ARTFUL FACILITATION brings together skills in helping groups do meaningful work by:
- bringing structure, visibility and ease through facilitation
- using visual, creative and artful methods to expand and deepen dialogue
- inviting active attention to power, inclusion and what might be going on underneath
…All to aid the process of a group – their communication, ways of working and actions in the work that matters to them.
My approach
My approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve. For example, a task like a project learning review, would be different to what you get for a workshop to explore purpose, roles and relationships within a partnership/network. Likewise, a project to redesign a user pathway or process would have a shape of its own: it would be designed to understand how users and staff experience the pathways and processes ‘as-is’, what’s needed in the ‘to-be’, and ways to see all the parts, relationships and dependencies.
First and foremost, I’m a consultant and facilitator who happens to have found huge benefits in working more visually and artfully. I’ve found that people respond well when invited to converse beyond words (and their limiting assumptions), to tap into both heart and head; to meet a thirst for more creativity, humanness and connection. I blend this all with solid management consulting techniques and change practice (so there are still charts and 2×2 matrices involved when needed ;-).
My approach draws from my background as a bi-lingual carer, interpreter, artist, change project manager, organisational development practitioner, facilitator – plus my training in Graphic Facilitation. I use visual techniques, templates and processes to guide a group’s work. Visual outputs or sketch-notes are also created to summarise the work from a session or project.
However, my style is distinct from graphic facilitators/recorders you might see from the big beautiful posters, created live at events. I use some of the same techniques, and ‘Artful Facilitation’ goes beyond the visual:
- I help groups tap into creative languages that work for them, eg. metaphor, pictures, poetry, story, movement… anything we notice or experience in our immediate/ wider environments. They can all be used as stimulus or devices in conversations.
- I bring a dialogic perspective – where meaning emerges from collective dialogue, rather than from a single authority. This often means enquiry is owned by the group and leans into what’s going on beyond the superficial.
I’ve found this approach works well in situations where there’s complexity, strategic dilemmas and when different voices, experiences and perspectives need to be heard. And it seems to work especially well when groups or projects are stuck – eg. “we’ve gone over this so many times, nothing seems to work” – people leave with something tangible and meaningful beyond a feel-good experience.
Making this work for you
In all my work, I tailor to the situation and goal: starting from where you are and helping you get closer to where you want to be. The amount of ‘artful’ really depends on what’s needed and your appetite, so I have a range of ‘light-touch’ and ‘deep-dive’ methods in my toolkit.
On creative flavouring, I’ve met a lot of sceptics and enthusiasts along the way. It’s important to say that artful methods are just that – methods and means to help a group in getting their needs met. Meeting your needs is always the main focus.
Interested? Please contact me if you’d like a chat or to find out more.
Metaphors are more than literal assertions, they do not simply describe an external reality, they also help to constitute that reality and prescribe how it ought to be viewed and evaluated.
– Haridimos Tsoukas (1991)