I’d love to share an experience from a few years ago that illuminates how facilitative leadership was used to weave alignment and transform culture and relationships. I was consulting with a large corporation where conflict and tensions were brewing among senior management in three main areas of the organization. Their teams were feeling pressures from
Let’s just start where it hurts. My friends and colleagues are worried about the recent push back on cultural progress. So is UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. His line “We must push back against the pushback” resonated with 10,0000+ gender equality leaders at the United Nations in March.
In my organization, we do feedback a little differently than typical performance reviews. We have what we call GBOP (Get Better on Purpose) sessions with 5-7 colleagues with whom we work most closely. In these spaces we share feedback in support of each individual’s growth. Leading up to the session there is some preparation with
I began my self-care coaching business as way to teach others about the self-care habits that sustained me through the toughest moments of my life. My first few sessions went peacefully, but as I gained more facilitation skills through Ten Directions’ Integral Facilitation certification, I noticed a few small interpersonal conflicts arising within the members
One morning in 9th grade I showed up to school and none of my five closest girlfriends would speak to me — they wouldn’t for the rest of the year. The following year, one of them finally broke the stand off. The first thing I asked her was, “Why? Why did you drop me
While I’m not aware of my fears all the time, when facilitating groups, my “big fear” becomes very alive. Will I be able to serve this group well? Will I be able to intervene when necessary? Or, will I fall into my habitual pattern and avoid getting messy? And so it goes, on and
Twenty years ago, I made my debut as an organizational psychologist. Perhaps influenced by academics and my former life as an accountant, my envisioned ideal was a neutral, even stoic, helping professional. But I failed spectacularly; I have always had preferences and get very passionate around values, ethics and methods in organizations and leadership. I’m
Recently I have been facilitating a group of 22 leaders that is about to begin a major transformative process. A newly configured team, they are coming together via a recent integration of three different organizations to collaborate on an organizational renewal strategy to move into the next era. When we first met, what immediately struck
“When you can relate to the present moment, make choices and distinctions, and bring those into the collective—that is where the facilitative and the leadership role really meet. When that happens, you’re able to help a group have the capacity to relate to presence and be available to what is emerging. That’s the interface that
