by Giorgia La Licata
From the 13th to the 17th of May I took part in the Erasmus Plus Course Facilitation Training "Fertilizer for Facilitators" Building Foundations for Future Facilitators, organised by Ana Maria Solis, of Solis Srls, with the help of Paolo Martinez, of FUTOUR, and designed and conducted by Dr. Jan Lelie with the support of Yuen Yen Tsai, both accredited facilitators of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) working for Mind@work VOF.
The training took place in the beautiful area of Portorož in Slovenia and was hosted by the Unione Italiana Capodistria in the offices of the Istria Creative Incubator.
The aim of the course was to enhance the digital and creative skills of the facilitators, using both traditional and digital methods in a diverse and ever-changing educational environment to provide them with different tools and broaden their facilitation skills, while also serving as a meaningful team-building experience.
I believe that all the objectives of this course were achieved: Jan Lelie, who was facilitating a learning process rather than teaching, as he liked to say, was really able to impart new knowledge and insights, while at the same time facilitating our group dynamics, making us aware of them and giving us advice and tools for when we are in the role of facilitators.
Throughout the week we moved through different levels of learning: learning the tools to use in facilitation processes (such as the brainstorming technique followed by clustering to find similarities and differences in what's been said, or the "picture this" method to find images to represent the meaning you want to convey and to get around your blockages, and many more), applying them, giving and receiving feedback, while also reflecting on the struggles we face as facilitators and trying to overcome them.
Jan introduced us to a whole new paradigm in which paradoxes are not exceptions to be avoided, but are the unsolvable catalysts of change, because when we allow ourselves to hold them without trying to resolve them, they create enough energy to make change happen. And change can only happen in the here and now, where we, as facilitators, should always be.
He also pointed out that every comment that comes from the group is at the same time a hint that the facilitator needs to change something in his or her behaviour, so we always need to be present in the situation.
Rather than being exquisitely theoretical, this reality perception model is very practical and can be applied to anything: it can be used to analyse a difficult situation our client is facing, or to devise a course of action to solve a group problem, but it can also be applied to study political and social developments, or even to try to understand how the universe works. It's a really useful tool that needs to be properly understood (and that's the tricky part), but then it can greatly enhance one's ability to reason.
Another tool that we always have at our disposal is our body: not only does it tell us when something is not working in a given situation, using our physical sensations as signals, but it can also be used to change that situation by moving through the space and thus shifting the energy and dynamics.
There are many more insights and new knowledge that I will take away from this course that don't fit into a short article, but what is really important is that this experience has given me new energy and motivation to apply what I have learnt in my work.
In the end, I really think that this immersive training has improved my collaboration and learning skills and I'm really grateful to have had the chance to take part and meet my fellow students, who are amazing people. I now feel more motivated to try out the new skills I have acquired in my work but also in my personal life and I know that I will always have them to support me: after all, we are all in the same ship!
留言