At any
one point do you concentrate on tone, body language, etc. to facilitate
the facilitation? There is a checklist when you fly, but there are
times when it is not appropriate to read the checklist; you had
better just be paying attention and flying. If you hold the awareness
of these points rather than go through a "check list" you can be
involved in what is going on...just flying.
Body
Language
There
are a number of skills and techniques that are important, and
you have to design how you use them. For example, you can walk
into someone's personal zone to get their attention, but you have
to know you are doing that and why.
Everything
speaks. There is not neutral body language, or environment.
Neutrality is starting to understand those implications and design
around them. The whole environment has an idea, it is deliberately
designed to facilitate collaboration.
If
I move back and forth across the room, people will interpret this
as ambiguous. I will only move that way if I want to show ambiguity.
Be
aware of body language for yourself and the people listening to
you.
Neurolinguisitics
tells us that if people look up and to the left it means something
other than if they look down and to the right. Communication means
body language, tone of voice, eye movements, the way people dress
and the way they position themselves in space. You all crafted
your look for today. It is a brand issue. It is all part of the
environment that speaks.
There
is a huge amount of information flying around all of the time.
We can read this quite well on some level. Movies are an example
of something where they very carefully craft the experience to
lead you to an emotional state. Remember the Kevin Costner movie
called No Way Out? It turned out he really was a communist. When
it came out at the very end, the whole audience was amazed. They
had built tremendous sympathy for the character. This was a good
result. Just because we disagree with a system, do we dislike
the people? The breakdown of the Cold War was the ability to disagree.
People started showing that there were good and bad guys on both
sides.
These
are issues that occur when people come into a room together. There
are layers of people, meaning, symbols involved.
Voice,
tone, body language and movement are all important. The Quaker
Conversation is one module that is usually used in Focus. We
create a circle
up and tell them we are not having a dialogue. People just speak
what is on their mind. They do not have to be answered. This is
facilitated totally by body language. The facilitator does not speak.
You move to someone to get their attention. Then when you move back,
you draw them out.
000706.Matt
Taylor
