On Smiling, Sex (i.e. gender) and Successful Design Facilitation

Weeknote #11: Aug 2018

Smiling.

The key difference between me-facilitating-group-design-sessions now, and me-facilitating-group-design-sessions circa 2011–2012, is smiling.

Let me just say that it’s a totally different (more improved) vibe. Yes, design sessions aren’t geared to be “happy”. That isn’t the goal. But, I was also a more neurotic process facilitator in 2011. I can observe (through the design session results) that my older facilitation approach didn’t help.

Laughing helps.

As a female corporate employee, laughing during leading a group session helps. (Yes, I am going to start sounding awfully sexist in the next statements, and I’ll potentially draw a lot of head-shaking, but – tough luck – I’m a woman, and this is my actual experience in my working life.)

Imagine leading an ideation session as a stern, straight-faced female – as opposed to a jolly woman (This could also apply to men, but I’ve seen stern men lead design sessions with no problem. I have yet to see a strict, stern woman lead a successful design session here in the Philippines).

Sternness doesn’t help group facilitation in general (regardless of gender); and I expect that it definitely does not fly with large groups of older working men to be led by a stern woman with no sense of humor.

Un-fun

In the earlier part of my career – I was definitely un-fun during times I needed to lead group design work. I was serious, and would issue commands. I now see why I just earned a lot of “ire” from internal clients I wanted to help. I sounded more like a drill sergeant than a collaborator.

My long-time teammate also added two additional dimensions – I also was very strict about process then (“This is how it should be done.” “This is what the research said.”), and now he mentions I’m more forgiving and flexible.

I was never a programmed facilitator – more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type. But, my many years in market research before jumping into experience design gave me a very strict intuition of what works for people, and I was very, very transparent – and forceful – about it at 28 years old.

I have more “give” now, at 35 years old; I understand that you can’t bludgeon people with data into submission, and have to be willing to let ideas through – even without research.

He also added that there is also an external factor I shouldn’t discount – culture fit. We worked at a very different corporation, with a very different corporate “personality” at that time. So, yes, as much as I believe good facilitation travels well – some corporate entities are harder to work with than others, depending on the skills and values it actually rewards:

e.g. What gets people promoted at a company? A get-it-done-right mindset and habits? Or freewheeling creative ideation and political charisma?

Okay, even without me being female, and just about team dynamics, in general: regardless of gender, the ability to laugh (and laugh at oneself) adds warmth and lightness to sessions meant to foster collaboration. Again, not that “lightness” is the goal in and of itself, but is a good conduit. Lightness that should come from a place of humanity – of acknowledging that you are a person talking to people, real individuals.

I have the slight advantage of years of doing research on character development for TV, movies and music – but I believe many others have officially called this out.

For that, I leave with you with the ever-popular Brene Brown talk, on vulnerability: