I support groups, teams and organizations who are facing tough problems and daunting opportunities. I collaborate with clients in designing and facilitating meetings (live and virtual), retreats and extended change processes which tap their group’s wisdom to build sustainable agreements and catalyze change.
I’m adept at using the full range of standard and graphic facilitation practices to enhance meeting productivity and group performance. In meetings, I use graphic formats as an integral support to group process, deepening participants’ experience and creating a powerful shared visual workspace in real time.
All of my effort is focused on helping the group that I’m working with to do their best thinking and to have the most productive conversations possible. Graphics play an important part, but they’re only one aspect of the full range of facilitation skills that I bring to the task. I pay particular attention as well to designing and guiding the group through effective processes.
Tough problems or opportunities require a diverse set of perspectives to solve them. I help groups surface and consider the full range of views and to make their own informed decisions about how to move forward, building strong internal commitment in the process.
My practice is built around my clients’ needs, not around a patented model or method. I help you articulate the outcomes you need, then design a process with you that will get you there. Graphic facilitation is a cornerstone of my work because it supports more powerful and enlivened thinking, but it’s not an end in itself. I weave it into a comprehensive practice that helps groups have productive conversations that result in action. We work to tackle issues fully and get unstuck when they hit roadblocks. Building understanding and then agreement patiently, I help groups move to solutions they own and put into practice.
My initial studies were with Sam Kaner, then with the Grove Consultants. I’ve been a Grove Associate since 1997. More recently, I’ve been strongly influenced by Phil McArthur & Bob Putnam at Action Design.
I’ve worked with a broad array of clients, across industries and across sectors. My clients have ranged from small organizations to large, multinational corporations and from top leadership to mid-level groups. The format and purpose of meetings has varied widely as well, from strategic visioning sessions for small teams, to large multi-stakeholder meetings tackling systemic problems. What allows me to be helpful across this spectrum is my expertise in process, not content, and my ability to help groups see what they’re talking about.
My work encourages people to participate, helps them to assemble the information they need and allows them to see both the big picture and the detail in relation, so that neither strategy nor tactics get lost. Because of this, groups are able to go farther and faster than they otherwise would have and they feel more lively and engaged. In the process, participants build understanding and commitment, crafting solutions so that problems stay solved and so that opportunities are fully seized.
