In this episode of the Facilitation Lab Podcast, host Douglas Ferguson interviews Renita Joyce Smith, CEO of Leap Forward Coaching and Consulting. Renita shares her journey into facilitation, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, humor, and humanity in meetings. She discusses how facilitation bridges structure and human connection, offers practical techniques for engagement, and highlights the transformative impact of skilled facilitation on organizational culture. Renita also explores the role of technology, the value of adaptability, and the need to prioritize human connection in the workplace, leaving listeners inspired to lead with empathy and authenticity.

Show Highlights

[00:01:23] Renita’s Turning Point: Seeking Authenticity in Meetings
[00:06:34] Authenticity in the Workplace: Risks and Rewards
[00:12:40] Facilitation as a Bridge Between Structure and Humanity
[00:17:29] Facilitation Across Contexts: Corporate, Leadership, and More
[00:21:34] Connection Activities: Personal Histories and Emotional Check-ins
[00:29:48] The Deeper Impact of Facilitation
[00:35:21] Current Transformations: AI, Project Overload, and Workforce Resilience

Links | Resources

Renita on LinkedIn

Renita on the web

About the Guest

Renita Joyce Smith is an Executive Coach, Master Certified Facilitator, and CEO of Leap Forward Coaching & Consulting. With 23 years in management consulting, she helps leaders and organizations tackle burnout, transform culture, and make work suck less by making people matter more.

An AI enthusiast who believes technology should amplify humanity, she blends storytelling with practical tools that leave leaders braver and more grounded. Renita serves her Dallas community through The Dallas (TX) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, Junior League of Dallas, The Senior Source, and UT Austin’s Forty Acres Society. Her superpower? Calling people back to their humanity, even in chaos.

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Transcript

Douglas Ferguson (00:05):
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. And if you’d like to learn more about our 12-week facilitation certification program, you can read about it at voltagecontrol.com. Today, I’m with Renita Joyce Smith, CEO of Leap Forward Coaching and Consulting, where she helps leaders navigate the messy middle of change with clarity, courage, and heart. She’s a strategic alchemist, master facilitator, and advocate for making work suck less and people matter more. Welcome to the show, Renita.

Renita Joyce Smith (01:21):
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited.

Douglas Ferguson (01:23):
Yeah, looking forward to chatting. So let’s get started with the origin. You described in your alumni story a turning point for you when you asked yourself, “Is this it?” after years of efficient agenda-driven meetings. Can you take us back to that moment? What was happening internally that made you start questioning the way you were working?

Renita Joyce Smith (01:46):
Absolutely. So as a backstory, I am a career management consultant, started off at Big Four, right out of college. I was the kid that actually looked forward to having business meetings, which was unusual. So when I got into corporate, they were all ran the same. You have your agenda. You’re super professional. And then midpoint in my career, at the same time, I was really leaning into my own authenticity of I want to actually bring my personality to work and not just be one of these out of the box wearing black and blue and brown consultants. And I was like, how can I make this a bit more fun as we’re having these meetings for strategy or technology? And the more I started to infuse personality and humor and just making people feel seen and human in these meetings, folks would respond of like, “You run really great meetings, and it’s fun to come to your meetings. And you’re a really great facilitator.” And I was like, “Well, is that an actual thing?” We all run meetings, so is it really a net new skillset that’s here?

(02:49):
But the more I started to listen to people and they would say, “No, you are really good at this.” And as any kind of type A personality of like, okay, if this is a skillset, there has to be someone out there that’s teaching how to do this extraordinarily well. Right now, I’m making it up as I go along. And so, I really wanted to understand the psychology of how do you have really great meetings and facilitate where you get things done. And so that was the biggest turning point is just that desire for more learning and more information to push this skillset even further.

Douglas Ferguson (03:21):
And how has that shift impacted you? What’s been the revelations and the developments since you’ve started to focus there?

Renita Joyce Smith (03:28):
Oh, gosh. So first of all, my favorite word I’m always using is container. That’s the one thing of I’m always trying to build a container for a meeting. And whether I am doing a workshop or a strategy session, my first mind goes to how am I creating a container so that people can show up in their best selves, and we actually hit these outcomes as well. And we’re not wasting people’s time. And so, that is the heart of my business, whether it’s a one-on-one coaching session or I’m doing a workshop or an executive retreat, having the mindset there of how do I make this a magical meeting versus let’s just get in here and get the work done.

(04:09):
So when people are showing up, they are actually like, “Well, wait a minute, A, we got things done that we said on the agenda. It was efficient. We had fun, and we actually learned something about each other.” It just revolutionized, again, how I am approaching just work, getting work done with people and just showing people a net new way that we don’t have to just be so boring in all of this within corporate and our nonprofits. We can have fun and engage one another and create something different.

Douglas Ferguson (04:39):
And speaking of which, you told a story about running a meeting, that C-suite strategy meeting.

Renita Joyce Smith (04:45):
Yes.

Douglas Ferguson (04:45):
Yeah. Tell us a little bit more of the humor and humanity in that story.

Renita Joyce Smith (04:50):
So this was super interesting. And Douglas, this is one of the ones where I’m like, I’m going to either get fired or this is going to go really, really well. We’re going to risk something here. So I was a director of strategy at the time, and we had a big project coming down the pipeline. We needed to engage the full C-suite. Now these meetings were going to be a beating because we’re trying to do all of our priorities for the upcoming five years and going through each department. And as we were building this, I was like, well, what would it look like to open up with the dad joke at the beginning of these meetings? Or what would it also look like to put a meme or a JIF in these emails and to add maybe a little bit of a gaming as we’re creating these?

(05:32):
And so, I would start infusing those in the agenda. Now, mind you, again, full C-suite that are on these calls plus VPs, and here I am also a director of like, “Hey, here’s the dad joke of the day before we go and take a break.” And then hearing them laugh, and they kept showing up to meetings. Now, mind you, it’s notoriously hard to get a C-suite into a meeting, but to have them say, “We actually look forward to coming to yours because they are fun and engaging.” And even beyond that, I had the CFO at the time, she came to me when I was leaving that company, and she said, “Renita, because of the way that you were showing up authentically and being funny, you allowed me to give myself permission to also show up and be more human and show my personality.” So it’s kind of one of those things where yes, we have these containers of facilitation, but we never know the impact that we’re going to have on people just for us to show up as who we are, giving others permission to do the same.

Douglas Ferguson (06:34):
Yeah. This showing who we are and showing up with authenticity can be powerful.

Renita Joyce Smith (06:40):
Yes. Do you ever find that there’s kind of a lack of authenticity now, or do you find that we’re kind of moving more towards it? What’s your pulse on it?

Douglas Ferguson (06:51):
Yeah, it really depends on where you look. Some teams are all in on being real, like where my wife works at the Natural Gardener here in Austin, where everyone says exactly what they think for better or worse. Others are still wrapped up in that layer of corporate armor. I think what’s challenging is that we’re realizing authenticity isn’t just a vibe, it’s a practice. It’s about designing spaces where people feel genuine, where it’s safe to disagree, laugh, and to admit you don’t know. That’s what makes teams work, not the polished scripts, but the honest conversations.

Renita Joyce Smith (07:26):
Yes. And I think I’ve experienced the opposite of it, and I almost have it as a personal mission now of, if I come in with, again, adjusting for the environment, I’m not going to come out with full level 10 personality in a super buttoned up environment. But I’m going to go probably a good level five.

Douglas Ferguson (07:45):
Yeah.

Renita Joyce Smith (07:46):
And if people can start to laugh a little bit more and joke within that container… I just finished up a women’s leadership development program at a utility. Mind you, utilities are very buttoned up. And by being in that program, we set out to say, “Okay, we’re going to be super authentic, super personable, a little bit unhinged, a little bit funny.” And that was also a risk. But at the end of it, folks are like, “Well, wait a minute. By watching y’all be human and again, funny and have personality, I didn’t know that was possible in a corporate setting.” So now they’re a lot more open. So this is from the participants all the way to our stakeholders. So I think there’s also that thing of people just need to see an example that it can work, and it can still be effective. And it can still be professional, but we don’t have enough of those examples in the room. But if we can be that, it’s just another way being able to imagine another way of doing it. And that is so powerful.

Douglas Ferguson (08:48):
Yeah, being that north star for folks.

Renita Joyce Smith (08:50):
Absolutely, absolutely.

Douglas Ferguson (08:52):
That reminds me of a story that you shared around this moment of deciding to wear braids to work for the first time.

Renita Joyce Smith (09:01):
Yeah. So the journey of a Black woman in corporate America has been, many books have been written on it because it’s a feat at times and even something as simple as hair. So this is probably mid 2000s, and we hadn’t really got into the Crown Act and folks being able to come to work as they are. And I live in Texas. Summers are 105, 100, 105. And trying to come in a full blowout and you’re sweating, walking from the car to the office, and I was going on vacation. I was like, I really want to get braids, but being in consulting, you’re like, “Well, is this going to be okay? What’s the client going to think? Are they not going to think I’m being professional?” And I had a conference call with some of my girlfriends, and I was like, “Okay, can I get braids or not? What’s our decision tree here?” And I took a step back, and I was like, “This is stupid. It is hair.”

(09:55):
And my brain is still functioning the same with or without however my hair is being styled in the moment. And if I am not in an organization where I can show up, at least with my hair in a different style and that be also authentic, I may be in the wrong organization. So one, can I trust myself that I have enough in the bank, and my value is still the same regardless of my hair? And then two, can I trust my company enough too? And if this also creates an opportunity to challenge some biases that people have around hair, so be it. I’m a change agent in so many parts of my life.

(10:33):
And it was an invitation for me to do something different and to make a shift and kind of break the mold a bit, and it ended up turning out fine, which is like most things as you were kind of talking about, organizations that are inauthentic. I think it’s because folks have this worst case scenario of what’s going to happen if we do, but you have to try and go see and get the data. And then you can confirm is your story true or not. But until you do, everyone’s just making assumptions all the time.

Douglas Ferguson (11:01):
Yeah. Isn’t that interesting? It reminds me of organizations that are in highly regulated spaces. Oftentimes, they exist in this belief that they need to do certain things or behave in certain ways because of the regulations, but that’s been a story they’re telling themselves. They made the regulation worse than it is because they’ve kind of calcified this understanding of like, “Oh, we can’t talk directly to customers because of healthcare. We’re in the healthcare space, and we’re regulated in ways that we can’t do that.” But if you go look at the regulations, they don’t actually state that. That’s just some lawyer decided to take an overly critical reading of it, and then someone else interpreted that. And someone else built a policy on top of that and then off top of that, and then it got more and more calcified to a point where people were debilitated. They couldn’t move.

Renita Joyce Smith (11:49):
Right. And if you think about it’s like, wait, so you’re saying you can’t talk to the patient in healthcare? Let’s all just take a step back in how we’re doing all of this. It makes no sense. You’re not making widgets. You’re actually dealing with people, so it may be helpful to talk with the person. And I think what I’m finding now, especially just our whole environment as a country and just the atmosphere of how can we come back together and just start engaging each other as humans again. So regardless of all the rules, regulations or policy or I think I’m not supposed to talk to you or whatever else, let’s pause it, and we can start just getting back to the place of asking questions and being curious about each other, still staying within regulation. I think we have so much more room to play in engaging with each other than we think we do.

Douglas Ferguson (12:40):
You said facilitation was the bridge between structure and humanity.

Renita Joyce Smith (12:44):
Mm-hmm.

Douglas Ferguson (12:44):
What does that balance look like for you today when you walk into a new engagement?

Renita Joyce Smith (12:51):
Facilitation is one of those pieces where you come in as a neutral party. And at the same time, the mindset that I have is what am I here to create for these folks? They brought me in for a reason and a purpose. And so, if I can bridge the gap between the outcome that they want and their humanity, coming up with a structure to be able to do that is kind of what facilitation is. And so some people think, “Oh, you’re just showing up and talking to us, Renita.” No, there is actually a framework that’s behind all of this and how to architect this container and architect the moment for it. And so, facilitation is kind of that magical piece that’s in the middle of it to create that outcome. And I think having it look seamless and effortless is also one of the best compliments you can get as a facilitator too, of like, well, wait, this was so smooth and looks like you weren’t even trying.

(13:54):
It’s like, no, there’s actually a lot of trying and architecting in the backend of what is the story that this whole session is going to flow in? How do we get people in the right mindset? What barriers could be in the room? How do we make sure we hear all the voices and creating those pockets within the agenda and the exercises and the connection points in it, that is the structure that gets you the result. And so, I think that’s the heavy lifting that facilitation can do in the backend if you’re really stepping into it all the way. And I think that’s something being able to… even learning within Voltage Control of there is a lot more behind the scenes that goes into it. And it’s why I appreciate the programs y’all have too, because it gives a level of meatiness to this role versus just, again, putting a couple items on a Word document and calling it an agenda and just rolling in and saying, “What’s next?”

Douglas Ferguson (14:46):
Yeah, definitely more than an agenda.

Renita Joyce Smith (14:48):
Yes.

Douglas Ferguson (14:50):
I think that’s the pitfall a lot of folks fall into is no agenda, no agenda, these kinds of things. And it’s like, “Yeah, sure.” But has your agenda accounted for the dynamics of the people and the experience we want to deliver, or is it just a list of topics?

Renita Joyce Smith (15:08):
That part. I’m curious on your end too, what was your moment of that facilitation is actually the important thing to lean into and to emphasize?

Douglas Ferguson (15:19):
It took me a long time to get there. I was using a lot of tools. As a CTO at various startups, I was facilitating a ton, picking up these various methods, whether it come from agile or extreme programming or Scrum, later on picking up a lot of design thinking type things that I would bring into my team and utilize, or even just helpful little techniques that I would pick up in workshops and things. And I think I had compartmentalized facilitation as things that folks do at these public workshops that you pay to go to, to learn leadership or learn some new skill. And it wasn’t until working closely with Jake Knapp and the rest of the design team at Google Ventures where I started to realize, wait, this stuff can be embedded in the teams. This stuff can be a leadership skill. And I’ve been doing this organically, but I haven’t really thought of it as a core skill.

Renita Joyce Smith (15:19):
Yes.

Douglas Ferguson (16:21):
And honestly, that transition moment was when I realized I needed to start Voltage Control.

Renita Joyce Smith (16:26):
Yeah. And thinking about it as a core skill, that’s kind of my wish and hope for corporate in general of now look at this as also a skill to develop alongside leadership. And for those that actually enjoy meetings and putting together, inviting them in to know you can go deeper into it. It is such a valuable skillset to have. And again, you’re not just showing up, and knowing that you can, A, save a company money because you’re actually getting objectives done that you need to get done in the meeting. You’re not swirling endlessly week after week on these agenda items and outcomes. That alone is a selling point for A, folks to invest in a facilitator to come and do workshops, meetings, strategy as well. But again, having that in your back pocket just as whether you’re a project manager, a Scrum master, just any role where you are putting these meetings together, making sure you’re focusing on that is so important, so important.

Douglas Ferguson (17:29):
Yeah. And speaking of leadership, you’ve worked on a lot of different projects ranging from corporate strategy to leadership development and lots of different things between. What have you noticed about how facilitation shows up differently or even similarly across those different contexts?

Renita Joyce Smith (17:45):
It’s funny, I was thinking about this the other day. I finished a C-suite executive retreat, and there was heavy misalignment within the four members of the executive team. And I had also just finished up another event where I was talking about generational gaps within a workforce for an all staff retreat, very different topics. But the core thing that remained the same in both of those was you cannot take the human out of this. And I know I beat that drum consistently, but every single time I’m like, “Hey, by the way, there is another whole human that’s next to you [inaudible 00:18:30], but their experience, their lenses, their preferences, their own communication styles, all of these pieces of the container that’s there. And once you can lift that up in facilitation, then you get to the outcomes.”

(18:43):
So I think the thing that is consistent and that I build into every workshop, every experience is a connection moment where folks can actually begin to experience each other. Because once whatever begins to melt of an assumption they had about the other person, they can be more comfortable talking to each other. They can be more transparent. They can be more honest and vulnerable, and then you get things done. And so, one of my principles now that I really lean into is you cannot skip the human stuff. That’s my very businessy way of saying that. You can’t skip the human stuff to get to the business outcome. It’s impossible. We’ve tried our best the past decade or so of just driving and treating people as resources, but we have never been this burnt out, this inefficient, and people are at their breaking point. And it’s like, well, let’s go back and get back to this humanity piece of it to try to ease some of that up. And so that, again, the most consistent thing across when I facilitate bringing it back to the person.

Douglas Ferguson (19:50):
Yeah, it’s been longer than the decade that we’ve been doing that. I’d argue that the last decade, there’s been a lot of people trying to unwind some of the stuff that’s been put in place by Taylorism and a lot of the industrial military complex where so much of the work we do is influenced by military type of structures, and those need to be rethought.

Renita Joyce Smith (20:11):
Yeah. And I use this example at times, and thank you for reminding me of the Industrial Revolution there, where back in the day, if you were working at Ford and making a car, you’d need to talk to the person next to you to put on the next tire. It was coming down the assembly line. And so, there was not any need for collaboration in that. You knew what you were doing. There is so much collaboration that’s needed now, and I continue to be in awe that people just do not talk to each other. And so I will consistently get into these rooms, and I was like, “Oh, so you need this information. Have you talked to them?” And they’re like, “Well, no, I assumed. I didn’t want to bother them, or I thought that they knew. They had it all together, or I thought they had enough information. Or I thought, I thought, I thought.”

(20:59):
And it’s like, but the person’s right there. How about we talk about it now? Five minutes later, the amount of clarity that comes. And so yeah, being able to introduce people even back to conversation because it’s just not happening in our hallways or Zoom screens anymore. Folks, again, just showing up, “What do you need from me? I’m going to bounce out,” versus, “Let’s actually talk about this and connect and work through it.” We’re not just putting tires on a car anymore, so we need a little bit extra support in this.

Douglas Ferguson (21:34):
So tell me about the connection activities that you typically like to embed.

Renita Joyce Smith (21:38):
Yes. So one that I’m loving right now is personal histories. And so being able to ask folks, going back to your childhood, were you the oldest, middle, youngest sibling? Where did you grow up? What was the environment like, and what was the challenge of your childhood as well? And so, this works extraordinarily well for folks who don’t know a lot about each other, even though they work with each other for years. And it’s a low enough threshold so that where people are a little bit extra guarded, they’re not having to be overly vulnerable in it, but just enough, 10% more vulnerable and transparent. And watching people’s eyes light up, it’s like, I didn’t know you were the oldest kid, or I didn’t know you grew up in Idaho. My grandparents were in Idaho. And then now they have this whole conversation topic, again, with the person they’ve been sitting next to for the past five years.

(22:33):
So being able to introduce these moments of, you can share more about yourself without, again, telling all your business, that has been eye-opening for people. The other part that I love doing is some type of, how are you doing today on an emotional side? And so as adults, we’re kind of afraid of emotion wheels of, nope, I don’t want to actually know how I’m doing or how I’m feeling today. But introducing people to, if you were the weather today, how are you showing up in the room? Sunny, stormy, cloudy, foggy, and going around a room and having people hear each other of like, “Oh, I’m foggy today,” or, “Oh, I’m rainy.” Folks are like, “Oh, I heard you were foggy. Is everything okay? Can I support you?”

(23:21):
And being able to mirror of, you can do this within your meetings, so you just kind of know how your team is doing. Again, you don’t need to know what’s happening at home or the backstory, but getting a good gauge of why Anne may be showing up a little bit down today. Her saying it’s rainy, could be again, that connection and getting that support, and so, those are two that I love leading into.

Douglas Ferguson (23:43):
Very nice. You also mentioned using technology to help structure and drive creativity in your virtual spaces. How’s that enhanced your facilitation practice?

Renita Joyce Smith (23:54):
Yes. So learning how to use a virtual mural board that I learned within the program here at Voltage Control, which has been an amazing tool. So instead of, again, people just looking at the screen, having them go in and do a live sticky note so they can see their idea on the board, and you’re moving things around. And again, people are locked in, and it gives them a way to be tactile because sometimes, especially virtually, folks can zone out and go check email or do something else. But if we have them actively clicking on a virtual whiteboard, it gets their attention even more, and they feel like their ideas are being captured. And it’s not just, no one heard me. Nope, we heard you because you have these three stickies right here, and so your ideas are being brought into a room. So that’s one angle that I love to use virtual whiteboards as technology.

(24:48):
In my own backend process, I love using AI. And I know it can be a little bit controversial nowadays with, wait, is AI going to replace people or whatever else? My position on AI is that it is a value multiplier for how I can be even more effective for a workshop. So I can take my initial ideas for crafting an experience and say, “Here’s my audience. Here’s what we want to get done. Help me really refine this exercise to meet the needs of this audience and workshop.” And so my ideas are better with using AI in the backend. The agenda is smoother. I’m able to also give out handouts with exercises that mirror. And so, I have kind of a facilitation partner in the backend with AI that has quantum leaped my workshops, just being able to have that as a partner.

Douglas Ferguson (25:40):
What AI tools are you leaning into?

Renita Joyce Smith (25:42):
Oh, goodness. That’s a whole… I can jam out for days. I am a Claude girl nowadays. Still, ChatGPT is my old school there for a good workhorse and refining an agenda, that’s there. But Claude for getting the in between of exercises and really getting that tone right for slides and transitions I’m falling in love with. Those two I have in my hip pocket consistently. And then, if I’m ever trying to do any kind of thought leadership, I’m using some automation in there to refine ideas as I go along. But between Claude and ChatGPT, I can go a very long way in facilitation.

Douglas Ferguson (26:24):
Yeah, fantastic.

Renita Joyce Smith (26:25):
Are you weaving in AI in your practice anywhere?

Douglas Ferguson (26:28):
Yeah, I use it daily. Big fan of ChatGPT. I use Claude some. If I’m writing code, I’ll use something called Cursor, heavily using the AI capabilities inside of Miro. We built a ton of stuff on that and launched it at Canvas this year, which is pretty exciting. So also, I’ve been experimenting with tools like Gamma for creating presentations.

Renita Joyce Smith (26:52):
Yes.

Douglas Ferguson (26:53):
Yeah. And have even been using Zapier to automate a lot of stuff. So the things that I was doing by hand with AI, I’m having AI do in the background. So I don’t even have to take the time to prompt it anymore. The stuff’s just waiting for me when I sit down to work on it.

Renita Joyce Smith (27:09):
Absolutely. And Gamma is a fantastic tool. And I continue to be in awe just on the leaps that these tools are making by the week. And so, even just trying to catch up and stay in lockstep with it. But I think having the perspective, especially as a facilitator of what can you have in your back pocket to just make things more efficient and more effective so you can focus your time on the experience versus just the punching of the keyboard. So figuring out how to weave it into your workflow is so important right now.

Douglas Ferguson (27:39):
Yeah, absolutely. And you talk about wanting to build a bench of facilitators in Dallas. What kind of culture or mindset do you hope that group will embody?

Renita Joyce Smith (27:49):
Oh, goodness. So I have a business partner that I work with a lot as well. And we were talking about this the other day of, as we kind of expand our bench, there is a mindset of, can you also be authentic and vulnerable and present in a room and engage? So this is not you showing up and reading off of the script, which there’s nothing wrong with that. There are some trainings and facilitators that are very much of, I need a full binder of facilitator notes. Those aren’t [inaudible 00:28:20] I’m looking for. I’m looking for people that can have an outline and knowing what beats you need to hit, but also have the intuition to know what’s in the room and to be able to pivot and to flow and to engage the audience where you’re almost one with the material versus having to say, again, that scripted workflow that’s there.

(28:42):
So it’s a little bit of an X factor in it of what does your stagecraft look like? And I think that’s one of those little pieces of facilitation that I don’t know if we talked about enough that sets you apart even as a more masterful facilitator. How are you just working in this, like it’s an audience while you’re also facilitating the room. And so that’s what I’m looking for. And what I’m talking to other facilitators or asking, “How are you just so good with the people?” I tell them, “Go take an improv class.”

(29:15):
Improv has been the other biggest game changer for me in my practice. I’ve been doing it for four years, and nothing teaches you how to stay in the moment and be able to respond to what’s in front of you like improv does. So right now I can step into any room and anything can pretty much happen, and I’m like, “Okay, yes, and what’s next? Yes, and we can pivot.” If someone has a weird question, I have a response. I can be in this moment with you because I can deal in the uncertainty and ambiguity because I learned how to play with it in improv.

Douglas Ferguson (29:48):
What do you wish more people understood about the deeper impact of facilitation, especially the impact it can have on teams and organizations?

Renita Joyce Smith (29:57):
I think one thing I wish people understood about the impact to facilitation is that it’s not a nice to have, it’s a critical component. Your facilitator can make or break your meeting and experience. If you’re investing thousands of dollars in the venue, thousands of dollars of man-hours of people showing up, stepping away from their desk to be in a room to get something done or to connect or to build, thinking about the facilitator last or oh, I can do it myself, which again, can have good results. But the impact of having a specialist in the room when you are investing all of those resources is critical for, again, the outcomes that you want to have.

(30:48):
So what I love seeing now is if people are starting to make this shift of, “Hey, we have this coming up. We need to call in a facilitator.” That’s now becoming the second thought versus, “Oh, we’ll just do it ourselves.” And seeing the results, again, of having that expertise in the room helps people just to know that it is a valuable thing to invest in as well. And also just for the people that are putting on the meeting, you get to experience the meeting with your team. You don’t have to be on. You can be a participant and create with your peers. And so, it gives you a chance to also rest and be a part of it versus having to facilitate and organize, and, and, and. Nope, you get to sit in a seat and know that you are kind of just being held in this container.

Douglas Ferguson (31:39):
Yeah. So looking ahead, what’s your next frontier in facilitation?

Renita Joyce Smith (31:45):
Oh, goodness. My next frontier in facilitation is I really want to be on the edge of thought leadership for facilitation. And as you heard across this whole interview, it is really pounding home just the humanity of it all. And so, I want to lean into creating more experiences where that is present. And fortunately, going into 2026 here, that’s already starting to show up because people are responding to, “Oh, I saw what you did over here. Can you bring this to my organization?” We need to lighten up. We need to connect. We need to get some things done, but we don’t know each other.

(32:25):
And so, what’s on the frontier for me is one, again, sharing that this can be the way that it can look like. It can look fun. It doesn’t have to be stuffy. It doesn’t have to suck. That’s in there. And you can walk out with an outcome and a net new connection. And so being able to beat that drum there. And then the other part I’m looking forward to in facilitation is it being my Trojan horse of me getting into organizations and facilitating that change. And so, as we were talking about earlier, so many organizations are inauthentic. And so, if I can Trojan horse my way in and add a little bit of that fairy dust of, nope, y’all can connect. It’s okay. And so, that’s my way of leaving organizations better than I found them as well.

Douglas Ferguson (33:11):
Love that. Leaving organizations better than you found them.

Renita Joyce Smith (33:15):
And so, knowing that, oh, they experienced Renita. They experienced Leap Forward, and now the team is better. They’re closer. They’re getting things done in a net new way. Burnout has decreased. And you can say, “Wait, Renita, all that’s from a facilitation? Come on now.” But in reality, planting those seeds and breaking that ice and breaking down those barriers has exponential results in ROI going forward. And so, I will spread a seed and be a gardener. And that is my inherent purpose, and I love it.

Douglas Ferguson (33:51):
And when you think about the types of organizations that you’re hoping to work with going forward, are there new problems or new types of organizations that you’re hoping to lean more into?

Renita Joyce Smith (34:02):
I think organization-wise, I’ve been really enjoying taking some of the old stuffy organizations that are in the middle of transformation, knowing they’re like, “Hey, we’ve done things this way for the past two decades. We have net new blood coming in, but we don’t know how to turn that corner. We know that we need to turn a corner, but we need some help in doing it.” And so, I am drawn to the chaos of that. I’m also drawn to organizations that, even if they’re not in the transformation, they’re like, “Well, we know just something has to be different because our people aren’t experiencing the company like we want them to experience it. We aren’t showing up the way we want to show up. And so, can you show us a net new way of doing it?”

(34:49):
So I am drawn to the organizations that are ready for a change and to experience something different, even if they don’t know quite what it is yet. And the more chaotic and broken, the better for me because it’s just kind of ripe for being able to build that up anew, yes. And then having that consulting background, you can drop me into a Fortune five or a nonprofit that just started, and the Swiss Army belt’s there of tools is the same.

Douglas Ferguson (35:21):
What sorts of transformations are you mostly seeing folks dealing with these days?

Renita Joyce Smith (35:26):
So one is AI. Folks are really trying to understand how do we get people in the mindset of using these tools and the change management of it as well. And so, being able to couple my pro side change management with the facilitation and the professional development aspect of it and getting people’s minds ready for AI, reinvigorating that curiosity again in folks, and then where it can fit in the business process. So that’s one aspect of change.

(35:54):
Another is, there are so many priorities and projects that companies are dealing with, and it is compounding. Nothing is slowing down. And so, how do we hold all of this work that we need to get done and be able to sequence it in the right way where people are talking to each other? So that’s another big transformation aspect there of just helping to, again, organize the chaos of it all and create alignment in there.

(36:22):
And then the third type of transformation is we’ve had either an influx of workforce, or we’ve had to lay people off. And we need someone to come in and just help our people be more resilient because they are burnt out, and there’s so much going on. So can you come deal with the heart of people in the transformation? So it hits those three buckets of AI, project and work, and then the resiliency of the actual workforce.

Douglas Ferguson (36:49):
So I want to invite you to lead our listeners with the final thought as we wrap up today.

Renita Joyce Smith (36:54):
So the final thought that I would have for everyone is, it won’t come as a surprise, but do not forget the humanity of who we are. There is so much goodness in being able to connect with someone. And so, whenever you have the opportunity to create a connection point, whether that is a small icebreaker at the beginning of the meeting, asking someone how they’re doing in the break room, inviting someone to lunch, to coffee, to get to know them better, offering something about yourself, being able to inject more of that connection within whatever you’re doing, that is such a powerful aspect to lean into. And so, that’s what I would invite folks to do, is just find one extra way to connect with someone in all the containers that you’re a part of. And we’ll start seeing that ripple go through our community, and it is so needed right now. So don’t forget the human stuff.

Douglas Ferguson (37:55):
Awesome. Thanks for that important reminder. And just want to say thanks for being on the show. It was great chatting.

Renita Joyce Smith (38:01):
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Douglas Ferguson (38:04):
Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Facilitation Lab Podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a review and be sure to subscribe and receive updates when new episodes are released. We love listener tales and invite you to share your facilitation stories. Send them to us on LinkedIn or via email. If you want to know more, head over to our blog where I post weekly articles and resources about facilitation, team dynamics, and collaboration, voltagecontrol.com.

The post How Can Authenticity Transform Facilitation and Workplace Culture? appeared first on Voltage Control.

December offers a rare pause—a pocket of time when teams naturally slow down, look back, and look ahead. It’s tempting to use that time to draft resolutions or curate highlight reels. This year, try something bolder: use the moment to move AI from the edges of your work to the operating core. Many teams still treat AI like a novelty or a personal productivity boost—handy at transcribing notes or drafting emails, useful in rare bursts, invisible to the rituals that actually power the business. That pattern yields pockets of efficiency, but it does little to raise the collective intelligence of the team or increase throughput on what matters most.

Putting AI at the center is not about “using AI more.” It’s about redesigning how work happens so AI shows up in the moments that shape clarity, alignment, decisions, and follow through. That means explicitly inviting AI into the room—not just to send the recap later, but as a seen and understood participant in the meeting arc. The shift is cultural as much as it is technical: moving from “What can I do faster alone?” to “What can we do better together—with AI as a teammate?” When you do that, you convert isolated wins into compounding outcomes that are visible across the system.

Think of this month as your strategic reset. Which rituals served you in the past but now hold you back? Which decisions routinely stall? Where does work bottleneck across roles or functions? Use those questions to identify places where AI can be designed in from the start—so it supports how you diverge, synthesize, converge, and decide. If the holidays tend to be a season of gifts, the gift you can give your future self is a deliberate redesign: AI-centered practices that create speed with quality and enable momentum you can feel.

Make AI a visible co-facilitator across the arc

The simplest way to re-center AI is to thread it through the full arc of a session—open, explore, decide, close—instead of sprinkling it into isolated moments. In the opener, invite participants to pair safely with AI. A prompt like “Ask AI to generate three provocative ‘what if’ questions about our purpose today—keep one that expands your thinking” primes both curiosity and comfort. When you normalize AI’s presence early, the team spends less energy on whether AI belongs and more on the quality of the work you’ll do together.

During divergence, let humans generate the raw ideas and let AI extend the option space: reframes, constraints, adjacent patterns, and “non-obvious” complements. As energy naturally shifts toward convergence, ask AI to produce a first synthesis—short, imperfect, and testable. When an AI-generated synthesis is on the table, people react faster and more concretely: “We can live with these parts, but not those.” That reaction accelerates prioritization and brings hidden misalignments into the open. Your job as a facilitator is to toggle the modes—solo-with-AI, small-group-with-AI, humans-only—and make those transitions visible so learning compounds.

Close with intent. A strong closer doesn’t just capture what happened; it evaluates how you worked with AI. Try, “What did AI do today that saved us time or improved quality? What should we ask it to avoid next time? What guardrails do we need to add?” Verifying AI summaries live, while the group can correct and clarify, prevents drift and creates a shared memory. Over time, the team will feel the difference: AI is no longer a shadow tool; it’s a visible collaborator that helps you open, expand, pattern, and decide.

Decide how to decide with AI

Where teams lose the most time isn’t in generating ideas; it’s in making decisions. Endless loops, ambiguous thresholds, and unclear ownership sap energy. AI can help here—if you design the decision rules. Start by choosing one recurring decision that often creates churn (e.g., prioritizing backlog items, approving experiments, selecting messaging). Ask AI to propose three viable options with explicit trade-offs and risks, then use a consent-based method to move. Consent beats consensus when speed and learning matter because it asks, “Is this safe to try now?” instead of “Does everyone love it?”

Design an escalation path before you decide: when does human judgment override AI-suggested options; who breaks ties; what evidence triggers a revisit? Ask AI to draft that “decide how to decide” canvas, then tune it as a team. You can further improve momentum by capturing objections in context. Instead of archiving dissent, structure it: What threshold of evidence would resolve this objection? What signal would confirm a risk is materializing? Feed those conditions into your AI memory so it knows when to surface a check—preventing unnecessary re-litigation while honoring new learning.

Finally, draw the line on where AI must never decide alone. Ethics, safety, brand integrity, people decisions—name the categories that require human ownership. That act clarifies roles and builds trust. Then define the inverse: Where should AI always propose first, so humans can accelerate judgment? When you codify both, decision-making becomes transparent and repeatable. You move faster not because you cut corners, but because the lanes are clear and the work of deciding is designed.

Agreements that build trust with humans and AI

If AI is going to sit at the center, it deserves formal working agreements—just like any teammate. These are short, visible norms that define boundaries, transparency, and shared responsibilities. They protect against two extremes you’ll likely find in any room: over-trusters who accept AI output without scrutiny and under-trusters who refuse to engage. Clear agreements pull the team into the productive middle, where AI accelerates and humans ensure quality.

Start small and make it living. Define what you will disclose and when (“Call out where AI contributed,” “Note the model or tool when relevant,” “Flag data sensitivity”), what you will verify every time (“We always review AI summaries live,” “We validate references, quotes, numbers”), and what you will avoid (“No AI generation on sensitive HR matters,” “No autonomous approvals”). Include bias checks in your openers—simple prompts like “Ask AI to generate counter-arguments from diverse perspectives” or “Scan for missing stakeholders.” Add a consent renewal check each month: “Are we still comfortable with how AI shows up in our work? What needs to change?”

Treat these agreements as pop-up rules that evolve as you learn and as the tools improve. Post them in the room or at the top of your collaborative doc. Invite the whole team to co-author and revisit them monthly. The act of co-creating and refreshing agreements builds trust, creates psychological safety, and reduces risk. It also sends a clear signal to your organization: AI here is not a stealth add-on—it’s an explicit collaborator governed by shared norms.

Redesign whole workflows not isolated prompts

The biggest gains happen when you stop sprinkling prompts and start threading AI through end-to-end workflows. Pick one journey that matters (e.g., discovery to delivery, feature rollout to customer comms, incident to learning review), map the gates, and design AI invitations at each gate. Replace ad hoc “someone remembers to prompt” with structured moments: AI drafts a brief to react to; AI proposes test conditions; AI synthesizes stakeholder quotes; AI surfaces pattern risks; AI produces the first pass of the decision memo. None of this removes human accountability; it changes where human attention is most valuable.

Blueprints help you see the gaps. A quick service blueprint or journey map reveals where work crosses silos, where it stalls, and where people repeatedly rebuild context from scratch. That’s where AI can remove friction: creating living memory that recurs at each gate, sparking first drafts that the team can critique, highlighting dependencies you might miss. These are not “set-and-forget” automations running in the background; they are deliberate, in-the-room invitations that elevate the quality of collaboration while the team is together.

Prototype a threaded flow you can test in two weeks. Give it a visible name so the team can reference it (“Release Flow 1.0”). Pause an old ritual while you test, and watch which gaps emerge without it. Resist the urge to recreate the ritual—solve for the gap instead. Run a retro at the end and ask, “Where did AI add speed without sacrificing judgment? Where did it distract? Which gate needs a new invitation?” That cycle—prototype, run, retro, tune—compounds quickly and makes AI-centered work feel real, not theoretical.

Activity of the Month AI-at-the-Center Bingo Diagnostic

To make the shift from edge use to center use tangible, run AI-at-the-Center (AI @ TC) Bingo with your team. It’s a hard-mode diagnostic masquerading as a playful game. Each square represents a concrete behavior—AI drafting specs, shaping rituals, generating prototypes, supporting decision-making, producing live synthesis, capturing objections, or maintaining living memory. The rule is simple and strict: mark only what is consistently true weekly. Aspirations and one-off experiments don’t count. That constraint makes the results honest, and honesty reveals where you really are on the maturity curve.

Run it as a fast, focused session. Start with a check-in that frames AI as a co-facilitator, not a mandate. Distribute the card (digital or printed), and give individuals a few minutes to mark their practice. Then compare patterns in small groups and as a whole. Where do you cluster at the periphery—personal productivity, transcription, occasional ideation? Where are there blank rows in the center—decision rules, consent methods, role clarity, living memory? Use the scoring guide to place yourselves on the spectrum from “AI at the Periphery” to “AI at the Center,” and normalize the result. Most teams discover they are earlier in maturity than they assumed. That’s a feature, not a bug; it creates a shared starting line.

Turn the snapshot into action. Choose one to three gaps to prototype in January. For each, define a visible artifact that will signal progress: a decision rule canvas, a weekly AI check-in, a living agenda template, or a workflow blueprint. Be thoughtful about who is in the room for the diagnostic—invite adjacent roles (ops, legal, data, customer success) to get a fuller picture and avoid blind spots. Set expectations upfront to reduce performative responses: “We mark only what’s truly weekly in our current practice.” Watch the AI-at-the-Center Bingo Diagnostic video for a quick walkthrough, and then schedule your session now while the year-end reflection energy is high.

Turn reflection into January momentum

Reflection is valuable only if it converts to habit. Translate your December insights into operating rhythms you can see on the calendar. Start with one weekly ritual that anchors AI at the center—for example, a 25-minute Monday “AI Enablement Standup” where each team member names one place AI will draft first, one place AI will synthesize live, and one decision where AI will propose options. Layer in a monthly agreement review to refresh guardrails, renew consent, and adjust bias checks. Consider a quarterly redesign sprint focused on one workflow—prototype, measure, and share what you learned with the broader org.

Build machine memory plus human judgment into your closers. Use AI to produce a concise, decision-forward summary while you’re still in the room, then verify as a group. Document objections with thresholds and next checks. Feed forward the summary into the next agenda so you don’t rely on imperfect recall. Choose a simple template to house decisions, context, and learnings—something your team will actually use. Establish a review cadence that keeps insights alive: weekly review for open decisions, monthly scan of agreement health, quarterly synthesis of what changed because of your AI-centered experiments.

Measure your momentum without micromanaging. Define two or three outcome signals that matter (reduction in time-to-decision, fewer re-opened debates, more cross-silo throughput, clearer accountability). Balance those with boundary checks that protect ethics, equity, and brand trust. Start small but start now: schedule one AI-at-the-Center Bingo session, pick one decision to move to consent with AI-generated options, and prototype one threaded workflow. Then tell us how it went—your stories help our community learn faster together.

Closing and call to action

If this year taught us anything, it’s that isolated use of AI by individuals yields isolated benefits. The organizations that will see meaningful ROI in 2025 will be the ones that put AI at the center—visible, designed-in, and co-facilitating the work that shapes results. That shift is not a top-down mandate. It’s a collaborative exploration where teams redesign rituals, clarify roles, codify decisions, and build living memory. It’s multiplayer AI, sitting in the room, helping us open the option space, converge faster, and decide with more clarity and less churn.

As you wrap December and look toward the new year, choose action over aspiration. Run the AI-at-the-Center Bingo Diagnostic. Draft your first “decide how to decide” canvas. Co-create three working agreements that will build trust between humans and AI. Prototype one threaded workflow you can test in two weeks. Put the cadence on your calendar now—commit by schedule, not by enthusiasm.

We’re here to help you make it real. Want the AI @ TC Bingo card, the scoring guide, and the activity video? Ready to bring a Voltage Control facilitator in to co-design your January flow or to run an AI-centered redesign sprint with your leadership team? Curious about integrating these practices into your Facilitation Certification journey? Reply to this newsletter or reach out to our team and we’ll get you everything you need. Let’s make 2025 the year your team moves AI from the edges to the center—and feels the difference in every meeting, every decision, and every outcome.

The post AI at the Center for a Stronger 2025 appeared first on Voltage Control.

Thirty years in, I rediscovered the magic of facilitation, and the courage to bring all of me to the room.

The very first time I felt the hum of facilitation, I didn’t have language for it. I had a liberal arts degree in sociology and French, a head full of ideas, and absolutely no idea what to do next. I stumbled into a tiny tech writing firm in the early 90s, DA Consulting, doing procedural documentation. It was a great gig out of school, and I learned business by interviewing people about how they did their work. But after cranking out massive three-ring binders and watching them collect dust on someone’s desk, I knew something was missing.

The binders weren’t changing behavior. People were still doing what they’d always done. One day, I marched in and said, “What if we build training instead of just documentation?” That was the pivot. The company took a chance; we shifted from just tech writing to include training services, so I took a 2-day workshop, and suddenly I was the trainer. The only trainer for a while. I was maybe two weeks ahead of everyone else, and somehow that made me the internal director of training. I didn’t know enough to be scared. That helped.

I grew up in a family of academics, so learning was our family sport, but not just learning for learning’s sake. The question was always, how does this apply? How do we get our hands dirty? So I went hunting for anything that got people involved: tactile activities, social learning, experiences that moved the body and the brain. I did magic tricks at Exxon. I had executives lie on the floor to meditate. I didn’t know it was weird. It just worked. People laughed, put their guard down, and, most importantly, remembered.

Then I found Accelerated Learning. University of Houston had this specialized program centered on whole-brain learning, music, color, movement, environmental design, social dynamics. It felt like I’d found my home language. I had a mentor who traced much of the method back to language learning, and it bridged everything I cared about: creativity, rigor, and making learning visceral and alive. I didn’t stick to the protocol forever, but the threads from that program are still in my work thirty years later.

Along the way, people shaped me. Gail Heidenhain, then president of the Accelerated Learning Association, a German language instructor working across corporate contexts, modeled a kind of joyful precision I still admire.Thiagi’s spirit of short, playful, relevant activities stacked nicely with what I was doing and made it stronger. I also experienced first hand the power of experiential simulations, working with my long time colleague and friend, Keith Lewis, who was at the time an Eagle’s Flight instructor. This kind of learning really resonated deeply for me: gathering people, holding space, designing the container, and trusting what happens inside it.

From Handouts to Whole Humans

As my curiosity deepened, I shifted from “teaching content” into “designing experiences.” It started small. Instead of lecturing, I built hands-on exercises. I let music do some of the lifting. I rearranged rooms. I asked real questions and waited long enough to let people answer. I paid attention to the environment: light, color, pacing, props. And I realized people didn’t resist learning, they resisted being talked at. Give them something alive to do, and they’ll meet you there.

Accelerated learning gave me a permission slip I didn’t know I needed. I tried weird things because they were human things. If someone learns by building, we’d build. If someone learns by listening, we’d invite silence. If someone learns by moving, we would get out of our chairs. It pulled learning out of the binder and into people’s bodies. In retrospect, some of those early experiments in corporate spaces were a little outrageous. They also stood out, and they worked.

Around that same time, I watched masters at their craft. Thiagi showed me how to pack impact into short bursts. Gail showed me the logistics behind the magic, how environment, sequence, and timing can amplify the learning you’re trying to surface. I started to see a throughline: design the container with care, and what happens between people will do most of the work. I didn’t have to be the star of the show. In fact, the moment I stopped trying to be, the work got much better.

Eventually, I followed the work to larger systems. DA Consulting, my little family firm, went public and ballooned to a thousand people. The shift was dramatic. It stopped being fun. Around the same time, I lost a coworker unexpectedly. It shook me awake. Life is short. So when someone at Shell invited me into a learning role, I said yes. I spent three years inside Shell’s massive machine in the late 90s and realized quickly that the sheer scale wasn’t for me. When they offered me my same role as a contractor shortly after, I grabbed the flexibility and never looked back.

Choosing My Jolt

For two decades, I consulted broadly, Chevron, Marathon, Home Depot, lots of energy sector work. Then, in 2020, Shell asked me to support a global team building digital capability in exploration. I came in for adult learning. What they truly needed was process facilitation, helping teams make decisions, solve problems, and collaborate across borders. We committed early to all-virtual sessions across time zones using Teams and Mural (and fought the ongoing battle to keep our whiteboards). I fell in love with holding the container: inclusivity, safety, creativity. The work felt like magic again.

But somewhere between the pandemic pivots and a particularly brutal reorganization project, I started to drift, feeling like I was just going through the motions. 

That’s my signal, when I start sleepwalking through my work. I lose the flow, the sense of being fully in it. I wanted to quit and do something totally different. But I’ve learned my cycle. Every 18–24 months, I need something to wake me up. A conference, a new method, a community. I needed a jolt.

I’d heard about Voltage Control through friends, Keith Lewis and Pixie Raina are both in my circle, and I’d poked around the site before. This time, I was looking with intention. My first impulse was to go straight to the Master Facilitation Certification (thirty years in will do that to your ego). After some honest reflection, I decided to start with Foundations. I wanted to reset, sharpen my language, and re-anchor my practice. The minute I decided, I signed up. No drama, just clarity. It felt like oxygen.

The Rooms Where It Happened

Foundations did exactly what I hoped: it woke me up. The readings alone were a waterfall of new thinking and reminders I didn’t know I needed. I’d read something in the morning and try it with a client that afternoon. It was that immediate. The portfolio deliverable, something I’d never stopped to compile as an independent, forced me to gather my work and name it. It sounds simple, but codifying how I talk about my practice changed how I show up with stakeholders and participants.

The cohort was its own ecosystem. During the asynchronous weeks, a handful of us set up optional weekly touchpoints. I needed those anchors. We traded use cases across wildly different contexts, arts, NGOs, oil and gas, and somehow it all resonated. I coached someone in Foundations who lived in the Middle East. Different landscape, shared language. Those conversations were energizing in a way that’s hard to explain. It’s like finding your people in a sea of calendars and budget approvals.

When I moved into the Master Facilitation Certification, I chose a website rebuild as my project. Blank screens overwhelm me, late-in-life ADD diagnosis has helped me understand that better, but give me a few prompts and I’m off. ChatGPT became a drafting partner. SessionLab helped me design clearly. The act of writing about my work forced me to integrate parts of myself I’d kept separate. I didn’t realize I’d been compartmentalizing the “corporate me” and the “ceremony maker” me until I saw it on the page.

There were moments I can point to that changed me. One was a conversation with Eric, and feedback from Renita and Chris. I’d been describing myself in two lanes: corporate facilitator and ceremony maker. Eric reflected back the phrase that now sits at the center of my website and my practice: bridging structure and heart. It was like hearing a chord resolve. I could be both. I am both. The bridge is the work.

What I Brought Back With Me

Since certification, I use the phrase bridging structure and heart as a design question. What are the rituals this team needs to feel like a team? Where do we bring in celebration, appreciation, and grief? What tools create enough scaffolding so we can be brave? It sounds lofty, but it shows up in really practical ways. I use pipe cleaners in almost every session as fidgets; people make art while they listen and talk. Photos of that art are all over my site. It’s silly and it’s serious at the same time, the kind of serious that connects us.

I’m clearer about facilitative leadership now, too. Before, I carried this quiet belief that my role was to deliver something to a group. Now I see my job as guiding people back to the wisdom already in the room. With meeting owners, I coach them on facilitative leadership, how to set conditions, mirror the purpose, and share ownership, so that when I step away, they still have the muscles. The certification reframed my craft not as a niche but as a leadership posture anyone can learn.

On a concrete level, I’ve become more fluent with tools that remove friction. ChatGPT helps me past the blank page. SessionLab gives me visual clarity and a shared artifact with clients. I still prefer Mural for virtual collaboration (despite the ongoing economizing pressures to move us into Whiteboard). Those aren’t just technical choices; they’re equity and inclusion choices. They open doors for the quiet thinkers, the visual processors, the second-language speakers, the folks joining at midnight from another continent. That matters.

There’s also the pride of putting something into the world that feels like me. On Foundation Day, sharing my portfolio felt like a personal milestone. Launching my website felt bigger. I asked for help instead of trying to do it all myself, another growth edge. My college-age kid, who’s turning into a baby facilitator, partnered with me on language, images, and the tedious bits, and it transformed our relationship. We collaborated. We argued about adjectives. We celebrated hitting publish. And then I reached back out to couples whose weddings I’d officiated and clients from years past for testimonials and permissions. The feedback I got, “This feels like you”, was the best kind.

The Courage to Bring It All

The biggest capability I gained wasn’t tactical. It was courage. For years I’d kept my more spiritual, ritualistic side in a separate bucket, my “flakier aspects,” as I half-joked, and saved them for weddings, birthdays, and personal milestones. Corporate was over here. Ceremony was over there. Through the master program, I realized I don’t want to live split like that. It’s all the same muscle: marking transitions, inviting meaning, designing moments that connect us. I can do that in a boardroom and in a forest. I can build structure and tend heart.

This shift changed how I say yes and no. That reorg project taught me valuable things about “standing in the fire,” and the book by that title gave me language to stay centered when the room gets hot. But it also showed me what I don’t want: work that prioritizes speed and cost over people’s lives. If I’m going to step into conflict-heavy spaces again, it’ll be for a cause that feeds me and aligns with my values. Boundaries are a capability, too.

Finally, I came back to the “container” with new reverence. When I’m holding a space that’s inclusive, safe, and creative, groups do astonishing things. Siloed teams create together. “Robotic” work becomes meaningful. People see each other. It doesn’t always land perfectly, but when it does, it’s unmistakable. That magic is why I started and why I’m staying.

A Season in the Woods

What’s next surprised me. Because of Dutch labor laws, Shell requires I take a six-month hiatus. My first reaction was dread, momentum! teams! all that scaffolding we built!, and then I realized I don’t care enough to fight it. They’ll reorg again. The machine will machine. And I haven’t had more than a month off since I started working. So I’m taking the hint. I’m giving myself a true sabbatical.

I’m channeling that time into something I’ve wanted to do for years: a practical, heart-forward workshop in the woods. We’re going to gather for a few days and finish the adulting we postpone, last wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, while also eating well, walking among trees, and making a ceremony out of the courage it takes to face those choices. It’s part life planning, part communal ritual, and very much facilitation. We’ll likely run it the last week of April or first week of May. After that, I can see a path where my facilitation centers more around life milestones and rites of passage, places where structure supports heart and heart transforms structure.

I don’t know if my title will always say “facilitator,” or if it will shift to something like “ceremony maker,” or both. What I do know is the skill set travels. Whether it’s a cross-disciplinary team in exploration or a circle of people contemplating legacy under a canopy of oaks, the work is the bridge. I’ll keep building it.

When I think about the future of work, I keep coming back to ritual. We don’t pause enough to mark beginnings and endings. We don’t grieve together when projects sunset or teams change shape. We rarely stop to say, “We did that,” and let the pride land. I want to change that in the rooms I touch. Small practices, a shared breath, a gratitude round, a song, a story, change the temperature of a space. They make more possible. That’s where I’m heading.

I used to believe the value I brought was the content I could deliver. Today, I believe it’s the way I invite people toward each other, and toward what matters. That feels like a pretty good north star to follow into whatever comes next.

I’ll leave you with this: if you’re considering certification, jump in. Then really jump. Commit to the readings that spark you at 6 a.m., the cohort calls that keep you accountable, the experiments you’ll try the same afternoon. Let the program jolt you awake. It will, if you let it. And when you’re awake, use that energy. Build the portfolio, launch the website, rewrite your story, say the brave no, take the brave yes. Bring all of you to the rooms you lead. The world needs that.

If you do, you just might find, as I did, that the bridge you’ve been looking for has been inside your practice all along. Structure and heart aren’t opposites. They’re partners. Voltage Control helped me remember that. And I can’t wait to see what you’ll remember, and what you’ll make, when you give yourself to the work.

The post From Binders to Bridges appeared first on Voltage Control.

I never set out to become a facilitator. In fact, for years I didn’t even think of the word as having anything to do with me. Yet if I look back, there were clear signs. One moment in particular stands out: I was 28 and working at the University of Texas at Austin, standing in front of a room full of colleagues at a retreat I’d been asked—out of nowhere—to “help lead.” I remember glancing around and thinking, Why me? I’m not the expert here. But as the session unfolded, something strange happened: people started opening up, responding to prompts I had improvised on the spot, building on one another’s ideas as if the room itself had shifted. It wasn’t polished, and I made plenty of rookie mistakes (e.g. stacking questions if the silence lingered, offering an opinion here and there, overbuilding the agenda), but I walked away with the feeling that something had just clicked—something I couldn’t yet name. It took many more years before I understood that moment for what it was: the beginning of a path I didn’t even know I had already been walking.

Looking back, the dots connect more clearly. My career has zigzagged across geographies and job functions: sales assistant at an oriental rug gallery; clerk at a used CD store straight out of High Fidelity; concert production manager in Washington, D.C.; English teacher in Querétaro, Mexico; performing arts administrator in Austin; and eventually a program officer at a major family foundation in Arkansas. On paper, it reads like restlessness or a lack of focus. In reality, each stop taught me something about people—how they gather, how they express themselves, how they struggle to understand one another, and how much hinges on the quality of the spaces we create for dialogue.

Along the way, I kept finding myself drafted into roles that had me designing or running gatherings: first conference sessions, then professional development workshops, followed by staff retreats. Lots of little pockets of structured conversation inside larger events. Almost every year someone new would approach me and say, “Could you help us plan a retreat?” or “Would you be willing to facilitate this session?” I never quite understood why they asked me, but I always said yes. I liked watching people think together. I liked figuring out how to get people to open up. And I especially loved the moment when strangers suddenly heard one another differently because of how the space had been shaped.

Part of this instinct came from music. I grew up playing piano and guitar, drifted away from it for a while, and then rediscovered it with real commitment as an adult—especially jazz. Improvisational music taught me how to listen in a way that feels similar to what facilitation demands. In jazz you’re constantly balancing: knowing when to play and when to lay out, catching subtle cues, giving others space, supporting the ensemble rather than spotlighting yourself. A good gig isn’t about your virtuosity; it’s about making it possible for everyone else to play well. When a group locks into that shared groove, something emerges that none of you could have created alone. I didn’t realize it then, but this was my earliest training as a facilitator.

There were other clues. I’ve long been drawn to bridging—linguistically, culturally, socially. I learned Spanish and Portuguese largely because I wanted to understand the people and artistic traditions of Latin America, whose music and culture kept popping up in my life and later, work. My social circles always blended MBAs and MFAs, philanthropists and musicians, academics and entrepreneurs. I loved translating between worlds, finding the common “notes” across different languages or disciplines. And anyone who has spent time in the arts knows how much the environment matters: location, lighting, seating, acoustics, food and beverage—all the invisible structures that set the tone for how people will relate to a painting, a song, or a play.  For years, I absorbed this subconsciously.

But I also witnessed the opposite of good facilitation: panels squandered by moderators who wanted to be panelists; sessions derailed by unclear purpose and worn out prompts; events where the physical setup all but guaranteed superficial conversation. I remember sitting in conference rooms thinking, There was so much potential in this room—and yet most in the audience are staring at either their phones or the door.  Those moments stayed with me. I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate what was wrong, but I knew when the structure failed the group.

So when the pandemic hit and I found myself scrolling the web more than I care to admit, I kept pausing on Voltage Control’s LinkedIn posts. Douglas’s short videos caught my attention—not because they were flashy, but because the questions he posed were the same ones I was asking myself. I had been “facilitating” for years without calling it that, using instinct and accumulated habits rather than an intentionality or methodology. I was craving rigor, language, structure—a way to build on what I already did well while filling in the gaps I had been skating over. More than anything, I was hungry for a community of people who cared about this work as deeply as I did and who genuinely had fun doing it.  

Curiosity pushed me to enroll first in the Core Certification program and then Master Certification. Curiosity has always been my compass, the trait that has kept my career interesting and my life expansive. At the time, I also felt the faint pull of something bigger—an intuition that investing in facilitation wasn’t just professional development, but a realignment with a part of myself I had neglected. I signed up for Voltage Control’s Facilitation Certification not because I needed a credential, but because I wanted to understand what this craft really was.

I’ll admit I was skeptical at first. I am, by nature, an in-person person. I draw energy from rooms and shared physical presence. The idea of building a cohort online felt like trying to have a jazz jam session over Zoom—technically possible, but spiritually incorrect. I was wrong. The cohort was vibrant, generous, and full of people who approached this work from wildly different angles. We built trust quickly, swapped ideas freely, and formed relationships that continue today through the Hub and beyond.

The program gave me language for instincts I’d had for years, but it also challenged me to expand beyond what felt comfortable. I became more intentional in how I designed sessions, more aware of the cognitive load of participants, more skillful in selecting methods rather than defaulting to my favorites, and more reflective about my own presence. Voltage Control didn’t teach me what to think—it taught me how to think about facilitation as a discipline.

It also introduced me to tools I now consider essential. Mural, Workshop Design Canvas, SessionLab—all platforms I had either ignored or dismissed before the course—became extensions of my practice. Even more surprising was how the program influenced my everyday interactions: weekly standing meetings became small laboratories for better design; dinner parties became opportunities to craft prompts that elicited stories rather than small talk; hallway conversations with colleagues became moments of micro-facilitation that helped surface what people were really trying to say. Facilitation wasn’t just something I did anymore—it was becoming a lens.

One of the places I felt the transformation most vividly was during a workshop I facilitated for the founders of the DAG Foundation. The family behind the foundation was in the earliest stages of imagining what their philanthropic identity could be. They had passion and a desire to give back, but no shared language yet, and a sense of purpose not yet fully articulated.  I used what I had learned in the certification—affinity mapping, structured prompts, pacing techniques, emergent synthesis—to guide them through the messy early phases. Predictably, we hit the “groan zone”: the moment when the energy dips, the ideas blur together, and the group questions whether any of it makes sense. Previously, I might have panicked or rushed them through it. This time, I trusted the process.

We took a break. People stepped outside, grabbed coffee, talked about music (and favorite instruments). Something loosened. When we reconvened, the conversation shifted noticeably. Insights sharpened. A shared purpose began to emerge from what had felt like noise just an hour before. Watching them see their own alignment for the first time felt like witnessing the group “find the pocket” in a jazz combo—the moment when everyone is listening, adjusting, responding, and something larger than any individual voice takes shape. That session wasn’t perfect, but it was unmistakably different from how I would have facilitated it before Voltage Control. I could feel the difference in my confidence, my presence, and my choices.

Somewhere during that project, I found myself thinking about the word facilitate. It comes from facilis—easy—and ultimately from facere—to make or to do. Facilitation is, at its heart, the work of making something possible: easing a path, lowering friction, clearing space for what wants to emerge. But it’s also an act of creation: you are helping make something happen that otherwise would not. That dual meaning resonates deeply with how I see myself now. My instinct has always been to support, to serve, to connect dots others haven’t yet noticed towards their ultimate aim of making or doing something, not just thinking about it. The certification didn’t give me that instinct—it helped me claim it.

Since completing the program, my facilitation practice has expanded in ways I couldn’t have predicted. I’ve stepped into both formal roles—leading retreats, strategy sessions, and design sprints—and informal ones, where the “small f” facilitator in me brings clarity and connection to everyday moments. I’ve paired this work with training as an executive and leadership coach, broadening my range so I can support individuals as effectively as I support groups. For the first time in my career, I feel like all the seemingly unrelated chapters—arts, philanthropy, language, teaching, music—are converging into something coherent.

I’m now preparing for a new chapter, one where facilitation moves from the margins of my job description to the center of my professional identity. It feels less like reinvention and more like alignment—finally naming the work I’ve been doing all along and choosing to pursue it with intention. I don’t know exactly where this path will lead, but I recognize the feeling I had in that early retreat years ago: the sense that something fitting, something meaningful, is unfolding.

If there’s any guidance I’d offer someone considering Voltage Control’s certification, it’s simply this: follow your curiosity. You don’t need to have the title “facilitator” to begin. You just need to care about helping people think better together. The tools matter, the frameworks matter, but what matters most is the mindset—the willingness to listen deeply, design thoughtfully, and trust that groups are capable of more than they realize when given the right conditions.

I used to think of facilitation as a side skill. Now I see it as a craft, a practice, and a way of making something possible—something easier, yes, but also something meaningful. And in that sense, this journey doesn’t feel like an ending at all. It feels like the beginning of the next chapter.

The post Apparently This Thing Has a Name appeared first on Voltage Control.

The first time I felt the spark of facilitation, I was in middle school, sixth or seventh grade, some elective I can’t even name now, and we were doing the classic marshmallow-and-toothpicks tower type challenge. Working this way was completely different from the “every person for themselves” rhythm of school. For once, we weren’t being graded on our individual aptitudes;  we were invited to build something together. This way of mutual creation stuck with me.

Looking back, that little scene was a hint of what I’d later crave: the energy of people co-creating towards something, and the friction that comes with it. In school, the system trains us to excel alone, then tosses us into society and expects us to collaborate gracefully. Sure, team sports give us a taste, but most of our education doesn’t teach the more nuanced skill of working together, how to listen, plan, revise, and stay in it when things get challenging.

At Parsons, I studied product design and learned the foundations of design thinking process and methods. One project that stands out is designing toys for visually impaired kids. We visited specialized schools in New York City, played with students, and tested ideas with them. It was my first experience with collaborative design that wasn’t speculative. Our decisions were directly shaped by the people who would use what we made. This truly aligns with my values: the world is something we create for and with each other.

In school, I made a conscious transition from traditional industrial design to what is now called creative technology. I always say I entered school designing chairs and sanding furniture, and left school designing installations and rigging projectors. This led to a decade of lights, sound, and video for events across the spectrum, from raves to museum exhibitions. I learned how to design experiences at scale, shape attention, build spatial narratives, and orchestrate awe. This work was beautiful, inspiring, and a fun challenge to create. 

I was inspired by artists like Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Olafur Eliasson, Robert Irwin, and James Turrell. I recall especially Lozano-Hemmer’s border project with searchlights that let people on both sides “speak” to each other with beams of light. That kind of art didn’t just entertain; it connected people into a shared phenomenon that hinted at policy, identity, and place. Work such as this led me to question, “What if the experiences could support people to act and create, not just feel and reflect?”

Years later, as a strategist at Leftfield Labs, I got a front-row seat to a different kind of collaboration challenge. I was on a well-funded project with ambitious goals to expand access to resources for female and BIPOC entrepreneurs. Powerful intentions. Something that remained with me throughout the project was that the thing we were building would likely be a solution to a systemic issue, rather than really addressing why this is a problem in the first place. While everyone wanted to do the right thing and support underrepresented business owners, the framework for creation and collaboration didn’t allow a systemic approach to be the path. It really made me wonder how collaborative system innovation can be orchestrated. I started to sense the actual value of facilitating collective change.

Tracing the Thread Between Art and Agency

In the decade of audiovisual design, I co-led a studio with my good friend, Lua Brice, called Hovver. Our work really was about directing attention to the commonly overlooked phenomena of light and sound. We worked with light smoke and mirrors literally, but not to trick people, to invite them to experience things that are all around them but usually ignored. This was a beautiful time of collaborative creation, and so much of what I know about working with others comes from that collaboration and from times working with festival-scale teams. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to create ample light and sound installations, and, towards the end, I felt like something was missing for me personally.

In 2019, I made the hard decision to leave our practice and hand over the studio to Lua, who leads it independently and masterfully to this day. I didn’t have a neat next step. The only criteria I could articulate were: I want to design experiences that create tangible impact, I wasn’t interested in systems change, and I wanted to do it with people. Admittedly, I had a lot of “figuring it out” to do. And then COVID happened, and I had a lot of time on my hands, almost too much.

I drifted between film, dance, and virtual web events, then circled back to my roots in product design, which led me to that project at Leftfield Labs. The work taught me a lot about how large initiatives can be funded and how they can progress through multiple agencies to be realized. The experience that influenced me the most came from watching Natalie Patterson, a DEI consultant, interact with and lead teams as they investigated their own relationship to the work. There was a way to hold a room, invite personal reflection, and name tensions, a way to build shared reality. Her way of working to connect humans with themselves and each other really struck me.

At the same time, I was in a constant mode of research and collection (and still am). Then I was diving deep into people like John Vervaeke, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Kate Raworth, Nate Hagens, and Yancey Strickler, all of whom were theorizing and addressing the Meta/Polycrises of our planet through different financial models and ways of sensemaking together. Then I was also diving deeper into Systems and change theory through Donella Meadows, Gregory & Nora Bateson, and the incredible resources at the Systems Innovation Network. And I was constantly collecting facilitation methods and tools from Adrienne Marie Brown’s “Emergent Strategy” to Emergent Futures Lab’s “Innovating Emergent Futures” to Strategizer’s business innovation resources. All of this was swirling in me, how to help the world make the change it’s calling for.

At the same time, I kept thinking about my background in the arts. So much of what I loved in experience design, attention, emotion, and choreography also felt critical for collective work. But I wanted more participation, more voice. I kept remembering a performance I did at a small Irish festival called Drop Everything. At one point, I played a recording of a rare Amazonian bird call in complete darkness. The crowd spontaneously called back with their own sounds. The room became a chorus of voices. It was unplanned and somehow more moving than anything else we’d done that night. The best moment wasn’t me “delivering” an experience, it was us encountering something together, live. I started to ask myself: how do I bring that same felt-sense & quality into rooms where real decisions are being made?

There’s been a dual thread in my work over the last five years, artful, human experiences on one side, and structural, outcome-oriented thinking on the other. 

These approaches were initially separate because of where and how I was interacting with them. But I kept feeling the pull to merge them. How could I close the gap between designing for human connection and designing for clear, tangible outcomes? That question is one of the few at the center of my practice.

Choosing the Container That Would Stretch Me

After the Leftfield Labs project in 2021, I knew I needed to build my capacity for group process. I wanted language, tools, and, frankly, reps. I’d already stumbled onto Voltage Control’s work. The framing of practice over perfection, systems awareness, human-centered design, and a healthy respect for the messy middle all resonated with me. I dragged my feet because the tuition would be the most I’d ever spent on professional development. It was a threshold moment for me, committing to something I was becoming. I hovered around the deadline, danced with my doubts, and then sent in my application right at the end.

What ultimately nudged me wasn’t just content; it was the promise of a container for practice. I needed a safe and honest space to try things, get feedback, recalibrate, and try again, with people who weren’t exactly like me. I’d also heard that the cohort was diverse, both geographically and professionally, and culturally. It was important to expose myself to a range of perspectives. That felt essential if I was serious about working at the intersections of art, business, and systems change.

Another factor was Voltage Control’s emphasis on the “how” behind the methods. The stance you take in the room, the way you ask questions, and how you set frames and boundaries. All the intangible things that aren’t flashy, but create the conditions for a group to do its best work. That’s what I’d witnessed through Natalie. 

I’ve witnessed this pattern in me. I resist growth and change. Honestly, I think we all do. We resist becoming who we’re becoming because it’s inherently new and will be challenging, but I knew signing up for the program meant growth, and that felt right.

What Shifted Me Inside the Certification

Those three months were dense in the best way. On one side, I dove deeper into systems thinking. Donella Meadows’ work helped me recognize patterns I’d been sensing but couldn’t name. On the other side, I was reading Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, which resonated because I’d spent a decade in experiential events. Her case studies, community rituals, and participatory theater clarified something I had witnessed: that gatherings can either reinforce the status quo or unlock something new. I began to establish a new toolkit and language for designing collaborative experiences.

I also picked up Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind and listened deeply to John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis lectures. Those threads helped me articulate an intuition: 

We are sensing organisms; we sense ourselves, our environments, and each other. We are thinking organisms; we think independently, together, and through our environments. All of this shapes how we make sense of what is changing and how to change together. We’re connected, and our collaboration processes must acknowledge this. These insights evolved how I design sessions and, more importantly, how I attend to my own relationship to a group.

Voltage Control’s Facilitation Lab gave me a chance to test ideas with a live audience. I hosted a session on systems thinking and swapped the classic iceberg model for a tree. It sounds simple, but it landed. Most people don’t have a lived sense of icebergs. But everyone knows leaves tell you something about the soil. The tree helped folks map events, patterns, structures, and mental models in a way that felt embodied, connected, and intuitive. Seeing that click for people was a highlight.

The cohort itself was a gift, folks across Africa, Europe, the States, and beyond; multi-decade corporate leaders alongside independents, and founders. Sharing early drafts of workshops and getting feedback from people outside my context sharpened my thinking. It’s humbling and energizing to design for humans with different idioms, constraints, and cultural references. That feedback loop is gold.

There was also the portfolio project. I interviewed a friend working at the New York Times R&D team about a real organizational challenge, then designed a theoretical workshop series to address it. Building that proposal forced me to think about multiple paths through a session. What if the group stalls? What if the problem definition shifts? It helped me get more precise over sequencing activities and designing choice points so we could pivot without losing the thread. That alone changed how I build sessions.

From Methods to Muscles

When the program ended, the most significant difference I felt was less about knowing more methods and more about having stronger intuitions. I started applying these inside Mural, where I took on innovation work. It taught me how ideas move, or resist, within large organizations; where strategy meets reality; and how facilitation is a workshopping skill and a leadership stance. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do as a facilitator is name the water: “We’re trying to innovate while our incentives reward predictability. What do we want to do with that truth?” That’s facilitation as an offering.

The Master Certification later deepened this, especially around conflict. The “Difficult Conversations” book was so practical. I used those concepts just a week ago. “Standing in the Fire” helped me stay grounded in challenging moments and work with my own nervous system so I don’t become part of the volatility I’m working to hold. Those helped evolve what leadership means to me. Leadership is like dancing: yes, at times you need to be clear about where you want someone to move, and at other times it’s listening to what their needs are and working to orchestrate a movement together.

I also leaned into embodied practice through Social Presencing Theater (from the Presencing Institute and Theory U). It offered a way to sense into what’s emerging in a system that doesn’t start with stickies. When I bring even a little bit of that into a room, more silence, more sensing, more use of space, people often discover clarity they couldn’t reach by speaking more. I’ve noticed I’m better at inviting ambiguity and giving people space to inhabit it without panic. That’s become a quiet superpower, personally and professionally.

Parallel to all this, I was building a workshop with my friend Jason Bacasa called Whole Vision, and I started shaping a platform to hold work like that called Togethering. In the Master Cert, I got stuck trying to describe Togethering in “proper” professional language. It felt stiff and confining. So I wrote it poetically instead, more stanza-like than a spec sheet, and shared it with my cohort. They all shared that it resonated with them in a felt sense while understanding its intention intellectually. That was the point, and honestly, it made me proud. It affirmed that the work I want to do lives at the intersection of clarity and feeling.

Crossfading the Practical and the Poetic

Right now, Togethering is the lab where I’m working to fuse the two threads of my life: the practical, tactical work of product innovation and the relational, embodied work that helps groups actually move as one. I’m building it with my friend Max Lauter and with consulting support from my partner, Natalia Villalobos. In the near term, we’re focused on engagements with clear outcomes, new value propositions, service redesigns, and strategic choices, because those are legible to organizations and easy to validate. But the theory of change here is bigger: if you only build outputs without shifting the relational field that produces them, you’ll keep arriving at the same answers.

So the plan is to crossfade and intersperse. Start with the tangible, then steadily bring in more of the relational and embodied practices that help groups sense together, not just plan together. That looks like moving beyond user stories and roadmaps into practices that help people see themselves inside the systems they’re shaping. The art is in knowing when to turn each dial. Most firms pick one end of the spectrum because it’s easier to message. I believe the value is in the hard work of blending the two.

I want Togethering to be a practice that supports teams, organizations, and communities in creating the change they seek by feeling and sensing with one another and creating an actionable strategy. Where we can take on a product innovation challenge, and also work deep in the soil to repair root causes, enabling innovation to emerge on its own. Where we can borrow from art, attention, thresholds, and the poetics of experience, to make organizational gatherings that actually change how people relate. That’s the future I’m working towards, and I’m trying to build it in a way that stays grounded in what works.

In some ways, I’m still solving the middle-school puzzle: how do we create spaces where people get more done together than they ever could alone, and enjoy the process enough to keep doing it? I’m also answering the question I was working through during my art days: how might we create experiences that allow people to reflect and co-enact change? The difference now is that I have a deeper set of tools, a community of practice, and a clearer sense that the “how” is the product.

Middle school collaborations taught me the value and fun of solving problems together. Years of art and technology have taught me how to design and offer experiences that foster deep personal reflection and awe. Product innovation work taught me how to deliver tangible outcomes. Voltage Control gave me a way to weave those lessons into a craft. The next chapter is about making that valuable craft at scale, without losing the human heartbeat that makes it worth doing.

If you’ve gotten this far, I suspect a part of you might be asking for the same thing.

I’ll end with what I tell anyone considering the certification: your personal experience is already enough to begin. You don’t need to know everything before you start. Follow the questions, and let practice do its work on you. The highest value of your time is exactly where you are, not in some imagined future where you’ve “earned” the right to try.

If you feel that tug toward facilitation, toward designing spaces where people can see, sense, and act together, step in, we’re here for you. Find a container that lets you practice, not just learn. Voltage Control was that for me, and it might be for you. Say yes, even if it scares you a little. Especially, if it does.

The post From Birdcalls to Boardrooms appeared first on Voltage Control.

The Beginning

If you glanced at my college transcript, you might assume this story begins in a drafting studio. Residential architecture was my first love. I didn’t have the language then for what drew me in, but I do now: function and purpose layered with an intentional aesthetic experience. A building has to stand, serve, and shape how people feel when they walk through it. That tension—structure plus experience—has been the throughline of my entire career.

I didn’t become an architect. Instead, I pivoted into business and eventually earned a master’s in organizational communication—choices that looked like sharp left turns but ultimately gave me the two languages I still speak every day: how humans organize and make decisions, and how technology actually works. Early in my tech roles, others noticed my ability to translate between deeply technical teams and business leaders before I noticed it in myself. I could sit with network engineers and then walk down the hall to explain the story to a CFO without losing anyone along the way.

My first decade unfolded at a major networking company from 1997 to 2007—routers, data centers, and a brand-new thing called the internet. Then came the telephony shift: voice riding on data networks. Suddenly, I was facilitating peace talks between “the phone people” and “the data people.” Later, I moved into the emerging collaboration space, helping shape the early generation of smart-room and meeting technologies. Across all of it, I played the same role: bridge builder, translator, convener of cross-functional worlds that don’t naturally speak to each other.

But consulting has limits. You can influence, but only from the outside. I craved being part of a healthy culture where transformation could actually take root. In 2015, I joined Progressive Insurance, drawn by its genuinely human-centered approach to collaboration and problem-solving.

A few years later—right before COVID—leaders in the organization asked me to stand up a new enterprise-level forum focused on cross-functional alignment around technology and readiness. They saw something in me I hadn’t fully named yet: the way I convene people and help them see the whole picture. Four weeks later, the world shut down. That forum became a critical space for helping tens of thousands of people transition to remote work, and my role evolved from technologist who can talk to humans into someone who designs environments where people can have real, candid conversations about value, risk, and possibility.

Looking back, I now see the pattern clearly: I grew up professionally on the edges of market disruptions—early internet infrastructure, unified communications, modern collaboration, and now AI. The constant wasn’t the tools. It was facilitating transformation. It was designing temporary worlds—sessions, rhythms, and forums—where function meets experience. Where people can tell the truth, get energized about possibility, and challenge what’s unclear. Those rooms—not me—are where the real intelligence lives.

Finding Myself in “Professional Facilitator”

The moment I thought, “Oh… I’m a facilitator,” happened during the pandemic. I read Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, and when she used the phrase “professional facilitator,” something clicked deep in my nervous system. I had been doing this work for years without naming it. Suddenly, the pattern was undeniable: I wasn’t organizing meetings; I was designing human experiences.

Around that time, I helped redesign a complex technology-evaluation process at my company. We needed to make something high-stakes feel human and workable—because governance isn’t exactly everyone’s happy place. I reached out to partners at MURAL and eventually connected with a facilitator from Voltage Control. Together, we built DWG World, a visual journey—a game board—for how innovation moves through a large enterprise. Playful but rigorous. And it changed the way people engaged. The visual space leveled hierarchy, clarified expectations, and made the invisible visible.

That project awakened something in me. I began paying attention to how I opened and closed spaces, the rituals we practiced, and how the “feel” of a room shaped outcomes. The more intentional I became, the more ROI those rooms produced—more candor, better attendance, decisions people could live with, and a reputation for “that meeting felt different.” I knew I wanted to deepen the craft.

The Leap Toward Voltage Control

My manager nudged me: “You haven’t invested in yourself for a while. Take a class. Grow.” That kind of support gave me permission to pursue something that had been tugging at me for years.

Voltage Control immediately stood out. In tech, you learn quickly that your digital storefront builds trust—and Voltage’s digital storefront radiated clarity, sophistication, and humanity. Combined with a positive previous collaboration, it felt like a natural next step. Compared to traditional conferences, the depth and value were incomparable.

I applied to the Core Certification and was thrilled when I was accepted. It aligned perfectly with where my career was heading: from technologist to facilitator of enterprise-level transformation. I wanted language, frameworks, community, and accountability around what I had been doing intuitively. I wanted to be not just effective—but artful.

Language for What I’d Been Doing All Along

Core delivered exactly that. Concepts like facilitator presence, purpose-first design, and group process leadership weren’t abstract—they were mirrors. They validated what I already knew and opened new vistas. Like hiking in Colorado: one moment you’re in the trees, and suddenly you’re above the treeline with a panoramic view.

The community component surprised me most. Facilitators inside large organizations can feel isolated—embedded everywhere but rarely gathered. Voltage’s buddy system changed that. My buddies in Core and Master became the people I could share ideas with, test new methods, and even whisper insecurities to: “Am I overengineering this?” The program wasn’t built to center the instructors; it was built to center community. That energy intensified at the Voltage Summit, and I left with genuine friendships that continue to anchor my life and work.

Voltage also deepened my facilitator presence. People often tell me I create psychological safety, and I take that seriously. During COVID, I developed rituals—music at the top, warm check-ins, conversational flow, and a closing dad joke. Those rituals held us together. But after losing both of my parents within four months, I learned that presence isn’t a switch—it’s a practice. It requires self-regulation, humility, and honesty about when you’re not able to hold space for others. Voltage—and books like Standing in the Fire—gave me tools to navigate that season.

I also loosened my grip on content. My job is often to design the container, not fill it.

From Orchestrator to Amplifier

If there’s one word that captures the shift in me after certification, it’s trust. Facilitation at scale is the slow, steady work of building trust—with leaders, with teams, and across silos. The more I trust the room, the more the room trusts itself. And then something remarkable happens: a temporary group becomes a high-performing team right in front of you.

Midway through the Core program, I was asked to facilitate alignment between senior leaders and deeply experienced domain experts on the pace of digital transformation—especially as AI began reshaping familiar boundaries. It was a room filled with thoughtful, seasoned voices who each carried valuable history and perspective. I used a Voltage Problem-Solving one-pager to create a shared structure: those who needed space to surface the core challenges had it, and those eager to move toward outcomes could clearly see the path forward. The artifact helped anchor the conversation and build confidence in the process. By the end, what started as a set of differing viewpoints shifted into genuine alignment. Several people asked, “What did you do? Can you teach me?”

The feedback I value most now is simple: “I’ve never had a meeting like this.”

Practices like check-ins, check-outs, naming purpose upfront, and designing for inclusion seem soft until you watch them unlock hard outcomes. The way a group works together becomes as important as the work itself. That combination—function, purpose, and aesthetic experience—is still my fuel.

What I’m Building Next

The biggest shift Voltage catalyzed is moving from expert to amplifier. In an AI-enabled world, knowledge is increasingly democratized. My job isn’t to walk in with the answer—it’s to create the conditions where the best answer can emerge from the room.

My company has invested deeply in my development, and they’ve asked me to multiply that impact. My Master capstone is a community of practice for facilitators inside the organization—called FacilitateX. I’ve gathered ten practitioners to co-design the blueprint: the charter, identity, operating model, and launch strategy. If stars align, we’ll bring Voltage in to help embed the competencies we value most. This isn’t tucked away in HR; it’s elevating facilitation as a strategic leadership capability.

At the same time, the governance forum I built in 2020 has become a model other groups reference and adapt. We recently applied the same principles to support responsible adoption of emerging technologies—diverse voices, clear cadences, transparent artifacts, and human-centered experience. It’s the same core belief: well-designed spaces help people think better together.

Looking ahead five years, I see a multiplier effect—a network of strong facilitators who can support integration efforts, digital transformation, and culture work. In an AI-accelerated world, alignment is oxygen. AI becomes our companion, not a replacement, freeing us to design experiences that feel both humane and effective. And personally? I see myself continuing to be a relational strategist, building trust across the enterprise, helping people say, “That felt different—and it worked.”

Closer + Call to Action

If you’re facilitation-curious—or you’ve been doing the work without naming it—Voltage Control will crack something open in you. It did for me. Core gave me language and community. Master is sharpening my presence and shifting me from orchestrator to amplifier. If you enjoy being comfortably uncomfortable, like an athlete training for the next season, this is your place.

My encouragement:

• Invest in the craft.
• Design the experience, not just the agenda.
• Practice self-regulation as much as you practice methods.
• Find your people—buddies, mentors, peers who reflect you back to yourself and laugh at your dad jokes.

Because at the end of the day, the smartest person in the room is the room. If you’re ready to help create those rooms—and be changed by them—come join us. I’ll see you in the circle. Bring a good but terrible dad joke too.

The post From Tech Expert to Amplifier appeared first on Voltage Control.

In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson interviews Sophie Bujold of Cliqueworthy. Sophie shares how her early experiences in MIRC chat rooms shaped her approach to building human-centered, connected communities. They discuss the importance of trust, generosity, and adaptability in online spaces, as well as Sophie’s journey from digital explorer to expert facilitator. Sophie reflects on lessons learned, balancing structure with emergent conversations, and her impact on social causes, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The episode highlights the enduring power of technology and facilitation to foster authentic connection and belonging.

Show Highlights

[00:02:53] The Nature of Early Online Communities
[00:07:41] Learning and Generosity in Online Communities
[00:14:10] Trust and Curiosity in Facilitation Style
[00:18:32] Realizing the Role of Facilitator
[00:27:12] Riding the Wave: Managing Growth and Avoiding Burnout
[00:35:30] Favorite Sectors and Desired Impact

Links | Resources

Sophie on LinkedIn

About the Guest

Sophie Bujold is a facilitator and community strategist who helps membership-based organizations design communities that feel more human, connected, and sustainable. Through her company, Cliqueworthy, she works with associations, professional networks, and social impact organizations to rethink how members engage and how teams collaborate behind the scenes.

With more than 20 years of experience in community design and facilitation, Sophie helps turn scattered efforts into clear, meaningful action so organizations can build communities where participation and belonging come naturally.

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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. And if you’d like to learn more about our 12-week facilitation certification program, you can read about it at voltagecontrol.com.
Today, I’m with Sophie Bujold from Cliqueworthy, where she helps membership-based organizations design communities that feel more human, connected, and sustainable. She works with associations, professional networks, and social impact organizations to bring clarity, connection, and momentum to their member experience. Welcome to the show, Sophie.

Sophie Bujold:
Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Douglas Ferguson:
It’s so great to have you. Looking forward to chatting.

Sophie Bujold:
Me too.

Douglas Ferguson:
So to get started, I’d love you to take us back to those late nights on mIRC in a small New Brunswick town.

Sophie Bujold:
So I discovered mIRC when my parents signed up for the internet. It came on a floppy disc back then with our internet provider service. And little did I know that that piece of software would actually open up a whole new world for me.
I quickly started meeting people from around the globe in cities and countries that I hadn’t even dreamed of being able to access at that point and made some really lifelong friends. I still have friends from those days that are in my world. My partner and I met on those chat rooms and started, I think, one of the first online relationships really, it was just not heard of during those days. And it was really one of those moments where I don’t think we realized it at the time, how transformational it would be, but looking back on my career, I realize how much of an influence being able to have those first experiences connecting with other humans in an online world just really influenced how I do my work today.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. I recall you were talking about this idea of slow but meaningful online conversations and it really shaped a sense of place and relationship.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. I mean to give you some context back then, for those of you who know mIRC, you know that it’s a pretty boring platform. It’s text on a screen. Multiple people could join in a channel. For a little while, you couldn’t even have private conversations on the side with people. And we had to literally mail each other photographs. That’s going to make me sound very ancient, but we couldn’t send files through the software.
So it had a little bit of innocence to the interactions in that there wasn’t a huge amount of people on there. Most folks were from universities, so a lot of scholars, a lot of professors, and a lot of students, and everyone was kind of helping one another with all kinds of things. I got help with my homework back then. I got help even just learning about other parts of the world that I had not been into. And there was a wholesomeness to it that I think the internet has lost a little bit today, but that was really powerful in helping me see, at least, the power of using technology to connect with other human beings.

Douglas Ferguson:
Turns out you didn’t need subreddits in the beginning of the internet.

Sophie Bujold:
Exactly. It was just one of those places where if you were mildly technical, you could find your way to it, but it wasn’t wildly accessible to everyone. So the networks were actually fairly small, even though there were multiple of them. So there were actually a lot of people on those networks, but you had to find your way to little corners and then kind of just stay there because you were like, “I don’t know what else is out there,” and you don’t know if you can come back and find your people from there.
So I felt very adventurous, I think, in the process and also really curious about the folks that I was meeting. I just thought that was the coolest thing that I could have friends in far off places and not have to do it by pen pals or whatever else.

Douglas Ferguson:
It felt a lot like traveling. You find a spot where you really connect with people and you kind of want to stay there and come back because it took a lot of effort to find.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah, that’s a really great point. It was a little bit like traveling without leaving the comfort of my home at that point, which I couldn’t really do. I was a teenager, so I was at the mercy of my parents back then, but this was a way for me to start exploring things beyond my backyard in a way that was still relatively safe and harmless.

Douglas Ferguson:
You also reminded me, you couldn’t send images, there was no DM at that point, right? And also, I think it’s just helpful context for folks to think about, there was no cell phones then and in a lot of ways, it was like the messaging that we have now on our cell phones, but you had to do it with a computer. You couldn’t send images yet.

Sophie Bujold:
Exactly. That sounds tedious to every teenager on earth right now.

Douglas Ferguson:
You had to know someone’s phone number where this group of folks were. It’s like a group chat on your phone that you had to know the phone number for, or at least become aware of it somehow. And it’s text only and you’re tethered to a computer and it’s over a phone line, so when your mom needs to make a call, you had to get off.

Sophie Bujold:
You’ve been there. You’ve been there.

Douglas Ferguson:
I just wanted to make sure that the folks that weren’t as old as us or weren’t keyed into this stuff at the time had some point of reference because some folks got the internet much later.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah, absolutely. And it definitely was a bit of a wild world. And we ended up in channels that were very random. Our favorite channel, ironically, for those who don’t know me, I have zero farming background, yet I hung out in a channel for many years called Dairy Farming because that’s where all our friends were. So it was just a weird and wacky place to visit. And it was almost like one of those curio cabinets where you could open a door and be like, “What is behind this and what can I find here and who is in that room?” And if you didn’t like it, you just closed the door and moved on. So it was a very, for me anyways as a curious teenager, it was a really fun and exciting environment to be in.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah, that’s so fun. It definitely felt like a bazaar, like, so many curious things and really I think it just tapped into my love of eccentricity, just random things. And it was such a fun way to discover new stuff, whether it was music or art or just new ideas.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah, absolutely. And also tapping into the number of people that I met that were world experts in whatever, or at least claimed to be and I believed them, was really unreal. I remember a time where I had a physics assignment that I couldn’t figure out and instead of going to a web browser and searching it, which was limited back then too, I just hopped on to a chat room and found someone who had that expertise and he walked me through my homework. That’s just something that’s a little bit hard to emulate today unless you have an app for tutoring or whatever else. Back then, it was just a lot of goodwill and a lot of people just connecting with one another.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. And I’m curious, how did the early internet spirit influence how you gather people today?

Sophie Bujold:
I think for me, there were two big pivotal points. So one is, I come from a very small community of people on the east coast of Canada and I think the first piece for me… And let’s note that I did not realize that until I was much older, but I think I realized now that that community experience really shaped my perception of belonging and how I want to welcome people in a space. There was a warmth to the culture that I come from that I crave on a regular basis and really try to emulate in the work that I do.
The internet came in and chat rooms and things like that really shaped the second part because I was a very early adopter of that technology. And when I started my career, what I heard from people was, “It’s really cool that you’re doing that, but there’s no way a computer can create real human connection.” And I was like, “I think it can.” And I don’t think that I consciously set out to really take that on as a challenge in the work that I do, but I did do it, at least at a subconscious level, to the point where I started playing with, how do we create spaces that welcome people in and how can we create experiences that they come back to over and over again? And how can I do that with limited technology? So really, I started marrying the two and I think one of my key tenets for the work I do now is how would this interaction look if it was in person and how close can we get to it with the technology that we have today?

Douglas Ferguson:
Okay. So you mentioned that you had a professor help you with a physics problem, but also I believe that you had a plane ticket that led to some deeper relationships later on. So what was that like?

Sophie Bujold:
That was wild. So I mentioned earlier that my partner and I met in those chat rooms that I was in very early on. We were nowhere near one another. I was on the east coast of Canada, he was on the west coast of the United States. And as a teenager, the prospects of traveling to one another sounded pretty impossible. And what we had is one of those strangers in the room that saw us chatting day in and day out approach me and say, “I would love to give you a plane ticket so you can spend your first Christmas together.” Total stranger. I have never met this person. I don’t even know their real name. Somehow, I trusted that a plane ticket would show up at my door, because back then they were paper tickets that had to be mailed, and gave this stranger all of my personal information and got a ticket and my identity is totally safe.
So that person showed up at that right moment, gave us an opportunity to spend some time together. Many, many years later, we’re still together. So they kind of were the catalyst for that relationship really taking off and working, which was unheard of in those days. My family was going, “What the heck are you doing?” And I said, “I think it’s good. We’ve been talking for two years. I know more about this person than anyone else.” Maybe that was a bit naive on my part, but it worked out. And to me, that’s a moment that was really magical.
And that person came in, did that good deed, and then we haven’t seen them since then. So they really just showed up and it just showed the generosity that was happening back then. There were a lot of people helping each other out in different ways. It emulates some of the things I see on social media now, to be honest, whether it’s a crowdfunding campaign and things like that. But in those early days where all of that stuff was not set up or accessible yet, it was a pretty magical thing to have someone land right in the middle of another relationship that was building and just say, “Let me help it along.”

Douglas Ferguson:
And what did those acts of generosity teach you about trust in an online community?

Sophie Bujold:
That’s a very good question. I think it has taught me less about generosity in the online community very specifically. For me, the biggest lesson I took from that is to always assume the best out of people first. And I do that, whether it’s in an online setting or a lot of the communities I built also have an offline component. Just with interacting with humans in particular, assuming the best before you assume the worst until someone proves you wrong is really a philosophy that I’ve carried forward since then because it has served me so well across the spectrum of my life to just trust that people have good intentions in most cases.
Has it worked out 100% of the time? No, but I’d rather assume that it will than assume that everyone has bad intent and not have the opportunity to experience those moments of generosity. Because really at the end of the day, had I said no to the offer, we wouldn’t have had that opportunity to spend time together and build that relationship and that trust and that carries forward with any other moment where I’ve trusted that someone was coming to do good in my life.

Douglas Ferguson:
And how do you think this notion of trust and assuming positive intent has shown up in your facilitation style?

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. So I think in facilitation in particular, that same philosophy can be applied, right? So I don’t assume that my participants are there to cause trouble or that even their reactions are to harm the experience for everyone else. I think it helps me get curious when something happens in the room that’s unexpected that maybe the first instinct is to go, “Oh my God, why are they doing this?” Or whatever that is, to get curious about where that reaction comes from. And I think that helps create an environment where people really aren’t afraid of showing up as they are and they know that the room is being held for them to have the reaction that they have and that we can have a conversation in most cases around that, when we have the time obviously, but it has really helped me not see reactions that are unexpected as a bad thing and see it as part of this process that I’m bringing people through.
So whether that’s thinking through strategy or looking at the vision for a new community structure, people will have feelings about it and I see it as an opening really to exploring why that person had that reaction, what they meant by it, and what it can mean to how we shape whatever we’re shaping in that space.

Douglas Ferguson:
I love that because a lot of facilitators really struggle with some of those pieces, especially when it comes to what’s emerging in the space can really knock some folks off their feet. They’ve come ungrounded and they lose their sense of flow. So it sounds like you’ve really tapped into some of these early lessons to help ground you.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. And I would say part of my superpower is really relationships, right? And a lot of those personality assessments or strengths assessments, that always comes out loud and clear for me that empathy and relationship building are my top skills. So those hard moments or those moments that someone might say, “Oh, they don’t have a good intention,” for me are an area of opportunity to bring that person in rather than push them out. In most cases. There’s always exceptions, but in most cases, it creates this beautiful opportunity to either deepen the conversation or have them realize what’s going on with them too. There’s been times where they didn’t even realize the impact of their reaction in the room and just not necessarily putting them in the spotlight or on the spot, but just bringing attention to the fact that that was coming up helped them analyze where their feelings were, which really helped them feel connected to the group really at the end of the day.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. I’m also thinking about your early career. I was thinking, digital explorer kind of came to mind as you were moving across these different roles and doing these things and you were kind of in a season of figure it out. And I’m curious if that helped you with this notion of being comfortable with ambiguity and just iteration as a core part of your practice.

Sophie Bujold:
Absolutely. And I would say that even today I’m still in a season of figure it out with a little bit more knowledge to make it a bit easier, but that’s just par for the course in a lot of this stuff. And I think if I was building community without being comfortable with human emotion and human being, I don’t know how effective I would be at the work that I do because at the end of the day, you can plan a community experience on paper all you want, but once you put humans in it, it might react differently and you need to be comfortable with that and you need to be comfortable with the feedback that comes from that in order to move forward in building an experience that makes people feel like they belong and they’re welcome in the space.

Douglas Ferguson:
And before you had the language of facilitation, you were already shaping conditions and softening the hard edges of tech. And can you recall a moment when you realized, even without the label I’m facilitating here, that you were doing that and what were you noticing in the group?

Sophie Bujold:
Well, it’s funny because I don’t think I realized it until I was in the cert program and we started walking through what it means to be a facilitator and then also being asked to bring forward some examples of our work in which we have facilitated. So for me, it wasn’t a moment in the room with a client. It was more the moment of me taking a moment, wanting to deepen my skills in an area where I felt like I wanted to explore and develop, and then realizing all along that, “Oh, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing here is facilitating these rooms and then pulling out all the examples of my work.” That was a pretty significant moment for me because I think before that, I realized the depth of the work that I was doing, but I don’t think I realized how deep that depth was, if that makes sense.
I knew it was important work, but I didn’t realize how much impact it had until I started sitting down, looking at the work that I had actually done, and thinking about, well, what did that mean for the customers I helped? And then I started realizing things like, I have impacted directly 11 out of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. I have been able to build communities that support people in areas that I feel pretty proud of, helping folks grieve very real-life situations, helping advocate for mental health across Canada, being able to help entrepreneurs secure funding for their ideas in the impact world. All of those things really… I don’t think I’ve ever done the work just to stroke my ego, but in that moment I stood a little bit taller and the impact that that has had on the world. And I think especially right now, where things are so tumultuous, I hang onto that and I say, I’m not the only one doing work that has impact. There’s still a lot of good that’s really happening out there.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yes, I love that. And I wanted to come back to something that you said in your alumni story that really struck me as this kind of comparing, trying new methods to picking up a fresh set of paintbrushes. And there might be a few rough strokes at first when getting used to the feel and how they presented on the paper or the canvas. And so I’m curious, because we embrace and embody practice so much at Voltage Control and Facilitation Lab, it’s such a critical part of the journey, and so I wanted to come back to these first rough strokes and curious if you could share an experiment that didn’t quite go as planned and what you learned from it?

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. I think that analogy, first and foremost, came from the fact that I am an artist, I paint, I do photography, I create a lot. And over the last several years in particular, I’ve been focused on intuitive creation as opposed to very formal realistic paintings and things like that. So for me, once I started realizing that facilitation was a thing I was doing, I’ll say I was very comfortable with experimenting, but that doesn’t come with areas of discomfort.
So the first few engagements that I did after certification were definitely an area of opportunity for me to be putting the skills I just learned to use. And in those moments, yeah, the engagement went very well from the client perspective, but I could start seeing, “Oh, I forgot to…” The first one that comes top to mind is I totally forgot to ask how many people would be in the room on my first workshop. I assumed that it would be a small group and then I ended up with a slightly bigger one that I didn’t quite know what to do with. And then I was like, “Okay, moving forward, that’s going on my intake sheet.”
So these little blind spots that you don’t think about in the moment, you’re just like, “Hey, I’m going to do this workshop. I’m going to knock it out of the park.” And just having that experience of having to operate on the fly and go, “Okay, there’s twice as many people as I expected here. How do I handle that right now because everyone’s in the room?” Figuring it out, working through it. Again, the engagement was fine from the client perspective. They had a good time. They really got what they needed out of the session, but in the background, I was definitely peddling a little bit faster.
And I think from engagement to engagement, that was the first one, the second one, it was just finding the balance between… I love a good conversation, I really do, but keeping time and having a good conversation sometimes goes against one another. So finding the balance between letting that conversation emerge and keeping on schedule so that everyone can get what they need out of the session was definitely another balancing act. So it was more on the technical side of things of me just kind of finding the right fit for the style of who I am and how I like to dig into things. I really love the kind of emerging stage where we’re thinking of new ideas, we’re putting things on the table, we’re having those conversations, and I’m learning that I need to get better at the convergence at the end.
So I’m okay with that, and I know that that’s what it is, and I’m putting practices in place in how I run my workshops to get better and better at it. Is it perfect now? Absolutely not, but I’m okay with that and that’s the part that I practice from time to time.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. I mean that is what practice is about. We do things and we learn from them. If we’re not learning from our behaviors and our actions, that’s where I think practice ceases, both our ability to run a practice, to put in practices, and just the broader definition of like, are we learning? Are we growing from the things we’re doing? And I love that you’re like, “I’m going to put this in my intake form.” It shows that we observed a lesson and we learned it, we applied it, and then we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.
Also, it’s interesting you talk about the timing stuff, loving the conversation, not omitting or assuming the number of people. And so I’m sensing a love of the art, of the passion in the conversation, the beautiful stuff that can happen when people are in communion together, but the logistics maybe are the thing that you’re personally working on.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. And it’s definitely finding the balance because a lot of what I do comes in those emergent moments and I don’t want to lose that as part of my facilitation. And I’m also known to just modify the agenda on the fly if I feel like the thing that we need is about to emerge and we’re just going to adjust the rest of what we’re doing. I’m comfortable doing that and I think that’s part of the figure-it-out training that I’ve had over my career is like, “Nope, we’re just going to adjust. Here’s what we’re going to cut out because this is where the nugget is.”
But I lean a lot more on our common humanity and what can come out if we just talk to one another. And that’s something that, at least in community building, is super important. It’s like, how do we get people to not just be shooting mechanical questions back and forth and then answering below, but how do we create that feeling of, “I want to be in this room because amazing things happen? I’m getting conversations that are very productive and stimulating for me and I want to be there?”

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. It’s so important that we’re creating a sense of flow for folks.

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. And a sense of, I’ll come back to it over and over, just feeling like they belong in that room, like they found their people and they just can’t get enough of wanting to be in there.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. Love that. And it’s reminding me too of, I think near the end of certification for you and also about the time we were chatting about our community and about the alumni story, you were talking about just the right work was landing and multiple clients and a large member-based organization was coming in and just generating lots of deal flow. And I’m curious, what did you do structurally and personally to ride that wave without burning out? I think listeners could probably be interested and benefit from hearing what worked and didn’t work as you were kind of getting a lot of interest and trying to navigate a busy time, but also a time that was busy with things you were passionate about.

Sophie Bujold:
I think one of the most important things I did was really leaning on the community that I had created within our program. I met some amazing folks, some incredible people that I’m still in touch with now on a regular basis, and really leaning on some of their expertise in areas where I just had less experience.
The other piece of it too is I wasn’t using this to kind of shape the whole thing, but I used AI as a thinking partner a lot to just kind of challenge how I was structuring things or suggest activities that I might not be aware of that I might want to consider. It didn’t build my whole agenda, but it was definitely a thinking partner in the process of it.
And then third, leveraged a lot of the office hours that were happening at that moment to really kind of bring my work to the table and be like, “Here’s where I’m heading with it. What am I missing?” type thing.
So I think part of that. And then also, I’ll be very candid and say, part of it was also the, I’ll figure it out as I go thing that I’m really good at. But I relied a lot on the relationships that I had, whether it was with the client to start figuring out, “This workshop didn’t quite hit what we were looking for, what if we did a second one to just tie it up and here’s where we would focus?” So I left a lot of room for fluidity even in the engagement because I knew that these were new ways for me to work and that I might not hit the mark exactly on the spot that first time.
So for the client, that actually ended up adding a lot of value because they got a little bit of extra time to think through things, but it also gave me a playground to be able to really start structuring how I move in my Miro boards and what exactly I’m trying to extract from this group in order for us to continue doing the consulting piece of the work afterwards, right? Because my work has those two parts in balance all the time. It’s like, yes, I facilitate, but it’s also with the goal of getting information that I can then use to be the consultant to say, “Okay, based on the decisions you made, here’s the direction we can take with the experience you’re trying to create.”

Douglas Ferguson:
Another thing I was thinking about was just the importance of clarity and focus for organizations, especially I think professional services organizations benefit greatly when there’s a really sharp focus and you know who you’re serving. And you’ve done a great job, over the past few years, really starting to clarify that member organizations are your lane, co-designing roadmaps, facilitating discovery, and aligning teams. And I’m curious, if we walk through a typical engagement with you, what does that look like and how’s facilitation making a pivotal difference for you?

Sophie Bujold:
Yeah. I think every engagement is a little bit unique just based on the need that comes through my door, but people typically come to me in two-ish buckets. So one, they’re either coming to me where they have an idea for a community experience, whether it’s online, hybrid, or offline, they just want to think through what exactly are we offering people? How do we structure it? And how do we start building a team that can support it? The other piece is, we have something and it’s broken. It’s not working the way we want it to. We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know how to fix it. So that could be low engagement, high churn, just something’s just not jiving and it’s not meeting the needs of the organization that it’s supporting.
So in both those cases, I think the journey starts very similarly. I have a pretty robust intake form that everyone goes through on my website. That is purposefully done to get information ahead of the conversation that I want to have with clients, to get them reflecting about exactly what they want. So to your point about focus, that’s one of my ways to help them focus is to get them to stop for a minute and think about some of the key aspects of their community before we even have a conversation.
For a lot of people, I get to the call and they thank me for those questions because it really helped clarify in their head what exactly they’re asking for. So it leads to a much better discovery call where we can really dig into, what are their specific needs? And then craft an engagement that makes sense for that.
For a lot of the folks who are in that bucket of, we have something new, I have a whole community mapping process that is usually, 90% of the time, the process that we’ll go through where we really start digging into the values and mission that’s driving the community and why it needs to exist in the world. We take a look at what is already out there and how it might not be fitting the need of their client or where is the opportunity to find a difference that we can fill in the market. And then from there, we start looking at each piece of the community, right? Events, any kind of interactions they want to be having, whether it’s forum groups or whatever it is, whatever components, we always match it back to the needs of the community and the needs of the members that are in it.
I think one of the key pieces of what I do is really this empathy map of who is your member and what journey do we know they go through as they move from the first few moments of being in the community all the way to feeling like they’ve got what they need and exiting that community? What is that journey and what is the core need they need at every step? And we use that to then go into the experience and go, “Okay, now we know what they need. How do we help them scratch that itch? How do we help them fulfill that need so that they can move through the journey and be transformed?”
So many people don’t realize that community experiences also have a member journey and can be transformative. They just think like, “Oh, people come in and they hang out and they leave when they’re ready.” But if you tie the experience that you create to those member needs, one, it creates an experience that people participate at much higher rates in. Two, they stick around a lot longer, sometimes by years, which is usually good if it’s a membership-based fee at the front. It means more lifetime value for that customer. And yeah, so tying it all together from there.
And then once we have that really good picture of what the community needs, then we put in place the launch plan and the team plan and all of those things to move forward. And then on the side of, how do I fix my community? That usually starts with an audit of sorts and then moves from there based on the needs that we find in there.

Douglas Ferguson:
Looking ahead, what kinds of member-driven challenges or sectors are you most excited to tackle next? And how do you hope the ripple effects of your work will show up in communities those organizations serve?

Sophie Bujold:
So there’s three key areas that I actually love serving. It doesn’t mean that I don’t go outside of that, but it’s where I feel like my impact is the greatest. One is really in kind of social services area. We’re talking about things like communities that are helping people with their mental health, communities that are advocating in those spaces, and kind of adjacent communities in that space. I never set an actual wishlist for who I want to work with.
The other space is really the space of creativity, but I tend to work with clients who, again, are in that space of we want to have an impact in the world. So they’re doing creativity for the purpose of wellbeing, mental health, and having a positive impact on the people that are learning. It’s never just a learning community, there’s always that goal of, we want to help through art, through music, through all kinds of things. I’ve worked with painting communities and cello communities and all kinds of things in between, but all of them had that social impact kind of woven in, that they weren’t just doing it for teaching purposes, it was really to help people feel better, find something that they’re passionate about, and wanting to move forward.
So for me, those spaces are really important, especially, again, right now. There’s so much happening in this world and I think people need those anchors that are not work related, that are not politically related, where they can actually just sit in a room with other folks who have an interest similar to theirs. And I would even say that I consider those spaces really transformational, especially when two people with maybe opposing views can find some common ground. And I’m seeing that more and more with all kinds of initiatives in those spaces that I just named. Like, you have the Gaia Collective in New York City that’s based on music and singing and a whole bunch of other communities where, at first, it feels like, “Oh, it’s just for hobbies,” but really there’s a really connective fabric at the bottom of it.
So that’s what I look for in projects, is spaces where there’s some thought that’s been put into, how do we bring people together, especially people with differences?

Douglas Ferguson:
Ooh, love that. And I would imagine the ripple effects when we’re bringing together folks with differences are that we might have a bit more understanding about each other and a bit more harmony maybe, which I would argue that the world could benefit from. And anyway, we’re coming to our end, unfortunately. I know we could keep going and going. So I want to give you an opportunity to leave our listeners with a final thought.

Sophie Bujold:
So my final thought for today is really in the fact that there’s a lot of opportunity right now to create connection between people to help people feel like they belong and they’ve found a supportive community and that, sure, it can take the form of working with someone like me on building something a little bit more formal, but I would also say there’s a lot of opportunity to look within our neighborhoods and our communities right now and being like, how can I gather people to either hold a potluck between neighbors or where can I create that opportunity of connection right now? You don’t need a formal business setting to be able to do those things. That’s what I experienced when I was online in those first few years and I think that’s something that folks have been slowly coming back to in a lot of cases right now and is needed more than ever.

Douglas Ferguson:
Wow. Yeah. I would echo that and thank you for sharing. It’s been such a lovely conversation and hope to chat with you again sometime soon.

Sophie Bujold:
Well, thanks for having me. It’s been great.

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

The post The Greatest Lessons in Trust and Generosity from Online Communities appeared first on Voltage Control.

“Can you hear my audio? Can you see my screen?” How many times did I utter those sentences in 2020? Suddenly, the teaching, convening, and presenting work I had felt I could almost do in my sleep felt brand-new again – like I had to relearn how to walk and tie my shoes. That was not a comfortable feeling for a mid-career consultant who prided herself on creating engaging meetings and events.

Without ever calling it “facilitation,” I’ve used facilitation skills throughout my entire career as a strategy consultant to nonprofits and foundations (with a side-quest into commercial work – but that’s another story). Since founding my consulting practice in 1996, I have led countless board meetings, retreats, strategic planning workshops, Communities of Practice, listening sessions, focus groups… pretty much any type of gathering you can think of, with all sizes of groups.

It’s always been one of my favorite parts of my work – the experience of bringing people together to think creatively and expansively about possibilities, learn from each other, and co-create solutions that didn’t exist before is at the heart of why I love my work.

But things changed when the pandemic kicked off. Although I had done some online facilitation prior to March of 2020, it was quickly clear that I was going to have to really up my game if I wanted my groups to achieve their goals and objectives via Zoom. That’s when I started researching where and how I might pursue professional development.

Around the same time, I attended a webinar on an unrelated topic. When one of the speakers was explaining her methodology for generating a group discussion, another webinar participant posted in the chat: “It sounds like Liberating Structures.”

That caught my eye, so I googled… and was immediately blown away by the potential of the methodology. “Where has this been my whole life?” I asked myself while poring over the Liberating Structures site and book.

As part of my research, I soon came across the word, “facilitator.” And I immediately said, “Yes, that’s me!” Digging further into blogs, online workshops, discussion threads, and communities, I found Voltage Control, along with a few other organizations, that were offering the kinds of learning I knew I needed: how to create online spaces of focus and purpose, where people could be as creative and connected as possible to achieve big results.

I was surprised and excited to learn how many professionals globally take this facilitation stuff seriously, and particularly because we cover such a diverse range of interests and applications of the skills. I found myself connecting with product designers, IT professionals, CEOs… as well as plenty of other nonprofit professionals and consultants like me. The diversity of applications and interests meant I was learning from a wide variety of experiences; the consistency of our collective commitment to facilitation told me I was in the right place.

After attending a few Facilitation Labs online, I decided to enroll in an 8-hour online workshop Voltage Control was offering at that time on Liberating Structures. I couldn’t believe how fast the time flew during the workshop – I was used to online meetings that dragged and droned, with endless slide decks and limited opportunity for interactivity or engagement. The experience served to reinforce to me that I was definitely on the right track for taking my consulting practice to the next level.

In fact, even before the two-session workshop was done, I started bringing what I had learned into client meetings. Activities like 1-2-4-All helped me overcome the challenge of having the most vocal person dominate the conversation, while TRIZ created a fun and memorable framework for getting at root causes of deep-seated community challenges. And that was only two of the Liberating Structures – I had dozens more to try!

What’s more, my clients were noticing the difference, too. More than one long-term client made a point of telling me that “something had changed” in my facilitation – sessions were stronger, more dynamic, and more productive than before.

When I reflected on what had changed, I realized that the balance of engagement had flipped on its head. Before I started pursuing facilitation training, my sessions would be 80% of me talking and teaching, and 20% of the participants engaging and interacting. After becoming more intentional about facilitation and expanding my methods, I observed that 80% of my sessions involved direct engagement and peer-to-peer interaction of the participants, and only 20% me.

That’s when I realized: Facilitation is not about wielding control in the room. Facilitation is about creating a room with a set of rules that enables humans to connect authentically and find their collective wisdom.

Around that time, I had a client project that involved designing and facilitating six online strategic visioning sessions on different topics relating to the future of a local community. This would be the first big project with a lot of high-stakes online sessions, and I was both excited and nervous about putting my new skills to the test.

In my planning, I was tempted to try some of the more complex methods I had learned about in my Liberating Structures workshop… but I managed to resist the urge and Keep It Simple, to reduce the stress for both me and the participants. I secured a co-facilitator, with responsibility for running the technology (including Zoom and Mural boards) and providing troubleshooting assistance when needed.

And then I opened the rooms, doing what I have always loved doing: Bringing people together to envision a thriving future where kids experience summer camp, people with disabilities have full access to community life, teachers get appropriate compensation and recognition, and the professionals who make the entire community run are visible and appreciated. We co-created inspiring visions for the future in these sessions, and my elation grew with the completion of each one. It WAS possible to create online spaces of openness, generosity, and trust.

We got excellent feedback from participants, as well. One participant took the time to write on the post-event survey: “Robin’s strategic planning workshops were among the best I’ve attended — even on Zoom. They were goal-oriented, interactive, and thoughtfully designed. Robin fostered open discussion and guided participants effectively while allowing space for independent conclusions.”

And another: “Robin tenaciously sought input from a diverse group, stimulated active discussion, and provided the leadership and clarity to enable us to confidently move forward. She is masterful in her approach and dedicated to an outstanding outcome.” 

Although I felt my skills advancing and developing, I also had my eye on the Voltage Control certification program. I was able to make time in my schedule and free up budget to invest in the program, and I joined Cohort 11, convening in the summer of 2024.

The best thing about the certification program was the wonderful community of facilitators I got to work intensively with for three months. Everyone had differing levels of experience, their own particular style, and varied goals for what they wanted out of the program. But what we had in common was passion for facilitation.

My personal goals in the program were to dig more deeply into “why” – I wanted to better understand WHY many of the techniques I had developed through trial-and-error over the years worked, and at the same time how to adjust for things that weren’t working. I also wanted to better understand my own “why” – what was my purpose as a facilitator? Why was I so drawn to this work? What did it say about my professional world, my interests, and fundamentally, my values?

I answered those questions through the certification program, which gave me the framework, community, and access to expertise and mentoring that enabled me to grow. Preparing my portfolio was an exercise in bringing it all together – my purpose, my experience, the kinds of positive outcomes for nonprofits and communities I was working toward.

In fact, I keep my purpose statement printed at my workstation, to remind myself every day, every meeting, how I’m putting my values into action:

“My purpose is to create environments in which people practice being their best selves while collaboratively solving intractable problems.”

In the world we live in today, this feels like more than a profession – it feels like a calling.

Soon after I completed certification, I signed up for more: I joined the first cohort for Master Certification through Voltage Control in the spring of 2025 because I wanted to go deeper with my skills and particularly with my ability to build empathy in groups characterized by conflict or even hostility.

At the same time, I explored my frustration with the negative impact bad meetings have on the ability of nonprofits to achieve their missions. For my final project, I designed and piloted a three-session workshop series for nonprofit professionals and volunteers, to provide a foundation in the principles of good meetings:

1. Connection Before Content
2. Have a Purpose
3. Do the Work IN the Meeting

I ran the pilot with 7 participants, all of whom appreciated learning and practicing the practical skills that could help their meetings not suck! In the words of one participant, “I so appreciate Robin’s willingness to share her insight and expertise on meeting facilitation! She takes facilitation and participation to a new level. This class really addresses the frustration and boredom that can plague those of us who spend a lot of time in group meetings and brings home the idea that there is another and better way!”

While making my way through the Master Certification program, I was also applying to full-time consulting roles with firms that specialize in nonprofit and foundation work. I wanted to take what I’d developed over nearly 30 years to a bigger audience and work on larger teams, and joining a firm made the most sense for accomplishing both goals.

Soon after completing Master Certification, I joined Tangelo Tree Consulting as a Senior Consultant. My facilitation skills and the investment I’d made in developing them were an influential part of my application. And, with a talented team of other consultants, I get to work with regional and national clients on such topics as reproductive health rights, energy efficiency, affordable housing, and environmental conservation. The work is deeply challenging and feels vital at this moment, and I feel lucky every day that I get to do it.

To “facilitate” means to “ease the way.” Regardless of the direction your professional work is going, I believe you can ease the way by enhancing your skills as a facilitator. So much of what’s wrong with our world comes down to the ways humans interact with each other. We have so much creativity, so much potential for solving intractable problems, and yet so few spaces that are created and held so that people can truly listen to and work with one another.

This is the work I am honored to do as a certified facilitator. Whether it’s improving Tangelo Tree’s occasional online staff retreat, designing and facilitating a program for a hundred stakeholders, or anything in between, I feel most alive and connected when I’m helping others make connections. That’s how we have the potential to solve intractable problems. And that’s my purpose.

The post From “Can You Hear Me?” to “I’ve Got This” appeared first on Voltage Control.

In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, Douglas Ferguson interviews Marco Monterzino, a human-centered designer and innovation facilitator. Marco shares his journey from luxury product design to facilitation, emphasising the significance of ritual, adaptability, and purpose in both fields. They discuss how design thinking and frameworks like the hero’s journey inform facilitation, and how rituals shape user experiences. Marco also explores building organisational resilience, the evolving nature of purpose, and the importance of cultivating equanimity. The episode concludes with insights on blending facilitation and education to foster resilient, innovative teams and communities.

Show Highlights

[00:01:45] Marco’s Entry into Luxury Design
[00:08:21] Rituals and Product Design
[00:15:49] Gaining Confidence and Structure as a Facilitator
[00:23:59] Workshops as Human Gatherings
[00:31:14] Bridging Facilitation and Education
[00:35:17] Final Thought: The Equanimity Hack

Links | Resources

Marco on LinkedIn

About the Guest

Marco Monterzino is a Human-centered Designer and Certified Innovation Facilitator at Monterzino Design, where he helps senior leadership teams discover their organisational resilience.

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Transcript

Douglas Ferguson (00:05):
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 to 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.

(00:38):
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 realtime 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.

(00:58):
Today I’m with Marco Monterzino, human-centered designer and Certified Innovation Facilitator at Monterzino Design, where he helps senior leadership teams discover their organizational resilience. Welcome to the show, Marco.

Marco Monterzino (01:14):
Thanks for having me, Douglas. Great to see you.

Douglas Ferguson (01:16):
I just want to say it’s so wonderful having you on the show today. You’ve been such a great collaborator, and the work you’re doing at Facilitation Lab Europe is so wonderful. We really appreciate everything you’re doing there. And we’ve got some cool stuff that we’re working on that we might be launching next year. So always a pleasure to chat with you, and it’s so wonderful having you on the show today.

Marco Monterzino (01:37):
Thanks. Look, it’s been an incredible experience and so supportive of my own journey. So yeah, thanks for setting it up really.

Douglas Ferguson (01:46):
You began your career designing luxury objects, like lighters and fountain pens. What first drew you into that world? And what did you learn from working in such a rarefied space?

Marco Monterzino (01:56):
So that’s a great question, Douglas. I would say I more or less stumbled upon this market. It’s something that I was introduced to by the college I studied at. So Central Saint Martins College in London is a college that has a very strong network in a very specific niche of the market, which is the high end luxury market. Really because they are active in the intersection of art, fashion and design. So that’s the kind of network that I got introduced to.

(02:31):
I also have to say, as a child growing up, I really enjoyed collecting lighters and fountain pens, but really not the lighters that cost you half a yearly salary. So these are things that I just encountered along my journey and I really enjoyed discovering. Especially I would say the whole experience of creating these items, luxury items, high end items is connecting to a notion that the French call savoir faire, which is basically craftsmanship.

(03:11):
So having a chance to immerse myself in companies that have these workshops where they make bespoke diamond-encrusted accessories for gentlemen, for ladies, it was really super, super precious. And opened up my mind as a designer because I could see how … This was my first experience in connecting the practice of designing to the practice portfolio manufacturing, and this was a very specific type of manufacturing. It’s very little industrial production, just a little bit of C&C milling, digital manufacturing, which was then all finished by hand, encrusted by hand, engraved by hand. So the range of possibilities was really endless.

Douglas Ferguson (04:04):
I recall that your big project was the Diva. And I playfully suggested From Diva to Facilitator as your alumni story title, but that felt a little off to you. Tell us about the origins in the name Diva, and what was there for you as you were working on that project?

Marco Monterzino (04:19):
Yeah, thank you. That’s a great memory actually to recall. So I had been given this assignment to work with a young audience for a luxury brand called Stephane Tissot Dupont based in Paris. They started being known for travel case design. They created these travel cases that people use for traveling on the great liners of Cunard, that heritage. When I went to visit the factory, the workshops, the atelier actually how they call it, it was really super feeling the weight of these objects and hearing the sound of the lids as they came open. I was introduced to a whole new universe. I never really could see how you could design into that level of detail.

(05:08):
Now, the concept actually came because I was struggling with coming up with an idea for something in that market. It’s really not my market, I hardly could empathize with the user. And that’s my first job as a designer, understanding what a user needs. So one day I was just walking around in Lugano, on this Italian border with Switzerland. Actually, it was the Swiss border with Italy. And I saw … Sometimes you start observing, and I’m the kind of person sometimes, a bit awkwardly stops and starts staring at something as if I was invisible. I was super mesmerized by something that I was observing. And this scene was a guy and a girl who was basically, they didn’t know each other and they crossed paths on the shore of this lake. She asked him if he had a lighter. And the way this interplay happened was really beautiful because the light was just right, there was a gust of wind, and their hands gently touched each other as they were exchanging this moment, this gesture.

(06:28):
And for me, that moment was where I was, “Oh, wow, that’s really beautiful. What if I could design a physical object, a tool like a lighter, that could really represent and enhance this ritual of giving fire?” The elegance of an open gesture like that. So the idea was what if a person like me could, in a dream, be able to treat a woman like a diva, like you see in the great films of the Hollywood era. So that’s how the name came about, just thinking of a lighter that was dedicated, it was an homage to the user. A lady who’s treated like a diva by a gentleman. The divas are in this dream scenario that I lost myself into.

(07:38):
That landed really well Stephane Tissot Dupont, the creative director really liked it and said, “We can manufacture this.” And in fact, I think they didn’t end up manufacturing that specific design unfortunately, as it often goes with product innovation. But they built the idea of something that could be operated with an open gesture in other collections. One for 007 is operating that way, then they have another one that is a bit more sporty and leverages the strength of the hand. Because the whole idea was to offer a lighter, rather than in your fist like many would, on the open palm of a hand, as if your hand was a surface rather than your hand holding onto something.

Douglas Ferguson (08:21):
That story immediately drew me to the idea of ritual, and I think you even invoked that word yourself. This idea of passing the flame has become a thing of the past because people are moving away from smoking due to health concerns or picked up vaping instead. Are there other human-to-human rituals that we’ve lost that we could amplify with design or objects?

Marco Monterzino (08:44):
Look, it’s a very interesting space, that one, I think for all forms of industrial design especially because that was where I asked myself this kind of question. The idea of a ritual really is at the root of many products that we use. If you think about simple rituals like how we use our handsets, there’s lots of little rituals in there. A lot of little gestures, a lot of thoughtless acts, a lot of cultural norms we can play with.

(09:17):
Now of the top of my head, I wouldn’t be able to pull in a specific ritual that I have in mind. But if you think about the usual rituals of, for instance the tea ceremony or many other cultural rituals, really are about the process being just as important as the outcome. Because the outcome, at the end of the day, might be drink a cup of tea. But what if the pleasure and the value of the experience is throughout the process from the beginning to the end? Yeah, how you prepare the mug, how you select and appreciate the blend, how you embody a certain posture rather than another one. In certain cultures, like in Japan, there’s a lot of very sophisticated detail that goes into these things. So I think ritual is everything in product design and it’s a great place to start a design process from my experience.

Douglas Ferguson (10:18):
At what point did you realize objects, though beautiful, didn’t quite align with your own values? And how did that spark your pivot toward utilitarian design?

Marco Monterzino (10:28):
Now, it didn’t come without its pains. You can imagine, I was very excited to be in such a market. It made me feel extremely fortunate. I didn’t see myself designing a fountain pen for Montblanc or helping Stephane Tissot Dupont launch a new lighter. It was something that it was completely foreign to me. But I don’t know, I just felt by doing other bits of work, the purpose part of it was really driving me.

(11:03):
When designing these beautiful objects, you’re often designing items that end up being collected. They might not even be used as much. These brands are really keen to make sure that their products are not seen as collectibles, but unfortunately quite often that’s the way it goes, especially with the more customized and expensive pieces. So being on the other end of the spectrum, so solving real life problems, everyday problems, really addressing something that you might observe in real life, like how can we make packaging not end up in our seas, that sort of problem. How can we help people behave in a different way when it comes to sustainability? These are issues that I’ve dealt with very, very regularly.

(11:55):
It’s the other end of the spectrum. Very, very fast-moving goods, packaging. Not glamorous at all, not massaging my ego as much as a designer, but definitely giving me a sense of purpose and I’m having an impact here. Which I have to say, I wasn’t feeling as much when I was designing the other products. And that is not to say that you can’t have a sense of purpose when designing those other products. If you’re a watchmaker, I think there’s a lot of purpose there. But just it didn’t really click with me. I felt I needed something more grounded. Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson (12:36):
Can you share the moment when you first sensed that facilitation, not just product design, might be the real work you were meant to do?

Marco Monterzino (12:44):
I think I mentioned earlier, product innovation, that’s when my shift happened. That’s the first moment I encountered the … I understood the skill behind design. The mindset was transferable, I could use it outside of designing stuff. I could use it to help an R&D team come up with a product without designing the product, just coming up with 10, 20 ideas. So it was incremental in my experience. I went from designing hands-on, to a degree like a craftsman. Designers are, to a degree, craftspeople. They apply their ability to understand manufacturing and form. I went from that place to a place where I could generate lots of ideas for organizations.

(13:44):
And then that turned into we’re not solving product innovation problems now, but when working with a large fast-moving goods company, like Proctor & Gamble or Pepsi, PepsiCo, we might need to really think about, say structural problems for a smaller organization like a startup or a scale-up. And that’s when I could see that holding that hand in understanding how they could discover their product. So their very first product, it was all product-based at the beginning for me, could be done through the same process that I used for designing the product itself. So understanding the what problem is, reframing it, coming up with solutions, and then prototyping and testing solutions to a degree whenever it really fits.

(14:40):
And that’s when I actually started doing design sprints because I overheard at Makerversity, a lovely coworking space I was based at in London, I overheard that my friends in the neighboring office or set of desks were able to sell this product like hot cakes. I was like, “Wow, what’s the secret here?” And the secret was, it was very clear. For the first time I was able to hear people talk about the design process like something that was bite-sized and that could be seen as very tangible because you got from big problem to a user-validated solution at the end.

(15:25):
So that’s where I could see that there was something on the horizon around facilitation. But by no means, I didn’t have the experience or the methodology I could lean on. It was all I was winging it big time. And sometimes, as you do when you’re winging it, sometimes it goes really well and some other times it doesn’t go just quite as well. So yeah, that’s actually how I came about you guys and it was very much to address that need for structure, that need for a sense of also confidence. Because if I was winging it and it was a sunny day and everything was going well, I was completely confident and bold. But if things were not working out, or the client was potentially pushing back, or things were not really, yeah, working out, I would be losing my confidence. You can’t lose your confidence as a facilitator, it’s a key feature of the work we do. We have to guide and lead in a confident way.

(16:30):
So having methods, the readings, especially the first reading, the Art of Gathering, super clear. It was a big light bulb that went off in my head. It clarified my role. I was gathering people, I wasn’t just running workshops. So there was a lot more thought that had to go into it.

Douglas Ferguson (16:53):
That confidence is really key. You talk about when everything’s sunny and goes well, it’s easy to follow the playbook, run the recipe. But then what happens where there’s a perturbation in the system or something goes unexpected? We have to be unflappable. We have to be resilient. That’s why we have our competency of adaptive. If we’re not adaptive facilitators, when we’re met with adversity it’s going to be really hard to respond.

Marco Monterzino (17:25):
Definitely, definitely. Look, one thing that really got me thinking about this topic was when, I think you brought it up on Circle, on the live community, the Facilitation Lab community. You brought up the topic or the notion of equanimity, which was an entirely novel term for me. The English language is not my first language and I had not come across this word before. So I looked it up. I was like, “Oh, I need a bit of this.” It was this inner smoothness was really extremely tantalizing. It was like, “Yeah, I need more than a bit of that. I need to have control of that.”

(18:11):
So yeah, that planted a little seed somewhere in the back of my head. And then through experience, I was able to actually craft for myself something that could ground me when things were not working out quite the way I was hoping.

Douglas Ferguson (18:30):
So tell me more about that?

Marco Monterzino (18:31):
Well, this is something that I refer to as my, I don’t know, it’s a mantra for me. Something that I go to to find my footing. And I found myself and I still find myself quite regularly … Maybe it’s because it’s I’m a creative, I’m a designer, emotions have a strong grip on my psyche. So whenever there’s some emotion that’s making me feel less confident because maybe I’m experiencing an emotion called fear, then as soon as I realize that’s going on I go, “Okay.” I just take a breath and then I just repeat within myself quietly, “I’m here to serve you.” Because at the end of the day, all the work that I do as a consultant, as a human-centered designer is to serve people.

(19:22):
And then it’s like pressing autofocus on a very blurred image. Things go blurry, blurry, blurry, and then I go, “I’m here to serve you,” and everything is crystal clear and instantly I have my confidence back. Instantly, every time. Super reliable.

Douglas Ferguson (19:39):
Nice. There’s a reason purpose is first and adaptive is last. If we’re not starting with purpose and anchoring the other competencies along the way, it’s going to be really difficult to get to adaptive.

Marco Monterzino (19:51):
Totally, totally. And I would say that adaptability is a key feature of purpose. Because I can see my purpose as a business evolving over time, and I can see that you guys possibly have the same. Depending on how you evolve, your purpose has to evolve. Depending on how the market evolves, your purpose has to evolve. Depending on how the learning that I take on along the way informs me with new knowledge, my purpose has to evolve. And that piece where I’m constantly iterating my purpose is the adaptability, the ability to keep that purpose, the driving purpose fresh on my mind. I don’t know how it is for you guys, but that’s definitely the case with me.

Douglas Ferguson (20:39):
Yeah, that echoes true. I want to come back to the journey we’re talking about there. At Untapped Innovation, you saw design embedded in R&D and fueled by frameworks like the Hero’s Journey. How did that experience shape your view of design as facilitation?

Marco Monterzino (20:54):
So yeah, I would say one thing that I came across when working with Untapped was I would label it as a wealth of experience. They had a huge amount of experience, they’d been working with lots of large organizations, companies, multinational companies. One of the methodologies we were using that I encountered was the Hero’s Journey. Because ultimately, one of these human-centered design 101 methodologies is you put the user at the center and you design the whole narrative of whatever you’re innovating upon around it. So that was super, super powerful.

(21:35):
Just a quick example, a quick memory, anecdote. I was brought in to work with a manufacturer of a product that has been … Well, I’ll just say it. I was brought in to work on a tobacco harm reduction project with a large organization that needed to address the fact that their products were harming people. So I remember how having that perspective that put the user at the center, and also having that perspective as a designer to think about the user as a person who is engaging in rituals, especially when it comes to consuming drinks or having other experiences. That became the core aspect of how we generated ideas. So we generated ideas about how we can reduce harm by making the experience of, for instance consuming tobacco, while physically less harmful, but also a lot more about the ritual. A lot more about the quality of the experience, rather than just the consumption and going through packets of cigarettes. So that was powerful.

Douglas Ferguson (22:59):
Yeah, that reminds me of some advice I’ve heard in the past about quitting cigarettes and how important it is to not leave the rituals behind. A lot of times, people smoke when they’re having coffee. A lot of times people will take their smokes breaks. That will be the only time they go outside and take a break from work. There’s some people that even argue it’s the deep breathing that is the relaxing part because nicotine’s a stimulant, it actually raises the blood pressure. So if there’s any argument to it feeling relaxing or stress relieving, it’s the deep breathing that you’re doing when you’re inhaling deeply and exhaling, which people don’t normally do. So this group encouraged folks to, “Hey, keep your coffee ritual. Keep your afternoon and mid-morning breaks. Go outside and breathe.”

(23:47):
I find that interesting reminder of that story while listening to you around designing around those rituals. It kind of comes back to what we were talking about earlier with the lighters and the other human exchanges.

Marco Monterzino (23:59):
Yeah. Look, we could connect this with also the practice of seeing workshops as gatherings. For me, it’s the same matter, or it was the same transition. Because why should we suddenly treat a workshop as a situation where there’s one person talking at a group, and there is no structure, and there is no ritual to it. It doesn’t feel like something that belongs to our culture, something that belongs to our human nature.

(24:35):
When you say if we look at it as a gathering, wow. We start thinking about a big circle of people with a blazing fire in the middle. It can become something I think quite natural and quite … There’s a lot of references from our culture itself. So when you are running a workshop, you should think about how the most important thing is the relational quality of it, especially at the beginning. Clarifying purpose of course, keeping things on track, but also making sure that people connect because that’s why you’re bringing them together. And it’s not about getting people through as many design thinking exercises as possible to get to an outcome that is designed by committee. But rather, getting people excited about being together. Able to give shape, to contribute with their logs to the big fire, and to make it bigger and better, and make it memorable.

(25:30):
So yeah, I think making experiences whatever they are human is one of the key learnings of human-centered design, and at least one of those that I really keep close to my heart.

Douglas Ferguson (25:40):
Love that. And also, in your work you’ve described facilitation as “helping organizations access their own resilience.” Could you share an example where you saw that resilience come alive in a powerful way?

Marco Monterzino (25:53):
Right. So this one is covered by a certain amount of confidentiality, but I think I want to share, I would say, the essence of it. Which is there’s been, due to geopolitical changes on the landscape, there’s been a need for certain technologies to be employed in the defense sector. And a lot of innovation, because we’ve gone through a lot of periods of extensive peace which has been I think something we took for granted. And unfortunately, we’re looking at a picture that is a lot less clear and a lot less certain as we speak.

(26:32):
But anyway, these companies were required to help their countries to be resilient in a time where there was disruption. Or these companies themselves were going through a change of purpose that was potentially going to push away a number of their workforce. Or these companies were experiencing a disruption in how they saw themselves and that takes a lot of intentional structure. You can’t do those sort of things just organically. You can, but it takes longer, it’s a lot riskier, and you might risk losing a lot of your people along the way.

(27:17):
Well, if you do it in a very structured way, in a very fair way, in a very transparent way, in a very intentional way, in a way that is designed, then you have basically the equivalent of a well-operating device. You’re basically taking charge of that process. And I think facilitation does that brilliantly because it comes into a place where there is need to be able to spring back to shape after disruption, and I’m giving this example, but it could be other examples. Even simply an organization needing to change management. So there’s a new CEO and maybe with the CEO, a whole new group of executives come into the organization. I’ve been involved in a couple of these larger structures. That’s a huge disruption that then poses the question how do we then connect with the workforce? And how do we enable the workforce to be taken on to a journey?

(28:21):
Because sometimes I’m asked, “Marco, can you help us roll out a new strategy?” And of course what I hear is, “Can you help us enable the work to themselves lead parts of their strategy and meet those goals one-by-one?” And that’s what we do basically, and I think that’s where I see facilitation being, let’s say, a skill or a role or a responsibility that is conducive to resilience. Because it makes disruptions, it turns disruptions into fuel, rather than into things that stop your motion and stop your progress. You take the disruption as an opportunity to redesign, as an opportunity to come up with new solutions, and as an opportunity to refresh. And yeah, facilitation can definitely do that.

Douglas Ferguson (29:11):
Yeah. It’s sort of reframing. Because what might seem like a disruption, or if you look at it through the lens of a disruption is something that is destructive versus looking at disruption as something that is as signal, as a force. But how can we harness that force and utilize it? Because it is showing that people are passionate and there’s energy there. So if we’re able to harness it, if we’re able to redirect it in ways that help us in pursuit of our goal, wow, that’s super effective.

Marco Monterzino (29:42):
Yeah. The notion of resilience has gone through phases. It’s been a buzzword during the big eras of disruption around COVID and I think people grew tired of it. And now I think there it’s come back up with new disruptions and new challenges. I can see that it’s a word that attracts a lot more interest now and I’m glad to see that. But I think there’s been a big argument that resilience is not enough. So what if resilience is not the point?

(30:14):
I can’t remember what was the author, maybe someone will be able to let us know who was the author of this piece of writing. But there was a book that described the 2.0 version of resilience is being this anti-fragility, the anti-fragile type of system. And I don’t like the word itself because I find it a bit difficult to pronounce, it’s a bit long, where resilience to me flows nicely. But I think when I think of resilience, I think of resilience as something that is really fed by challenge. So at the end of the day, it’s something that is anti-fragile. It’s really fueled by all of the challenges that we have coming towards us.

Douglas Ferguson (30:57):
Are you think about Nassim Taleb’s book?

Marco Monterzino (30:59):
That’s the one.

Douglas Ferguson (31:00):
Yeah, great read. And yeah, that word can be a little bit challenging for folks, but I think that might have been its goal. Let’s put something out there that catches people’s attention.

Marco Monterzino (31:12):
I think so. Yeah, definitely.

Douglas Ferguson (31:14):
Well, let’s look ahead. You’re starting to bridge facilitation and education. Thinking about lecturing and other pursuits that are in that world of academia, what excites you most about teaching as a natural extension of facilitation?

Marco Monterzino (31:28):
So the two worlds are very intertwined, aren’t they? Teaching and facilitating. Now that I’ve discovered what facilitation is, which is this soft skill, the mother of all soft skills, I understand or I see teaching in a completely new light. I realize that people who are teaching are facilitating a gathering, a class is a gathering. There is a purpose, which is let’s learn about that subject, that topic, and by the end of the session we will be at the end of that chapter or whatever it might be. So I think there’s a quality which is a natural extension of the more commercial facilitation practice.

(32:11):
And then the other aspect is I have been myself asked a number of times, “Marco, can you help us train our own people so that we can empower our workforce with human-centered design, with collaboration skills, with workshop design, with facilitation?” And that I think took that part of my brain or gave me an opportunity to grow into a new aspect of my practice. Which is to be able to not only perform the craft of facilitation, but also being able to communicate it and to be able to take other people, a journey where you have to make the right space for learning, you have to create the right conversations among peers so that learning can happen. You have to stand back and really not be at the front of the room as much. You’re there enabling this mysterious phenomenon, which is how do people learn stuff.

(33:19):
But yeah, it’s something that I’ve come across as a request, an ask. People ask me, “Can you do that for us?” And I’m like, “Yes, let’s do some experiential learning.” Which is basically taking people through the experience. And then I came across you guys, and you talk about practice, practice playgrounds, which is a brilliant way to experience methodologies and to basically understand that like playing an instrument really well, like finger-picking on a guitar. You might be born with it, but you don’t have to be born with it. You can just spend many, many hours every week practicing, practicing, practicing, and then you get the hang of it. And then you get better, and better, and better. And facilitation is the same, learning these kind of skills is the same. I find it exciting to hold space for that sort of thing because find it made it useful for me, and so I believe it can be useful to others.

Douglas Ferguson (34:15):
And if you look a few years down the road, how do you hope your work, whether in consulting, education or facilitation will contribute to building more resilient organizations and communities?

Marco Monterzino (34:25):
If I blur my eyes and I try to see beyond the horizon, I think I see myself doing a blend of the two worlds. I think that’s where I might be able to keep myself fresh. And also, learn, pick up new things and cross-pollinate. So I think my ambition is to continue on this journey that I’m on. I’m not keen to, let’s say change everything, but I’m keen to continue making small changes as I go forward. And I think these two spaces, the learning and the consulting space to me, there’s a tradition. Lots of designers do that, lots of people in the consulting space also teach, and I see the point. And I think that’s a good ambition to work towards.

Douglas Ferguson (35:17):
And as we come to a close today, I’d love to invite you to leave our listeners with a final thought.

Marco Monterzino (35:22):
Okay. So my final thought for the listeners is as an invite as much as a small challenge. I invite you all to craft your own equanimity hack, something that you can tap into when you might lose your confidence. Because as you know because you are maybe already working as a facilitator or maybe it’s something you will discover as you start working as a facilitator, being able to keep that wind in your sails no matter what is crucial in this practice. So craft yourself a little hack to tap into your equanimity and rekindle your confidence. That’s my final thought.

Douglas Ferguson (36:12):
So important. Thanks for coming on the show, Marco. It’s been great chatting.

Marco Monterzino (36:16):
Thank you, Douglas, for having me. It was lovely.

Douglas Ferguson (36:18):
Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Facilitation Lab Podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a review, and be sure to subscribe and receive updates when new episodes are released. We love listener tales and invite you to share your facilitation stories. Send them to us on LinkedIn or via email. If you want to know more, head over to our blog where I post weekly articles and resources about facilitation, team dynamics and collaboration, voltagecontrol.com.

The post How Can Rituals in Design Enhance Facilitation and Organisational Resilience? appeared first on Voltage Control.

As November settles in, teams naturally shift into long-view mode. It’s the season for pruning, strengthening roots, and harvesting insights from the year so we can plant smarter in the next one. That rhythm is tailor-made for the kind of thinking AI transformation actually requires—systems thinking. Because while AI can accelerate what works, it can also amplify what doesn’t. If you adopt it as a series of isolated tools, you risk scaling the very patterns you’re trying to change.

This month, we invite you to step back and see the whole. AI transformation is not a tool swap; it’s a chance to redesign roles, rituals, rules, and boundaries across your organization. When you map the system together—actors, relationships, flows, and incentives—you uncover bottlenecks before they appear, create better decision pathways, and frame experiments that compound learning rather than stall in governance fog.

Our Activity of the Month is Systems Mapping, inspired by the session Erik Skogsberg and Dirk Van Onsem led at the Facilitation Lab Summit 2024. If you’ve never mapped a system with your team, this is the perfect time to try. If you’re already mapping, this is the perfect time to revisit your map, stress-test your future state, and align on experiments that everyone can rally around.

Below, you’ll find a practical, seven-part guide to approach AI with a systems lens—complete with an activity you can run in 60–90 minutes, ways to anticipate tomorrow’s bottlenecks today, and facilitation moves that turn digital transformation teams into conveners of clarity. Let’s get you set to map before you move.

See The Whole To Change The Parts

AI adoption tends to enter organizations as a noun—a new platform, pilot, or policy. But sustainable transformation lives in the verbs—how we decide, coordinate, hand off, learn, and adapt across the system. If you focus on “the tool” you’ll optimize pockets of work. If you focus on “the work,” you’ll redesign the moves that matter most—especially the moves between people and teams where friction and value compound. Verbs over nouns is the mental shift that keeps AI from amplifying yesterday’s patterns.

That shift is only possible when you broaden your container. Instead of asking what AI can do for one role or function, ask what becomes possible across roles, rituals, rules, and boundaries. Where are decisions waiting on a single person? Which incentives reward local wins at the expense of system outcomes? Which rules were written for old constraints that no longer apply? Seeing those dynamics is what lets AI actually change the system, not just accelerate it.

It helps to imagine your organization as an ecosystem, not an org chart. Ecosystems thrive through flows—of information, decisions, value, trust. When we talk about AI adoption, we’re really talking about ecosystem gardening, not gadget shopping. It’s the work of cultivating healthy relationships, pruning outdated norms, improving the soil of incentives, and introducing new capabilities with intention.

Most important, a systems view honors human needs. Change lands well when people feel safe, skilled, and significant. If fear is present, judgment narrows and teams retreat to what they can control. That’s why a facilitative stance matters. Check-ins, working agreements, and visual artifacts create a shared field of view. They lower the waterline of uncertainty so teams can engage, learn, and own the change together.

Make It Visible Together

Systems are invisible until you draw them. The fastest way to move from assumptions to alignment is to make your work visible—actors, relationships, dependencies, decision points, and feedback loops. When it’s out on the board, you can collectively see where latency piles up, where incentives subtly pull teams apart, and where a small change could unlock major flow.

We love Miro as a base container for this work because it supports both divergence and convergence in one place. You can invite many perspectives, surface assumptions quickly, then converge on the parts that matter for your next move. With Miro’s AI features, you can even bring in an “extra lens” to help spot patterns—emerging loops, clusters, or contradictions—that the group can then interpret, validate, and refine.

A critical step is asking whose voices are missing from the container. If you’re mapping a process without someone who lives its pain points, you’ll miss essential nuance. If you’re designing decision rules without folks who actually carry them out, you’ll create elegant bottlenecks. Make your invitations explicit: who co-owns this map, what benefits and responsibilities come with participation, and how the artifact will be used beyond the workshop.

Finally, remember that maps are prototypes. The goal isn’t a perfect diagram, it’s collective insight. A good systems map gives you enough clarity to move, learn, and iterate. Hold it lightly. Update it as you test, so your shared understanding grows. When the map changes, that’s not rework; it’s progress.

Activity Of The Month: Systems Mapping

If you run just one session this month, make it a 60–90 minute systems mapping workshop. This is a practical, low-lift way to transform big conversations about AI into concrete decisions and experiments. Our facilitation team has been running versions of this for years, and the moves are straightforward to adapt to your context.

Start by clarifying purpose and boundaries. In 10 minutes, align on what system you’re mapping and where it starts and ends for this session. Then list actors—teams, roles, customers, partners, tools, policies—who impact or are impacted by this system. In the next 20–30 minutes, map flows: how work actually moves today. Surface handoffs, delays, and decisions. Highlight where information waits, where approvals stack up, and where “ghost rules” create drag.

In 20 minutes, annotate the map with friction points and incentives. Where are people rewarded for local optimization? Where are norms or policies written for constraints that no longer exist? Where does trust have to be rebuilt for a new move to stick? As you talk, capture opportunities for AI to help at the system level: better triage at handoffs, improved decision support at key thresholds, smart routing to reduce latency, or lightweight automation where waste is predictable.

Close by harvesting experiments and decision rules. Choose 2–3 experiments you can run within 30–45 days. For each, name the owner, success signal, consent threshold, and a safety check or ethical red line. Define how you’ll make the decision to scale, reverse, or sunset. This small governance layer keeps learning fast and trust high. For more background and inspiration, watch the Activity of the Month video and revisit Erik Skogsberg and Dirk Van Onsem’s 2024 Facilitation Lab Summit talk on systems mapping:

Find Tomorrow’s Bottlenecks Today

The most valuable maps don’t just describe today; they help you see around corners. As AI introduces new capabilities, bottlenecks move. You may reduce time on a task and inadvertently flood a downstream team. You may open access to information and discover that decision rights—not data—are your new constraint. Mapping lets you anticipate those shifts so you’re not surprised when your pilot meets friction.

One powerful move is to run a premortem on your future state. Sketch the improved flow you want with AI in place. Then ask, “It’s three months from now and the pilot failed—what happened?” Look specifically at four areas: data access, decision latency, policy gates, and trust. Where will approvals slow you down? Where is risk-threshold clarity missing? What new handoffs appear that weren’t there before? This is how you “pre-mortem the future” so the future doesn’t mortem your pilot.

This is also where governance benefits from a reframing. Many teams get stuck because governance shows up as a heavy brake. Try treating governance as choreography—the roles, rules, and rhythms that keep you moving responsibly. Define consent thresholds for experiments, decision rights for scaling, safety checks for sensitive data, and clear reversibility criteria so decisions can be unmade with minimal cost. When governance clarifies motion, momentum follows.

Finally, watch for latency loops that quietly drain energy. When decisions repeatedly wait on one person, consider role-based or rule-based approaches that preserve accountability without creating single points of failure. When a policy meant to protect inadvertently blocks benign learning, craft lightweight “sandbox” zones with clear boundaries. Each constraint you make explicit lowers the cognitive load on your team and raises your chance of compounding wins.

From Commanders To Conveners

Digital transformation teams are increasingly being asked to lead AI strategy and enablement. The temptation is to become the owner of the answers—publish standards, pick platforms, roll out roadmaps. But in complex environments, invitations beat mandates. The most effective transformation teams act as conveners of clarity, not commanders of compliance.

Being a convener means you design the spaces where cross-functional sensemaking happens. You set cadence, craft agendas that surface trade-offs, and make the work visible. Decision logs, journey maps, and systems maps become the living artifacts that align stories when memories diverge after the meeting. Instead of “big announcement” heroics, you build trust through reliable rituals and transparent artifacts that anyone can reference.

Co-ownership is key. Ask yourself: who needs to co-create and co-own the map for it to matter? Which leaders and operators must be present for decisions to stick? Spell out the benefits and responsibilities of participation in plain language. This sense of authorship is what turns alignment into commitment. When people see themselves in the work, they carry it forward without extra push.

This stance also transforms your messaging. Rather than “Here’s the tool we’re rolling out,” try “Here’s what we want to get better at doing together, and here are the experiments we’ll run to learn how.” Verbs over nouns. Process over prescriptions. In our experience, the more your team is asked for answers they can’t hold alone, the clearer the signal that it’s time to convene the system.

Incentives, Norms, and Skill Building

Many AI “adoptions” stall because the organization’s incentives are tuned for local optimization. A team gets rewarded for shipping more tickets, so they resist a change that would slow their queue to speed value end-to-end. Or a policy written for old constraints blocks safe experimentation under new constraints. Systems mapping helps you spot these misalignments so you can adjust rules and rewards to fit the era you’re actually in.

When you identify friction on the map, treat it as a design clue, not a personal failure. Ask, “What agreement, norm, or slight boundary change would unclog this without shifting the burden somewhere else?” That last part matters. A superficial fix often moves the problem downstream. The systems view helps you see those second- and third-order effects before you pull a lever.

Skill-building belongs inside the work, not outside of it. Instead of one-off trainings, create peer-led practice circles that meet regularly. Turn early adopters into coaches without anointing them gatekeepers by pairing them with peers and rotating roles. Use check-ins to surface where people feel unsafe or unskilled, then scaffold practice moves into your routines. When people feel safe, skilled, and significant, they try new things. That’s the engine of transformation.

Finally, clarify decision-making patterns so experiments don’t stall. Define when consent is sufficient, when advice is required, and when a higher threshold is needed. Make decisions visible and, where possible, reversible. The goal is not reckless speed; it’s responsible velocity—the discipline to go fast where it’s safe and slow where it’s wise, with clarity everyone can trust.

Cadence, Artifacts, and the Power of Visible Agreements

Cadence builds trust. Sporadic heroics and big-bang announcements breed resistance; steady, predictable rhythms build reliability. Think weekly mapping huddles, biweekly experiment reviews, and monthly retros that refine working agreements. This isn’t ceremony for ceremony’s sake. It’s the social choreography that turns insight into practice and practice into capability.

Artifacts align stories when memories diverge. After a workshop, each person carries a slightly different recollection of what was decided. A living map, a simple decision log, and a one-page experiment sheet reduce rework and confusion. Ask, “Which artifact would most reduce rework this month?” Then keep it live—visible, updated, and used—rather than letting it become a static prop.

Co-own your artifacts to strengthen buy-in. If the transformation team is the sole author, artifacts can feel like compliance documents. When leaders and operators co-create, artifacts become references people trust. Make sure each artifact lives where the work lives, not tucked into an obscure folder. Visibility is an invitation.

And let’s talk cadence that sustains momentum without fatigue. Use check-ins to tune pace and focus. If your rituals are creating drag, prune them. If they’re building clarity and confidence, strengthen the roots. This is the season to ask: what cadence serves our goals, and what can we let go of to protect energy and attention for the work that matters most?

November Harvest and Your Next Move

November is a natural time to harvest insights and prune scope so new growth can thrive. Look across your meetings, decision rules, and flows. What will you sunset to make space for better practices? Which rules were written for constraints that AI has lifted? Which norms reward silo wins over system outcomes? Retire rituals gracefully. Name what you’re letting go of and why. That story helps people release the old to welcome the new.

Use your map to make smart trade-offs explicit. When you reduce scope, show the dependencies you’re preserving and the risks you’re accepting. When you create a sandbox for safe learning, document the boundaries and the reversibility. Transparency compounds trust. The more clearly you visualize trade-offs, the more confidently your team can move.

As you look ahead, ask a few focusing questions: What cadence will sustain momentum without fatigue? Where are skills uneven across roles, and how might peer-led practice close the gap without creating gatekeepers? How will we connect AI use cases to our purpose and values so participants carry a clear story back to their teams? Those stories are how change scales.

Call to action: Run a 60–90 minute systems mapping session before the month ends. Clarify your purpose and boundaries. List actors. Map flows, handoffs, and decision points. Identify friction and incentives. Harvest two or three experiments with clear decision rights and safety checks. Watch our Activity of the Month video to guide your session, and revisit our write-up on facilitating change by mapping systems. Then share your map and learnings with your broader org to build momentum. If you want a partner, Voltage Control can facilitate your first mapping session or coach your team to lead its own. Let’s map before we move—so your AI transformation amplifies what you value most and your system is ready for what’s next.

Resources:

Facilitating Change by Mapping Systems

Summit talk video

Activity of the Month Video Systems Mapping

Ready to convene clarity? Reach out to schedule a mapping clinic, join an upcoming facilitation certification, or bring Voltage Control in to help your digital transformation team lead with a systems lens.

The post Map Before You Move appeared first on Voltage Control.