I’ve always been fascinated with communication. In college, I struggled to narrow down my major because I was excited by so many fields— linguistics, teaching, business, environmental science, child life specialist. I took all kinds of courses and kept pulling at the threads of what connected them. Communication became that golden thread. It felt like the foundation beneath everything I was interested in.

A professor gave me advice I’ll never forget: don’t go to grad school yet. Go get real-world experience first, see where communication really matters, and then come back if you want to. That shaped my approach. I went out into the world and found myself drawn to spaces where communication was essential but often invisible—event planning, project management, nonprofit work. And similarly, I would come to learn, when facilitation is working well, you don’t always see the machinery behind it, but you feel the impact.

Over the years, I worked in nonprofit fundraising and awareness for pediatric cancer in Iowa, corporate financial literacy partnerships in Colorado, conservation stewardship in Wyoming, and most recently, in arts and heritage here in Western North Carolina. Across all these roles, industries, and causes, communication kept showing up as the underlying and often overlooked critical factor. I started to see myself as a kind of translator—someone who could connect left-brain and right-brain thinkers. That work of making different perspectives visible to each other lit me up. I realized I wasn’t just managing logistics, I was curating conversations and connections.

One vivid memory was in Wyoming when I was part of the team gauging the refreshed approach to a bear-canister loaner program.  Biologists had one perspective, visitor experience staff had another, and none of them felt fully understood. They confided in me, and I found myself holding all these different truths. That was rewarding but exhausting. I thought, there has to be a better way—what if we could have these conversations all together, instead of me being the go-between? That was a turning point in realizing I needed facilitation skills.

Even earlier, I’d seen the magic of adaptation through event planning. In college, I worked on Dance Marathon, a 24-hour fundraiser for families and kids affected by pediatric cancer. We planned every minute of programming, but at 3 a.m. the fire alarm sounded. Our backup entertainment—beach balls—became the highlight of the night. That moment taught me the beauty of letting go of control, staying flexible, and inviting creativity. Those same lessons would come back in facilitation.

Meeting my now partner Heath on a long distance hiking trail and living for three and a half years in a converted bus changed how I think about groups and spaces. When your home is tiny and your plans depend on weather, road conditions, and community, you learn humility and presence fast. I carried that into rooms and projects—focusing on what matters right now, with the people who are here.

Making Room for Many Ways of Knowing

The first time facilitation truly sparked my imagination was being invited into the conversations of planning an intertribal symposium in Wyoming. The Wyoming Wilderness Association brought together tribal liaisons, nonprofits, and government agencies, to share their lenses while acknowledging the oversight and often exclusion of traditional ecological knowledge that would inform  the future of forest planning. A colleague led the effort, and though she wasn’t formally trained as a facilitator, the way she held space was powerful. Public art, intentional gathering, deep listening—it all wove together. I saw how facilitation could expand beyond pre-existing structures and create entirely new possibilities.

At the same time, I was feeling growing frustration with poorly run meetings. No agendas, no purpose, the same voices dominating. I’d leave wondering what we even accomplished. Those experiences pushed me further toward facilitation. I started stepping in, guiding conversations, bringing clarity. It wasn’t my job title, but it felt like my calling.

Another thread was the tech and access barriers I kept encountering. Government partners who couldn’t open cloud docs; community members who preferred conversation to surveys; people who didn’t have easy access to Zoom. I learned to design alternatives—listening sessions, phone trees, printed summaries—so that more voices could be included. That design mindset is what eventually made “facilitation” click for me: it isn’t just a meeting, it’s an architecture for belonging.

When my partner Heath and I wrapped up bus life, I was in a career transition. I knew I loved events and project management, but something was missing. As I reflected on the moments that mattered—building trust, holding conversations, bridging perspectives—I realized facilitation was at the heart of it all. That’s when I found Voltage Control.

Choosing Voltage Control

I came across Voltage Control while searching for ways to deepen my facilitation skills. The certification program stood out not just for the curriculum, but for the community. The fact that there was a scholarship program made it possible for me to say yes during a financially uncertain time. That support was huge. It helped me commit fully.

A friend had once written me a card after a job ended, saying I had a gift for making people feel safe, heard, and seen. Reading that during a vulnerable time reinforced my intuition: this was the work I was meant to do. Around the same time, my mentor in Denver encouraged me to stop overthinking and just go for it. “Just commit,” she told me. That was the final nudge I needed.

More than anything, I was looking for confidence. I’d facilitated plenty in practice, but I wrestled with impostor syndrome. Who was I to claim this title? What if I wasn’t good enough? I went in intimidated but eager, hoping the program would help me step into that identity with more courage.

I also wanted practical architectures I could use the next day—ways to set purpose, draw out quieter voices, structure choices, and make decisions visible. I hoped the program would give me tools, but also the discernment to choose the right tool for the moment.

Confidence Through Community

The certification experience was both humbling and empowering. At first, I was intimidated by the brilliance of my cohort—so many accomplished people already doing incredible facilitation work. But over time, I realized we were all at different steps in our journeys. Some were ahead of me, some right beside me, some just starting out. That balance was affirming. It reminded me that growth isn’t about comparison, it’s about presence.

I’ll never forget my cohort mates. Landy was our hype woman, bringing energy and encouragement when we needed it most. Chloe, my first partner, felt like a serendipitous match—she was working at the intersection of sustainability and somatics, which resonated deeply with me. Her dedication, even while moving across continents with a newborn, was inspiring. And Tahira generously shared resources that helped me strengthen my verbal communication skills as an introvert, reminding me that authenticity can be just as powerful as charisma.

The hardest part for me was the portfolio. I procrastinated endlessly, doubting myself. Everyone else’s portfolios seemed incredible. But when I finally slowed down, centered myself, and embraced Thich Nhat Hanh’s mantra—“I am here, I have arrived.”—something shifted. I stopped worrying about what was next and simply showed up for the work. What emerged was something authentic and deeply mine. Looking back, I’m proud of that piece. It was an aha moment: facilitation isn’t about comparison, it’s about showing up fully as yourself.

I still return to a few practices from the program: purpose-first framing, Nine Whys to find meaning beneath goals, and small-structure moves like 1-2-4-All to widen participation fast. Those are now part of my muscle memory, and they continue to ground me when meetings drift.

Building Bridges at Work

Since completing certification, I’ve noticed tangible shifts in my work. First and foremost, I’ve slowed down. Nonprofit work is relentless, with endless to-do lists and limited resources. But facilitation has given me a built-in pause—a way to bring more intentionality, humility, and creativity into challenges. I’ve gained confidence to suggest new approaches and to hold space for listening before rushing into action.

One example is our Resource Development Committee. It started as just board members, but I expanded it to include resident artists and community members. Now it’s a diverse group brainstorming funding, volunteers, and programming together. Bringing different brains to the table has sparked more viable and creative solutions. That’s facilitation in action.

I’ve also begun pitching a “Bridging Brains Workshop,” an idea that grew out of my portfolio. It’s about connecting the practical and the visionary, the analytical and the creative. We map tensions, name the value on both sides, and design experiments small enough to try next week. There’s been some resistance, but also real excitement. Having the language, confidence, and framework from the certification has helped me advocate for this vision more clearly.

Colleagues have noticed changes too. I’m often the youngest person in the room, which used to make me defensive. But I’ve shifted toward curiosity instead of frustration. I listen more, respond less quickly, and create space for others before moving to action. That listening capacity has been recognized and appreciated. It feels like a quiet but profound transformation.

Another change is my relationship with measurement. I can confidently stand my ground to articulate that true impact is beyond dollars raised or programs launched. Now I track the smaller signals that make those possible: who spoke who hadn’t before, where we found unexpected agreement, which decision is now actually clear. Those micro-moments tell me we’re building capacity, not just completing tasks.

Following Curiosity Into the Future

Looking ahead, I’m curious  how I can integrate sensory somatic forest bathing with facilitation in conservation, advocacy, and coalition spaces. I’ve been inspired by Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy, especially her reflections on facilitation and growing resilience to move at the speed of trust. I believe facilitation can be a balm in social impact work—a way to hold difficult conversations, prevent burnout, and invite creativity into seemingly intractable challenges. I want to explore how facilitation can support both the mission and the people behind the mission.

Practically, that looks like more listening sessions with community members who don’t usually come to meetings, more co-design with partners who hold different forms of expertise, and more prototypes instead of perfect plans. It also looks like protecting the humans doing the work—embedding check-ins, pacing, and recovery into our processes so we’re not burning bright and burning out.

I don’t know exactly where that path will lead, but I’m following curiosity. I trust that facilitation, with its balance of structure and play, rigor and imagination, will continue to be the thread guiding me forward. House of Fig feels like my most authentic way to create spaces of curiosity that increase collective confidence, connection, and collaboration through grounded action, strengthening intuitive ideation, and experiencing interconnection.

If I had one piece of advice for anyone considering the certification, it would be: be present. Don’t worry about how you’ll use it or what comes next. Just show up fully for the experience. That presence will shape you in ways you can’t predict. It certainly did for me.

And if you’re on the fence, borrow what helped me: ask a mentor to reflect back what they see in you, and listen closely to the people who already trust you. If your work keeps pulling you into the role of connector, translator, or space-holder, the certification gives you the tools, community, and confidence to do that work on purpose—and with more ease.

The post Bridging Brains and Building Trust appeared first on Voltage Control.

In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson interviews Erin Warner, founder of Head + Heart Coaching and Facilitation. Erin shares her journey from traditional leadership training to interactive facilitation, emphasizing the power of peer learning, rituals, and the “flow channel” for team engagement. She discusses authentic facilitation, embodied practices, and her holistic “3D wellness” approach. Erin also explores how words and self-talk shape reality, encouraging leaders to foster connection, courage, and creativity. The episode highlights facilitation as a transformative tool for personal and collective growth in organizations and beyond.

Show Highlights

[00:03:01] Learning from Each Other
[00:07:09] Redesigning Experiences, Not Just Agenda
[00:12:06] The Importance of Ritual and Structur
[00:15:02] Studying Civil Rights and Facilitation
[00:20:14] Empowering Participants Through Facilitation
[00:26:04] Advice to “Don’t Conform” and Authenticity
[00:31:06] 3D Wellness: Physical, Emotional, Social

Links | Resources

Erin on LinkedIn

Erin on Instagram

About the Guest

Erin Warner is an executive coach and facilitator who helps leaders and teams connect more courageously, communicate more clearly, and collaborate more creatively. As founder of Head + Heart Coaching and Facilitation and partner at EXEC Consulting, she brings over ten years of experience guiding organizations and individuals to build trust, emotional intelligence, and authentic leadership. Erin is a bridge builder, weaving together the precision of a lawyer, the presence of a coach, and the playfulness of a dance teacher into a deeply personal approach to growth, self-love, and empowerment.

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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 Erin Warner, founder of Head + Heart Coaching and Facilitation.
She’s on a mission to help leaders connect courageously, communicate clearly, and collaborate with creativity. She is also a partner at Exec Consulting, where she facilitates trainings on leadership, emotional intelligence, trust, and teamwork. Welcome to the show, Erin.

Erin Warner:
Thanks, Douglas. It’s great to be here.

Douglas Ferguson:
Oh, it’s so great to have you. Well, let’s get started here with some early on experiences that you’ve went through. And I know that early on at Exec Consulting, you and Mauricio were delivering tried and true content for leadership trainings that folks might be very familiar with, and you began to notice some subtle surges of energy during partner shares and reflection. What were the specific patterns in those rooms that told you facilitation was calling you toward a different way of working?

Erin Warner:
Yeah, exactly. We were doing a series of workshops that were very well received, people really liked them, and I had the privilege to see them over and over again because of that. And I noticed that the little bit of interaction that we had built into it were moments of particularly high energy in the room, and actually delight and pleasure of the participants, and learning from each other in that moment instead of just simply learning from us.
So, I got curious about that, and I started to bring in little bits of other interactive moments and saw that that held true. People loved it. They got a lot out of it. And so I just got curious about, “How can I find ways to up-level our workshops with intentionality by leveraging this pattern that I’ve observed?” And I had a feeling that there was a whole world out there that I didn’t really know about, and I set out to find it. And that’s how I found Facilitation.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. That’s really interesting. I’d love to hear more about this learning from each other. How was that first showing up for you?

Erin Warner:
Yeah. So, the most basic form of interaction that we had in our original format was when we asked people first to take solo time to reflect on their aha moments and takeaways from what we had taught them. So that was the first step, solo reflection time. And then we had them pair up and just simply share their aha moments and takeaways with each other.
But that’s what I mean by then they were learning from each other in that moment, because it’s either reinforcing something that they also thought was interesting, or maybe bringing something back up that had kind of slipped through and not registered with them and they’re like, “Oh yeah, that was interesting.” And so, maybe they would bring in their own work context and explain why it was interesting or relevant to them.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. It’s always fascinating too when folks are able to connect to something a little bit deeper inside themselves, ’cause then they’re relating to the material in ways that are difficult when you’re just passively just soaking information in.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. And so relating to material, I’m really excited about the first intuition I had to bring that into our training. There’s something we teach called The Flow Channel, which many people might have heard of. It’s that flow is when you’re so engaged in an activity that you lose track of time, you forget about your surroundings, and you’re just like fully present with the activity or the challenge.
And so we teach about that. And we also teach that managers have the power to like bring people into flow by balancing challenge and support with intention, because if you have too much challenge, you get into anxiety, and if you have too little challenge, you get into boredom. And we used to just simply teach that to them, but then we brought them an activity, as I was exploring this world of like, “How do we make it more interactive, and they get to actually wrestle with the information instead of passively receiving it?”
So we had them draw just an X and Y axis, a little graph, and then a diagonal line from the lower left to the upper right, and then that represented the flow channel. And then literally like plot themselves and their colleagues as little dots on the graph, either above the flow channel in anxiety or below the flow channel in boredom, and just start to have real awareness of what this means in their real life. Not just as an abstract concept, but, “Oh wow, look, my colleague is in anxiety, and how can we bring them back into flow?” And so that became really a favorite of our participants.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. They can connect to it in a more meaningful way. It becomes an assessment versus just a piece of information.

Erin Warner:
Exactly. Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah, I’ve seen that used too for leaders to think about managing and mentoring their team, because the idea of helping ensure that you’re assigning tasks and work when you’re delegating, you’re doing that in a way that is keeping them in that flow state.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. It’s a little bit counterintuitive. We come across some managers who are afraid to give people too much challenge, but humans actually… The flow channel actually isn’t where challenge and skill are perfectly matched. It’s actually where challenge exceeds skill just by a little bit, just enough to make it fun and to make you feel like you accomplished something when you did it.
And you can look at video game design. Once you complete a level, what’s your reward? It’s a harder level. It’s not an easier one. Nobody would play that game. We actually crave challenge as long as it doesn’t put us into that stress and anxiety zone. And so it’s really liberating for managers to learn that and know, “Oh wow, actually I can challenge my people and that’s going to bring out the best in them.”

Douglas Ferguson:
And it’s such a fun reframe too, because oftentimes I think managers are looking at the symptoms, and this is a great way of stepping back and looking at, “What’s really at play here? Are they really disengaged or is it that I haven’t given them enough a challenge? Or have I over challenged them?”

Erin Warner:
Yeah. And I’d advise them to be curious about the whole person. Maybe they’re challenged, but it’s not things that work, but maybe things are going on in their life, maybe they have a sick relative, and just being curious about what challenges though are factoring into how they’re showing up and how we can support that.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah, absolutely. In your alumni story, you described the Piedmont sessions as a mirror for your practice, where you could literally see when the room leaned in or leaned back. And I’m curious, can you take us to a moment where you realized you needed to redesign the experience, not just the agenda?

Erin Warner:
I would say that we like to over-deliver. We really want to give so much information and content, but I think we know as facilitators and learners ourselves that there’s a certain point where it’s too much, the brain can’t take in anymore in a day.
And so, seeing that fatigue set in when we, out of goodwill, were just giving so much, but mid-afternoon people are just not receiving it anymore, then we can still provide value without providing more info and content, but actually providing space for them to integrate and reflect and connect with the content that we’ve already provided. So it’s not about quantity at that point, but it’s about quality.

Douglas Ferguson:
When you’re working with clients like that, and diving in the content and helping them find tools, integrate, go deeper on stuff, how often are you coming back and coaching later on? I’m always curious about the relationships that folks have with their clients when they’re working in a facilitative manner.
Some folks tend to spend more time coaching and there’s a little bit of group work that feels more facilitated. And then there are others who do nothing but the group work and they don’t do any coaching. I’m kind of curious where your blend is there.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. I don’t know how to quantify the blend. It’s a mix and it depends on the context. We do now, in the version of the workshops that we have evolved into, hold a lot of space for group coaching in the moment.
So the things that emerge, and if we see a consensus in the room like, “Yeah, I have that problem too,” then we pause, we don’t give any more content. We just have a group coaching moment, 10 minutes maybe right there, ’cause that’s what’s alive for them, that’s what they’re asking for.

Douglas Ferguson:
And what about after the session? Does it typically transition into some one-on-one coaching work after the session or are some of these sessions just purely a group education and you’re done with that team?

Erin Warner:
Yeah. I’d say that the majority of them don’t engage with us for further coaching and that that’s just the experience that they get in the room. Of course, sometimes that does happen. We go deeper, we get brought in house.
And I will say when we do, not in this Piedmont series that we’re talking about, but when we are already in house and we’re doing a workshop training for our company, very often we have what we call a follow-up program, where we follow them for like two months after the fact to give them accountability, support and coaching around applying whatever it was that they learned that day.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. I found that accountability can really help ensure the stickiness of what’s been learned in the more dynamic group session.

Erin Warner:
Absolutely. It’s very challenging to then go back to the demands and the pace of your normal workday and then try to apply new behaviors and shift things. We tend to go back to our default, and that’s human. And so, we do try to support people by giving them the structure and accountability, and the feedback and the coaching and all that.

Douglas Ferguson:
And I recall you also talked a lot about early formative experience that shaped your instincts as a facilitator before you even knew the word facilitation?

Erin Warner:
Yeah. So looking back, I really felt well when I was in a container of an excellent facilitator. Looking back, I can name it. At the time, I had no idea. A big example for me is Girl Scout camp. I absolutely adored Girl Scout camp. And I was kind of a shy introverted girl, and going to a camp, actually, it wasn’t with people I knew like these are all new girls, and they’re all strangers at the beginning and dear friends at the end. And how was that possible for me to have a positive experience is because of the counselors and the leaders who really facilitated a strong sense of belonging and connection.
And the way they did that was things that we might see in pop culture about camps, but there were things like songs that each little group had their own songs, so you had a feeling of belonging and identity, or simple things about like how we gathered for our meals, or even how we lined up and walked from like our tents to the dining hall. Or we would raise and lower the flag every morning and evening, and these rituals marking the deeds throughout the day. And it was really excellently facilitated, and I think it allowed me to thrive and feel welcome and safe and included. And I think that’s one of the things I love about facilitation.

Douglas Ferguson:
Rituals can be so soothing, this idea that we know what to do. We don’t have to have anxiety around what’s next or, “Am I fitting in right?” Or, “Am I doing the right thing?” Or, “Do I look funny?” It’s like, “No, I have a purpose to be here.” And so I think they can provide nice structures to kind of lean on.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. I really relate to that. I feel structure for me does make me feel safe and guided, and then you can flow within that. Then you can explore and be free, but you’re held in that structure, and I think that’s a really good feeling.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. It’s different just going to the gym and picking up some weights and throwing them around, versus having a program or even having a coach, or even being part of a class. It’s just a totally different feeling and experience, right?
You might be way more self-conscious just walking in a gym and heading over to the free weights and doing whatever, unless you’ve got a lot of experience. But if you go to a class and the instructor’s giving you some really specific instructions and moves and exercises, it feels way different. Right?

Erin Warner:
Yeah. Yeah. And that makes me think about my life. I moved a lot as a child to different schools and different states, and luckily I played sports, and that’s how I was able to make friends quickly, because I knew how we were going to interact. We’re going to get on the field, we’re going to hit the ball around.
Meanwhile, we’re chatting, we’re getting to know each other, we’re joking, we’re becoming friends, but that structure, I think, made it really easier and more accessible for me to connect with people quickly when I was the new person in a new place, in a new school.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. And when we’re invited to be parts of different new teams or new programs, or invited to work in new ways… And this comes up all the time because innovation is constantly shifting just the status quo, or what normal is, right?
We didn’t have all these AI tools five years ago, and yet, now they’re commonplace. So it’s changed the landscape on how we work. And having rituals surrounding that and underneath it helps us come together in a way that’s more knowable and more calming.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. And that makes me think of one team that I’m working with, they’re growing, so they’ve brought a lot of people on board in the past year. And the onboarding moment is so crucial, and there’s so much opportunity there to really let them know the culture and give them some structure of like, “This is how we do things.” Now you can flow within that, be yourself.”
But it gives them something to work with that I think is healthy for the collective and also for that individual. And it’s just such an important moment, that with the client that I work with, we’ve been iterating on to really capitalize on that moment.

Douglas Ferguson:
And how did studying civil rights at Reed’s College impact this? Were there formative moments there as well?

Erin Warner:
I studied civil rights because fairness is a value of mine, and anything that has to do with the racial inequality or discrimination on a very basic level, just has always struck me as unfair. Nonsensical really, but I’ll call it unfair because that’s how it registers in my value system.
For instance, in 2020, I found Voltage Control because I was looking for ways to develop my facilitation skills for my work. And at that time, there was a lot of racial upheaval in the US, and one of the first activities that I participated in was a remote gathering where a facilitator gave us space and processes to reflect on and share how we were feeling about what was going on in the country.
And this really meant a lot to me, because again, it was very helpful to have some structure around that, because otherwise, because I really care about these things and emotions were high, I could range from feeling overwhelmed and highly activated to just shut down and disconnected. And with a really skilled facilitator who gathered us that day online, it helped me have some clarity and moving the feelings through, and sharing them with other people and feeling not alone.
And I just had looked for facilitation ’cause I wanted to make my work, my corporate work stronger. I didn’t know it could also offer these things that were so related to my deeply held values. And discovering that was really amazing because then I was even more excited about facilitation. I feel like it truly can be something for civic engagement.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. I remember you telling me that you had planned to work quietly at that first Facilitation lab. And so bring me back to Erin showing up, assuming that you’re going to just kind of lurk and be quiet and soak it in. How did that unfold for you? How did you get sucked in?

Erin Warner:
Yeah. So, I just showed up with curiosity wanting to observe, which was pretty common in those days. I was on a lot of calls we were passively observing, and the facilitator gave us a really deep prompt, which was, “When was the last time that you cried?” And then he put us into breakout rooms of two people. So there I was one-on-one with somebody. I had my camera off.
And of course, I’m always at choice. No one had a gun to my head. No one forced me to do it, but I did decide like, “Hey, I’m here with this person, I’ve been given this really human question, and I’m going to turn on my camera.” And we proceeded to have a conversation that I do remember to this day, because he vulnerably shared crying recently, more out of joy ’cause he had just finished a big milestone in his life, and that was beautiful.
And I was actually in a moment of my life that was not easy. I was feeling really down in that period. And so, just being able to share not a specific cry, but crying or feeling like crying was a feeling I was living with. And just being able to be witnessed in that. He didn’t try to fix it or anything, but it was a beautiful moment, and so unexpected that that kind of connection could happen across space and time and screens.

Douglas Ferguson:
How did that unexpected intimacy shift your sense of what a gathering can do?

Erin Warner:
It really raised my ambitions, to be honest, in a good way. It showed me that the limits were my imagination and my courage to make bold invitations. That was a bold invitation, to ask us to reflect and share when was the last time we cried, and it has to be handled delicately.
And I’m glad that I’ve invested in this skill and that you train people in this skill, but with the right care and craft, so much is possible, so much depth and healing and connection, and delight and wonder. And so yeah, the lesson I took from that is that really anything is possible with the intention and courage to pursue it.

Douglas Ferguson:
And as you got deeper in the facilitation, so it’s 2020, you’re attending these sessions, you’re kind of going deeper, you’re experimenting more, what would you say was the first idea that you tested with your participants, and what changed for them as you started to make some of these experiments?

Erin Warner:
I think as I started to make experiments with facilitation, what changed from my participants was their own sense of empowerment, because with great facilitation, you really are empowering the people in the room to generate their own experience, their own collective wisdom, their own decisions.
And I think that is refreshing for them and energizing and motivating. And so, I’d say that’s probably one of the biggest gifts that I’ve been able to offer now that I lean more on facilitation, is the empowerment of the participants.

Douglas Ferguson:
Do you recall a specific story? Does anything come to mind when you noticed this empowerment, and what was the facilitation move that really unlocked that?

Erin Warner:
I was working with a group that was not connecting as a team. And we were literally trying to do team building, and help them feel and function as a team instead of a group of solo practitioners, individuals. And I think it was really important that we facilitated them through what that meant to them and what that would look like, what would make them feel like part of a team.
So we used some of my favorite activities, we used TRIZ, which I think goes by some other names sometimes, like inverse thinking or opposite thinking. But TRIZ is basically where you say, “If you wanted to have the most dysfunctional team ever, where no one trusts each other and everyone’s at cross purposes, what activities would you do?”
And we have them brainstorm and share, and then we kind of turn the tables on them and say, “Okay, which one of these activities are you currently doing?” And to create safety, I let them keep that anonymous. I didn’t ask them to share it with everyone. They weren’t outing themselves, but just like, “Be honest with yourself. Which one of these are you doing?”
And then giving them not a to do list, but a not to do list. So like, “I’m not going to give you any extra work, but I’m going to ask you to just stop doing one of those things that you identified that’s counter to building a team.”
And so, I think that was a moment where they felt like, “Hey, we are responsible for creating our own reality of whether we function as a team or not, and here’s some insight and awareness around that. And now, here’s an action that I can take.” But I didn’t tell them what to do. They told themselves what to do.

Douglas Ferguson:
TRIZ is fantastic, and I think the biggest challenge with TRIZ is getting folks to follow that rule of not identifying new things to do, but identifying things to stop. Everyone always wants to say, “Oh, they’ll turn the stopping thing to a doing thing.”
And if we can really hold people to that notion or that rule, that ritual of identifying the thing we’re going to stop doing, that’s really powerful because it creates room for other things we’ve been wanting to do.

Erin Warner:
Yeah, it is really powerful. And that’s one where I have the privilege to work with some of the people in that group individually. And so be able to follow up with them after, like, “How is it going? Are you able to…”
Sometimes these things are habits, you’re not even conscious you’re doing them, so stopping isn’t always easy. So checking in, “Are you able to break that habit, shift that, make a different choice in that moment?”

Douglas Ferguson:
I’ve even seen participants, they get really clever, they use double negatives. So it sounds like, “We need to stop not having annual report.” It’s like, “Hey, you’re just saying we need to start making an annual report. What are we doing that’s getting in our way? Let’s identify those things and stop them.”

Erin Warner:
Yeah, exactly. Like, “I’m on to you.”

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. They have little tricks, of course.

Erin Warner:
They do. They do, because it’s hard, and I get that. It’s hard to look in the mirror, take responsibility, and accept that there’s things that we’re doing that are productive and there’s other things that are counterproductive, and let’s let those go, but it’s not easy.
There’s a reason. I also tried to share with them in this particular case, empathy and understanding, “I know there’s a reason you’re doing these things. You’re not doing them to sabotage the team. They’re serving some function.”

Douglas Ferguson:
Or they served a function in the past.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. But if they’re still serving a function, “Okay, it’s going to be hard to stop doing it until we get to the root cause, and then address that in a different way or resolve it so that you don’t feel the need to do that anymore.”

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. Sometimes people feel the need to do the things because of, coming back to that word we were talking about earlier, ritual. If it’s become customary or ritualistic, then I think these activities can be powerful to connect back to the purpose and, “Why are we doing these things?”
And if we’re doing things that are counterproductive to what we’re wanting to accomplish, and we can’t really attach to any real meaningful why, and it’s just for historic purposes, then we should probably get rid of those things.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. In this particular case, what we identified, many of the counterproductive behaviors were stemming from trust or lack of trust. So either maybe micromanaging because I don’t trust that person’s going to follow through, or maybe double checking because I don’t trust that that person’s got my back. So, a lot of it came down to trust was producing counterproductive behaviors, that once that was addressed, which is no simple feat, it would help them function better as a team.

Douglas Ferguson:
I’m also remembering that you were given some coaching advice, “Don’t conform,” that was powerful and reflection, because you said it gave you permission to bring your full self to the work. And I’m curious, can you share a moment when you felt the pull to fit a mold and instead chose authenticity?

Erin Warner:
Yeah. Well, I want to share that that advice came from Eric when I was in the Voltage Control Certification, ’cause I had noticed a pattern in myself of once I train and learn the way things are done, then I feel pressure that I put on myself to conform. And then that drains me of the enthusiasm that I initially had, and my unique contribution that I might be able to make.
And I mentioned this pattern that I was trying to shift and resist, and Eric really gave me the greatest gift of saying to me, “Your unique perspective is an asset. It is your contribution and it will attract people to you who resonate with that, so don’t conform.” And it was really meaningful to me. He gave me that advice.
And one time that that came into play was actually when I had been invited to facilitate a session at the Voltage Control Summit, which was a really exciting opportunity for me and one of the bigger stages I had ever been on. And I felt a lot of enthusiasm at first. I was like, “This is great.” And then I started to feel resistance and procrastination.
And I’m glad that I was able to identify it was because I was starting to feel like it was a performance and I needed to show up the way I thought a capital F facilitator would show up and not as me. And then I remembered, “These people know me well, they know who I am, they know my vibe. And if they asked me to do this, it’s because they want me to do it, not me pretending to be someone else.”
But I was able to make that connection because of that amazing advice Eric had given me a couple of years prior, and it continues to be something I reinforce to myself regularly.

Douglas Ferguson:
I love that. It’s reassuring to tap into who we are and let that shine.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. I always tell myself, “I’ll be an infinitely better version of myself than I ever will be of anybody else. Just be my best self. Don’t be my best imitation of somebody else.”

Douglas Ferguson:
That reminds me, one thing that’s unique about you and your approach is how you’ve woven fitness into your work, and how that’s a hallmark of how you think about facilitation and how that shows up for you. So I’d be curious to know more about that. And I’m sure the listeners would be interesting to hear how you kind of weave that into your style.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. I really believe there’s a lot of wisdom in the body, and also a lot of energy and pleasure. And so, I think it’s great to bring those things online. That’s exactly what I brought to the summit. I led a session on embodied decision making. And I have a background as I used to be a lawyer. And I love decision making. I think it’s really powerful and one of the greatest outcomes we can bring in facilitation, if that’s what’s been requested. And so I wanted to bring those two things together, and what does our body tell us when we’re sensing into a decision?
And so, giving people opportunity to actually feel how they feel about a decision gives them information, like, “Do I feel comfortable with this? Do I feel torn?” That’s a metaphor for your body being split. So, one thing I particularly like is if you have a few options, to set up stations in the room where those options are being represented. And you can mingle and look around, walk through the room, walk through the space to evaluate them. And then when it’s time to vote, to literally go walk and stand in that space.
And in this experience, little by little, got narrowed down to two. And maybe your top choice is no longer available and there’s only two choices left, and you have to walk to one of the two options that’s left. There’s a lot of information for you and for the facilitator in your walking. “Am I walking with hesitation or with enthusiasm? Am I literally dragging my feet? Am I feeling like I don’t want to walk over there?”
And I think that’s the wisdom in the body versus just checking a box on a ballot, for example. So, I love to bring in the wisdom of even it could be standing up or sitting down to represent your point of view, or walking closer or further to a certain point to represent more like your temperature on that decision.

Douglas Ferguson:
Yeah. It’s kind of about tuning in, and it’s making me think about your 3D Wellness concept.

Erin Warner:
Yeah. So I do have a background also as a fitness teacher. And I was teaching on Zoom during the era when we were all online during the pandemic. And I had a big aha moment, when at the end of my classes that I would do every week on Zoom, people would stay and chat and laugh, and joke around and commiserate for a long time, like 30 minutes minimum. And then I might close the room at that point, but people were loving it.
And so, I realized that people were coming for the fitness, but they were staying for the connection. And I realized that what I was offering them was not only physical wellness, but also emotional wellness within themselves as an individual and social wellness within the collective. And so I named that 3D Wellness and that’s something that I try to offer in all of my experiences.

Douglas Ferguson:
So, as your clients begin to experience the impact of this work and you bring on more facilitation and the Exec’s offerings, how are you aligning with long-term clients who expect content for a delivery so they can embrace a more participatory, co-creative way of working?

Erin Warner:
Honestly, it’s not feeling like a very hard sell right now. I find that people are actually hungry for this. They’re hungry to participate and be asked to contribute. We do live in a time where there’s no shortage of information. And if we’re gathering in person and making that effort, it’s starting to be, I feel like, in the zeitgeist that people feel like, “It’s a waste of time to do something I could do on YouTube or research myself.”
And so, we’re building on the abundance of information that’s available. We will refresh it and we will bring some teaching always to anchor what we’re going to be focusing on, but our clients are really on board with getting to roll up their sleeves and play with it and apply it. And everyone wants results, so they want to know like, “What is this going to do for me? What’s the point?” And that’s what facilitation is. They get to immediately use it and see how it’s going to benefit their company, their culture, their customers, and just their day to day.

Douglas Ferguson:
We’ve talked a bit about how you are ready to and have stepped into moments of leadership for corporate rooms and intimate circles alike. And I’m curious what signals tell you a team is genuinely ready to do the self-awareness and shared responsibility work this approach requires?

Erin Warner:
So when we’re scoping and engagement and making the plans with the leader who’s bringing us in house, we really want to be of service in a practical way. And so we lead with that, “This is not just like a nice to know, ‘I read the book and now I’m done.'” We are very results oriented and I think leaders like to hear that, but they also want to know, “But how is that going to happen?”
And so then we can explain to them about facilitation, “That we will bring in some content that’s going to anchor our focus. Everyone knows that this is the topic today, and then we are going to actually…” I like to make the word responsible into a verb, like, “We’re going to responsiblize the people in the room for their own upleveling and their own professional development,” because they’re adults and they’re going to learn better too if they feel autonomous and empowered and responsible.
And so, I think that’s how we get leaders on board with the style of learning that we’re offering that’s interactive and participatory. And I think they want to hear that it’s not just going to be silly games and icebreakers, but it’s going to be actually really deep and potentially rigorous for an outcome that shows results, ’cause that’s the name of the game, I think, for the leaders.
And then in the room, we kind of give a recap of that and say, “Hey, we are going to talk about this topic today and then we’re going to put it back in your lap, in your hands to generate the connections and ahas and the takeaways, and the action items and how you’re going to apply it. We’re not here to tell you what to do. We’re here to help you discover what makes sense for you to choose, to commit to, and then to help you have accountability and support around doing that.”

Douglas Ferguson:
We haven’t talked about Head + Heart much, so I’m curious to learn more about the vision there and what experiments you’re excited to run in the next year to test that vision.

Erin Warner:
In my personal life, I’ve been on what I call a self-love journey, where I really learned a lot of things about myself and healed some things, and reframed some self-limiting and beliefs that I had. And it really changed my life, and I’m so grateful that I did that.
And so now, what’s really meaningful to me in this chapter is to make a new, more personal offering. It’s completely separate from the corporate work that I do, and it’s self-love and empowerment, experiences, gatherings and coaching.
And I’m a very word-oriented person, and so what I’m offering is actually thinking about words as literal magic spells that we use every day to create our reality. And so, harnessing the power of words to create a reality that is more empowering.
My background is in law, and law is a great example of words creating reality. You can go to jail or not based on following the things that are written down in a law book. They have the coercive power of the state behind them, but that gives them power, and it’s just words.
Words that we say to ourselves, self-talk definitely creates our reality. It creates our frame of mind, the decisions that we make, the way we respond to people. That’s a big focus of the work that I’m doing now.
And in facilitation, the words, the invitations that the facilitator offers is creating an immersive experience that is the reality for the people in that room in that moment.
So, I’m really excited to be exploring this in partnership with people who want to go on this journey with me. And it’s just a very personal offering that I am making in this chapter in my life.

Douglas Ferguson:
Wonderful. And as we come to a close, I want to invite you to leave our listeners with a final thought.

Erin Warner:
So my final thought is that words are literal magic spells that create our reality, so use them wisely, especially the ones that you say to yourself. And words are the tools that empower us to connect courageously, communicate clearly and collaborate creatively.

Douglas Ferguson:
So great chatting with you, Erin. I look forward to the next time we’re able to sit down and talk, and thanks for coming on the show.

Erin Warner:
Yeah, I look forward to that as well, and it was a pleasure to chat with you, Douglas. Thank you.

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 Secrets to Engaging Facilitation: Unlocking Team Potential appeared first on Voltage Control.

New years are crisp thresholds. The calendar flips, and whether we like it or not, our attention snaps to what was and what could be. Thresholds can be disorienting—or incredibly clarifying—depending on how we approach them. At Voltage Control, we’re leaning all the way in. Our Summit in February is dedicated to Edges: the personal edges each of us are facing, and the edges our organizations are standing on. January is our invitation to notice those edges, name them, and practice stepping across them with care.

This month’s newsletter blends reflection and action. You’ll find ways to read the signals that you (and your teams) are near an edge, simple structures to design consent-based stretches, and practical tools to turn momentum into durable habits. We’re also featuring one of our favorite liberating structures as the Activity of the Month—What, So What, Now What—to help you reflect on last year and align on meaningful next steps for the year ahead.

Whether you’re a full-time facilitator, a leader who facilitates, or a graduate of our certification programs guiding transformation inside your company, this is for you. Edges sharpen our ability to change. Let’s cross the new year’s threshold with clarity, consent, and momentum.

Seeing edges clearly

Edges show up long before we name them. Sometimes the first signals are somatic: a quickened pulse before a decision, shallow breath as a meeting gets thorny, a jaw that tightens when roles are fuzzy. Other times it’s the stories we tell ourselves—reasons to delay, a pattern of avoidance, or a sudden insistence on perfect plans. As facilitators and leaders, we can train our attention on these cues, and normalize talking about them. “I’m noticing I’m rushed here” or “I’m feeling some uncertainty about scope” names the edge so fear has somewhere to sit and listen instead of driving the bus.

Edges are also social. Every group carries collective signals of stretch: silence after a challenging prompt, debate that circles without criteria, or a burst of energy that fizzles once action is mentioned. Reading those signals lets you calibrate your next move. You can offer choice and pacing—two safety rails for brave work. Rather than pushing, invite: “Would you like to explore this now, or do we need one more beat to gather context?” Consent-based stretches preserve dignity while still moving the room.

Finally, remember that edges exist at multiple levels simultaneously: the community’s edge, the organization’s edge, the team’s edge, and each individual’s edge. When you acknowledge those layers out loud, people feel seen and supported. You also resist the trap of treating a system-level edge like an individual performance issue—or vice versa. The new year is a perfect moment to check in across all levels and name the edges that matter most.

Step across with openers, agreements, and prototypes

If edges are thresholds, openers are the doorway. Thoughtful openers help people step into an intentional state—individually and together. This month, try an opener that surfaces the threshold explicitly. For example: “What edge are you bringing into this meeting—something you’re ready to try, a risk you’re weighing, or an assumption you’re open to revisiting?” Follow with a quick energy and risk appetite check. A simple “Low/Medium/High” on both gives you a read on where to set the tempo.

Working agreements are your threshold guardrails. Invite the group to author or revisit three agreements for Q1: one about how we decide, one about how we learn, and one about how we care for each other. Keep them short, testable, and visible. The moment you write an agreement, you also create the opportunity to tune it. Ask, “What would make this easy to live with daily?” and “How will we know it’s working?” Agreements make bold moves legible and fair.

This is also the season to trade resolutions for prototypes. Instead of a sweeping commitment like “We’ll transform our meeting culture,” run a tiny, time-boxed experiment: “For four weeks, we will end every meeting with a two-minute Now What and record actions in our project board.” Name a single owner, define “good enough,” start small, and harvest loud. Small commitments beat sprawling plans, and earned buy-in beats selling. When the prototype delivers value, scale it with evidence—not hype.

Reversible bets, identity choices, and mission clarity

Not all edges are created equal. Some are reversible—if you step and don’t like what you see, you can step back. Others are identity-shaping—decisions that, once made, define who you are as a team or company. Your decision approach should match the type of edge. Use consent for reversible bets: “Is anyone opposed to trying this for two sprints?” Use consensus for identity choices: “Do we agree this is who we are and how we’ll be known?” Getting that distinction right prevents decision whiplash and builds trust.

If your organization feels like it’s at a fuzzy edge of mission, resist the urge to wordsmith your way out. Pilot short, sharp experiments that test the mission in the real world. “We believe our impact increases when we teach leaders to facilitate. For the next six weeks, we’ll run two micro-cohorts and measure demand, retention, and downstream behavior change.” Harvest the evidence, make sense of it together, and sharpen your language only after the data speaks. Experiments plus evidence clarify mission faster than debates.

Make roles and records explicit. When you approach a company edge, name who’s the driver (responsible for forward motion), who’s the decider (accountable for the choice), and who are the advisors (offering input). Publish the artifact that records the pathway—assumptions, criteria, options considered, and the decision. This makes the move legible later, reduces rumor and re-litigation, and helps new teammates learn how and why the choice was made. Visibility is oxygen for culture.

Diverge, converge, and guard your cadence

Edges invite urgency—and urgency, when unexamined, invites haste. Haste blurs the edge in unhelpful ways. The antidote is cadence. Slow the early moments just enough to see the whole chessboard, then move with speed on aligned actions. Use the simple sequence we teach leaders and facilitators: criteria first, options second, decision last. When groups decide without criteria, they argue preferences; with criteria, they reason together.

Diverge and converge with intent. Start by diverging on perspectives: Collect “What” without judgment—facts, observations, what happened. Then “So What” to make meaning—patterns, implications, consequences. Finally “Now What” to choose actions. This arc prevents premature action and gives you a shared map of reality. When an edge feels particularly charged, widen the aperture with 1-2-4-All before converging. If energy is low, keep it simple: a quick note-and-vote inside the Now What can move you to commitment.

Asynchronous check-ins warm cold feet. Before a big threshold meeting, ask two or three edge questions and gather input async. For example: “What edge do you think our team is approaching this quarter?” and “What would make a stretch here feel like a choice, not a push?” You’ll surface concerns that are hard to voice live, reduce surprises, and enter the room with context. As a bonus, async contributions create a durable record you can harvest later.

Activity of the Month What, So What, Now What

What, So What, Now What is our January go-to because it meets the moment. It’s a lightweight retrospective that helps people see the whole board before moving the next piece. Perfect for closing a project, making sense of last year, or aligning a cross-functional group at the start of Q1. Its power lies in sequence: observe, make meaning, then act. That sequence is a threshold in itself—one you can cross together in 20 minutes or deepen over an hour.

Here’s a fast way to run it in a 30-minute meeting:

– What (7 minutes): Prompt participants to capture observations from last year or the last sprint. “What happened? What did we try? What did we learn? What surprised us?” Use silent writing for 2 minutes, then 1-2-4-All for 5 minutes to widen the lens and cluster the key facts.

– So What (10 minutes): Shift to sense-making. “What patterns do we see? What matters most? What were the consequences—intended and unintended?” Invite pairs to pull out two implications that feel consequential, and then dot-vote as a group to prioritize the top three.

– Now What (10 minutes): Convert insights into commitments. “Given what we learned, what will we do next? What will we stop, start, continue?” Capture decisions as action statements with a single owner, a target date, and a signal of success. Record them in your project tool before you close.

Layer other liberating structures as needed. For hybrid teams, keep time visible and instructions simple. Use 1-2-4-All inside each step, or add note-and-vote to converge on the most meaningful patterns during So What. If you’re reflecting on the entire year, extend the What by five minutes and prompt “highs, lows, surprises.” If your group tends to leap to action, put a timer on So What and require at least three distinct implications before you move to Now What. If you’re a visual learner, watch the Activity Video What So What Now What on our site for a quick walkthrough.

Finally, make your Now Whats durable. Decide in advance where actions will live—your project management board, a shared doc, or a team dashboard. Keep the process light, but make it visible. Protect accountability with a cadence, not a burden. A five-minute review at the start of your weekly sync will keep commitments alive and build momentum without bureaucracy. Small commitments beat sprawling plans—especially in January.

Getting ready for the Summit Edges

In February, our community will gather for the Summit to explore Edges from many angles: how they show up in facilitation, how to work with them as leaders, and how to design experiences that help groups cross thresholds with consent and clarity. We’ll close with a collective practice to identify the edges each attendee is ready to step into next. Consider this your pre-work: What edge are you already aware of? What edge might be hiding in plain sight?

Invite your team into that pre-work with lightweight prompts. Share a short async check-in with three questions: 1) What edge do you see for yourself this quarter? 2) What edge do you see for our team or company? 3) What would make a stretch here feel like a choice, not a push? Ask for a one-sentence answer to each, plus an optional “signal” they’d want to notice if progress is real. Then harvest themes and bring them into your next team opener. You’ll arrive at the Summit (or your own internal summit) warmed up and aligned.

Remember that different edges call for different invitations. For a team-level edge (e.g., “We need to improve cross-functional handoffs”), use consent for a reversible prototype: “For two sprints, we’ll test a one-page handoff brief with a 24-hour feedback window.” For a company-level identity edge (e.g., “We exist to develop facilitative leaders”), design a consensus process: gather input, draft statements, test them against evidence, and decide together. Both paths benefit from tiny pilots, loud harvests, and visible artifacts. Edges clarify mission when experiments meet evidence.

Renew your rituals and harvest your momentum

January is a powerful time to renew rituals that encode culture. Revisit openers and closers, not as formalities but as threshold technologies. Choose one opener you’ll use for the next month that helps people step into the edge at hand. For example: “Name one assumption you’re willing to examine today” or “Share a signal you’ll watch this week that tells you we’re learning.” Keep it short, repeat it consistently, and tune it for group size without losing intention.

Design closers that harvest what matters. A two-minute checkout can surface confidence, concerns, and commitments. Try: “One insight I’m taking, one concern I’m naming, and one next step I’m owning.” Capture those now whats where they’ll live—your task board or a simple shared doc. Add a light measurement and a return date: “We’ll check back on this in two weeks.” If it isn’t harvested, it withers; if it’s recorded and revisited, it compounds.

Make the invisible visible. Post working agreements where they’re easy to find. Add your opener and closer to the meeting agenda template. Keep a humble log of experiments, owners, dates, and outcomes. The more visible the path, the safer the edge feels. You’ll create a marked trail the team can follow, adjust, and teach to newcomers. And with a steady cadence, you’ll transform January energy into durable practice—not just a burst of enthusiasm that melts like fresh snow in the sun.

As you cross the new year’s threshold, here are three simple moves to start strong this week:

-Run a 20-minute What, So What, Now What with your team to reflect on last year or your first sprint. Record three Now Whats with owners and dates.

– Pick one opener and one closer you’ll use for the next month. Keep them short, make them visible, and tune them lightly based on group size.

– Choose one tiny prototype to replace a big resolution. Time-box it for two to four weeks, name an owner, define “good enough,” and harvest loud when you review.

We’d love to explore your edges with you. Join us at the Summit in February to dive deep into personal and organizational edges, practice consent-based stretches, and leave with prototypes you can run the next day. Bring your team or come solo—you’ll find community either way. If you can’t attend live, reply, and we’ll share highlights and tools you can use. This is the moment to step forward with intention. Let’s cross the threshold together.

The post Edgework in January appeared first on Voltage Control.

I like to tell people that facilitation found me long before I had the word for it. I graduated from law school at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas in 1989 and, almost immediately, joined the Attorney General’s Office. I was young—early twenties—and suddenly sitting in rooms where large-scale restructuring was underway. Venezuela was opening conversations about human rights, environmental rights, and a new way of doing justice that wasn’t only about prosecuting, but also advocating. Those rooms got my attention.

What captivated me first wasn’t just the content; it was the process. The facilitators who guided us came from the Venezuelan oil industry, which, at that time, was the most internationally trained sector in the country. They brought methods they had learned overseas—logical, structured, human. In one session, someone introduced a fishbone diagram. It might sound funny, but that simple diagram changed something in me. I could see cause and effect, the root and the branches, clearly organized on a wall. It made sense immediately.

I raised my hand. I was the youngest in the room—twenty-two or twenty-three—and I stood up in front of my seniors and some of my former law professors and walked them through the fishbone. Honestly, it felt wild at the time. It also felt natural. Synthesizing came easy. Standing in front of people, listening, organizing, and then presenting back—I didn’t have to overthink it. It was the first time I thought, I want to do more of this.

From there, a thread emerged. Whenever the office needed someone to make sense of a complex issue or rally people around a plan, I’d jump in. Team builders, strategic sessions—anything where aligning people mattered. I started to see facilitation not as “running a meeting,” but as managing a process and enabling trust. That framing stuck with me as I changed jobs, moved countries, and built a career.

In 1995 I came to the U.S. for a Master’s in Public Policy at Georgetown, and after graduating in 1997,  I entered international development. For nearly three decades I worked across more than twenty countries, especially in governance: decentralization and local government at first—municipalities and citizens—then transparency and anti-corruption, and later citizen security and justice. I was the guy people sent into complex situations to calm the noise, build trust with stakeholders, and move teams toward results. It worked because I listened, synthesized, and created a structure people could recognize themselves in. Whether or not I called it facilitation, that was the work.

Curiosity Reignited in the Desert

Years later, I found myself in Jordan to help start up a new program. I realized we needed a workshop to align our partners, the client,  and the team. No one asked me to facilitate, but I drafted the agenda, clarified the outcomes, and ran it—English with Arabic translation. When we finished, people were energized. They had clarity. It felt like a confirmation. Facilitation wasn’t something I did occasionally; it was a way I worked.

Back home I kept thinking about how I’d been postponing formal training. I had logic frameworks, theory-of-change models, cause-and-effect trees—tools I’d picked up across the years—but I wanted a deeper foundation and a community of practice. I started asking around. Andrés Márquez, a professional facilitator  who does a lot of international work, suggested a few options and mentioned Voltage Control.

What I saw on the Voltage Control site resonated: a participatory approach, a clear methodology, a practical toolkit I could apply immediately. The arc of the program felt right for someone like me who was working full-time and needed something both rigorous and manageable. I didn’t need theory alone; I needed tools I could touch and use. The more I read, the more I felt, this is it.

What I couldn’t anticipate was the timing. On a Friday at 1 PM, in one of our certification sessions, we learned that USAID, my main client, would be eliminated. The following week, layoff emails started landing. Everything got loud. In a matter of days, the career I had invested three decades in—designing, negotiating, and steering complex programs around the world—suddenly paused. And there I was, in this facilitation training, trying to make sense of it all.

Choosing My Next Room

In that moment, the decision to commit to Voltage Control wasn’t hard. I knew I needed to pivot, and I knew I wanted facilitation to be part of what came next. Originally, I imagined becoming the go-to facilitator inside my firm. We had always outsourced facilitation for work plans, team building, and strategic sessions, and I wanted to build that capacity in-house. Then the layoff happened, and the context shifted. The commitment didn’t.

What drew me in specifically was the structure and the ethos. Three months felt doable with my schedule, and the program promised practice, not just concepts. The principles matched how I’d led for years—lead by influence, not authority; build trust; be intentional about inclusion. And the materials—the canvases, methods, and ways to open and close a session—were things I could see myself applying immediately.

I also wanted to be part of a community. I’ve spent years in rooms where the stakes are high and power dynamics complex. Doing that work without peers can be lonely. Seeing the cohort design of the program and the emphasis on psychological safety stood out. I didn’t want a certification that lived in a PDF. I wanted a practice with people who cared about the craft.

The Room That Held Me

Something beautiful happened in our cohort. From the first sessions, there was a sense of closeness, even though we hadn’t met in person. People showed up honestly. They offered help without being asked. When someone hit a block on their portfolio, a few of us would jump on a call to think it through. By the time we closed, the emotion in the room felt real. We had become a community.

The tools were great, but the way we were taught to use them mattered more. How to open a session in a way that sets purpose and tone. How to hold space in the messy middle. How to close with clarity so people leave knowing what’s next. Techniques for dealing with difficult conversations—surfacing tension, reflecting it back, and transforming it into shared understanding. I’ve always seen myself as a strategic facilitator more than a “one-meeting” facilitator, and these moves translated across programs, organizations, and crisis contexts.

My biggest aha wasn’t a single technique, though the book Leading with Purpose hit me hard—especially the idea that when you limit, you create freedom. My aha was more personal. The certification was happening right when my professional world was shifting under my feet. The portfolio work forced me to ask, Who am I as a facilitator? What am I here to do? I realized I’m not just interested in running workshops; I want to design and facilitate processes—public consultations, multi-stakeholder dialogues, complex governance conversations—where the work itself is how people build new futures together.

The Strategic Moves I Now Make

If I think about what changed most for me post-certification, it’s my awareness. I’ve always led by influence. I’ve always believed in listening actively and making sure people feel seen and heard. The program gave me more precise ways to do those things and to explain them to others. Now, when I lead meetings, I go in with a sharper purpose, I design for inclusion, and I close with well-defined next steps. People leave knowing what we decided, why it matters, and how we’ll move.

It also reframed what I’ve been doing all these years as facilitation. In international development, I often ran into fires. A new program was spinning. A client was frustrated. The team wasn’t aligned. Time and again, I’d slow things down and move the conversation from “deliverables” to “understanding.” One story that I always share is about a school-based violence prevention program in Central America. The client wanted an education project; we were approaching it as citizen security. We were talking past each other. Instead of defending our plan, I wrote a concept note and used it as a neutral artifact to anchor the dialogue. I brought in an education expert alongside a security expert so we could speak the same language. Then we facilitated a negotiation workshop—client and team in the room—where we clarified objectives, activities, and indicators together. It changed the trajectory of that program. That move—step back, listen, co-define the frame, and then co-design the work—is pure facilitation.

Another shift is about enjoyment. Leading meetings used to be something I did because it was needed. Now, I genuinely enjoy it. There’s satisfaction in watching a room turn from fragmented to focused, from guarded to collaborative. My metric isn’t just, Did we decide? It’s, Did people feel empowered to shape the decision? That’s the bar I bring into my work now, whether I’m consulting, supporting a nonprofit board, or advising on strategy.

Designing the Space Between Power and People

Looking ahead, I’m clear about the space where I want to practice: the space between institutions and communities. Multilateral banks, private sector firms in energy or extractives, public agencies—these actors often enter communities with infrastructure or reform plans. If the process is top-down, resistance rises, and the project suffers. If the process is participatory—if communities are heard early and often, if trade-offs are transparent, if there’s shared ownership—then the project can become a platform for trust-building rather than conflict. That’s facilitation. It’s also governance.

I’m actively exploring work that centers public consultation and complex stakeholder dialogue in multilateral banks and corporations, .., In my strategic plan, I can see exactly how the tools and methods from the certification would help these institutions design better consultation processes—agenda design that capture multiple agendas, openers that invite voice, frames that create shared language, decision-making structures that are fair and clear, closures that convert engagement into agreed next steps, and results that are widely disseminated to ensure ownership from participants.

Alongside that, I’m leaning into social impact and philanthropy work with nonprofits and foundations. I sit on the board of an anti-human trafficking organization here in Florida. . My consultant brain wants to rush to solutions, but my facilitator brain says bring people together. Design the process. Help them define specific solutions  and how they’ll measure progress. Then co-create the path. That’s what I’ll be doing with them—using facilitation to support growth of  the organization from the inside out.

I’m also leaving space for something I couldn’t have imagined six months ago: building something of my own. When the layoff news landed during our Friday session, it was painful. It was also clarifying. The constant across my career wasn’t a job description or a contract vehicle. It was a way of working—strategic facilitation—that fits who I am. Whether I’m supporting a government ministry, a multilateral, a foundation, or a neighborhood coalition, that’s the craft I’m bringing forward.

If you’re considering certification, here’s my honest take: do it. Not because you want to stand in front of a room with sticky notes—though you might—but because facilitation is a leadership language. It teaches you to listen deeply, align people around shared understanding, and move groups toward decisions they own. It helped me reframe thirty years of experience and gave me tools I can apply everywhere—from a tense client meeting to a nonprofit board retreat to a multi-stakeholder consultation on a new public policy. Read the materials. Practice the methods immediately. The more you use them, the more natural they become.

And if your career is in flux or you’re navigating a big pivot, you’re not alone. I lost the path I’d been walking right in the middle of the program, on a Friday at 1 PM. The cohort held me and the craft pointed me forward. Facilitation gave me words for what I’ve always done and courage for what’s next. If something in this story resonates, take the step. Join a cohort. Bring your questions and your voice. There’s room for you in this work, and we need you.

The post Becoming a Strategic Facilitator appeared first on Voltage Control.

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 2026 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 was 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.

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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.

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