Babel Fish Group

Presenting on Living Systems Mapping…

Andrew — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:26:44 +0000

Living systems mapping

View more presentations from AndrewRixon.

These slides support a presentation I am doing tomorrow for a Knowledge Management Roundtable meeting. Any thoughts?

Learn how to facilitate focus groups – Friday August 20th

Andrew — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:35:45 +0000

Looking for a chance to freshen up your facilitation skills? Got some complex projects that need engagement processes and strategies?

Our next public program focussing on helping you learn how to design and run fun focus groups will be held in Melbourne CBD on Friday August 20th.

Download this easy-scan-fax-in brochure to register…

What is Open Space?

Andrew — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:32:04 +0000

Open Space Intro by Harrison Owen from Harrison Owen on Vimeo.

Want to read a little more? Here’s a quick one-pager.

Hitchhikers guide to Better Meetings

Andrew — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:28:18 +0000

Ever experienced or participated in a meeting which you felt could have been better?

With the story of our name being partly inspired by a reference to Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, I thought it could be a bit of fun to take a look at three phrases that are found within and see how they might provide some insight into facilitating better meetings. After all, not unlike a group facilitator, being a galactic hitchhiker will see you needing to be crafty, resourceful, nimble and travelling light!

The Answer’s 42

In the first novel and radio series, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown.

How often have you been in a meeting where people are focussing on jumping to answers, regardless of what the problem or question actually is? It’s interesting to notice how quickly people sometimes want to jump into action, but at the cost of not laying the groundwork for what’s needed in making these actions sustainable. Like, for instance, building relationships.

Thinking there’s one right answer and it’s 42 is a whole other problem for meetings. This manifests itself by way of pre-determined outcomes and an inability to accept emergent outcomes. For a tool to help you through this one go here.

This leads us naturally on to the next principle.

DON’T PANIC

In the series, DON’T PANIC (always upper-case) is a phrase written on the cover of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.The novel explains that this was partly because the device “looked insanely complicated” to operate, and partly to keep intergalactic travelers from panicking. It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words “Don’t Panic” in large, friendly letters on the cover. Arthur C. Clarke said Douglas Adams’ use of “don’t panic” was perhaps the best advice that could be given to humanity.

I remember a session ran at the Australian facilitators conference several years ago which was titled “Don’t freak out – Doing your best facilitation”. With the wisdom of moving beyond the answer’s 42 comes the hair raising truth of getting to know all about emergent outcomes first hand. Not to mention experiencing the emotions and reactions of groups working their way through the four rooms of change.

It’s deceptively simple, but “don’t panic” means breathe……. In…….. Out………

Knowing where one’s towel is

Somebody who can stay in control of virtually any situation is somebody who is said to know where his or her towel is. The logic behind this statement is presented in chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy thus:

“….a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. ”

Personally, I think knowing where one’s towel is, as a group facilitator, is about knowing what the purpose is for bringing the group together. Understanding at a deep level what the meeting is really about. All the other things (processes, flipcharts, marker pens and sticky dots) can be like the toothbrush, washcloth, soap and biscuits. But to understand the purpose and what is bringing the group together will, like the towel, provide immense psychological value. Further helping you with the previous principle “Don’t panic”.

Bringing it all together. Here are some questions to reflect on:

How have you seen the Answer’s 42 manifest in meetings you’ve been part of? How can noticing more help?

What are your Panic buttons? In what scenario’s or interactions would it be helpful for you to have your own sign “Don’t Panic” ready and available?

Reflecting on your own experience of working with groups, how often have you lost or misplaced your towel? Or maybe never had it to begin with?

What stands out most for you?

Looking for an inspiring conference to attend? Try this years Celebrating Story Conference…

Andrew — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:07:20 +0000

This of course, is a peak into what happened last year.

For more info on this years conference click here.

There’s a werewolf in the room…

Andrew — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:20:16 +0000

If you’re interested in all things facilitation, then don’t miss the Facilitation One Day Wonder held on 8th September.

I will be there running a session which is taking the elephant in the room to the extreme. My session is called “There’s a werewolf in the room” and the session description is:

This 90 minute highly experiential session will provide the opportunity to engage in an Improv game that is all about paranoia and misinformation. Why bother? Here are some questions to consider:
How important are non-verbals? As facilitators, how aware are we of power dynamics within the groups we work? What are some creative ways to explore group decision making? How do you look after yourself while facilitating? Have you ever wondered how Improv is relevant to facilitation? Can having fun create learning opportunities?

From our last Newsletter

Andrew — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:55:38 +0000

There are so many group facilitation techniques and methods around these days. Examples include focus groups, the six action shoes, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space Technology, world cafe, future search, Story and narrative approaches just to name a few.

Whilst many of the facilitation techniques mentioned provide an entry point for helping to realise value, what is often missing is how to be provocative and really bring opportunities to life. In this newsletter I would like to share one (deceptively) simple principle that might help: Be prepared to be spontaneous.

The need for preparation

The first ironic and maybe even paradoxical element to being spontaneous, is the need to be prepared. For some reason there often is a strange belief that being spontaneous means that there is no foundation or preparation involved before-hand. And, worse, that being spontaneous is being wishy-washy. But, like the saying “the mind needs to be charged for genius, if it strikes, to ignite” – preparation helps to charge the mind for the opportunities that spontaneity brings.

Why is it so hard to be spontaneous?

Apart from the problems of letting go associated with planning and preparation, Jacob Moreno (founder of a science of spontaneity) has said:

“An individual may begin any specific activity with improvisation. But the more and more often improvisations around that complex are produced, the more the tendency develops in the individual to pick out from past efforts, the best actions, gestures, thoughts and phrases, in other words, to improvise less and less and to develop more and more safe and organized anchorage.”

Along with individual impedances to spontaneity, there are also group effects. Moreno has discussed how spontaneity is inversely proportional to group size. Improvising and being spontaneous alone or with a small group is a whole different story to that with a larger audience of 20 or more. What’s happened? Now there are cultural, societal and group norms that are at play. Moreno called this the Cultural conserve. Something sticky…

But we are destined to be spontaneous…

By now, you might be wondering how it is that we can be spontaneous at all, with both individual and group effects working against spontaneity. Ironically, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work has shown, it is the positive and constructive value of the states of anxiety and boredom that help us to reconnect with flow experiences and ultimately spontaneity.

So what does any of this have to do with being more provocative?

Maybe some of these questions might spark some opportunities for your own provocative facilitation. How well do you balance the need to prepare with the ability to adapt, change and improvise? Having developed a style of facilitation, what are your “safe anchorages”? What issues or opportunities lay in going against-the-grain of a group’s norms and culture? How might you leverage the states of anxiety or boredom to create movement and flow?

And after all this, it could be that Harrison Owen’s principle of “Doing one less thing” might be all you need to really be provocative…

Where would you start?

A leadership poem…

Andrew — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:46:36 +0000

From time to time, in the jobs I get involved in, I find different creative expressions emerging… Ways of adding a bit of zest and zing… And, thanks to Chris Corrigan’s beautiful display of poetry at the recent Show Me the Change conference I’ve been reconnecting with my own poetic inclinations… Here’s a poem fresh off the press from a current project…

They say the leader should
step up and take the wheel
But what opportunities lay
with a very different spiel?

From Ship Captain to Gardener,
A shift in metaphors
To re-language leadership
And get down on all fours.

No longer does it matter
About the place of where to head
Now it’s become about
What to plant instead.

Done away with the anxiety
Of getting the big ship turning
Now what becomes the focus
Is having all Gardeners learning.

It’s not all just weeding
There’s a lot for our Gardener to know
Much of it depends on the plants
And what they need to grow.

Finally, for the most important lesson
You’ll hear a Gardener say
“Too much fiddling, too much fussing
Plants grow themselves – Don’t get in the way”.

Sharing tea with an old friend

Andrew — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:05:13 +0000

PS– Thanks to Chris Corrigan for a great description of what these are…

Can you speak with conviction?

Andrew — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:50:29 +0000

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.