Coaching Cohort for Facilitators

An invitation for facilitators who want to get better at what they do

tl;dr: Three different things here, scroll through as interested

1) An invitation for facilitators who want to get better at what they do. (Please share with your favorite or most promising facilitators.)

2) A note about the Positive Deviants Fellowship for Complexity Leaders

3) A really trippy example of what AI is up to these days

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There are many more people who can sing, than people who can be Beyoncé. The same is true for people who are meant to dance. And people born to tell stories. And those who are called to enact them. It is true for people who are meant to make all forms of art.

But in our culture, if you can’t make a living out of the music you were born to make, you are told that it is better not to waste your time. You are told to focus on whatever it is that can get you a job.

And yes, jobs are important. We live in this society and in this day.

But I always remind people that we evolved to live in bands of 150 people or less. This was the case for 90% of our human presence on this planet. We are wired to live in much smaller societies.

Each of these bands needed people to hold their stories and their songs. They needed people to hold their medicine and their rituals. No tribe would survive without these.

This is why so many of us are wired to sing and to make beautiful things. Even if few of us can ever make the billboard charts, or even breakthrough to a thousand true fans on Instagram. We are here, because we are needed.

And the same is true for people who could hold space. Each tiny society had processes and people to help them be in conversation together. Make decisions. Solve conflict. Collaborate. Co-create. And Make Meaning. Together.

Today we call these people facilitators. And we are needed more than ever. We need people who are skilled at bringing others together. People who can help us turn to one another now, in these times, when so much seems to be pulling us apart.

So I’ve decided that I want to support these people. I want to support you, if you know you were made to be a space holder.

The Facilitators' Coaching Cohort

Facilitation can be a lonely endeavor. Sometimes we get to work with clients who understand the value of hiring a pair of us. Or even a team. This is a great way to learn from each other. And to do better work together.

Another way to learn is to participate in workshops offered by great teachers and master facilitators. This is certainly something I try to do so I can keep getting better at what I do.

But the fact is that it is not very easy to hone our craft. It’s not even easy to learn it in the first place. There are some good training efforts. But this really is an apprenticeship model. We learn from those who have been doing it for a long time. From working along with them. We learn this craft from each other.

I am often asked to mentor or support someone who is passionate about facilitation. And until now, I have not known quite how to do it.

This is why I'm excited to launch a Coaching Cohort for Facilitators. I’ve been successfully running coaching cohorts for the last couple of years. (The testimonials page is coming very soon!) But this will be the first cohort that I offer specifically for facilitators.

This first cohort is specifically for facilitators who already have experience facilitating. It is for people who facilitate spaces that demand depth, care, navigation and the skill to hold difficult conversations.

You will be asked to bring your cases and experience to bear.

It is a twelve week program. And you will commit 20hrs of your time in direct engagement with our process. This estimate does not include the time outside direct engagement. The time you devote to practice and preparation. And time to do the inner work necessary for anyone committed to hold groups of people through meaningful transformation.

• Each participant will have five one-on-one coaching sessions with me.

• The cohort will meet as a group for twelve consecutive weeks.

• We start the week of January 12 and we close the week of March 16.

• Group sessions will be from 1PM to 2PM weekly on either Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

• Participants will also have three peer coaching sessions scheduled at your convenience.

If you are seriously interested in participating, you can use this link to let us know.

Use the link whether you are interested in participating in the January cohorts or in future cohorts.

We will send more information including the cost. Those of you interested in the January cohort will be invited to schedule a one-on-one mutual assessment conversation.

Please share this offer with your favorite and most promising facilitators! It will be a good one.

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Are you a Complexity Leader?

Our friends at the Wolf Willow Institute just opened applications for the Positive Deviants Fellowship. And I want to make sure you know about it.

Tuesday (my amazing wife), and I partnered with them last year and we are looking forward to doing so again.

Even if you are not considering applying, I encourage you to read through the call for applications. Julian Norris does a great job of defining a “Complexity Leader.” And his recent writings on substack do a beautiful job of breaking down complexity.  I can honestly say that Julian is one of the thinker/doers whose approach I find most resonant with my own.

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AI Does a Deep Dive on My Writing

I know AI can cause great anxiety in many of us. If you find it too scary to look at, this is the right time to avert your eyes!

I fed my last newsletter: First Seek to Understand to Google’s NotebookLM and I am baffled by the output.

The machine used the input, and in just a matter of minutes, it produced this very realistic audible conversation about the writing. The "Deep Dive" function didn't just regurgitate. It extrapolated in ways that are consonant with what I wrote.

It is a brave new world indeed!

Here is a link if you are curious to see how this works and sounds.

I can assure you that I have no intention of relying on AI in this way. As I recently shared here, it is my understanding that we each carry a transmission. And that human transmission cannot be replicated by AI.

But I was baffled by this. And so I wanted to share.