Individual, Cultural & Innovation — Three Branches of Facilitation and How They’re Connected 🤔
From a very early age, we are taught to break apart problems, to fragment the world. This apparently makes complex tasks and subjects more manageable, but pay a hidden, enormous price. We can no longer see the consequences of our actions; we lose our intrinsic sense of connection to a larger whole.
That’s is the opening paragraph of Peter M Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline, and we couldn’t agree more. Today the main challenge for companies is the inability to see a connection of events as the root of their problems, instead, they’re blaming a decreasing market, a competitors or even another team within the company.
”Similar to trying to reassemble the fragments of a broken mirror to see a true reflection. Thus, after a while we give up trying to see the whole altogether” ‘ — David Bohm, Physicist
Why is facilitation beneficial?🔍
As facilitators, we bring an external — and therefore — a more neutral perspective, we bring the pieces together to for teams to self-generate insights and learnings based on past experiences. Facilitation is about seeing the whole picture, to design a process to move towards an agreed decision — from A to B. It’s about how you do something — rather than content — what you do.
Sounds good right? But why isn’t process design adapted by all companies out there? Some might say that a facilitator responsibility lies with the leaders and managers of the company. May that be the case, but these people will struggle to not get involved in the content of group deliberations. Facilitation starts from the premise that every person has an equal right to speak and participate in dialogue and decision making.
There’s a lack of seeing the whole picture, realising that the problem lies in an inability to see the consequences of our actions. A coworker that’s been in the company for 10+ years might be as innovative as the newly hired junior, it’s a matter of mindset of the individual and the company culture as a whole. We believe that you can’t build an innovative company without a good culture, and good culture is created by individuals. And this is where we offer our expertise:
Individual 🙋
With energising and personalised coaching we generate efficient co-workers to start an inspiring journey, building on self-leadership a commitment. #lajf
We use a method called The Learning Spiral it’s a method used for iterative learning based on reflection and feedback. After you’ve done something you reflect upon that experience, from there you generalise why it went down as it did. Then to apply these learnings for the next time you do this again, and so the spiral goes. This is also whats called experience-based learning, which is proven to be more impactful than just reading a book.
With individual coaching, we grow self-knowledge, awareness and leadership, and thereby the confidence and commitment of the individual. No-one can understand you better than yourself, we apply tools and methods that invite you to learn more about yourself, based on that we challenge and support you in order to advance.
Cultural 🙌
We navigate teams through change by co-creating a culture that generates unity and efficient organisations. team.gif
Once you understand your individual driving force, you can better understand how to apply that force to a team. And since a team is based on individuals it’s important for all involved to feel equally as safe, as it is being challenged. The value of the individual results as the collective wisdom of the team, and by learning how to learn together your team will have an evolved team culture.
System Thinking is, as Senge puts it, about being the bigger picture. We tend to focus on specific events as a reason for our problems, but in reality, there’s rarely one specific event that can be traced back to being the root of our problems. Instead, there’s many reasons, actions and mindsets that brings us to where we are, and by having a holistic view of is we will gain a greater understanding. Based on the needs of the team we design experience based workshops, sessions and lectures that build a stronger commitment and alignment of expectations.
Innovation💡
We empower organisations to disrupt and explore creativity. Building connections to generate strategies, concepts and prototypes. #curiousgeorge
According to Tom Kelley, co-founder of IDEO, the success of a team depends on both what & how a team does it. What might include things like; research, design, deadlines etc. How includes areas such as; communication, feedback, growth etc, to be a truly innovative team both are equally important.
We believe everyone is creative, in order to bring innovative ideas you need knowledge of the company purpose and values. And who can bring more to the table than the companies coworkers? The individuals and the teams within the company are the true innovators, with the right tools and mindset we bring your team to insights on how to innovate. But as stated before, you can’t build an innovative company without a good culture, and good culture is created by individuals.
To summarise 🚀
Since individual, cultural and innovation are three branches strongly connected we offer our expertise in all of them. But we can’t stress it enough — the importance of having a holistic perspective. We design processes that lead individuals, teams and organisations towards self-generated decisions, knowledge and insights. And this we do by involving those affected, to a conversation, a session, a lecture or a workshop. As a result, you will deepen your knowledge and commitment to your company, your team and yourself.
”You can only understand the system of a rainstorm by contemplating the whole, not any individual part of the pattern.” — Peter M Senge
The shift in organisational cultures has started, with reflection, system thinking and facilitation we develop better, more human and holistic work cultures. We urge you to take the first steps, to learn for the future. And to give you a final quote by the one and only David Bowie 👇
Links & Books to check out 📚
- The Art of Facilitation — Dale Hunter
- The Fifth Discipline — Peter M. Senge
- Learning Spiral — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu7Ic0YvDx4
- What & How — https://medium.com/@marcvollebregt/you-and-i-are-throwing-a-party-or-understanding-process-design-a5430baa9d2f
Hope you liked the read, in the next article we will probably go into feedback and why it’s important in a team culture, so stay tuned! And as always, if you want to know more follow us on Instagram, send a message or email us. We’re always up for meeting new friends ✌️
Big hugs,
