5 things I’ve learned about inclusive facilitation for storytelling

Over the last year, I’ve designed and run a new course on inclusive facilitation for storytelling. After developing my own approach to storytelling over many years, I decided to try and convert what I’ve learned about how to do this into a course for others who want to develop and deepen their own approach to facilitating. After two rounds of the course in 2022, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned through the course — and through structuring a process for others to learn.

Here’s my top five insights:

1. Creativity is essential to good facilitation for storytelling. In the course, we focus on how to help participants learn to be creative and to be confident in their creative expression as a foundation for storytelling. But what I’ve learned through the course is that creativity is equally necessary for good facilitation: trying new techniques, combining things in new ways, taking risks to do something differently even if you are not sure how it will work. This is the same thing that we ask of participants when we say: be creative. The imperative for creativity applies as much if not more to facilitation. I’ve found that it is quite easy to just repeat the same activities and an exercises that I have done before and I know can work. But the course has exposed places where I have become complacent and…