Shows
SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE with Vinay KumarEp 17: Barbara Mackay on Making Virtual Meetings Pop!Send us a textOnline meetings are integral to our work life today. This week, it's all about how you can make those virtual meetings pop! Vinay gleans tips and best practices from fellow Certified Professional Facilitator and International Association of Facilitators (IAF) member, Barbara Mackay who has facilitated groups on social justice issues, environmental concerns, health services, education and serving the poor, among a few, for 30+ years. Barbara heads North Star Facilitators, and is also an avid blogger and a podcaster![05:04s] Meetings: Virtual vs in-person2020-09-2438 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeFrom Pandemic to Protests: Reflections on Race in a COVID-19 Era: Part 6For the final episode of this season, we touch on racial healing at both the collective and personal level. We speak to the importance and power of collective acknowledgement of racial trauma as an essential first step in the process of healing. We offer examples of structural expressions that speak to such acknowledgments. We talk about our own personal journeys around racial healing, specifically lifting up racial healing circles, re-evaluation counseling and somatic practices as examples of our key tools. We share tips for facilitators on how to proactively engage with clients on racial dynamics in organizations and groups...2020-09-2222 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeFrom Pandemic to Protests: Reflections on Race in a COVID-19 Era: Part 5In this episode, we use the ToP facilitation technique known as the Wall of Wonder retrospective review to reflect on three generational, geographic, and multiracial/ethnic viewpoints on how the concept of race has impacted our lives. Rangineh, Stacey (our guest) and Barbara share stories from different decades, including our earliest experiences of the role that race played in our lives and in relationships with our friends and family. We also explore when and how we began to understand the wider systemic reach of racism. We reflect on our respective recollections and experiences of 9/11 in the USA and...2020-09-2248 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeFrom Pandemic to Protests: Reflections on Race in a COVID-19 Era: Part 4Today, we feature a new guest, Stacey Gibson, Chicago based, with her company Transform the Collective. She is among many things a mother, author, professor, facilitator, and artist. In this session, we reveal patterns of stagnation in equity work, often presented as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and training. Even though some observable elements (people, mission statement) change, the core practices remain the same and nothing really changes. Hence the illusion of change. We reflect on some of the 'silent' practices white people consciously or subconsciously use to communicate their racial dominance. We address unspoken expectations for...2020-08-1832 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeFrom Pandemic to Protests: Reflections on Race in a COVID-19 Era: Part 3In episode three, we explore the importance of both educating ourselves AND taking action in the context of racial justice. We begin by honoring US civil rights activist John Lewis. We reflect on our journeys of education and activism and implications for facilitators. We ask listeners to explore these questions:
For people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, what would support your leadership and how can others support you?
For people who do not identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color, how do your education efforts inform your activism in the racial justice movement?
2020-07-3026 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeFrom Pandemic to Protests: Reflections on Race in a COVID-19 Era: Part 2In this episode, we define what we mean by racialization and explore our (Rangineh & Barbara's) respective journeys of racialization. We share how we have come to “do our work” with respect to our racial identities. We briefly look at how five white identity characteristics can affect how we facilitate and how the group perceives the experience. We end by offering our listeners the following question: What are the ways that your racialization has shaped your life? And, if you don’t know, what can you do to begin that journey of inquiry?
Resources we noted in the...2020-07-2131 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeFrom Pandemic to Protests: Reflections on Race in a COVID-19 Era: Part 1Rangineh and Barbra kick off Season 2 by talking about the recent surge of racial protests in the USA and the world. What does that mean for us as facilitators leading groups? We reflect on radical humility in particular. Borrowing on concepts from narrative and cultural humility, we share what it might look like to be a radically humble facilitator in this unprecedented time of protests and pandemic.2020-07-0825 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 9In our final episode, we explore the idea of "resolve" and reflect on the good that we've created over this time of sheltering in place. We also explore: What will it take for us to hang onto the good that we've created? Are we resolved enough to make this "Great Realization" happen? And what is our role as facilitators in supporting movement in this direction? We offer up some concrete tools for how to engage with these questions, point to some resources that we think will be helpful while we are temporarily away, and end with our signature inspirational...2020-06-0424 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 8We talk mainly about the concept and process of “returning”. We are returning to a different world, forever changed by the COVID-19 experience. We share an inspiring example of a profound policy change that reduces inequities. We offer a quote to help us hold onto important values as we cautiously move to “open up” our world again. We explore Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey model as it relates to us entering this next phase of COVID-19, changed forever by the journey. We share ways process facilitators need to behave differently in the now-pervasive online meeting world versus the in-perso...2020-05-2718 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 7In episode 7 we explore “The Seven Phases of Image Shift” that comes out of the Institute of Cultural Affairs Canada as a roadmap for change in these unprecedented times. This image shift concept is one process facilitators use consciously and unconsciously when helping groups navigate immense change. We consider where we are as a society in relation to the seven phases, and what possibilities and opportunities the remaining phases hold for us on a global scale during this pandemic. We conclude by asking our listeners (and each other): What is the shift we are being called to make righ...2020-05-1422 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 6In our latest episode, we weigh in on where we are sensing and seeing loneliness show up within and around us as a result of the shelter-in-place order, and how we might re-imagine shifting from loneliness and isolation to connection and community. We muse outloud about how we, as facilitators, can create spaces and processes that mitigate loneliness and bring people closer together. Finally, we speak to the role of levity as a way to balance the inner work of addressing loneliness as one of many feelings that may be coming up right now.
Please click here for...2020-05-1225 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 5In episode 5 we take stock of our probable mid-way point in the shelter in place order and tune into the transition from reflection to re-imagining. We invite you to think about what it means to re-imagine a world that is beyond old limitations and one that centers wholeness, beginning with relationships. Finally, we offer five key areas of relationships (Self, Source, Supports, Structures/System, and Sacred Earth) to begin the process of re-imagining and ask the following guiding questions:
How might your relationships in these key areas look different when in service to the whole?
What are these...2020-05-0518 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 4Season 1 continues on Uncovering Covid-19. Join us for a slightly longer “rogue” podcast talking about the need for empathy right now. We examine the role of empathy in an epidemic and explore the different types of empathy, including self-empathy, and how this superpower can help us connect with each other in new and meaningful ways.2020-04-2326 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 3In our third episode, we refer to the Strategic Juncture Analysis discussion tool that invites us to ask some critical questions about this moment, and moves us to acknowledge the racial health disparities illuminated by COVID-19. Below we share the eight questions that make-up the tool, while we ponder questions 2 and 4:
What is our window of opportunity?
What are the negative consequences of inaction?
What could be affected or changed in a positive direction 5, 10 or 20 years from now?
What future desired result or change in the current situation is going to require persistence and perseverance?
What bold new...2020-04-2222 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 2Part 2 of our podcast on what facilitators might reflect on during the COVID-19 crisis. We talk about the importance of what we are learning and feeling during this time. We specifically acknowledge collective grief (more than individual grief but also sensing the enormity of the world's grief). We also note that as facilitators, it is important to get our groups to step back - step right back to the data gathering the environmental scanning stage or the retrospective review stage. It is critical that we help others pause, notice we are at the very beginning of the...2020-04-2216 min
Musing Outloud: A Multigen Podcast for ChangeUncovering COVID-19: Opportunities for Growth & Evolution – A Facilitator’s Response PART 1For our first episode, we share the “why” behind doing this podcast now, take a moment to notice the extraordinary nature of what is happening around us, and explore the invitation being extended to us for growth and evolution. Listen as we take a look at the bigger picture of this COVID-19 crisis and the compelling opportunity it offers to use our skills as facilitators. We invite you to get creative and strategic. What projects are you taking on to improve the world?2020-04-2222 min