Episode 060
May 13, 2020
060: Finding Insights Through Play – A Focus on the Public Sector with Sara Huang
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Intro
How can we facilitate meaningful change in a sector that is infamous for being rigid and slow-moving? (Though I am not sure I agree with that position!)
Sara Huang is the person to ask – so that’s exactly what I did! Sara is an expert in facilitation within the public sector and governmental organisations.
Join me in this episode of Workshops Work, in which Sara and I discuss the differences in facilitation within the public sector, the secrets to success in this field, and what all of us can learn from this unique perspective.
Find out about
- What it means to ‘twist’ in the public sector and why it produces great results
- The importance of play if we want to create movement and possibility
- How to encourage creativity and open-mindedness
- When transparency can be useful (and not)
- How to flatten the room in an organisation with strict hierarchies
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Questions and Answers
01:21 When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?
03:44 What’s the difference between being a facilitator and an advisor, and where does neutrality come into it?
06:23 Can you explain the name of your company?
08:02 How does your vision of ‘twisting’ fit into working in the public sector?
10:39 What do you mean by ‘play’?
12:25 Do you work with visual facilitators?
14:25 How do you encourage a workshop mindset in a rigid public sector environment?
18:24 Is it true that, in government, people like to conform and, if it is, how do you challenge that to encourage new ideas?
21:19 How do you encourage people to assess every side of an argument?
27:14 How do you facilitate when there are so many layers to decision making processes in the public sector?
30:02 How transparent are you about the limitations within an organisation?
31:19 What is your favourite exercise?
34:19 How do you flatten the room in a patently hierarchical organisation?
37:19 What makes a workshop fail?
43:12 Is there anything else you wanted to share today?