Marsha Acker

The Five Cornerstones of the Agile Team Facilitation Stance Explained

The Art & Science of Facilitation Book Tour

On March 9, 2021 I was the guest speaker at Agile Austin to talk about my book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’.

I enjoyed this conversation so very much that I am sharing a condensed version of some of the things we discussed, as well as the full recording of this lively conversation about facilitation.

Join me for this Virtual Book Tour event, won’t you?

What Does Facilitation Mean to You?

We started the evening by answering the following question.

’What does facilitation mean to you?’

Several people eagerly shared what facilitation means to them.

Here are their definitions!

Facilitation is ‘keeping the conversation going’. The conversation needs to move, not get stuck.
Facilitation is helping guide people to a common end.
Facilitation is creating and holding the container for all the magic to happen inside. Magic means the space where the folks inside can solve problems, be creative, innovate. The connection between human beings.
Good facilitation encourages participation. Everyone should have a voice, not be scared to speak. Flow, safety.
Facilitation means feeling psychologically safe, a healthy discourse!
Facilitation is about the feelings and understanding of the team, each team member. Empathizing with the team.
Facilitation is making things easier. Make it easier on the team.

Facilitation Is Both Art and Science

The dictionary defines ‘facilitating’ as
“make (an action or process) easy or easier.”

There is science that sits behind what we do, and art as well! Hence the name of my book.

A facilitated session includes all of the following:

All Voices
Process
Desired outcome
Flow
Discourse
Harmony
Bring Inquiry

‘What’s happening when all of things are taking place in a meeting? What is the facilitator doing, or not doing when all these things are taking place?’

It’s how you show up as a facilitator.

The Agile Team Facilitation Stance

What do you need to believe about yourself and your group as you facilitate?

Here are the guiding principles I reference in my book.

The cornerstones of the Agile Team Facilitation Stance include:

Honoring the wisdom of the group
Maintaining Neutrality
Upholding the Agile Mindset and Practices
Standing in the Storm
Holding the Group’s Agenda.

Next, the Zoom participants broke into Zoom rooms. They were asked to create a definition about one of these five cornerstones during a 10 minute group discussion before coming back and sharing their insights.

The Full Agile Austin Conversation

If you missed this Agile Austin conversation with us and you couldn’t participate, please know we’d love for you to watch the evening’s discussion right here.

Join Me For Additional Facilitation Conversations!

The first part of my Virtual Book Tour in January and February of 2021 consisted of a self-hosted series of live conversations with facilitation experts.

Starting this month, March 2021, I am ‘making the rounds’ and bringing ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’ to groups all over the country.

You can check out my upcoming Virtual Book Tour schedule here.

For TeamCatapult workshops, check the schedule below.

Here are several opportunities for you to learn more.:

Agile Team Facilitation Workshop March 22-26, 2021
Advanced Facilitation Workshop April 28-May 5, 2021

Join us for one, or all, Virtual Workshops. TeamCatapult workshops are a great stepping stone to our cohort.

Learn more about our Coaching Agility from Within ‘A Cohort Journey to Masterful Agile Team Coaching’ and apply to join in May 2021.

Celebrating a Journey to Masterful Agile Team Coaching: Cohort Edition

After a successful 2020 inaugural cohort “Coaching Agility from Within” we are several months into the next cohort program and preparing for yet another group of new cohort members to onboard by mid-May 2021.

Time flies when you are having fun!

In this article we want to give you an overview of our Cohort program as well extend a personal invitation to you: help us celebrate the completion of this journey with the first cohort graduates and possibly apply to join us this year as a cohort member.

Are you curious what joining our cohort could mean to your career and your leadership journey? We invite you to learn more!

What Is the ‘Coaching Agility from Within’ Cohort?

The goal of the cohort is to build demonstrable competency in agile team coaching where agile coaches are equipped with a deeper understanding and awareness of themselves so that they are able to lead and coach change in effectively coach agile teams and adapt to what is needed in the moment.

This cohort is designed to help you go from asking:

How do I skillfully deal with resistance in my team?
How do I navigate team conflict that arises in the moment?
How do I help my team reach high performance?
How can I tell if what I am doing even qualifies as team coaching?
How do I coach leaders in my organization who just ‘don’t get it’?
How can I stop feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing and worrying that someone will find me out?

To leading this:

I see conflict as a source of energy for my team and I feel confident in my ability to work with it. I’m also not afraid to bring conflict forward if it’s impeding progress.
I am clear about how I support teams in their journey to high performance and how I evaluate where a team is at when I engage with them.
I am a skilled coach and it shows.
I am confident in my ability to coach a team. I’m adapting both my leadership style and the way I engage, to support them in doing their best.
I confidently and skillfully navigate tricky conversations with my colleagues and those in authority positions, in service of my team’s development.
I am highly sought after because I’m masterful at leading change in Agile teams.

What Will You Gain From Being Part of This Cohort?

Clarity in your own Team Coaching practice.

If you are an external coach, you will refine how you think about your own practice of Agile team coaching and how you contract with teams. If you are internal, you will refine how you talk about the outcomes of working with a coach and the outcomes teams can expect. In either case, you will become more clear about boundaries and what creates the best environment for teams to thrive.

Personal Growth.

How we think is how we lead others. Continue the journey of personal growth that started for you in the foundational facilitation and coaching courses. When Agile coaches are able to come from a place of greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-mastery and self-authority then they show up for teams in a more powerful way with greater results.

Proficiency in Coaching, Mentoring and Facilitation.

This part of the journey is steeped in real-world practice. You will be working with real teams and getting feedback along the way. This will deepen and refine your skills.

Greater demand for your services.

People don’t contract for your services because of a piece of paper, they work with you because of the deeper work you have done to refine and master the craft of coaching teams and the positive impact you have when you work with others.

Our Vision For You

…is to become a leader who:

Inspires and motivates high-performing Agile teams
Grows other leaders
Helps teams have difficult conversations with grace and ease
Feels competent and experienced

The Right Fit for the Right Cohort Program

How will you know if you are the right fit for this cohort and if this cohort is the right fit for your leadership journey?

This in-depth 8 month program is rigorous, placing an emphasis on practice and feedback opportunities through skill drills, peer coaching, team coaching, ongoing group work, professional one-on-one coaching and one-on-one supervision of actual Agile coaching sessions. You will have ample opportunity to learn from your peers and bring real-world scenarios to the group for feedback and guidance.

If this sounds like you can fit this into your life, we would love for you to apply to this cohort program.

The Competency Certification Cohort!

Just one more note. You cannot go through the motions in this program. We expect that you will commit to the program and invest the time in your own learning, show up and engage, and express a sincere desire to improve. In return, you can expect that we will show up and engage and support and challenge you in your journey. We promise, the commitment will be worth it in the end!

Celebrating Those Who Completed This In-depth 8 Month Program

Join us in celebrating the ‘Bluebirds’! This fantastic group of agile coaches graduated their cohort at the end of 2020.

The events of 2020 created a unique experience for all of us and as a cohort group we put the principles of agility into practice as we all adapted to the changing landscape of 2020.

We were just days away from being together on the beach in North Carolina for the residential program when a world-wide pandemic was announced and after thoughtful dialogue we made the decision to postpone the residential and eventually held it remotely. While it was not our first choice the remote residential was a moving and meaningful experience – created out of clear intention by everyone to show up fully, connect with one another and deepen the practice of team coaching.

This group co-created an experience full of grace, generosity, and accountability for themselves and each other.

The best part about seeing this group of leaders thrive is knowing that while the official cohort has ended, their connectivity and their learning has not! These leaders continue to meet on a monthly basis to support each other!

They are also eager to support our current cohort members and look forward to potentially meeting and supporting YOU in our next cohort, which starts in May 2021!

Quotes and Notes from the Bluebird Cohort!

We asked our Bluebirds for quotes and notes about their experience. Here are the reflections from Dave Ross, Jennifer Bullock and Vicky Hora.

Dave: “As I reflect on our cohort last year, several things come to mind. It was a rigorous, almost year-long, process and fraught with all kinds of unexpected challenges (such as Covid, cancellation of the residential), but what kept us on track was incredible flexibility and leadership shown by Marsha and Kay, and peers who were driven to overcome and succeed no matter the obstacle. We kept going because we were being exposed to new concepts and techniques that challenged our existing thinking, and called us re-think some of our fundamental beliefs about Agility, Coaching, Mentoring, Teaching and Facilitation. There is something refreshing about seeing these topics, that I use in my everyday working life, from an entirely new perspective that brings revelations and insights I would not otherwise have. So I am indebted to Marsha and Kay for running the cohort, in this most difficult of years, and to my cohort-mates for enhancing what we learned in practice coaching circles, all of which lifted me up and helped me succeed.”

Jennifer: “I am fortunate to have been part of the inaugural cohort and of the awesome Bluebirds team. Despite the twists and turns of 2020, we worked together as a team to redefine what the cohort would look like and leaned all in to the experience. I learned so much more than I anticipated and have grown in the focal areas of coaching, mentoring, facilitating, and training, making this a memorable and valuable experience.”

Vicky: “The cohort journey with Marsha, Kay and my awesome Bluebirds/friends was gratifying and humbling, and the learnings gained have been invaluable. The journey has created more realms of possibilities for my life’s purpose that is all about – Making teams and people love their work through inspirational coaching, mentoring, facilitation and training!”

Are You Next? Apply to Join Our Next Cohort Program in May 2021

If you are ready, we’d love for you to put in your application to this cohort! We are excited you are ready to continue your learning journey and we are thrilled you want to accomplish it with the Cohort.

The Best Ways to Facilitate Collaborative Conversation With Your Team

How does your team communicate?

How does their conversation flow?

How effective is your leadership in facilitating the conversation?

In this article, we will explore the previously recorded conversation between facilitators and coaching experts who lead their teams to collaborative conversations, followed by a series of questions and answers that flowed from that conversation.

The Art & Science of Facilitation: The Book Tour

During the months of January and February 2021, TeamCatapult hosted a 5-part series Virtual Book Tour to celebrate the publishing of The Art & Science of Facilitation.

We invited industry leaders, agile coaches, expert facilitators and TeamCatapult faculty to have conversations about facilitation.

One of the Virtual Book Tour stops happened on January 28, 2021 with guests Ahmed Sidky, Deborah Grayson Riegel, Lyssa Adkins & Tricia Broderick.

The title for that conversation was Leadership is a conversation: “The Importance of Facilitating Collaborative Conversations.”

The replay of their conversation can be played right here!

Wasn’t that a great and insightful conversation about facilitation?

This Collaborative Conversation Sparked Questions!

While the conversation flowed between these experts and a great many topics were discussed, there were some questions that came into the chat! Our guest expert panel attempted to answer as many questions as possible, however, they were limited by time.

We’ve gathered the unanswered questions and asked the panel participants to help us answer them for you, our readers.

Conversations That Connect: What’s In A Name?

Question: There is such a huge difference between ‘conversation’ (as in making conversation) and this type of conversation, where we make actual connections and create some sort of magic… I’m looking for a good word that signifies the second type. Is conversation ‘enough’?

Answer: I call it skillful or generative (by Otto Shrumer) reenacting the same thing versus where new ideas are emerging.

Answer: I don’t have a single word. For me, I summarize this as a space where connection, trust, collaboration, and engagement produces new possibilities (i.e. magic).

How To Have a Conversation About Bias in the Workplace

Question: Sometimes, it is not just about the color of your skin. Traditional management is autocratic. The top management does not even want to hear the insights coming from subordinates. As a subordinate, how will you handle this?

Answer: There are many factors that can create bias in the workplace. In addition, there are many legacy “best practices” that impede high performing teams focused on knowledge work. Personally, I try to never view anything I’m doing as “managing up”. The minute I have the mindset of this, chances are high that the results will not be favorable to anyone involved. I try to focus on being transparent and vulnerable with the leadership experiments/insights. With this approach, I’m reaching out for partners in feedback and participation with my experiments/insights.

How Should Leaders Learn to Facilitate?

Question: Traditional Leaders often experienced that they had to be strong, know it best and decide at the end. To facilitate it like you suggest Marsha, a different stance would be needed, right? How and where do you advise this should come from? Inner work maybe? Economic pressure from competitors? Joy and the will to move on, vastly…maybe breaking things?

Answer: It does take inner work and the doorway will be varied. A different perspective for people around that leader to give space to learn it. We have to give them space to grow and to change habits. Leaders will be transparent. People give leaders permission to not have the answer, which can lead to leaders allowing the folks to find the answer as well. It’s okay to say “I don’t know.”

What is the Value of Facilitation?

Question: Please share an example of an idea or story that you have found useful to introduce the value of facilitation to a skeptical decision maker.

Answer: Talk about what the leader wants to achieve. How’s it look? How to set it up? What’s the best that could possibly occur? The more we expose and look for approval, the more we invite skepticism. “Our focus today is to trust what’s happening…” Give the right to pass (let adults be adults): choice and freedom.

Answer: One time, I highlighted the various challenges the team was facing in making a decision that was collective and lasting. For example, the person who didn’t participate but vetoed later, the person who consumed most of the time talking, or the person who felt completely ignored. All of these challenges (and many more), hinder the ability to become a high performing team to deliver the best results. As this is the shared goal and people can observe the challenges, I offered to try a different approach…facilitation, to engage all the voices effectively. In this example, facilitation training was brought in quickly after.

How Can You Learn or Enhance Your Facilitation Skills?

If you are intrigued, excited or eager to get started to learn or enhance your facilitation skills, you’ve come to the perfect place!

TeamCatapult has been training facilitators for years!

Here are several upcoming opportunities for you:

Virtual Facilitation Masterclass March 18-19, 2021
Agile Team Facilitation Workshop March 22-26, 2021
Advanced Facilitation Workshop April 28-May 5, 2021

Join us for one, or all, Virtual Workshops!

These workshops are a great stepping stone to our cohort!

Learn more about our Coaching Agility from Within ‘A Cohort Journey to Masterful Agile Team Coaching’ and apply to join in May 2021.

Is Collective Power of the Group the Best Avenue to Team Facilitation?

Team Facilitation: Who Are We Facilitating?

While listening and watching one of the five Virtual Book Tour stops for ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation‘, one of the participants had one of those moments of clarity that we might describe as ‘an aha-moment’.

Art Moore of Clear Systems, LLC was listening in on my conversation with Ahmed Sidky, Deborah Grayson Riegel, Lyssa Adkins and Tricia Broderick. The topic of that Virtual Book tour stop was: Leadership is a conversation: The importance of facilitating collaborative conversations.

Here is what happened in Art’s own words.

Who Are We Facilitating?

By: Art Moore

We talk a lot about the collective power of the group. The whole is greater than the parts. Believe in the ability of the team. These are great principles. And yet I have always sensed they were somehow incomplete, not the exact story.

I can only say this in retrospect, after a recent moment of clarity. It happened while I was sitting in on one of Marsha Acker’s virtual book tour events for her new book, The Art and Science of Facilitation. She and the astonishing panel she’d assembled[1] had begun talking about achieving a level of co-creation; and the missing piece fell in place.

For me, that missing piece, the underlying truth, is that a great facilitator, leader, human, starts first with belief in the individual; that one person and the fountain of creative potential they possess.

Belief in people really means belief in many individuals and, as individuals, their ability to co-create. It is each individual rising above himself to create with others who are also creating. As the panel said, this is not “mere” collaboration. It is not just more, but different. It is each reaching fully and their ideas co-mingling with others who are doing the same.

The orchestra analogy is apt. This viewpoint and approach, pushed out to its boundary, promoted out as a model of leadership and working, establishes a new North Star not just for individual leaders but for human society. “Here is what I am tremendously interested in. Are you interested in it too? Let’s go together.” There is an idea, but it can be fully co-owned.

So we’re not really honoring “the group.” We’re believing in something much more powerful. The ability of individuals to co-create. It is no small skill. It is, I believe, the skill, the one that will elevate us to the society we are capable of becoming together.

[1] Marsha Acker, Ahmed Sidky, Deborah Grayson Riegel, Lyssa Adkins and Tricia Broderick

Are you curious about the rest of this conversation?
We recorded all of it and it’s available right here!

Our gratitude goes out to Art Moore for sharing his experience with us.

Art Moore, Author

Mr. Moore’s career spans software development, practice management, methodology development, training and strategic consulting, in both federal and private sectors. He has provided industry thought leadership in multiple disciplines, from data warehousing, to business rules, requirements engineering and Agile, and brings decades of experience in building high performing teams. That is the focus of Clear Systems LLC, which he founded in 2005, providing Lean/Agile training, coaching, and transformation at the team and organization level. (CSP, CSPO, CSM, CAL1, Scrum@Scale, LeSS, SPC, KMP II, ICP-ATF, ICP-ACC, ICP-BAF, Certified ICAgile Instructor

Republished with permission

Did you know: TeamCatapult has been training facilitators for years!

Here are several upcoming opportunities for you:

Virtual Facilitation Masterclass March 18-19, 2021
Agile Team Facilitation Workshop March 22-26, 2021
Advanced Facilitation Workshop April 28-May 5, 2021

Join us for one, or all, Virtual Workshops!

These workshops are a great stepping stone to our cohort.

Learn more about our Coaching Agility from Within ‘A Cohort Journey to Masterful Agile Team Coaching’ and apply to join in May 2021.

Creating a Pathway to Business Agility Through Facilitation

In January of 2021, my book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’ was published. Due to ongoing lockdowns and worldwide travel restrictions, a traditional book tour was out of the question.

So we came up with an alternate way to celebrate the release of the book. Out of necessity, a Virtual Book Tour was born.

As I write this, I’ve completed five Virtual Book Tour stops, each with its own topic, unique guests and purpose. Read on to learn more about the second stop in this series of the Virtual Book Tour to celebrate ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’ and meet guests Evan Leybourn and Zuzi Šochová.

How Do You Use Agile Facilitation to Achieve Business Goals?

It’s essential to create an agile company culture that supports business agility, growth and development.

In this conversation, I was joined by Evan Leybourn of the Business Agility Institute and Zuzi Šochová.

The discussion centered around the ways companies get in their own way and how they can create a culture that helps them thrive.

Show Notes: Business Agility Through Facilitation

Here are some of the questions Evan and Zuzi responded to during this conversation.

What does it mean to be ‘agile in business’? Where do you see that going?
How facilitation can support business agility goals.
What does ‘being an agile organization’ mean to each of you?
What is the most common reason companies get in their own way? How can a leader create a culture that helps them and their company thrive, using agile facilitation?
What was the approach and vision you created for the business agility conference deep dives during the 2020 Business Agility conference?
What’s important about dialogue for business agility?
What’s challenging about dialogue?
What advice would you give to other leaders about the use of dialogue in becoming agile?

Have these questions sparked your curiosity about Business Agility and the role of facilitation?

Business Agility Through Facilitation

If you are curious about the answers sparked by these questions during this conversation, great! The full Virtual Book Tour episode 2 replay is right here! Watch and listen.

The Art & Science of Facilitation

During the first Virtual Book Tour stop, the live audience in attendance asked many questions of TeamCatapult faculty, who were part of the panel to celebrate the book launch.

Several questions couldn’t be answered live due to time constraints: we added the questions, and the answers in a blog article.

Read: How to Lead Effective Collaboration with Agile Teams to get amazing insights from the brilliant minds of our TeamCatapult faculty.

Next, stay tuned here for recaps of Virtual Book Tour stops 3, 4 and 5!