Eris Weaver, Facilitator

Hello WordPress, Good-bye Google!

2012-02-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've been blogging here at Google's Blogger for awhile.

Google makes me nervous. There are a lot of things about their new policies that are bugging me.

I trust my local internet service provider (Sonic.net) and the open source WordPress community more than I trust Google.

So, I'm moving!

My new blog is here: www.erisweaver.info/blog. I won't be adding any more posts here, and eventually will delete this account.

We're Number Last!

2012-02-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

I arrived at the client's location and was being given the grand tour, as well as my hosts' perception of the conflicts I was there to mediate. As we chatted about the upcoming session, one of them smilingly asked, "Are we the worst group you've ever worked with?"

Almost EVERY group asks me something along those lines, usually with a grin that seems to indicate that they are hoping that my answer is yes!

This puzzles me.

Right now, the best I can figure is that we all want to feel that we are special in some way. And if the reason that the group is hiring me to mediate is because they are in conflict, well, they're clearly out of the running for the Most Functional Team award. They may as well go for the Most DYSfunctional Team award.

Do other mediators and consultants get this question?

Business Lessons from Improv

2012-01-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

I was really tickled to come across this list of Improv Tricks That Will Make You a Better Business Person. One of my declarations - "Don't work at it, play with it!" - comes from the life lessons I've learned from years of studying, practicing, performing,and teaching improv.

Stop for a moment and think of a problem or issue that you are currently facing. What images come to mind when you think about working on it? What does that make your body feel like? for me, there is a heaviness and seriousness invoked by that phrase. I feel tension and anxiety, maybe even dread. Now take that same issue and imagine what it would be like to play with it instead. What images and feelings does THAT evoke? I feel a lightness, permission to fiddle with it and make mistakes, curiosity. I feel freedom and anticipation.

Too many of us have forgotten what that state feels like. We have turned things that used to be play - sports, games, singing, drawing,etc. - into work. We sign up for classes and worry about whether we are "good enough" at it. We inflict this on our children, putting them into competitive sports younger and younger instead of letting them just play.

Improvisation is fun, and that is a good enough reason to do it! But it has also helped me:

Create connection and community
Be better able to think on my feet
Become more confident
Become a better listener
Become better at "going with the flow"

When I design and facilitate meetings I frequently include exercises or activities that are playful and get people to laugh. I also leave some space in my agendas and know that at some point we may need to deviate from the script and improvise.

The forms I've played with have been Contact Improvisation and InterPlay, but I think any "flavor" of improv that appeals to you works. I occasionally teach an improv class specifically designed to help folks get more comfortable with public speaking and sharing their message in a more impromptu way.

After all, we don't get a dress rehearsal for live - it's all improv, anyway!

Twenty Declarations

2012-01-09T11:18:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a piece of homework assigned during a presention by my Australian buddy Donna McGeorge at the 2011 IFVP Conference. One of her recommendations to us was to make a list of fifty declarations: statements that we know, through our professional expertise, to be absolutely true. This list can then be turned into book chapters, blog posts, etcetera.

I am finding this exercise not only useful, but a lot of fun as well! Here are mine so far:

Eris' Twenty Declarations
1.    Good meeting design, like good graphic design, requires white space.
2.    You don’t have to call on people in the same order in which they raise their hands.
3.    Communication works best if I assume the other person has good intentions.
4.    Adding “but…” to the phrase “I’m sorry” negates the apology.
5.    No one ever complained about a meeting ending early.
6.    You don’t have to be the “official” facilitator to positively affect a meeting.
7.    Don’t work at it, play with it!
8.    It’s possible to enjoy something that you suck at.
9.    There’s no right answer to the wrong question.
10. The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time; the order of the bites helps.
11. Before you decide HOW to do it, you need to be clear on WHY you’re doing it.
12. If you didn’t document it, it may as well not have happened.
13. You haven’t really made a decision if you haven’t included WHO is going to implement it and WHEN.
14. The only way to make space for quieter people to speak is for louder people to shut up.
15. Don’t let people think they are going to decide if they’re not. They’ll never trust you again.
16. Consensus is not the only tool.
17. If I want things to be different…*I* have to be different!
18. Run your own race.
19. There are no do-overs, only do-betters.
20. Eliminating the “problem person” doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

I'll explore and elaborate on these over the next six months of posts.

No Do-Overs, Just Do Betters

2011-12-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

Recently I had two fairly challenging gigs back to back. Immediately after each one I floated on a high of exhausted euphoria...I love my work, I did cool stuff, the client had a major breakthrough, etc. This was followed by a complete crash, in which I picked apart every possible thing I might have done wrong, obsessing over every detail.

The first time I went through this cycle, the high lasted a day or two and the low lasted a couple of weeks. I lost sleep over it. The second cycle was shorter - I crashed after only about four hours. I realized that I completely missed my favorite song on the CD I was listening to because I was perseverating about something negative I'd said during my gig. This time, I was able to step outside myself and notice what I was doing.

This phrase popped into my head: "There are no do-overs, just do betters."

I can't undo what I've already done. Beating myself over the head for my perceived character flaws and bad decisions isn't particularly useful. What I can do, though, is note the places where I could have done better and use the knowledge to do a better job the next time.

November Is Art Every Day Month!

2011-11-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the idea that practicing something - anything - for ten thousand hours will make one an expert. I don't know how much science there is behind that magic number, but I don't think anyone would argue that practice is important in building any skill.

Art Every Day Month is a project that I love because not only is it FUN - how could I not enjoy drawing every day and sharing the results with other creative people? - but it gives me an impetus to practice my drawing more than I tend to do without such a prompt. I draw a lot for my work as a graphic recorder; and when I take personal notes on a book I'm reading or a meeting I'm attending, I do so with drawings; but I don't just sit down and draw for practice or for fun as often as I'd like.

I may not make it every day, but I'll use this space to share some of the results of this month's challenge.

Great Expectations

2011-10-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Whether or not we are satisfied with an experience or event depends a great deal upon what our expectations were ahead of time. If the experience meets or exceeds our expectations, we are happy; if it does not, we are disappointed.

In my life and work with intentional communities, I have noticed that those who are most disappointed with community life are those who expected something close to utopia: the gap between that vision and the reality of living & working with real, flawed human beings is uncomfortably large.

I find it helpful to remind myself - and others - that if we are dissatisfied with something, it can be useful to look at what we are comparing it to. Recently, when I heard some neighbors talking about aspects of our community life that aren't working, they seemed to be comparing our current situation with either a utopian vision or some phase in our collective past. Of course, we're different now: members have come and gone, our children have grown, we have aged, our buildings and landscape have aged....should things look the same now as they did "back when?" Perhaps it would benefit us to find new comparisons.

Yesterday, as part of a reflection on our past, present, and future, I took the group through a guided visualization of our daily lives BEFORE we moved into the community. Comparing the richness of community life with the isolation many had felt before moving here shifted the mood from one of frustration with small details to one of appreciation and celebration for the gifts we share.

Sometimes we can increase our happiness by managing our expectations.

Deciding How to Decide

2011-10-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, I spent a weekend camping near the coastal town of Mendocino with my sea kayaking club. This event is very loosely organized. Each morning, folks wander from campsite to campsite, coffee in hand, trying to organize their daily paddling itinerary. Eventually, cars start departing as groups head out to local launching points, windows down as the discussion continues with those still walking along the campground road. The process is repeated at the launch site: which direction shall we go?

This got me thinking about how groups make decisions together.

When a group trying to make a decision together - without first deciding HOW to decide -what happens? Folks may follow a loud or charismatic or leader; those who express a stronger preference may have more influence on the decision. If differences emerge, the group may split. The entire process may take a great deal of time if there are a variety of opinions and/or a number of strong individuals; or the decision may happen in a flash if many are willing to follow.

Many groups can benefit from taking some time to decide HOW to decide before engaging in further discussion. This might seem unnecessary for something so trivial as deciding where to hike or paddle on vacation; when making important decisions in a business, government, or community setting, it can be extremely important.

If you are a leader engaging others in a decision-making process, you must be crystal clear with them on this issue. Is the group going to use majority vote? Are you trying to achieve group consensus? Are you as leader going to ultimately decide, after considering their input?

One of the biggest mistakes one can make in this regard is to allow a group to believe that they are making the final decision, and then later invoke your institutional authority and execute a plan contrary to their decision. Your group will never again trust you, and their participation will deteriorate. What is even worse is to ask for their input after you have already decided what to do; you will have wasted their time and lost their trust. Trying to achieve "consensus" regarding a decision that has already been made elsewhere is an abuse of the term.

Telling your direct reports that you will make the final decision may not make them happy, but your honesty and clarity will gain their respect.

The First Follower

2011-08-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

I love this little video. (The narration is transcribed here.)

I get two big lessons from this.

First, if you are going to be a leader, you need to BE EASY TO FOLLOW. If what you are doing is too difficult or complicated, it will be too hard for folks to understand you and join in! Be clear, be simple, be repetitive, and persevere.

Second, there is no movement without the FIRST follower. People are more likely to join in when there is already someone else following. This is another kind of leadership - leadership by following.

Are you a leader, a first follower, or a crowd joiner?

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

2011-08-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, my list included:

teacher
doctor
first woman president
artist
nun (I went to Catholic school, OK?)

It occurred to me recently that I have managed to incorporate elements of all of these roles into my work life!

I lead workshops and I teach at two local colleges.
I worked in health care for many years (although not as a doctor).
I have been president of just about every organization I've ever joined.
I am a graphic facilitator and get paid to draw! I've also been a professional dancer.
The big appeal there, I think, had to do with authority and community. (And uniforms. I like uniforms.) Now I live in a cohousing community, and teach other people how to do it. (Sadly, we do not have a uniform.)

How about you? How does your current life jive with the one you imagined when you were a child?

me & my sister circa 1973

Death to PowerPoint!

2011-07-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

In a recent blog post, Harvard Business Review writer Peter Bregman calls PowerPoint the "#1 Killer of Meetings."

I'm not sure if I agree it's number one - I've been to any number of sucky meetings that didn't involve PowerPoint - but it is definitely in the top five. I personally am on a one-woman campaign to eliminate it.

Why do we spend SO much time laboring over slides that still put people to sleep? No one really likes looking at other people's presentations, so why do they inflict them on others?

Only twice in my life have I watched a PowerPoint presentation during which I thought, "Wow, this is really adding to the speaker's message!" One was a keynote by Lawrence Lessig on creative commons; the other was a talk about water issues by Brock Dolman, director of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center's WATER Institute.

I find my students and audiences much more captivated by presentations in which I draw (on paper or a whiteboard) than those in which I've used PowerPoint.

Next time you have a presentation to give, spend the time you would have used fiddling slides on practicing your speaking, honing your message...or practicing your printing!

Agenda Planning Tip #1: INCLUDE WHITE SPACE!

2011-05-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

Just as visual artists know that white space is a key element in a good design, good facilitators know that break time is a key element in good meeting design.

When there is a lot of work to be done or information to be conveyed, it is tempting to schedule every minute, but this will work against you in the end! No one can focus and attend to business for hours nonstop. Bodies need to wiggle, eat, pee, and otherwise make themselves comfortable. The sharp focus elements of our brains need to relax and stretch. And people need time to connect with each other in informal ways - greet each other, chat, make plans, meet someone new. If you don't build time for these things into your event, people will still do them anyway - but they will be doing them during those work sessions you have so carefully planned!

(Read anonymous online humorist MeetingBoy's guest blog on this issue.)

Give folks enough time for lunch, and don't expect formal work to be done at that time. A meal doesn't count as a break if you are shoving information at them the whole time! Know that if you speechify during lunch, folks won't really be paying much attention to its content; nor will they really be able to do the connecting with each other that they need. Once again, they will snatch time out of other sessions.

Shorter mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks need to be long enough for folks to get to the bathroom, check their voicemail, and get a drink. The larger your group, the longer these breaks need to be in order to accomodate everyone. Fifteen minutes is a minimum.

Once you've placed a break on the schedule, START IT ON TIME unless you have a very compelling reason. If you go overtime, folks will be antsy, looking at their watches, and starting to sneak out. Don't let them out on break late and then expect them to show up at the next session on time; they won't and your whole carefully crafted schedule will back up.

The organizers of the week-long bellydance festival Rakkasah were masters at scheduling. Throughout the day they would insert five to fifteen minute "catch up" blocks in the schedule. This would usually accomodate all of the technological glitches and late starts that often set schedules awry.

There are meeting structures like World Café and Open Space Technology that take the creative connections that happen in the hallway and lunchroom and turn them into the main event.

The more you can stop thinking about breaks as empty space and instead embrace them as important elements in your meeting, the happier your participants will be.

How Strategic Planning Is Like Going On Vacation

2011-04-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

When Kim Coontz first asked me to lead a workshop on strategic planning at the California Cooperative Conference I was a little surprised; I usually teach meeting facilitation, communication skills, or conflict resolution, so it seemed outside my area of expertise. She pointed out that as a facilitator, I am frequently hired to help with meetings that include strategic planning - so I suppose I know more about the subject than I'd realized!

So here is the Four-Step Weaver Model of How Strategic Planning Is Like Going On Vacation:

Stage One: The Dream: “Let’s take a trip!”

When you dream about taking a vacation, you imagine yourself in different scenarios – why do you go on vacation and what do you like to do when you go? This first step of strategic planning similarly focuses on the “why” of your organization’s journey. Review your mission/vision statement and dream about where you’d like to be in a year or two. If you fulfilled your mission perfectly, what could it look like?

Stage Two: The Destination: “We’ll arrive in Copenhagen on July 15.”

In order to actually take a trip you must choose a final destination and arrival date; this step focuses on the “what” and “when” of the journey. It’s time to turn those dreams into measurable objectives: What will you accomplish? How many or how much? When will you get there?

Stage Three: The Itinerary: “We’re flying on Airline X and staying at Hotel Y.”

Now that we know where we’re going, we need to focus on how we’re going to get there: transportation, hotel reservations, etc. What actions are necessary to achieve the objectives identified in Step 1? Break each objective down into bite-size steps. Use a large time-line and sticky notes to sequence tasks. Don’t forget to include WHO will be responsible for each item!

Stage Four: The Journal: “Here’s a photo of where we actually ended up!”

Off we go on this grand adventure! Sometimes things don’t go according to the plan; we may choose to vary from the original itinerary or outside forces may force us to make changes. Just as we document our travels with photos, journals, and scrapbooks, keep a record of your progress against your strategic plans. This just might be the most important step of all!

Now that I've finished it, I realize that it is not unlike the presentation I gave to my kayaking club about the Baja expedition I organized last year!

A Simple Spiritual Path

2011-03-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have long felt an attraction to the poetry and teachings of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi. I recently stumbled upon a delightful book that condenses Rumi's spiritual practices into a short, simple easily-remembered list.

Rumi’s Four Essential Practices: Ecstatic Body, Awakened Soul by Will Johnson explains the practices and connects them to the larger body of Rumi's work.

As a hyper-kinetic sort, religious traditions that focus on what people DO rather than what they BELIEVE have always made the most sense to me. And Rumi's lusty, laughing, twirling whirling poetry - especially as translated by Coleman Barks - is captivating.

The four practices:

Eat lightly
Breathe deeply
Dance
Gaze raptly into the eyes of the beloved

How can I not follow a spiritual teacher who counts dancing as one of his most important practices?

Guerilla Meeting Facilitation

2011-03-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

My workshop "Meetings That Don't Suck" offers tips, tools, and tricks for planning and facilitating better meetings. Most folks who take the course are in some kind of leadership position in which they have responsibility for meetings.

But what can you do if you are low on the office food chain, and are stuck as a participant in meetings over which you have no formal control? Here are some suggestions.

Don't go. If certain meetings are impairing your ability to complete the tasks that your supervisor has told you are a priority, then skip 'em! Be sure to let your boss know why; after all, s/he probably didn't hire you just to sit in meetings, right? This won't work, obviously, if your boss is the one responsible for the meeting's suckiness.
Ask questions. If the meeting has no agenda or seems to have no clear purpose, ask. "So, what is our main goal here today? What are we expecting to have accomplished by the end of the meeting?" Keep asking. Phrase your questions in such a way that the person leading the meeting does not feel accused. Frame them in terms of your own needs: "In order to participate well, it helps me to have more of the big picture in mind."
Offer to help. Whether this is appropriate depends upon the temperament of the person leading the meetings as well as your relationship with him or her. If it someone that you can tell really hates running the meetings, they may jump for joy if you offer to assist. This could take the form of helping with agenda planning; facilitating some or all of the meeting; acting as a coach before the meeting or from their side during the meeting; or taking notes on a flipchart. Don't imply that this person is lousy at what they do - tell them that you're interested in learning more about facilitation or that you've just taken a course and want practice.
Facilitate from the floor. I end up doing this a LOT in meetings that I am not officially facilitating. This does NOT have to resemble a hostile takeover! Instead, as a participant, you gently fill in things that the facilitator is missing. For example, if the discussion is getting way off topic and the facilitator isn't pulling it back, you can say, "Hey, this is interesting but I think we're really getting off the agenda. Here's what I think about [agenda item]." If someone is taking too much airtime, if someone else is not getting a chance to speak, if someone says something inappropriate - in any of these situations in which a good facilitator can and should intervene, there is no rule against another meeting participant stepping in! Often the facilitator will be grateful, especially if they are someone who is uncomfortable being up there in the front anyhow.
Organize a revolt. If there are dysfunctional patterns routinely keeping meetings from being effective, get together with other participants who share your frustration. Discuss the behaviors that are most problematical and come up with strategies to intervene. Once again, this can be done gracefully rather than antagonistically.

In any social system, there are always points at which a small change by one individual can cause a ripple effect upon the whole group. If just one person in a group starts doing things differently, SOMETHING will change. I guarantee it.

To Find Good Ideas, Start With Bad Ones

2011-03-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

A recent blog post by Daniel Pink alerted me to a hilarious Wall Street Journal piece by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. Adams suggests that one of the best ways to generate good new ideas is to generate a bunch of really bad ones. He gives some pretty silly and/or outrageous examples of ways to tax the rich without calling it a tax - selling them extra votes, for instance.

We're often urged to "think outside the box" but we can't do that until we recognize what box we're in. Here's an exercise to help:

List all of your possible solutions up on a flip chart until you run out of steam.
Examine the list and find a characteristic that they ALL HAVE IN COMMON.
THAT is the box you're in! Now, move to a brainstorm of possible solutions that do NOT share that characteristic. Go ahead and let it get silly if necessary.
If nothing on that list seems workable, repeat – what do all of those solutions have in common? Now brainstorm outside of THAT box. Repeat as necessary.

I worked with a community that was struggling with the need to finance extensive building repairs – leaking roofs needed fixing before the rainy season, etc. They did not have enough in the bank and someone suggested a special assessment to fund the repairs. However, several members had recently lost jobs and were already at the financial breaking point, unable to contribute any more money. They felt very stuck.

Looking at all of their suggested solutions, it became clear that their unspoken assumption – their box – was that their values of equality and fairness meant that in any cash call, all members must contribute equally. Once that was stated out loud, they began to discuss what the situation could look like if they let go of that idea. Each household was given a slip of paper and asked to answer the following question with a dollar amount:

How much of your personal money would you be willing and able to contribute to the repairs, without resentment or repayment, regardless of how much anyone else contributes?

When we collected the slips, the amounts ranged from zero to over a thousand dollars. We totaled up all the amounts, and it was more than enough to fund the needed repairs! Those who felt stress over their financial situation were very moved by the generosity of those who had more and were willing to contribute more, for the benefit of all.

What box are YOU in today?

Fighting Over Small Pieces of Pie

2011-02-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

As politicians and pundits discuss the proposed 2012 federal budget, they throw out numbers that are so mind-boggling huge as to be completely meaningless.

Then I saw a graphic in the newspaper that really made it all a bit more clear. Accompanying Ezra Klein's editorial on the federal budget was this cartoon by Nick Anderson. (My scrupulous adherence to copyright law prevents me from cutting and pasting it here directly.) It basically depicts the budget as a pie chart, showing that most of the hoopla about budget cuts occur in a fairly small segment of the pie.

my crude version

This sent me on a hunt for other images - but so far I find Anderson's simpler than the official White House version.

Then I started to wonder...just how much money are we talking about, anyway? How many dollars per person is this? I had to go on a much broader treasure hunt here. Turns out that the total expenditure of $3.73 trillion divided by our current population of about 310 million comes out to about $12,000 dollars per person. Now that is an amount I can understand!

Next step: repeat this exercise with the California budget.

Visual Problem Solving: Analyzing Conflict

2011-02-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

My friend Kathy (names changed to protect privacy) asked for help in dealing with conflict in one of her project groups. As she told me more about it, I doodled a rough map of the relationships between each of the individuals as well as the different organizations involved in the project.

It has been my experience that often what appears to be a personal conflict between individuals often has components related to the social and organizational structures in which they operate; I had a hunch that this might be part of what was going on in Kathy's group.

The conflict had to do with decision making, specifically around the mission and strategic goals of the project. Bob and Lucy had very different ideas about where the project should be going than did Kathy, who had been the project's initiator.

My doodles started to resemble a flow chart. One big issue that remained unclear was the project's affiliation with two nonprofits, of which Kathy was the chief executive. If the new initiative was indeed a project of either of those nonprofits, Kathy as chief had the institutional power to override Bob and Lucy. If, however, it was to become its own entity, questions of governance needed to be negotiated anew.

Flow chart doodle

Kathy now realized that her challenge was NOT one of resolving personal conflict, but of clarifying organizational structures. Her next steps were now completely different! Rather than seeking mediation with Bob and Lucy, she needed to discuss the project with both nonprofit boards and get a decision as to whether either of them wanted to own it.

Doodle pretty-ed up for presentation purposes

Next time you are faced with a complicated conflict, instead of talking it out, try drawing it out!

Lessons Learned from Life on Crutches

2011-02-07T15:23:00.000-08:00

It's now been five weeks since I broke my ankle. Five weeks of navigating the world on crutches. Some of the lessons I've learned during my temporary disability:

Slow down. I can't zoom around at my usual frenetic pace or I will fall flat on my face. I have to watch the ground for tripping hazards. I see a lot more when I move more slowly.
Be patient. There are some things I can't do well for myself and I have to wait for someone else to be willing and able to do them for me. Everything takes longer - bathing, dressing, fixing lunch. I have to not only be patient with myself and everyone else, I have to plan farther ahead and allow the time.
Prioritize. I can't do everything I used to do in a given amount of time, so I have to choose which are the most important and which I can let go.
Ask for help. Oh, this is a hard one for me!
Economy of motion. I can't get up a million times and go back and forth from room to room in the middle of a task. Before I leave a room, I look around and see what I might need to take with me to the next room and pick it up before I even stand up.
Be creative. I've especially had to be creative about moving things from place to place with no hands. Sometimes I carry them in my pockets or in a bag around my neck. I've placed various chairs in strategic spots, so I can bunny-hop a plate or a coffee cup from the kitchen counter to the stool to the kitchen table to a chair to the coffee table. (Makes me appreciate my tiny house!)

Visual Problem Solving: Network Maps

2011-01-31T16:22:00.000-08:00

If you follow all the network marketing gurus, you have joined several different kinds of business, service, and networking organizations in order to develop relationships that will lead to more clients. As I finished 2010 and planned for 2011, I made a Network Map to evaluate how effectively my groups have generated new clients over the past two years, and learned some interesting things!

Here's how to do it.

Take a sheet of paper turned lengthwise. Put yourself in the center. Radiating out from yourself, draw in all the different groups to which you belong. You may want to also include groups that aren't necessarily business-oriented -- PTA, hobby groups, book club -- but which sometimes result in referrals.

Working outward, draw links from your networks to the people who have hired you directly or who have referred you to someone who has hired you.

You can color code things and make it fancy if you want, but don't worry about what it looks like - this is drawing to figure things out, rather than drawing to represent something realistically or artistically! (See my colleague Brandy Agerbeck's great website on different types of drawing.)

Choose whatever time frame makes sense for you - I used my last two years worth of clients but a different scale may make more sense for your business.

You will start to see patterns - some branches will have lead to a greater number of clients than others.

Writing in the actual sales amounts from each client will show you which branches led to higher revenues. In my case, the cluster that led to the highest revenue was NOT the same as the one that generated the greatest number of sales.

Another thing I noted were the people who were great referrers - one individual who had never hired me herself had been responsible for referring me to three of my biggest clients. It is important to nurture your relationships with these connectors - take them out to lunch ASAP!

Later, I added in the length of time I have been involved in each of my networks - my membership in these groups ranged from one to over twenty years. Of the three networks that paid off the most for me, two were the ones to which I'd belonged for the longest amount of time. That shouldn't have surprised me! It DID make me feel less anxious about some of my newer networks - I just need to be patient and give them more time.

If you try this exercise, I'd love to hear what things you learned from it!

Lessons from the Sea

2011-01-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

Me, surfing in Costa Rica

A few weeks ago I spent several days of my vacation in a learning environment. After my return, I prepared to teach a couple of facilitation workshops. I try to use my learning experiences to inform my teaching

My surfing instructors patiently worked with me through all the component parts of surfing: paddling out; paddling for a wave; popping up; turning; timing. They could demonstrate what to do, or put their hands on me and put my body parts in the right place to balance on my board. They could push me into a wave to try to get me to feel the timing.

But at some point, I had to move from THINKING about all these individual bits to FEELING the whole. The instructor can't be in my body, on my board, on my wave. Every body, board, and wave combination is different.

The same thing happens when I teach facilitation. I can share skills, techniques, and tricks. I can suggest that when X happens, you try doing Y or Z. But you have your own personality and style, and you are facilitating a unique group of people - you have to DO it and FEEL it yourself. The art is in applying the different techniques to each individual situation.

And one exhilarating moment you will realize that you are NOT thinking about all the parts...and that you have just caught the coolest wave! Enjoy the ride!

Sketch Crawl

2011-01-24T17:20:00.000-08:00

Those of you who followed my Art Every Day doodles may be interested in Saturday's world-wide Sketch Crawl! A bunch of folks going out to draw and then gathering afterward to share. (Kinda like a pub crawl but with less beer.) I joined folks in Santa Rosa, but you can look up your part of the world here.

Meetings Don't Have to Suck

2011-01-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

For years, office workers have chortled over Scott Adams' cartoon depictions of incompetent bosses, slacking co-workers, and evil HR directors. He's now been joined in the Twitterverse by Meeting Boy, an anonymous worker who tweets funny observations regarding the useless meetings his boss requires him to attend.

Could Meeting Boy's workplace experience be improved by the kind of training & intervention that facilitators like me provide? Maybe.

The best training is only useful if participants actually implement it. Meetings will only change if the people who have the power to change them actually WANT to change, and then take active steps to do so.

That doesn't mean that only the boss can change things; Meeting Boy and his coworkers are NOT completely powerless. If one person in a group changes their behavior, consistently, others will eventually change in some way, however small. If coworkers get together and agree to make changes and then follow through, the meetings will change - and the boss will have to change as well.

Truth or Consequences, Part Three

2010-12-20T06:54:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to influence people's behavior, and the best strategy is to incorporate multiple pathways. In order to change, people must have both the motivation and the ability to do so. Social and environmental factors are often overlooked.

One of my favorite books on creating change within an organization is Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. Co-author Joseph Grenny has an interesting piece in Business Week titled
"How Incentives Can Undermine Your Influence." It looks at the ways that trying to use simple "carrots and sticks" as motivators can actually backfire.

DO Talk to Strangers

2010-11-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to spend time practicing drawing the things that I'm NOT good at (animals, vehicles) and less time drawing the things I'm pretty good at (people, buildings, household objects). Today, sitting in Peet's Coffee looking out the window, I drew bicycles and cars.

This led to a conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me, about drawing and graphic recording...and it turns out that Dan is a musician! We talked about the idea of my drawing during one of his concerts - wouldn't that be fun? (Check him & his band Full Steem out here.)

After that I ended up chatting with another lady nearby who'd eavesdropped on our conversation. I always seem to end up in interesting conversations with folks in that particular coffee shop. If I sit in a coffee shop alone it is usually to do some work or read...Maybe I need to start going there more often just for the conversation with strangers.

Art Every Day Month: Day 28

2010-11-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

Spent time with my honey in a local coffee shop yesterday afternoon, where we both had fun drawing our fellow patrons. Never had a drawing date before -- it was quite nice!

Art Every Day Month: Day Whatever

2010-11-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't been very good at keeping up with this challenge as a DAILY thing...more like a fits and spurts. I just got my new Bamboo graphics tablet and spent the morning playing with zebras (Brandy over at Loosetooth is requesting zebra drawings for an as-yet-unannounced project).

original zebra

stoned zebra

rainbow zebra #1

rainbow zebra #2

More Elephants

2010-11-13T20:33:00.000-08:00

Art Every Day Month: Day 9

2010-11-11T20:03:00.000-08:00

One of the services I offer my clients:

naming the elephants in the room.

Truth or Consequences, Part Two

2010-11-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

Sylvia Lafair's November newsletter used a great metaphor for dealing with consequences: gravity.

If you sit under an apple tree, an apple might fall on your head. The apple wasn't out to get you. The apple doesn't wish you ill. The apple isn't sorry it hit you. The apple isn't mean. The apple just did what gravity causes apples to do.

When you are in a position to enforce a policy or consequence, BE GRAVITY. Enforcing the policy doesn't make you mean, or inconsiderate, or uncaring. You don't have to get emotionally worked up about it. The other party shouldn't take it personally.

This analogy perfectly describes my practice in the classroom. My policy on late homework is stated clearly. And enforced consistently. My students do quite a song and dance about why their homework is late, but I don't take the bait: I AM GRAVITY.

Now, this doesn't mean I'm completely inhuman; if someone has a car accident, serious illness, death in the family, etc. I work with them. But the little, everyday stuff - I don't waste energy trying to sift through every possible incident to decide whether to make an exception.

Art Every Day Month: Days 6-8

2010-11-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

OBSESSED.

Yup, that's me. Obsessed.

I did about three dozen drawings over the course of 48 hours. Two factors contributed to this. One: environment. I spent most of the weekend at Sea Ranch with my FrogSisters. Good company, good food & drink, beautiful weather on the coast. Two: materials. I bought a couple of new, tiny, cheap sketchbooks which allow me to throw down a small drawing, turn the page, and do another without feeling intimidated by a large page or worried about being "good." I did a ton of blind contour drawings (mostly of women reading and lying about) and several fun cartoon-y people, as well as some still lifes and faux Picassos.

Art Every Day Month: Day 5

2010-11-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

Art Every Day Month was obviously on my mind as I perused the new titles at Northlight Books yesterday. I picked up a copy of Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim. It is chock-full of drawing exercises and games, structures to help you loosen up and improvise on paper.

I sat myself down as soon as I could to start playing. Here are some of my results from the "Draw 30 Cats in Bed" exercise.

Art Every Day Month

2010-11-04T16:17:00.001-07:00

In 2004, Massachussetts artist Leah Piken Kolidas declared November to be Art Every Day Month. I absolutely LOVE this idea (even though I'm already three or four days behind)! For awhile I have been feeling that I need more structure and discipline in order to improve my drawing. My "happiness guru," Gretchen Rubin, states that it's easier to do something every day than to do it once in awhile, once a week, etc. So I hereby accept this challenge...even if the daily act of art is tiny. I'll post them here.

Whaddaya think? WITH or WITHOUT the vest?

(The closest I've come so far today was to get myself dressed before going to the Daily Acts Ripple the World Fundraising Breakfast this morning. Fashion, combining fabric color and texture, is art, right?)

Upcoming Workshops

2010-09-29T16:56:00.001-07:00

This fall I am teaching two classes through SRJC's Community Education program. I am really excited about this - I've been trying to get on their calendar for two or three years! Now I just need enough of you to go sign up to stay on it!

Meetings That Work! (I really prefer the title Meetings That Don't Suck but the bureaucrats always laugh, then say they can't use it.)
Sat. October 16, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Are your meetings poorly attended, boring, nonproductive? Learn how to create effective meetings that people actually want to come to! A modest amount of time and attention devoted to meeting planning and good facilitation pays back with increased efficiency, a decrease in conflict, better decision-making, and greater group cohesiveness. We will not only discuss but practice techniques for agenda planning, meeting facilitation, and dealing with 'difficult' people. Bring your examples of real-life challenges and go home with real tools you can use!

How to Talk About Hot Topics Without Getting Burned
Sat. November 6, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Have you ever put off initiating a conversation with an employee, colleague, or vendor who is underperforming? Have you watched as interpersonal conflict in the office got in the way of the work getting done? We are faced with difficult conversations everyday. Sometimes we postpone them in an attempt to avoid hurt feelings, and only make the situation worse. Come learn and practice strategies for facing these conversations with more ease and effectiveness.

The fee for each class is $65. Registration information is available online at http://tinyurl.com/23homja

Another Step Toward Justice For All

2010-08-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Just after noon today, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, who last week ruled California's gay marriage ban unconstitutional, denied the stay sought by backers of the ban. Next week, gay couples in California will once again be able to wed, unless the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals grants the opponents a stay.

Walker is a conservative Republican, first nominated by Ronald Reagan but denounced by progressives at the time as being anti-gay. The legal team on our side included Ted Olson, a conservative lawyer who defended George W. Bush in his election controversy.

I have been teary all afternoon.

When I came out thirty-five years ago, I could not have even imagined that the idea of queers getting legally married would EVER be discussed seriously in my lifetime. Based on the messages I received from the world around me - predominantly books, my family, and the Catholic church - I anticipated that mine would be a life of loneliness, discrimination, and possibly violence.

Today, I am legally married and my son has two legal moms. The kids in my cohousing neighborhood think this is completely normal. The movement for marriage equality has ridden on the shoulders of the greater civil rights movement - until 1967, there were states where inter-racial marriages where illegal.

Some days, all I can do is rage about how far we have to go. Other days, I glory in how far we have come.

Eris & Leslie's legal wedding, June 2008, Rev. Richard Senghas presiding

Graphics Jam

2010-08-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

I spent a good chunk of last week at the annual conference of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners, a creative bunch of folks who help businesses document meetings, capture ideas, and solve problems using graphics. I am relatively new to this practice (you can see examples of my graphic work here), so it was really wonderful to see masters at work. There were multiple opportunities to learn and play with everyone at multiple graphic jams. Every presentation was recorded by multiple artists, so you could compare and contrast varying styles. Lots of cool photos of the event are being posted on Flickr.

I was very excited to hear keynote speaker Dan Roam, whose book The Back of the Napkin should be required reading for everyone.

I came home with multiple book from The Grove; a huge pile of REFILLABLE markers from Neuland; and I won TWO gift certificates from Landau Chartworks, the great folks who do all my scanning.

Let's Talk About Money

2010-07-23T11:15:00.001-07:00

My July 31st workshop, Let's Talk About Money, is filling fast! You can pre-register here; last I checked there were only about seven spots left.

The event is being sponsored by Raines Cohen & Betsy Morris of EBCOHO and is designed for folks in any stage of cohousing development. My friend, neighbor, & colleague Dave Ergo & I originally designed it for the 2009 National Cohousing Conference in Seattle.

In my consulting work, I find so many communities in conflict over financial and budget issues…and the current economic situation doesn’t help!

Conflicts about money are really conflicts about values. While we talk a lot in community about our shared values - family, the environment, equality, etc. - we usually don't talk about our financial values. In our culture, it seems to be more taboo to talk about how much money we make than it is to talk about our sex lives! How many of us know how much our friends & neighbors earn, for example?

My workshops are very experiential. I will share a variety of structures and formats that communities can use to have more useful conversations about financial values - conversations that lead to greater understanding & connection as well as more effective financial decision-making.

"He Started It!"

2010-07-23T10:55:00.001-07:00

I love this quote by my colleague Laird Schaub, on conflict: "In the end it doesn't matter to me who started it. I want to know who's willing to end it."

To me, it really speaks to the difference between mediation and arbitration. A mediator helps the parties hear and understand each other's point of view; promotes empathy between the parties; and encourages the collaborative creation of a solution that meets everyone's needs. An arbiter looks for culpability and assigns restitution based upon each party's contribution to creating the problem.

It can take awhile for people to let go of wanting, more than anything, to be RIGHT.

Truth or Consequences, Part One

2010-07-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

I live in a cohousing community and work with many others as a facilitator, trainer, and consultant. The most common issue for which communities hire me has to do with work - or more accurately, how to get members who aren't doing their agreed-upon share of the work to get with the program.

What is alternately fascinating and vexing to me is that while these groups spend endless hours coming to consensus on complicated policies and guidelines about every possible aspect of community life, they are extremely reluctant to build in consequences for noncompliance with those policies.

Now, anyone who has been a parent, teacher, manager, or animal trainer knows the value of clear consequences, positive or negative. (I am a big fan of Karen Pryor's work in this regard.) So what is this all about in our cohousing culture?!?

In a fascinating TED talk, Jonathan Haidt discusses the five components of morality: harm/care; fairness/reciprocity; loyalty to the group; respect for authority; purity. Liberals tend to score higher on the first two; conservatives on the third and fourth. (They differ in purity - conservatives focus on sexual behavior while liberals focus on food and environment.) I maintain that cohousers are high on group loyalty yet low on respect for authority.

He also mentions research indicating that while people will behave in a sharing, altruistic way (for the benefit of the commons) for a certain amount of time, eventually they will stop doing so if there is no punishment for selfish behavior.

Think about driving. Most of us follow most of the rules most of the time. (Given how much time we spend in our cars, it is quite remarkable how few crashes there are!) Most of us break some of the rules some of the time. We don't need or expect enforcement or consequences every time we break a rule; but we do know that a ticket is possible and we do get them occasionally.

When discussing consequences for noncompliance with cohousing agreements, over and over I heard the phrase "I don't want us to be policing each other." It is as though our only mental model for holding each other accountable is Cop vs. Criminal.

What might be some more useful models for us to contemplate?

Asking for Help

2010-05-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

Kerry Patterson is co- author of three books to which I refer again and again: Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. I receive his e-newsletter, Kerrying On, which I always read immediately -- I consign most e-newsletters to the trash folder rather quickly, but I always find useful tips, tools, and stories in this invaluable. It's like a little mini-CE course in my email box once a week.

This week's issue shares a poignant story about the difficulty of asking for help. This so resonated with me! It is so easy to get trapped into believing that independence=strength, and that asking for help/directions/advice=weakness. I continually need to remind myself that it isn't my job to be perfect, to provide my clients with EVERYthing they might want or need...and that sometimes it takes the MOST strength to utter the phrase, "I don't know" or "I was wrong."

More on Play

2010-04-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

Garr Reynolds (author of Presentation Zen, one of my favorite books) has compiled some great thoughts, images, and video snippets on the importance of play.

Could the "Difficult" Person be ME?!?

2010-04-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

The nature of my work is such that I spend a lot of time listening to people talk about the problems/challenges that are going on in their organization or community. It seems to be human nature to assign some degree of blame to a person or people identified as "difficult." "If only A would stop doing X, everything would be OK." "The main problem is that B and C don't follow rule Y." Then I am asked how the group can somehow change A, B, or C's behavior.

Instead, I offer two other possibilities.

The first is to create a space for group members to do some self-reflection on the ways that THEY contribute to the situation. It is SO much easier to criticize everybody else than to look at our own stuff! But so much less effective. It's difficult - some would say impossible - to directly change another's behavior. But identifying our OWN part in the situation, and looking for ways to change our OWN behavior, is much more effective. (Here's a fun quiz to find out if YOU may be the "difficult" person.)

The second is to analyze the environment or culture in which the problem is occurring. Often there are structural issues that contribute to the unwanted behavior. Look for ways to making it easier to do the right thing and harder to do the wrong thing!

I Love to Teach!

2010-03-30T11:16:00.001-07:00

Most of the classes and workshops that I teach are born out of my own desire or need to learn and explore the topic. I learn SO much in the process of developing the workshop...and every time I teach, I learn something new from the interaction among my students.

I just updated my calendar of coming events; classes include How to Talk About Hot Topics Without Getting Burned; Meetings That Don't Suck; and Improve with Improv. (Can you tell I have way too much fun thinking up titles?)

Check out this fun article about me & my work by Inanna LaFevre.

Kinesthetic Modeling

2010-03-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday in a workshop on Kinesthetic Modeling (KM), a right-brain, hands-on, 3-D facilitation tool. Like a child with a new toy or a craftsperson with a new tool, I am itching to play with it some more!

I first heard of KM from my colleagues Andrea Saveri and Leslie Salmon-Zhu; we used it with participants in a three-day international R&D meeting. It was a great way to get some very cerebral, left-brain types to interact with each other in a completely different mode and really think outside their boxes.

It was great to meet KM originator John Ward, play with some of my Fabulous Facilitator friends, and get ideas of more ways to use this tool.

OK, OK, I know that you are now wondering, what the heck IS this process, and how do you do it? Like Interplay and other embodied tools I use, it is much easier to demonstrate than to describe. But I will try:

Think with your hands.
Communicate without words.
Manipulate, arrange, doodle with everyday objects: popsicle sticks, rocks, figurines, toys, paper clips, etc.
Make models and maps - the images of your dreams and thoughts made concrete.
Then step back and look.
No, really, just LOOK.
See with the eyes of a five-year-old, pictures in the clouds.
Move from image to meaning.
New ideas and understandings emerge when the two sides of the brain play together!

Don't Work At It, Play With It!

2010-03-03T10:38:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite recent reads is Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. She embarked on a year-long quest to become a happier person. As I am a sometimes snarky, often irritated, highly critical person, the idea of instigating a similar project for myself was somewhat appealing. (It was especially appealing to my wife!)

So I have been working my way through her book, thinking about what I love & what makes me happy, and making new Happiness Resolutions every month. (Of course this involves charts and checkmarks and gold stars, which makes my obsessive self very happy!)

One of the suggested tasks is to create a list of personal commandments. My favorite one came to me during my recent Improv workshop: Don't work at it, play with it!

One of the concepts I have experienced very deeply from my years of Interplay is that issues can be resolved, hurts can be healed, and insights can be gained just as easily - sometimes MORE easily - through embodied play than through cerebral work. When I try to "work" on myself, I struggle, I resist, I get tense. When instead I play with the thing I'm trying to learn or the issue I'm trying to understand, I stay open and grounded. I am more receptive...and I have a LOT more fun!

The rest of my personal commandments for happiness:

Find the fun
Pet the kitty
Act as if
Let it go
Go outside

Mapping Our Buying Habits

2010-02-28T11:39:00.000-08:00

On Friday, about twenty GoLocal business members met for breakfast.

The GoLocal campaign is all about promoting the benefits of purchasing local products and services, and of course we all want local consumers to patronize our businesses. We also need to examine our businesses' buying behaviors, and maximize our own opportunities to Shop Local.

We first did a quick inventory of all the types of businesses represented in the room, which were recorded on a 4' by 8' foot drawing of a stylized commercial street. We also brainstormed the types of products and services we purchase in the regular course of doing business and added these to the chart. We used two colors of sticky dots to indicate which services and products we typically purchase from a locally-owned company and which ones we do not.

Viewing the final chart, it was easy to see that some kinds of services readily lend themselves to Going Local: haircuts, auto repair, catering. For others, there are significant barriers such as cost, availability, limited selection, and convenience. In many cases we just don't know about a local option. The group brainstormed ways to overcome these barriers and make it easier for us all to Go Local. Solutions include starting small; building relationships; cross-promoting with other local businesses; using the Go Local brand and local; and simply asking local vendors to carry or order what you need.

Pro Local!

2010-02-16T17:06:00.001-08:00

I started my facilitation & consulting practice working with cohousing communities scattered around the state, doing a LOT of driving. Over the past year, I have been working to grow my business locally.

Some facts about going local:

Buying from locally owned businesses keeps money circulating in the local economy THREE TIMES longer!
Small businesses (generally local) create more new jobs than big businesses do.
Working and shopping local cuts down on driving and therefore carbon emissions.

I've joined the Sonoma County GoLocal Coop, network of locally-owned businesses, citizens, non-profit organizations, and government agencies working together to build a sustainable local economy. I'll be putting my graphic facilitation skills to work in an exercise on mapping local business opportunities at their February 26 B2B networking meeting.

The Art of Gracefully Receiving Feedback

2010-01-06T17:02:00.000-08:00

Recently I was given the valuable opportunity to practice what I preach! A client was not entirely happy with the work we'd done together and gave me very frank, specific and detailed feedback about it. While grateful for their honesty, I was somewhat taken by surprise. This conversation was an excellent chance to review these techniques that I share in workshops and mediations:

Breathe. If you find yourself tensing up or getting defensive, consciously relax your muscles and breathe deeply.
Assume good intentions. Even if the feedback seems critical or poorly delivered, assume that the person is sharing it with you because they value and want to improve the relationship between you.
Listen. Let go of trying to compose a response. Try to hear the underlying message.
Reflect back what you heard, asking any questions necessary to clarify the other person's concerns.
Thank the person for sharing. It can be very hard to initiate such a conversation - acknowledge that!
Realize that you may need to go away and process what you've heard before you can respond in a useful way.

In this instance, the concerns raised did not seem to fit with previous feedback I'd received about similar work. After the conversation, I was able to contemplate some possible reasons for this:

Perhaps other clients have had similar concerns but did not feel comfortable sharing them with me. I could check this out by contacting some of them and asking specific questions in an open and receptive way.
Perhaps I was having an "off" day and my performance was not up to its usual quality. I will need to think through the day and evaluate this further.
Perhaps this client and I are not a good "fit" for each other; my strengths, weaknesses, teaching style, etc. may not intersect well with their learning styles and needs. Further conversations should serve to clarify if this is the case.

Too many of us, when given critical feedback, either don't let it in at all ("He doesn't know what he's talking about!") or we take it too deeply ("He's right, I'm no good, why did I ever think I could do this?"). The dance is in hearing the other person's experience; reflecting deeply and honestly upon our own experience; and balancing these multiple truths.

Gratitude Revisited

2009-11-10T05:01:00.000-08:00

Well, since I originally conceived of the Gratitude event, I have been blessed with an avalanche of new clients and gigs...so many that I need to cancel the event in order to actually accomplish the work they've given me. I am so full of Gratitude for new work opportunities...but it is ironic that I have to cancel my Gratitude event!

A Celebration of Gratitude

2009-10-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

Our national holiday of giving thanks has devolved into an orgy of overeating and commercialism. I'm organizing a World Cafe gathering here in Cotati to discuss, celebrate, and promote gratitude. What are we grateful for? How can we maintain a sense of gratitude in the face of hard economic times and personal challenges? How can we work together to cultivate a culture of gratitude, when the greater culture encourages us to want (and thus spend and consume) more?

(I originally wanted to call this The Gratitude Cafe but folks were getting it confused with the raw food restaurant Cafe Gratitude.)

If you're in the North Bay Saturday, November 21 come join us from 7:30 to 10:00 pm. Space is somewhat limited, so please pre-register here!

(And yes, refreshments will be served!)

Community Mediation

2009-10-04T13:58:00.001-07:00

Just signed up for mediator certification training with RECOURSE Conflict Resolution Services, a community-based organization that offers community mediation in Sonoma County. I look forward to volunteering with them afterwards.

IMPROVe with IMPROV!

2009-10-02T16:18:00.000-07:00

Whether you are an entrepreneur promoting your business or an activist promoting a cause, success depends upon the ability to present your message with confidence and ease.

Memorizing speeches or preparing PowerPoint slides can only take you so far. When you run into a potential lead or client in an unexpected place and time, you have to be able to wing it!

Improvisation can help you

* Re-connect your mind with your body
* Feel calmer under stress
* Free up your voice and project more effectively
* Communicate your passion more easily
* Increase your confidence when speaking in a group
* Break down the divide between work and play
* Stop worrying about being “right” or “perfect” or “good enough”

Plus, it’s FUN!

In addition to improvisation games and exercises, this three-week workshop will include before-and-after videos and homework assignments designed to help you hone your message and deliver it clearly and effectively, anywhere, anytime!

Tuesdays Nov. 3, 10, 17, from 7:00 – 9:30 pm in Cotati. $125

Register online or email me for more info.

Use Plain English, Dammit!

2009-09-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

"Our mission is to enhance value-added initiatives and engineer interactive metrics so as to maximize holistic, relational opportunities for system-wide transformation. We do this by synergizing one-to-one partnerships and embracing out-of-the-box solutions as we empower communities to creatively leverage mission-critical paradigm shifts."

I was checking out the competition today, looking at the websites of various facilitators and organizational development consultants and I must confess my eyes glaze over when I read statements like this. I alternate between thinking, "Whoa, I can't understand a word of this, are they just smarter/more educated/more sophisticated than I am?" and "This emperor has no damn clothes on."

If you're trying to help people have better communication, start by being clear about what it is you actually do.

Here's what I do:

Have you ever sat through an interminable meeting that felt like a colossal waste of everyone's time? I can help you plan and facilitate meetings that don't suck, but actually accomplish something useful.
Have you ever watched interpersonal conflicts prevent people from getting the work done? I can mediate conflicts and facilitate conversations on controversial subjects so that everyone is heard and no one gets hurt.
Have you ever put off holding a difficult conversation with an employee, vendor, or colleague who isn't performing up to expectations? I can coach you and teach you skills to communicate more effectively.

What I won't do is try to impress you with jargon.

I created the first paragraph using:

Gathering of the Transition Tribes

2009-09-24T18:14:00.001-07:00

Author Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life) was in town for a lecture and stayed here at FrogSong last night. Today she facilitated a meeting of representatives from local sustainability organizations with the theme "Accelerating the Transition." I graphically recorded the session and will post photos as soon as I get copies from the photographer (the always amazing Karen Preuss).

The various groups represented had a huge overlap in their missions; and one of the challenges/weaknesses many of them mentioned was burnout, not enough time, etc. At what point does it make sense to merge organizations? How many separate sustainability groups does one county need? How do we use our own energy in a sustainable way?

Improvisation

2009-09-23T11:53:00.001-07:00

Whenever I give a talk - even just a 30-second elevator speech - folks ask me how I got so comfortable with public speaking. They ask if I can recommend a class in public speaking, or if they should join Toastmasters.

What I tell them is that improvisation classes are what did it for me. Contact improv and InterPlay are my favorite forms, but just about any kind of improvisation will do the trick by helping you:

get you out of your head and into your body
switch from work mode into play mode
free up your voice
stop worrying about being "right" or "perfect" or "good enough"

So, now I'm thinking about designing an improvisation class specifically for businesspeople &/or social change activists who want to improve their confidence and their speaking & presentation skills.

Thoughts? Would YOU sign up?

Cohousing in the News!

2009-09-22T15:14:00.001-07:00

My cohousing community, FrogSong, is mentioned on p.85 of Sunset magazine's October 2009 issue!

What is Your Unique Ability?

2009-09-19T13:40:00.001-07:00

I'm taking a great Business to Business Marketing class with Cynthia Riggs and Roberta Ryan, two women I met via Connections: A Forum for Women in Business. What I am loving about these two is that they combine real business knowledge with a commitment to Right Livelihood.

Our homework this month is to ask ten people who know us to reflect back to us the answers to the following questions: "What am I doing when I shine the brightest? Where do you see my excellence combined with my passion?" The idea is to align our businesses with our unique abilities. I've gotten two answers back so far and look forward to more!

P:5Y

2009-09-19T13:25:00.001-07:00

I watched the Peace in 5 Years video and unexpectedly wept....this is an idea surely no crazier than JFK's "a man on the moon in ten years!"

Now I must contemplate how I can accept this challenge in a deeper way...the bit of irony here is that I just came home from teaching a conflict resolution workshop to which only two members of a 100+ community came!

What Motivates Change?

2009-09-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

A colleague sent me a notice about an upcoming showing of the documentary film In Transition: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. I went online to watch the trailer.

What struck me was how somber and gloomy everyone looked, even while their words were talking about creating a new, wonderful culture that people would want to be a part of. I personally have such a negative reaction to the “doom gloom kerBOOM!” style of message – show me the hope and joy and fun to be found in creating change and I’m much more likely to want to participate.

An example of a person who motivates me with his sheer exuberance is Mark Lakeman of Portland's City Repair Project. This group gleefully takes over city intersections and turns them into community gathering nodes. Mark gave a keynote address at the 2009 National Cohousing Conference and he is a dynamic speaker, who radiates energy and hope. I'm hoping to work with folks from a few other local sustainability groups to bring Mark to our area.

Civilized discourse in peril

2009-09-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

All the screaming and outrage at recent town hall meetings has really got me down. As a society, are we now completely unable to disagree in a civil way?

Even as I try to utilize the listening and communication skills that are the way I make my living, I sometimes find myself acting out a bit. I yelled in frustration at my father during an argument about health care reform. I stormed away from a neighborhood conversation on the issue because I thought my friends were being intolerant of different opinions. (Yes, I recognize the irony in that!)

I think one of the factors contributing to a lack of skills in civil disagreement is that many of us spend all our time surrounded by others who basically think the same way we do. This is well-documented in The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop. Basically, Americans have been moving to neighborhoods that reflect our own political worldview, as well as only consuming media that also reflect our worldview. We have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact on a daily basis with those who differ from us.

Thus our differences become entrenched and polarized. A wonderful organization called the Public Conversations Project works to bring together people from opposite sides of contentious topics like abortion, to listen to and learn from each other; even if we continue to disagree, we can at least stop demonizing "The Other" and try to understand how they came to their point of view.

Which DTWOF Are You?

2007-10-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

Just found this hilarious quiz linked from Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For website (my favorite cartoon of all time). My results:

Which Dyke to Watch Out For Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Lois

You are Lois, the ladykiller who's mellowed into an awesome, loyal girlfriend. Give yourself permission to read the newest Harry Potter at Camp Trans.

Lois

85%

Sparrow

75%

Stuart

70%

55%

Sydney

45%

Clarice

35%

Toni

35%

LibraryThang

2007-10-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. Gawd.

LibraryThing. An easy easy way to catalog your books online...and do all kinds of fun things, like see what other people who have your books are reading...kinda like a more interactive Amazon.com. One fun feature is the Anti-suggester. You know how Amazon will tell you, "People who bought X also bought Y?" This one says, "If you loved X, you'll hate Y!"

Tremendous fun. Major time-wasting potential.

Twitter Fritter

2007-10-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

As part of the 23 Things challenge, I frittered away some time on Twitter. Folks randomly post a short blurb about what they're doing at the moment. I just don't get the point.

There's a feature where you can have twitters sent to your cell phone. There are some news feeds so you could set up something resembling SDI, and get little blips on your cell phone, either from your friends or from the news feeds.

[rant on]
This just feeds into this whole antisocial trend of being so constantly connected via various electronic gadgets (cell phone, iPod, blackberry, etc.) that you can hardly interact with the person who is right there in front of you for all the devices beeping at you.
[rant off]

100-Mile Cat Food

2007-09-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

After spending several months trying to adhere to a 100-mile diet, I started to consider the source of the food I feed my cats. (This reflection was also spurred by the melamine scare.)

I came across a website by a proponent of the BARF diet (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food). Cats, after all, are obligate carnivores. They eat nothing but meat in the wild. Raw meat. Raw meat with the bones, and eyeballs, and spleens and everything.

Now I am feeding them ground raw chicken with a variety of supplements added in. (You can read the recipe here.) Bean, my dog-trapped-in-a-cat's-body, loves it. Her Highness Miss Buggerina will not eat it by itself, but will eat it if mixed with canned cat food. Bug had been quite sluggish and obese, but after a month on this diet she has lost significant weight and is much more active and playful. She's even hunting again, after a hiatus of several years! Bean's skin allergies are clearing up.

It's a minor pain in the butt, but worth it for my "babies."

6-8/23

2007-09-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

(I feel a ridiculous need to be clever with titles...but what can you do with a post that solely exists to prove that I accomplished items 6, 7, and 8 on the 23 Things challenge?)

I fooled around with RSS feeds and set up a few on Bloglines. I added my favorite comic, Dykes to Watch Out For, as well as the library comic Unshelved. I've always enjoyed Jessamyn West's writings, and have also added The Information Literacy Land of Confusion as I am currently teaching info literacy classes at SRJC.

I find it REALLY clunky to check feeds with a Web interface - it's not any easier than just having links on my personal homepage, which is what I'd been doing before - but I am still running an ancient version of Windows that will not support programs like SharpReader. I've purchased Windows XP and a newer version of MS Office, but keep putting off installing them until I have an entire day in which I have nothing mission-critical to do. I much prefer to have stuff come to me via email, rather than have to actively go look at it.

I looked at the Websites for the various libraries listed under Thing #8, and I have to say I am underwhelmed...it seems there is a lot of excitement around using new technologies just because they are new, without stopping to think if they are really going to improve communications, do an important job more effectively, etc. I really need to be convinced that there is a good reason for me to use something like Second Life or RSS feeds - a reason, that is, besides merely being "cool." I had my first look at Second Life yesterday during an SLA chapter board meeting; again, another cool way to waste time but I really don't see that there's any THERE there.

We're also working on using wiki software for some of our chapter business. That is showing a lot of potential.

Fk Flickr

2007-08-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

OK, I have dutifully spent some time looking around Flickr and playing with various Flickr mashups. (My favorite is Spell with Flickr.)

The mashups are indeed a tremendously fun waste of time...but I am having a REALLY hard time seeing how they might be relevant to my library work. (How did these 23 things get selected?!?)

As for Flickr itself...I am the sort of person who actually hates looking at other people's vacation photos, so looking at the photos of strangers is not exactly how I want to spend my precious time. My friends -- mostly buddies from my kayaking club, BASK -- post their photos on various photosharing sites and sometimes I glance at them, especially if I'm likely to be in the photo! But I rarely take photos, the ones I take aren't all that great, and I see no point in subjecting the rest of the world to them.

The other photosharing sites I've visited include Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Kodak but the one that seems to be my buddies' favorite is SmugMug. It isn't free, but it has a nice interface...and it doesn't ask users to sign in to look at photos, which I really appreciate!

A New Challenge: Beer with Homer

2007-08-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

Back in April I started this blog as part of the Learning 2.0 continuing education challenge created by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Now one of my numerous employers, Marin County Free Library, is encouraging us to participate in a similar challenge via InfoPeople. So here I go, blogging my progress for all the world to see.

As part of challenge #10 (who says we have to do them in order?!?) I played around with various image generators, including the Simpson's Avatar Generator. I quickly created what I thought was a humorous cartoon of myself having a beer with Homer Simpson. (You can supposedly view it here, if it doesn't appear above.) But I had a heck of a time saving it, viewing it later, etc. which may have something to do with firewalls and popup blockers here at work.

The Short Evolutionary Period of Tastebuds

2007-05-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

I just got back from four days in Nevada City, where I work for Cohousing Partners, doing group process training and coaching for cohousing communities under development. (Two great communities in Grass Valley are still looking for new members - Wolf Creek Lodge is for active adults, while Wolf Creek Commons is a multigenerational community.) This was to be my first trip since starting the 100 Mile Diet.

While I've given myself a travel exemption, I figured I would still bring food with me and at least prepare my own breakfasts and lunches. I'd reserved a room with a kitchenette to facilitate this. (The Outside Inn in Nevada City is an economically-priced gem!)

However, my mad dash out the door fifteen minutes late meant I didn't have time to stop at the farmers market before picking my colleague up at the airport. So I had to make a late stop at a dinky local market...looking at the room full of boxes and bottles and cans (with a few wilty looking fruits & vegetables) all I could think was, "There isn't any actual FOOD in this store!"

Two weeks out of the mainstream grocery loop and I've already lost my taste for many of the things I used to eat - I bought a bag of pita chips and ended up tossing them because they didn't taste like FOOD.

I'm happy to be home, eating my own homemade bread with Prather Ranch bacon and radishes from my latest local find, Green String Farm.

50 Mile Dinner for 50

2007-05-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the San Francisco Locavores , the Eat Local Challenge, and especially Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon's 100 Mile Diet, I have been striving to eat only foods grown within 100 miles of my home in Cotati, California. Given the abundance of food grown here, it makes no sense to purchase products from thousands of miles away.

I have been eating wonderfully well, connecting with farmers at the local markets, and eliminating tropical and processed foods from my diet. I have not felt deprived by phasing out chocolate, bananas, mangos etc. because I am so delighted by things like fresh strawberries, picked the same day at the peak of ripeness.

Earlier this week, I shared this experience with 50 of my friends and neighbors by cooking them what turned out to be a 50 mile dinner.

Before you gasp in awe at the concept of cooking dinner for fifty people, let me fill you in on some things. I regularly cook for 50. I live in FrogSong, a cohousing community of thirty households who live closely and share regulars meals together. We all take turns cooking dinner once a month, for a total of four community meals per week. I've been sharing my thoughts and experiences with eating locally with other Froggies, during our dinners, walks together, watching the kids on the swings, etc. Many have expressed great interest, and my copy of Plenty (the U.S. title of Alysa and James' book) is making the rounds. So what else could I do, but cook a 100 mile dinner for the whole gang?

The first challenge was designing a menu. Our community practice is to post dinner menus a week in advance so that residents can sign up for those that they want to attend. Any meal that includes meat must also include a vegetarian option, and ingredients to which individuals are sensitive or allergic (dairy, nuts, etc.) must be noted.

Well, this posed a small challenge. Part of the rhythm of eating locally is going to the market and seeing what is actually available on any given day. I needed to find a recipe that would be flexible enough to accomodate this. Plus, it had to be really tasty...no boring rice and steamed veggie plate would do! We have some fabulous cooks here, so I needed to really wow 'em.

Being near the Pacific coast and the San Francisco and Tomales Bays, a lot of great seafood is available, as well as local organic chicken and beef and even pork...but how would I come up with a vegetarian substitute, with no soybeans (and thus no tofu) nearby? The whole meal better be vegetarian. I found a recipe for Spring Vegetable Cobbler with Cheddar Biscuits in a vegetarian cookbook published by the California Culinary Academy and deemed it worthy. A simple salad, and strawberries for dessert.

Off I went to two different farmers markets, the locally owned grocery, and the strawberry stand. (Yes, eating this way requires more shopping! But it is MUCH more fun to stroll the farmers market than the aisles of a supermarket, I have found.) I stashed a cooler in the trunk of my car to keep it all fresh as I made my rounds. I asked all the vendors about the location of their farms; if they mentioned a town that I'd never heard of, I consulted the small map I keep in my wallet, with a 100-mile circle drawn on it.

The Thursday market in San Rafael is the closest place to purchase flour from Full Belly Farm, the only source of wheat within my 100 mile radius. (As a great lover and daily consumer of bread, I could not even begin to think about this culinary challenge without getting a flour source lined up.) Between this market and the Saturday market in Santa Rosa I found a plethora of beautiful vegetables - squash, onions, garlic, lettuce, radishes, beets, tomatos, carrots. I mail-ordered some heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo in Napa, the closest source I've found for beans so far (and unfortunatey quite expensive). Clover-Stornetta dairy products are in every local store, and I pass by the happy California cows every day.

I even made vegetable stock from scratch, throwing various vegetables (including leeks from our garden) into a pot the day before.

Ben and Victor were my sous chefs, cheerfully chopping this huge pile into bite-sized pieces while I stirred bechamel sauce, grated cheese, and rolled out biscuit dough. Neighbors dropped by all afternoon to check on the proceedings, their curiousity having been piqued by my earlier announcement about the 100 mile plan.

As it turned out, all of the dinner ingredients were grown within 50 miles of our home. I spent WAY too much time on the computer one day, plotting all the farms from whence they came on a scanned AAA roadmap. I posted this on one of the many community bulletin boards, and it apparently became quite a topic of conversation throughout the week.

The other question concerned cost. All that local organic stuff is expensive, right? Well, yes, some of it is...but the final total was a whopping $2.87 per person.

Finally, the bubbling cobblers were out of the oven, the strawberries sliced, the salad on the table. It all looked beautiful. But how would it taste? (Despite the usual advice to the contrary, FrogSong cooks often prepare community dinners using recipes they've never tried before.)

For grace, I shared the Vietnamese proverb "When eating fruit, remember who planted the tree; when drinking clear water, remember who dug the well." It's hard to remember who planted the tree when your food travels thousands of miles from farm to your plate! I acknowledged each of the farms from whence our meal came; and everybody dug in.

Smiles, grins, happiness all around. "They like me, they really like me!" Despite very minimal seasoning, the cobbler was bursting with flavor, the biscuit topping providing a nice sturdy background. The salad cool and crunchy, sweet juicy tomatos, orgasmically sweet strawberries. I overheard many conversations - parents explaining the 100 mile concept to children, people wondering whether their favorite food might be available locally, thoughts about how to encourage diversity in local agriculture. Folks lingered over local wine; and, well, non-local coffee too.

I see many more 100 mile dinners in our future.

Locavore in Training

2007-04-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been reading a lot about folks who are trying to reduce their ecological footprint by committing to eating only foods grown within a 100-mile radius of their home. They call themselves Locavores or profess to follow a 100 Mile Diet; you can join them in an Eat Local Challenge.

I've been deeply thinking about this for a couple of months now, trying to visualize and imagine how I would do it. I haven't yet set a date...and in fact I'm thinking about phasing it in, rather than setting a clear "I'm doing this NOW" date. A few of my neighbors here at FrogSong may join me in the challenge.

I think part of the appeal of this for me right now is that I've been reflecting a lot on my commitment to environmentalism. Throughout my late teens and twenties, I was an eco-fanatic - I didn't own a car, I didn't use anything disposable (well, except for toilet paper), I bought bulk at the co-op, I lived in a tiny house, etc. Now sometimes I feel like I've sold out - I own a new home, a car, I travel - even though by Middle America standards I'm fairly "green", with a hybrid car, living in cohousing, etc. Shifting into this greater food awareness feels like a way to reconnect my almost-fifty-year-old self with my passionate twenty-year-old self.

Late Bloomer

2007-04-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is - my first blog post. Not that I necessarily think I have anything profound to say that I think anybody needs to read...but as a librarian I need to keep up on new technologies, so I'm learning how to create a blog as well as other things using the Learning 2.0 website.

Read at your own risk.