Tag Archives: free facilitation webinar

Free facilitation webinar: the Art of Focused Conversation with Jo Nelson

Scroll down for the session recording and slides – with thanks to the 40 or so who attended!

Monday, 16 December 2024, 15:00-16:00 UK time

“If you have ever wondered what questions to ask, or in what order to ask them, to lead a conversation that is focused, intentional, inclusive, and productive, let this book be your guide.” – Martin Gilbraith

Have you ever wondered how to have a conversation that is focused, intentional, inclusive, and productive?

Join us to connect, share & learn on Monday, 16 December 2024, 15:00-16:00 UK time, for this special session following the format of the ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series.

We shall be joined by Jo Nelson, General Editor of the new, second edition of The Art of Focused Conversation: More Than 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in Your Organization. This bestselling, essential guide to designing and leading useful and effective group conversations, first published in 2000 and reprinted 20 times since then, is now completely revised and updated.

Jo is a ICA Certified ToP Facilitator, a founding member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), and an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator Emeritus.

An experiential introduction to the method will enable you to connect, share and learn with each other from your own experience of conversations that you have found challenging. Jo will then share some insights from the book, and both of us from our own experience, and there will be time for questions and discussion.

The session will serve as an introduction to the method for those new to ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP), and an opportunity to deepen their understanding for those who have already read the first edition of the book or attended our popular Group Facilitation Methods course. See also my own blog post Four steps to a universal principle of facilitation and learning.

The session will be recorded, with the recording being publicly available after the session is over. If you do not wish to be identifiable, we will give you the option before we start the recording to turn off your camera and change your screen name.

Join us to connect, share & learn!

For recordings and other outputs of previous online Focused Conversation sessions and other free facilitation webinars, see free facilitation webinars.

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

Feminist Facilitation – free facilitation webinar

Online FC series - feminist facilitationMonday, 16 January 2023, 13:00-14:00 UK time

Scroll down for the session recording…

What does feminism bring to facilitation, and what does feminist facilitation look like? How can I ensure that my own practice as a professional facilitator is more effectively and explicitly feminist, anti-racist and anti-oppressive?

Exploring feminist facilitationThese are the questions that have guided my own exploration of feminist, anti-racist and anti-oppressive facilitation this past couple of years.

For more on that, see Exploring feminist facilitation.

Are you practicing or exploring feminist facilitation yourself, or are you interested to do so?

Join us to connect, share & learn on Monday, 16 January 2023, 13:00-14:00 UK time, for this next monthly session in the ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series – facilitated by fellow ICA:UK Associate Julia Makin and myself, and produced by ICA:UK ToP Training Co-ordinator Alice Blackwell.

These sessions are free and open for anyone to attend. The session will last 60 minutes and consist of a facilitated conversation using the ToP Focused Conversation (ORID) method, followed by a brief run through of the method used. The sessions are run by different members of the ICA:UK facilitation community, including lead trainers, trainee trainers, and past participants of our courses in their own style, around topics they have chosen.

In addition to participants learning from each other about the topic, the sessions will serve as an introduction to the method for those new to ToP and will be a useful reminder of the method for those who have already attended our popular Group Facilitation Methods course. Participants may opt to go on and take further training (either online or face to face) and/or continue to learn and share as part of a community of people using facilitation.

The session will be recorded, with the recording being publicly available after the session is over. If you do not wish to be identifiable, we will give you the option before we start the recording to turn off your camera and change your screen name.

Join us to connect, share & learn – register now at ICA:UK.

For recordings and other outputs of my own previous online Focused Conversation sessions and other free facilitation webinars, see free facilitation webinars.

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

Scaling up engagement and dialogue – the power of facilitation and communications in partnership

Scaling up engagement and dialogue - the power of facilitation and communications in partnershipFree facilitation webinar hosted by IAF

1.30-3pm UK time, Wednesday 16 December 2020

Join us in exploring the ladder of engagement, and how we can climb it with those that we work with. Share your experience in changing the conversation, at scale, so we can all become better at it.

In this 90-minute workshop we’ll explore together how the roles, skills and tools of the facilitation and communications professions can complement each other, and help us to scale up engagement and dialogue for positive social change.

We’ll draw on some insights of previous work on the power of partnership between facilitation and communication, and we’ll apply some of the tools of the two professions to generate new insights together.

Join us – register now with IAF!

It is two years ago already that I blogged that I was working with Michael Ambjorn of AlignYourOrg on a book project, as part of a wider team of expert facilitators from around the world. The book aims to showcase the power of facilitation in various fields and contexts, and the shorthand for the project is #FacPower – now at https://facpower.org/. 

We are now eagerly anticipating publication of the book this month, we hope!  Watch this space…

Our chapter focuses on the intersect between communication and facilitation, and exploring the power of applying facilitation and communications in partnership. We share stories of how we’ve used some of their complementing (and contrasting) professional competencies, and the professional frameworks available. 

We are grateful to all those who contributed to the chapter, including those who participated in our previous free facilitation webinar back in February 2019 – and to Narsi (V Narasimhan) of IAF India, host of the IAF global webinar series, for the invitation to lead a webinar. 

This session was originally proposed and accepted as a face-to-face conference workshop for the IAF Global Summit to have been held in Stockholm in October of this year, so we are also grateful to have the opportunity to share it now online.

Join us – register now with IAF!

Martin GilbraithMartin Gilbraith CPF|M, London

I work as a facilitator, trainer and consultant. What drives me is my passion and commitment to make a positive difference in the world, and to support and enable others to do so as well. I believe that facilitation and facilitative leadership will be key to achieving a just and sustainable world for all. I am a IAF Certified Professional Facilitator | Master (CPF|M), an ICA Certified ToP Facilitator (CTF) and experienced lead trainer and licensed provider of ‘ICA’s ‘ToP’ facilitation training. I have been a facilitator and trainer since 1986 and I have been providing facilitation, training and consulting professionally to clients since 1997. I began my career in grassroots community development work in India, Africa and the Middle East, after awakening to my own passion and commitment as an international volunteer. Since 1997 I have worked with a wide range of clients in the UK and overseas, and since 2012 online.

Michael AmbjornMichael Ambjorn, Copenhagen

20+ years of leading people. I’ve run organisations, chaired boards and developed changemakers. As a mentor I provide 1:1 advice to Chairs, Chief Execs and senior leaders – and the next generation of changemakers – with a particular focus on strategy, change and turnarounds. I’m particularly interested in how strategic alignment can focus people – and enable sustainable growth and renewal. And I am a committed espresso drinker. I also run an accelerator based on Urbantech – and I am a past chair of the International Association of Business Communicators.

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite also for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels, and now also online.

Facilitation Competencies for Agilists – session recording & outputs

Facilitation Competencies for Agilists - Agile Tour LondonWhat skills, knowledge, and behaviours must facilitators have in order to be successful facilitating in a wide variety of environments? To what extent do these vary, if at all, when working online rather than face-to-face? What can we do, individually and together as Agilists and as peers, to develop our own facilitation competence?

Thank you again to all those that attended this session last week during Facilitation Week, and especially to Agile Tour London for the invitation and to Megan Evans for co-hosting with me.

This session adapted the format of the ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series: Taking time to connect, learn and reflect. This was a series of taster sessions around different topics – both to examine and explore the topic, and to demonstrate the use of ICA’s ToP Focused Conversation Method.

In this session participants acquainted themselves in breakout groups with the IAF Core Facilitation Competencies and shared experience of their application, both online and face-to-face. In plenary we reflected on the extent to which these competencies vary when working online rather than face-to-face, if at all. Participants also reflected on what they could do, individually and together as peers and Agilists, to develop their own facilitation competence.

For more on ICA’s Technology of Participation and facilitation online, register now for Introduction to Facilitation Online – Introducing the role of the facilitator and the ToP approach, plus some key tips & tools, 2.5 hours, next on 11 November.

The recording and other outputs follow:

  • the slides and mentimeter outputs shared on SlideShare
  • the Zoom recording in Youtube

This session was previously held also in September, in partnership with the Agile Coaching Retreat and co-hosted by Dawn Williams with over 100 participants – see:

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite also for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels, and now also online.

Taking your event online: what could possibly go wrong?

Taking your event online

Thank you again to the 100 attendees who participated in yesterday’s free facilitation webinar, and especially to fellow ICA:UK ToP facilitation trainers Megan Evans and Dawn Williams for co-hosting with me.  Apologies to anyone intending to join who found the meeting room full to capacity!  Here below you will find the session recording and other outputs.

This was the first of two sessions scheduled in partnership with ICA:UK as part of its new Online Focused Conversation Series: Taking time to connect, learn and reflect.

The aim of all these sessions is for participants to connect, share and learn with others sharing their interest the topic, while experiencing ICA’s ToP Focused Conversation method.

In this session the method was adapted to accommodate the number attending, using only the basic tools within the Zoom platform – audio, video, text chat, break-out rooms, screen sharing and polling.

For more on ICA’s Technology of Participation and facilitation online, register now for these further upcoming training & learning sessions:

  • Free facilitation webinars – next up “How engaging can your online session be?” in June
  • Introduction to Facilitation Online – Introducing the role of the facilitator and the ToP approach, plus some key tips & tools, 2.5 hours, starting in June & July
  • Facilitating Virtual Events I Online – Learn and practice ways to make online events participatory, engaging and productive – a series of 6-7 x2 hour sessions, online
  • Group Facilitation Methods Online – Introducing the foundations of the ToP approach, two powerful techniques for structuring effective conversations and building group consensus – a series of 6 x2 hour sessions in June/July.

For details of sessions of this series with other ICA:UK lead ToP trainers, and to register for those, please see the ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series.

Your long-planned meeting, workshop or event, or that of your client, can no longer be held face-to-face. So it is decided to hold it online instead. What could possibly go wrong? What are some tips & tools that can help you – not to just make the best of it, but to make it the best?  More inclusive, engaging and productive than ever before?

The recording and the slides with chat transcript follow here. Thanks also to Dave Hider for the lovely feedback on LinkedIn!

See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.