SV: multiple facilitator roles

Eva P Svensson eva at epshumaninvest.se
Sun May 15 11:10:17 PDT 2005


Judy,
That is exactly what I did -
"Hope someone else laughed out loud... in their small home office late at
night....."
just before I put my 7 year old son to bed...
:o)
Eva


Bästa hälsningar


Eva P Svensson
...................................................................

EPS Human Invest AB
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eva at epshumaninvest.se
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-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]För Judy Gast
Skickat: den 15 maj 2005 06:30
Till: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Ämne: Re: multiple facilitator roles

Harrison, this one made me laugh out loud!  (in my small home office at
11:30 on a Saturday night with only two small sleeping children to absorb my
hysterical moment as they sleep.)

I haven't read the OS List in quite some time (I have 3513 unopened emails)
and 'don't get out much' lately (due to the small children sleeping in the
other room).

However, on occasion, late at night, when no one else is around, and the
dishes are all put away, I peruse the OS List. And perchance, this email is
the one I read tonight and I just have to reply.  The comments about the
'facilitator to facilitate the team of facilitated facilitators' brings back
that very memorable, quite horrible, memory of being just that for a series
of large management conferences - just before I was introduced to Open Space
by yourself, Larry and Birgitt in June 1995 at St. Ignatious College in
Guelph, ON.  Needless to say, those five days in that very quaint and
spiritual place was indeed a 'conversion' experience for me.

I have told this story often, probably to amortize the negative, or perhaps,
to 'get back' at all those who wronged me in some vicarous manner.

Here's the story, and given the hour (and the fact that the little beaners
will be up at 8) I'll try to be brief.

At the time I was working at a large multinational company as an internal OD
consultant.  I was absconded for a year long assignment by a VP in Australia
to help him plan and implement a series of management conferences for all of
the senior level managers around the world.  There were four conferences
planned, in Sydney, Rome, London and Fort Lauderdale, and each would have
about 200 top level managers invited.

My job was to design and implement the 'workshop' portions of the
Conference, essentially four 2 1/2 hour workshops that each manager would be
sequenced through  (i.e. mandatory attendance) during the three day
Conference.

So, of course, as any instructional designer knows, in order to set
objectives for a workshop, you first have to do a thorough needs assessment.
And that I did, with a representative sample, utilizing all the proper
techniques.  And from that needs assessment we/I determined that these
managers were most lacking skills in the areas of "Giving and Receiving
Feedback", "Building Teams", "Managing Change" and "Leadership" (or
whatever... it was a long time ago...).

The next step was to set the objectives, and then design the workshops.  So,
even though we (this large multinational corporation) has lots of material
on each of the four prioritized areas, we hired an expensive instructional
designer (from a large consulting company at considerable expense) to work
with us to design these workshops... and ensure that they were 'culturally
sensitive' around the world...  During the three to four month period, I
worked with the hired consultant, often late at night ( i.e. we had to talk
to the VP in Australia), to ensure we had the right content, examples,
exercises, etc.... and to ensure that she (the hired consultant) didn't quit
due to the micromanagement/harrassment at late hours by the VP (I sure hope
he is not on this list...)

Next we had to run a series of pilots, so ensure that the content, examples
and exercises really were 'right' and 'culturally sensitive' for the
audiences we faced around the world.

We finally got it right.  Now, my job was to hire a team of facilitators who
would facilitate the workshops around the world. And that I did - for a
considerable expense of time and money....(but we had plenty of both.. at
the time).  All of the facilitators came highly recommended... by someone of
reput (mostly from unknown OD colleagues who worked for the same company
around the world).

Next, my job was to get the facilitators up to speed - remotely (none of
them are located in the same city as I am). More late nights and nonstop
phone calls and faxes.. what did this mean, how come this example was used,
couldn't we change this portion to be more 'culturally sensitive'?  And we'd
scheduled a paid briefing the day prior to each event...

At this point in the process, I remember my VP from Australia commented on
the cost... something to the effect of "oh this is going to cost
$335/day/per participant (not including travel)".. and that is what they
would have to pay for a external leadership course.

And then came the big event, first in Sydney, as I recall. I was the
'facilitator to facilitate the team of facilitators', and, what a nightmare
it was.  Each facilitator wanted to be the best of the best (I presume that
given what they were paid, they wanted more work from my company).
Thereby, they each had to have all possible information and a thorough
preparation so that they would know how to deal with every possible
idiosyncracy and quirk (or at least not be blamed if something didn't go
according to plan).

Well, there were things that didn't go according to plan.  Like the fact
that one very well know VP, used the workshops to express mutiny, and many
people in the workshops he attended agreed with his sentiments and bonded
with him (he left the company, along with several of his newly converted
allies a month after the Conference).

And several of the facilitators got bent when they saw that the participants
weren't exactly keen on the content they were delivering...(perhaps the fact
that the Senior VP of HR went around to each room and checked attendance
didn't help the spirit of learning either..).

And there was some dissertion among participants (particularly in Fort
Lauderdale where the weather was beautiful and we were at a five star golf
and country club..)

During each event, mainly, my job was chief psychologist, mediator and
counselor (for which I am not qualified - particularly late at night when
all I wanted to do was have a drink and get to bed..).

Well, to wrap this rather long story up, needless to say, we didn't get the
best level one evaluations (or level two, three or four).  My VP in
Australia didn't  think that I was that stellar, and I felt that I that my
year was... well... except for the fact that I got to travel around the
world, stay in expensive hotels and eat and drink in the fanciest of
restaraunts... wasted.

And we could have accomplished so much... if we had only Opened Space.....
but then again... given the control needed by my Australian VP and his
counterparts.... I am not sure that they would have been open to try it...

So it goes... and I am glad to tell the story to the list, if only to
amortize the negative and 'get back' at all those who wronged me... a long
time ago.

Hope someone else laughed out loud... in their small home office late at
night.....


Judy Gast










 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Harrison Owen" <hhowen at comcast.net>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 7:26 AM
Subject: Re: multiple facilitator roles


> Gerard Wrote: "I thought of the boundary issue when last week I was asked
to
> help co-facilitate an event with the top 30 managers of a large
> multinational. Open Space does not feature on the program, and there will
be
> a team of five facilitators..................."
>
> Gerard -- I just have to ask -- will there be a facilitator to facilitate
> the Facilitators? I guess you would probably need a small team, say 2-3.
> Then of course you will need a facilitator to facilitate the facilitated
> facilitators. . . . Sounds like Facilitators all the way down. And the
> client group is a bunch of Top Managers? Making God knows how much money?
> Who will be treated like children (kept under control) so that at the end
of
> the meeting the lack of innovative, inspired, creative results can all be
> blamed on the army of Facilitators. Sounds wonderful!
>
> Harrison
>
> Harrison Owen
> 7808 River Falls Drive
> Potomac, Maryland   20845
> Phone 301-365-2093
>
> Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
> Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Gerard
> Muller
> Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 4:04 AM
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Subject: Re: multiple facilitator roles
>
> Dear All,
>
> Thinking about our thread "multiple facilitator roles" I wondered if
> there could be a boundary issue here.
>
> No doubt - as Michael's post makes very clear - the amount of work to
> be done has some connection
> to the size of the group. In terms of
> hours-to-be-worked-on-plannable-things  if the group becomes a crowd
> rather than a group, it is mosty practical in nature
>
> When opening space I almost never have a co-facilitator - in terms of
> one or more persons being involved in opening and closing the space.
> When I do, it is typically an OSonOS with collegues, one of us taking
> the role for each day.
>
> However I have rarely felt I work alone - and the reason probably is
> that cooperation with the sponsor tends to be rather different from
> non-open space work.
>
> I thought of the boundary issue when last week I was asked to help
> co-facilitate an event with the top 30
> managers of a large multinational. Open Space does not feature on the
> program, and there will be a
> team of five facilitators................... Do these 30 quite
> experienced people need so much facilitation ?
> No doubt we will work very hard (too hard, as we are likely to do lots
> of things the group could well do
> without us), and learn a lot from eachother while doing so. Will there
> be the learning across the boundary
> (client group and facilitator team) which there could be ? And
> certainly it is unlikely that some percentage
> of them will decide they want to learn facilitation - while some ten
> Open Space sponsors I worked with have since taken a training in OST.
>
> In working with Open Space, the client does not need all that much
> help. Too much help may damage
> the selforganising process. And if I manage not to do all the things I
> might do (with the best of intentions)
> but are not essential they may actually create the team which invites,
> holds the space with me and feels responsaibility
>   for the follow-up, as Lisa states quite beautifully. To me this also
> means not taking any tasks they may do themselves.
>   So after the first couple of years when I had an assistant along who
> really knew how to make sure a copy of the report
> would be there for everybody in time, I now almost always brief someone
> who works for the client to do this.
> I do not bring a talking stick, but ask the sponsor to choose one. And
> so on.
>
> So I guess in my practice there is as a rule one facilitator - who
> never works alone.
>
> Greetings from Denmark,
>
>
>
>
> Gerard Muller
> Open Space Institute Denmark
> Phone: (+45) 21269621
> Mail: gm at openspace.dk
>
>
>
>
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