Resourceful Exformation Book Club
a short online series about exformative practices for facilitators
three times two hours
the seventeenth occurrence is scheduled for the spring of 2026, coinciding with the book's sixth birthday.
save the date: 2026 May 18, May 25 and June 1
from 12:00 till 14:00 (London),
1 till 3 PM (Brussels, Berlin),
7 till 9 PM (Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR))
What this is about
In March 2020, I published a little book on my journey as an educator, teacher, and facilitator - and on my current stance in the world of education and L&D. The main theme of the book is that we should stop being informers, pushing skills and knowledge into others. Rather, let us be exformers, where we help our students or trainees make sense of the forms and shapes that they are offered by the world surrounding us.
The idea of exformation, I took from the Japanese designer Kenya Hara. Other inspirators of my journey and my work are Rabindranath Tagore, Jacques Lecoq, Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal, Yoshi Oida, James Carse, Sivasailam Thiagarajan (Thiagi), and many more.
What this is
In this series of three evenings (three two-hour Zoom sessions), I usually cover Resourceful exformation in three steps:
1 Exformation and learner experience design
2 Exformative learning and facilitation structures
3 Exformation and the learning organization
Each session contains:
- a playful, exformative structure helping the attendants to get a good idea of the point
- a conversational structure with examples and group interaction
- questions and (sometimes) answers
- a review (what did we learn?) and retrospective (how did we learn?)
Who this is meant for
Parents, educators, teachers, (professional) trainers, group coaches, Agile coaches, Scrum Masters, L&D professionals, facilitators, ...
What people have said about this
Something I learned from my favorite writer and facilitator: I want to provide learning experiences that are open, unlimited, fragile, new, sensorial, embodied, unknown, unafraid, and spontaneous. I want my participants to go back to the first 30 months of their lives.
Sivasailam Thiagarajan “Thiagi”, Bloomington, Indiana, September 2020
A brilliant book that gently awakens facilitators from all backgrounds to think about all that we have at our disposal, to make learning a deeper experience. I’ve been fortunate to attend an online study group hosted by Francis himself, where he’s taken us through the exformative learning practices within the book, with examples and exercises which have thrown open my cupboard of curiosity and inspired me to utilize what I’ve learned. - Nisha Joshi, London, UK, July 2020
Francis has done a wonderful job of creating a gentle yet powerful set of words around how we learn by doing, but also by reflecting on the doing, with the doing being as natural, creative, and loosely structured as possible. It's a deep yet lighthearted look at how the role of the facilitator plays into this, which invites the reader to reflect and maybe even adjust their practice with lots of affordances. For anyone who is a trainer, educator, facilitator, coach - this is a MUST read. - Noel Warnell, London, UK, July 2020
Sometimes there is a before and an after .. and this little book has that capacity of changing you after you have savored it. I had the luxury of reading this book in a group together with the author and understanding the depth of his experience and readings. This is what this book does: open the door to even more knowledge and experiencing, it is a delicious treasure trove, hiding more nuggets of wisdom behind every chapter. I highly recommend it, it truly accelerates your learning. - Katrien Barrat, Change & Organisation Design Consultant, July 2020
Registration & Tickets.
Since this workshop is a book club, obviously you will need the book to participate.
I typically offer my workshops on a pay-what-you-think-is-fair basis.
To register, first buy a basic ticket (€ 70) and then top it off with a donation suiting your choice and/or circumstances.
Thank you for leaving us your invoicing details (name, address, VAT number if any).