Author Archives: marthaplasley

The life balance wheel gives a snapshot of our life right now, allowing us to assess our level of satisfaction in different areas of life and serving as a foundation for our strategic plan.

Instructions: With the center of the wheel as 0 and the outer edge as 10, rank your level of satisfaction with each life area by drawing a curved line to create a new outer edge. What actions can you take to increase your scores?

Balance wheel categories:

A description of each area of the balance wheel follows, but encourage clients to create their own balance wheel categories and descriptions based on what matters to them.… Read more

Background

David Cooperrider realized that most organizations are predisposed towards “what is wrong” within the organization. He attributed this predisposition to the inculcated problem-solving mentality of the scientific method which tends to ignore “what is working”, “has gone well”, and “does not need fixed” components of the organization. In developing Appreciative Inquiry, Cooperrider refocused the attention away from the critical, more pessimistic perceptions of the organization to the supportive, more optimistic behaviors. In doing so, he sought to harness the untapped creative energies by redirecting the attention away from object relations problem solving and towards an appreciative inquiry of the stories of success held by the people within the organization.… Read more

A dubious consulting industry and “profession” has developed, claiming to provide “change management” services. Those two words make about as much sense together as “holy war”, “non-working mother”, “mandatory option”, and “political principles”. Many of the books, models, theories, and “processes” on change have come from staff support people, consultants, or academics who’ve never built a business or led an organization. “Change management” comes from the same dangerously seductive reasoning as strategic planning. They’re both based on the shaky assumption that there’s an orderly thinking and implementation process which can objectively plot a course of action like Jean Luc Piccard on the starship Enterprise and then ‘make it so’.… Read more

The myth of scarcity says there isn’t enough power and we each have to fight for our piece of the pie. But in fact there is enough power for everyone, and the supply is unlimited. Many associate power with domination and oppression, but that’s not the essence of power. Power can be compounded and multiplied, like two friends at the gym working together to both become strong. Or one person can leverage their power by giving someone a hand up a steep incline. In the same way, we can cultivate a shared-power culture where all needs matter.

Power is simply the ability to meet needs.… Read more

When people ask to co-facilitate with me, many factors run through my brain quickly as I consider whether to work with them. I want to work with people who bring in perspectives, experience and cultural identities that I don’t have. Recently I said no to someone who wanted to know why. That prompted me to really think about the skills sets I’m looking for in a co-facilitator. 

Awareness and Tone

• Demonstrates high needs consciousness, holds all needs as valuable
• Recognizes own judgment, can self empathize and easily shift to generative thinking
• Demonstrates openness to trying new ways of doing things
• Believes in the resourcefulness, courage and inspiration of each individual
• Reads the energy, voice and body language of each person in the room
• Shares vulnerability and is open to learning and growth
• Demonstrates comfort with group process and conflict
• Values own learning as much as participants; dances on the growing edge
• Solicits developmental feedback and continuously works on self improvement

Facilitation Skills

• Offers empathic reflections
• Elicits learning from the wisdom of the group
• Dances with aliveness, stays present and changes course
• Holds multiple agendas simultaneously
• Demonstrates tracking skills and weaves in the threads
• Creates experiential activities on the fly
• Exudes passion for making learning fun, bold, playful
• Elicits creativity using collaborative approach
• Creates aesthetically appealing flip charts
• Dances spaciously with co-facilitator – blending, taking the lead, covering, tracking, holding the container for learning
• Adds to co-facilitator’s learning, leveraging each other’s personal growth

Cultural Humility

• Demonstrates awareness of power, privilege, rank and culture 
• Honors cultural differences 
• Connects authentically  
• Addresses oops and ouch with directness and compassion 
• Works on self—biases, stereotypes and beliefs 
• Can support people in changing their behavior without making them wrong 
• Invites people into the conversations for exploration 

Modalities

Experienced designer and facilitator of Organizational Development interventions

• Visioning Process
• Strategic Planning
• Appreciative Inquiry
• World Café
• Future Search
• Open Space Technology
• Sociocracy
• Board Governance
• Diversity Dialogue
• Non-profit Leadership Development

Other Skills

• Demonstrates wide range of skills: training design, coaching, consulting, mediation, negotiation
• Articulates the observations and sensations that inform intuition
• Creates space and encourages playfulness, humor, wackiness and love
• Makes requests that are connected to needs awareness
• Diagnoses stage of organizational development and creates appropriate interventions
• Designs experiential training using NLP to match different learning styles
• Practices spiral wizardry and uses language that resonates in different cultures
• Understands and actively works on diversity issues and multiculturalism
• Ties design to learning and organizational objectives
• Holds the details and ensures logistics are covered
• Creates handouts with appealing lay-out and design
• Knows or can find subject matter experts to collaborate
• Leads engaging teleclasses

Expression

• Expresses transparently, vulnerably and authentically
• Reflects back feelings, needs, and implied requests
• Assists people in making doable requests
• Communicates concepts and directions with clarity in 40 words or less
• Interrupts as soon as people stop listening, demonstrating care and understanding for the speaker
• Debriefs learning on four levels – observations, feelings, needs, action
• Vocalizes appreciation without generalizing or labeling
• Gives caring, honest, inspirational feedback
• Authentically shares mourning, celebrations, and gratitude for contributions

Timing

• Establishes connection, inclusion, tone, trust, intimacy, and engages participants immediately
• Ensures that every voice is heard within the first 15 minutes
• Meets needs of both fast and slow-paced participants
• Shares consciousness of time and can hold agreements
• Slows down to do deep work and holds silence during transformation
• Sequences learning activities that build on each other
• Creates closure that captures and transfers learning
• Starts and ends on time, yet generates a sense of spaciousness

Gets Results

• Facilitates meetings where everyone is heard and the group get results (balances process and task)
• Captures salient points on flip chart
• Builds consensus and gets agreements
• Creates action plans with accountability structures
• Designs metrics for evaluating and improving the quality of the program
• Hears the emerging needs of the client and can design/sell the next phase of the program

Sales

• Leverages networking skills, brings people together, recognizes opportunity
• Can get in the door, connect and sell programs that delight clients
• Hears the clients’ pain fully before offering strategies for easing the pain
• Creates ease, helping clients share their hopes, dreams and budget
• Articulates program options that meet client needs
• Elevates client relationships to see new possibilities
• Asks for and receives enough money to sustain future work and contribute to underserved communities
• Writes proposals that resonate – in the client’s language
• Develops sustainable support systems and builds community

Written by Martha Lasley

For more articles like this, go to the www.authenticcommunicationgroup.com… Read more

Do we have to do anything special when we coach people who are different from us? In any coaching relationship, the client chooses the agenda, so how can our differences possibly matter? We’re all human beings, right? So can’t we just focus on the similarities?

Differences don’t matter, unless you’re the one who is different. Let’s start by looking at the micro-inequities experienced by people who are not part of the dominant culture – white, male, straight, Christian, or able-bodied. From MIT, Mary Rowe has been studying micro-inequities since 1973, and defines them as “apparently small events which are often ephemeral and hard-to-prove, events which are covert, often unintentional, frequently unrecognized by the perpetrator, which occur wherever people are perceived to be ‘different.’”… Read more

How do we build thriving communities? Anke Wessels, the executive director for the Center for Transformation at Cornell University, actively supports transformation in her local community. After years of debate, community opposition, protests and legal wrangling, Wal-Mart opened a store in Ithaca. Members of the Religious Task Force for a Living Wage were outraged by unreturned phone calls and wanted to write an op-ed piece condemning the low wages paid by Wal-Mart. When Anke asked the group to look at what they wanted – to ensure a living wage for workers – they determined that an op-ed piece might not be the best way to achieve their goal.… Read more

Diagnosing individual behavior or group process can feel intellectually stimulating and can give facilitators a sense of order and comfort. Diagnosis gives us the sense that “this is familiar territory” when in actuality, we’re experiencing a unique moment in time. The practice of labeling individual or group behaviors can generate respect for the facilitator’s intellect, but does it really help the group to build awareness?

Often a clinical shroud falls over the group, the hierarchical divide widens between the person doing the diagnosing and those diagnosed, the group connection weakens, and deeper awareness of the needs of the group is obscured.… Read more

Acknowledging – helping people see things they may take for granted or are unable to see about their values, contributions, or impact on the group.

Example: “This group cares deeply about team spirit and making a meaningful contribution.”

Articulating – succinctly describing what is happening in the moment by sharing observations, naming group dynamics, or group process.

Example: “The group seems both afraid and excited about confronting the director. I sense fear, excitement, and a desire to be understood. How can you use the group energy to request what you want?”

Asking Empowering Questions – using open-ended questions to evoke clarity, insight, and action.… Read more

When we label our emotions as good, bad, or terrible, we color our experience which changes it. Too often we put a positive valence on some feelings such as happiness or excitement, assign a negative valence to feelings like fear, sadness, or hurt, and completely avoid anything that implies shame, guilt, depression, or anger.

If we remove the ball and chain and sit patiently with our internal reactions, we find at the core of every emotion a pure wave of energy that is free of moralistic judgment. When we see how our body holds our emotions, we develop self-compassion and find that no emotion is more positive than another.… Read more