In this episode, Beth Cougler Blom talks with Fernando Murray and Carolina Almeida about strategies they use to create safe learning environments with their groups. Fernando and Carolina share their deep expertise working across cultures, their expertise in Liberating Structures, and more.
Beth, Fernando, and Carolina also discuss:
- fostering an inclusive atmosphere
- inviting participation
- avoiding over-helping
- handling conflicts and challenges
- promoting autonomy and collecting problem-solving
Engage with Fernando Murray and Carolina Almeida
- Website: https://www.virtualfacilitation.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtual-facilitation/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@virtualfacilitation
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virtualfacilitation/
Other Links from the Episode
Connect with the Facilitating on Purpose Podcast
- Follow Facilitating on Purpose on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube
- facilitatingonpurpose.com
Connect with Beth Cougler Blom
- Give feedback or suggest upcoming show topics or guests at hello@bcblearning.com
- Visit bcblearning.com to explore Beth’s company’s services in facilitation and learning design
- Purchase a copy of Beth’s book, Design to Engage
- Follow Beth on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn
Podcast production services by Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions
Show Transcript
[Upbeat music playing]
[Show intro]
Beth 00:02
Welcome to Facilitating on Purpose, where we explore ideas together about designing and facilitating learning. Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and being a great facilitator, wherever you work.
Beth 00:17
I’m your host, Beth Cougler Blom.
[Episode intro]
Hello, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. This is Episode 42. In this one, I am joined by two guests, Fernando Murray and Carolina Almeida. I’ll tell you just a little bit about each of the two of them, and then you are going to get to know them a little bit better through the actual conversation in the episode, as always.
Beth 00:42
Fernando, let’s start with him. His background over the last 24 years has been in group facilitation and experiential learning. He is a member of the IAF, the International Association of Facilitators, and he’s also connected with other professional facilitation networks in different cultures and countries, including the Liberating Structures community, which is how I know both Fernando and Carolina.
Beth 01:06
Now, Carolina Almeida is also a seasoned facilitator and experiential educator with an extensive background in outdoor activities. Carolina currently develops online communication and facilitation projects for remote teams.
Beth 01:21
She works as a mentor, and she does train the trainers for online and in-person group facilitation, and she also works as a therapeutic counselor in the Kootenays here in British Columbia. I love that this episode is coming right after the episode with Yasser Tamer, because this one’s on safe learning spaces, and that’s what Yasser was talking about, and I feel like we’re almost continuing the conversation with two new people,
Beth 01:46
Fernando and Carolina, and we’re going further into that topic of how we as facilitators create safe learning experiences and safe learning environments with our groups. One of the great things about this episode is that Fernando and Carolina work in countries that I don’t work in and maybe you don’t work in, and so as you listen to the episode, you are going to get so much to add to your knowledge base around working across cultures as a facilitator.
Beth 02:15
And we, of course, talk about Liberating Structures as well. So I hope you enjoy this episode. This is Fernando Murray and Carolina Almeida talking with me about safe learning spaces. Enjoy the show.
Beth 02:30
Fernando, Carolina, I’m so glad you’re here. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being with me.
Carolina 02:36
Thank you for coming. It’s a pleasure.
Beth 02:39
It is a pleasure. I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m pleased that we’re seeing each other online again, we’ve never met in person though. So one day, I hope we get a chance to do that. But it’s nice that we’ve met online.
Beth 02:49
And I’ve been watching your work, both of you for a long time. Thanks for all that you do for the community, virtually, Liberating Structures and otherwise, you’re quite leaders in that field. So thanks for what you’re putting out there to the world.
Carolina 03:04
Yeah, it started because we had to. We started online in 2016, working for our clients in Brazil. So it was not an option. It wasn’t nice. We had to. But then we kind of got a hand of this and kept doing it.
Carolina 03:20
It’s so fun. And being able to connect with people in different regions, it’s amazing. We can learn so much.
Beth 03:27
That’s what I was thinking, too, about our conversation today, that I know that I can learn a lot from you two, because you do work across countries and across cultures. And so definitely bring that into our conversation because I’m hoping to learn from you because I really work here in Canada only and haven’t gone to other countries myself.
Beth 03:45
So you’re, you’re definitely ahead of a lot of us who haven’t crossed those boundaries yet.
Carolina 03:51
Yeah, we have been here in Canada for 11 years, and I think along this time we’re learning more and more Canadian culture and how to blend maybe the two cultures, but also working in Brazil and in North America.
Carolina 04:09
So it’s a nice stretch, a nice facilitation skill stretch. [Absolutely.]
Fernando 04:15
I still remember, remember Carolina, the first time we facilitated a group here in Canada. I was leading like a warm-up and it was completely awful.
Carolina 04:25
Yeah, it was! [they laugh]
Fernando 04:29
Yeah, I facilitated the way I used to in Brazil, and I didn’t frame it properly. I didn’t get the instructions correctly. So the group was looking at me and saying, what the hell are we doing here? And I was, yeah, it was weird.
Fernando 04:42
And then we, we started learning, oh, it’s different here. We need to do this before we do that. And then we start moving back and forth to, to adapt. Yeah. But I always remember being inadequate for the first time.
Fernando 04:55
I kept doing this, being inadequate along the years [they laugh], but less often. [Carolina: Less and less often!] And actually that’s, this is one thing that I usually say for the groups. It’s, uh, forgive me if I do something that it’s, uh, inadequate in your culture because I come from this culture and even in Brazil, sometimes we have been living outside from Brazil a lot of times.
Fernando 05:17
So sometimes I can be inadequate here as well. So, forgive me. And it creates a little bit of safety for people to point me in the right directions.
Beth 05:26
It’s a nice segue into our conversation about safe learning environments. Is that one thing that you do to set the scene for a safe learning environment? You bring yourself into that and just say, hey, you know, tell me if something I’m doing isn’t, isn’t working for you, basically.
Carolina 05:43
Yeah I think like in Brazil, we have to do things like, oh, I dare you can be in silence. It’s like this kind of thing. And here in North America, people to feel safe, we have to say, OK, now we are going to do a reflective activity.
Carolina 06:00
We need silence. And so please, we’re going to do this and that. So this is very different. And the way how people feel safe, it’s very different too. So how you are going to frame something in a way that people can feel, OK, I can jump into this activity and it’s safe for me to do that.
Carolina 06:24
So I think this is the main thing that we have been learning, like facilitating different cultures. Also, we went to Portugal, which is like we speak the same language, but totally different culture.
Fernando 06:38
Yeah, it’s more European culture.
Carolina 06:39
So it’s a mix of the North American and the Brazilian. [laughs] So it’s in the middle. So it’s very interesting what we need to do in order to get this safe learning environment.
Beth 06:55
It sounds like you really have to pay attention as you go and work with each new culture, each new client. But let’s back up a bit, because I want to see if we can set a container around, what is a learning environment for you two, when you go out, is it always a workshop?
Beth 07:10
Is it another thing? Like, how can you give me a boundary around making learning environments safe by starting with saying, what is a learning environment for you? And then maybe we can talk about what is safe.
Fernando 07:21
If you go back, back, back, we start facilitating groups in the outdoors, like rock climbing, rafting, mountain expeditions. So in every Outdoor [sic] Bound or NOLS course, the progression is always the same.
Fernando 07:35
Is the group safe? That’s the first thing, physically safe. Are they having fun? Okay, are they learning something? So that’s the progression. So safety, have fun, and then you learn something. So I think this is ingrained in our way of facilitate groups and be with groups, basically.
Beth 07:56
Was that the same for you, Carolina, that you both came from the Outward Bound, sort of outdoor education realm?
Carolina 08:02
Yeah, I’m same background, but I’m a counselor now, so I think I added some other stuff here. If you include people and you respect people, and I think they feel safe to be there, so there is this physical, emotional securities.
Carolina 08:23
It’s more like, okay, it’s the whole thing. It’s difficult to separate because it has to be everything at once.
Beth 08:33
Yeah. And you’re actually, people can’t see you, but you’re drawing a circle with your hand, kind of like a holistic sort of movement you’re making, that, yeah, there’s physical safety in there. There’s emotional safety.
Beth 08:45
Are there other kinds of safety?
Fernando 08:47
I think we pay attention to a lot of details and we used to to say for our colleagues, we have many facilitators that they work with us and they come from the same background. So when we are outdoor, we are not just paying attention for the group and the dynamic or the content.
Fernando 09:02
We are paying attention to the weather, to the boots of some participants, the way they wear their backpack. So we are using it to pay attention to a lot of things. And when we work in partnership and when we are co-facilitator or co-leading something, we have these two perspectives.
Fernando 09:19
So also sharing our perspectives about what is happening, what can be happening. So always paying attention and sharing more ourselves to be sure that everybody is included and everything is going well.
Fernando 09:32
Sometimes we just have some signals. We can’t interpret the signals properly all the time. So we keep sharing and trying to understand. Right, Carolina?
Carolina 09:41
And I have been researching [chuckles] ourselves about that, because how we do that? Because sometimes we do a lot of train-the-trainers. And this is quite a skill to have. And so how we train people to have this skill.
Carolina 09:59
So we have thinking about that for a long time. And one key word is vulnerability. If you can show as a facilitator your vulnerability, people feel free to get into theirs. So then we kind of agree in a way that, OK, we are all together in this.
Carolina 10:22
And we can be ourselves. We can be our genuine selves here.
Beth 10:26
Yes, and Fernando said inadequate before. Really, you said, you come in saying, tell me when I’m inadequate. Tell me when I fail or make mistakes, right? And that just gets right down to the vulnerability. [laughs]
Fernando 10:39
And I will be making mistakes. So just let me know. So when we say for a group of people that I never met before, these kind of things, this is Carolina is saying. We allow them to do the same. So you don’t know us well this group, but we are okay to make mistakes here.
Fernando 10:55
So this is one concept that we really keep alive is this safety is not one person taking care of the group. It’s everybody in the group is paying attention and taking care of the safety of the group.
Fernando 11:07
So it’s a really big net. Everybody’s holding lots of strings. So this net is held by everybody. It’s impossible for one person to be responsible. So safety comes from the attention from the group, not one person only.
Beth 11:21
That’s nice because you talked about co-facilitating with yourselves and your colleagues, but you bring the participants into that net of, okay, we’re all here to support each other. Carolina, you were going to say something, but I want to then say, how do you do that?
Beth 11:37
How do you draw your participants in? But you go first.
Carolina 11:41
Yeah, just adding here that when we bring people in, and they feel the autonomy to do whatever they feel right. And so then people can be free to start doing things. And we are correcting our say, oh, this wasn’t adequate.
Carolina 12:01
We need to change this. But we are open to discuss. Because it’s not everybody is right all the time. We make mistakes, right? But we can make mistakes, and people can talk about the mistakes, and we can make it right.
Carolina 12:17
And this is human beings. And I think when we bring this humanity into place, people just feel more [makes an ‘ooh’ sound] relieved and comfortable. You can breathe. You can make mistakes, basically, and like that.
Beth 12:35
That’s why I like some of the language from Liberating Structures. I know you two are real Liberating Structures experts, but the word invitation, you know, those many years ago, when it came into my realm, LS, that we’re inviting people in.
Beth 12:49
And I don’t know, I can’t remember that far back. I mean, was I thinking about inviting people in before? Maybe, but I think it was Liberating Structures that really brought that word to the forefront to me.
Beth 13:00
Have you had the same reaction to the word invitation? Or do you use other words to kind of create that net you were talking about?
Fernando 13:09
Yeah, with Liberating Structures, this word got like a body of understanding around this. And there are many ways to look at this invitation. For example, one invitation that we do at the beginning with the group, because we are there usually as facilitators, the leaders can be seen like the educators or the teachers or we have the power.
Fernando 13:27
So we are entitled to be in front of the group speaking to them. So when we have this scenario, we right off the bat, we invite people to drop this perception. We are not here to teach you. We are here to facilitate the learning among ourselves.
Fernando 13:43
We’ll be learning from you. You’ll be learning from us. You’ll be learning from everybody else. So everybody will be learning from everybody. So we level the playing field at the beginning. So that’s a big invitation, not just for one exercise, but for the whole thing.
Fernando 13:57
So we put ourselves in the same level of the participants, let’s say. And then there is a behaviour that we sustain along the process that is not over-helping, which is something that we also learn from Liberating Structures.
Fernando 14:12
Every time the group asks a question or asks for support, usually this goes towards the facilitator and we just dodge the requests [Beth laughs] and let the group figure it out. So if they don’t have us to support, which is kind of a counter, we are there to help them and we don’t.
Fernando 14:33
It’s counterintuitive, but they start, okay, I need help. So they look for the peers and they learn and they overcome the challenges. But if we help them, if we lend a hand, we have this expression in Portuguese, you lend a hand and they get your arm.
Beth 14:48
Like a crossed arm. You kind of made a crossed arm movement.
Fernando 14:51
No you lend and the person not just gets your hand but gets your arm. Yeah.
Beth 14:57
Keeps pulling. [chuckles] Oh, I see what you mean. Okay. Yeah, so so don’t give it to them. Basically they’ll turn to somebody else.
Fernando 15:03
Yeah, so it’s delicate because we need to give some offers and advice sometimes, but most of the time we don’t have to. So this is delicate to use.
Carolina 15:13
And I think it’s so powerful when I, or anyone, find the way to do something instead of just, I need help, I need, I don’t know if I need help really. Sometimes I just ask for help, like for a facilitator.
Carolina 15:27
Oh I didn’t understand, but really, if I, you know, just be in silence a little bit, it’s inside, I know. Or someone, so then it’s very powerful. So you start believing in yourself more. But if you overhelp the person, this person doesn’t have the chance to look to her or himself.
Fernando 15:51
Yeah, it does empower the person.
Carolina 15:53
Yeah.
Beth 15:54
Yeah, I love that phrase. I don’t think I’ve heard it said that way before because I’ve talked about that concept but not thought about it as ‘over helping’, like the trap of over helping. Yeah, thanks for just giving us that language around it.
Fernando 16:07
And this is a more feminine behaviour. I noticed Carolina sometimes over-helping and sometimes she was not over helping, but we always have this battle. I actually need to make efforts to help more. So we are in opposite scenarios and we try to meet at the middle, but it’s always delicate.
Fernando 16:26
Sometimes you really need to step up and help and sometimes when you just step aside. Do you remember Carolina when we did the invitation for Heard, Seen, Respected, that Liberating Structure where people have to remember a story about a time where you were not heard, seen or respected.
Fernando 16:43
And then we made a mistake actually because we invited the person to remember a story and then we invite them to meet in pairs.
Carolina 16:53
Pair up first, we said, Oh, now pair up. And then we give the invitation. So remember, sorry, when you were not, heard, seen or respected. And so the two guys, it was a couple. And the woman raised her hand and said, Oh, can I change a pair?
Carolina 17:13
So but then the group started already.
Fernando 17:16
Yeah, they were stopped for like a couple of minutes, staring at each other, lots of things going on. And then she asked her for this help. And Carolina and I we looked at each other, because we knew that they were a couple.
Fernando 17:28
The group was going, and all the possibilities just pumping in our minds, okay, we can pair with them and make two more pairs, or we can interrupt the group. But we did nothing. We just stopped and looked at them.
Fernando 17:41
And then they, they sat down, yeah, you know, I think we need to discuss it.
Beth 17:47
[Laughs] So you literally did nothing? Like you just kind of looked…you didn’t say anything? You did nothing?
Fernando 17:53
We didn’t say anything. We just look at each other, start thinking, but we didn’t mind.
Carolina 17:56
I said, no, actually she said, Oh, can I change the pairs with the hand? I just didn’t say
Fernando 18:03
Out of the options, yeah.
Beth 18:05
Yeah. Yeah. So just even the shake of the head. [laughs]
Carolina 18:08
I was just like, you know, nodding and just like, no, and with my head and then they look at each other and say, oh, I don’t know what to say. And then the woman said, we must figure out what to say to each other now.
Fernando 18:23
Yeah, it was that moment that was easy to just jump in and try to solve or help or do something, but we didn’t.
Beth 18:31
Now, how does safety come into that example? Because in some ways I want to say that feels like it could be unsafe because you don’t know their relationship. Maybe they’re about to divorce or who knows what.
Beth 18:42
I mean, what do you say about safety and not overhelping?
Carolina 18:48
It’s very interesting, this specific scene that I have in my mind. And there is something about like, looking to the body language, and seeing that they were ready to be with them to each other. You know, they weren’t in…this was hard, but wasn’t [un]safe.
Beth 19:08
Yeah, it can be hard.
Carolina 19:10
So, I think body language, it’s very, very important to read the room and the people and understand if they are safe or not, what is going on.
Beth 19:24
Now you work across cultures. How does body language work when you’re in a new country or you’re back in your home countries where you grew up as opposed to here or…you know, body language doesn’t necessarily always cross across cultures, does it?
Fernando 19:41
I think some things, yes, but it’s always good to check. And we ask questions all the time and we also make ourselves available if the people need to really get some help. If you are not getting to them to help, if you are a far observed in the group or available, some people really stand up and cross the room and come to us
Fernando 20:03
and you can see on the walk how important it is. [They all chuckle.] And yeah, this is one thing. But yeah, maybe some things we feel, we observe and feel. What do you think Carolina?
Carolina 20:16
I think there is also the energy of the group or the field or something that is more subtle. I was just imagining if we go to Japan, it would be a very different culture. Probably we are going to need to tune ourselves to that body language, because it’d be different from Brazilians, for sure, and from North Americans.
Carolina 20:40
So I think from Brazilians, the whole Americas, it’s almost the same kind of science. Maybe Brazilians are more exaggerated. [laughs]
Fernando 20:51
Yeah, more expansive.
Carolina 20:52
I’m wondering about very different cultures, like Indians, for example. Probably if you go to India, probably it’s different. Then I need to travel more to say more about that.
Beth 21:04
Yeah, we need to just pay attention, don’t we? And maybe ask for help from the group or, you know, someone that hired us or that kind of thing. Absolutely.
Fernando 21:13
Yeah, you can use improv prototyping form to explore this topic with a multicultural group. But another thing that helps this level of safety in the group, we were discussing this actually yesterday with the group.
Fernando 21:26
One question from a lady was around catharsis and people getting emotional in a process and you are the facilitator. And we were with Keith and Henri [the two Liberating Structures founders] in a celebrity interview. They had very different answers.
Fernando 21:39
But basically what they said, and we agree totally, the structures they carry this weight in a much better way than us as facilitators. Because the group, as they are organizing small groups in different configurations, they hold the space for each other.
Fernando 21:58
So if something burst in a small group, usually that small group can handle. And if they can’t handle totally, they can start the process and invite someone else from another group or from the facilitators.
Fernando 22:10
So we have more people handling this all around. So it’s embedded in these structures. So Keith was saying about his work, helping people in these scenarios, especially with grief walking, one structure that really touches a lot of deep spaces.
Fernando 22:28
And Henri was saying that he never saw this, using these structures. People take care of their own fears and their questions and their challenges, and he doesn’t get involved. So completely different approaches, but the structures are in the common ground, I think, the Liberating Structures.
Carolina 22:47
And I think it depends on how you set the tone in the beginning of the workshop or the gathering. So if you set the tone in a way that we are partners in this journey, we are together. So if you question what’s going on, then people can give you feedback.
Carolina 23:07
Because we can think about, oh, this is happening, or this is… But we don’t know for sure sometimes. And just reflecting back, saying, okay, I’m seeing that this is happening here. How is that for you?
Carolina 23:25
Is it true for you? What’s happening in this group? And sometimes we need this feedback. And because we set the tone in a way that we are open to do that, so people just will say, yeah, we need a break. We are not OK.
Carolina 23:40
And then we can have a break and rethink what to do. I think it’s a partnership more than us and them.
Beth 23:48
Is there something that you two do when people start to come into the room, either a physical in-person room or a virtual room? Because I do intentional things as I start to meet people as they come in, whichever mode we’re talking about, but how do you start it off so that you’re leveling that playing field with your participants, to make it feel more safe?
Beth 24:10
I should go on to say.
Carolina 24:11
I think for me, there is something that is important for me to feel comfortable, to feel safe, so then I can start setting the tone. So it’s to connect with people, and I need to have some connection.
Carolina 24:26
So if it is in person, we used to have like a coffee break or a welcome coffee or even a breakfast, and we invite people to come before. So we have this time that people are eating, and it’s a warm way to greet people.
Carolina 24:43
And while you’re eating in a very informal way, we are talking to people and understanding where they come from, what are their expectations, and this kind of thing. It helps me a lot to feel connected first.
Carolina 24:59
And also in online, we do kind of the same thing without food. [laughs]
Beth 25:05
I know, it’s sad we can’t have food. [laughs]
Fernando 25:07
Usually we ask people to rename themselves with different things. So, for example, in our first session, we ask people to add their names, how are they arriving for the session? Or better level, like five stars,
Fernando 25:21
you are pumping one star, you’re kind of ah, running. And yeah, superpowers don’t have to be real, but what’s your superpower? So start playing with people and turning visible what is invisible. So in virtual, it’s easier to get this invisible happening because people are just typing and changing their names or opening and closing the cameras. But you always have something to connect with them.
Carolina 25:48
Yeah, something that we don’t do, and I have seen some people doing it. It’s like sharing screen and a music while people are getting into the room. So why we don’t do that? Because then we lose the connection.
Beth 26:03
Yeah, with the shared screen.
Carolina 26:05
Yeah, what we do is like, okay, just come and oh, if you can open your camera, we would like to see you. And then we kind of trying to be very informal and then renaming. And then, oh, a lot of people are happy here.
Carolina 26:19
Oh, you see, oh, I’m happy too. And you try like having these commonalities among people.
Fernando 26:25
One thing that I like to do is to look at the people’s backgrounds, like we all have real backgrounds, not this blurry one. So I can see, oh, there is an orchidia behind Beth and two kind of handmade pottery over there.
Fernando 26:38
Carolina has an alfaia behind her. So all these details. And sometimes I pick the person. Tell me more about that piece of pottery that you have. So people bring something that are very personal because they are usually in their homes or in a personal space.
Fernando 26:55
So that’s one thing that you can use as well. Another thing that we do is, Carolina, remember when we ask, for example, Conversation Café, you need a talking piece, right? In virtual, you can’t pass the talking piece around.
Fernando 27:07
So we invite people to find an object that has a meaning for them. They go there and find something. And then we invite them. OK, when you are in groups, in the breakouts, start showing your object and talking about the meaning of that object for you.
Fernando 27:25
So they spend like four or five minutes sharing objects and the stories. So they kind of really connect at that moment, even in virtual, and then they start the process of the conversation. So that’s a twist that we make to make virtual more warm between people.
Beth 27:43
And it works as I’ve been on the receiving end of that as a participant with facilitator Brett Macdonald, who’s been on the podcast before too. And, and I forget what what she names it, but it’s that that you say, look around your environment, choose something that someone else can’t see, actually.
Beth 27:59
So you’re talking about things you can see in my background, but there’s something maybe over here, right, that you can’t see and, and then talk about that and tell the story of it. And it’s wonderful.
Beth 28:10
You learn so much and people can choose what to share or not. There’s a level of safety. Now, Fernando, I want to go back to something you said before, because it was about making yourself available to participants.
Beth 28:23
That’s so curious to me, because I think about a physical room, but I think it can happen in virtual too. What does it look like to make yourself available or not to participants?
Fernando 28:33
Yeah, one thing that we always speak at the beginning of any event is that they can private message anyone, because you can lock this in Zoom, you can prevent people from sending messages among themselves, which is weird.
Fernando 28:45
But we always say there will be many conversations happening in the private, and you can message directly people if you want to, just keep attention, pay attention to not send private messages in public.
Fernando 28:59
But nowadays you can delete, but yeah, a little while ago we couldn’t. And we say to people, if you need anything, that you need any support, you can private message me, and I can help you. And another thing that we do as well in the background, we have breakout rooms, we have 10 breakout rooms running.
Fernando 29:19
We usually put two more. We always have extra empty breakout rooms, because if you need to do anything, we have space to move to a private space and stay there. So this kind of some tricks that we can use in the virtual to create more safety for people.
Carolina 29:37
Yeah, in the same way, in person. So we always say in the beginning, like, oh, if you have any issue, anything that you want to, to tell you, have Fernando or have me, and you can come and talk privately.
Carolina 29:51
And so we are always open for that. It’s about availability, it’s in too many ways. It’s not just like be in person or in virtual a room available, but also be open for the uncertainties.
Beth 30:08
That’s a nice way to put that. Yeah. And you can hold that too. You know, some maybe newer facilitators or ones that like to more tightly control what’s happening may not like that, right? But I kind of just like dealing with whatever happens.
Beth 30:23
I’m okay. I feel like I can rely on myself or if I’m working with the co-facilitator, we can handle pretty much anything that comes our way and especially when we ask the group for help too, right?
Fernando 30:36
Yeah I remember once in a workshop in the middle of the pandemic, at the beginning actually, the first months, one group was really multicultural and things got very messy at the middle and one lady was really pissed.
Fernando 30:52
She was really vocal and she just stopped the session to verbalize what she was feeling, confused and unsupported and everything. So me and the teacher, my co-facilitator was trying to calm her down but we let her speak and then I suggest, okay let’s split in breakouts to just digest what we heard and please come back with some suggestions for us to move forward and then we split people in like pairs and triads in breakouts for six,
Fernando 31:29
seven minutes more or less. And when people came back the temperature we could really feel the temperature was down and people came with some suggestions and the lady was really calmer and okay to move on.
Fernando 31:43
Well, it was like the first time we had to mitigate a conflict in virtual and that strategy actually [chuckles] became the main one to use. When we have things off track, let’s break people and ask them to digest what they heard and come back with some suggestions.
Fernando 32:00
So we put everybody on the same place. Bring some ideas to solve this as a group, don’t rely on us to solve this problem alone and usually when they come back some nice ideas come and then they combine ideas and then we can move forward as a group.
Carolina 32:19
Yeah, this is a very good example of the What, So What, Now What.
Fernando 32:24
Yeah.
Beth 32:24
Yeah, I love that you’re drawing the others in. You didn’t overhelp as you said before. You could have said, well, let’s take a five minute break and we’ll figure it out. And we’ll come back and propose the solution to the group or something.
Beth 32:35
But you didn’t do that. You really gave it to them to figure because you’re better together, aren’t you?
Fernando 32:42
Yeah, actually, we didn’t have a clue what to do. [They all laugh.]
Beth 32:46
You heard some good ideas that you really needed! Yeah, we would all be in the same situation. Sometimes we just need the time too to percolate and think about it.
Carolina 32:55
And more and more and more, I believe the solution is not on us, not with us, it’s in the group, in the collective. And it’s more than just the facilitators trying to find a solution. We are a collective of humans and the solutions are within us.
Beth 33:16
And we go to our Liberating Structures, principles. Basically, there’s one that says almost exactly that is that you probably have it in your mind a bit more how we trust our local solutions or something like that.
Beth 33:27
Right. You know that one. [Fernando: Yeah.] Yeah. We have to remember that. Now, you two work with organizational clients as well and go into work with with companies, I think, and teach them about facilitation skills.
Beth 33:39
What are the things that you really want to try to help them come away with so that they can handle these things on their own when they’re trying to create safe learning spaces for themselves with you to not there to support them?
Fernando 33:53
Yeah, usually we are not there to do the work. We train them to do work. But one thing that is consistent, and we had this very same thing this morning, the group of business partners or internal consultants trying to solve the problems of groups or fix groups, that’s consistent.
And that’s the biggest mistake we can do because we are not part of that group.
Fernando 34:17
We are there to help them figure out the problems and understand what the problem is and find the solutions they already have. But the main behaviour is to bring things from outside and dump on people.
Fernando 34:30
Do this. Let’s train you on this because then you’ll be able to do that. Oh my God, it doesn’t work. So we are constantly saying about this and giving them processes and techniques to help the group understand what is happening and bring their own solutions.
Fernando 34:47
And sometimes the group, they find out, okay, we, we know stuff. We can do this, but there is this gap that we can’t fill. We don’t know how to do this. And then a business partner, the external consultant can bring specifically that piece because they ask it for.
Fernando 35:02
So this is one thing that we try to help people to understand. And actually it’s easier. It’s really less work than what they are doing.
Carolina 35:13
They are so busy. It has been so heavy, their work in general. I don’t know, after a pandemic, it looks like it’s piling up things. So when they ask us for a training, it’s like, we’re not going to dump more stuff.
Carolina 35:32
So then it will be heavier. No, it’s the opposite. It’s how to withdraw from the group the solution, how to facilitate in a way that you were not, you don’t have the answers. You have the questions maybe, or you help the questions going.
Carolina 35:54
And sometimes, I don’t know, it’s amazing. We just need to say, I don’t know. And then we figure out, OK, let’s go together and figure out the best way for us here. What is the best solution for this?
Carolina 36:08
I don’t know. It’s hard for people usually say, I don’t know. I have to have the solution. I have to give them the solution. I have to, you know, all this mess, I mess. And it’s very demanding for people.
Fernando 36:24
You should shoulder people.
Carolina 36:26
Yeah, show their people. [chuckles] You should do this. You should do that.
Fernando 36:31
There is a concept that one friend presented us decades ago. It’s like a pyramid. So on the top of the pyramid, there is the word change. And usually, the clients, they are hiring us for some kind of change, right?
Fernando 36:45
We need to go from point A to point B or something like that. And so this pyramid keeps going down. So the middle is understanding. And the base, the very large base, is perception. There is this letter of the way it’s if you don’t perceive the problem or the need for change, it will never happen.
Fernando 37:07
People don’t know what they don’t know. So by the time they know or they have the perception of something, they can’t step up to understand that thing. And in our experience, when people, when we open the perception and we understand things, the groups, they naturally come up with solutions.
Fernando 37:26
They naturally move to some kind of change. We don’t have to force them. So when we present this for clients, we will be working on this base here. So we are talking about this big change here. But you need to go down here.
Fernando 37:39
Does your group know about what we are talking here? Say, no, no, we just did an assessment. And we have this information. OK, so bring some of these folks to discuss. And then we can design a process together.
Fernando 37:52
And usually when they come to design an event or workshop or something, they don’t know what they are talking about. So it was completely from outside perspective. So we need to connect this inner and outside perspectives to come up with something meaningful.
Fernando 38:11
Otherwise, it’s a waste of time. And actually, we lost many jobs, right Carolina?, doing this. It was kind of usual for us to go to a meeting with a client to discuss a gig or a project. And we end up with nothing because we convinced them that it was not a good idea to stop 300 people to discuss about this.
Fernando 38:32
Maybe we should discuss just between the 12 leaders. It would be cheaper, quicker. And then you figure out if there is really a need of stopping everybody. And say, yeah, you’re right. Let’s not do this.
Fernando 38:44
Thank you. [They laugh.]
Beth 38:45
Do yourself out of some work, for the greater good. [They laugh.]
Fernando 38:49
Yeah, but often they, okay, come back. Now we have the 12 that we need to work with. So this kind of, we are transparent in this way. We are not there to make money or fool people around. We are there to help people make better work.
Fernando 39:06
So we need to be true to this.
Beth 39:08
It seems like it’s about who are they listening to, too, because sometimes we’re hired as consultants and they think they want to listen to us. As you said, people think that we’re the ones that have all the answers, but really, we’re there to help them listen to each other and know each other better, and then they can find the way.
Fernando 39:28
Sometimes we need to make hard questions as well. I like the way another mentor of ours, he said, sometimes the consultant needs to be the insultant.
Beth 39:37
The insultant? [Fernando: Yeah.] Oh, tell me what that means.
Fernando 39:40
You make harder questions that nobody else will be asking that question because they can be fired. And we don’t care being fired. [Beth: Right, yeah.] So we ask sometimes hard questions and the clients say, OK. [chuckles]
Beth 39:53
Yeah.
Fernando 39:54
And then they move to a different state.
Beth 39:56
How about wicked questions, which came up in our Liberating Structures workshop that we facilitated on Friday, where there’s these truths, right? That they’re realizing there’s sort of more going on than they originally thought.
Beth 40:08
And they, for example, need to get away from lecturing, but they love it so much because it means they’re an expert and it feels really comfortable, but then to also engage the group and sometimes it’s both, right?
Beth 40:24
I don’t know. I’m not explaining it very well, but the wicked questions is like not solvable, but just we uncover them for the group, don’t we? And help them uncover them for themselves.
Fernando 40:34
Yeah. How is it that we include everybody giving lectures? [They chuckle.]
Carolina 40:39
Yeah, I think it’s that what we need nowadays is to align people because we are running so much and people are so busy that they think they are in tune sometimes, but they are not. And I perceived that like a while ago when I started facilitating in English and I was like, oh, I need to ask if they are understanding me because it’s another language.
Carolina 41:10
But then when I went to Brazil and I was speaking in Portuguese, my mother tongue, and then I was like, oh, are they understanding me? [She and Beth laugh.] So I have to ask the same question. So then I figured out that it’s not a culture or anything.
Carolina 41:30
It’s just like, okay, we need to align our perceptions first. And then we need to understand what we understand as a group, as a collective. And then we can move forward. Otherwise, we’re going to go to different places and you think maybe that we are going the same place, but we are not.
Beth 41:50
[Chuckles] That’s a nice example. Well speaking of going places, what’s next for you two? I mean, you can tell me what you’re hoping for in terms of safe learning environments for the future, but even just your work. What are you hoping for as you go into the next months and years of your practices?
Fernando 42:11
Yeah, one thing that is happening for us this year, last summer, Henri called us with a request to get the book, the Liberating Structures book published in Portuguese. And we accepted the challenge. Yeah, we end up making a project, getting some sponsors, so the book will be launched in August.
Fernando 42:32
[Beth: Oh, that’s amazing. Congrats.] It’s a big buzz. And we put this as our goal for 2024 to spread Liberating Structures in Brazil in every place we can. So we are mixing in-person and virtual events based on Liberating Structures.
Fernando 42:51
And that’s one thing that we have seen that it’s a small contribution with a big impact. So I think it’s the little thing that we can do. It’s in our hands and now control to spread it and allow people to spread it even further.
Fernando 43:06
And it will have a bigger impact because people need to be having better conversations. And we see everywhere people are not equipped to get good conversations in group. So these Liberating Structures you can really teach people quickly and they learn and they they practice and they spread by itself.
Fernando 43:26
So we are doing this very intentionally this year. Not sure about 2025. For now, it’s been a nice journey.
Carolina 43:36
And talking about our topic here, so safe learning environment. So I think sometimes it’s very broad, how to do it, or sometimes it can be a little bit not so handy, or oh, it’s this and that, and how I’m going to read the room, how I’m going to feel the energy, or something like that.
Carolina 43:56
But if you think about the Liberating Structures as a tool, it will help you to not control and to give to the group autonomy. And just by doing that, you’re going to feel how this environment is going to change.
Carolina 44:14
And so I think it’s a good way to, if you’re starting to facilitate and go to this LS as a tool, it’ll help you to bring that in your room. So I think it’s amazing to work with Liberating Structures.
Carolina 44:29
I’m a good fan. [chuckles]
Beth 44:33
I’m a fan as well. And I think this conversation has made me even more of one because even though I’ve been using them for a number of years myself and facilitating for longer, it feels like there’s an entryway to, you know, I don’t want to say the basics, but if someone’s newer to facilitation, there’s something there for them in Liberating Structures, isn’t there?
Beth 44:53
But then those of us that have been doing it for a while and practicing – and we always practice, it never ends – but there’s something there for us too. And even just a couple of the concepts that you’ve both brought forward today, I haven’t really heard of, like someone say it in that way before.
Beth 45:09
And so you’ve deepened my practice even when, well, I never think I know everything, but sometimes you think, oh, yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while. But no, there’s still something else to learn.
Beth 45:18
And that’s so wonderful about your work and Liberating sStructures too.
Carolina 45:22
Yeah, I think the wonderful thing about Liberating Structures, I had been facilitating groups for more than 25 years, and with Liberating Structures since 2016, and I can feel how my facilitation changed and how myself changed. And in this sense of giving a real autonomy for the group and dealing with this unpredictability and being a group all together in this journey together, you know, you are walking with the group and this is amazing. And not overhelping and everything that we talked today here and I think the Liberating Structures helped me a lot to learn how to be a better facilitator.
Fernando 46:14
Yeah, and to empower people because the world is so unpredictable nowadays with the climate change and political instability. All these battles happening. Anyway, we need to include more people in perceiving this and bringing suggestions, bringing options so it will not come from one or two.
Fernando 46:36
It will come from the collective. So how can we invite people for this conversation? So Liberating Structures allows lots of people with no experience in facilitation to start doing this. So this is a hopeful future that I see for Liberating Structures as a really popular method for everybody to just start using and practicing more often.
Carolina 47:02
And it’s open, right? [chuckles] [Beth: That’s right. It’s very open.] And also, they’re like bringing what Henri Lipmanovicz used to say, it’s like bringing to the education. This is what I see as a future. If we can see how in education of our kids, if they can include themselves in the learning, it would be so awesome.
Beth 47:24
It would be…
Beth 47:25
That’s a whole other podcast, Carolina!
Carolina 47:28
Yes I know, but when you talk about future, I always go to the schools and kids and because of the climate change and everything that is happening in the world, they will be in charge. You know, soon enough, they’re going to be in charge and we are going to retire.
Carolina 47:46
And so what’s going to be?
Beth 47:49
Yeah, we have to bring them in. [Carolina: Yeah.] Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you two so much. I’m so pleased that I invited you into this podcast, to this conversation. Thanks for sharing with us your knowledge and your deep expertise.
Beth 48:04
I know you tend to turn things back to the group, but you do both have deep expertise in this field, and I think we all benefited from it today. Thanks again for being here.
Fernando 48:14
Thank you, Beth. [Carolina: Thank you, Beth.] Pleasure.
[Episode outro]
Beth 48:18
It was such a pleasure to have Fernando and Carolina on the show. A couple of things that I just wanted to bring to your attention again, which are still resonating with me after I listened back to the conversation.
Beth 48:30
There’s two of them. One is the piece of what they said around not over-helping in a group. And they gave examples around that. I love that. I don’t think I’ve really thought about helping and over-helping and over-helping being dangerous to a group and maybe the autonomy of the group or the autonomy of individuals with the group like this before.
Beth 48:52
So that was a great, great concept that they brought forward that helped me in my own learning. And I hope you found that valuable as well. The other thing was what they were saying about how basically when they get in front of a group, right off the bat, they say, tell us when we are inadequate because really that’s a chance for the group to know that, hey, we facilitators are fallible.
Beth 49:16
We do make mistakes. We don’t know everything, especially when we’re working across cultures. And I love the examples that Carolina and Fernando brought up in this about even when they go back to their home culture, they still feel like there are differences there that they’re learning about.
Beth 49:33
But just, yeah, keep giving open invitations to groups to say, tell me when I’m inadequate. I’m assuming I’m going to be inadequate in some way. And it’s OK to say how that is because we’re all in this together and we need to know to be able to grow our own practice and to do better for future groups.
Beth 49:52
So I love that kind of invitation. And that was a great teaching of theirs to me and to all of us as well. I really want to thank again for Fernando and Carolina for coming on the show and sharing their wonderful experience with all of us.
Beth 50:08
On the next episode of the podcast, it’s a solo one with me. In that episode, I’m going to share some of the behind the scenes things that I went through and did when I wrote my book, Design to Engage: How to Create and Facilitate a Great Learning Experience For Any Group.
Beth 50:25
It’s been a few years now and I have that advantage of distance to look back on the process and think about what I did and how it went and what’s happened since then after publishing a book. I’m doing this for you in case you want to write a book in the field or you are writing a book in the field right now, or maybe you know someone that is interested in writing a book in the field of learning design or of facilitation or any of the other sub topics within our field or even another field.
Beth 50:57
So this next episode is all about the research and the planning and the writing and the publishing processes that I went through when I wrote Design to Engage. We’ll catch you next time.
[Show outro]
Beth
Thank you for listening to Facilitating on Purpose. If you were inspired by something in this episode, please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them expand their facilitation practice too. To find the show notes, give me feedback, or submit ideas for future episodes visit facilitatingonpurpose.com. Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions for producing this episode. Happy facilitating!
