Tag Archives: strategy

Evidencing facilitation competencies: planning with people with learning difficulties

I had thought that I might share this ‘from the archive’ piece during International Facilitation Week recently, as a way of promoting and celebrating IAF’s Certified Professional Facilitator accreditation programme in conjunction with that. As it turned out, Facilitation Week prompted such an avalanche of activity around the world and online that I had a hard time keeping up as official @FacWeek tweeter, so here it is now. 

The piece was prepared as part of my own initial assessment for Certified Professional Facilitator accreditation in 2008, in the format required to summarize a workshop I had designed and facilitated in order “to illustrate your application of the Facilitator Core Competencies in your work”. It drew on an extended case study that I had prepared previously for ICA:UK, ToP facilitation with a group of people with learning difficulties.

ToP facilitation with a group of people with learning difficulties

Connect in the North: Big Meeting, August 2007 in Leeds

1. What workshop are you summarizing? Nb:Core facilitator competencies illustrated are indicated in square brackets [A-F]

Connect in the North: Big Meeting (August 2007). For the organisation to listen to people with learning difficulties and update its business plan – to improve services and opportunities for people with learning difficulties.

2. Is there anything specific about the background leading up to the workshop that we need to understand? If necessary, provide a brief paragraph describing the background leading to the event.

[E3, F2] ICA:UK is concerned with the human factor in world development – creating a humane and sustainable future for all, through partnership and participation. We work nationally and internationally to enable individuals, organisations and communities to work together to bring about positive change.

Connect in the North (CITN) brings together people with learning difficulties and not-for-profit organisations to improve services and opportunities for people with learning difficulties.  CITN Director Cathy Wintersgill had attended a number of ICA:UK’s public Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitation training courses since 2003, and had used elements of the approach in her work within CITN and with client organisations as well.

After attending our ToP Participatory Strategic Planning (PSP) course in May 2007, Cathy expressed an interest in contracting me to apply elements of this method to CITN’s “Big Meeting”, an annual event for the organisation to listen to the views of people with learning difficulties and update its business plan.

She had not before attempted to facilitate a full ToP Consensus Workshop with a group of people with learning difficulties, however, and was concerned that some of those attending the Big Meeting might find the clustering of ideas and naming of clusters difficult and boring, and so disengage.  Although I did not have prior experience of facilitating groups of people with learning difficulties, my experience generally has been that the methodology is sufficiently robust but flexible to be applied successfully with virtually any group.  So, to help to assess what sort of approach would be appropriate, I offered to do some research to explore the experience of other facilitators who have facilitated such groups, using both ToP methods and other approaches.

3. What were the workshop objectives?  Please provide a concise paragraph describing the workshop purpose (objectives, or deliverables.).

[A1, A2] In my proposal to Cathy I articulated the aims of the day as follows:

  • to develop a shared big-picture understanding of the longer-term direction of the organisation, grounded in CITN’s values, and it’s practical implications
  • to generate some clear ideas for future projects or activities that might attract external funding or otherwise generate additional income
  • to involve key stakeholders, and particularly people with learning difficulties themselves, in such a way that they feel a sense of ownership of the organisation and empowerment to shape it’s future

For the purposes of the meeting itself I expressed these as:

Why are we here? – aims of today

  • To build a big picture together of our future direction
  • To have new ideas for future activities and income
  • For everyone to get involved and feel that they own it

4. What was the Agenda for the workshop?  Please provide, in list format, the workshop Agenda.

[A3, B2] The process was designed on the basis of four sessions of around 45-60 minutes, each allowing about a half as long again for activities as I might typically plan for.  The outline of the day I presented like this:

What we will do – today’s schedule

  • Opening and introductions
  • Context: what will affect our future – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats
  • Break
  • Workshop: projects and activities for the future
  • Lunch
  • continued…
  • Break
  • Reflect and close

5. How many participants did the workshop include?

[F2] 20 people attended the CITN Big Meeting in August, prior to their AGM which was to follow some weeks later. This included all 5 staff, most of the 9 Board members and some other members as well – both individual members and representatives of organisational members.  The majority were people with learning difficulties, including some of the staff and most of the members and Board members.

6. What were your responsibilities as Facilitator of the event?  (from B)

[E3] Contractor to the client and sole facilitator.The process design was informed by prior research with facilitators experienced in working with people with learning difficulties, by means of GRP-FACL and three other email forums

7. How long was the workshop?  (In hours or days, from B above)

A single short-full day facilitated event (10am-3pm)

8. Description of the Workshop   Please describe the workshop, highlighting the following:

  • Your preparation for the event
  • Session design considerations/approach
  • Facilitation techniques used
  • Tools, equipment, visual aids, etc. used
  • Results achieved
  • Difficulties encountered and their solutions/lessons learned
  • How the Foundational Facilitator Competencies were exhibited throughout the event. 

[C4, E1, E3] Soon after Cathy’s initial enquiry in May 2007, I emailed a brief query to four online facilitation discussion groups, and within 10 days had received 22 responses totalling 17 pages and a wealth of experience and insight.  The four groups were ICA:UK’s own ToP Associates network, the global ICA ToP trainers network, the IAF Group Facilitation discussion group and the UK Community Participation Network.  My request was for respondents to share any experience of facilitating groups with people with learning difficulties that might point to any potential issues, and to share any hints & tips for success.

[A2, B1, C2] I used the ToP Consensus Workshop method to discern six key insights from the responses received.  I shall describe how I designed and facilitated the event relative to these six insights.

i. collaborate with members of the group (and others with experience of working with them) to design & facilitate a process that will work for them

[A1, A2, C4, D2, F3] Cathy & I agreed early on that I would meet with a small group before the event to hear their perspectives directly on what we should aim to achieve on the day and what sort of approach might be most effective, and also to help to build the group’s commitment and sense of ownership of the approach to be taken.  I met with five of the Board members (4 of whom had learning difficulties) and the 3 full-time staff.  I listened to their answers to my questions and answered some questions of theirs as well. This enabled me to confirm my understanding of their aims for the day, and we agreed broadly how it should be structured and the approach to be used to achieve their desired outcomes, and our respective  roles and responsibilities.

[A2, A3] Based on what I had learned from this design meeting of the organisational context and the client groups’ needs, I was able to revise my original process proposal to comprehensively document our consensus on the way forward as the basis of the contract between us.

ii. adapt/slow the pace

[B2] Well before the design meeting it was a clear parameter that the Big Meeting would be a ‘short full day’, ie: around 10am-3pm, including morning & afternoon breaks and lunch.  Therefore  it was clear from the outset that nothing close to a full 4-workshop PSP process would be possible.

[A3, B2, C1, C4, D1, D2, D3, E2] Instead, I proposed that we focus the day around a single ToP Consensus Workshop to help to meet all three aims, with the fairly general and straight-forward focus question “What projects or activities would you like to see over the next five years?”  To ground this workshop in CITN’s values and in the practical implications of the charity’s current circumstances, Cathy agreed to give a 5-minute power-point presentation on the organisation’s mission, values and recent & current activities; and we followed this with a ‘carousel’-style participatory SWOT analysis – strengths (“what are we good at?”), weaknesses (“what are we not so good at?”), opportunities (“what might help us?”) and threats (“what might be a problem for us?”).  To break the ice and warm people up to participating fully, we began with introductions, sharing hopes & fears for the day, and an energiser – working as a team to ‘play’ happy birthday to one of the group, as a ‘human orchestra’ (humming, clapping etc. or making any noise without singing or using words).  We closed the day with a reflection using a set of “transport cards”, with participants choosing to stand under one of 8 images representing modes of transport and describing how the day for them had been like a journey by coach, bicycle, skateboard, spaceship etc.

[C1, D1] Keeping sessions short and using a variety of activities and ways of ways of working within them seemed to be enough to keep everyone engaged throughout the day.  I invited people to feel free to get up and move around, or leave and come back, if they wanted to, and to a limited extent they did.  To try to ensure that everyone was understanding and being understood adequately I regularly reflected back what I was hearing and asked others to do so as well, and when a question of content or clarity was raised I generally sought one or two responses from the group to satisfy it rather than try to answer it myself.  The warm up exercise was well received, and generated much laughter, if not much of a tune!

iii. adapt & vary the size & composition of small groups (eg: use “learning partners”)

[B2, C2] About three quarters of the time overall was spent working in small groups and individually, rather than in plenary – probably more than I would typically plan for a group of such a size.  There was a great diversity of communication styles in the group, so I think this was important to allow everyone the time and space they needed to contribute safely and comfortably.

[B2] The group were seated at four tables of about five each throughout the day, facing a 5m ‘sticky wall’ for the visual presentations and workshop.  This made for quite intimate and supportive small group working.  Initially I invited participants to choose their own tables, in order that they seat themselves with others that they would be comfortable working with, although with the proviso that at each table there should be at least one person who would record the group’s ideas on paper.  This turned out to be no problem at all as most were keen to participate in recording.  At the beginning of the workshop session I invited 3 at each table to each move to different tables, to vary the groups, but again I left it up to them to choose who would move and where to. This seemed to work well, and I was glad that I had not tried to be more prescriptive about who should work with whom.

iv. use (& allow use of) words, symbols, images, colours etc. with care & creativity to hold meaning

[C1, C4] In asking people to record I made it clear that they were welcome to do so using words, images, symbols, colours or in any other way that they found helpful.   I made a particular effort myself to use images and symbols alongside words on everything that I presented during the event, and I included plenty of photographs of both the group and their work alongside the textual documentation in the report of the event.  I experimented for the first time with providing the tables with multi-coloured half-sheets for recording their ideas on during the workshop, and reserved white half-sheets for the cluster titles (I am in the habit of using white half-sheets for the brainstorm ideas and a single colour to differentiate titles).  I provided the tables with markers of a variety of colours as well, with the additional fun of a different fruit scent to each colour!

In the event the group recorded its work largely in words, and only a few images and symbols were used – in fact participants seemed to relish the challenge of demonstrating their writing skills. How far my own modest graphic facilitation skills were appreciated was not clear, but the multi-coloured half-sheets were a great success in making it easy for people to refer to ideas on the sticky wall without having read or describe them each time (“the blue card, bottom-left, goes with the top-centre cluster with the red & green cards”).

v. allow & encourage people to relate ideas, and form & name clusters, in whatever ways are meaningful to them

[C1, C3, C4, D2, F2, F3] I made explicit during the workshop that there was no right or wrong way to cluster ideas or name the clusters, but that we were looking for clusters and names that would be meaningful to the group and which would help them to make the best of the ideas they had come up with and put them into practice after the meeting.  In fact many of the group took to the clustering with such enthusiasm that the plenary became quite noisy and chaotic at times – such that on several occasions I reminded people to speak one at a time, asked specifically to hear from someone who had not spoken for a while, and called for silence to allow everyone to think for a moment.

[C3, D3, E2] The naming of the clusters was accomplished quite easily, and much more quickly than I had anticipated – every activity up until that point had taken at least as long as I had planned for, such that I was becoming quite concerned as to whether we would be able to complete the workshop and close the day before people started leaving in their pre-booked taxis.  In fact the names were proposed and agreed much more quickly that most groups I have worked with, and it became clear to me that this group really was perfectly satisfied with quick, simple and intuitive names – in contrast to many groups which can want to get the names just right, and so find it very difficult and time-consuming to agree (Sam Kaner’s ‘Groan Zone’ of participatory decision making).  Conflict was not an issue.  Far from running over time, in the end we were able to enjoy a relaxed closing reflection and finish early with 10 minutes to spare.

[C4, E2, F3] As usual, the original ideas, the clusters and the cluster names all clearly meant more to the participants than they did to me – which I take as a good sign in any workshop!  However, I felt in no way that I would have wanted to cluster or name any differently myself, had I been involved as a participant rather than as impartial facilitator.

vi. show respect for people & their diversity of abilities & styles

[B1, C2, C3] It was indeed a diverse group, in terms of age, gender and culture as well as in terms of physical and learning abilities.  I hope that I did show respect for this group and its diversities, as I would any group.  However my experience was that I did nothing particularly different with this group in order to do so, and that nothing particularly different was required.  In fact the various styles and behaviours of this group may have been sometimes more overt and less subtle than those of most groups that I work with, but they were not really so very different.  The group itself was certainly no less respectful than most, on the contrary perhaps more so.  One participant with physical impairments needed several minutes to communicate any verbal contributions with the help of a support worker yet, even when the group was quite boisterous, all voices fell silent and everybody waited patiently whenever he had something to contribute.

Conclusion

[A3, B1, F2] It is for the group themselves to judge the success or otherwise of their meeting, and of course the real test will be the extent to which it has made a difference to them and CITN in the future.  Certainly the group expressed their satisfaction with the process as it unfolded – at the design meeting, during the day and in the closing reflection. In fact, the event ended with quite a sense of excitement and anticipation.  Cathy wrote shortly afterwards, from her point of view:

“Thank you so much for the brilliant job you did on Friday. The day was better even than I had hoped. The level and quality of participation was very high, everyone enjoyed it and we now have a clear sense of a shared direction.  The report looks absolutely excellent – thanks for putting it together so quickly.”

[E1, E3, F1] For myself, both the initial research and the facilitation experience have been a refreshing opportunity to test my assumptions, reflect on my practice, and stretch my skills in a context that has been new to me.  I found it both reassuring and gratifying that the process was received as well as it was, not least because of how little I felt I needed to tailor the ToP methodology and my own facilitation style on account of participants’ learning difficulties.

I was pleased to take the opportunity to write up my experience of both the workshop and the research, including extracts of the email responses I had received in respondents own words.  I published this as a case study on the ICA:UK website, and made it available via the four email groups that I had consulted, including all those who had responded.

[A1] I am also delighted that the process has helped me to develop my relationship with Cathy and Connect in the North, such that two further staff have since enrolled on ICA:UK’s ToP facilitation courses, and Cathy has joined a project team with ICA:UK and others to conduct a participatory evaluation for another client of a programme involving young people with learning difficulties in politics in Wales.

Two books and three methods for facilitating social transformation

This post was written for the IAF newsletter the Global Flipchart, June 2013.

Transformational Strategy   Transformative Scenario Planning

Transformational Strategy: facilitation of ToP Participatory Strategic Planning – Bill Staples, iUniverse 2013
Transformative Scenario Planning: working together to change the future – Adam Kahane, Berrett-Koehler 2012
The Kumi method for Social Transformation in Conflict – Transform e.V. in partnership with ARIA, IICP, ICA & others

An advantage of stepping down recently as Chair of IAF and as Chief Executive of ICA:UK, and now working freelance instead, is that I am finding more time for reading, writing and ideas.  Of the many books that I have enjoyed and found stimulating in recent months, I want to recommend these two in particular to readers of the Global Flipchart – for the inspirational stories and insights that they offer, and for their wealth of concepts, tools and tips with immediate application to our facilitation practice. Both focus on the transformative potential of group process for positive social change, but each takes a somewhat different approach.  In reviewing the two books I found myself led to review the third, hybrid approach to social transformation as well, as will become clear.

I have known Bill Staples of ICA Associates in Canada for many years as a colleague within the ICA (the Institute of Cultural Affairs) and also as an active member of the IAF (International Association of Facilitators).  Bill is publisher of the IAF Journal, and chaired the IAF Toronto conference in 2000 that attracted over 1100 participants.  His book Transformational Strategy details the theory and practice of the Participatory Strategic Planning process of ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP) methodology, an approach in which I have been a practitioner and a trainer for many years myself.  So this book covers ground that is very familiar to me, although I found it no less insightful for that. Bill previewed the book at the ICA International Global Conference on Human Development in Kathmandu last October, and elements of the approach were embedded in the design of the conference.

I came across Adam Kahane of Reos Partners through his 2004 book “Solving Tough Problems: an open way of talking, listening, and creating new realities”.  He was head of Scenarios for Royal Dutch Shell in London during the early 1990s, and facilitated the Mont Fleur Scenario Exercise in which a diverse group of South Africans worked together to effect that country’s transition to democracy following apartheid.  That exercise, and subsequent attempts at working with leaders to ‘get unstuck’ some of the world’s toughest problems, helped to generate the reflections and refinements to the Transformative Scenario Planning methodology that he describes in his subsequent book “Power and Love: a theory and practice of social change” and now this one as well.  So this is an approach with which I am somewhat familiar in theory, although its insights resonate with my own experience in many respects.  Kahane previewed this book at a lecture I attended at the RSA in London, also last October, ‘How to Change the Future’.

Transformational Strategy is structured in four parts over 270 pages. Part I outlines the global and historical role of participation in transformative social change, and the history and evolution of the ToP approach.  Part II introduces the spiral image as a metaphor for the thought process of planning, and to describe the underlying dynamics of the ToP Participatory Strategic Planning process and the values that underpin it.  It places the spiral planning process in a wider framework that includes the preparation and research that precedes the planning and the implementation that follows it, and introduces a number of particular ToP tools and techniques to support each stage.  Part III has a chapter of in-depth theory and practical tips on the application of each of the four key stages of the spiral process that will be most familiar to ToP facilitation trainees and practitioners – articulating the practical vision, discerning the underlying contradictions, forging breakthrough strategies and action planning for implementation.  Part IV outlines some possible variations in the approach for different groups and groups sizes, and additional follow-on steps to inspire commitment through implementation. The book is richly illustrated throughout by practical examples and longer case studies from ToP practitioners working in a range of different settings around the world, from corporate board rooms and government departments to local communities and voluntary groups.  Example worksheets and planning documentation charts are included in the appendix.

Transformative Scenario Planning takes a more narrative approach, through nine chapters over an altogether lighter 120 pages. First Kahane tells the story of the Mont Fleur Scenario exercise, and how it helped a diverse group of South African leaders from across the many divisions of that society to talk through what was happening, what could happen and what needed to happen in their country – and then to act on what they had learned, so contributing to some peaceful forward progress in a situation that had seemed violently stuck.  Drawing on another 20 years of subsequent practice with scenarios, Kahane goes on to outline his conclusions on when and how such planning works best – namely, in situations seen to be unacceptable or unsustainable, that cannot be transformed directly or by people working only with those close to them, and by means of a five stage process detailed in subsequent chapters. The five stages are framed as a creative application of the U-process described by Peter Senge et al in Presence (2008) and Otto Scharmer in Theory U (2009). This involves firstly convening a team from across the whole system (‘coinitiating’), observing what is happening and constructing stories about what could happen (‘cosensing’), discovering together what can and must be done (‘copresencing’), and finally acting to transform the system (‘cocreating’ and ‘coevolving’).  Through this process actors gradually transform their understandings, relationships and intentions, and thereby their actions and their larger social system.  This book too is richly illustrated with examples and stories, from exercises seeking to transform often profoundly conflicted societies including Zimbabwe, Guatemala, Quebec, Colombia and Sudan.

Kahane adopts a more personal and reflective style than Staples, sharing something of his frustrations and setbacks in his practice of Transformative Scenario Planning and what he has learned along the way.  Staples in contrast provides a brief overview of the evolution of the method, through research and development involving many hundreds of practitioners over 50 years, and focuses more on where and how the method has been successful and (in some detail) on how to apply it.  While Staples provides an entire chapter of case studies and an appendix filled with related materials, Kahane takes a deeper and longer view on the outcome and impact of the examples he offers. He relates a memorable story of a return visit to Colombia in 2012, 16 years after a scenario project began and some eight years after it had appeared to have failed, to hear the then President announce ‘that it had always been alive and was now the leitmotif of the policies of his new government’.  He quotes the Bhagavad Gita, in a wry comment on the uncertainty of outcome inherent in any facilitative leadership:  “The work is yours, but not the fruits thereof”.

Both books emphasise that collaboration and a comprehensive approach are key to achieving social transformation, and that an inner transformation of those involved is both an outcome of and a pre-requisite for social transformation.  Both books also emphasise the role and power of stories, metaphors and images, in achieving both internal and external transformation.

Where the two approaches appear to differ most substantially is perhaps in the type of (en)visioning that is employed, and its role relative to reflection on and analysis of current reality. In ToP Participatory Strategic Planning it is a compelling and practical vision of a desired future, held in creative tension with a searching and in-depth analysis of present blocks or ‘contradictions’ to that vision, that drives transformation through implementation.  In Transformative Scenario Planning it is not one desired future but several possible futures that are envisioned, and these future scenarios emerge from a deep and broad reflection on current reality rather than themselves focusing the analysis of that current reality from which strategies and tactics are developed.  Where the two approaches appear to be in agreement, however, is in the transformative power of that creative tension between clearly articulated future(s) and honestly and profoundly explored present. Also they concur in the paradox, as Kahane describes it, that “we move forward by stepping back: we get unstuck not by pushing but instead by pausing”.  As Staples writes, “naming the contradiction bursts illusions about the current situation and blows the door to the future wide open”.

Both approaches are described as fractal processes, in that each stage contains within it a micro version of the whole process and each process can itself be expanded to serve as a stage in a larger whole.  From this point of view it matters less, in theory, whether articulation of the future should precede exploration of the present or vice versa.  What matters more, in practice, is what particular (micro or macro) process will help a particular group achieve a particular goal in a particular context – the key question at the heart of any facilitation process design, and any in-the-moment facilitation intervention.  It is at this point that the skilled and experienced facilitator will draw from her extensive toolkit to adapt and apply what methods and tools she has available, to tailor a process for the particular needs of the occasion.

I wonder whether the apparent difference in the two approaches in fact to some extent simply reflects a difference in emphasis in how they are described, and a difference in the contexts in which they are illustrated.  As the book titles suggest, Kahane focuses primarily on the role of scenarios in transformation, and Staples primarily on the role of strategy. From this broader perspective, Participatory Strategic Planning could be seen as a tool to apply in order to move from stages 4 to 5 of the Transformative Scenario Planning process (from ‘discover what can and must be done’ to ‘act to transform the system’), and stages 1 to 4 of Transformative Scenario Planning could be seen as elements of the preparation and research that is required to precede a particular Participatory Strategic Planning process.  Kahane draws his examples largely from situations of conflict, and frames his approach as a means to ‘get unstuck’ in the face of tough economic, social and environmental problems.  In contrast, Staples’ examples are largely not drawn from conflict situations, and he frames the ToP approach not as a means of problem-solving but as a means to empower people ‘to see fresh opportunities, to step onto the stage of history, and take an active part in directing it the way they want their world to go’.

I am not clear to what extent Transformative Scenario Planning has been applied in situations other than conflict, but Jonathan Dudding of ICA:UK has written about the application and the limitations of ToP in situations of conflict in the 2012 ICA Nepal book ‘Changing Lives Changing Societies: ICA’s experience in Nepal and the World’.  Dudding has been a key contributor also to the multi-disciplinary, collaborative research process that has developed the new Kumi method for social transformation in conflict.

The Kumi project was initiated in 2003 by conflict analysts Ahmed Badawi and Ofer Zalzberg. Badawi is an experienced ToP practitioner (he & I worked together with ICA Egypt in the early 1990s) and Zalzberg worked with Kahane on his Jewish-Israeli Journey scenario project of 2008. The project brought together ToP practitioners and experts in identity-based conflict and conflict analysis to develop a hybrid approach drawing on the three traditions, informed by a series of pilot events involving Israelis, Palestinians and Europeans seeking to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  An international network of around 35 Kumi practitioners is now experimenting with broader applications of the method.  An early learning of ToP practitioners in this process was that conflicted parties in such a context may need to do considerable work to address the conflict, and their relationships to it and each other, before they are able to embark on a participatory planning process that requires the group to speak and plan as ‘we’.  The resulting method is a five stage process that moves from (1) initial contact, exploration and design through (2) stage setting, group building and articulating the issue and conflicts to (3) deep conflict engagement and analysis, (4) ToP participatory strategic planning and (5) supporting implementation.

Like Transformative Scenario Planning the Kumi method may be understood as an application of Senge and Scharmer’s U-process, it uses story-telling as a key tool for exploration and discovery and it is designed to help a group to ‘get unstuck’ in order to find a creative way forward together.   Kumi does not make use of multiple scenarios, but does make use of the contradictional analysis that lies at the heart of ToP Participatory Strategic Planning.  I hope that one day we might see a book on the Kumi method, to help us better understand how it’s evolution and applications relate to those of Transformational Scenario Planning and ToP Participatory Strategic Planning – to help facilitators learn from the experience of all three approaches, to better design and lead processes that empower people in all contexts to transform their situations together for the better.

For more on my work, and what others have to say about it, please see how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies – or view my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can connect with me also by joining my free facilitation webinars online, and IAF England & Wales’ free facilitation meetups in London and elsewhere.

ICAI Winds and Waves – facilitating new directions

This article was first published in ICAI Winds and Waves, April 2013.

Winds and Waves April 2013Welcome to this new issue of Winds & Waves, the online magazine of ICA International, on the theme of change and new directions.

Inside you will find stories of some of the change that ICAs around the world are enabling in the communities and organisations that they work with, including in the USA, Spain, Ukraine, India, Guatemala and Chile.  Also you will find stories of some of the change that ICAs themselves are undertaking within their own organisations, including in Togo, the UK and Peru.  You will also find news, reviews and feature articles, including from the new book of long-time ICA colleague Jean Houston. I hope you will find plenty to interest you, and to spark ideas for your own work and change in your own locations and in collaboration with others elsewhere.  I am grateful to the virtual global editorial team, and to all of our contributors, for so generously sharing their time, expertise, experience and ideas with us all.

ICA International is itself entering a period of significant change and development, with a new global Board in place since January and a new business plan for the new year.   I am grateful also to my predecessor as President Larry Philbrook of ICA Taiwan, and to other ICAI Board members past and present, for volunteering their time and leadership to help to shape and guide the development of our global network.  As a result of their sound management and leadership over the past years, the ICAI Board has been able to engage with members and colleagues over recent months to develop ambitious plans for strengthening and growing the ICA worldwide network this year.  You will find news of these developments also inside, and the Board would welcome your questions and feedback, and most of all your involvement.

Since my own ICA work has been mostly focused on the UK context in recent years, it has been exciting and energising for me to reconnect and re-engage internationally with ICA colleagues more in this new role, especially when I have had the opportunity to do so face to face – at the ICA global conference in Kathmandu last October, and at the ICA European Interchange in Paris in March.  Our virtual connections are also growing ever stronger. Our first online regional gatherings of the global network this year, in March, were also a real highlight for me.  Do please join us for the next regional gatherings in July.

The role of ICAI in the ICA global network is to facilitate and communicate ‘peer to peer’ support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues – in pursuit of our shared mission “to empower, through methods and values, an authentic and sustainable transformation of individuals, communities and organizations.”  I hope that this magazine may do something to help strengthen your international connections and collaborations.  Please do let us know how it does, and how it might better do so.

ICAI online regional gatherings facilitate peer to peer support and collaboration

This article was reprinted in ICA:UK Network News, issue 49 and ICAI Winds and Waves, issue 3.

fuller world mapICA International is the international body for the global network of the Institute of Cultural Affairs, with member organisations and related organisations and groups in over 40 countries worldwide.  Increasingly online gatherings are playing a key role in facilitating peer to peer support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues, within and across regions.  ICAI convenes online regional gatherings three times per year, for three regional time zone groups – Asia/Pacific, the Americas, and Europe/MENA/Africa.

These regional gatherings are open to all ICA members, staff and volunteers worldwide, and people are welcome to attend another region’s gathering if they cannot attend their own.  The first gatherings of 2013 were held March 25 & 26, and attracted 25 people from 17 countries.

The aims of the gatherings are to connect ICAs and ICA colleagues with each other, and help to build & strengthen relationships between them; to share information and facilitate peer-to-peer support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues; and to hold ICAI accountable to its members, and seek input & support to strengthen our global network and advance our global mission.

The agenda this time included introductions, activity reports with questions and discussion, a brief review of the new 2013-14 ICAI business plan and a preview of draft plans for a global ICA network survey, and a closing reflection.

Topics of discussion emerging from the reports shared this time included:

  • New groups emerging in France and Colombia, and ICAs re-emerging in Guatemala, Croatia and Brazil
  • Peer to peer support & collaboration between UK & Spain, Taiwan & France, Japan & India, Tanzania & Canada, Cote D’Ivoire & Japan, Taiwan & China, Chile & Colombia, Guatemala & Chile, UK & Togo, Brazil & Colombia…
  • New projects and achievements in Ukraine, Spain, Kenya, Zimbabwe, USA, Nepal, Peru, Guatemala…
  • The face-to-face annual ICA European interchange held in Paris earlier in March
  • Translation of curriculum and materials into French and Russian
  • The impact of financial constraints on programmes and operating structures , and the challenge of sustaining core funding & sales of services
  • Challenges of defining and communicating identity, mission & strategy, sustaining focus on both local and global priorities and managing skills development & transition of people
  • Developing relations between ICA and IAF
  • Global co-ordination on ToP facilitation and training, as more and more markets overlap
  • A proposed new ICA Americas network for sustainable development
  • Proposals for international ToP facilitation training of training initiatives in Europe and in Latin America
  • Confirmation that  ICAI’s UN consultative status remains valid with ECOSOC, FAO and UNESCO
  • Draft plans and questions for a thorough survey of the global ICA network, to gather & share basic information as a platform for expanding peer to peer support & collaboration

Reflections from those participating in the gatherings included:

  • Very good facilitation
  • Great conversations before and during the call
  • Ran smoothly – a good survey of what others are doing at their ICAs
  • Appreciated quick introductions with what people are currently doing/thinking about
  • Great to connect with you all
  • The ICAI business plan is broad enough ,and yet specific enough to measure what you plan to be doing
  • Great UN status report and actions already moved forward
  • Adobe Connect is excellent
  • Great to hear what is going on, and to think about potential partnerships
  • Great to talk, listen and exchange ideas
  • The technology is great and ever easier to use.  VERY well organized meeting!
  • It would be nice to have more present, especially from other countries – please all invite others to join next time!
  • Maybe a little more next time on brainstorming regional activities- what are clear regional next steps?
  • Need to look at topics across the regions as well as within regions – host meetings on ToP expansion, IToPToT etc.
  • Please all continue to connect with each other between meetings
  • THANK YOU all, good night, hasta luego!

A full transcript of the gatherings has been circulated – please ask if you’d like a copy.

The gatherings also provide a valuable opportunity for us all to develop our expertise in virtual meetings and virtual facilitation, to the benefit of our work with clients and partners as well as with each other.  They are held using Adobe Connect online meeting software, which has been adopted as the platform of choice for many virtual ToP facilitators.  Each meeting is preceded by some time for orientation to the technology for newcomers, and for additional technical support for those that need it.

ICAI is grateful for the technical support volunteered by the US-based Sisters of Virtual Facilitation in developing and hosting these gatherings over recent years.  The online training in virtual ToP facilitation offered by ICA USA (the ‘bootcamp’) is highly recommended for anyone interested in a more thorough grounding in the tools and skills – details are at www.ica-usa.org.

If you weren’t able to join the March gatherings, please do look out for the next in July and try to join us then.  Please also let me or another ICAI Board member know if there is anything that we can do to make these online regional gatherings more valuable and accessible to you.

Café, croissant and facilitation – and balancing the social process in Paris

This article was reprinted in ICA:UK Network News, issue 49 and ICAI Winds and Waves, issue 3.ParisThe annual ICA European Interchange is an informal face-to-face gathering for networking and mutual support, open to everyone with an interest in the Institute of Cultural Affairs in Europe. A total of 14 people from six countries participated in this year’s event, held from March 15-17 2013 in Paris.

The gathering was kindly hosted and led this year by Lan Levy, Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitator of www.coactiv.fr, in her office in central Paris. Lan also kept us well fuelled with café, croissant and pain au chocolat! Also from Paris were Lorraine Margherita, Pascal Dubois and Marc Enguix, recent graduates of Lan’s ToP training courses and members of her local facilitation community of practice. From Luxembourg was Elisabeth Wille, long-time Associate of ICA Belgium. From ICA Spain were Catalina Quiroz and Iman Moutaouakil. From ICA:UK were Alan, Shelley and Oliver Heckman, plus Derek McAuley and me (mostly this time from ICA International). Joining us briefly by Skype were John Miesen of ICA Australia and Linda Starodub in Austria.

We shared introductions, and reports on our last interchange in Vienna, and on the ICAI global conference and meetings in Nepal last October. In sharing reports on our ICAs and our own activities we noted many instances of beneficial past collaboration and mutual support, arising from previous interchanges and otherwise.  Among these were two joint EU-funded 5-day courses of ICA:UK and ICA Spain in the past year. After attending last year’s interchange and one of these courses, former ICA Croatia director Zlata Pavic has now begun work to re-activate ICA Croatia. Michael Pannwitz & Mia Konstantinidou of ICA Germany had facilitated strategic planning with ICA Netherlands, who have ToP courses now coming up in April.  Larry Philbrook of ICA Taiwan had led ToP courses in Paris with Lan, and will lead an Imaginal Learning course in Paris in June. I reported on my own collaboration with ICA Ukraine and ICA Tajikistan, in preparation for my ToP training at the IAF Russia conference in Moscow in April.

We looked in some depth at ToP training materials used in France and the UK, and how ToP had been applied to religious diversity training by ICA Spain in its EU-funded Belieforama project. We were excited to learn of Elisabeth’s work with EU institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg, and the opportunities she sees emerging there. We looked at the ICA International 2013-14 business plan that I had circulated globally a few days before, and reflected on the state and direction of our global ICA network and the role of Europe in it. We shared our own involvement and experience with IAF, the International Association of Facilitators, and our aspirations for that. We also enjoyed snails, tripe and other classic French dishes at dinner at a delightful local restaurant next to Lan’s apartment! Most of all, we drew from all of these discussions to identify numerous opportunities for further practical collaboration and mutual support.

A key thrust of our plans for future collaboration are to revisit previous plans for a European international ToP training of trainers programme, informed by our now greater experience of successful fundraising from the EU for such work.  We agreed to share and publicise our own and each other’s training schedules and training of trainer opportunities. We agreed to explore ways to engage further with ICA International, and with IAF, and to collaborate to deepen our understanding of ICA and ICA methods beyond ToP – for example by means of an online Courage To Lead study group.  We agreed to use the longstanding ICA Europe yahoogroup as a means of communication and a forum for exchange, so as engage as well with other ICA colleagues in Europe and beyond who were not present in Paris.

Although fewer ICAs were directly represented at this year’s interchange than in recent years, I myself was very excited by how the gathering seems to draw in new and returning people each year – and how each year we hear of more collaboration and support going on, and even greater appetite for more in the future.

A key insight for me in my role as ICAI President came in a side discussion with one of our new Paris colleagues, who seemed quite intrigued by what they learned of ICA.  I had briefly explained our historic global mission, and our name the Institute of Cultural Affairs, in relation to ICA’s Social Process Triangles model – as seeking to bring balance to the social process by strengthening the cultural, meaning-giving dynamic in society.  We had earlier been reflecting that perhaps too much of our attention, together in Paris and more broadly, was at the level of the business of facilitation and facilitation training rather than at the deeper level of mission, values and spirit. It occurred to me that in our own global network we might well conclude that we have allowed our economic dynamic to become dominant, the political to be allied to the economic, and the cultural to be collapsed. In contrast I suspect that in the 1970s and 80s, at the height of ICA’s global reach, we might conclude that the cultural dynamic was dominant and the economic collapsed in relation to it.  In recent years at the global level we have necessarily devoted much of our collective attention to the economic and political dynamics of our international network, and there remains much still to be done to put these on a strong and sustainable footing.  If we are to collaborate and support each other effectively to have impact at the global level, however, it will be the cultural dynamic that mobilises and sustains us in doing so. Details of ICA’s Social Process triangles can be found in ICA Canada’s ‘The Courage To Lead’.

We were all asked to write a few lines of text for Winds & Waves before we closed the meeting.  Reflections included:

  • Good time together, Stronger connection with ICA Europe. Practical actions to take forward. Thank you for coming! – Lan, Paris
  • Saturday I went to Paris and participated in part of the European Interchange. It was really a very inspiring day, lots of interesting project and nice to meet people from UK, Spain and France. Quite a lot is actually happening in France, very interesting! – Elisabeth, Luxembourg
  • First of all, I’m very glad and pleased to be in my first ICA European Interchange. It was really exciting and very interesting, gathering where we could know about each other in a personal and professional level. The most exciting point is that we created a great network in order to collaborate and participate all together.  There were a lot of new ideas and projects that were born in this gathering! I’m looking forward to start co-operation with all ICA members – Iman, ICA Spain
  • As a recent ToP student/trainee, I was invited to join the participants of the ICA European Interchange meeting for the 3rd and last day. I was happy to hear what other chapters of ICA in Europe are up to, and to learn more about the story of the organisation, its mission and values. It was great being part of the conversation about the ways ICAs could co-operate. We came up with practical ideas. I’m looking forward to sharing more ideas and insights with other ICA members throughout Europe – Lorraine, Paris
  • We had fun hanging out, building and sustaining relationships. We learned from and were inspired by each other. We made practical and realistic plans to keep doing things together and supporting each other – Alan, ICA:UK
  • It has been a very inspiring Paris gathering. Key information shared and reviewed for well-informed future decisions on a European and international level. Key questions raised about our mission and values beside the added value of ToP in our network. Great step in having ICAI’s ‘Plan de Trabajo’ in different languages! Very nice having French colleagues joining on Sunday and letting all of us refresh and learn more about ICA and our history – Catalina, ICA Spain
  • It was very interesting to see so much enthusiasm for learning and exchange in Europe for ICA values and ToP methods. Nice to see concrete actions coming out of three days of talking! – Shelley, ICA:UK
  • A very positive and action-oriented ICA Europe gathering in Paris.  Good to meet new people and look to the future – Derek, ICA:UK
  • A great day with wide open minds and ideas to contribute to an enthusiastic human-oriented project! With enthusiastic people and a lot of energy. Big action plan and quite exciting possibilities
  • Meeting nice people. Impressed by the process to handle the implementation part of the meeting. Long way to go…

Many thanks indeed to Lan and everyone for a great event!

Anyone wishing to connect with the ICA European network is invited to email ICAEurope-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.