Finally!!! Our Week!

A lot of planning and preparation went into making today come together. The experience has been a great one overall,, with minor hiccups here and there.

My group was wonderful in terms of cooperation and engagement- apart from one original member who only ever attended class once and never joined the group. Another challenge we had was misinterpretation of ideas- we constantly found ourselves having to explain and re-explain over and over again to ensure everyone was on the same page about our approach. In the end, none of that matters because we executed our mission successfully and it was excellently received.

I learnt a great deal from all the work we put in- about working in a team, cooperating, about facilitating, about story telling itself- It was all invaluable information I will cherish forever.

my favourite bit of information from the session (which I shared):

” Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today. “

~Robert McAfee Brown

Everyone loves a good story, be it historical, dramatic, romantic or educational, stories carry the lessons from yesterdays, hope for the future, peace during times of sorrow and a rainbow after the rains have passed.

The team this week was great and I loved the manner which they unfolded the theme for this week, from defining what types of stories they are and why people tell stories.

What hit home is that stories can be powerful tools in preserving history but also with an understanding that stories can be told from various points of view based on the storyteller so its also important to understand the context of the story. Stories have the ability to change as they are passed down and therefore nothing is set in stone.

This weeks lessons to me means being an author in my life, if there is a story to told;I will will boldly tell my story in my own words!

Facilitating change lesson was so well presented. The group that presented gave us practical example which require change management such as career change and they demonstrated the steps that one goes through when making decision to change. An important lesson that I leant was about the Johari window, which speaks about open self, blind self, hidden self and unknown self. Open self is what I know about myself and what other know about me. The blind self is what I do not know about myself and what others know about me. Hidden self is what I know about myself that others do not know. Unknown self is what I do not know about myself and others do not know about me. I have learnt not be too defensive about my blind self and be open to receive the opinions of others about myself. In that lesson I have also learnt a new term, triangulating, which is about talking about people and not to people direct. I have learned that we should not triangulate. Speak to people directly and not about them.

• The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller and the story sets the vision, values, and the agenda of an entire generation to come. What I have picked it up if every human being has a story to tell either good or bad. As an individual, I can tell the story of my life experience because life is like a contract and a journey that comes with the story you experience along the journey.
• The topic of storytelling was quite relevant and everybody can easily relate to the journey that was traveled by the individual and better understand why the story materials and be shared with other people. We always learned life by listening to the story (around the fire) especially from the grandparents. Those stories around different cultures, sometimes it can make you to afraid of going outside the house especially it is at night.

The main purpose of story telling is to share our experiences and information that we acquire in our daily lives. Although story telling is one tool used to pass information about certain event/experience from one generation to another, the problem is that by the time it gets to another generation it is different or the version of the main story changes over time and it gets worse if the story is not jotted down. Its amazing how we as human lack to understand some of the stuff we hear through story telling if we haven’t created a picture in our minds to make ourselves understand that story better. There are fewer psychological reasons as to why stories are so great.

“Stories are how we are wired. Stories take place in the imagination. To the human brain; imagined experiences are processed the same way as real experiences. Stories create genuine emotions, presence – the sense of being somewhere and behavioral responses.”

For me this was a ‘aha’ moment regarding story telling because it made me realize how story telling makes us as humans to engage with one another through dialogue by sharing our stories whether good or bad. It makes us to connect as people and to relate from each other stories that we hear everyday. The group did a marvelous job in delivering this presentation

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On this day 14th September I learned a lot about change, change is uncomfortable but necessary in one’s life.I like the fact that the team brought the topic home which allowed good participation and great understand.
To explain further the team use some parameters such as: Change of Career, Relationship, Organisation and Physical changes these are parameters that everyone can relate to.
Under career I learned that I own my development, meaning is my responsibility to look where I want to be and assess the gaps in order to address them. Find out what are the opportunities in the organisation and explore or learn how to navigate the system to build powerful network.
Organisational change example restructuring due to loss of finance make sure that the process should be transparent by communicating effective to employees and get rid of redundant roles.
Physical Change very popular in our society lately everyone just want to adopt healthy life style but at times it becomes challenging to adjust. I learned that we need to set our goals, plan and prepare diets go to the gym or find a form of exercise that will help to achieve those goals.
And under relationship which most of the time is taken for granted there are few things to consider especially if one want to settle down and build a family. Here couple of pointers came out namely Finance, time, affection, health status spiritual orientation and culture. I personally took bold notes because I am still single and I would like to settle down one day.

The most profound lesson gained from this lesson was the importance of creating and maintaining traditions.

The workshop on was not what I expected – after the syndicate presentation, we held group discussions on rituals performed within our culture at birth, coming of age, marriage and death. I have not considered rituals to be important. There are too many demands in life as it is and culture is fluid and constantly changing – this is what I told myself. Roslyn, whom I now consider a Sage (with all the wisdom and unconventional perspectives she shares) inspired in me a different way of thinking about traditions and rituals. Rituals connect you to your past and foster community – yes! Yes!

As a participant on this topic, i found it informative and it was relevant to my current circumstance. I currently moved departments within the institution i work for. The previous department was a skills development oriented and its core function was the compilation of skills development research and statistics. Because i had been in this portfolio for 8 years i wanted to diversify.

Consequently, i job shadowed in the HRM environment for while to verify suitability and finally i moved. The new environment is fulfilling and i like that interaction with people. It includes technical and Soft Skills which i enjoy. lastly, it combines various aspects of aiming at assisting both the organisation and the employees. For example, career pathing , performance management, employee health and wellness, training and development as well as organisational development.

I have learnt that change is good. It is through change that we get to learnt new ways of doing things smart, if I may put it that way. Because change is a process of shifting from one challenge to the next point of achieving our goals. I have learnt that change transforms us to new levels of thinking, believing and understanding. With this in mind, I am certain that all people deal with change differently and change can be brought on by many different factors.

From the case study that we read on page 92 of the Facilitation handbook, “Guiding Change”, I learnt that it is not wise to just force people to change by management ruling and instruction. To facilitate change (If I were given an opportunity as CEO in a new company) I must change their underlying assumptions with a credible plan. Be tactical when I list what assumptions need to change. Include all team members in a strategy session with an aim for overcoming any resistance to change that I could have identified for each department.

The lesson learnt this week was that assumptions about what motivates people will somehow determine the success or failure of any change program. If assumptions are incorrect, as a facilitator I may miss a valuable opportunity of gaining ownership of the change process.

I have always avoided having conflicts with people as was never good at being able to resolve them, but now I am happy that I have learnt different ways of resolving conflicts

Today’s topic – PAIN – a topic which has in one way or other touched all of us.
Personally this topic was a sensitive topic for me, especially when dealing with emotional pain. Emotions I thought I had dealt re-surfaced, however this was not the place to dwell on these emotions!!
In our group discussions it was interesting to realise that I was not the only that had felt rather emotional during the presentation; this made me feel a bit better and snap out of my “feel sorry for myself” mood.
I enjoyed the rope exercise and it made me realise that communication and team work is so important in life. Also how you think and approach a problem make a huge difference – keeping an open mind, exploring different alternatives and ideas might just provide the solution!

This was also an interesting facilitation session, the group that presented made us sit in groups and they have put posters with different years next to each group. The group that I was sitting with we had 1990. After presenting we were then asked as the group as to what was the highlight on that particular year. In our group most of the people were younger than me and they couldn’t relate with the year.

I related the to them about the release of Nelson Mandela from prison as it happened in 1990. It just took me down the memory lane, the celebrations that took place in the townships on that particular Sunday afternoon. Everybody was in a jovial mood, they were all fascinated by the stories that I was relating. This reminded me that we have really come too far as a country.

I, unfortunately, did not make it in time for the past week’s presentation. But based on the feedback provided in class, I’d have to say that their efforts were seemingly productive. The storytelling exercise was incredibly enlightening; I am both learning how to be patient with an array of personalities whilst understanding the bias of my own impatience.

in my view conflict needs to be mitigated however it is essential that the approach to the mitigation should be done in a cautionary manner. Conflict occurs when he people in the situation become too attached . as people we tend to personalize things and make it more about us than the issue that is causing the conflict. In attempting to resolve conflicts we also need to consider other people’s feelings and especially their viewpoint. its ok for someone to differ with you

we need to learn to listen more to understand than to respond, as much as we all agreed during this class that conflict necessitates change , I am left wondering if it is necessary to resolve the conflict . the question am left with is that can we just not acknowledge the presence of and not force or insist resolving it? I have come to realize that the journey to resolving conflict brings about unconscious bias, were we often impose our beliefs of right and wrong on to others and when not in agreement it is where the conflict starts.

its okay to agree to disagree. we usually learn the most when we stand in opposing views but bring them together for the purpose of learning!!

This week’s facilitation topic was about learning from life but the syndicate group decided to narrow it down to “Learning From Pain”. I personally found the topic to be quite heavy. The syndicate group, as an attempt to get audience engagement; would ask if any one had gone through a tragic experience or lost someone very close to them but most  of us if not all of us did not want to raise our hands and talk about it.

We learned about the different types of pain including physical, emotional and mental pain. Examples of each that I drew from my personal experience are childbirth, break ups and anxiety/depression respectively. This topic made me remember so many painful times in my life but it also made me see how much I have overcome, how much stronger I am because of it and reminded me of all the life lessons pain has taught me.

We try to avoid pain but there are times when we cannot avoid it and it’s important to develop our own methods to cope with or get past the pain.  Among other things, I cry. As much as it seems pointless to some, after a good bawl I can get up and deal with virtually anything.

The dice activity we played showed me that as a team member, I want nothing more than to win or achieve the goal but I am also very cooperative and open to different ways of trying to achieve the goal. We got the highest score because we strategised but people thought it was too good to be true.

This facilitation piece was fun as we played a game, and this game required us to work together so that we can achieved what was need from the game. However it was difficult as we did not have a plan and everyone just spoke on what they thought would help us win. looking back the purpose of this game was for us to work together as a team there should be a proper plan in place on how aims and objectives would be met. It was also about listening to each other and sharing ideas.

It thought me that an individual can not work in isolation you need other people to work with, yes you won’t see eye to eye on things, there will be conflict extra but it’s about how you come together as a team to resolve your conflict.

This week’s facilitation topic was about learning from life but the syndicate group decided to narrow it down to “Learning From Pain”. I personally found the topic to be quite heavy. The syndicate group, as an attempt to get audience engagement; would ask if any one had gone through a tragic experience or lost someone very close to them but most  of us if not all of us did not want to raise our hands and talk about it.

I then realized after the facilitation when we were now discussing the topic in smaller groups that almost everyone had lost someone dear to them or they went through a traumatic experience but no one really wanted to talk about experiences that left them with deep emotional scars because no one wants to relieve the experience. Which got me thinking; do we ever get over bad experiences, and if yes why is it difficult for us to talk about them?

On a more lighter note; It was Roslyn’s last day. She asked for feedback from us about our experience with the facilitation class; I had to reflect on when I first attended Facilitation class to now, and as chaotic as the first class was there is absolutely nothing I would change about my experience with this class. I have learned so much from attending this class. The experience has been life changing.

This was one of the most sensitive presentation to go through. A personal pain is one of those things that I don’t want revisit. The team spoke about losing the loved one and I know how excruciating that pain can be. I saw myself tearing which is what I wouldn’t want to do , hence I don’t like visiting those memories.

Revisiting painful memories is hurtful but I have learned that I am not the only one who has gone through those moment, other peoples painful memories are too painful than mine. I have learned that it becomes easier to deal with painful memories if you share with other people.

Grateful for taking up this module, so much learnt, even if I am not going to be using aspects of this class it in actual events of facilitation, I will be using  learnt from this class in every day moments of my life.

Being grateful and having gratitude is defined as appreciation for something done or received. The knowledge and insights gained will forever be cherished and appreciated.

The greatest form of gratification and the greatest gratitude that I feel looking back and reflecting on my semesters journey was being placed with the members that I was placed with in my syndicate team. I will forever be grateful to the friendships formed, the genuineness of everybody, the united moments felt within my team and amazing feeling of group membership and group think. Grateful for respectfully disagreeing with one another when there were differences of opinions, Being treated as equals and the feeling of belonging to an amazing team, made me feel that I was definitely part of THE In-group!

Today’s facilitation was about building shared understanding. Something that can be so simple to say but to actually do it is a different story. At times when we try to vocalize our intentions, the message becomes subminnal and the receiver doesn’t always get what you’re trying to get across.
I thought the demonstration of one of the facilitators about the blind men and the elephant was a excellent example.
It just shows that although we may have the same topic or have an the same object placed in front of us, our perspectives on it will differ we all see things differently from the next person.
One little exercise I liked what when they asked us to define our understanding on the term “success” and everyone’s “picture definition” if I may call it that, was different.
One thing that is undeniable is that there’s nothing that can top communication, it’s the most important thing in our everyday lives and that because you have your own perspective on something doesn’t make the other person’s perspective less important.

Fiona stepped in and talked about the Johari Window which is a tool that helps people get a better understanding of themselves, their relationships and others.

The group decided to focus on PAIN… It was hard to listen to their personal experiences without looking into my own life and get emotional. They had set the mood right with candles and the posters on the wall. (The story about the man who lost his limbs was so heart breaking)

There was  not a lot of interaction/ participation from the rest of the class, I think its because of the nature of the topic and it was too early to be shedding tears on fresh make up ;).

Just as I was preparing myself to give feed back… BOOM… DRAMA!! One team member felt excluded  and she walked out of class. (It was so symbolic when she went and switched off all the candles before she stormed off)

I felt that Roslyn handled the situation quite well, we did not discuss the actual drama of what had been happening within the group to cause that kind of reaction. (The old me would have loved to hear all about it)  Instead she asked us what we could do should a similar situation happen while we are facilitating.

It all happened in my absence when the group facilitated about learning from life topic and pain was central to their facilitation a word from my colleague. Pain is a topic that resonates with many of us in different ways. As human beings we are often caught up in a moment of sorrow experiencing emotional pain or experiencing physical pain, often we are told time will help us to heal. It is the healing process that helps us to ease the pain in a turbulent journey. I believe this is how it’s supposed to happen so that we can learn from life. Our learning will be through the same journey of healing as without going through the difficult process of healing chances are the learning may not be possible and we might be prone to the same situation especially when dealing with pain of personal choices we make different from natural causes beyond our control.

Sadly I arrived a little late for class this day and missed the group facilitation which was driven toward growing through pain. I understand they had an amazing speaker who shared their story of pain which resonated with many.

We did some focus work around Teamwork and the different stages of a developing team which are forming, storming, norming and performing. We touched on the Rules of Engagement and its importance in gaining shared understanding of the purpose and  vision which is aimed toward  achieving  a common goal.  The days teachings of Teamwork were rounded of with a group game which involved  throwing a dice and collecting chips and passing down the line. Well it was a great way to show the hurdles we sometimes face when attempting to collaborate as a team. Firstly we where all so focused on the doing that we did not gain shared understanding of what our goal was as a group when Ross was giving instructions.  We were all frustrated and confused and  each just went ahead and did what we assumed to be right.  There was no buy-in  or planning involved on how best to achieve our goal. It took several stop/go’s to get it right but when we did we all knew what our goal was, we had a plan for maximum output and began to motivate and encourage each other  and more importantly began to have fun.

Sadly the day was ended with goodbyes, which took each of us by surprise as it turned out  to be  Roslyn’s last day lecturing us.  We  expressed our utmost gratitude to Ros for aiding us in our journey of Personal Mastery  and imparting all her knowledge with us. . . It has been a great ride…..a little bumpy at first …..but great nonetheless.

The day of our facilitation had arrived.  My stomach was in knots, my anxiety levels shot through the roof as I was about to face my biggest fear, PUBLIC SPEAKING!!! Weeks leading up to the facilitation day, there was a lot of preparation that went into place, from struggling to decide on a topic (we finally put it into a vote and found common ground), and to deciding on how we were going to facilitate the topic. We have learned from Roslyn and from watching other groups facilitate what a good facilitation is suppose to be. It involves a lot of group collaboration, communication, broadening people’s perspectives and audience participation is very important.

From doing the facilitation it is crazy how 30 minutes flew by so quickly. Our topic focused on facilitating change in a conflict riddled environment. We wanted to highlight how change can be facilitated in a conflict situation. Things such as different perspectives and resistance can make it difficult for change to occur. Perspective can play a big role in creating conflict because when people are standing at different positions around the same thing they see things differently.

This made me think about the conflicts my Best Friend and I usually have on WhatsApp about how I’ve been a bad friend lately because I don’t check-up on her and how I’m always caught up in my own world. From the position I was standing on, I could not see anything wrong I was doing. From the tools I’ve acquired in the Facilitation course I was able to acknowledge that I also played a role in the situation and how I have indirectly hurt her through my actions. This made me realize that for change to occur, there has to be communication, listening, be able to see things from the other person’s perspective and collaboration from both parties. This really stood out for me because we are able to communicate better about our feelings and I can proudly say I’m now a better person/friend :)!!!

Today’s facilitation was about learning from pain.

Pain is not an easy thing to discuss and to try and facilitate learning from pain can be a challenge. The facilitators were brave enough to discuss their own personal stories and the pain they experienced, which I commend them for. I walked away from this facilitation with mixed feelings.

After the facilitation, one of the members from this group asked to speak to the class and told the class about how she was excluded and how all her ideas were shot down. I don’t think that she handled the situation correctly and feel that this could have been discussed and resolved directly with her group.

The rest of the session was spent on a rope exercise, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We formed groups of 2, tied ourselves as instructed by Ros and were told to untie ourselves without the use of our hands. We all felt furstrated and irritated with the exercise, thinking it was impossible – but with some guidance from others, we did it!

We discussed the stages of group formation, which I previously did when I did my N6 in HR Management through UNISA. These stages are:
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing, and
Adjourning (for temporary groups)

Today is our day to do our facilitation as a team and it is nerve-wrecking.  This facilitation session for me was an interesting one and I hope that the audience received the intent of the focus discussion of “Learning from Pain”.

Our team decided to focus on pain because we felt that everyone of us must have, at some point in our lives, experienced pain.  The main point was to make the audience aware or to realize that pain can bring about great lessons for one’s life.  We need to shift our perception of what pain is.

Pain is there to warn us when something is wrong within our bodies and it is also there for us to work through difficult situations and learn from them, allowing us to grow as individuals.

We are stronger than we think and our pain doesn’t define us.  Who we are is dependent on how we deal with that pain and the lessons we learn from those situations.

unfortunately i was not in class on the day of the topic, had to drive home in Limpopo to attend a wedding of my sister. but i hear from my group that it was a very nice class.

As we are getting closure to the end of the semester, I realize how much attending this course has impacted my life. I get to reflect on situations and stand on the balcony to get a better understanding.

Growth is all about moving from the comfort zone, only then will real learning start. Triple loop learning happens.  The 4 windows

I don’t know what I do not know, unconscious learning, was my learning experience coming into this class. Conscious learning, is all about learning what I had not know, and lastly applying what you have learnt into your real life.

You get to be aware of your blind spots as a person, and either learning or changing from what you know. Being able to be vulnerable and allowing another person to know you, will surely guarantee good foundations in relationships.

Ntombi Dhlamini

The day is finally here, I was so nervous I could have easily left without saying good bye to anyone…..words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth and I forgot all I had prepared. Thanks to my group members, they executed their parts with great ease and our colleagues were generous with their participation in our presentation. I am glad this day is behind me, I did the impossible to stand in-front of a group of people and not shake life leaf. Like I said during the presentation I wish I had registered for this course long ago when I could have applied the knowledge to to my daily life.

Thanks to group five members, we did it.

Group 8 facilitated on Learning from life and centred their theme on “Pain”. They did a sterling job at making us truly relive that very difficult emotion. This is one emotion that nobody can hide from, we all experience it at some point in our lives, so we could all relate. The group touched on three kinds of pain; physical, psychological and emotional pain.

The group had a guest speakers who shared with us a time when she went through a lot of pain; which was her parents’ divorce. I could totally relate to her story, as my parents also went through a divorce which was tough for us to deal with, it was a confusing time and a time of incredible change, I perhaps also learnt a lot from that experience. The guest speaker was funny and brought humour to a serious topic.

Most part of the facilitation was good until one of the group members expressed her discontent; she felt like she had been side-lined throughout the time of preparing for the facilitation, the confrontation was quite an uncomfortable situation for the class.

We did the rope demonstration exercise, where we grouped ourselves in pairs and tied ourselves with a rope and had to find ways in which to untie ourselves. I learnt that when things do not go the way we anticipate, our first predisposition is often to become frustrated, confused, upset and we give up instead of trying other methods of in order to achieve the desired outcome. This exercised was followed by an exercised called “rolling the dice and chips’, quite a fun and playful exercise where we learnt that teams undergo phases when working together to achieve a common goal, these phases are:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing, and
5. reforming

Well today was quite an interesting day i must say. The day started off on a very emotional note but ended in a very dramatic way. The presenting group decided to focus on PAIN as a form of learning from life. The class was very quite as this was a very sensative topic and people are not comfortable opening up in a space where they dont really feel safe.

We later discussed vision goal and purpose. Goal being the “How” and Purpose being the why you are doing something.

Furthermore, we discussed tha for a group to operate well there has to be the following:

1. Communication
2. Collaboration
3. Dedication
4. Resources
5. Conflist Resolution

In a group there will always be conflict just like what we saw today. You turn negative conflict to positive by resolving the conflict and not dismissing it. In order for one to resolve a conflict go to the balcony and try to look at the conflict from a rational place.

when trying to have shared understanding miscommunication knows few bounds. The basic problem is that we assume that there will be shared understanding even when we bring different assumptions and life experiences to our interactions.

To understand someone is to “stand under” that unique person, to humble one’s self to his or her understanding reality . Communication is not merely the “effect” that we have on each other. How you interpret me—how you are “affected” by my words—is not necessarily communication. If you don’t understand what I am actually intending to say, we failed to communicate.

We don’t have to agree with one another in order to understand one another. Mature persons can agree to disagree even when they deeply understand each other.

Shared understanding can begin when we honestly accept one another’s invitations to engagement. We are on the way when we accept such invitations gratefully, listen openly, and converse respectfully. We thereby foster shared understanding—understanding of each other’s intended meanings. i found this to be true especially when working in a group.

Today’s facilitation group facilitated on Learning from life and they centered they theme on pain. They touched on three different types of pain, Physical, Emotional and Psychological pain. I learned how important it is to resolve conflict and how we need to remove ourselves from the situation and just view things from a different perspective. (Balcony and the Dance) As a facilitator one needs to be prepared for the unknown.

We then did the rope demonstration exercise, we had to get ourselves in pairs and tied ourselves together with the rope, and we then needed to find ways to free ourselves from the tied rope. This taught me that when we do not succeed we become frustrated and give up, we do not look at different ways or try different method/strategies to gain that success.

We then did a team exercises, rolling the dice and chips, felt like I was in kinder garden again 🙂 what I took from this exercise is that when a team listens to clear instructions we reach the end goal, with many changes in between to receive that goal, the team cohesion process,

• Forming
• Storming
• Norming
• Performing
• Reforming

Today was the most interesting class I have ever been to in the last 3 years and 2 months of studying. The team facilitation session today ended in conflict which made everyone in the room uncomfortable and unsure of what to do or say.

This was very similar to many situations I have been in at the office.  It was great to see how Ros had managed this situation.  While conflict in smaller groups is quite familiar to me, conflict in a large group of people was something that I had not experienced before. Should this happen to me in one of my facilitation sessions, I will, HOPEFULLY, be able to manage it as well as Ros did.

We touched on having a shared vision and goal, the importance of everyone sharing a common purpose for success. Passion and a clear WHY is also important in team success.  Something I struggled with this week was understanding how to deal with one person  who was not in the same space as the rest of a team, as with the team that facilitated their piece today.

It was quite clear that there was one person who was not flowing with the team, whatever the reasons, there was clearly a distinct difference in her goal versus the rest of the team. I had seen the process of risk in a team playing out, the hurt and resulted, followed by withdrawal and reclaiming of identities. I was still torn by by how to manage this? What does one do? How would I have dealt with this? … Some thinking to do tonight!

The learning has impacted my thinking and the way I handle conflict with others. I have been in conflicts previously and a lot of times I would stress my point because I believe I was right in the argument and would not give in to the other party. Now I have learnt that it is not important and vital to be always right or to go away being the winner of an arguments. In conflicts, there is always a source and the question is, could I have caused the conflict with my reaction to the conversation. I have also learnt that some conflicts could be resolved easily and some can be avoided.  It is important to also break the cycle to conflict especially if the relationship will be affected and the value of it is greater than the conflict itself.

Another important lesson is that we are sometimes too quick to judge other people’s behaviour, where else we do the very things that we so hate when other people do them.

The group facilitating the topic of “learning from life” chose a difficult aspect of life which we have all experienced at some point in our lives, and that is pain. They shared some very personal experiences of painful times in their lives including loss of loved ones and divorce.  It was possibly the darkest facilitation we’ve seen with some even likening it to a funeral, but it is still one of life’s realities.

We learned about the different types of pain including physical, emotional and mental pain. Examples of each that I drew from my personal experience are childbirth, break ups and anxiety/depression respectively. This topic made me remember so many painful times in my life but it also made me see how much I have overcome, how much stronger I am because of it and reminded me of all the life lessons pain has taught me.

We try to avoid pain but there are times when we cannot avoid it and it’s important to develop our own methods to cope with or get past the pain.  Among other things, I cry. As much as it seems pointless to some, after a good bawl I can get up and deal with virtually anything.

The dice activity we played showed me that as a team member, I want nothing more than to win or achieve the goal but I am also very cooperative and open to different ways of trying to achieve the goal.

what do I understand about a reflective writing is that one would have to write about their experience and feelings.

so having to mark each others work I was a bit worried because what if the other person don’t understand the way I wrote when it comes to reflective essay.

I was able to learn from other people’s reflections as I realized their growth as well as my own. learning is never ending and I have a different outlook to life now than before.

This time around I attended morning class due personal issues. The topic which was facilitated was Pain. One of the team members addressed us that she was sidelined, was not given the opportunity to participate when the group was facilitating.  The advice given was that facilitators  can  spend time with group to address the issue, they must communicate .  As the matter was said to the participants or audience. The participants cannot debate the matter as it will be waste of time. We must learn to tolerant and respect each other, listen to each other ideas. We must sometimes comprises . take ourselves to balcony in order to figure out what has happened. We did the string activity with Roslyn. As we were paired and we were unable to disconnect ourselves from this string. It was mentioned that if you come across the same go to the centre of the problem.  Don’t get frustrated, don’t give up as a team, stop trying and stop communicating, skip out and get help.  How to resolve the conflict on a team. Keep focus on a team. A team must have a goal or vision that is shared by everyone. If you have the same vision or goal that team has a purpose. A purpose give you a passion , the purpose is why, have a clear why in a team. Communicate in order to get a teamwork, collaboration, dedication, open ness have sense of urgency.  Rules of engagement, what is permissible and what is not permissible. With resources one cannot think creatively. Lead a team, you are a team leader in anyway. Same page, collaborate, share same vision. Learn to empower others by communicating, storming, debating and norming/informing, team performs well together. How to turn a team into negative conflict to positive conflict, don’t kill the conflict, get people heard, resolve the conflict go to the balcony. Interesting.

Sadly, I decided to miss this weeks class due to personal commitments, I trust that the class had a fruitful session and look forward to the next session.

The day finally arrived for our group to Facilitate. It was an exhilarating experience to say the least. The product of weeks of planning, frustrations, fun and sacrifice finally came together and revealed to the class. To this point we have learned valuable lessons, both lessons from the book content and facilitating tips from Roslyn. We also had learned lessons from watching other groups facilitate and incorporated this in our exercise. One thing which I didn’t anticipate is how quickly 30 minutes passes by. In a blink of an eye the presentation was done. I enjoyed every moment of it and it was received well. A brilliant team effort was delivered.

Our topic focused on Facilitating Change, we chose a conflict environment. We wanted to highlight the factors that at times can contribute to conflict. These factors include amongst others ego, resistance and perception. These factors play a vital role in perpetuating conflict and can be destructive if not checked on or acknowledged by conflicting parties. We also wanted to illustrate how often we fail to consider the impact conflict has other people. Others can be hurt directly or indirectly from our actions. In this case of our play, the feelings of the child were ignored as both parents focused on themselves.

However, we learned that with the adoption of positive measures such as listening, communicating and collaborating, we can overcome conflict and move towards resolution and change. What came out strongly in both our presentation and class lessons is the role perception plays in conflict and change. Perception influence how we eventually feel and respond. People’s perceptions about themselves and social situations play an important role in either responding negatively or positively. This is what the SCARF model by David Rock about change highlights.

The lessons learned this week were that; there is no one truth or one way to resolve a conflict or achieve change. Every situation has to be assessed on its merits to ensure that all aspects and considerations are taken into account. It is possible to resolve resolution and change if everyone’s’ intention is good and genuine.

The learning continues…

We had a presentation in the morning, on learning from life. The group chose pain as their facilitation subject. It was an emotional facilitation, as group members shared a personal experience which involved physical, emotional and mental pains that they have gone through. The group had a controversial facilitation as one group member verbalised that she was not treated fairly, she felt sidelined from the beginning, by her group. She left the class without presenting her portion. We were then asked how the situation could have been handled, we shared different opinions, others recommending that the facilitator, Rosyln, should handle it herself, with the group, so that she can get two sides of the situation. We did exercises on team cohesion processes, with team stages like forming, storming, norming and performing, these stages enable working together as a group, to achieve certain goals. It was so informative as its necessary for teamwork, which is paramount for a job success, to be realised, in the workplace.

Today Saturday 22nd September 2018, as usual, I came to class prepared for having fun. The topic for the presenting team today is “Learning from Life.” The class start and all students told to close their eyes for about 30 seconds. During this shut-down, we are told to recall the most painful situation in our lives. I immediately became emotional when starting to recall the death of my mother in a car accident in 1992. I could still recall the place of the crash and the vehicle they were traveling on. We were then told to open our eyes.

The presenting team wen on and discussed different types of pain. They mentioned:

• Physical Pain.
• Emotional Pain.
• Psychological Pain.

The moral of the is that pain is never permanent. They mentioned one of the most successful and an influential celebrity “Oprah Winfrey” as an example. We were told that Oprah went through Psychological and Emotional Pain. Apparently, she was sexually abused by a family member when she was only 10. At 14 she fell pregnant and lost the baby boy soon after birth.

We were encouraged to accept those circumstances/moments that bring us pain. They said the most important thing is to let go and move on.

Roslyn made my day when she mentioned that “Shit happens when you facilitating”.

In closure, I got pissed by one of the team member who stood up and told us that she feels rejected because all her ideas and contribution to the group fell on deaf ears. She then put off all candles, walked to the door, slammed it and off she went!

What an attitude!

Thumps up to the presenting group though, they did an outstanding job. Well done guys, I learned a lot from your presentation!

Today’s facilitation allowed me to delve within my own pain, my own experiences and my own pain. Ho personal stories of pain can allow one to dig deep into ones owns soul and … (chocking) reflect and think back on that very day, hour, minute, second. When that pain was so real when in the now it still real that you are almost able to touch it.

This session has left me shaken and with a sense of indescribable feelings. The rope exercise taught me the value of guidance from those people closest to you. In the moment when you feel that you cannot….guidance from those closest to you allows you a different option, a different path.

We closed the session with reflection on group formation…….. forming, storming, norming , performing and adjourning

Aluta Continua ……This struggle is real!

This week’s topic was interesting to say the least.  There were a few takeaways from the class. Firstly, I learned again that in order to resolve conflict, specifically one that occurs while facilitating, one should remove yourself from the situation and use the concept of the balcony and the dance to gain perspective.

The exercise with the rope reiterated this. It showed that sometimes you are too close to a situation to see the solution. As people we often get so caught in the frustration of not succeeding that we stop to think, communicate or change the strategy or approach to a task.

The team work exercise with the chips and dice was fun as our group was very competitive – or maybe we have a gambling problem HAHA. However it also showed that when a team has clear instructions, knows what the goal is, communicates and collaborates it is easier to achieve any task.  The forming, storming, norming and performing concepts also show that sometimes conflict is necessary in order to grow and that to move forward the conflict should not be ignored but resolved.

#AsToldByTiff

I learned that is now we keeping waiting for that amazing thing to happen in the future that will be the key to our happiness. But this is it. Right now. Life continues to be a series of right nows. So learn to love right now, and you’ll have an amazing life.

2. Fear is an illusion (mostly). Most of the things we fear never happen. Or if they do happen, they are rarely as bad as we fear they will be. For most of us, fearis the worst thing that will happen to us. Reality isn’t as painful.
3. Relationships rule. At the end of the day, what matters most are the people in our lives. Put them first every single day. Before work. Before the computer. Before your hobbies. Treat them like they are your everything.
4. Debt isn’t worth it. Nothing is more draining and humiliating than being in debt. Buying things you can’t afford might give you a short-term buzz, but in the long run, it’s extremely stressful. Spend below your means. Save money. Wait until you can afford it. Live free.
5. Your kids aren’t you. You are the vessel to bring your children into the world and their caretakers until they can care for themselves. You can teach them, love them, and support them, but you can’t change them. They are unique individuals who must live their own lives and learn from their own mistakes. Let them.
6. Things gather dust. Time and money spent accumulating material things will one day irritate you. You have to clean, maintain, store, and move stuff. The less stuff you have, the freer you are.

Today our session was on resolving conflict, the group presenting this topic did a great job in trying to make the class understand what conflict it and how they can resolve it. I enjoyed it, I remember thinking groups are getting more and more good at this facilitation skills.

We were paired with a team member, expected to listen to their story and understand without judging the situation they were in. It was interesting seeing people personalities, who are good listeners, who don’t judge.

The trick is to listen to an individual without reaching conclusions but rather hearing what they have to say and what they want you to take from their story because as people we create our own understanding.

We also touched on the conflict cycle, that in a relationship say within  two people one the other party is hurt, it takes them a white to reclaim their identity, once they do, the other party now feels hurt. It just made so much sense why some relationships suffer.

One has to know their truth, reality as well as the other persons truth and reality. If only this was easy we would have easy flowing relationships.

Our topic is conflict and so there is no way we can have conflict in our group 🙂

Great people in my group and we engaged very well together.,,,,very organised and structure….mmmm Positive thinkers….energetic and laughter….we had fun….

I like to engage in groups and I though we all adults and professional It shouldn’t be difficult or experience conflict. Having to engage with new people is not  a challenge  for me, I love working with people.  When the groups finally came together I was happy to see the great level of communication and connections amongst our self’s, find myself connecting very well with group 8.

Great team work group 8 and I appreciate all the support you gave me.

I was super early that Saturday, the facilitators were also ready and they had no last-minute preparations. Their workshop was differently run, they didn’t lock anyone out of the facilitation. At first, I was confused why that happened since I learned from the beginning of the course that if the door is not closed, the workshop gets distracted. I only understood at the end of the workshop that it was deliberately done since it linked the topic of the day.

One of the activities given to the audience was that volunteers were to leave the room without letting their any of their body parts touching the floor. There were small carpets, boxes on the floor. Most people used the mats to slide out of class while others climbed tables to do so. I mean, we could have just walked out of the class since none of our body parts would touch the floor anyway? Yeah, we were wearing shoes, but our minds were imprisoned by societal norms. You get an instruction to do something and we don’t think before executing the task and at the end, we end up complicating the journey towards finishing the task.  The whole aim of the activity was to check if we can think out of the box when given instructions. Can we apply ways that are less complicated when performing tasks?

I learned about ways I can free my mind and they are exercise, meditation, and forgiveness. I suddenly realized that I have been employing exercise as my way of freeing my mind, but I wasn’t aware I was freeing the mind. I think I just always interpreted it as a way to get tired so that I sleep without struggling. Now I had to go back and think about it, I had an Aha moment when I realized that I was unconsciously freeing my mind given how light I felt after every gym session even when I was super stressed on that day. After this workshop, I plan on practicing forgiveness and meditation to alleviate the burden in my head and learn to be happy.

Just when we were settling in, Telfer dropped the bomb and told us that class is over immediately after the workshop. Shuuu, I thought to myself… Did I wake up so early just to come attend for an hour? Couldn’t they just tell us a day before so that we can plan our Saturday wisely? Oh, well… Refilwe and I went for breakfast and I had more time to prepare for the wedding later that day.

I hope that Ros gets better soon and that she will be able to join when we resolve conflict with Group 8.

It’s 09h30 and I’m out…

Never underestimate the power of communicating with love; I am beginning to understand the importance of supporting and relating to others whilst still maintaining my own identity and level of influence.

“Tell me and I will forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin  

My inclusion of others is no longer in learning only but it is also in embracing and honouring our differences because there is so much beauty in our diversity. The holy grain of my fluency in “HUMAN” is dependent on how well I connect with others. This workshop has highlighted how we can change the world by first changing how we listen, think and communicate.

Harry Belafonte once said, “Discover the joy of embracing diversity, when people become more open to the strange, to the unusual, to the radical, to the “other”, we become more nourished as a species. Currently our ability to do that is being manipulated; diversity is being looked upon as a source of evil rather than as a source of joy and development. We must recapture the profound benefits of seeing the joy in our collective diversity, not the fear.”

Mbali

The day was finally here when my group facilitated “Resolving conflict”. I have to send a huge THANK YOU to my group for a wonderful experience. You guys were amazing every step of the way. We had our moments but we were mature enough to bring it back every time. THANK YOU!

The Friday night we all met to practice our facilitation and set up the class… hoping it would not be touched by the cleaners at the university. The facilitation went so well, better than we ourselves anticipated and we were so happy that our fellow class mates also enjoyed it just as much. I was quite nervous about sharing my personal story. I wasn’t sure how people would react to it but I knew that by doing so I might be helping someone going through the same or a similar situation, that gave me strength.

After our group facilitation, the class was energised and Ros took us through some really interesting points about conflict. I enjoyed the exercise about telling someone about a personal conflict that they had to write out as a dialogue. It was truly insightful to see how the smallest of things can become an issue. But I was also reminded of how it is sometimes best to manage expectations to prevent conflict.

The most meaningful lesson was how important communication is during conflict and how perceptions can make or break a conflict situation.

The concept of freeing up space in your mind might seem uncomfortable at first because it takes you outside of your comfort zone. To some it represents confusion, doubt and fear, whilst to others it represents possibilities and opportunities.
Those that have researched the subject come with up different suggestions on how one can free up space in one’s mind. Top of my mind is meditation and practicing silence. Seeing this topic on my course manual reminded me of a little book I once came across on Being Present/Mindfulness. It talked about being aware of your surroundings, your breathing, i.e. the ART of being present. It talked about the many ways to bring mindfulness into our daily life even when there is not a chance to sit down in a quiet place.
Activities – bring mindfulness into the activities you do and love, like gardening, running, biking, swimming….
Routines – Choose one of your daily routines and bring mindfulness to it, e.g. folding clothes, washing dishes, vacuuming, walking to work, eating lunch.
Triggers – We all have things that set us off, snarky emails, annoying colleagues, mindless drivers. Choose one and decide to replace your angry reaction with the flash of being present
I have struggled with this art since childhood, I cannot quieten the mind, as a result, I am finding myself catching up to so much that I missed out on as a younger person, studying at a tertiary institution being one of those things.
For an example, I never learned to swim, still can’t as one instructor who tried teaching told me to clear my mind of anything negative that I associate with water. How’s that even possible, I thought to myself.
You see, as a toddler I walked inside a bucket of hot water which was reserved for my weekly thorough bath which took place every Sunday evening. As we didn’t have a privilege of a geyser at the time, water would be boiled in a big kettle on the stove top, poured into a bucket then carried to an enamel bath tub where I would be scrubbed all over to be clean for a new week of travel with my mother to her piece jobs in town. So, like any other child of that age, water is fun to play with and I had assumed it was cold since the bucket had been placed on the floor. In I jumped, the rest is history.
Fortunately, my skin healed very well and with no bruising or evidence of the incident whatsoever. Unfortunately, the mind never recovered. Learning to ride a bicycle was another fun activity I missed out on. I could never imagine anything bad happening to my perfect legs again, so I skipped riding a bike. Now as a wiser empowered adult, I am learning the art of being present in the same activities that I had stayed away from.
When I decided to adopt a healthy lifestyle, besides taking part in outdoor activities, I found being in the water and riding a stationary bike (the only one I can ride at the moment), to be stimulating and fulfilling. For the past two years I have been making a promise (yearly rsolutions) to myself to venture into learning to ride a proper bicycle and to swim, however, my mind has not been very supportive of my wishes.
So, I am still to learn the art of being present holistically!

I have learned so much over these past weeks and today was just an add on.

Forgiveness, exercise and meditation is but  a few of the things on my to do list. This will not only assist my body & mind to be stress free but also lead to better decision making going forward. Thank you group 7.

We left early on this day and I was so grateful, my son turned 18 yrs and our family members came to visit us to celebrate with him. I had enough time to prepare for the visitors and everything went well.

We all fall victims to this in our lives, as much as we like to think otherwise, we perceive incidents to be not what it is!

Like the story of the subway, I find myself many times in my own world oblivious to the world around me.

People only see what they are willing to see coupled with their emotions at the time.

We judge others so quick without knowing the fuller picture.  Your opinion is your opinion, your perception is your perception,

Control your perception and you control reality!

Dear Group 7

I think that your module was very challenging. I compliment your Group with your creativity in trying to bring to life the theme: Freeing your mind.

My experience of the facilitation was that due to everything having happened so quickly, that I was still trying to process my experience, by the time we were invited to make contributions for the Delta/Delta Plus activity. Unfortunately I was not ready to provide feedback, at that stage.

I felt that certain elements were not clear defined for me, it felt somewhat disjointed in certain places, and I needed for Group 7 to help me to connect these dots.

I initially felt somewhat uncomfortable with the requirement to meditate, as I have a different approach to this – however, when I allowed myself to go with the flow, it dispelled my perception of what was going to happen. Thank you, I felt the freeing of my mind with this activity.

Thank you for the encouragement for me to get back to my exercise routine (walking). There are certainly many positive benefits linked to physical activity, which enables a wonderful platform for me to engage in prayer and self-talk.

Thank you Group 7, for these reminders.

My highlight on this module is the effect the story on the subway had on me.

Firstly as a father to a four year old girl, I often feel that society puts so much limitation on how children should behave and the freedom they should enjoy in public spaces. I often feel that society also limits parents on so many levels because you often have to choose between attending a wedding, a funeral, a workshop or a conference on the weekend to spending time with your children.

The story on the subway finds the story teller reacting in a particular way over how the children behave in a public space and to a certain degree passes judgement on the father before understanding the circumstances surrounding their behavior. But isn’t this what we all do? Don’t we all jump into conclusions without even understanding the individuals in the situation and why they react the way they do.

amazing how context completely changed the reaction towards the situation. For me this meant pause, don’t invest emotions yet, not until you know a bit about the situation. That Subway story changed the way my mind looks at situations in society.

Since I have been attending the facilitation skills class, I have learned a lot and trying to apply my knowledge on a daily basis. Ross always teaches us that what ever delta positive or negative you give to the presenting team your comment is your reflection.

You will never please everyone in life, because we all different and we have different expectations. This weeks team presented ways of freeing your mind as we turn to be bitter and hold grudges because we are bitter we don’t want to see people around us happy as they will annoy us   and we will do things or make comments that turns to spoil their moods. Being bitter is a lot of unnecessary stress.

Learn to be happy and except life the way it is. The mind is a very powerful thing. If you tell your mind that you are going to be happy and focus on things that make you happy you will be happy and automatically you will turn a blind eye on the things that would have made you sad.

Team 7 presented three ways of Freeing your mind which are   forgiveness, exercise and meditate.  They had a game that instructed people to getting out of the classroom without their body parts touching the floor – that games motive was to see if people will think out of the box or not. The results showed that people don’t think out of the box because people started walking on top of the table while they could have just walked out of the classroom. I enjoyed the presentation and  WELL DONE TO MY TEAM 7- JOB WELL DONE…

Wish people will be forgiving and we would have a better place.

Hi all! This is the second part of module seven , and I’m exited to blog about today’s class and teachings because it was my groups turn to present today. Needless to say that i wont be talking much about the performance of the group from an outside perspective, but as a team member of team 7, I would just like to thank everyone for their input and their commitment.

That being said, I would just like to touch on some of the points that were covered today, and just shortly kind of summarize them again. So our group covered the second part of module 7 which was “freeing your mind”.  We Started of with an exercise where the audience had to escape a too without any body parts touching the floor. They were provided with different props that they could use. The goal of this was, to promote the action of thinking outside the box. The audience did very well.

With the second exercise, the participants were each given an A3 page and asked to draw a stick man on it. The purpose of this was to demonstrate the magic of thinking big.  The trick was to see how much of the paper the participant used when asked to draw something on it. The paper being symbolic for life and all its opportunities, and the size of the drawing with relation to the paper, would indicate how “big” the participant thinks. In other words, How Many of our life opportunities do we use?

The final exercise was just a normal simple meditation exercise. Where the audience just had to clear their minds of all negative thinking.

That’s it for this week guys, thanks for the feedback we got today!