Finding new balances between opposites and their importance for effective facilitation

By Marco Martinez

The course aim was to transmit, through collective actions, some useful frameworks and tools which would be useful to become more effective and artistic facilitators. To do so, the course combined conceptual frameworks, stories, and practical exercises to better engage with clients, to better analyse the context of each facilitation and its goals, and to organize facilitation sessions. This brief article aims at summarising the most remarkable aspects of this very exciting journey.

 Key Experiences

One key moment of the course was the introduction of the method of the blue (unifying)-red (sensing)-green (social) -yellow (mythic) modalities of perception of the world. This framework really was a useful tool to better organize every aspect of facilitation. For example, we learned that there are six different types of leadership, and each of them is made of a different combination of the four main aspects. The specific training we did to understand how to apply this framework in practice was also extremely useful and fun.  

 Practical Application

The knowledge acquired will be used professionally as a facilitator in all parts of the facilitating process. The fact that we practised the methods in class will make this application of the concepts quite direct and straightforward. 

 Personal Reflections

At a personal level, I will also think about the conceptual framework to try finding more a balance between more rationa and more irrational ways of living. 

 Conclusions

The importance of the Erasmus Plus project for my personal, professional and educational development has exceeded my expectations, also thanks to a welcoming environment, friendly collaborators, and an excellent supervisor and organization.

Keywords:  

New methodologies; balance; creativity

The “empathy” exercise consisted in figuring a difficult client to work with and to analyse first what would make it so difficult to work with, by imagining what s/he would see, hear, think ecc, and then to decide how to bst work with hir nevertheless. We named our client “Dr. Jackson Potato, CEO & Baron”.