Monday April 12 'Wisdom—Whence and Whither' with Jay Hayes

This session is a series of dialogues and enquiries into the nature of wisdom: where it comes from; why it’s needed; and what impedes it. Participants confront and engage “the wisdom paradox”: Wisdom is both abundant in the world and seldom observed.”

The session moves through the following themes:

1. The wisdom around us.

2. The importance of wisdom.

3. The roots of wisdom.

4. Impediments to wisdom.

5. Cultivating wisdom.

6. Applying wisdom to today’s problems.

The basic aspiration is to come to a shared understanding of wisdom and its potential, and to apply wisdom in a practical way to one or more real-life problems affecting the group.

At a meta-level, the session promotes, relies upon, and acknowledges the collective, communal wisdom of participants as a whole and reveals one way that “the getting” of such wisdom can be elicited.

This session draws upon recent work with Dialogue, the Team Learning Pyramid and Collective Intelligence.

About Jay Hayes

Jay teaches courses in management and leadership, including “Leading High-Performance Teams” and a management and organisation course titled “The Community Project,” at the Australian National University, Canberra. He is also a practicing management consultant and has led a wide range of Organisational Development and Change projects on four continents, most recently assisting in a major change program in Zambia, Africa. Jay is involved as facilitator and coach in several Community of Practice initiatives at the university and in the local community. His research interests include the development of wisdom and enlightened leadership, teamwork and collaboration, and organisational ecology. His present focus is on Dialogue and its use as an instrument of learning and change. Jay is author of three books, several book chapters, and thirty peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. Jay will be moving to Swinburne University in Melbourne in July 2010, where he will serve as Academic Advisor, Professional Practice.

http://cbe.anu.edu.au/staff/info.asp?Surname=Hays&Firstname=Jay

Monday March 8, 2010 "Having a Big Conversation about Values" with Paul Worth and Sharon McGann

There has been an explosion of conversations about what the global economic crisis means for all of us, what the future holds and what needs to change. The government is asking us to tell them what is important to us.

Our colleagues from the Emerging Leaders for Social Change network believe we need to make these important conversations bigger and louder. We need to talk about our values, because this is where our decisions and our actions come from.

The Big Conversation is a conversation about values. So how do we, as facilitators, work with values?

Our guest facilitators Paul Worth & Sharon McGann from A Passion for Results, have worked with values for nearly a decade. They will facilitate a conversation about tools they are familiar with - for example, values elicitation (NLP), the Barrett Survey (which is the basis of the Big Conversation National Survey), the AVI - Values Inventory and espoused vs values in action theories (Schein / Argyris). Please feel free to bring examples of other tools you use to expand the conversation.

We also encourage you to complete the first ever National Values Survey for Australia - it will take about 10 minutes.

If you have problems with this web link, go to The Big Conversation website and click on the link from there:

http://bigconversation.org.au/

Mediator self-care workshop with Ike Lasater March 1, 2010

Mediator self-care workshop with Ike Lasater

US mediator, lawyer and trainer, Ike Lasater will lead a workshop in Sydney on 1 March which will help us mediate our own inner dialogue.

Working with people in conflict stimulates reactions– to the subject matter, the people involved and conflict in general.

Ike teaches the skill of self-empathy (as based on the principles of Non-violent Communication), which enables us to change our response to these inner dialogues and better care for ourselves. This helps sustain us in our work as ADR practitioners.

http://www.leadr.com.au/

Monday Feb 8, 2010 - ‘Storytelling – Purposeful, Spontaneous and Playful!’ with Christine Carlton

Storytelling and story listening have long been recognized as having significant effects on the development of our personal, cultural and work identities. We are living stories!

Much has been written about the benefits of storytelling being purposeful and persuasive, yet the power of spontaneous and playful storytelling has often been undervalued.

With a sense of play and spontaneity participants will be invited to stretch their imagination to develop their creativity, spontaneity and flexibility to awaken the storyteller within.

We will explore how these skills can be applied in our lives and the workplace.

Christine Carlton is a member of the Australasian Facilitators Network and has worked for over twenty years as a freelance Consultant, Facilitator and Educator in Story, Drama and Creative Arts in Education, Business and Community Development. She travels Australia and overseas offering opportunities for individuals and organisations to tap into their creativity to gain insight and direction for their lives and their communities.

Christine lectures in Story and Drama in Education at University of Western Sydney; facilitates leadership and team-building processes; offers trainers and teacher in-service, storytelling workshops, reflective retreats and is regularly called upon to provide creative leadership and group facilitation at national and international conferences.

Venue:

University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street.

Room 5.580 Level 5, Building 10, Take the lift to level 5, cross the atrium foot bridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.

Time:

from 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up

Facilitators Network Dates in 2010

Feb 8,
March 8,
April 12,
May 10,
June 14 (3rd Monday),
July 12,
August 9,
Sept 13,
October 11,
November 8,
AFN Conference Hobart 24-26 Nov 2010

December 13

NVC MEDIATION Update (links to May 11, 2009 session)

Ike Lasiter was guest facilitator on May 11, 2009
This session was one of the biggest gatherings for Facilitators Network attracting around 75 participants.

Here is the latest update:

NVC MEDIATION
5-Day Residential Retreat &
1 Year Immersion Training Program
with Ike Lasater & John Kinyon

Do you want to learn how to:
~ Facilitate people in conflict to hear each other and be connected to their
shared humanity?
~ Empathically connect to others’ experience in challenging conflict
situations?
~ Translate judgments into need language with greater ease and
naturalness?
~ Return to presence and connection in the midst of the intensity of
conflict?
~ Make and support clear requests and collaborative solutions?
Would you like to develop your abilities in various conflict contexts?
~ Effectively mediate as a “third side” professionally or in your work?
~ Lend your skills informally to support people in conflict?
~ Peacefully resolve conflicts you are having with others?
~ Transform warring voices in your own head?
~ Apply mediation skills to conflict coaching and groups?

About the program
Central to our program is the conviction that increasing your capacity to be with
conflict and intervene effectively involves learnable skills; and that when applied
holistically a person can remain connected to their own needs and productively
assist in the resolution of conflict both internally and externally, formally or
informally. Also central to the program is that we (Ike and John) use the NVC
mediation skills to facilitate group decision making and learning in a way that
creates safety, connection and enjoyment of the learning process. Our goal by the
end of the 12 month program is that you will experience confidence and
effectiveness with these skills in all aspects of conflict and in all aspects of your life.

http://www.nvcaustralia.com/

Monday December 14, 2009 - Holiday Season Wildcard

As a community of practice and we love to create opportunities for anyone in the network to practice their craft. At a Wildcard facilitation event volunteers step-up to run a short session of between 5 and 20 minutes. Wildcard is open to everyone. Wildcard is educational and fun. Entries are taken on the night.

Suitable activities for this end of year Wildcard session may include:

• Fun stuff – activities for the Holiday Season [E.g. activities to lift people’s spirits, getting to know you better, energisers, ice breakers, thought provokers]

• Serious stuff - reflection activities to mull over learning from the past year [E.g. How I survived the GFC, how to plan for success in 2010]