Facilitation Lab
Facilitation Lab Portsmouth
Resonant Listening – Building Skills in Listening So People Feel Understood
Eliot, ME
Green Acre | A Bahá'í Center of Learning
61 Green Acre Drive
Eliot, ME 03903
Get Directions
With Beth Tener and Devon Skerritt
In Partnership With Kinship & New Directions Collaborative, New Directions Collaborative, and Living Love podcast
Our April event heads to the amazing Green Acre | A Bahá'í Center of Learning, where we will explore Resonant Listening. Resonance in a conversation arises when we have a sense that the other person really heard us and is “with us.” It’s fundamental to creating connection, trust, and thinking well together. Our guest facilitator, Beth Tener, brings her incredible warmth, humanity, and facilitation expertise to share skills in listening for better understanding ourselves and each other.
Eliot, ME
Green Acre | A Bahá'í Center of Learning
61 Green Acre Drive
Eliot, ME 03903
Get Directions
Interested in a private cohort for your team?
Let us know
Featured in the Lab
Guest Facilitator: Beth Tener, Kinship & New Directions Collaborative
In this workshop, you’ll learn specific ways to listen and respond so that people feel understood, drawing on insights from relational neuroscience and social psychology. We’ll explore how facilitators can use these methods as you listen and respond to people.
Plus, we’ll practice a powerful group listening process to listen with resonance to one person's challenge. You’ll experience how a challenge that is held in a larger container of a group allows more of the dynamics of the situation to become clear. Plus, people experience a deeper quality of peer support and group cohesion.
In this workshop, you’ll learn specific ways to listen and respond so that people feel understood, drawing on insights from relational neuroscience and social psychology. We’ll explore how facilitators can use these methods as you listen and respond to people.
Plus, we’ll practice a powerful group listening process to listen with resonance to one person's challenge. You’ll experience how a challenge that is held in a larger container of a group allows more of the dynamics of the situation to become clear. Plus, people experience a deeper quality of peer support and group cohesion.
About Facilitation Lab Portsmouth
Facilitation Lab Portsmouth is a monthly in-person meetup for changemakers, collaborative leaders, and facilitators across Portsmouth. Our purpose is to foster learning by doing in a psychologically safe environment, building a strong and supportive community of peers across the region.
As Regional Lead, Devon cultivates a space for experimentation and collaborative leadership development, with a focus on people-powered organizational change.
Facilitation Lab Portsmouth is a global network of regions, including other virtual meetups organized by continent and in-person meetups organized by cities. See the region list for a full list of all active meetups.
You can also join us in the Facilitation Lab Community Hub to stay connected with the facilitation community and get reminders of all upcoming events.
Agenda
Opener
An attendee will lead us through an engaging opener
Practice & Role Play
Attendees take turns role-playing as facilitators and participants as we practices different methods
Debrief
After some quiet reflection we’ll debrief the role-play and key learnings
Closer
An attendee will lead us through a purposeful closer
Who Should Attend
Experienced & New Facilitators
Who want to level up their facilitation skills and enhance their ability to effectively engage participants
Chiefs of Staff
Who want to align initiatives across departments and ensure strategic projects are implemented successfully
Product & Project Managers
Who want to steer stakeholders to the best outcomes and learn best practices in stakeholder management
Teachers & Trainers
Who want to design the most impactful learning and create engaging learning experiences
Key Takeaways
Gain hands-on experience with a spectrum of facilitation techniques, from classic to cutting-edge.
Receive immediate, constructive feedback in a nurturing environment to refine your facilitation skills.
Explore the depths of your existing facilitation knowledge and boost your confidence through low-stakes practice sessions.
Realize the potential to learn from anyone, appreciating the value of diverse experiences and perspectives.
Featured Facilitators
Beth Tener
Beth Tener is a facilitator and designer of group experiences that activate personal and group creativity, learning, and insights. She created Kinship, a hub for social change leaders, offering people exceptional experiences of what is possible in a group and creating new gatherings, such as the SeaChange Conference, Peer Power Hour, and Relational Intelligence workshops. Her work is informed by over 25 years of experience as a facilitator working in cross-sector collaborations, systems change, and community building contexts with New Directions Collaborative. She hosts the Living Love podcast, all about the power of kinship and collaboration.
Devon Skerritt
Devon Skerritt, Ed.D., is an independent design researcher, facilitator, and strategist growing people’s capacity to navigate change and imagine possibilities by design. Driven by curiosity, Devon works at the intersections of learning, inquiry, and civic engagement focused on communities’ participation in initiatives impacting them. Over eight years of human-centered design practice, Devon drove design thinking through facilitation, coaching, and qualitative research across innovation teams at Southern New Hampshire University and organized Design and Innovation programs at Southern Methodist University through academic experiences and corporate partnerships. Devon has served as an adjunct lecturer teaching about Life Design and Liberatory design thinking, and brings more than 15 added years of experience in education administration roles serving students as an advisor and counselor at organizations from K12 to higher education. Devon received his Ed.D. from SMU and master’s degree in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, where was also a 2015 Social Impact Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.A. in
history from Colgate University.
history from Colgate University.
In Partnership With
Kinship & New Directions Collaborative
A hub for activating the power of community.
New Directions Collaborative
New Directions Collaborative partners with leaders who are seeking to experiment with new ways to tackle the challenging issues of our times. As thinking partners, facilitators, and coaches, we help you bring your collaborative work to the next level to generate multiple benefits. Questions that inspire discovery and movement are the heart of our approach.
Living Love podcast
This podcast is a home for conversations about how we strengthen kinship and collaboration in times of change.
What People Are Saying
"The community’s warmth and generosity in tending to me and the issue made me feel cared for and supported. Beyond the suggestions, which were immediately useful, the culture of the community makes leaning into that growth edge easier, and more delightful."
Katrina Mitchell
Senior Technical Advisor, JHPiego
“I just wanted to say thanks for the great session last night. Your feedback and suggestions were fantastic. I left very energized!"
Dan Corbin
Instructor at Pragmatic Institute
Photo Disclaimer
Please note that photographs, video & audio recordings will be taken throughout this event. These will be used by Voltage Control for marketing and publicity in our publications, on our website and in social media, or in any third party publication. Please contact our events manager if you have any concerns or if you wish to be exempted from this activity.
