The Art of Transformative Facilitation with Tessa Sharp and Keith Jones - OrgDev Episode 13

How do you create a meaningful learning experience that expands the capability of an individual and transforms their worldview so that they develop greater capability, confidence, creativity, and adaptability?

For this week's episode of OrgDev we invited Tessa Sharp and Keith Jones to join us.  They have dedicated a large part of their careers to trying to figure these things out. They have extensive experience working in 48 countries and have led Alchemy Worldwide since 2016.  They specialise in executive and leadership learning and transformation and are co-authors of the book Provoke: The Art of Transformative Facilitation.

You can buy the book here:
https://alchemyww.com/books

You can contact them here:
https://alchemyww.com/contact-us

You can find out more about them here:
https://alchemyww.com/

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About Us

We’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.

Find out more at www.distinction.live

We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:
linkedin.com/in/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

Transcript

WEBVTT

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Hi, and welcome to the Dev podcast. So how do you create a meaningful

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learning experience that expands the capability of an individual and transforms

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their worldview so they develop greater capability,

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confidence, creativity and adaptability.

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So we've invited Tessa Sharp and Keith Jones, who've dedicated a

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large part of their career to trying to figuring these things out. They're two

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highly experienced learning and organization development practitioners that we've

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got an enormous amount of respect for. They combined 40 years of experience

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and worked in 48 countries and worked in businesses,

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on boards as directors, partners and consultants.

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And they brought that together to co found Alchemy worldwide in 2016.

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They specialize in executive and leadership learning and transformation.

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Now, we discovered Tessa and Keith through this book.

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This beautiful, I think, is the best way to describe it. Danny, it is beautiful

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book provoke, and this is called provoke the Art of Transformative

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facilitation, which they co authored. And we'd love to know how

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you co author a book which is great.

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It's a long story, which we want to find out.

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It was nominated as best business book of the year, and that's the

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first facilitation book to ever achieve that title.

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And this book has the aim of expanding thinking about how to develop

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business leaders. It's based upon the established principles of psychology,

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learning and human transformation. And one of the things they introduce into it is

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their transformate model of facilitation, which we'll discover in more

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detail as well. So we're absolutely delighted to have Tessa and

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Keith join us today. So in this session, we're going to explore transformative facilitation.

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Invitation.

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Lovely to have you on. Thank you for joining us. Pleasure to be here.

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Thank you for inviting us. Yes, thank you. Excellent. So we're

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just going to kick off with a simple question. Just tell us a bit more

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about what you do, your role in your consultancy. What does that entail?

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What you get up to? So, Tessa, did you want to kick off?

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So, I am a co founder of Alchemy Worldwide.

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Together with Keith, we wanted to create a

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business that enabled us to explore

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and develop our work in transformative facilitation.

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Over the years, Keith and I had come together professionally,

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and clients loved the mix, the complementarity of

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the two different personalities that we are, and they

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kept asking for us. So around the world, our various clients were

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saying to us, can you and Keith do this piece of work together?

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And one of our clients in Asia then asked us to write

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down the methodology and the way that we work because the

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impact that we were having on many of their senior execs,

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their partners and senior leaders were reporting that the

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impact of our approach stays with them

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for years. And we often have situations of bumping into

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people at airports, you know, and I'm trying to remember which client organization,

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which country, which program.

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So in terms of my role as co founder,

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I basically run the business side of the business

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as well as being on my feet as a facilitator,

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because a practitioner is what I am at heart.

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But in a small business, you probably experience this. You have to wear many

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hats. Absolutely. And so that's what I do. I'm supported

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by a brilliant freelance team around us.

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And I would say of the business and Keith, you may have different view

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here, but I would see Keith as the visionary

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for the business. He is the person who brings the most diverse

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ideas to the table. And then we wrestle with each other

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in a very good, willing kind of way to

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get to a point of truth that feels as though it's a fit for

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us both and in the way we represent that through our work.

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I love to be in the environment of sharing

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our way of working and working with clients.

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Pretty much now it's with senior leaders,

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ex cos and some boards in terms of

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the dynamic of working to create this transformative

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experience for individual participants

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that will stay with them. And that's the key part, I think. I would say

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from my perspective, it may not be comfortable experiences for

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everyone because transformation often isn't. But I

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just love working in that emergent, unpredictable space.

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So I would say that's probably my role. Keith, is there anything I've missed

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off there? No, I think that's pretty clear, actually,

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Tess. And so I think you've covered

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it pretty accurately. So you describe what you do as transformative

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facilitation. There's lots of people who facilitate and would describe themselves as facilitators.

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What is it about the way you work that makes it transformative?

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What's the difference? I think that the biggest difference is to do with

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the encounter. I mean, I think it would be fair to say that

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a lot of people will say, well, what's the difference between transformation and change?

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Because these terms are often used interchangeably. What is the difference

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between transformative facilitation and facilitation?

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It's actually to do with the quality of the encounter between

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the facilitator, the delegate and the group

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itself. And anybody who has worked

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in human development will understand exactly what happens

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when there is a contact boundary, which we will term as

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a contact boundary. And that is the point and we test

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may go into this later on when we talk about the dimensions of

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transformation, but there becomes a point of compression,

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and the compression that the individual has is a compression

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to, in a sense, their internal mirror or the internal

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reflection of themselves. What transformative

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facilitation therefore does is create the container, the context

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in which that particular experience shows

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up. I think in the very

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opening paragraph of the book itself,

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there is a small quote that's in there and it

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talks about. It's a much used quote, but it's basically

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someone going on a journey, coming back to the beginning and discovering

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that place for the very first time. That, I think,

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is really the essence of what transformative facilitation is

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about. And it goes to the core of the identity, human identity.

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And I guess just for people joining us today, interestingly, when we put a couple

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of posts out saying, we're actually running a podcast with Tessa and

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Keith, a lot of people just contact us out of the blue and said,

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oh, you're going to really enjoy this.

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Who are these people? Even yesterday, someone messaged me to say,

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oh, wow, you guys are brilliant. What was your journey

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into this field? There's lots of interesting experience, isn't it? So,

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Keith, you know, you've actually studied traditional japanese martial arts, all sorts

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of different. So much,

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I would make a pitch and say, you'll have to read my doctoral thesis,

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which comes out this year, and it has it all in

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there. But fundamentally, it was

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a life as a consultant psychologist, originally in

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clinical and forensic training for

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seven years as a clinical psychotherapist in group and individual

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psychotherapy, 50 years as

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someone who has studied traditional japanese budo

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and everything that accompanies the study of

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such an immersive physical art itself.

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So all of those things combined, plus an enduring curiosity,

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particularly for ways of thinking,

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alternative ways of thinking, that has really dominated

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all of my life. And so, you know,

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when I got to a particular point and really wanted to consolidate

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those things, I used to say to Tess regularly that

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my life seemed like a huge jigsaw puzzle where

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the place, the pieces actually didn't fit. They were random.

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But actually the thing was, is that actually they did

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fit together. They fitted together rather brilliantly

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into a picture that I had no idea was being created.

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And so the interrelationship between those things

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really was many of the things that gave birth to what provoke

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was about. So that's kind of where it is for

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me, I think over 60 odd, not 40 odd

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years of human dilemmas. So, Tess, what about you?

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Well, the question that came up for me when I was thinking about

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the answer to your question, Garen, was what makes people

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do what they do and what makes me do what

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I do in the way that I do it? And some of those magical

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parts about so much of life

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as I experience it. And this is my values and

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belief system, and I know others may not share it,

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but it's one of curiosity and

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coming from a place of goodwill, gentleness and

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harmony. And I don't mean that in any flaky way

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at all. There is a part of hard nosed

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business which absolutely can be done

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with gentleness, humility, generosity and

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goodwill. And being able to understand the

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way that manifests both in myself and in the

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people that we work with is a core quality

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and a core part of our methodology. Now, that may

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not sound different, but in actual fact, what I find

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is I work with our clients from the very first

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call or the very first meeting, from that position

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of goodwill and good intent

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for them as a person. Because I recognise that our

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commissioning clients are not just the role that

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they do, they're not just the function

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or the department or the production of

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performance and work, but they're actually human beings who

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may suffer some very similar self doubt

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and lack of belief and impostor syndrome that are things that I've

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worked with and experienced right the way through my life.

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So that's part of, I think, what drives me in this

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work. And to work with really

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bright senior people who are, you know,

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40 to 60 in age group, from such an

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enormous range of cultures that we've worked with.

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It's fascinating because when you're able to,

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or when you're given permission by your participants

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as individuals to work with them, to just open

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up the layers of their belief, their actions,

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their experience, and they allow themselves

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to be vulnerable because they trust who they're working

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with, it is such a magical yet

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scary place to be. You know, as facilitators,

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we're often taught that, you know, it's the way

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that you perform but don't perform is

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the quality of the questions that you ask. For me, it's far more

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about the nature of the relationship that we create

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together and the intent with which we come

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to the table. We have a criteria of participant

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that we love to work with and we make that explicit

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when we do the briefing calls for each participant group that we

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might be working with. And even just that in itself can

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shift because it creates a context for something different,

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quite a different type of commercial contraception.

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So writing a book is no small undertaking. What was the driver behind it?

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What prompted you to kind of put pen to paper and write,

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provoke? Yeah, I guess. Sorry, just to add, this is not

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like a normal book. We. Danny and I read a lot of books

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as part of our sort of professional development, but also because of this as well.

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This is not like a normal kind of book, though, is it, Danny?

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It's. I've been carrying it around for about a month and a

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half now. Version, Garen, the pocket,

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back pocket version. And it's just.

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It's just the way it's designed. It's curated. It's the photographs. It's just.

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This is a real. It's beautiful. It's a big stunt. It really is.

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Thank you. And it's not something ever going to sort of, like, just disappear away

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on your shelf somewhere. This is always going to be some of the central part

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of your thinking, isn't it? Well, I think that the.

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In answer to the question about the writing of the book, there were a number

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of things. There was both the impetus of wanting to.

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To codify an idea, to go defy a

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method of working that required both enormous agility from

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the facilitator, a great breadth in

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terms of skill and knowledge, and also

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a huge amount of courage, personal courage that

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it takes to actually do this work and to do this work in the right

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way. Because when you step into that particular space that

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we talk about, you really don't know

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what is going to happen. It is not predictable.

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People are not predictable in some

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circumstances. So what happened

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was that we began to develop a particular way of

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working that was that clients reflected back to

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us. And I think really the impetus came from them that they were

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saying was so profoundly different to anything that

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they face with almost every learning and development provider.

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So in no way does it demean what other colleagues do.

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But what they said was, is that this is just so

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different. It's so different.

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They said, you've got to write about it. And I resisted that for a long

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time. But when we decided to write the book, two things were

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really clear to me, and I don't know who the authors are

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in the books behind you, Garen, and I think it would be appropriate

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not to say their names, whoever they are. But I can

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guarantee you that we've got hundreds of books just like that that I've

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never opened, never read every single

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book that I've ever used in my professional life.

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You know, when I open it, you get great coverage, and then it's text beginning

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to end. It does nothing for me personally.

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So I've dipped into books where I've needed and wanted to read it, and I

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wanted to, and Tessa will say from her side,

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but we really wanted to create a book that drew people in,

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that engaged people on so many different levels

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and in so many different ways, so that the

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book itself developed a narrative or

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a story between the book and the reader. And that

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space that was in between is the one that gives birth

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to some new ideas and some new creativity. And the

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best way of describing it was we wanted to produce a

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professional book that looked like a coffee table book. There you go.

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In simplistic terms. Mission accomplished on that. Thank you very

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much indeed. And how did you come up with provoke as its title?

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What was behind that? It was surprising, because when people provoke

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will mean something different to you than it is at will to you, Garen.

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And it means different to anybody who picks the book up. But it was never

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intended, and I think we are right about this in the first chapter.

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This was never intended to create

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an alternative to the orthodoxy of facilitation.

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By no means was it ever intended to do that.

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The word how provoke came up was

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actually as a direct consequence of us provoking

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ourselves into new spaces.

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That's really what it was. And it really did.

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It took four years to write that book of unbelievable

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pain at endurance, staggering sleepless

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nights and nightmares.

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And, of course, we were doing this whilst we had just started a brand

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new business and transitioned our clients into

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our new business. So we were on, like crazy

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delivery schedules with no infrastructure in the business to

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speak of. So it was a bit of a wild time.

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But there were certainly times, I think, when, you know, Keith would say,

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I've spent the last three weeks trying to get under the

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skin of this particular bit. So I just say

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to him, right, come on, we're going to go to the local national trust

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gardens. And we would walk around and I'd have

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a pad and a pen, and I

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would just ask Keith a question and he

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would extrovert his thinking, whether it was fully formed or not.

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And I would just mind map it all. And there were times when

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what came out of his mouth didn't make any sense at all,

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in which case I would ask into it.

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And it was amazing, the power

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of emergence that came just by

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us both sitting wrestling in our own

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bed of thoughts and silence until such a point that Keith was

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able to just find a thread.

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I don't know if you've ever watched Discovery of witches,

17:36.104 --> 17:39.640
but the way she weaves the magic, it really was a bit like

17:39.672 --> 17:43.240
that, trying to catch a thread, which then led on to a whole new way

17:43.272 --> 17:46.472
of thinking about something. Would that be? Yeah,

17:46.608 --> 17:50.416
I think you sum it up brilliantly, and I'm glad that you used the

17:50.600 --> 17:53.912
imagery of discovery of witches. I would like to think to myself,

17:53.968 --> 17:57.896
as a weaver, I think, at the end of the day, but despite

17:58.000 --> 18:01.660
my weaving capability, the Tess

18:01.692 --> 18:05.284
is absolutely right. One of the things that really surprised me

18:05.324 --> 18:09.244
about the writing of the book was that anyone

18:09.284 --> 18:12.748
who's written a book will know that there is a

18:12.796 --> 18:16.184
space inside from where the book is written.

18:16.484 --> 18:20.484
And you either produce. When you produce from that space,

18:20.604 --> 18:23.692
you know you've got it, whatever that individual

18:23.748 --> 18:27.388
is, and you'll know when you write masses and masses, and it's nowhere

18:27.436 --> 18:30.584
near where that is, and you just discard it.

18:31.684 --> 18:35.588
So there were a number of things. One was actually touching

18:35.636 --> 18:38.860
into that deeply personal space from where

18:38.892 --> 18:42.460
the words came from. Number two was that much of the

18:42.492 --> 18:46.140
book was written. And I'll paraphrase

18:46.212 --> 18:50.516
the Christopher Bolas, who wrote a book called speaking the Unthought

18:50.580 --> 18:53.948
known, which is just a wonderful title,

18:53.996 --> 18:57.274
because an awful lot of the book emerged

18:57.654 --> 19:01.630
from a story that was unknown to me cognitively.

19:01.742 --> 19:05.390
And yet I knew it viscerally. I knew it somatically,

19:05.542 --> 19:09.374
I knew it in my very fabric of my body, because of the

19:09.414 --> 19:12.862
experiences that I'd had and created.

19:13.038 --> 19:16.646
And so when we come back to the title of provoke,

19:16.750 --> 19:20.234
provoke is actually about the space in between the words.

19:21.194 --> 19:24.514
What does it draw for from the reader

19:24.674 --> 19:28.442
about their own reflection

19:28.618 --> 19:32.034
as a learner, as a facilitator, as somebody

19:32.154 --> 19:36.294
in this unique position of human excellence.

19:36.834 --> 19:40.042
So that's really where that book came from. But there is another

19:40.098 --> 19:43.854
little story that I'll hold, which is the model.

19:44.314 --> 19:47.802
The story of the model is even more ridiculous.

19:47.898 --> 19:51.934
But I'd say, as a reader of the book, I was definitely putting myself

19:51.974 --> 19:55.286
in the position of a learner, you know, and reflecting how I'd

19:55.310 --> 19:59.046
learn in different scenarios and also as a facilitator. So it definitely did

19:59.070 --> 20:01.750
that for me. Well, you can take. You can see that, Danny, when you read

20:01.782 --> 20:05.470
the book, and particularly when I look at some of the methods, like corporate enactment

20:05.582 --> 20:08.514
or the dialogic approach, or,

20:09.334 --> 20:12.994
you know, you provide the transcripts, you can see

20:13.294 --> 20:16.434
how different that process is

20:16.474 --> 20:20.026
when it's in operation, for sure. Fab. Yeah. So one of the things that emerged

20:20.050 --> 20:23.266
for you as you're writing the book was what you call the transformate way.

20:23.330 --> 20:26.570
So that eight stage model. Could you just tell us a bit more

20:26.602 --> 20:30.314
about that what that looks like for anybody who's not had the pleasure of reading,

20:30.474 --> 20:34.818
hitting a writer's block, which is enormously

20:34.866 --> 20:38.762
painful. You know, any writer that gets up and sees that

20:38.818 --> 20:42.614
blank sheet on their computer screen, it begs

20:42.654 --> 20:46.078
to be filled, and you don't know what you're going to put on it,

20:46.166 --> 20:49.142
but you know that something's got to go in it because you can't get to

20:49.158 --> 20:52.566
the next page. And I was in that place for four

20:52.630 --> 20:55.914
weeks, five weeks, and it's really painful.

20:56.254 --> 21:00.514
And I remember saying to Tess, I've got to find something

21:00.894 --> 21:05.006
which will enable us to encapsulate

21:05.190 --> 21:08.710
what this model, this approach is

21:08.742 --> 21:12.074
about. And I will never forget. It's like anything, when anyone

21:12.114 --> 21:15.722
has a great memory of something, you know exactly where you were,

21:15.818 --> 21:19.146
exactly what the time was. And I remember it. It was a Saturday

21:19.250 --> 21:22.842
night. I went to bed. And the model that Tess will show you,

21:22.898 --> 21:26.754
I saw in a dream in exactly the same coloring

21:26.874 --> 21:30.226
that she and I remember waking her up at five in the morning.

21:30.330 --> 21:33.930
She was delighted and overwhelmed by

21:33.962 --> 21:37.178
the experience of being woken up on a Sunday morning. At that time,

21:37.226 --> 21:41.240
we rushed into her office and drew this up onto the whiteboard.

21:41.392 --> 21:45.472
And that is the model that suddenly that. And it was like

21:45.528 --> 21:49.592
opening a gate. And then I wrote solidly for weeks

21:49.688 --> 21:52.844
and it all just came out. And that's where it was.

21:53.624 --> 21:56.800
Okay, so this model, you'll see the numbers

21:56.872 --> 21:59.484
around the circle of one to eight,

22:00.024 --> 22:03.912
which implies that it's a process. It is partly

22:03.968 --> 22:08.152
a process to help the facilitator navigate their

22:08.208 --> 22:11.136
way through the process of learning.

22:11.320 --> 22:14.712
But also, Keith can talk to the three dimensional part in

22:14.728 --> 22:18.404
a moment. When I show the representation of that graphically.

22:19.424 --> 22:22.680
But also within each one of these

22:22.752 --> 22:26.288
dimensions, we can create the most

22:26.336 --> 22:29.416
amazing insights and learning.

22:29.600 --> 22:33.608
Some of these dimensions are kind of speak to themselves or are

22:33.656 --> 22:37.040
part of frequent descriptions of

22:37.112 --> 22:40.284
navigating a workshop or something like that.

22:40.854 --> 22:44.246
So some of this terminology will be clear. So the

22:44.270 --> 22:47.126
first dimension we've called orientation,

22:47.310 --> 22:50.874
and what we find with a new group of participants,

22:51.294 --> 22:55.142
that what's really key here is that we

22:55.198 --> 22:59.246
work with them to create, if you like, the boundary

22:59.310 --> 23:02.942
lines and a scope for what we're going to cover during

23:02.998 --> 23:06.974
our time with them. It's a psychological opportunity

23:07.134 --> 23:10.640
for them to kind of arrive and we may

23:10.712 --> 23:13.968
make explicit requests around just some

23:14.016 --> 23:17.080
basic things. Like, for example, if we know that

23:17.112 --> 23:20.784
the organization is in stress in some way,

23:20.944 --> 23:24.336
then we might ask them just literally to throw down with

23:24.360 --> 23:27.536
a pen onto a piece of paper anything

23:27.600 --> 23:30.816
that they're bringing in with them, and we literally ask them

23:30.840 --> 23:34.672
to then scrunch it up and throw it in a bin, because there is a

23:34.728 --> 23:37.984
physical element of enabling them

23:38.064 --> 23:41.572
to come to the group having left

23:41.668 --> 23:45.104
any baggage that they have with them. And I know this is a naive

23:45.724 --> 23:49.212
way to do this, but to try and encourage

23:49.268 --> 23:52.660
them to be fully present and leave as much baggage out of the

23:52.692 --> 23:56.268
room as they can. We manage their expectations

23:56.396 --> 24:00.028
in that orientation part, which then moves,

24:00.076 --> 24:03.464
and these are not necessarily very clear

24:03.804 --> 24:07.636
boundary lines between these, because you'll find that some conversation and

24:07.660 --> 24:10.908
work will do. An orientation is covered again

24:11.036 --> 24:14.172
in each of the other seven dimensions. So there is

24:14.188 --> 24:18.180
an important need, I think, for us as facilitators to

24:18.212 --> 24:22.700
get really clear of our orientation into our

24:22.732 --> 24:26.744
commissioning clients, them as a person, their organization,

24:27.244 --> 24:30.812
their expectations of the outcomes of our work.

24:30.948 --> 24:33.972
Because if we have a client who says, you know,

24:34.028 --> 24:37.660
we want to change the behaviour set of our senior leaders so that

24:37.692 --> 24:41.012
they all become more agile and we've got a half days

24:41.068 --> 24:44.412
workshop to do it, you know, we will literally say,

24:44.588 --> 24:48.604
you'll waste your money if you only have half a day. And we have done

24:48.644 --> 24:52.708
that with clients before. The second part is that contracting

24:52.756 --> 24:56.556
part, where we start to manage expectation

24:56.740 --> 25:00.796
quite clearly about what they're likely to experience in working

25:00.860 --> 25:04.156
with us, that there are times when it may not be comfortable,

25:04.340 --> 25:08.240
there could be times when they might want to withdraw

25:08.312 --> 25:11.816
because of the tension in the room. And we encourage

25:11.880 --> 25:15.376
them to stay with that because their own individual

25:15.440 --> 25:18.792
tension is a place of exploration in

25:18.808 --> 25:22.800
its own, where learning can be obtained. Then I'll move on to

25:22.832 --> 25:26.560
the third dimension, which is one of immersion. And we find

25:26.632 --> 25:29.944
this with any group is we will bring

25:30.024 --> 25:33.840
them to the table to share what their experience,

25:33.992 --> 25:37.892
their knowledge, their beliefs, their understanding is

25:38.048 --> 25:41.748
of certain themes or content that the

25:41.836 --> 25:45.196
commissioning client wants to cover. It's really key here

25:45.260 --> 25:49.092
for people to be fully present in

25:49.108 --> 25:53.024
the meeting and that their contribution and their past experience

25:55.324 --> 25:58.628
is all recognised, acknowledged and kind of celebrated.

25:58.716 --> 26:02.220
There's a respect for that and a dignity about it.

26:02.332 --> 26:05.492
And I think it's really key, because if your commissioning client says,

26:05.548 --> 26:09.300
oh, I want to run a session on influencing skills,

26:09.332 --> 26:12.452
for example, you know, these guys often are,

26:12.508 --> 26:15.624
and gals are really experienced people,

26:16.684 --> 26:20.268
and in the past we've had them, they've been on programs at Harvard

26:20.316 --> 26:24.108
about influencing, or London business school or one of the

26:24.156 --> 26:27.724
big recognised business colleges or universities around

26:27.764 --> 26:31.172
the world. And so, you know, often they will

26:31.228 --> 26:34.860
have more explicit and somatic

26:34.932 --> 26:38.302
experience of that than maybe I do.

26:38.398 --> 26:42.558
And I'm really cool with that because bringing that, to the surface,

26:42.686 --> 26:46.238
encourages them to share of their experience.

26:46.406 --> 26:50.274
And even just each one talking about what they know

26:50.574 --> 26:53.994
provides much more psychological safety,

26:54.494 --> 26:58.022
a clearer sense of kind of sharing vulnerability,

26:58.118 --> 27:01.518
because you'll often get someone who'll say, oh, I had this horrendous experience

27:01.646 --> 27:05.524
where x happened, you know, and it humanizes the group

27:05.644 --> 27:09.740
in a way. So that immersion into what is already

27:09.852 --> 27:13.636
known or what is already experienced really encourages

27:13.700 --> 27:17.444
people to bring of themselves and to allow themselves to

27:17.484 --> 27:21.504
accept. We had a great client once who just said,

27:22.164 --> 27:26.060
the older I get and the more experienced I become, the more I

27:26.092 --> 27:29.644
realize how little I know, you know? So it kind of gets

27:29.684 --> 27:33.020
them into that space of, well, maybe I don't know everything. There's a lot of

27:33.052 --> 27:37.184
experience here in the room. Tess, do you mind if I take the

27:37.224 --> 27:40.724
compression and reflection parts? Sure, please do. Yeah.

27:41.744 --> 27:45.552
The reason why I want to do this is that the relationship between immersion

27:45.608 --> 27:47.884
compression and reflection are very close.

27:48.464 --> 27:52.120
And very often when people talk about reflection,

27:52.272 --> 27:56.040
there's a number of things that we found over the years has

27:56.072 --> 27:59.688
become very clear to us. The first part

27:59.776 --> 28:03.238
is that when, you know, in normal learning

28:03.286 --> 28:06.966
and development events, people will be asked to reflect on their learning, or they'll

28:06.990 --> 28:10.194
be asked to describe their learning from a particular experience.

28:11.054 --> 28:14.750
I think one of the challenges that we have to that is that

28:14.782 --> 28:18.710
the nature of human experience, or the nature of learning from experience

28:18.822 --> 28:21.434
is actually inexpressible in language,

28:21.974 --> 28:25.206
because the nature of experience is uniquely personal

28:25.310 --> 28:29.422
and uniquely private. You know, it would be the same as me

28:29.478 --> 28:32.886
asking you to describe your experience of

28:32.910 --> 28:36.718
eating an orange. You will never be able to do it

28:36.846 --> 28:41.006
in a way that gets me to get what it's like for you

28:41.150 --> 28:43.314
eating an orange. It will never happen.

28:44.294 --> 28:47.678
There may be some interpretations on that. There may be some correlation.

28:47.766 --> 28:50.910
So the important point to realize is that the

28:50.942 --> 28:54.766
nature of experience based learning is

28:54.830 --> 28:58.190
inexpressible. What we get is a representation

28:58.262 --> 29:01.648
and interpretation, a consolidation, which is

29:01.696 --> 29:04.684
expressed in either metaphor, imagery,

29:05.984 --> 29:10.032
and a whole kind of length of anecdotes, but it's

29:10.088 --> 29:12.724
not the experience itself.

29:13.384 --> 29:17.404
And so when we're talking about immersion, compression and reflection,

29:18.824 --> 29:21.648
if we had it on here, I were to draw it in a slightly different

29:21.696 --> 29:24.840
way. It would be more of a spiral, so that the

29:24.872 --> 29:28.840
point of closure that an individual comes to at a point of reflection

29:28.952 --> 29:32.574
simply becomes another open door through to further

29:32.654 --> 29:35.774
inquiry. But the point that I also want to make

29:35.814 --> 29:39.574
is that immersion, reflection, and compression are also related to

29:39.614 --> 29:43.286
someone's physicality. And this is one of the things where

29:43.350 --> 29:46.814
people would say that, you know, that they'd experienced our work

29:46.854 --> 29:50.934
so differently is that we have.

29:50.974 --> 29:54.166
We recognize very clearly that the conduits to

29:54.190 --> 29:58.204
the learning experience go through feeling,

29:58.324 --> 30:02.164
emotion, sensation. Those three are not

30:02.204 --> 30:05.904
the same thing. And people often talk about

30:06.844 --> 30:10.548
emotion as if it's some collective. For the

30:10.596 --> 30:13.916
whole spectrum of human experience, it's not.

30:14.060 --> 30:17.844
There's also the visceral nature of learning, the embodied

30:17.924 --> 30:20.988
nature of learning. And so when you get to that

30:21.036 --> 30:25.108
point, in order to mobilize the experience for

30:25.156 --> 30:29.000
somebody, in some cases, not in all cases, but in

30:29.032 --> 30:32.844
some cases, it's necessary to dramatically

30:33.304 --> 30:37.104
demonstrate that to find the way to

30:37.224 --> 30:40.936
the route to the individual experience through their body,

30:41.080 --> 30:44.456
not through their language. And that embodied,

30:44.600 --> 30:47.884
exploded expression of experience

30:48.224 --> 30:51.352
is a completely different thing

30:51.488 --> 30:55.238
altogether. So let me give you. Let me just give a very brief

30:55.286 --> 30:58.194
example to make that more tangible.

30:59.374 --> 31:03.126
And there are hundreds of experiences that we've had, but I'll

31:03.150 --> 31:06.994
just give you a couple. So there was one where I was working very recently

31:07.934 --> 31:12.394
with a senior executive back just a few weeks ago, really, in Abu Dhabi,

31:12.774 --> 31:16.270
and this particular individual was

31:16.302 --> 31:20.346
talking predominantly about finding her voice.

31:20.530 --> 31:24.898
Now, there was a cultural issue about women and

31:24.986 --> 31:28.098
having their voices heard in the way in which she

31:28.146 --> 31:32.378
expressed it, in a room full of men coming from her culture.

31:32.546 --> 31:35.586
And so the invitation was, and whether or

31:35.610 --> 31:39.242
not she wanted to do that was to contract into that space.

31:39.378 --> 31:42.666
But the way in which I did it was actually rather

31:42.730 --> 31:46.898
interesting. So the first thing that we did was a pick the individual

31:46.946 --> 31:50.824
in the room. That really was the focus for this particular

31:51.404 --> 31:54.756
exercise experiment. Secondly was to get her

31:54.780 --> 31:57.932
to stand up. There's nothing unusual in that.

31:58.068 --> 32:01.460
But the next part that became most interesting was for

32:01.492 --> 32:05.508
her to walk towards the individual and notice

32:05.596 --> 32:09.544
which step produced. That's too far

32:09.844 --> 32:13.612
or that's too close. No, that is too frightening. Take a half

32:13.668 --> 32:17.330
step back. Now, how is it? And so it was actually

32:17.442 --> 32:21.330
anchored through the physicality of her movement.

32:21.482 --> 32:25.194
Does that make sense? And so when we got to that

32:25.234 --> 32:28.754
particular point, she was able then to

32:28.794 --> 32:32.134
release her voice through her physicality,

32:32.434 --> 32:36.386
not through practicing something or using her

32:36.410 --> 32:40.294
voice in a different way, but using her whole embodied experience.

32:40.674 --> 32:44.082
And it was really quite remarkable because at the end

32:44.098 --> 32:46.706
of the program, she came up to me and she said, you know,

32:46.730 --> 32:50.346
Keith, there was an enormous amount of content in this program,

32:50.490 --> 32:54.094
much of which I've already forgotten. But that experience,

32:54.754 --> 32:58.674
I will never, ever forget that moment

32:58.754 --> 33:02.850
in time when I felt my voice. There's an

33:02.882 --> 33:06.674
interesting paradox, isn't there? When I felt my voice, not heard

33:06.714 --> 33:09.874
it, but felt it. And so those

33:09.954 --> 33:13.592
kinds of embodied experiences are really what immersion,

33:13.648 --> 33:17.736
compression and reflection add to the transformative

33:17.800 --> 33:21.136
experience for an individual. And it's really making

33:21.240 --> 33:24.044
things which are implicit and unconscious,

33:24.344 --> 33:28.084
explicit and conscious, isn't it? Absolutely right.

33:28.664 --> 33:32.056
How much work would you have to do with that lady

33:32.080 --> 33:34.404
to actually get to actually articulate that?

33:35.304 --> 33:38.448
Seeing her in relation to someone else and all those things that gives her a

33:38.456 --> 33:42.240
chance and even sort of helps her understand where her boundaries are, where the precipices

33:42.312 --> 33:46.168
that she needs to step over as well, right. So that the person becomes

33:46.216 --> 33:50.136
sensitized to a different level of awareness and

33:50.200 --> 33:54.168
as a facilitator, being willing to step into that

33:54.256 --> 33:58.016
frame with a delegate in front of a huge

33:58.080 --> 34:02.024
group of people and very, very carefully

34:02.184 --> 34:05.400
unpick moment by moment.

34:05.552 --> 34:09.176
Because it's not just the experience the individual has,

34:09.280 --> 34:12.740
it's the effect that it has on the rest of the group as

34:12.772 --> 34:15.828
well, which can be profound. Obviously,

34:15.996 --> 34:19.236
this book is one of the main tasks of it is to equip

34:19.340 --> 34:22.964
the next generation of facilitators, to be as brave as you guys

34:23.084 --> 34:26.500
in sort of pushing the boundaries as a facilitator in

34:26.532 --> 34:30.476
that moment, knowing that you're balancing different things. So you've got the

34:30.500 --> 34:34.264
lady herself, you've got the group, you've got your role.

34:34.684 --> 34:37.836
How do you facilitate in that space? How do you kind

34:37.860 --> 34:41.020
of know this is the time to ask her to stand up?

34:41.052 --> 34:44.676
And how do you know how far to potentially kind of

34:44.780 --> 34:48.428
push it? Because there's something you say in the book, which is it's about

34:48.556 --> 34:52.300
stress. The reaction is the direct consequence. They struggle to reconcile new

34:52.332 --> 34:56.324
information and old frames of reference. And it's that kind of internal

34:56.364 --> 34:59.908
battle that they're going on and you're trying to plug into that. Yeah.

34:59.996 --> 35:03.204
And the question that you have is, how do you do that? And the answer

35:03.284 --> 35:07.388
is informed intuition. So it's not just an intuitive

35:07.476 --> 35:11.732
reaction to what happens. The informed

35:11.788 --> 35:16.244
basis of the intuition itself is about layering intuition

35:16.404 --> 35:20.144
with a whole range of interventions that

35:21.444 --> 35:24.980
that I've studied and worked with for so many years

35:25.092 --> 35:28.332
that enable me, enables me to step

35:28.388 --> 35:32.492
into that space and more importantly, feel very

35:32.588 --> 35:34.464
comfortable. You know,

35:35.544 --> 35:39.592
there's a quality, we talk about potency, protection and permission,

35:39.768 --> 35:43.592
and there is a quality of working in

35:43.608 --> 35:47.048
the space where the delegate at some visceral level

35:47.216 --> 35:50.240
will know that actually they're in safe hands,

35:50.392 --> 35:53.712
basically. So we don't move anywhere without contract,

35:53.888 --> 35:57.704
that no one takes a step without having the opportunity

35:57.824 --> 36:01.176
to step out of it. So nobody's pushed through the

36:01.200 --> 36:03.744
process. But where necessary,

36:05.284 --> 36:09.244
I will certainly stand with them. And we have done some

36:09.364 --> 36:13.428
incredible things. There are so many

36:13.476 --> 36:17.804
stories I could give you and some really, really weird examples

36:17.964 --> 36:21.916
of enormous empowerment. And I think just

36:22.020 --> 36:25.900
the final thing is that the drama that gets created

36:25.932 --> 36:30.068
in some of these learning experiences, when people look at them

36:30.156 --> 36:32.760
from the outside in, they will go,

36:32.872 --> 36:36.392
that's too risky, that's too challenging.

36:36.528 --> 36:40.168
Our people won't like that. They don't go there,

36:40.336 --> 36:43.440
you know, whatever the story is.

36:43.632 --> 36:47.248
But none of those words reflect the internal

36:47.296 --> 36:51.568
experience of the person going through it. And when you speak to them,

36:51.736 --> 36:55.256
they have a very different narrative. Tess, do you remember

36:55.320 --> 36:59.120
that conversation? I was just going to do that. That was a classic.

36:59.192 --> 37:02.936
That was a classic of that. So we

37:02.960 --> 37:06.648
were doing some team development work with a client organization,

37:06.776 --> 37:10.864
and it was a change management. Yeah, it was change management and project

37:10.944 --> 37:14.560
management. So we, you know, we had all the black belts,

37:14.632 --> 37:16.564
whatever they are, in project management.

37:18.264 --> 37:22.384
Thank you, that one. So we were working with this small group of eight

37:22.424 --> 37:26.488
people in this team, and one of their senior leaders agreed

37:26.536 --> 37:30.036
to come in and be interviewed by Keith. And I will

37:30.060 --> 37:33.660
always remember it because Keith went into his standard

37:33.772 --> 37:37.564
way of interviewing someone at the front of the room. Just sat down in two

37:37.604 --> 37:41.516
chairs together, and there were some really unusual

37:41.580 --> 37:45.532
questions. In the style of orthodoxy, they were quite unusual.

37:45.668 --> 37:49.356
And at the end of it, one of the participants

37:49.420 --> 37:52.284
in the group sat back and said,

37:52.444 --> 37:56.580
well, I think that was far too personal. I would be really uncomfortable

37:56.732 --> 38:00.316
if you asked me those kind of questions. I really didn't think

38:00.340 --> 38:03.144
it was appropriate. At which point,

38:04.044 --> 38:07.380
Keith turned to the guy that he'd been interviewing and

38:07.412 --> 38:11.348
said, can you tell me what your experience of being interviewed

38:11.396 --> 38:14.824
by me was like? And this guy went into,

38:15.324 --> 38:19.412
it was incredible. He said it was like peeling back the layers of an onion.

38:19.588 --> 38:23.004
He said, you helped me access things that I didn't know.

38:23.044 --> 38:26.748
I knew that inform the way I

38:26.796 --> 38:30.198
make decisions or interact in the business. He said,

38:30.366 --> 38:33.518
it was brilliant, and I would have it done again

38:33.606 --> 38:37.286
any time because it was so valuable for someone

38:37.350 --> 38:40.894
to have the skill to take me into the spaces that

38:40.934 --> 38:44.334
I wasn't aware were even there. So it's fascinating,

38:44.374 --> 38:47.662
you know, you might have a learning commissioner who is sat at the back of

38:47.678 --> 38:50.414
the room and then comes up to you in the coffee break and says,

38:50.534 --> 38:54.046
oh, those three people over there are not engaged. Well, actually,

38:54.110 --> 38:57.382
have you spoken with them? Do you know that for a fact, or is it

38:57.398 --> 39:00.770
just based on your own reference? So, you know,

39:00.802 --> 39:04.394
we have some interesting conversations, says she, in a very english kind

39:04.434 --> 39:08.402
of way, to create as much clarity,

39:08.538 --> 39:12.614
orientation, and contracting around

39:13.234 --> 39:16.866
assumptions and beliefs that people may hold where we

39:16.890 --> 39:20.218
have the opportunity to check and validate if they're

39:20.266 --> 39:23.634
true or not. And that is

39:23.674 --> 39:27.634
very much part, and that's if you like a compressive intervention that you might

39:27.674 --> 39:31.720
make with your commissioning clients. So what this framework does

39:31.832 --> 39:34.804
is it provides for me as a facilitator,

39:35.184 --> 39:38.616
a route map that helps me if I find

39:38.680 --> 39:42.096
I'm getting lost, then I start to think about

39:42.280 --> 39:45.976
where is it I need to go? What's the unmet need here

39:46.080 --> 39:49.344
that I'm not paying attention to in the group? And I

39:49.384 --> 39:53.336
find that these eight dimensions really, really help.

39:53.480 --> 39:55.684
I have so many questions then,

39:56.544 --> 39:59.576
as you are, that you two are the leaders of the podcast,

39:59.640 --> 40:02.936
I think you can have floor. Well, I guess

40:02.960 --> 40:05.032
because we want, for the people that are watching this, we want to take them

40:05.048 --> 40:07.152
through to the end of the model as well, because I think that gives them

40:07.168 --> 40:10.364
a whole picture, I guess just, just one question that was for me,

40:11.184 --> 40:14.416
because you are kind of sort of facilitating the Aha moment, which is

40:14.440 --> 40:17.912
like potentially breakthrough for people. And that is not always

40:17.968 --> 40:21.328
aesthetically pretty, because you describe it as

40:21.496 --> 40:25.688
destabilizing. It happens in the way it happens,

40:25.856 --> 40:29.232
and I guess you're holding that space, creating that safety. What I

40:29.248 --> 40:32.440
really like is the fact that you warm the context.

40:32.592 --> 40:35.288
You have to do the orientation, you have to do the contract, you have to

40:35.296 --> 40:38.984
do merge, and that then gives you permission. But for the people watching,

40:39.024 --> 40:42.664
like saying that destabilizing can be very disturbing

40:42.704 --> 40:45.324
for them because it's disturbing their system as well.

40:46.104 --> 40:49.168
Is that the battle that you're sort of constantly having in your own eyes?

40:49.216 --> 40:52.960
I think it is. I mean, it's not one that necessarily

40:53.032 --> 40:55.484
happens on every occasion. So it's,

40:56.184 --> 41:00.176
so that in a sense, the dramatic nature of transformative

41:00.240 --> 41:03.854
facilitation isn't something that is manufactured

41:03.934 --> 41:07.950
for the, just for the sheer drama of the

41:07.982 --> 41:11.674
whole thing. You know, it's, it's directly related

41:12.494 --> 41:16.054
to what emerges within the field for the

41:16.134 --> 41:19.974
delegate themselves. So if we were to take decision, action and

41:20.014 --> 41:23.814
integration, these final parts here, let me just give you a

41:23.854 --> 41:27.486
very brief example. I was working with a senior

41:27.550 --> 41:32.528
group of investment bankers, all right? And I

41:32.536 --> 41:35.880
don't know if you've ever worked in with private banking or

41:35.912 --> 41:38.964
senior groups of investment bankers, but, you know,

41:39.624 --> 41:43.112
they come with a particular mindset and they're very hard

41:43.168 --> 41:47.472
edged. They're front office traders, and that's

41:47.528 --> 41:51.176
where they live in that particular field. And so

41:51.240 --> 41:55.484
the demand of the facilitator to,

41:56.024 --> 41:59.692
in the words of the client, to be able to

41:59.888 --> 42:03.076
step up or step into their space with

42:03.100 --> 42:06.244
them is pretty profound. And so they need

42:06.284 --> 42:09.484
someone who was able to do that in a way that it recognized.

42:09.644 --> 42:13.204
And so just to show that this particular point, there was

42:13.244 --> 42:17.692
one individual who was, who presented

42:17.788 --> 42:21.980
in what appeared to be a very aggressive

42:22.172 --> 42:25.868
style and was very demanding

42:25.956 --> 42:29.854
of the importance that he wanted to develop

42:29.934 --> 42:33.526
presence, to have greater impact on the

42:33.550 --> 42:37.078
people around him. And what was it that

42:37.126 --> 42:40.174
I was going to do that was any different from anybody else?

42:40.294 --> 42:43.510
It's one of those kinds of situations.

42:43.582 --> 42:47.954
This is a rarity. But I'll just say it as an example.

42:48.414 --> 42:52.126
As it emerged through the five day program, one of the things that came up

42:52.150 --> 42:55.924
with him was just his profound level of procrastination.

42:56.224 --> 42:59.844
There was always a reason why action could never be taken.

43:00.184 --> 43:03.608
And so when we got to the action phase, and it's pretty

43:03.656 --> 43:06.616
important here, and Tess may show the slide later on,

43:06.760 --> 43:10.368
that one of the things that we've noticed in our practice of

43:10.416 --> 43:14.044
learning is the almost

43:14.944 --> 43:18.192
the myth of action in learning. And I'll say

43:18.248 --> 43:21.600
that the myth of action in learning. How many learning and

43:21.632 --> 43:24.966
development events do you go on where you'll get the end of the

43:24.990 --> 43:28.110
program? So what are you going to do different on Monday morning? And then somebody

43:28.142 --> 43:31.354
fills out a form and it never happens.

43:31.654 --> 43:35.654
All right, so what behavior are you going to demonstrate? It never

43:35.734 --> 43:39.982
happens. And so in this situation, this individual

43:40.038 --> 43:43.590
presented for a lot of procrastination about a call

43:43.662 --> 43:47.118
that he needed to make. And so the conversation

43:47.206 --> 43:49.926
could have gone around. So what is it that you need to have to make

43:49.950 --> 43:53.224
the call? What resources do you need? You could have gone in a whole

43:53.264 --> 43:56.728
range of different ways. The intervention, however that was

43:56.776 --> 43:59.464
made at that moment, at the point of action,

43:59.544 --> 44:03.084
was make the call now,

44:03.384 --> 44:07.288
and here is a phone now that that

44:07.416 --> 44:10.912
is compression. So that cuts right through

44:10.968 --> 44:14.272
procrastination, right through every excuse

44:14.288 --> 44:18.688
and belief system possible. And the

44:18.736 --> 44:22.700
experience in the room was tangible. Make the

44:22.732 --> 44:26.092
call. And I put the phone in his hand and I said,

44:26.148 --> 44:29.932
we will not leave here until the call is made.

44:30.108 --> 44:33.932
Well, I mean, it sounds radical, but he

44:33.988 --> 44:37.380
made the call that he'd never made and procrastinated

44:37.412 --> 44:40.972
about. But the effect that that had on him

44:41.148 --> 44:45.172
and on the group of observers, it changed

44:45.308 --> 44:48.310
almost everything about the dynamic in the group.

44:48.492 --> 44:52.194
Almost everything changed as a result of that one

44:52.354 --> 44:55.810
intervention made at that point in time that

44:55.842 --> 44:59.554
he'd never, ever had and never been faced

44:59.594 --> 45:03.114
with. But once you step in there, you've got to be prepared

45:03.154 --> 45:06.634
to step in and work with the individual at that

45:06.674 --> 45:10.002
space, he could have said, no, I'm not doing it. And that would have been

45:10.058 --> 45:13.122
okay, and we would have then worked with something else.

45:13.258 --> 45:17.182
But it was using his energy, his energy of

45:17.238 --> 45:20.758
resistance and challenge to make the call. And he did it.

45:20.806 --> 45:24.286
He was forever thankful that he did. Yeah.

45:24.350 --> 45:27.774
And I guess in the moment, because you're. When people are challenging

45:27.814 --> 45:31.614
in the room, you're doing that because you have an unconditional, positive regard

45:31.654 --> 45:35.118
for someone. You want them to make the breakthrough. You're not being difficult

45:35.166 --> 45:38.406
to him to sort of help him sort of comply with how you'd like the

45:38.430 --> 45:41.478
room to be. You're doing it because you generally want him to have a breakthrough

45:41.526 --> 45:45.028
moment. It was like, here is an opportunity. You're talking

45:45.076 --> 45:48.820
about this. We either talk about. We either go through another

45:48.892 --> 45:53.396
round of aboutism, or you can take action now,

45:53.580 --> 45:57.108
this minute, this second, and everything will change.

45:57.196 --> 46:00.884
And, you know, I mean, and people in the room, they felt

46:00.924 --> 46:05.244
it. You know, people feel that kind

46:05.284 --> 46:09.108
of intervention, for sure. This is where Keith

46:09.156 --> 46:11.584
mentioned potency, permission and protection.

46:11.964 --> 46:15.228
We have to, as facilitators, have a degree of

46:15.276 --> 46:18.944
potency so that people feel safely held.

46:19.284 --> 46:23.236
We have to give them, through contracting

46:23.420 --> 46:27.068
the space to say yes or no in a way

46:27.116 --> 46:30.516
that they don't lose face or don't lose respect of the group.

46:30.660 --> 46:34.144
And the permission piece is always asked,

46:34.484 --> 46:38.676
would it be okay? I'd like to invite you into a space right now,

46:38.820 --> 46:42.604
which may be really uncomfortable. Are you up there to go with me

46:42.684 --> 46:45.972
now? So that contracting is key.

46:46.028 --> 46:49.244
And the other point I just want to make in the way that we're

46:49.284 --> 46:52.604
talking about this work, it can appear sometimes,

46:52.644 --> 46:55.868
I think, to some practitioners to be a bit gung

46:55.916 --> 46:59.532
ho and a bit dangerous and a

46:59.548 --> 47:02.580
bit sarcastic about the participants who

47:02.612 --> 47:05.988
come. And I actually want to say that nothing

47:06.036 --> 47:10.514
could be further from the truth. You know, we take the vulnerability

47:10.974 --> 47:14.350
that people step into the learning space with as

47:14.382 --> 47:17.742
an enormous privilege. And whilst we can joke

47:17.798 --> 47:21.190
about, you know, the fact that we're taking people,

47:21.222 --> 47:24.474
we're destabilizing them. Isn't it great? Ha ha. Actually,

47:25.054 --> 47:28.486
we do that through gaining the permission of the group and

47:28.510 --> 47:32.150
the safety of the group as they report it. So there

47:32.182 --> 47:35.366
is always an element that the participants feel that they

47:35.390 --> 47:38.796
are in control. Yeah. And there's

47:38.820 --> 47:43.184
a particular point that comes out of transformative learning.

47:43.764 --> 47:47.340
You know, I mean, people talk about it from a perspective of vertical learning.

47:47.452 --> 47:50.944
In the vertical learning theory, people talk about the heat experience,

47:51.404 --> 47:54.588
about how you create that and whether what you do that.

47:54.676 --> 47:58.932
Now, we either do that directly in relationship

47:58.988 --> 48:03.544
with us, or we'll do it through a very complex business simulation.

48:04.244 --> 48:08.124
So we work extensively with corporate actors.

48:08.284 --> 48:13.020
We work extensively with corporate actors who take

48:13.052 --> 48:16.984
the role of the whole executive team in complex financial

48:17.484 --> 48:21.708
situations where the senior execs are

48:21.756 --> 48:25.628
tasked with having to work more effectively with boards,

48:25.756 --> 48:29.428
and we create that environment in which they do that.

48:29.476 --> 48:32.076
Have you found the slide, tess? I have. Let me put it up. Can you

48:32.100 --> 48:34.878
just bring it up very quickly? Because I think that this,

48:35.036 --> 48:39.210
this is an adaptation of what's known as

48:39.282 --> 48:42.434
the intervention cube. Now, the point that I want to

48:42.474 --> 48:46.058
make about this is that as a facilitator on

48:46.066 --> 48:49.850
the front face, it ranges from everything from physiological

48:50.002 --> 48:52.514
feelings, emotions, cognition, behavior,

48:52.674 --> 48:56.614
intrapersonal, interpersonal, existential, and spiritual.

48:57.074 --> 48:59.094
When you're working with a client,

49:00.034 --> 49:03.750
it's very possible, through one intervention, to touch

49:03.822 --> 49:07.750
all three of those. You know, somebody may be reporting

49:07.782 --> 49:11.686
on a particular experience that may be deeply

49:11.870 --> 49:15.526
attached to their identity or deeply attached to something that

49:15.550 --> 49:19.862
goes on in the organization. Now, if I do that with an individual,

49:20.038 --> 49:24.190
it can correspondingly directly affect the group so

49:24.222 --> 49:28.254
that the intensity of the intervention itself will operate

49:28.294 --> 49:32.790
at both an individual and a group level. Or just

49:32.822 --> 49:35.874
to use the case of the phone and take action,

49:36.854 --> 49:40.154
what can be said is that I would say to the individual,

49:40.454 --> 49:44.054
make the call. Make the call now. And what I want to say to the

49:44.094 --> 49:46.758
group is, notice what's happening.

49:46.926 --> 49:50.374
Observe yourself. So you do both an individual

49:50.414 --> 49:53.830
and a group intervention. Now, the reason why I want to bring this

49:53.862 --> 49:56.936
in is that when you have three on the front and two on the top,

49:57.070 --> 50:00.864
whether it's individual, interpersonal, or group, you increase

50:01.324 --> 50:05.228
at the bottom, low, medium, and high, higher levels

50:05.316 --> 50:08.700
of retention. So when you get three on the front, two on the top,

50:08.772 --> 50:12.652
you're likely to get an experience that the individual

50:12.788 --> 50:15.780
is more likely never to forget.

50:15.932 --> 50:19.212
And it's not based in what they fill out on an evaluation form.

50:19.308 --> 50:23.332
It's based in the embodied nature of how people take

50:23.388 --> 50:26.556
experience and learn. So that this intervention cube

50:26.660 --> 50:30.304
for a facilitator is a profoundly

50:30.764 --> 50:34.204
powerful way by which they can calibrate what

50:34.244 --> 50:38.692
they do and how they do it, so that each one has different interventions

50:38.828 --> 50:41.980
attached to them. And I guess it allows you to

50:42.052 --> 50:45.076
facilitate with a lot more precision because you're really aware of where you're

50:45.100 --> 50:49.036
trying to land your particular interventions, aren't you? Well,

50:49.140 --> 50:52.980
I think you're absolutely right. And, you know, when I remember when we were

50:53.092 --> 50:57.050
interviewed on radio in Canada regarding this, and somebody asked

50:57.122 --> 51:00.938
not that question, but a similar question, and I remember my response

51:00.986 --> 51:04.938
was, one of the differentials is speed. The speed with

51:04.986 --> 51:08.890
which it's possible to get to a

51:09.082 --> 51:12.994
point of realization or a point of insight or a point of breakthrough

51:13.074 --> 51:16.554
is much faster. And you talked about the nature of learning

51:16.594 --> 51:19.882
versus the business of learning. And obviously,

51:19.978 --> 51:24.100
in the business of learning, there's. How much is it? $60 billion

51:24.132 --> 51:27.852
a year. That's investing in leadership development every year there is

51:27.868 --> 51:31.396
a business to it, and a business case has to be presented, and we have

51:31.420 --> 51:35.156
to dance, do the dance to get the investment and all

51:35.180 --> 51:37.524
that. But obviously, alchemy,

51:37.684 --> 51:40.684
transformation, like, how do you measure that?

51:40.724 --> 51:43.744
How do you present that business case? Well,

51:44.324 --> 51:48.300
it's an interesting one, because I think in terms of presenting

51:48.412 --> 51:52.272
the. The business case itself, it's very

51:52.368 --> 51:55.752
rare, if ever at all, that we present it in that way.

51:55.808 --> 51:59.284
It's tended to be presented through

51:59.624 --> 52:03.176
a lens that the client is familiar with. When a

52:03.200 --> 52:07.104
client asks us to undertake a piece of work, it's generally

52:07.144 --> 52:10.444
because they know us well and they know what we do.

52:11.664 --> 52:15.624
We've had senior executives come back to the same program

52:15.744 --> 52:19.534
four times because they just want to go through the whole thing all

52:19.574 --> 52:22.474
over again because it's such a blast.

52:23.654 --> 52:27.102
But I think that, you know, that question about measuring success,

52:27.198 --> 52:30.654
there's a program that we're running at the moment for

52:30.734 --> 52:34.222
one of the big four, and it's a big one.

52:34.238 --> 52:38.446
It's a five day residential. And sometime after

52:38.510 --> 52:41.934
that, they then do a two day consolidation of

52:41.974 --> 52:45.554
learning. What is so remarkable, and for another

52:45.634 --> 52:48.894
client, we had it this week on action learning groups,

52:49.634 --> 52:53.754
what is so remarkable is the way in which they integrate

52:53.874 --> 52:56.594
the whole experience, not just one,

52:56.754 --> 52:59.334
but the whole experience over time.

52:59.834 --> 53:03.890
And the measure of learning

53:04.042 --> 53:06.946
for some people is behavior change,

53:07.130 --> 53:10.430
but it's only one of seven. And I think this

53:10.462 --> 53:14.166
is one of the great challenges of the business of learning, is that

53:14.190 --> 53:17.446
you'll often get a program with a metric at the

53:17.470 --> 53:20.726
end of it. By the end of this program, all of our leaders

53:20.790 --> 53:24.086
will be charismatic, you know, whatever that may be,

53:24.150 --> 53:28.234
or all of our leaders will be able to influence, you know,

53:28.694 --> 53:31.114
and really, really,

53:32.454 --> 53:35.876
that isn't quite how things actually materialize.

53:36.030 --> 53:39.976
And so when you get these stories

53:40.040 --> 53:43.728
in the business of learning, of the seven different types of learning,

53:43.776 --> 53:47.728
there's only one that's about behavior change. So when we measure

53:47.856 --> 53:51.648
learning, it could be about understanding, it could be about developing

53:51.696 --> 53:55.384
awareness. It could be about observing something with greater

53:55.424 --> 53:59.560
clarity. But it doesn't necessarily have the metric

53:59.632 --> 54:03.174
that is attached to the business case, which often,

54:03.794 --> 54:07.578
in many cases, doesn't necessarily get validated

54:07.746 --> 54:11.570
unless there is a major od intervention that slots

54:11.642 --> 54:15.410
in with that and it fits with something more comprehensive,

54:15.522 --> 54:18.642
more integrative, more complete. It's a

54:18.658 --> 54:22.170
difficult one, and I think that Tess articulated it

54:22.202 --> 54:26.234
rather brilliantly, is that I have a very strong

54:26.354 --> 54:29.466
internal sense of reference. I know when

54:29.490 --> 54:32.426
I've done a good job and I know when I've done a rubbish job,

54:32.570 --> 54:36.370
and the two are very clear to me on each occasion, and I've

54:36.402 --> 54:39.890
done plenty of both in my time. I've been looking

54:39.922 --> 54:43.346
forward to this conversational week, and there was a particular question that I've

54:43.370 --> 54:46.922
been looking forward to asking. What's the biggest lesson

54:47.058 --> 54:50.134
or lessons you've learned along the way?

54:52.834 --> 54:56.254
The biggest lesson that I've learned is

54:56.794 --> 55:00.050
the beauty of learning and the joy of learning,

55:00.122 --> 55:03.618
the joy of lifelong learning, and what it

55:03.746 --> 55:08.138
offers people just in terms of their well

55:08.226 --> 55:11.234
being and living in the world. I think that will be the first thing.

55:11.274 --> 55:14.674
The second one for me would be that the nature of

55:14.714 --> 55:18.482
that is almost impossible to express in

55:18.498 --> 55:21.726
its true form, in the way in which I experience it.

55:21.810 --> 55:25.806
You know, much of what we've discussed on. On this conversation that we've

55:25.830 --> 55:29.430
had here this afternoon is a representation, you know,

55:29.462 --> 55:33.414
is stories about things. It's not the experience

55:33.534 --> 55:36.822
of what it was like. So I think that those are some of the biggest,

55:36.918 --> 55:41.518
biggest parts. Compassion, humility and

55:41.566 --> 55:45.078
respect for the individuals do the best they can

55:45.206 --> 55:47.974
with what they've got. At any point time,

55:48.994 --> 55:52.594
that may not necessarily be where I am, but it is where they are.

55:52.674 --> 55:55.774
For me, growing up as a very shy, introverted person,

55:56.314 --> 56:00.402
it was a real challenge. And I always make myself smile that I chose this

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type of career in my kind of mid thirties when

56:04.410 --> 56:07.690
I came out of corporate work. And what I have

56:07.722 --> 56:11.298
learned over the years and when I first started working with Keith, I thought,

56:11.426 --> 56:14.412
Tess, stop judging yourself against Keith.

56:14.538 --> 56:18.120
You know, stop trying to be him, because you

56:18.152 --> 56:21.256
never will be. You know, his thinking is lightning fast.

56:21.360 --> 56:24.480
Mine isn't. I'm a reflector pragmatist, and I

56:24.512 --> 56:28.560
have learned a to recognize the value that I bring that

56:28.592 --> 56:31.904
is different to Keith, or co facilitating is

56:31.944 --> 56:35.440
different to my co facilitator. And the second one is

56:35.472 --> 56:39.576
that I am enough. You know, I am my world's worst

56:39.640 --> 56:43.258
critic. Or I would say that I have been in the past

56:43.426 --> 56:47.562
to a point where it literally can cause me to go into freeze.

56:47.698 --> 56:51.530
But over the years, I have learned that the way I

56:51.562 --> 56:54.626
get myself into the space of

56:54.650 --> 56:58.386
facilitation is to go around when people come in

56:58.450 --> 57:02.578
first thing on the first morning is to go around, shake their hands,

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and say hello and introduce myself so that by

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the time everyone is sat down, I have already

57:09.526 --> 57:13.126
had that human connection with them. That was a big piece

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of learning. And a mentor once said to me, he said,

57:17.182 --> 57:20.726
whatever you need, tess, it's within you.

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And if you get really stuck, say what you see.

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And I found that really, really helpful. And I just want

57:28.542 --> 57:32.114
to say, I'm aware that we're on time now and that people need to go.

57:33.094 --> 57:37.014
One of the final things I want to say is that this book that we've

57:37.054 --> 57:40.362
written, you know, it's our perspective.

57:40.498 --> 57:44.082
It's written humbly. I mean, I loved being called a

57:44.098 --> 57:47.734
facilitation Jedi, if I'm honest. Garen. It was a marvelous.

57:48.794 --> 57:52.594
I sat there about five minutes ago. How do I describe these guys?

57:52.714 --> 57:56.234
No, it's Jedi. You've earned it. There is no try.

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Just do. I mean,

57:58.906 --> 58:02.754
stylistically, there may be some people who have heard some of the things

58:02.794 --> 58:06.352
that we've said and completely disagree, and I'm

58:06.408 --> 58:10.392
really cool with that. I don't want to in

58:10.448 --> 58:14.480
any way demean the different approaches that

58:14.512 --> 58:18.312
people bring to facilitation and learning and the different beliefs

58:18.328 --> 58:22.184
that they might hold. This book is simply our

58:22.264 --> 58:25.728
experience that we've tried to articulate as

58:25.776 --> 58:29.040
clearly as we can. And with our

58:29.072 --> 58:32.968
ongoing work and Keith's doctorate, we are continuing

58:33.136 --> 58:36.928
to explore this field of work,

58:37.056 --> 58:40.320
which is almost indescribable. And I think that

58:40.352 --> 58:43.680
was the biggest challenge that we had in provoke. There was one lesson.

58:43.712 --> 58:47.400
I just wanted to put out this, because there's such an international thread that

58:47.432 --> 58:50.816
goes through the whole book. What have you learned?

58:50.840 --> 58:54.728
Because. And you've worked in cultures in the Middle east, cultures across

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Asia, Pacific, Americas, Europe, what are some

58:58.720 --> 59:02.568
of the things you found from working in different cultures or commonalities

59:02.616 --> 59:05.684
you even found? I think the first thing is, you know,

59:05.724 --> 59:09.180
having been traveling for 25 years around the

59:09.212 --> 59:13.504
world, the first thing is that our similarities are greater than our differences.

59:14.004 --> 59:17.196
They really are. And that, you know,

59:17.260 --> 59:21.428
asking the question about what is it that you and I share together as

59:21.476 --> 59:25.244
somebody from Japan or from Saudi or UAE

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or Qatar or India is

59:28.748 --> 59:31.932
a far richer conversation, and it's surprising what comes

59:31.988 --> 59:36.172
out. I think the other thing is the both

59:36.228 --> 59:40.424
respectful acknowledgement and willingness to engage

59:41.364 --> 59:44.628
with the cultural, cultural basis,

59:44.676 --> 59:48.748
too, with the spiritual base of different cultures

59:48.796 --> 59:52.460
that I've worked, and that's often to do with how well

59:52.532 --> 59:55.844
read you are as a facilitator, how willing you are to

59:55.884 --> 59:59.780
engage with those things. So, you know, I lead on five

59:59.852 --> 1:00:03.196
big projects at the moment across the Middle east. And one of

1:00:03.220 --> 1:00:07.356
the things that is so profound about the Middle east is

1:00:07.380 --> 1:00:10.460
the beauty of islamic wisdom, the works

1:00:10.492 --> 1:00:14.596
of Rumi, which, you know, once you open the door

1:00:14.780 --> 1:00:18.700
to the joy of the recognition. This year is the arabic year

1:00:18.732 --> 1:00:22.624
of poetry. Oh my gosh, they will quote you

1:00:23.004 --> 1:00:26.716
such beauty in words that become part of

1:00:26.740 --> 1:00:30.422
the leadership lexicon. The same in India with Maya,

1:00:30.508 --> 1:00:34.226
which is all is perception. You know, if, when we're in China,

1:00:34.370 --> 1:00:38.194
and, you know, if you work in leadership in China without

1:00:38.274 --> 1:00:41.770
an appreciation of Confucianism

1:00:41.962 --> 1:00:46.450
and the structure of Taoism and how that infuses chinese

1:00:46.562 --> 1:00:50.298
culture as well as japanese culture, then you'll. There's a

1:00:50.346 --> 1:00:53.570
whole dimension that gets missed out,

1:00:53.722 --> 1:00:57.234
really, and it just adds phenomenal

1:00:57.354 --> 1:01:01.570
color to what you do in this learning space. That's the

1:01:01.722 --> 1:01:05.986
big ones for me. We always ask this question because one of these, the purposes

1:01:06.010 --> 1:01:10.082
of this podcast is to inspire the next generation of transformative

1:01:10.138 --> 1:01:13.306
facilitators and OD consultants. What advice

1:01:13.370 --> 1:01:17.602
would you give to someone who's starting to take a step into transformative learning

1:01:17.658 --> 1:01:21.298
approach? Where should they start? Or what could be some of those things to sort

1:01:21.306 --> 1:01:24.890
of lessen the learning curve? People who want to come

1:01:24.922 --> 1:01:28.810
into this space, I'm trying to think, you know, when I

1:01:28.842 --> 1:01:32.562
came into it, I had left a corporate job.

1:01:32.618 --> 1:01:36.162
I'd been in the company for twelve years. I did a master's degree,

1:01:36.258 --> 1:01:39.334
and then I wanted to go freelance to balance work and home.

1:01:39.674 --> 1:01:43.386
So I contacted a number of learning and development

1:01:43.530 --> 1:01:47.794
and consulting businesses, because I wanted to create more freedom

1:01:47.834 --> 1:01:51.006
and balance in the way that I worked, and I wanted to travel.

1:01:51.130 --> 1:01:54.634
So I was quite clear about what I wanted to create.

1:01:54.974 --> 1:01:58.406
And an opportunity came, you know, am I a believer

1:01:58.430 --> 1:02:01.870
in the law of attraction? I'm not sure, but I had really quite

1:02:01.902 --> 1:02:05.062
a clear view of the kind of life I wanted. And,

1:02:05.198 --> 1:02:08.846
you know, I got an email one day from the alumni of the university

1:02:08.990 --> 1:02:12.342
saying, this particular company is looking for new associates.

1:02:12.478 --> 1:02:15.646
I've never done formal facilitation in my life,

1:02:15.750 --> 1:02:19.328
ever. At that point, you know, I've been a departmental

1:02:19.376 --> 1:02:22.760
manager and okay, there's a bit of facilitation in that,

1:02:22.912 --> 1:02:26.552
but I didn't know the first thing about it. And a master's degree helped a

1:02:26.568 --> 1:02:30.272
bit, but I didn't understand what I'd learned at that point. I hadn't integrated

1:02:30.328 --> 1:02:33.984
it, so I would just encourage people to look for any

1:02:34.064 --> 1:02:37.880
opportunity to be able to work with another

1:02:37.952 --> 1:02:41.544
facilitator and to explore their

1:02:41.584 --> 1:02:45.388
own potency. Through that work. And it doesn't matter whether

1:02:45.436 --> 1:02:49.284
it's, you know, going to volunteer at a community centre or

1:02:49.324 --> 1:02:52.972
take a seat on, you know, a sports

1:02:53.028 --> 1:02:56.292
club board or something like that. It's amazing how you

1:02:56.308 --> 1:02:59.684
can get experience from facilitating people's

1:02:59.724 --> 1:03:04.116
questions. Great programs. NTL organisation

1:03:04.180 --> 1:03:07.276
development program comes from the US, but there

1:03:07.300 --> 1:03:10.544
is a fantastic group in the UK who run it,

1:03:11.074 --> 1:03:14.730
the IAF, the International association of Facilitators,

1:03:14.802 --> 1:03:18.498
the CIPD, of course, and things like coaching

1:03:18.546 --> 1:03:22.530
development work that also gives you a different way of facilitating

1:03:22.602 --> 1:03:26.306
people's learning. I think very briefly, in answer to

1:03:26.330 --> 1:03:29.138
your question about how somebody would start on this,

1:03:29.266 --> 1:03:33.174
the very first thing is to go within to

1:03:33.514 --> 1:03:37.242
really reflect on what it is that

1:03:37.298 --> 1:03:40.958
you are able to bring and the use of self.

1:03:41.086 --> 1:03:45.006
The use of self in the activity of transformative

1:03:45.070 --> 1:03:48.574
facilitation is paramount. It's the greatest tool.

1:03:48.654 --> 1:03:52.606
It's the biggest tool. And your willingness to expand your

1:03:52.710 --> 1:03:56.314
own personal zone of proximal development internally,

1:03:57.734 --> 1:04:01.462
without doubt, will always sustain you through

1:04:01.518 --> 1:04:05.706
the peaks and troughs of transformative facilitation.

1:04:05.770 --> 1:04:09.338
It is by no means binary, and it is certainly

1:04:09.386 --> 1:04:12.754
not a level experience, for sure.

1:04:12.874 --> 1:04:16.194
We want to just say a huge thanks, Tessa and Keith, for such a brilliant

1:04:16.234 --> 1:04:19.922
conversation. You've kind of used the word joy, the joy of learning,

1:04:20.098 --> 1:04:23.322
but I think what really is great about this conversation is the

1:04:23.338 --> 1:04:27.178
fact that you just bring so much joy about the whole experience and something

1:04:27.226 --> 1:04:30.930
that is so profound and so important to people, but you weave joy

1:04:30.962 --> 1:04:33.826
through it as well. I guess some of the things I'm sort of taking away.

1:04:33.850 --> 1:04:36.882
And Danny, feel free to add your bits as well. So just the importance of

1:04:36.898 --> 1:04:40.978
getting people into the room in the right way, so they presented themselves.

1:04:41.106 --> 1:04:43.930
So taking the time to do it, not rushing it, no matter how much pressure

1:04:43.962 --> 1:04:47.154
the client may put on you, but make sure that they present.

1:04:47.314 --> 1:04:49.642
The importance of potency,

1:04:49.818 --> 1:04:53.414
permission and protection is that. Have I got three piece right there?

1:04:53.794 --> 1:04:57.050
How you use compression. Understanding that difference

1:04:57.122 --> 1:05:00.530
experience in people so people in the same room can be having a profoundly

1:05:00.562 --> 1:05:04.210
different experience. We love your healthy skepticism of the business of

1:05:04.242 --> 1:05:07.678
learning, and sometimes we have to engage with it,

1:05:07.766 --> 1:05:11.550
but always have a skepticism about it. And there's just things that can't

1:05:11.582 --> 1:05:15.126
be described in words, and how do you find a way to facilitate that,

1:05:15.150 --> 1:05:18.662
brings it out, and then finally, like a thread that's gone through all the conversations

1:05:18.718 --> 1:05:22.830
but really has stood out here, is that use of self. So really reflecting on

1:05:22.862 --> 1:05:25.654
who you are and what you bring and appreciating the strengths you bring as well.

1:05:25.694 --> 1:05:29.142
So loads of things for me, Danny. Yeah, for me, I think it

1:05:29.158 --> 1:05:32.700
was just that framework is really helpful and, but it's not linear. And remembering

1:05:32.732 --> 1:05:35.940
that, and, you know, particularly, I think that you made it a really

1:05:35.972 --> 1:05:39.396
strong point that contracting happens throughout when you're asking

1:05:39.420 --> 1:05:43.020
permission and checking in with somebody all the way through. So remembering that.

1:05:43.092 --> 1:05:46.156
Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for inviting us.

1:05:46.300 --> 1:05:49.584
And to our good friend Steve for recommending us.

1:05:51.324 --> 1:05:52.904
We wait till I see him.

1:05:54.284 --> 1:05:55.044
Thank you so much.