My Blog

Facilitation and Tai Chi

A chance meeting with a friend in Nov ‘08 led me to an opportunity to do some sharing on what I’ve been doing for the past year. Being open and receptive to facilitation, he invited me to conduct a 1 day facilitative training workshop for his fellow mates in his community.

I thought about it for over a week and decided to let the participants do a short exercise of Tai Chi as an opener. When asked about what the team has learnt, the participants responded with, “Fluid, Co-ordination, etc…”. I reflected on the experience and drew many similarities between Tai Chi and the skills of facilitation. Here are a few of them.

One, the root of the two skill sets is derived from “Ease”. Facilitate came from the Latin word “Facillis”, which means ‘make easier’.  My experience with practicing Tai Chi Chuan tells me that the execution of the moves is to be completed using energy derived from the core muscles. When facilitation is well executed, the result is one where the group feels that they had cleared the obstacles of working together with ease and that they did it all by themselves. When Tai Chi Chuan is well executed, the master uses the ease of tapping the power of his opponent to defeat him.

Two, both art forms are fluid and they flow with nature. A master facilitator reads the situation as it develops and makes adjustments to the process agilely to adapt to the changing nature of the discourse found in facilitated session. The Tai Chi master transits seamlessly and effortless between moves. Both masters are equipped with a big inventory of “moves” and ability to improvise to extract the necessary response from those they interact with.

Three, coordination is a must for both. Facilitation is planned in such a way that the atmosphere generated by the set-up of the venue, encompassing nature of the facilitation methodology used, and expanding capability of the equipment deployed are coordinated to deliver the desired outcome. Tai Chi Chuan involves a lot of hand and leg movements that can be coordinated to deliver that killer strike at a moment of notice.

Lastly, both skills seek balance. Facilitation, in totality, involves two general processes - divergence and convergence. These processes provide the participants the space to hear the viewpoints from others before arriving at a consensus on a particular course of action. One flows into the other. Tai Chi has two interrelated parts - “Yin” and “Yang”. The moves, in general, are stable; the left-hand movement is balanced with the right leg movement and the right hand movement follows after the left leg movement. All moves are executed with balance in mind.

In summary, when a facilitated session is well executed, the group is at ease in handling issues together. The session is smooth, seamlessly coordinated and balanced.

The first meeting of DMG Toastmasters’(TM) Meeting saw many gifts for the fellow people who turned up on Fri.

The first gift was the sharing of the 2 beatiful and meaningful speeches from visiting TM members in Tower A. There was a story of what we can learn from the geese. 3 lessons shared were: Flying in formation saves the geese energy as drag is reduced, honks save lives and the support spirit where in the event of 1 geese falling sick, 2 geese from the formation will be together with it till it recover or dies. A great demonstration of Team Excellence here. The second story was about a few types of women when it comes to dating. Variety,Directive and Good natured types are a general few and there were tips shared on how to handle them differently.

The second gift was the gift of good tidings. The club celebrated CNY in advance with a loi hei and great conversations and connections arose from the break.

The 3rd gift was the tabel topic session where we saw 8 carefully thought throught topics were created. We heard about the bull run, “save as it’s not the time to spend”$ and an exciting bali experience with rafting. And they were created while thinking on the feet.

The last gift was the valuable feedback the evaluators gave in terms of looking at areas of excellence, areas where examination could be done on and seeking balance of arguements were raised.

It closed on a high note and members look forward to the next meeting on 20 Feb where we will be holding an joint meeting with Zhenghua CC Toastmasters’ Club at their club.

Another exciting meeting to look forward to!!!

27^th FNS Forum saw a highly participative group spending a wonderful morning together learning and sharing on “Enhancing your image.” The facilitator was Jessica See, a professional Image Consultant and Coach from Image International. The morning kick started with an evaluation exercise. People expressed what they feel they are and fellow participants shared their perception of others through the use of colors, drawings and laughter. The group discussed the key ingredients on a positive visual identity using a useful ‘ABCDE’ (Assets, Body Shape, Colour, Dress Style, Environment). The group was also treated to a methodology of assessing their own body shape and learnt how to dress right for their own body shape. Color matching was the next highly interactive topic where questions on the choice of color with skin under tones, etc. Another exercise allowed participants to be aware of their own personal style. A discussion on how to dress right led to many stories sharing by facilitators or trainers on what worked for them personally. The forum ended on a high where Jessica shared 5 ways on making a Brilliant First Impression. ‘Look Good, Feel Good’ is about how a workshop facilitator could be mindful of in creating a positive conducive environment for sessions to take place through personal role modeling in projecting positive first impression and positive energy! What a brilliant way to start 2009!