DO YOU FACILITATE OTHERS OFF THE PAGE?

Wondering what ‘facilitating off the page’ even means? It’s our definition of collective journaling– in organizations, groups and teams. YES, this means leading journaling with your business teams.

WHAT???? How can you do that? Why would you do that?

There are lots of reasons, here’s two:

1. BEST ACTIONS TAKEN: The best actions taken happen after a team has time to analyze and synthesize; basically REFLECT upon & HARVEST from their learning and knowledge (journaling is important here). Their new wisdom comes in the form of action steps, really successful action steps.
   
   Successful action comes from a team that really knows what it knows and can connect knowledge in meaningful, purposeful ways.
   


2. ENGAGED DIVERSE PERSONALITY TYPES: What about those preferring introversion and extraversion on your team? How might you bring these two preferences together? Journaling followed by discussion, of course! It provides the power to slow the group down and bring these preferences onto the same playing field.
   
   I have a preference for introversion, when everyone starts talking and brainstorming I easily get lost and don't know what I want to say, but if I can go ‘inside’ and reflect, I can act or share my thoughts. That’s where journaling helps, it gives me time to articulate my ideas on paper before all the ideas start flowing; a moment 'within' brings clarity and ideas out. I can then relax and listen to all the ideas, knowing I can quickly access my thoughts and join in the fun of the conversation.
   
   And those that prefer extraversion, they want to think out loud, verbalize their thoughts and ideas, they are excited by other ideas as they connect them. Here, journaling, or reflecting on paper with a pen, gives them a chance to slow down and capture all those wonderful thoughts they verbalize. Ever had someone with an extroverted preference start talking, get excited and talk faster, then ask, ‘what did I just say?’ ‘Who took notes?’ See, they want you to journal for them, but we know it’s more powerful if they journal
   themselves.
   
   Engaged team members bring all their knowledge to the team and their unique perspectives, why wouldn’t you want that?
   

Check out these participant tips from our recent workshop, and get started Facilitating Others Off the Page. And Thanks to this wonderful group of participants who shared their wisdom!

A last thought, a structure that really works:

EXPERIENCE - REFLECT - ACT.

WE ARE LAS VEGAS BOUND - QRCA

We are looking forward to our trip to Las Vegas next week to LEARN, CONNECT and HAVE FUN; that's the theme of the QRCA Conference.Why are we so excited?

Well, we always love to learn and what a great group of conference attendees to learn with; connecting is our passion - with people, information, data, ideas; having fun and laughing inspires us to BE the best we can be...and even inspires us to create some COOL TOOLS, TRAINING and WORKSHOPS.

Can't wait to connect with you there. Find us at booth 117!

Leadership with a Facilitative Twist

We're happily preparing for a full and active late summer-fall IdeaConnect training and workshop schedule. Thought I'd share what's at the core of all our offerings - the Elements of Facilitative Leadership, a powerful synthesis of our friend and mentor David Sibbet's Grove Facilitation Model and the Four Flows and my teacher and mentor Lisa Michaels' Elemental Forces of Creation. I've been playing and working with these principles and teachings for years to deepen my own understanding and to apply to my own facilitative practice and every day life.

Here's an introduction:

• the Element of FIRE - Managing Attention and Action - How to energize grounded action. Enroll and orient to the desired outcomes. Set the energetic movement for a session and add energy to keep things moving. Illuminate new learning through application to real business. Activate the power of practical action in a facilitative environment.
• the Element of WATER - Managing Energy - How to feel into the emotional flow as participants learn and apply new information to their work. Invite full participation, build trust in the process and support any resistance to change in order to gain full alignment. Respond to unanticipated change with ease and flexibility. Develop emotional maturity. Understand the power of love to work internally and externally as a facilitative leader.
• the Element of AIR - Managing Information - How to engage and stimulate the mental realm. Set personal intention. Provide clarity around learning outcomes and objectives. Combine technology and low tech / high connect approaches to direct the flow of learning. Engage the power of intention to guide your facilitative leadership.
• the Element of EARTH - Managing Operations and Ownership - How to coordinate the physical details necessary for planning and delivering successful programs. Build commitment to the process and actions to be taken. Transfer ownership through ongoing coaching. Align to the power to stand on your own as a facilitative leader.
• and SPIRIT - Actualizing your Unique Facilitative Leader Self - Identify and express your unique, authentic characteristics and creative essence as a facilitative leader.

Interest peaked just a bit? Want to know a little more? Want to successfully bring into your own life and work more consciously? Drop me a note or come join us at one of our training or workshop events soon. We'd love to be with you!

What’s the WHY that is your driving motivation for action??

We’ve been inspired by Simon Sinek http://bit.ly/pbbnDo to really consider our WHY - our purpose, our cause, our beliefs. The WHY that’s our driving motivation for action?? So here we are.

We founded IdeaConnect to enhance, enable and illuminate Facilitative Leadership. We define Facilitative Leadership as the art of leading people toward agreed-upon objectives in a manner that encourages participation, ownership and creativity from all involved (and, thank you David Sibbet! We love and work with your definition of facilitation every day).

We believe in the power of human interaction – Face to Face, Heart to Heart deep conversation as a way for individuals in organizations to accomplish meaningful work together.

We believe in and take joy in Discovery and Playfulness – we take our work seriously, but don’t take ourselves too seriously. We create safe learning environments that are fun, relaxed and stimulating. We engage participants in learning journeys that foster curiosity, energy and offer a variety of learning options that appeal to all learning styles.

We believe in the power of connections and love to Connect – so we build processes and design tools that help others connect, link fresh ideas and perspectives, and come together collaboratively to create learning communities. We also know people learn best when they are learning in context and connecting to real work through immersion and reflection, so we do that too.

We believe in freedom and full heartedly support everyone’s Freedom to Choose – we create experiences that support and encourage total participation, personal responsibility and full involvement from each individual. We invite each person to be their best selves and to stand in their own power as they do the work and live the life they choose.

So that’s a little about our WHY, our purpose, our cause, our beliefs. What about you?

What’s the WHY that is your driving motivation for action??

The Letter "V" in SERVICE

After consulting a dictionary to open my mind to Service related words beginning with the letter “V” VERSATILITY and VELOCITY popped to the top of my awareness. Why? Both communicate how we do business at the IdeaConnect store.

Always VERSATILE, we are able to move and change as our customers' needs change - even moment to moment. Just a few of my favorite recent examples:

• we upgraded shipping speed. And, we didn't just change a label on the computer. We ran to UPS to retrieve a package and resent it for even faster delivery.


• we added and changed templates in orders during (and for some, after) packing.


• we found creative ways to support our customers making payments: those pesky credit card limits, sometimes multiple payments are just the thing. And we're getting really good at identifying why credit cards are declined, taking a little frustration out of the equation (usually it's is a simple billing address mismatch).

Always the picture of VELOCITY, we “print on demand” so templates are in the best possible condition when they arrive at your doorstep. And we know we love to get things fast so we work to help each customer get their things as fast as possible. If you stopped by our store in person you might only see a blur - yes we move that fast! VELOCITY, as in speedy fast, is our best ally.

So, during your next visit to the IdeaConnect store, just remember we Serve with VERSATILITY and VELOCITY! And we love SERVING YOU!

SERVICE and getting it RIGHT

Need I say more?

The most important part of getting it RIGHT is that the right product ships on the right timing. In the land of template printing and packing and shipping a high level of focus is required. There might be a few orders rolling off the printer about the same time, lots of templates to roll together, 4 of these, 2 of these, 1 of these, 8 of this….etc. It can get crazy with 4’ x 3’ papers all over the tables.

So we practice
• Living and Being “IN THE MOMENT,”
• Observing with care, each step to fulfill the order.
• Verifying that we know what we are sending.
• Enthusiastic appreciation for the customer and the work they are about to accomplish.

Continual attention to get things Right is important to us. Sometimes things don’t happen as planned, so getting it Right also means, making it Right. Interestingly, the following "crash course on customer service" just came across my attention, thought I’d pass it along,from Simple Truths

SERVICE AND EASE

I love it when something is easy and efficient, but what does EASE really entail? EASE is something I consider everyday when I come to work in the IdeaConnect store. When we at get tangled up in the details of sharing our cool tools, training and workshops on the web-store, our guiding light is the word EASE. Other words on my visual thesaurus that capture this - simplicity and facilitate. We strive to have the process of ordering make sense and be intuitive. That is much EASIER said than done.

One of our biggest challenges is communicating shipping possibilities and keeping it simple. This is something we are striving to evolve. There are so many options out there on other webstores. Have you ordered from Amazon or Tom’s Shoes or even Home of Poi? -- they are all different. A customer just wants to know when they will get their stuff! They don’t really care about

• all the store calculations that are based on lots of different estimates.


• the internal webstore programming roadblocks that take time to detour around and change.


• our estimates of product parameters that go into estimating the best shipping possibility.
  

So, which way to present shipping is the EASIEST from the customer perspective? We consider this question perpetually! This week we are working on International shipping. Thank goodness we have an expert web designer to support us. Thanks Chad!