Introduction to the Art of Hosting

HARVEST

Introduction to the Art of Hosting:

Applying Participatory Leadership And Facilitation Techniques In Evaluation
American Evaluation Association

October 16, 2013

Hosts: Rita S. Fierro Alissa Schwartz

Participants: Thomas Archibald, Anne Bichsel, Caroline Blackwell, Eugenia Boutylkova, Tia Burroughs, Tiffany Clarke, Kamilah Henderson, Dale Hill, Lisa Hilt, Adina Jacobson, Jette Jensen, Alanna Koshollek, Joyce Lowery, Felipe Machado, Dow Maneerattana, Michelle McNamara, Christy Metzler, Kelci Price, Ilana Reisz, Jana Sharp, Sameerah Siddiqui, Jacqueline Singh, Becky Stewart, Hazel Symonette, Judah Viola, Teresa Vollan, Lauren Walshe Roussel

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW:

The intent of the workshop was to build the bridge between evaluation and facilitation by experientially exposing a group of evaluators to the Art of Hosting practices (www.artofhosting.org), a set of facilitation skills and tools to guide for participatory leadership. We also emphasized the adaptations of the tools as they may benefit different phases of an evaluation process.

Participants learned:

·  How to use four different facilitation technologies for group-decision making processes for small (<20 people), medium (20-50 people) or large groups (50-300+ people);

·  How to identify possible adaptations of these processes, specifically for participatory and collaborative evaluation or data collection, and more broadly for organizational development;

·  How to host a meeting environment that facilitates meaningful, deep conversations by creating structures where all participants can contribute and a few participants don't dominate;

·  How to identify four facilitation skills (sensing, synthesizing, holding space, and pausing to discuss processes and/or group dynamics);

·  How to employ two facilitation theories that identify the importance of emergence and collective intelligence in working with social complexity.

One way evaluation and facilitation intersect is in the evaluation of facilitation processes. This was not the focus of this workshop. Throughout the process, we asked participants to harvest their questions on post-its and to attach them to the agenda. The questions listed in each section come from this process.

OPENING CIRCLE:

Participants walked into a somber room to find a circle with 25 blue chairs arranged on a deep blue rug with polka-dotted yellow, orange, and red circles of different sizes. Some participants arrived early and sat down in the circle to gradually transition into the new space by checking their phones, taking their last sips of early morning tea, or browsing through their conference program. When participants had all arrived, we were 31 in the circle, which had been moved and expanded several times to welcome newcomers. By the end, the chairs touched the room’s walls on several sides, leaving little space for walking outside the circle. To assist participants arriving for our 8:00 am start time, they were asked to pick an object out of their pocket or their bag and examine it through the eyes of a scientist. After ten minutes, they were asked to observe it through the eyes of an artist. Participants took notes in their journals, notepads, or conference programs. Once we were done, we all looked up to one another and spoke in circle with the guiding question:

What was meaningful to you? (from the exercise)

The first people who spoke, spoke as researchers, mentioning the texture, color, and size of umbrellas, and phones, and a flashlight. As time went by, the group got more comfortable with itself, and we heard stories of little girls who never thought they could be scientists, of those who never thought they could be artists, of how looking with an artist lens could be freeing, fun, easy even. The poetry harvest exemplifies these shifts in the room.

What I pulled out was…

I unscrewed it.

What is their strength?

Requirement of the hinge.

I described it.

Functionality.

Analyzing the parts.

What kind of scientist?

Oh no! I’m not going to get this right!

What I pulled out was…

Layered, smooth, sleek, beautiful.

Geometry.

What was the journey?

The energy.

I can create a bracelet.

I added some interpretation.

What I could do with it.

How it lands in my spirit.

A fuller picture of what I was holding.

The way it feels.

Playfulness.

Freedom.

I got into two characters….

I created a personality that responded to the object.

Cultural scientist mode – a bridge to the artistic way.

I’m in a dilemma. How should I do this differently?

Word and picture.

I had a jolt.

When I was asked to switch, I operated as the artist and scientist at the same time.

I was judging my scientific description.

I assumed it was more difficult, but it was more fun.

It was easier.

All valid.

The categories are not so hard and fast.

Scared high school girl.

Could I be an artist?

Do I have either set of lenses?

I tried to get it right.

I can relax.

Neither felt familiar.

I couldn’t fully explore it as a scientist or artist.

My actual notes weren’t that different.

A nice way to settle down.

Arriving.

Circle Practice Questions:

·  When can we use the circle?

·  How many participants are ok for a circle and in what contexts?

·  In an environment that’s new to evaluation and taking an initial step to trust the process, how does one begin the conversation to start such participatory engagements?

Adaptations of Circle

Circle can be used:

·  As a data collection tool;

·  At the beginning and the end of a collective process to collect data on what people come in with before the day unfolds and what they walk away with;

·  As a pretest-posttest data collection tool by using the same question in an opening and closing circle;

·  To set the tone for an evaluation as a collective learning process.

TEACH IN:

As hearts began to open, the room felt less tight, and the attention turned to the center for a teach-in on the Cynefin framework and Theory U. It began with an embodiment exercise activity originally conceptualized by Chris Corrigan (available on his website) where participants were split into four teams and asked to:

1. Arrange themselves by height (simple task)

All four groups lined-up their members from lowest to highest. Then they were asked to:

1. Without talking, arrange themselves by year of birth and height (complicated task)

Groups lined-up their members, some by birth then height, and others by height then birth. Then they were asked to:

1. Arrange themselves by where they were from and where they now live (complex task)

Two groups lined up their participants by the increasing distance of where people lived compared to where they were from, while the others did live diagrams of locations around the world. One group used the circles in the carpet and placed a participant who had not moved from the location she was from at the center of the circle, while the others placed themselves in relation to her at different distances to represent the distance from their current home. Then participants were asked to:

1. Arrange themselves as if they were five year olds at a birthday party right after they had eaten the cake (chaotic task)

What a pleasure to watch people laugh, hop, and dance under each other’s arms, stand up on the chairs, sing to the top of their lungs, and giggle! The activity provided a well-needed opportunity for joy, laughter, release, and most importantly playfulness.

TEACH IN:Then we sat in our chairs and on the floor, ready to learn.

The teach-in briefly explained the Cynefin decision-making framework by Dave Snowden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8) and the use of Otto Scharmer’s Theory U (http://www.ottoscharmer.com/publications/summaries.php) in complex situations.

The teach-in generated many questions. Here are some:

·  Bouncing off of each other versus layering (no connecting) in conversations

·  What does bounce off rather than talk at look like?

·  What are some other strategies for teach-ins if the floor isn’t an option?

There wasn’t enough time to answer all the questions the complexity of the tools was beginning to surface and the room was ready for deeper conversations about how to use them. Thank goodness Open Space was next!

OPEN SPACE:

After sharing the theme of the day: Bridging Evaluation and Facilitation, participants were invited to call the conversations that were meaningful to them and that they were willing to explore by hosting them. Some participants came up with topics they no longer wanted to host and we put them in a parking lot, but after the Open Space, several participants noticed that the parking lot topics were indirectly addressed in the other groups.

“Parking Lot” for other Open Space topics:

·  How to invite reluctant people to participate in evaluation

·  Facilitation with translators

·  Response to evaluation conclusions: management response, recommendations developed by stakeholders

·  Tension between evaluation and performance measurement

Topic: Process structures that address power dynamics

Host: Lisa

Participants:

Key points:

·  Structure conversations ahead of time planning for existing power dynamics

·  Stratify conversation, split groups for different conversations, make groups homogeneous, then heterogeneous

·  Be selective about what to share in a large group (more general feedback or group opinions if power dynamics are involved) and what in pairs or small groups (more delicate and personal info)

·  Giving team members different roles

·  Decide when it’s appropriate to have an outside facilitator

Topic: Moving from idea generation to agreement and planning in one session

Host: Becky

Participants:

Key points:

·  Roles

·  What people will do

·  Set up a structure

·  Core study experiences

Topic:How to balance tension between keeping conversation “on task” to meet objectives and allowing time and space for all ideas to be heard

Host: Christy

Participants:

Key points:

·  Take your evaluation hat off! – Blog about balancing evaluator role and facilitator role (http://www.art-intellect-practice.com/?p=164)

·  Be strategic about who you invite

Topic: Moving from “presenter” to “host”

Host: Jane

Participants:

Key points:

·  Be person at the front of the room

·  Creating expectations

·  Be willing to be the way you would like others to be

Topic:What is the best way to facilitate with a small steering group (donors) who are commissioning an evaluation? They tend to be high-level, formal, “stiff” and from different countries, so some creative methods may not work.

Host:

Participants:

Key points:

·  Slideshow of pictures of grantees to create a more informal atmosphere

·  Post it later

·  Tell personal stories about relationships with grantees

Topic: Conflict and skepticism

Host:Judah

Participants:

Key points:

·  Start engaging a variety of participants early

·  Depersonalize it

·  Doing in groups

·  Communicate the process.

·  Improve, inform.

·  Name discomfort to diffuse tension.

·  Use anonymity.

Open Space Questions

·  What stumbling blocks might a facilitator experience in trying to use this?

·  When shouldn’t you use this?

Open Space Adaptations

Open Space can be used:

·  To collect data;

·  To help groups analyze data findings from different perspectives;

·  To help groups decide how to apply data findings;

·  To help groups strategize from evaluation findings.

PRO ACTION CAFÉ:

Six participants were invited to present projects to the whole group that they were working on and could use a thinking partners for. Six people stood up. At the end, we asked each host to say what they were grateful for.

Topic: Partnership in sustainable forestry

Host: Alanna

Gratitude: Everyone’s interest in helping, offering guidance, extending opportunities to connect

Topic: Evaluation tool for people of color conference

Host: Caroline

Gratitude: For Art of Hosting community at large, for the facilitators today, your creativity and ideas, being heard

Topic: Collective impact value

Host: Kelci

Gratitude: People’s ideas, their different perspectives, validation

Topic: Internal evaluation in higher education

Host: Tia

Gratitude: The time to reflect, the tools

Topic: Evaluating quality of research

Host: Dale

Gratitude: Taking this course, getting input, helping her clarify questions, getting suggestions, for the diversity of the group

Topic: Meaningful indicators across multiple projects

Host: Eugenia and Anne

Eugenia Gratitude: Ideas, people thinking along, the network

Anne Gratitude: Meeting kindred souls,validation

Pro-Action Café Questions

·  What is the value of this process for the group?

·  What is the benefit to the whole group of a pro-action café?

Pro-Action café Adaptations:

Pro Action Café can be used for:

·  Data collection;

·  Data collection in different languages;

·  Helping different departments create specific adaptations to an overall organizational strategy;

·  Help a group generate evaluation questions

After Pro-Action café, the hosts had planned an ending circle. Yet, after experiencing the group’s need for more answers, they decided instead to lead a Question and Answer and a group discussion on the use of the tools, the skillset, and possible adaptations of the tools for evaluation.

General Questions:

·  Introducing concept of Art of Hosting when group has low trust with each other. Ideas for encouraging trust and buy in to process?

·  Could you see using this as team managers work on their strategies when all rolled up under one department strategy? Participants could come from support staff (fundraising, communications, marketing) and field staff, as well as key stakeholders.

·  How to get extreme introverts to speak up?

·  Logistics of people’s things cluttering the room?

·  Can we talk more about the process of developing questions? What makes a good juicy question?

·  What processes to use for: recommendations, strategies, policies

·  How to balance silence and not getting heard?

·  How turn dynamic from win-lose to win-win?

·  In adapting, what should you change and what should you keep the same?

·  Relationship between focus groups and world cafe. Are there things we use focus groups for (hearing from all, stimulating discussion, person to person interaction rather than facilitator to group) that could be equally or better served by world café?

·  Burden on the participants to do?

·  Stakeholders who don’t speak up.

CLOSING CIRCLE:

Everyone wrote a one-word answer on post-it notes to the questions: What did I come with? and What am I taking away? We then rushed to the whiteboard, to stick the post-its up, all at once.

What did I come with?

Expectations. Willingness. Excitement(x2). Curiosity(x8). Questions(x6). Hope. Interest(x2). Uncertainty. Anticipation. Challenges(x2). Inexperience.