hear each other. There’s no conversation. You’ve got to be in tune with each other.

And that one’s even really interesting, because you really can’t see each other either. You can see the person who is right in front of you, but that’s it. And so you’re not even picking up on body language. You’re picking up on energy. And again, you become successful in that space through solid human connection and being able to read each other and take unspoken cues towards a goal, while pulling together towards a goal. And I definitely learned so much about the dynamics of a team, because here’s the other thing, especially at that age too, right? We are still learning how to be good human beings. Well, I guess the whole life, we are trying our whole lives. But it’s high school. There’s squabbles. You don’t love everybody on the team, and that persists today, but you still have to work together. You still have to find a way to put all of those things aside and find a way to pull together. And I think sports are a tremendous way to do that.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah, absolutely.

Grace Losada:

Another thing that happens too in sports, I think, is that even though you have a designated position, so you’ve got a position in the boat, you’ve got a position on the soccer field, your defense or your offense, or whatever the case may be, but the reality is, when the game gets going, you’re trading positions. And you are filling in where you are needed, and you are looking at the gestalt, the whole picture, to understand where the detail lies and where the opportunity is. And I think that’s a great metaphor for life too. I think the people who really are successful in broader scheme of things, they’ve kind of figured that part out. They’ve figured out how to look at the big picture, and also understand how the minutia fits into that and feeds it.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. An ability to move from high levels of granularity, to low levels of granularity, and even specificity sometimes, because we have to make decisions on really quick information. Some of it feels almost like intuition. And it’s really fascinating when they do those studies around, like baseball players, for instance. They’ll ask them, “What are you doing when you hit a home run?” And they’ll say all these things. And then you put a high speed camera in place and they’re not doing any of the things they think they’re doing. They’re just in a moment, right?

Grace Losada:

Yeah, yeah. It’s the difference between an expert and a novice. When we’re just learning something in the beginning, it’s not automatic yet. And so we’re being conscious about all of our choices. And the more you do it and the more sort of expert you become, oftentimes, the worse you are at being an instructor or teacher or mentor to someone, because now, all of these things that you’re doing are unconscious. It’s all automatic. And you have to really stop and reflect and think deeply. And sometimes you’re going to get it wrong about, “What am I doing? How did I get from point A to point B? What would be the roadmap I would give to someone?” And we’ve oftentimes put that way back in our mind somewhere, because now, it’s just automatic and we’re looking at different things.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. I’ve often heard that referred to as the curse of knowledge. Once we get really good at something, it’s hard to remember what it was like to not know that thing or not be able to do it.

Grace Losada:

Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.

Douglas Ferguson:

So another question about the past, and then we’ll get to kind of what’s happening right now. But I’m really curious, if you could sit beside your teen self after that first retreat, what short principle or reminder would you whisper into her ear?

Grace Losada:

I think it would be something about dreaming big. Because again, I think one of the things that when I… And maybe this is universal. This is probably not just me. I think it’s got to do with where we are developmentally. Right? But when I reflect back on all of these different elements that we’ve been talking about, the common thread for me was just not really being aware yet of my own agency and power as a human being. I don’t know if other people would say this, but when I look back on who I was at that stage in my life, I would characterize myself as a floater. I would sort of just like, wherever the wind took me in, I was just in the moment. And I wasn’t future oriented. I wasn’t really thinking about any of these experiences as being foundational or something that I would build upon in my life going forward.

I just didn’t have that awareness. And I wasn’t talking about that stuff at home with my parents. Some kids are. Some kids are really, and parents are really focused on kind of like, “You’re building your future,” and all this kind of stuff. I wasn’t getting any of those messages. My parents are not that style either. They’re very sort of in the moment as well. And I think I didn’t have an awareness that whatever I kind of dreamed, I could build it. I could do that, as we all can. And I might whisper that. And I think it’s a hard thing. It’s like the sliding doors principle. Right? Because on the one hand, maybe I would have made different choices and there would have been some different and new opportunities that would have come up in my life, and things that I would have created intentionally. On the other hand, it’s been a pretty good ride.

So I don’t know. Do I want to mess with it? I don’t know. But I think that there was definitely a lack of awareness on my part of like, the agency and power I had as a human being to create my reality. And that’s a belief that I’ve developed over time, that we all have that ability to create our reality to an extent, obviously. We can’t control certain outside forces, but I just didn’t have that awareness at all, and I think that would have been a helpful awareness for me to have from a younger age.

Douglas Ferguson:

Nice. So switching things up a bit, and you can talk about the present day, or at least leading up to it, you described joining Change Enthusiasm Global as the moment you realized facilitation is a distinct discipline. And I’m kind of curious, what assumptions you held about facilitation that was most productively challenged in that process?

Grace Losada:

I don’t know if it was an assumption, maybe it was. Yeah. Okay, it was. I guess it was an assumption that these things just happened, these magic moments with groups of people where they’re coming together with an intention, but it’s just sort of happening. And I probably did know because I was designing things as a facilitator without calling it that, designing experiences for people. And so I did know that there were certain things that I learned you could do to create one type of experience versus another, et cetera. If you’re looking to have a creative exchange, if you’re looking to have a problem solving exchange, there’s so many different reasons that we come together. I just didn’t know that it was a field of study. I just didn’t know that it was a whole profession. And of course, it is. Why wouldn’t it be, right? If there’s something like this that’s so powerful, why wouldn’t there be people out there who are thinking about and documenting and creating a common language around this phenomenon, this study, this professional ability? But I just didn’t realize that.

And I think anytime that you start to organize your thinking in that way, so it’s like, “Okay, now, I get it.” This is a whole field and there’s structured ways to think about this and approach this. And my goodness, the role of the producer blew my mind. And I sort of had had producers, I suppose, in a certain way, in different events and experiences, but there were no labels on any of these things. And so when we don’t have labels, we don’t have the clarity to understand really what it is that we’re talking about.

So it was like all of a sudden, everything came into focus. “Oh, that’s what we’ve all been doing this whole time. I get it. Yes, okay.” And now, because I have language and a structured way of thinking about it, I can be even more intentional about the choices that I’m making as I’m doing this work. And it just all of a sudden, rockets you forward in terms of the sophistication of what it is that you’re doing.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. I love how much of a force multiplier that can be.

Grace Losada:

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve really felt it deeply. And also, there have been moments where I’ve kind of wanted to laugh about certain things and go back and thank people who have been a part of the journey. There was a woman that I worked with for a long time who, again, I didn’t call her a producer. She probably wouldn’t have used that label herself. I don’t remember what we said, but she sort of made sure that everything that needed to happen, happened. And then I was facilitating in this recurring learning experience that we were… It was an onboarding process for a company that I was with. And at the time that we were doing that, I was in graduate school. So I was being flooded with new thinking and ideas all the time, and I would get excited about those ideas and I’d want to bring them into the experience.

And so this was a recurring learning experience that was designed to be the same way every time. And every time I would show up and I would be like, “Karina, I’ve got this new idea and we’re going to do this whole new thing.” And she’s very much a very structured, organized thinker. I loved partnering with her because I would be out there with these wild ideas and she would help me narrow in and actually make it happen. And I know I sent her into a panic every time I would show up and be like, “I’ve got this new idea.” And she would kind of groan. But to her credit, she’d go along with it and it was a great partnership.

Douglas Ferguson:

I love that. In fact, I was curious to hear more about the producer-facilitator partnership. I was recalling in your alumni story, you had mentioned following the keynote with a learning session for hundreds, complete with streamers, lights and personal storytelling. And so I’m curious, it seemed like that experience taught you a bit about the producer-facilitator partnership. And so I’m curious about that, and what practices are now non-negotiable when you design at scale?

Grace Losada:

Oh, that’s a great question. Yeah. And that was a new aha again. As you said, there was a keynote. I think the keynote was for about 600 people. And then we were following that with a learning experience, an interactive learning experience for about four… Well, what was supposed to be about 400 people, ended up being almost everybody stayed for the learning experience, and that credit goes to Cassandra for her keynote. But as we were planning this and we were up against the wire because this invitation to create this experience came late in the game. So we didn’t have a lot of time to plan. And of course, we’re going to be delivering this in person together, but the entire team was remote. And we were given a producer by the company that we were serving in this situation.

And this was someone I had never met before, and they were producing the entire week long event for this organization and we were one piece of that. So we started talking, and initially, it’s just kind of the basics. Here’s a handful of visuals we want to share. Here’s some moments where we want to have some music and talking about microphones, and who’s going up and who’s going down, and just some real basics. And then I started to get the feeling that this gentleman I was working with, he was pretty gifted at what he was doing. And so then, I started bringing forward some really more theatrical, I’m going to say, ideas. And that’s a little maybe out of the wheelhouse of what you would typically see in corporate learning event, but he was right there with me. And then he started bringing in ideas and they were so good.

And what we ended up with was this experience that was very dramatic, very emotion… I don’t want to call it emotional, but it elicited a lot of emotion from the audience and got them involved and engaged in a way that was really important for the learning. I wanted them to feel personally connected to some of the stories that were being told and go on an emotional journey with the facilitators. I think we largely achieved it because of what the production team brought to the experience. If we hadn’t had the element of music and lighting and so forth, that really became almost like another member of the facilitation team where all of those elements in the room, we still would have gotten somewhere with the team, but it would not have been nearly as impactful. And so I look for that now, especially when I’m doing something on a bigger scale.

Because you’ve got to be able, I think, when you’ve got… The more people you have in the room, it’s like you almost have to have these things choreographed in an even stronger way to have the impact. It’s like, the more bodies that are in the room, the more things have the potential to be diluted. And if you really want to have the impact, you’re going to have to keep upping the ante, but you’ve got to have a producer who fully understands that and can work with you on timing. Timing is big and visual impact is big. We’re visual creatures. So yeah, gosh, that was a lot of fun. I’ll remember that forever. And it set a new standard for me, in terms of how I’m thinking when I’m thinking about designing for large groups.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. It’s a different ball game when you got way more folks and way more things that you’re thinking about, what could go wrong or what attentions could shift. And it’s such a big wave that could happen.

Grace Losada:

Yeah, yeah. And everything does go wrong, by the way. Everything does go wrong. And I think that’s another beautiful part though of facilitation. And I think it’s a point where you can see a facilitator sort of level up when they… There’s this point where I think facilitators stop fearing that the mistakes and the errors and the things that go wrong, and instead, start noticing them as opportunities. And comfortably leveraging those things to propel the learning, whether it’s as simple as bringing human fallibility into the room and just acknowledging that these things happen, and what that does to people’s willingness to take risks and be wrong and show their vulnerability or maybe something more profound too. But I think that’s a really important lesson for facilitators. And I also think it’s one that you can talk about ahead of time, but it’s not until you really have the experience that you start to truly trust that.

A phrase that I use all the time is trust the process. And just know that whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. And that’s usually my final message when I’m working with a group of facilitators. And we’ve done everything we can to prepare, and then it’s time to release and just go do the thing. And the last thing I try and always remind people is, listen, trust the process. You’re not going to do something so wrong here that it’s going to sabotage the whole thing. In fact, it’s going to be beautiful. And just know that and just trust it. And magical things happen in these settings and I really enjoy watching that. And in that respect too, I feel as a facilitator, if we’re tuned into that, we never stop learning either, which is part of the appeal to me of facilitation. We get to continue learning and making new connections throughout this process, even though we’re sort of there supposedly setting up the learning for others. I think that part is magical.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. I think similarly, you mentioned building a shared language for your facilitation team at Change Enthusiasm Global. What rituals, artifacts, or even debrief habits are helping keep that language alive across different clients and contexts?

Grace Losada:

That’s a great question. I think a lot of it is about repetition, deciding what’s really important. What are those things that need to be centrally held, and making sure that we’re attending to that over and over again, and we’re saying it over and over again. And I think also, there’s something about it that needs to be playful, so that that language… I’m trying to remember who I learned this from, but there’s this point when you’re being repetitive about something, there’s this point where it becomes a little obnoxious. And then if you keep going, it becomes fun again. And it’s funny, and you can be a little self-deprecating about it. And it’s like, “Yeah, I know I’ve said this 15,000 times and here we go, 15,001, because it’s that important.” And so I think I try and have fun with it, but it’s really about repetition.

There’s an educator, his name is escaping me right now. It’ll come to me. When I first read about in the world of K-12, he was promoting this idea of doing classroom walks. And so what he meant by that was getting together a group of educators and walking through the school building and observing in classrooms and having conversation about that. And the whole point of doing it from his point of view, was to create this common language. Because one of the challenges that you can have in education is you have three people conduct an observation in a classroom, and they come out and tell a story of three very different classrooms, even though they just looked at the same thing. And it’s because they don’t have a common language about how they want to talk what’s important, what are we going to talk about about this space?

And so just doing it over and over and over again, and doing it together and building that language together, and how powerful that is. And I think you have to be willing to allow the language to evolve as well, in that you’ll begin in one place and you’re on this hopefully, lengthy journey of learning. And as you do that, if your language isn’t evolving, you might be doing something wrong because that’s awfully static. Right? And so, I think you’ve got to be willing to allow the voice of the group to come alive and add to what you’re talking about and maybe take away too, when sometimes you realize that, wow, now we have a new awareness that so shifts our paradigm that we’re going to release this part of it, and because now, we kind of see that we want to go in this new direction. And that’s a co-creation. That has to happen collectively. You can start it, but then it becomes something that the group owns, I think, and it should own.

Douglas Ferguson:

So let’s take that ownership and intimacy to another level. You were wrestling with the question, how do we scale intimacy? When we spoke about the alumni story and as you envision ballrooms, maybe even stadiums, what designs, principles guide you to ensure that a massive venue feels like a small, brave space?

Grace Losada:

Yeah. I think I’ll be learning about this for a while, but where I am right now, I mean, I think we can think about it metaphorically like, just life and humankind. There are things that are happening on a global and on a national scale that we’re all experiencing. And yet, in our day-to-day lives, our relationships are much more intimate and direct, and we’re being impacted by what’s happening in our broader context. But still, our day-to-day reality is much smaller than that. If we were to draw circles around like, “What do I experience every day?” And then there’s these rings of context expanding from there, it’s kind of the same thing I’m thinking, when we’re designing for these large groups, is we have to be aware that there are certain things that are going to be experienced by all in this broader context in the space, again, whether it’s a ballroom or even a stadium. You could think about it in concerts too. Right? Everybody’s watching the band play, but they’re also having an intimate experience with whoever is sitting in the seats right around them.

And so being able to be mindful of what those things are, what elements are at play, and how can you impact them through design. Are there things that you can do through design that impact both the broader context and what’s happening in the little space? So yeah, in this instance, the event that we were talking about, we’re in this huge ballroom and there are certain things that everybody is experiencing, but then everybody is also organized into tables. And I think it was 10 tops in this particular environment. There were 10 people at each table. Those people are having an intimate experience. They’re having a unique experience in the room that’s going to be impacted by what everybody else is experiencing, but it’s also going to have elements that only occur at that table because of who is at that table.

And so really thinking about how we set up in a learning experience like that will have usually, moments where we ask people specifically to turn to your neighbor or discuss as a table or that type of a thing, and being really intentional about how we set those moments up. There’s also something to be said also about creating little allegiances and little teams within the team. So we had, again, in this particular experience, people were sitting in the room according to the division that they belonged in the company, and we decided to sort of lean into that. There were some things that the company wanted us to lean into with respect to that, to create a sense of camaraderie and connection on those teams, that was an opportunity to deepen the connection for those teams. And so there were certain things at play that we could pull on that were already in place within the organization, but then that was where we brought in certain color and team names. And we set up these moments of celebration that were specific to the team.

We had talked about there was an energy around and a desire initially, for us to put a lot of competition into the room, which is one way that you can do things. But I think that I tried to resist that a little bit because it can also backfire. And I felt like what this particular organization was trying to accomplish, might not be what they really needed. And instead, what they maybe needed was to celebrate together. And so we leaned into that a little bit, and it worked, and it was really powerful. Some of the intimate conversations that we were asking people to have were pretty emotionally laden. And those were quiet conversations that happened in small groups, and people kept that confidentiality. We talked about that part and set that up. And then we had these slightly larger experiences where people were still affiliated with a smaller group, but they were celebrating together in a way that was not diminishing to any other group, but still was uplifting for the group that they were a part of. And we had a lot of fun with that.

Douglas Ferguson:

So last question before we wrap up. When you imagine someone leaving your largest future events years from now, not recalling every bullet point, but remembering how they felt, what do you hope they say they carry forward in their work, their teams, and their lives?

Grace Losada:

I think it’s connection. I think it’s just about building connection. I believe that as social creatures, we are at our best when we are well-connected to each other, and disconnection is the thing that drives most of our challenges. And so if we’re promoting one thing, I hope we’re promoting connection, human connection.

I went to a concert several years ago, some people listening probably went to the same one. It was a Coldplay concert and I don’t remember the name of the album. I’m not good at this stuff, but it might have just been Colors, that might have been the name of the album, Colors. When you walked into the stadium, you got this wristband that sort of looked like a watch. It was white and there was no face on it. There was no numbers or anything, but it sort of looked like a watch and you were instructed to put this on. And so then, we’re all in the concert, and at some point, these watches start lighting up in colors that are forming patterns and just amazing beauty in tandem with the music. And also, sort of geographically, somehow they know where you are in the stadium because there’ll be waves of colors going through. And it was so powerful. I’ve never forgotten that.

And it’s something that I try and think about, as I’m designing experiences for people, just the power of that moment, how these little… First of all, it was unexpected. Maybe some people knew what was coming. I sure didn’t. And the wristband was white. And so when it all of a sudden, lit up in color, I had no idea that was going to happen. It was beautiful. So visually, it was stunning and it was a connector. It connected everybody. The entire stadium was going, “Oh, wow,” all at the same time. And we’re watching the colors flow through our bodies essentially. It’s connected to our bodies through, and it was the most powerful thing. That’s probably one of the things that that band, Coldplay, is known for, is that they’re good at eliciting emotion and a sense of connection in their audiences. And boy, did that work. That was really cool.

Douglas Ferguson:

Super cool.

Grace Losada:

Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson:

Well, we had to come to a close, so I want to give you an opportunity to leave our listeners with a final thought.

Grace Losada:

Oh, goodness. It’s just to have fun. Just play with this. It’s hard to make a wrong move. I think just have fun with it and recognize that if you have the opportunity to do this work, as in you’re functioning as a facilitator, or even participate as a participant in an experience that’s being facilitated by someone, what an incredible experience. What a wonderful way to learn, to create, to grow, to develop. I just think it’s a unique gift that we have. And not necessarily the way that things are always structured. There’s a lot of times where it’s a stand and deliver or a top down, or this is what it is, and it’s just a forced delivery. And so when we have the opportunity to create experiences in a more creative way that gives the power and the agency to the people in the room, it’s just beautiful. It’s magical. And just have fun with that. And I think the more fun you have with it, the better it goes. And I mean, that’s certainly my goal.

Douglas Ferguson:

That’s lovely, Grace. It’s been such a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks for coming on.

Grace Losada:

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Douglas Ferguson:

Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast. If you enjoy 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 at voltagecontrol.com. wholeness of people and not just the fragments that we’re expected to show up with. So that we are connecting because we understand that people are carrying so many different things, either things from their past or things from their present that are affecting how they show up. And so how do we just take away the stigma? And make it acceptable to say, “You know what? If we’re not healing, if we’re not healing ourselves, if we’re not investing in that, our workplaces are going to stay sick, our society doesn’t get better.”