Along with other parents of school-age children, I have found many virtual water cooler conversations these days revolving around the new, unexpected, and daunting task of “homeschooling.” Being an effective teacher is part art, part science, and at least 50% magic—or rather, wisdom that only comes with experience. As we bemoaned our inability to deliver on our outsized expectations, we started to recognize a pattern in the challenges we are facing:
- We face competing priorities on our time
- We aren’t trained as educators
- We have no system in place
- Our kids don’t see us as “the teacher”
We quickly realized that organizational leaders face these same set of hurdles when suddenly expected to design and facilitate successful virtual meetings and collaborative design sessions.
As a leader, you are always juggling multiple responsibilities, but when unprecedented events occur this increases exponentially. You are trying to navigate the business-world equivalent of focusing on a client call, while getting your kids excited about worksheets, while trying to keep the peace with your partner, while preparing dinner, while taking deep breaths as you read the news, while…you get the idea. It isn’t the time to take crash courses in facilitating virtual collaboration.
While it is unlikely that a “fairy god-teacher” is going to step in to solve the challenge of educating our kids at home, we like to think we can provide almost magical solution to virtual collaboration and virtual events for your organization. Facilitation, much like education, isn’t just about saying the right words at the right time, or even having the right tools at your fingertips. It’s about coming together with a shared purpose, creating an inviting space, bringing content to life, and sparking and sustaining engagement. For decades, we have been helping organizations collectively develop strategy, shift culture, and implement bold visions, in person and virtually. Even when meeting face-to-face is no longer possible, we can design and deliver effective, creative—and human—collaborative experiences.
We would love to discuss how we can help you keep creating what’s next for your organization.
Back
Due to the highly sensitive nature of the session, we’ve brought our case study to life with a fictional scenario that will be familiar to fans of Parks and Recreation. Above: We used visuals to create a warm welcome and a structured introduction process. Challenge In early 2020, a prestigious NGO approached us seeking new ways […]
Let’s start with the basics—what is virtual graphic facilitation? Tricia: People may already be familiar with traditional graphic facilitation. It is the art of listening to dialogue or presentation and creating a real-time, visual capture of key themes and ideas by drawing on a whiteboard or other large-scale surface. With virtual graphic facilitation, we move this […]
Along with other parents of school-age children, I have found many virtual water cooler conversations these days revolving around the new, unexpected, and daunting task of “homeschooling.” Being an effective teacher is part art, part science, and at least 50% magic—or rather, wisdom that only comes with experience. As we bemoaned our inability to deliver […]