Facilitation Stories

About Facilitation Stories

Facilitation: the art of enabling a group of people to achieve a common goal. IAF England Wales brings you a show by facilitators, for facilitators and anyone interested in using facilitation for change. We'll share guest stories, experiences and methods. Plus, we'll bring you up to date on what's happening at our Meetups.

Publisher

IAF England Wales

Category

business · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

7 Oct 2019

Latest episode

24 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

87 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Sept 2026

   🎙️FS85 - Authenticity and Accountable Grounding with AI

   What does it mean to be yourself on purpose as a facilitator, especially in a world increasingly shaped by AI? In the latest episode of IAF England & Wales' Facilitation Stories, Sam Moon sits down with Hannah Boneham, Co-Founder of Facilitate Sheffield, for a conversation about authenticity, accountability, community and belonging. They explore what inspired Hannah to set up Facilitate Sheffield and how facilitation communities can create spaces where people feel a genuine sense of connection and belonging. They also talk about authenticity in practice, finding your own way of holding a room, and staying grounded and accountable as AI becomes increasingly part of our work. And, continuing the thread from the previous episode, Hannah reflects on learning from mistakes and what those experiences have taught her along the way. Quote highlights "What I will never do is use it to design workshops end to end, or plug in outputs from client workshops and ask it to do the analysis without me also separately having done the analysis." "You can really be yourself. You can be authentically you, so long as you are in a place where that authenticity helps bring people together to solve the problems that they have in front of them." "There are some absolutely tremendous people, wonderful talent, and so very generous with their skills and experience... it brings so much joy and it makes facilitation not just a profession, but a community that I really love." Sam: Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as the IAF. My name is Sam Moon and my guest today is Hannah Bonham. Hannah is a facilitator specialising in change management and organisational development, and as a CEO of Leadwell, a social enterprise and consultancy based in Sheffield. So, Hannah, to kick off with tell me what, in your world of facilitation is making you smile at the moment? Hannah audio: Thank you, Sam. And can I say, first of all, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for having me. Sam: Thank you, Hannah. Hannah audio: what's making me smile? So, the obvious and, first answer that rushed to my mind when you asked the question was the community of facilitators that I've gotten to know over the last few years. There are some absolutely tremendous people, wonderful talent, and so very generous with their skills and experience and this network, this space that we've all chosen to occupy together. It brings so much joy and, it makes facilitation not just a profession, but a community that I really love that. Sam: Tell me a bit about what you love about that. What does that mean to you, Hannah? Hannah audio: Well, I'm an extreme extrovert and I don't say that lightly. I really do, like, at the end of a day's facilitation, I come home absolutely pumped because I've just spent the day interacting with people the whole time and I really enjoy it. It's something I have to watch and manage in terms of how my energy can come across and I can be a lot. So my husband tells me from time to time and the fact that there are a huge range of different kinds of people from different walks of life, the different backgrounds and skills and perspectives and who present different challenges and ideas. It's such a rich tapestry facilitation with so many amazing different people and it really feeds me. I get a huge amount from it and I hope I give a lot back to it as well. 'cause I get a lot of enjoyment from spending time with those people. Sam: Say and in danger of putting you on the spot here. Is there anything that comes to mind that have been highlights of this shared community and, the gifts that you discover when your inner community of facilitators and things that surprise you that you weren't expecting? Hannah audio: Yeah. Yeah. So I was one of the co-founders of Facilitate Sheffield, which is the Sheffield branch of the IAF, the meetup. I co-founded that with Jane Clift, who has been a guest on this podcast herself. And Jane and I starting that off, we literally met for a coffee and we were like, we can't be the only facilitators in Sheffield. Who else is here? How should we find them? And growing that from that conversation, just the two of us to the next, I think it was the next month when we had nine or 10 different people come along, two of whom agreed to then be co-lead. So I now co-lead along with Angel Takooree and Helen Todd. And we now have last count, I cannot remember, something like 50 or 60 members that come to sessions every two months. And each time we have a different person volunteer to facilitate a session, which means that we get to learn a completely new topic and we get to experience someone else's kind of key skillset. So you get two for one, right? Because you're not just like experiencing the facilitation of that person, but you're also learning how they do it. You might pick up a new tip or a new trick or a new set of pens that would work for you that you can try and, or whatever it might be. And I think that's the thing that really stands out for me that in the last few years is that not only is this community about, but it's generous and it's willing to be expanded and wants to be probed and shared and enjoyed by everyone. And I just, yeah I was really surprised to find that. And I'm, yeah, very happy to be part of it. Sam: Sounds like a really powerful strong experience in terms of bringing people together. You can share stuff and share stories and kind of what they're up to. And learning from one another. I really, when, when, so at, at, there's the sessions that you meet up went after an event like that, after come together. what do you leave with? What, in terms of, not as in product or transactional, but how does it leave you feeling? Hannah audio: For me, very energised. Because I've spent the time with people other people have said they've felt very safe, which has been really nice feedback and very involved and included. People have told us that they leave feeling as though they've found their people, that they've recognised now that they're not alone in what they're trying to achieve. We have a lot of, it's probably an even balance actually, of in-house facilitators. So people who have roles like project management where they do a lot of facilitation, and then other people who are freelance facilitators or have their own business like, like myself. And I think that people have made connections with others who have similar peripheral skill sets or needs or requirements, as well as the facilitation as well. So I think people have said that coming away from it, they've made new friends and new connections that have helped support them in other aspects of their careers and their lives, which I've been grateful for. Sam: So that sounds like a really mutual experience. As as well. Hannah audio: I hope so. I hope so. Because you know when you get a lot out of something, sometimes there's a concern, like you stop and go, hang on, is this is feeding me? I hope it's feeding other people too. Sam: No, it's it feels like there's a lot of aliveness in there. I'm gonna come onto the next question in the moment, but like, whilst, whilst we're here, and this is the Sheffield meetup that you are talking about? Hannah audio: it is, yeah. Sam: about, if anybody any, any listeners who kind of were in any facilitators and listeners in kind of Sheffield, how would they find out about those, those meetups? Hannah audio: so it's any facilitators working or living in or around Sheffield or the Sheffield area? We call it South Yorkshire. If you're willing to travel, we'd be very happy to have you. You can find out about us by searching the hashtag facilitate Sheffield on LinkedIn, or I'll give my details at the end of this podcast and you ha very happy for you to drop me a line or find me on LinkedIn and I'll connect you up with the group. Sam: Beautiful, and we make sure we put that information in the links of the podcast as well. So that's a beautiful thing. So how did, what, what helped you get into this work? How did you find yourself in facilitation? What is your facilitation story? Hannah audio: Thank you. So I think I'm one of probably many people who was a facilitator before they realised that it was a defined profession, you know, a professional skillset. So I worked in change management, project management, organisation development, programme management, those sorts of peripheral fields. And I spent a lot of time helping manage complex groups of stakeholders who often didn't agree with each other or who agreed about what the outcome might be, but not the journey that we had to go on to get there, et cetera, et cetera. And I run a lot of workshops and it was after I'd set up Leadwell which had a focus of leadership to create thriving organisations, you know, leading well, leadership and wellbeing. And I met Jane Clift and she she said, well, have you come across the term facilitation? And I was like, well, yeah, in various different contexts, but how do you mean? And she explained that the IAF and she talked me through the fact that it was a profession in an in and of its own rights. And it was at that stage that I realised that was a group that I could potentially identify with. Jane told me that the next conference that was coming up was actually the Europe and middle Eastern one. This was back in, gosh, it would've been August, 2023. And so the next one was, I think it was October 23 in Berlin. And I did a load of Googling that evening, went down a proper rabbit hole, and was just, oh my gosh, I think these might be my people. I really need to get to this place. But literally just set up the business literally in August. And so I made a commitment to myself that if I had invoiced a client at all, if I'd sent an invoice, I would treat myself to the conference as a result. And I did, about a month later, my first invoice for £100, no, £400 came in, which was nowhere near enough to cover the conference. But I had promised myself. And so I went and I met the most amazing people while I was there, who, many of whom I've stayed very much in touch with, I've worked with, I've had work from, I've given work to, and have helped me grow and shape what Leadwell has become and my own facilitation kind of skillset and where I see myself on that landscape. So it was the most, it was the absolute best thing I could possibly have done at that time. And then shortly after Jane and I founded Facilitate Sheffield, and it's gone from there. Sam: What an incredible story. And like when you're talking about that first invoice, you can relate to the anxieties of the first client and the first invoice Hannah audio: Yeah, right, that very first one. I was so thrilled to get it over the line. Sam: That you make. And I wanna ask you a little bit about the themes that you've noticed emerge since for you. But just before I do, just tell me in terms of the, what do you feel were the conditions or what enabled you to help you step into that space? You've touched on them in terms of like discovering your way in your jour in your journey, but just say, you know, is there anything you could sort of say a little bit more to in terms of what enabled, what were the enabling factors there? Hannah audio: Yeah I think it, to an extent, it comes down to, I've said the word generous before. I think that the facilitation profession and the people that are members of that profession are incredibly generous. But I think that facilitation has such a huge scope. It's such a broad tapestry, a landscape. You know, we were playing with words before we join, before press record, you know, spectrum, landscape map, what are the words that you might use? And there's space for everyone who is comfortable leading a workshop. Essentially different styles and approaches and topics. But you can really be yourself. You can be authentically you so long as you are in a place where that authenticity helps bring people together to solve the problems that they have in front of them. You can do that in the way that you feel most comfortable. And I think that is a wonderful opportunity. 'cause it means that we can constantly grow. We're always gonna be meeting new people. We're always gonna be inclusive. We're gonna be able to embrace diversity, move forward, be agile, change with the times, adapt. You know, it's a, it's something that's gonna be around forever. And I think that was the thing that made it easy for me to join and embrace and be part of it. 'cause I was welcomed with open arms. And I try now to do the same thing for others. Sam: Right. So it's about how people are creating space for you to be you and find yourself within that, as well as discovering rather than feeling sort of, a performative, Hannah audio: Yeah. And you see that, right? If you go to any of the conferences, the range of topics that are available for you to get involved in while we're all together, it's astounding. Like I've never seen, I've never been to another conference that's focused in that way, that on a topic that then gives you such a huge spectrum of different activities you can be involved in. I don't know if you have. Sam: Yeah. and we're talking here about the IAF conference that runs each year by kind of volunteers and having experience in myself, it is a welcoming space where there is just so many gifts, passion skills, and gifts that are being shared amongst facilitators. And it's like a  treasure trove of what people do. You know, I sort of, the, my analogy is like when you go to a, a kind of a music festival and there's loads of acts on that you wanna see at once, and it's like, I can only see that one because I can't see that one. But the, the shared experience is really a really wonderful thing as well. Hannah audio: I love treasure trove, but I've always talked about it being like a sweet shop. You go in and you're like, and you know those Yee Olde sweet shops and you suddenly, you've got the sweets from your childhood. You've got sweets that are your favourite, and then you've got sweets you've never seen before. That's what the IAF conference is like. Sam: That's a nice, that's a nice plug. Beautiful thing. Thank you very much, Hannah. We're gonna nail it there. So within, within this sort of world, in your journey of facilitation, Hannah, what have you sort of found or discovering is a commitment that's important for you to honour in your work during this journey? Hannah audio: So there's a couple of things I wanted to touch on here. There's one I just want to talk about briefly and then the kind of the main one I wanted to answer with. So I think it's really important to recognise that facilitation is a profession, it's a professional skillset and that doesn't mean that we are not really welcoming the people who wanna try the hand or get involved. Of course we do, right? Because if you love it and you wanna explore it and you wanna become kind of professionally capable in it, then come one come all with, it's super welcoming and I think it's important not to lose sight of the fact that it has its own defined definition and its own space. And we can play with that. You know, you have facilitative coaches and you have trainers who use facilitation techniques and all of these different peripheral kind of professions that interrelate with facilitation. But I think it's important to honour the fact that there are some people who are purely facilitators and that is their professional skillset. And yeah, we just need to recognise that it is its own profession in its own right. I dunno if you've got any thoughts on that before I lead into my second idea. Sorry. I did come up with a part two for this answer. Sam: and see indeed. I think my, my journey of facilitation, discovering as, as a word and what it's, has almost been part of discovering what I do and how I do things. And I guess if you are asking me that question back is almost seeing facilitation as this umbrella word. And then there is a continuum of different approaches. And I find myself leaning into different ways of doing things. And from where I've started, my background is in youth and community work from 20 / 30 years ago. So I guess from way back then, I've always thought, well, I'm doing facilitation. So when I discovered facilitation as a work, I was thinking, well, this is what I, I have been doing. But then ever since then, I've been more focused using the word facilitation. I've gone on to discover lots of different skills. And I think what I've found is that I have shifted from maybe a, well, this is the only way of doing things to, there are so many ways of doing things, and you follow your passion and then find the different skills that work, work for you. And it's ever and it's ever changing in, Hannah audio: It's never gonna be stagnant. It's never gonna stay still. It'll always evolve. That's cool. Sam: in, in that set. So, so what else is coming up for you in the world of facilitation and that you're, you are noticing and is important to you? Hannah audio: So the, the other thing that I've been thinking about a lot is the use of Ai. And I've been encouraged quite a lot by people to use chat, GPT and others to speed up my processes. So I get a lot of consultants saying things to me like, it's all about how much you value your time, and if you value your time, you'll use these tools to make things quicker. And I don't know, some things just never sat completely comfortably with me in that, in that regard. It's not criticism of anyone that does use it in that way, then that's great. But for me personally until I came across a term, I was speaking to my colleague Steve here, and he talked about accountable grounding, and I realised that's the kind of the term I've been, I've been searching for. So I will use copilot really comfortably to kickstart my ideas to check timings on workshops. I might plug in some analysis and say, can I check? Like, have I missed anything in this? Or if I presented this to you, what might be your responses so that I can prepare well? But what I will never do is use it to design workshops end to end, or plug in outputs from client workshops and ask it to do the analysis without me also separately having done the analysis. And the reason is because I think my ability to present any valid arguments and enter into conversation about conclusions I've drawn in design or in delivery or in like closed down, that's the minimum a client should expect, right? That if someone says to me, I've got a question for you. I won't just be able to answer it because someone has spat out an answer and given it to me. But I'll understand the logic model that sits behind it, and I'll be able to validate, challenge or change my mind and understand how in changing my mind that will affect the rest of the workshop or the interaction that I've created. That does not make me the cheapest facilitator on the market. And it doesn't mean that I have the largest profit margins, but it does mean that my quality and accountability will always high. And that for me is the commitment that's important to honour in my work day to day. Sam: Oh, thank you Hannah. And just sort of, just to follow up on that almost is why, tell me and when I ask this, it's not because I don't think it is, but tell me why. Tell me why that is important to you. Hannah audio: It's because we talked before about authenticity and it's about me being able to stand up and say, this is me you are interacting with, and I will use tools to hone my craft. But when you see someone standing in front of me, I will have taken the time to understand your needs. I will have taken the time to design something that I think will meet those needs, and I will be held accountable to the decisions I've made, the actions I take, the thoughts and ideas I share with you. And I think that there are lots of ways that you could erode that accountability, that AI's just one off them. And I think it's really important to make sure that you can, you have that, that accountable grounding when you are interacting with clients, if you're going to maintain a level of quality. That for me is what LEADWELL stands for. Sam: Yeah. And you're being transparent and you are, you've kind of honouring the relationship, the human to human relationship that you have with a client, whoever it is you are working with. And then, and through working in that way, what I'm hearing is you are building trust and that trust, you know, builds at the speed of relationship, which you are nurturing from the first conversation Hannah audio: Certainly hope so. Sam: That's lovely. So, moving on to our, our little feature of the, the guest question, which has come from a previous guest is, so this is the question that we've been offered, "Is can you tell us about a time when it all went wrong and what did you do? What happened? " And the person who's offered this has said, " I'm happy if it's a great example.Or if they're comfortable sharing one that didn't turn out well we all might learn from it." So that puts you on a bit of a pedestal, Hannah. So kind of, is there anything you know, I'm sure we can all kind of share these stories, but if there's anything that you'd like to you know, respond, you know, in terms to that question, what comes to mind? Hannah audio: Thank you. I'm, I won't lie. I was glad I got a little bit of time on this one in advance, so thanks for that. So I think one thing I'd say is I haven't had any major disasters yet, and I say that yet because I kind of liken this to driving a car, right? If you drive a car every day, if your entire life, at some point you're gonna get, you're gonna get into some sort of, hopefully very minor, but some sort of smash, you're gonna reverse into something or someone will crash into you. It's gonna happen because of the time you spend on the road. So the longer I spend facilitating, the more likely is that some point something is gonna go wrong. And so I don't hold myself up on a pedestal. As you said. Nobody is perfect. I'm very lucky that I've had no out and out disasters. But I have had several segments go wrong, individual activities, exercises that I thought, oh God, even in the moment, I knew it wasn't working. So I'm happy to share a few of those. I once dropped off an online workshop I was hosting and I just couldn't get back on again. Absolute like nightmare. And I did eventually after about, I don't know, 20 minutes managed to rejoin and the group had just sort of carried on chatting generally around the topic. They'd waited for me, thank goodness, but that could have been a disaster if I joined in. All the clients have just left. The thing I learned from that, always have a second facilitator online. That's an absolute hard line for me. I will not do an online facilitation now without a second facilitator on the call. That's absolute, like non-negotiable. I once had a really icky experience when I was running a constellations exercise and I'm quite high energy, quite tangible focus when I'm doing my workshops. And I, no, that's not for everyone, but that's my style. A lot of fun, a lot of interactivity. And this particular exercise required quite a lot quiet reflection. And it just, as I was doing it, it felt over earnest. I felt it felt too slow. It wasn't, it, I could tell people were looking at me and they were doing the things I was asking, but something just, it felt like I was trying too hard. And afterwards on, I always do a feedback session on the board and I did get the feedback that exercise when we were standing up and moving around the room felt a bit, a little bit over earnest. And I thought, yeah, it did. I knew it did. The thing I learned from that is not to try to use tools or techniques that don't fit with me and my personality. I can always have a second facilitator with me if I think it's something the client really needs. And if I'm not right for a commission, I pass them on to other people. I don't try and keep hold of them. And then the last one I would say is I had somebody and I'm, I'm really ashamed of this, so it's, it's something that I'm, I'm bringing it. I had someone feedback once that they felt physically excluded by an exercise that I had done which required quite a lot of moving around the room. And I'm, I'm someone who prides themselves on trying to design with inclusivity in mind. And I just, I dropped the ball on that one and I was really ashamed. I reached out to them to apologise and to say if they had any suggestions for how we might improve it next time to let me know. But the thing that I've learned is that when I'm designing any exercise in any workshop I take, take the time to think about how different diverse needs might be impacted by the choices that I've made. And I make sure I've got alternatives. That does take time. It does. But I think it's so important to make sure that on the day I can anticipate additional needs. People don't have to come to me to say, I can't do this. How are you gonna adapt? I have to think on the fly. I can say, this is how we're gonna do it. If you'd like to, you can do it this way or this way too. And I've learned that now, and that's something I build into my practise as standard. So there you go. There's three things that went wrong that I've changed my practise as a result. Sam: Hannah, thank you for such a human response to that, question. And I'm sure there'd be some listeners like, nodding, nodding along or kind of beginning to kind of resonate. With that. And I was kind of, you know, relating a little bit whilst on sort of, you know, whilst being kind of present in terms of what you were saying. Hannah audio: Thank you. Sam: it was yeah, really nice to hear how you, what I was, what I was hearing. There was a deep sense of, of, of awareness and also in terms of how you discovered your presence within each one, each one of those. But also how you kind of identified how you were feeling and what was coming up about that. And particularly when I guess those emotions and feelings and when that last one. And I've been in sort of maybe been in similar situations where you feel that sense of like, how I let someone down and kind of what that can do for us. And I think what also your stories there demonstrate is as facilitators, it's quite tough out there, 'cause you are, are you on there on your own and like you're wanting to make things work and then, you know, you're trying to find your way with those things as well. Hannah audio: A hundred percent. Sam: Thank you. Thank you for your vulnerability with those questions, Hannah. Hannah audio: Thank you. Sam: so we're coming to the end of our conversation. So be before, before, before we do, I just wanna ask you if in any, if anything at all is what, if any meaning has been made for you through the course of this conversation. Hannah audio: You know what actually springs to mind, I wondered about this because I know this is a question that you ask, and I thought, well, gosh, what if we get to this point and I can't think of anything or I can't think of anything profound. Sam, what if I say something embarrassing? But Sam: no, there is nothing is a perfectly acceptable answer to this question. Hannah audio: Well, thank you very much. But I think it's kind of, it's even more meta than that, Sam. 'cause I think the answer is, I am talking about authenticity and the fact that it, this community of facilitators, this profession of facilitation enables people to come and be themselves. And I felt like that on this podcast. So I said I was nervous before this side. I don't feel nervous. Now I feel very accepted and welcomed. And listening to the other podcasts or the other kind of sessions that you've hosted and that your colleagues have hosted, that comes across I think, and I think that's the thing that's really kind of resonated for me and that I'm gonna take away from today's conversation. That as facilitators, we are, we try very hard to be a really inclusive community. And the people really are welcome to be who they are and to express that fully. And you've given me that opportunity today, Sam. So thank you. Sam: Thank you, Hannah. Thank you for sharing that. And so we shall finish with a question where I invite you to offer a question to a future guest in facilitation stories. So Hannah what is your question to a future guest? Hannah audio: Thank you. Okay. So granted what we've said already about authenticity and being able to be our real selves, but obviously when we're working with clients, we've got them from lots of diverse different backgrounds. And to be inclusive, we need to adapt in order to make them feel safe in the space that we're asking them to operate in. So my question is, what part of yourself do you have to hide, suppress, manage, or dial up to be an effective facilitator? Sam: Thank you, Hannah. That's a, a beautiful question. It's a strong one and it's gonna give our future guests something to chew on. so Hannah, before we finish, is there anything else that you'd like to say or share that has not been said? Hannah audio: Only that if people are interested in hearing more about facilitate Sheffield, they can contact me on LinkedIn. Hannah Boneham, you should be very easy to find. There's not many people with my surname and I look forward to meeting more people in the profession over the coming years. I meant what I said. I'm extreme extrovert. If you fancy a chat or you'd like to connect with me, drop me a line. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna wish that I hadn't offered that. I love meeting new people, so please do say hi and thank you very much for your time. Sam: On that. Thank you ever so much for being my guest today, Hannah. Hannah audio: Thank you, Sam Sam: We have reached the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to hear more about the IAF and how to get involved, please head over to our website, ww dot facilitation stories.lipsy.com to make sure you never miss an episode. We are always on the lookout for new topics to discuss, so if you think there is a facilitator that we should talk to or you would like to share what's emerging in your world of facilitation, send us an email at podcast at IAF ew co uk. We hope you join us for more facilitation stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening. Todays guest - Hannah Boneham Hannah Boneham on LinkedIn: Hannah Boneham | LinkedIn CEO of Lead Well: Home - Lead-well.org (https://www.lead-well.org/) And if you'd like to come along to #FacilitateSheffield, drop us a line at hello@lead-well.org Todays host: Sam Moon Community Facilitator. Director of Sam Moon Facilitation Ltd www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123 To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧  podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk 🌐https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧  podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk 🌐https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales

2. 

   7 Aug 2026

   🎙️FS84 - Dealing with disruptive behaviours, with Alan Heckman

   In today's episode, Umah welcomes facilitator Alan Heckman to share practical ways to handle disruptive behaviours in groups, drawing on his IAF England and Wales conference workshop and his background with ICA training. They talk about: Common challenges, from subtle withdrawal to over-participation to barbed comments Mango's in facilitation! Setting informal norms and tools for helping people feel heard while keeping the process moving. The facilitator persona Addressing hierarchy by depersonalising ideas Using the group to redirect off-topic derailments. Quote highlights "The very first thing that I say is, 'Hi, my name is Alan. I'm a group facilitator. This is what I think a group facilitator is.'" "What you need is not for the person to stop talking, usually. What you need is to make them a little bit more of a process-aware participant." "Usually, they're concerned about something important, something that they aren't feeling heard about or that they love or think is really critical... They keep talking because they fear it won't come out in the final result." "If somebody steps up and is being angry or disruptive...you might try asking them...'Can I ask you a question?' followed by 'What is it that would have to take place for you to find this process worth engaging with?'" Links Today's guest - Alan Heckman: Facilitator and Facilitation Trainer Alan's website: www.alanheckman.co.uk Alan's Email: alan@alanheckman.co.uk Alan's Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/alanheckman For more information on the courses Alan runs, and to learn more about ICA:UK: www.ica-uk.org.uk/courses Today's host: Umah: Change and Transformation Advisor and Facilitator https://www.linkedin.com/in/umah To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧  podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk 🌐https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧  podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk 🌐https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales Transcript Umah: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories. This podcast is brought to you by the England & Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Umah, and today, we're going to hear about dealing with disruptive behaviours. This year at the IAF England & Wales Conference, I had the privilege of attending Alan Heckman's workshop on dealing with disruptive behaviours. His insights into managing group dynamics were both enlightening and practical. Alan is a seasoned facilitator with over 20 years of experience in designing participatory processes and events, particularly in the public and charitable sectors. He's known for fostering genuine engagement where every voice contributes effectively towards decisions that everyone commits to. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Alan Heckman to our podcast. Welcome, Alan. Alan: Hello, Umah. Thank you so much for having me. Umah: Alan, your session at the IAF conference was really insightful. Could you share with our listeners a little bit about the work that you do and what brought you to facilitation as a career? Alan: So I'm unusual in the field of facilitation in that I was doing it from a relatively young age. I took a year out of university when I was 20 to do a year-long volunteer internship with the ICA in Phoenix, Arizona. Many of your listeners might already know that ICA is a community organization deeply involved in participatory practice, and was helpful, among other things, in founding the IAF, but also in setting facilitation as a field and in taking participatory approaches and running trainings in facilitation as well. So from that internship in, a long time ago, I had various roles that were related to participation and facilitation. I haven't been a full-time facilitator ever since. But I did move into independent practice as a freelance facilitator in 2015, which is now 11 years ago. So I've been doing this for quite a long time. Umah: Thank you. That's really interesting to know about the background and the connection with ICA and IAF as well. Alan: It is interesting. ICA probably doesn't have as good of a profile or as big of a profile as perhaps it should, but it is really interesting. Umah: At the conference, in your presentation, you spoke about different behaviours and I just wondered if you could share maybe a few of the common ones that you've encountered and how you handled them. Alan: Absolutely. So I run these two-day group facilitation methods courses through the ICA here in the UK, and I love running those training courses. And by far, the most common question I get on those training courses is some version of, "what do you do when it all goes wrong?" What do you do when things go pear-shaped? So that thing that you saw at the IAF was really a development from my set of answers to that question. Often, I've included it within the course. So now, your actual question was some of the behaviours I have seen. I work almost entirely in the public and charitable sectors. It's often professionals that I'm working with. And so the behaviours that I tend to see, especially here in the UK, are a little bit more subtle. There's rarely threats of violence and relatively rarely shouting or angrily becoming overtly aggressive. It's often subtle, more shutting down because they don't like something that's happening, or irritation or barbed comments. So various kinds of non-participation. And then the other one that everybody talks about, because it is so common, is over-participation, and I wanna emphasise that this is not over-participation in the sense of being dominant on purpose. Usually, it's being dominant, I have to say it, if we can call it innocently, in that the person hasn't thought about their effect on the group and the process. It's usually they're concerned about . something, that they aren't feeling heard about, something important, something that they are worried about or that they love or that they think is really critical, and that they don't think that the group is going to successfully take into account somehow, or that it won't come out in the thing, so they keep talking. Umah: Mm-hmm. Alan: And that's so common. You know, it happens. You don't want to assume, but there's one in nearly every group of 20 or 30 people, somebody who hasn't really thought about their impact on the group. And to be fair, I've invited them not to worry about that. I'm claiming that role for myself as the facilitator. I'm the one in charge of process. I'm inviting them to just worry about what their content is. So I regard these people as innocent in the sense that they're almost always not trying to wreck stuff on purpose. Umah: One of your tips where, which I think a few of us use quite often, is the car park, but do you have any guidelines that you set beforehand? Alan: It's really interesting. I would imagine most of the listeners to this podcast will be in the habit of setting some kind of ground rules or norms at the beginning of a session. And I do that, but I do it very informally, probably less formally than anybody else. They don't get flip charted. So I tend to say, "You wouldn't mind turning off your phones," et cetera. Umah: Right. Alan: So I don't set the car park up ahead of time. I tend to not use it until it's needed. In fact, it tends to not even be a thing that I pull out 90% of the time. I have another way of thinking about the car park. Should I tell you about that now? Umah: Yeah, go for it. Alan: What is the car park? Now, I would imagine your facilitation-aware audience knows already, but just in case, let's say what the car park is. You might do it a different way. You might call it the bicycle stand or whatever, but the key thing there is that you are taking participants' concern of their issue, their thing they're worried about, and inviting them to not talk about it, because you need to carry on. And in order to reassure them that it won't get lost, you can put it in the car park. The idea is that you're reassuring them that we will come back to it, and giving yourself permission to not talk about it right now. Now, that can be very helpful indeed. Of course, what it does mean is that you have to come back to it if you're gonna be an honest and fair facilitator. But you might be able to come back to it at the end of your day, or you might be able to invite them to set a new meeting, depending of course on what the group is in relation to that. If you come back to it under any other business at the end, 50% of the time it's like, "Nah, it's fine." But you do need to check. The car park is a way of managing an impossible problem that we face all the time as facilitators, which is how do we help somebody feel heard when they're not feeling heard, and also move on when we need to move on? And of course, if they're oversharing or talking too much or whatever you might call it, in a way that's disruptive to the process, I need to help that person be reassured that whatever they're concerned about will be adequately considered, and I also need to get them to stop talking about it. So those two things are in contradiction to each other. So a car park is a way of doing that. It's acknowledging them and moving on at the same time, right? You've said it's important, and also in doing so, you're setting out the boundary or the standard that we're not talking about it right now. That's not what we're doing. Umah: Yeah. Alan: So there's other ways that you can solve that impossible problem of both helping somebody feel acknowledged and also moving on, and it is hard, right? One way that I really love is, is mangoes. Now, this is silly. I ask my participants this sometimes, "What's a mango?" And they look at me like I'm an idiot. Umah: Juicy fruit! Alan: Yeah, right. It's a juicy, delicious fruit, and of course, for many of us, a mango might be really exciting and really sweet and juicy and delicious. And I make up a silly story. I tell them, "Look, if you could imagine for a moment that we're all walking down a forest path on a journey to somewhere in, you know, some kind of fantasy land, and we see there across the valley a mango tree full of ripe, juicy, delicious mangoes. You know that we would all love nothing more than to go and sit under the mango tree for the afternoon eating delicious mangoes, but we still can't. We can't do it." 'Cause we have to carry on our path to carry on and make it to our destination. Now, that's obviously a pretty contrived story that's a little bit silly. But what you've done there is you've said, "I think maybe that topic that you've raised is a bit of a mango. I think it's exciting and juicy- Yeah but we still can't talk about it right now." So by telling that little micro story, you've found a new way to solve the problem of helping them feel acknowledged, feel heard, but also moving on. You like specifically said, "Boy, that's a juicy one. That's interesting. I'm sure we would love to talk about that all afternoon, but we still can't." It's just a verbal trick in the end, but I've had it become an inside joke for my participants. I've come back six months later and had them say, "Isn't that a bit of a mango?" It's a thing that I find myself using more often than the car park, and of course it does depend on being willing to tell a slightly contrived, silly story to the group. Umah: It's good if it brings them together and they're on page there, doesn't it? I have in my notes a little question for you on it. You mentioned about turning up and turning down the facilitator persona. Alan: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Umah: What does that look like? How would I do that? Alan: I'll tell you what my approach is, right? Umah: Yeah Alan: So we're facilitators, and what that means is we're in front of the room. It means I'm being essentially a neutral... It sounds a little bit over-egged, but a neutral sort of guardian of process, right? I'm leading the group through a process, but I'm relaxing into not being a participant in their content. And so as a facilitator, I'm the one in front of the room. If there's 100 people in the room, I might have to be a really big character sometimes to hold the whole room together. But ultimately, it needs to not be about me. Like, it's not the Alan Show. I need them at the end to feel like they've accomplished something, not me, right? And my job is to support them to do that by providing the process, and sometimes that means getting out of the way. So as facilitators, we all find ourselves on this scale. How big of a person, how big of a presence, how big of a character do I need to be in the room right now? And I imagine that most of us do this, thinking about it or not thinking about it. You know, where do I need to be right now? Is it helping the group if I'm standing in the middle and waving my arms about, or is it actually hindering the group, and what I need to do is sit down, move back, and get out of the way and use a quieter tone of voice? Now, in dealing with difficult behaviours, of course, you might need to adjust it one way or the other depending on what's going on. You might need to be a much bigger character, of course, when you're drawing all the group together, or if you're working with a much larger group. And of course, you might decide in response to some behaviour to turn the dial down. I would imagine for you and for any of us who are facilitators, when we are in front of the room, physical room or maybe a Zoom room or whatever, when we're the one in front of the room, we are a certain version of ourselves, right? We're not, I hope, inauthentic, but nonetheless, we're a different version than we are on the couch at home or out with our friends or whatever. We're a version of ourselves. And thinking about what that version of yourselves- self is in order to best support the group is a valuable exercise that I would recommend anybody to. And it's not a static point. That version of yourself, you might call it the dial or the turning up or down your facilitator persona. And when it's up, you know, you're wearing loud clothes, you're waving your arms about, you're a big presence in the room. You need to do that to hold the group together, not because it's about you or your ego, I hope. And when it's down, the group is having their conversation and they might forget you're there. So you need to manage time or something, of course. Umah: So say you've got someone who is maybe naturally an extrovert and talking quite a bit, which you touched on earlier, and then you've got an- another few who are introverts, or say it's something like hierarchy going on where the senior person's talking and everyone else is maybe in agreement, something like that. What would turning up and down the dial look like then, or what else would you do? Alan: Sure. So if you've got a character who's dominating because of the force of their personality, you might dial up to meet that character in order to, I wouldn't say push back against them, but to hold the space, right? Now, what I would say, though, is that the other situation you've described, and we've perhaps all run into it, the chief executive in the room is being a bit too chief executive-y or whatever, right? What I would tend to, I would tend to use different methods than that one to try to approach that situation. Certainly, I would probably end up breaking into groups, which I imagine many of us would do, but we'd use some kind of leveling process, and also some kind of process that aims to detach the idea or the opinion or the conclusion from the person whenever we can. So you may be familiar with ICS Consensus Workshop Process, and one of the things I love most about that process is that the ideas that come into the process are not anonymous, but they are sort of depersonalised. They're no longer connected to the individual in the space, and that's a nice way to start, begin to deal with issues of hierarchy in a space. Umah: And something else I've noted down is ' using peer pressure'. That's a bit shocking to read just by itself! Alan: So before I tell you about this one, it's probably worth providing that caveat, right? As facilitators, we're standing in the front of the room, and I'd invite all of us to think about this as a position of power. I myself am a tall, bearded, white male, so people can pay attention to me, and I could be claiming a kind of power that wouldn't necessarily be helpful to the group. So I particularly, and I imagine all of us, have to be exceedingly careful that the power that I'm claiming at any given point in my role as a facilitator is for the sake of the group. It's helpful. It's helping them accomplish their aims. It's helping them be heard. It's helping them be engaged. It's helping them genuinely participate in the decisions that affect their lives. So I just have to keep this, if not at the forefront of my mind, at least in the back of my mind at all the time. I'm trying not to claim power over their final product or their content, but I am claiming a lot of power over what we do. Do we break into groups next? Who speaks next? What question are we addressing next? That's my role, and that's a pretty powerful role. So why have I brought that up? Because as we are talking about some of the items on these lists, you could abuse that role, right? If you were not values-based or if you were not aware of what you are doing as a facilitator, if you've got the social awareness and some experience, you could manipulate a group, and we're seeking to not do that. That's our job as a facilitator is to not manipulate the group. So some of these As we move on to this, might be, I think they're edging onto considering how you use them and why and when, because you wouldn't want to shut down somebody because- Yeah ... they've irritated you, right? Okay. Now let's talk about using peer pressure. So as a facilitator, in general, what I want to do is avoid the dynamic where I'm the stern teacher telling off the naughty student, right? And probably everybody's familiar with that dynamic 'cause they saw it during their school days, and probably a lot of people have bad feelings about that dynamic. But eventually you get to the point where you have to openly address something, of course. But fundamentally, I like to go as far as I can with making the problem go away before it's me as an authoritarian controlling their behaviour. So how could I do that? I've got a variety of verbal tricks, and I'm sure everybody has their own, that I might use in a moment to just phrase something in a different way. And one of the, one of the things you could do is that instead of you being the person shutting down a behaviour, is you could invite the group to do it for you. There were a couple occasions when I was running public meetings for a local authority. Sometimes people show up to public meetings 'cause they're mad about something. The classic examples are something about the bins or something about dog poo or something about youths congregating at the end of the street. Maybe it was libraries shutting down in your neighborhood. That's not a nice thing, and people are probably mad about that anyway. It might or might not have anything to do with the already tough subject that you're there to discuss. But if they start talking about bins, but you could imagine saying, "Well, sounds like this is really valuable and important," and then say to the whole group, "We came here to talk about libraries, but it seems like it might be really useful to talk about bins and bin pickups. Should we switch to that instead?" Umah: Yeah. Alan: And of course, the whole group goes "No! We came here to talk about libraries." Now, what have you achieved if you've done that? You've got the group to be the authoritarian telling the person off rather than you. What you've done, if it works, is you have, you've gotten the person to moderate their behaviour without you being the one who's told them off. I would prefer not to be the one seeking to control somebody's behaviour overtly, because if they rebel and they're mad at you, it turns off their participation. And of course, that's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. I don't want their participation turned off. Sometimes I might need it turned down a little bit, but if I've turned it off, then I've failed, right? I haven't achieved what I've set out to do as a facilitator with a participatory process. Umah: And you mentioned addressing things more directly. So- Alan: Yeah. Umah: Tell me about that. What are good phrases that aren't too standoffish? Alan: So, okay, well let's talk about this. The world is messy, so eventually you maybe get to the point where you have to openly address it, even if it's uncomfortable. Now, this'll show me in the podcast light, but one thing that I do is I'll take the person behind two ferns during the break or whatever, rather than addressing it publicly. It depends on the circumstances, but if you can, during the break is better, isn't it? And I would try first by saying, "I'm worried about everybody else's ability to participate. Could you help me make sure they participate?" Umah: Mm. Alan: But if you're worried that even that won't be direct enough, you might need to be a little bit more direct. Now, this is gonna show me because I won't be able to actually tell you the rigid words or the process, but there's something called non-violent communication. Fundamentally what it is, it's a very short set of processes that would say, "Here's what I'm seeing. This is how it's affecting me," and in my case, I would probably talk about how it's affecting what I need to achieve with the group, "and here's the change I need." I've done a poor job of representing non-violent communication there, but that sort of careful and thoughtful approach to trying not to blame them, trying not to raise their hackles to the extent that you can. Umah: Yeah. Alan: And also being clear about what the situation is as a result of that, and making a request about what you need. Now, what you need is not for the person to stop talking usually. What you need is to make them a little bit more of a processor when they're a participant. So we don't want their concerns to go away. We don't want them to be brushed under a rug. We don't want them to leave feeling like they've been bamboozled. We want them to be heard, and also we need everybody else to be heard as well. And then we need to work on something to being moving forward with that. So if the behaviour is such that other people can't be heard, that's when it becomes a problem. Umah: So it's clear obviously that you're very well-equipped to deal with different things. Do you still have a moment where it's, "Oh, what do I do?" Or is it a little bit more, "Oh, I pretty much know how to deal with everything now"? Alan: There's no guarantee that every single one of my sessions is perfect. Sometimes stuff happens, right? That's often the situation. Umah: Yeah. Alan: And I will usually have an idea at least of what might be done, and I think it's not that I'm so perfect that I always feel confident or comfortable. Sometimes I do, but I, I don't necessarily always feel confident or comfortable that I know exactly what to do. But what I do feel good about, and I would recommend this to anyone, is I'm maintaining the framework in my mind about what's happening now, what's the situation, what might I try first? What might I try next? What might it get to? If we need to give this person five extra minutes, can I adjust it so they can? Will that do it? It's that meta level that I imagine many of us are running in our heads, as we're facilitating is really valuable, and that does come with experience. So it's not so much that I'm always sure. Umah: Mm-hmm. Alan: But a, a lot of times it's whether or not I'm sure, I've got a framework for trying to do something. Umah: Sometimes a participant is trying to get a rise out of you to see how you react. So then in those situations, do you detach a bit? What would you suggest for someone who is new into facilitation, how they handle it so that their confidence isn't wrecked for the next time. Alan: If you get somebody who's really challenging, what we're usually talking about is a couple of situations. One is somebody who's angrily doubting the utility of participating in the process at all. Umah: Hmm. Alan: Or who I suppose a very closely related but slightly different role is angrily doubting or denying your right to be in the role of the facilitator with that being in charge of process. You know, who are you to tell us what to do? Why do you get to be...? Now some of that's because these are professional people who have their jobs rely on being professional in a room full of professionals, right? So certain behaviours are expected. They're not all nice, these behaviours, but certain things are fairly normal. Usually, the very first thing that I say is, "Hi, my name is Alan Heckman. I'm a group facilitator. This is what I think a group facilitator is." 'Cause if you Google group facilitator, it could be an awful lot of things. People are doing stuff, much of which I respect deeply, but it's also not the same thing that I am doing. The second sentence out of my mouth after introducing myself is to tell them what I think my role is, and I always say that my role is to be in charge of process so that you all can relax into providing the ideas, hearing each other, coming to consensus where possible, finding themes and threads, making decisions, making plans. That's your job. My job is not to do that. And I think just that reassurance right at the beginning before we've done anything else, I think that's part of contracting with the group, right? I'm making a promise to them implicitly or sometimes explicitly that they're gonna get a chance to be heard, that their input is valued, and just that alone will deflect a huge amount of that kind of challenge before it arises. I'm explicitly declaiming that I have any right to have a say about the content of what they're talking about. Yeah. Umah: Yeah. Alan: I think that goes an awfully long way. Umah: Hmm. Alan: However, if you get to the point where somebody is saying, "Who the heck are you to tell us what to do?" Or, "Why should we be here? What are we doing?" I mean, one option is that they go, right? It's not nice, but if they're not in the right room and they don't wanna be there, well, who's making them? Not you. Maybe somebody is. Maybe we can sort it out so they don't have to be there. The other thing is that a lot of times you'll get people where somebody's angrily doubting whether or not this-- we should even be doing this thing that we're doing, either because they think it's a whitewash or they think they're being manipulated sometimes, and maybe they've had an experience of participation, you can't see, but I'm doing air quotes, that wasn't real, that was manipulative. So that's what they're expecting from you as a facilitator. One thing you can do is essentially ask what would make it worthwhile for them. Many facilitators will be familiar with a facilitator called Ingrid Bens. She's written some books, and I met her years and years ago. Gosh, I think it was at the IAF conference in Helsinki, whatever year that was. I really liked one thing that she said at that conference, and she called it the long question. Now, sorry to Ingrid Bens if I misrepresent the long question 'cause it's been a lot of years since I heard you say it. But what I recall as her insight is that if you've got somebody, especially somebody who's angry, one thing you can do is ask them a detailed and long question because they have to calm down enough to hear your long question. Now, Ingrid Bens recommends actually splitting it into two questions, if I recall correctly, and the first one is, "Can I ask you a question?" Which I think is great, because if they say no, they've exposed themselves as being unwilling to be reasonable. The second question then is some version of what is it that would have to take place for you to find this process worth engaging with? You could craft your own version of that question. You're also saying, "What are your ransom demands," right? Like, what do you actually need to do? What needs to happen for this to be worthwhile for you? That could be, if asked in the wrong way, it could be kinda forthright as a challenge there. I mean, you would already be in an uncomfortable situation if you got to that point, I think. Umah: Yeah. Alan: But if somebody steps up and is being angry or disruptive, in that kind of situation, you might try it because they might tell you their answer. And if they do, of course, it doesn't make the problem necessarily go away, but it is a start. On one particular occasion, somebody said some version of, "If I thought the Board was gonna actually listen to what we had to say, then I'd say fine." And it's like, wow, okay. Actually, that's a totally reasonable request. If you think that you're in this room and that you are being asked for your opinions for the board to do strategy, but the board isn't gonna listen to what you say, of course you're angry. And I can't make that anger go away necessarily, but what I could do in that specific situation was essentially rely on two things. One of them was I could say, "Well, the board's not in the room, so I can't tell you what they're gonna do. But what I can tell you is the process that I've planned to carry out strategy with the board and how I'm gonna bring your content in, and that this is your opinion to share." And I can also essentially make a little argument from my values. But I can say, "Look, if this was fake participation, I wouldn't participate in it. That's not what I do." In my early career when I was desperate for work, I turned down very little. But probably what I did turn down, even then, was situations where I thought they didn't really want real, genuine participation. So it worked. I asked him this long question. He said what it would take, and I kinda persuaded him that my values wouldn't let me to participate in a process if it wasn't genuine, and that was enough in that case. Umah: We had a question from one of our previous guests, which I'd like to ask you. It was, "how do you measure or know when your facilitation has made an impact?" Alan: So this was a theme at the conference as well, wasn't it? We had a few conversations that were talking about impact. What does impact really mean in facilitation? How can you tell you're having an impact? And I will give you two answers, and one is satisfying, and the other one is probably not satisfying. I'll be aware as I say this that we're talking about a specific kind of impact. I will say That the thing that really drives me as a facilitator is when at the end of the day, somebody comes up to me and says, "We never could have gotten this much done. I can't believe we got through this. We've gotten so far on our strategic plan in one day." And variations of this, I imagine many facilitators have heard, and I love that, right? So is that impact, at the end of the day, they feel really good about what we did. That's exciting. And then of course, the question is, do they then go out and do it? Has it made their lives better? Has it made their work better? Do they implement the strategic plans? I think they do, at least most of the time, but it's hard to tell, right? It's hard to really tell. I don't have any formal way of going back and checking with my clients six months later and saying, "How did it go?" I do hear from my clients again, usually because they tend to say, "Can you come back again?" Which is really, it's a lovely way to measure impact, is to say, well, they must have at least thought it was really good, 'cause they want me to come back and run something else. Or they recommend me for stuff. I'm barely active on LinkedIn, and my website is there. It's a brochure site. Yeah. It's not super active. It doesn't change very often. My marketing plan as a facilitator is entirely reliant on other people recommending me for what I do. They had a good experience, right? And so I need them to do that if I'm gonna stay in business, so it's, it's also very rewarding, and I guess also it's a measure of impact. And every once in a while, I have come across someone who says, "Do you remember that strategy day that you ran with a bunch of stakeholders?" "Oh, yeah, sure. I remember that." It's like, "We've been running based on that ever since then." And now somebody created a new area of outstanding natural beauty as a result of that strategy day, which is a big impact, right? That's a major thing that happened years and years ago that now somebody's come back and they specifically approached me at an event where they didn't have to tell me. Umah: Very nice. That's a good feeling. Alan: I will say, though, that to some extent, and this is the unsatisfying answer, I don't know. Umah: That's an honest answer! Alan: I hope they go forth and do the things they said they were gonna do, because that's what impact would really be. They're out there meeting their aims in a better way than they would have because I was in the room for that day or that half day or whatever. And I think they do, but I don't really check, so I don't really deeply know. Umah: I was in your IAF workshop, and that was one hour, and I'd say for me, that definitely did make an impact, so I could tell you that. Alan: Wow. Oh, thank you. Umah: And you have been brought on to the podcast to go through it in a bit more detail with me, so thank you so much. Just before we wrap up, I wondered if you could leave a question for our next guest. Alan: Now, to be fair, you warned me ahead of time that I would do this, and I was thinking about it, and I think I would love to ask a question in keeping with our theme today. I don't know who the next facilitator or person is, so my question for them is, "can you tell us about a time when it all went wrong? And what did you do? What did you do? What happened?" And I'm happy if it's a great example, or if you're comfortable sharing one that didn't turn out well, we'll, we might all learn from it, so that's my question. Umah: I hope you listen in and hear the answers to it next time. Alan: I will, for sure. Absolutely, I will. Umah: Thank you, Alan, especially on joining me on this heatwave day right in the peak of it. Alan: It's a warm day. Umah: We are sweating. Alan: Thank you- so much for having me. It's been a joy. I'd love to talk to anybody who wants to talk. It's a joy. Umah: Brilliant. Thank you. We'll put your contact details in the show notes, so- Alan: Oh, thank you. Umah: So everyone can have a look there. Alan: Wonderful, thank you. Umah: We have reached the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the IAF England and Wales. If you'd like to hear more about the IAF and how to get involved, please head over to our website, www.facilitationstories.libsyn.com, to make sure you never miss an episode. We are always on the lookout for new topics to discuss, so if you think there's a facilitator that we should talk to, or you would like to share what's emerging in your world of facilitation, send us an email at podcast@iaf.ew.co.uk. We hope you join us for more facilitation stories again soon. Until then, thank you for listening.

3. 

   17 Jul 2026

   FS83 - Facilitation as a super skill with Robert Cserti

   In todays episode Sam is joined by Robert Cserti, who traces his path from a single transformative team building workshop nearly 20 years ago to co-founding SessionLab in 2013 as a side project (built during evenings and weekends while he consulted and his co-founder did a PhD) that grew into a company helping facilitators design and deliver better workshops. The conversation centers on facilitation's rising status  from a "soft skill" to a strategic, organisation-wide capability tied to empowerment and employee engagement and on Robert's own philosophy of intentional process design, handling reluctant groups, and the blurry line between being a facilitator and being a participant/stakeholder in the room. They talk about: Facilitation is becoming a "super skill." Organizations increasingly treat it as a core leadership and organisational competency, not just a nice-to-have for running meetings. Empowerment is the underlying goal. Good facilitation creates participative environments where people feel heard and have real input into decisions  this is a cultural shift, not a one-off event. Scaling facilitation takes infrastructure. Beyond training individuals, organisations need central "facilitation hubs," shared tools/templates, and a critical mass of skilled people. Passion and "the fun-dar" sustain long, hard build processes. Both Robert and Sam agree that enjoying the work is what carries you through the grind of building something over years Handling unwilling participants requires listening first. When a group doesn't want to be there, the fix is giving them space to voice frustrations, then collectively finding the overlap between the sponsor's goals and the group's actual concerns. Quote highlights "I'm seeing that it's  becoming one of the future super skills at workplaces that if you can facilitate as a manager, as a leader as a team member, it just opens so many doors for you because you can actually help teams to work effectively and achieve their goals." "We were organising a large event and a person came who was called a trainer and then a lot later I understand that what actually we had was not training. it was pure process facilitation to help our team align and really understand each other better, build bonds, flesh out potential friction points and build trust while we did hands-on work together." Links Todays guest: Robert Cserti - Co-Founder SessionLab https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcserti/ https://www.sessionlab.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/trainedon/posts/?feedView=all https://www.instagram.com/sessionlab/ https://www.youtube.com/@TrainedOn Todays host: Sam Moon: Community Facilitator. Director of Sam Moon Facilitation Ltd www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123 To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter: 🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ 📧  podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk 🌐https://iaf-members.org/site/chapters/england-wales Sam: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as the IAF. My name is Sam Moon, and my guest today is Robert Cserti. Co-founder of SessionLab, Robert's first encounter with facilitation happened nearly two decades ago, where he was deeply inspired by how powerful a well-designed and facilitated workshop can be to shift the way people think and work together. Over the next few years, that hands-on experience as a facilitator planted the seed for SessionLab. Robert found himself running into the same frustrations. The tools available just don't support the real creative and logistical work behind designing great sessions. So in 2013, he and his co-founder, Philip Kish started building something better. For several years, it's a side project which eventually turned into a full business to help individual facilitators design better workshops and organizations scale facilitation and so much more that I'm sure we're likely to noodle on today. So welcome, Robert, and to get us started and add your own flavour to my introduction, what in your world of facilitation is making you smile? Robert: First of all, thanks so much for that intro Sam, its a pleasure to be here Sam: welcome. Great for you to be here. Robert: And so what is making me smile in the world of facilitation? I think what is really nice to see is that facilitation as a skill is getting more recognized in all sorts and sizes of organisations. And my background is that I started as a facilitator and then as you mentioned we saw a need how we could help facilitators. And then if I look back especially as we've worked with a bunch of facilitators at Session Lab, is that more and more large companies as well recognise that facilitation is an important skill to invest in as, and not just as a personal skill, but as an organizational skill. So, with all the rapid transformation that happens at workplaces with AI changing how various jobs are done Facilitation as a skill is getting more and more important. In a way I'm seeing that it's  becoming one of the future super skills at workplaces that if you can facilitate as a manager, as a leader as a team member, it just opens so many doors for you because you can actually help teams to work effectively and achieve their goals. So this, this is a, great shift to see that facilitation is growing as a skill. Sam: Yeah, that, that's really lovely how you're, framing that, Robert. And um, tell me a little bit more about why that matters to you. And is there a kind of... Do you have your own story about when that, when you had that penny drop moment for yourself in terms of seeing facilitation be important and, and then potentially be recognised? Robert: so why is this important to me? I have, have a passion for facilitation, my love for facilitation. I see how, big impact that can make on teams how much it can help work to move forward. And that's really great to see that at larger scales as well, organisations care more about facilitation. Say an example there is leadership development programs. Very many large organisations do have their leadership academies, leadership universities, and we are seeing that facilitation is more and more often not just yet another soft skill to train leaders on but a core skill that they find really important for people to have. And uh, there is, there's always a space for complex workshops to be facilitated by professional facilitators whose main job, whether as freelancers or working at large companies for their primary role to be a facilitator. But then it, unlocks so much more potential when more people is able to put facilitation skills to good use to create participative environments where people are engaged. So yeah this makes me smile. Sam: Yeah, so what you're seeing and beginning to see emerge is organisations and perhaps wider into kind of other areas begin to recognise facilitation as something more than someone just running a session, and it being an important skill within the workplace, be it an organisation and wider, as an actual thing, as a named skill. Robert: Yes, exactly. And, as a strategically important skill in a sense that it's having engaged people who have the chance to participate at making decisions really empowering people more to do a great job. And this becomes not just about effective meetings, but really a, an organisational differentiator. Sam: an empowering people. And so when I hear that, that's about like culture of an organization or a culture of a thing. Empowerment isn't something you go, "Right, we're now gonna empower people. Off we go." That's about a mindset, and that's about a culture that's being created. And what I hear you talking about here is how facilitation plays an important role in that. What I'm interested in, or what you're seeing emerge is, how does this happen? What are you seeing or do you feel are the conditions that enable that empowerment to happen, or what enables facilitation to be recognised? Robert: I do think for any scale of facilitation, it's important that there are some people who recognise the opportunity, that facilitation is important, and then creating the infrastructure for it and having a, critical enough mass of people equipped with facilitation skills. Just to share an example. I have the opportunity to speak with, various organisation development leaders to understand how they look at facilitation. And for example, people expect a difference that when employee is running a meeting, they don't just want them to, put up a slide deck and, put some content on that to have one person talking, but really be more intentional what they want to achieve and have the skills and the framework how to think about it, plus having access to the right tools, the right templates, and the right infrastructure. Because usually in most organisations, there are people who are trained as facilitators, whether they officially wear the title or, another hat then how this initial individual competence is getting into more central facilitation hubs, and then how other people are enabled to work off from the knowledge of that hub and then how then facilitation is supported through that. There are steps to go through that and, that's a very interesting challenge to see that, more and more organisations seems to care about enabling a wider circle of people to have access to facilitation knowledge and also to train them facilitation skills. Sam: What helped you get into this work? What was the conditions that helped you step into this space? Robert: First of all I definitely needed inspiration. still very vividly recall my first encounter with facilitation which was a simple team building, team cohesion workshop/training session which was really a facilitated process to get a team of eight people aligned. We were organising a large event and a person came who was called a trainer and then a lot later I understand that what actually we had was not training. it was pure process facilitation to help our team align and really understand each other better, build bonds, flesh out potential friction points and build trust while we did hands-on work together. And when I look back after, when the day was over, it was such a just energising and transformational experience that, wow, I would love to be able to do this one day. So, that was a really good motivation, to look around at what was this person doing and how was he knowing all this? ' 'Cause, he was barely talking. He was just giving us some instructions some guidance and then it was feeling very magical how smooth it went. So then years later when I was able to put words to it what it was like, wow. And then what enabled me to get into facilitation right place, right time. I was at that point very active in um, European youth organisation, which had a strong training and facilitation system. And the core approach was a very facilitative one. So that, gave a lot of opportunity to practice designing and delivering sessions and then afterwards in my consulting work, I also had the opportunity to keep facilitating various workshops, which overall these years led me to understand, well, there could be better paths tools available for facilitators to really help to make the work, especially when it came to collaboratively designing workshops and co-delivering and all the preparations when you send over spreadsheet version 11 but your co-facilitator works in version 10, and, all the mess that comes with that and then also passion met opportunity as we started working on a tool to just make our life easier, and it turned out to be useful for more people too, and that's how, SessionLab started too. Sam: Yeah. Was it something that just emerged one thing led to another thing, and you followed that? And/or was there also like a penny drop moment? Was there a crossroads sort of moment where you went, "Right, this is what I'm going to do and this is the direction I need to follow"? Robert: It's an interesting question because I think for me it was a very, organic process. similarly as, doing more facilitation helped me to realize that there is an opportunity to make parts of that work easier, smoother, better, with various tedious aspects of the prep work around facilitating so I can focus more on the facilitation experience itself. I think in some ways it's always a good moment when ideas come and, and when you start working on something and you see people using what you do in the room of, helping people or through a software. Sam: And how does that make you feel when you see that happening? Robert: Proud. think we all, are happy to make an impact. And I often feel some imposter syndrome because not a full-time professional facilitator I always love when I have the opportunity to facilitate and in my business work I'm facilitating still relatively frequently, so I wouldn't say I'm, just simply a software entrepreneur. Sorry, what was the initial question? I think I just diverted, uh- Sam: I was very interested in the direction that, you were going with it. What I like about these conversations is, when I'm, having this conversation with people they follow their own train of thought. Which for me is almost more important than the question I'm asking, because people will answer. the question that they want to answer. but question was really around was there a penny drop moment that you followed and then you thought, "Right, this is what I'm going to do." Or was there like a crossroads in having to make a decision of one way or another? Or was it just something that happened and what you talked about was that you found yourself, organically, working your way, to that, as well. So the question was, was there like a penny drop moment was there a sudden catalyst that you think, "Yes, this is the North Star, this is where I'm going"? Robert: I would say, it just been very organic and, uh, gradually building things, both facilitation practice-wise and also business-wise for SessionLab. a background there, my co-founder and I, essentially started this as a side project and for five years, he did his PhD. I worked as a consultant and occasionally facilitating, and we were, passionate enough to keep doing this on, evenings and weekends as a hobby. And I think that's important, to work on things you are passionate about because then, um, work can feel energizing if you care about what you do. Sam: Indeed, for me, I call it the fundar. it needs to feel fun. when the fundar fades, that, tells you something that you need to, think about the direction you're going or what will bring, that back. cause it's a lot of work, and what you've described is a long process and a lot of work. So unless there is joy from that, you start to question like, why am I doing this?" Robert: That's so true, and I think, if, I reflect on this part because it's been a while we, started, um, SessionLab, as a company, as well, and, I, think for me, I always enjoyed, building things and not just in the sense of building product, but like building something where I have really the context of everything within that organization or that project. So in, this sense, the company building part is exciting. I think that's what led me to this path from my consulting career where it was, in a way, a lot more diversity new clients, new industries to learn, and I think a frustration that whenever I felt like, "Okay, I'm finally getting the hang of this," then moving to a new project. Compared to that, building one's own business, has this, stronger feeling that I actually understand the context around- what we are doing. and that's always growing with new challenges each year. but as you mentioned, it's, really important that have that feeling of fun and growing as well. Sam: Yes. Yeah. And on that, subject of learning, it brings us neatly onto another question in terms of that learning, and particularly if you're creating... I mean, what you're talking about is creating, your own company, your own way of working with, your co-founder. And, the journey of that, there's a lot of bravery and a lot of courage there, as you figure that out and work out what works and what doesn't work. So with that in mind, my next questions, is what fluff-ups or mistakes, have you learned from? If any at all, of course. Robert: oh, yeah. think from the facilitation side, uh, to jump back to that side, I think it's a, common learning for most, facilitators, but, like, the participation must come from inside for participants. still remember in my few experiences, from my consulting years that, when a workshop, or a training session was mandated, by the manager and then you turn up there and, you have a bunch of people who just really don't want to be there. And you have a day with them, and, uh, that's extremely challenging to create space for learning and, creating when there is no motivation for it. And of course, there is always ways to use that time well and, dig a bit deeper of, the root cause of that issue. But yeah, it's very challenging when people don't wanna be there where they are sent, for your workshop Sam: is there a particular story or experience of having to figure that out with a, a group of people who don't wanna be there or, people in the room? Obviously, without naming names. Robert: yeah, I think it just, I, I was in a, um, how do you say, lucky [00:14:00] situation with my first few such encounters because I had a more senior, facilitator next to me who were handling the harder parts. And, and, they just taught me so much about, uh... I mean, I'm a big believer in, preparing, for workshops and, also in general I really enjoy the process design part, of facilitation. but also understanding that, all the work that goes into the preparation are essentially there to, uh, make you feel more confident when you need to make changes and adapt to what the group needs, and, uh, just that flexibility of, well, uh, great, we had a plan, and now that plan, is going to change based on- what the needs of the group is. Sam: Yeah. And just a couple of notes so on the people in a, in a room potentially not wanting to be there or the feel that people don't wanna be there, I'm really interested in what, did you do? What, happened, in that case? You know, for our listeners, What did you learn from that, and what did you do, or what happened? Robert: I think what we did for this, uh, one of the situations was, uh, just, really putting more time, at the very beginning to let people be heard and, [00:15:00] let out their, frustrations and, and, uh, so we can understand that, okay, what, were they expecting? which, is the second one of, actually understanding what, in this situation, what could we reasonably do? What expectations they have, and which are the one which we, which we have the liberty or mandate to address here? and that's a tricky situation when the sponsor is not in the room and, you are asked to do something. So then, finding that, common ground together with the group of, okay, we, we had goal X. there, there are, Y, Z, and W other issues, which, is the, common area in that Venn diagram, can reasonably address together. And then, okay, how, to handle the rest of the issues, how to bring those, um... Luckily, it, it wasn't a one-off, event, it was part of a bigger project, so there was, opportunity to handle the, other issues too. but yeah, making people heard, understanding what the expectations are and, uh- Collectively, building that, buy-in and, consensus of, okay, so what are we going to do together? And not, told by the facilitator, not, told by one person in the group, but collectively the group deciding of what are the, issues that it is, uh, willing and able tackle in that, timeframe that's available. Sam: Yeah. so what you're doing there is you're listening to what's coming up, and then you're asking the question of like what is it, what's going on. you're naming what's happening in the room whilst also inviting how can your own agency start to shift this so that you begin to want to be here based on being able to shape it alongside that challenge a facilitator has of, "Well, i'm here as a, my, client wants me to do this." but by holding that space with the group, you can start to work towards, both. And I think that comes onto my next question on what you said around the process of design and, SessionLab is and correct me if I'm wrong, but is like a software platform that allows facilitators to design their sessions with a whole bunch of tools that are within the, platform. So just sort of say a little bit before we come onto next question in terms of like, what is important for you about the process of design to be able to respond to, things that come up that might be harder to plan for? Robert: considerations do I find important, uh, while designing? Sam: Yeah. in what you were saying, you touched on the process of design as being a key learning thing and an important thing. my question is why is that important? Robert: I think that comes from the, starting point of, just understanding so what are the needs of this group? And, building a design is, For a workshop, for a facilitated process is, the vehicle through which to really understand, like, what do I want to achieve here and, how to satisfy each of those objectives. I'm trying to simulate somewhat mentally what is going to happen in the room and understand, what are the potential issues that will arise, and what can I do now to have, the right tools available for me the right processes so I can address those. And that really forces me to understand the needs of the group deeper and deeper. I think the other angle is nowadays I'm a lot more facilitating internally, which is another challenge when you are both a facilitator and a participant or important stakeholder in the room. Some-sometimes you as the, uh, leader of a group or a member of a group, are running the process as well and, and, and that's another challenge when you, need to be intentional that when, when you communicate, okay, am I wearing my facilitator hat now or, or my participant hat? but especially there, uh, in these type of situations, it's, just whenever I walk myself through how we are going to do, for example, a strategic planning or an offsite, it, really helps to clarify the goals that we want to achieve. So you may be playing more a part of a host in terms of hosting that conversation for want of a, better word in a sense. I was gonna ask in terms of like how do you square that when you are participant and facilitator? But I think what you touched on there is about being clear on your goal, and that is what helps hold that. Yeah, think being clear on the goal and, u-understanding what do I want to achieve, not just outcome-wise, but in terms of, if it's important that, there is a participative environment where people are equally heard, then, that's a consideration too when designing. And then I need to create a process, to satisfy that. so it's like what is the organization that, we want to have and what type of behaviours that mean? so what process is in line with that? Sam: Yeah. So from our conversation, because we're coming to the end of our conversation, I've got a few round-up questions, to finish with, including our previous guest question. But what I'm picking, what I'm sort of the words I'm coming away with the moment, Robert, from our conversation is empowerment, intentional and process. And how they influence facilitation and the important role that they, play with that. so my question to you around that before we move into the guest question, arena is, a question in terms of let it sit with you for a little bit first, if nothing comes to mind straight away. But, what, if any, meaning was made for you through the course of our conversation today? Robert: I found useful, this reflection on the, uh, facilitating internally versus as a real independent, facilitator and just like, I think I will ponder longer on this host versus facilitator, distinction, that you were putting. So I think I would, pick, it first, this one Sam: Thank you. So, um, that brings us onto our previous guest question. And the previous guest question was: what book do you recommend? And I'm gonna just add to that in tell me why your choice of book is important to you, Robert. Robert: Hmm. So, um, I loved reading sci-fi, but I probably wouldn't recommend sci-fi books now here. Sam: Right. Okay. it's your question, and you can answer it however you wish. Robert: just, my, go-to tool for, unwinding, from work. But it comes to more, sort of business,  or facilitation relevant books, I was thinking and, then one book that,  it struck my eyes on my, um, reading list was the Never Split the Difference, which I was surprised that I, would highlight this on a facilitation-focused podcast 'cause  I don't regard this as a book that is about facilitation. but I remember it had just-- firstly, it was very detailed with examples, and I always love books that, that is very detailed with, with specific cases. and I think what I really enjoyed there or what, what I found interesting is that while a facilitator's job is, not to negotiate, but what I really found interesting that it also had an angle that a good outcome depends less on logic and more on making the other person feel genuinely heard. a way it was fun to observe similarities that, Now, put it aside that I'm not a big fan of bestsellers, but still this, book with its specificities, I found this very useful and applicable for a number of things. but ultimately, it's-- I think there was this underlying similarity that both in the negotiation space and in the facilitation, there is a, a tie about, control and safety that, both as facilitators, we, want to create a safe space for participants where they feel, empowered to, uh, make decisions and, feeling rather in control than cornered. And, that is also true for negotiation situations. this gives some inspiration, es-especially for, the, the business side as well. But it was fun to observe that, something which I initially did not find so relatable to facilitation actually has, a bunch roots. Sam: they very often do. I often find that with other books as well. But also what you're talking about there very much ties into where you were telling me about when there was a, case in terms of, struggling with a group who, initially didn't wanna be there. And what you talked about there was that once they started to feel heard, they did want to be there. And I think there's some similar things that apply there as well in terms of, that facilitator creating space for people to be there, and then you're creating a brave space for those things to come out. And then you can get on with the facilitation because people are in a space where they, they're being confident and being part of, I think, is what I'm picking up from what you're saying there as well. So with that, and to sort of finish with, what question would you like to ask, Our next guest. Robert: Thank you. So, I think one question I would be particularly interested in, is related to, to the impact of facilitation, which is, by the way, also a topic that we, focused on, the latest State of Facilitation report. curious that, how do you know that your facilitation has made an impact? that would be my question. Especially because, Uh, there is all the emotions and energy in the room, during and after facilitation, which gives an impression. But then, what helps to know that the facilitation [00:24:00] has really made an impact? I'm, I'm just very curious to hear, perspectives on that. Sam: Brilliant. That's a lovely question, and something for our, next guest to chew on, I am sure. Robert, thank you for your time today. I very much enjoyed our conversation and getting to know you a little. Robert: Likewise, Sam. It was a pleasure to be here, and thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation too. Sam: thank you very much. Be well, everyone

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