Best Practices and Insights for Facilitating Creativity, Alignment & Organizational Results

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Jumpstart Your Strategy with the Context Map strategic visioning virtual facilitation visualization

 

Understanding your organization’s environment and how this environment changes is critical for success in your planning process. This is a perfect time to have a visual planning session, using templates to provide a high-level view of all the factors that affect your situation. 

In this article, we provide a step-by-step process for using The Context Map, one of 20 different graphic templates that we use repeatedly with our clients to support their strategic planning. ...

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The 7 Formats of Visual Language in the Group Graphics Keyboard graphic facilitation graphic recording virtual facilitation virtual graphic facilitation visual facilitation

 

 

 

“One of the things that I love about working this way … is it destabilizes all the habituation that we have. If there’s a big chart in the room that is reflecting what everybody’s thinking, nobody really knows how to game that very effectively. I mean, you’ve got to actually listen to each other.”

David Sibbet

 

Recently, David Sibbet sat down with Doug Ferguson, president of Voltage Control and host of the Control the Room...

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A Conversation with Trent Wakenight graphic facilitation virtual facilitation visual facilitation

 

In April, The Grove was thrilled to announce the addition of Trent Wakenight to its consulting ranks. For the past twenty years, Trent has helped to form and lead executive and work teams through vision and strategy development, change management and team-building processes, employing many of The Grove’s visual tools and methodologies in the process. He is already well versed in our core workshop offerings, so look for him in one of our workshops in the coming months. Following...

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9 Tips for Lightening the Load of Zoom Fatigue virtual facilitation virtual meetings

 

During this past year of isolation, video-conferencing platforms have become a crucial way to stay employed and stay in touch, but they are increasingly leaving us overwhelmed and exhausted. Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson has been studying the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue and outlines the four causes in a new study. We briefly describe the causes below and provide some of The Grove’s best practices for lightening the mental load of virtual meetings.

 

EYE GAZE AT A...

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Facilitating a County Office of Education in This Most Critical Time strategic visioning virtual facilitation

 

The El Dorado County Office of Education (EDCOE) reached out to The Grove early this year to assist it in some long-overdue strategic and prioritizing conversations. A plan was in place to conduct a two-day strategic-visioning offsite when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, effectively stymieing the notion of an in-person process. The leaders at EDCOE chose to push forward and move the process online, and Laurie Durnell, principal consultant, along with Kayla Kirsch, Grove associate, led...

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Adapting to Virtual Work ā€“ 7 Takeaways from The Groveā€™s Experience virtual collaboration virtual facilitation

 

In the past decade, the rapid evolution of technological advances has made it much easier for people to work, meet and team virtually. Some organizations have jumped right into the virtual space and revolutionized the way they work, while others are struggling to create virtual-work processes for a mix of co-located and remote staff. As global teaming becomes more essential and workers of all ages—especially millennials—increasingly make employment choices based on...

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Let Grownups Be Grownups in Remote Meetings virtual facilitation virtual meetings

Author: Rachel Smith

 

In The Grove’s recent Facilitating Virtual Collaboration workshop, the topic came up about how facilitators can engage participants in a remote meeting so that they don’t check email, tune out, stop listening, and fail to … well… participate. My unusual and occasionally unpopular advice: it’s not entirely your problem.

 Let me clarify. As a facilitator, and especially as a facilitator of remote meetings, it’s my job to...

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Videoconferencing: Twelve Rules of Order virtual facilitation

 

Author: Rachel Smith

 

I used to dislike using video in remote meetings. All the social cues we get from following another’s gaze simply don’t work on computer video. No matter where other people look, they seem to be captivated by something just out of view.

Surprisingly, I’m getting comfortable using video—sometimes I even enjoy it. Still, I’ve noticed that it often is used ineffectively. Since I’ve found myself in more video conferences than...

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Escaping the Despondent Pit of Techno-Despair virtual facilitation virtual meetings

 

Author: Rachel Smith

 

Have you ever been in the Despondent Pit of Techno-Despair?

You know what I’m talking about if you’ve been there. You’ve been trying to get some type of technology to work, usually in front of other people. It probably worked yesterday, or even earlier today when you tested it by yourself, but the controls are now mysteriously incomprehensible and you’d swear they look different from how they did just an hour ago.

Possibly a lot of...

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