this workshop started at the invitation of Tobias Mayer in 2019
and has been running successfully ever since.
it is currently offered in an online format.
the next occurrence is scheduled on 2022 October 13-14, 8:30-15:30 CET

header art from Rokto Kobori by Rabindranath Tagore.
workshop photos by Francis Laleman, Shoreditch, London, June 2019.

envoi

“For me, facilitation is not about showing my presence or displaying my technique. Rather it is about revealing, through facilitation, ‘something else,' something that the audience doesn’t encounter in daily life. The facilitator doesn’t demonstrate it. It is not physically visible, but, through the engagement of the onlooker’s imagination, ‘something else’ will appear in his or her mind. For this to happen the participants must not have the slightest awareness of what the facilitator is doing. They must be able to forget the facilitator. The facilitator must disappear.”

(based on Yoshi Oida's ideas on the 'invisible actor') 

what this is

By all means, facilitation is a gentle activity.

To be honest, nobody is really sure what it means to facilitate or to be a facilitator, but most certainly it has something to do with making stuff easier ("facile")

Most surely, of dictionary definitions, there are many:

Facilitation is the designing and running of successful meetings and workshops in organizational settings.
Facilitation is the process by which an organism profits from the presence of another, such as nurse plants that provide shade for new seedlings or saplings.
Facilitation is the increase in postsynaptic potential evoked by the second impulse in neurons.
Facilitation is the tendency for people to perform differently when in the presence of others than when alone.

What isn't said, is that facilitation is a job for the humble. What isn't said either, is that one cannot facilitate and manage at the same time. Or that facilitation does not mean leadership.

the program

The program of this workshop follows a gently facilitated baseline.

1. Who are we? What is it exactly that we do? How do we handle hierarchies, if any? What is the meaning of making things easy?
2. What is the object of what we do? What is it that we facilitate? A status-quo? Processes? Transformations? Learning?
3. Which are the means for a facilitator to deliver upon her promise? Approaches? Methodologies? Techniques?

In gently facilitated cooperation, we co-create a facilitator's set of guidelines.

And of course, there is plenty of facilitation done. By everyone. Making stuff easier for ourselves and for each other.

In earlier (in-person) versions of the workshop, the methodologies, techniques, and activities discussed and practised were uniquely for in-person workshops, where participants are together in three-dimensional space.

In this online version, we focus on the kind of activities and approaches that take shape in an online environment. Perhaps, we will discover that the "new" facilitator, who is taking at least some of her work online, does not need to fall back on a series of daunting digital hat-tricks. Perhaps we can stay reassuringly human—and facilitate with a genuinely human, tactile touch.

Who knows, we will see how the remote space is just another type of space in which human beings are together and have the ability to really connect and learn with, from and among each other.

takeaways

After these two days, expect to have explored a kaleidoscope of cooperative learning. Expect to have become stronger in your facilitator's job—but also more gentle, perhaps more kind.

Expect to have stepped away from the myth that online facilitation means fooling around with digital gizmos. Expect to have explored and practiced "live" online facilitation techniques, involving analog activities that can be applied in any kind of conversational space.

Expect to have come across art-based faciitation. Expect to have dirtied your hands with coloring pencils, pastels, acrylic paint, or whatnot.

about the facilitator

Francis Laleman started in the 1970s, traveling, researching, writing, storytelling, and teaching Sanskrit, then moving on to working with the downtrodden in the urban slums of Northern India and spending extended periods of time in Buddhist monasteries.

Ever since, picking up inspiration from a variety of sources (from Henry David Thoreau, Mieko Kamiya and Rabindranath Tagore to Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal, and Yoshi Oida) Francis has been looking for novel methods and new meaning in the fields of education adult learning, and the facilitation of transformational dynamics—always preferring cooperative models over teacher/student duality, and practical implementation over theory and documentation.

Today, Francis keeps being on the move, from India to Japan to Europe and vice versa. He mainly works as a designer and facilitator of cooperative learning processes and learning cultures, and as a gentle facilitator of (Agile) transformation processes, all the time sourcing ideas from educational philosophies, (Zen) Buddhism, the shuhari learning process in traditional Japanese craftsmanship and other weirdly connected frameworks of thought.

Most probably, however, you will find him in a garden.

what participants have said about this experience

Here is a rare opportunity to learn from a seasoned facilitator, whose deeply human-centric values have touched many in the Agile community. Highly recommended for Scrum Masters, educators, and anyone who works with groups, in any capacity.
It is online, but it is not. It is homely, cosey almost, natural.
Tobias Mayer, teacher & facilitator, London

Thank you so much for this sweet image and lovely memory. This evening I was listening to 'Original Prayer' by Neil Douglas-Klotz - a dearly loved source for me of Aramaic teachings and prayers - and I heard something in a new way. He was talking about 'focused illuminated emptiness' - saying that creating spaciousness is the essence of healing. 'Ultimately, leaving focussed illuminated space around a being, it will come back naturally into its own right rhythm - it will remember itself in connection to all other selves, and in connection to the only Being'. 
Sounds familiar? It's what Francis does, isn't it?
Helen Taylor, integral health practitioner, Suffolk, England

registration

This two-day workshop is offered on a pay-what-you-think-is-fair basis.

Registration comes in two steps:

Step 1: get yourself an admission pass at the bare minimum price of €75
Step 2: alter the suggested facilitation fee to what best suits your choice and circumstances.

note:

if you'd like to attend an in-person edition of this workshop,
kindly click "express interest" under "register here".