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Episode 159

April 6th, 2022

159: The role of facilitation when the world seems to fall apart with Quanita Roberson and Tenneson Woolf

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    Intro

    In times of strife – whether it’s a global health crisis or our neighbours at war – what role does facilitation play? Can we hope to change the world one workshop at a time?

    These are challenging questions with wide-ranging consequences, but I can think of few facilitators better equipped to answer them than Quanita Roberson and Tenneson Woolf.

    Both have been guests on this show previously, but never together. Quanita and Tenneson’s Fire and Water Leadership Journey is a programme that shapes wise leaders, prioritising emotional healing and practices including Being the Circle Way, Story, Art of Hosting, Life Coaching, and Presentations of Learnings.

    Join us as we explore the ever-increasing need for inner work, what it means to lead, and how we can use facilitation to serve our communities in troubled times.

    Find out about

    • Understanding the role of facilitation in times of crisis
    • How to handle leadership in times of crisis – and how to handle bullies
    • Why turning to each other might feel nice, but turning to ourselves matters more
    • The dangers of inviting a group to a place that we have not been to ourselves
    • Why facilitation tools will always be secondary to presence and inner work
    • What happens when we prioritise witnessing, rather than discussing

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    Thanks to our sponsor Deckhive. Click here to find out more about the new platform for using card decks in online facilitation. Use the code workshopswork to get the first month for free.

    Questions and Answers

    02:57What is the role of facilitation in such troubled times? 05:57Tenneson contributes his perspective on the same question. 13:57 How much is the global crisis of escalation a reflection of inner strife? 17:54Does having more comfort in our values and belief systems make us less inclined to explode at things? 17:11When do you determine that a project is finished? And when did your consulting business become an ‘interim management’ business? 19:11Tenneson responds to the same question. 24:04Almost nobody wakes up in the morning with a plan to be a bully or an asshole. So how do we facilitate the conversation when it happens accidentally? 34:24In our daily encounters, we have the choice to avoid escalation – but how do we know when to do so or not? 37:37What do you rely on to invite a group to turn to themselves before each other? 44:32How do we get each other to open up and be vulnerable, so we can experience that magical connective power of intimate trust? 49:48 How do we hold and balance space for big topics that might affect some participants more than others? 55:38What would you say to the audience, as a final reflection of this conversation? 57:10Quanita answers the same question. 1:00:33What question would you like the audience to ask themselves as this episode ends?

    Links

    Quanita’s website

    Tenneson’s website

    The Fire & Water Leadership website

    Episode 123 with Quanita

    Episode 27 with Tenneson

    Connect to Quanita and Tenneson:

    Quanita on LinkedIn

    Tenneson on LinkedIn