Meetings that Engage (Self-Study Program)
In this Genuine Contact Specialty workshop, you will learn a practical tool, the Transfer-In, that could be used at the start of a meeting (series) to help participants fully engage in the meeting with the topic at hand. You will experience and learn how this helps participants slow down to be able to go fast, how it reduces typical ‘wastes-of-time’ because of conflict, positioning and other dynamics and how it helps people to be aware of what intention brought them to the meeting.
When people come together to meet around a common purpose or activity, whether in organizations or communities, it should be exciting, energizing and come with great learning. Often though this is not the case. Meetings are felt to be boring, useless and people feel it was a waste of time. People even start to avoid meetings. Now, this is really a waste of the great resource of knowledge and experience that people bring when they meet together.
When we call people to a meeting we should make use of their whole being, all their experience and knowledge. We should invite them fully to allow for the best possible outcome.
Genuine Contact offers a way to fully engage participants in a meeting no matter what the meeting is about or what meeting method you use. In this online workshop, you will learn:
- A deepening of your understanding of the importance of full engagement of meeting participants
- An easy and playful tool to invite participants to fully engage in the meeting
- A key aspect of the Genuine Contact approach to organizational success
More Than One Story (Self-Study Program)
Come join and experience sharing stories with an award-winning card game while experiencing the power of using a Whole Person Process facilitated container for your favorite group facilitation methods.
In this online workshop, you will learn how to use an online version of the famous, More Than One Story (MTOS). We ‘learn by doing’ so you will be invited to listen to stories from others and share some of your life stories. MTOS is useful in many situations in your work or private life – to build relations and deeper understanding between individuals in a group. It can be used both online and in person.
You will learn:
- The card game More Than One Story.
- How to use the meeting container Whole Person Process Facilitation (WPPF) to play the game in small or large groups.
- How and when you can use MTOS in your own organization or private context.
MTOS has received the Council of Europe’s Democracy Innovation Award, among others. It has been used around the world for more than a decade. It has been translated into 20 languages and more than 70,000 card decks have been spread around the world.
In 2020, your workshop facilitator, Thomas Herrmann, collaborated with the originator in the municipality of Simrishamn, Sweden to create a website so this game can be used online. Together, they also discovered the value of adding a facilitated meeting container to create more safety, presence and to harvest results. Whole Person Process Facilitation, the preferred meeting container, is one of the methods taught in The Genuine Contact™ program.
If you’re already familiar with Whole Person Process Facilitation, in this workshop you’ll experience how Thomas uses a WPPF container to support working with MTOS…and perhaps be inspired to consider how you can use WPPF to support the value of some of your favorite methods and techniques for participatory conversations. If you’re new to WPPF, you’ll have the opportunity to experience it in action, all while learning about a fun and engaging card game that builds relationships amongst communities of people…and maybe be inspired to learn to facilitate using Whole Person Process Facilitation too.
With MTOS you create space to look again. When you listen to more than one story about a phenomenon it creates more diverse, wide, and deep perspectives.
You will have many opportunities to use this game both professionally and with friends. It can be part of building a common culture in your organization, increasing relations, or ’just’ making better friends.
Thomas has decades of experience as a Genuine Contact trainer and facilitator. He discovered MTOS in 2015 and introduced it to several organizations. One example is an NGO in his hometown that supported newly arrived refugees. MTOS was successfully used for years and helped us to get to know each other and build trust and understanding.
Join this workshop and use your learnings in the future. Together we create a better world!
Facilitator: Thomas Herrmann
Unearthing your Conduct as a Leader (Self-Study Program)
This workshop will provide you with insight into your “conduct” for leading yourself successfully to accomplish your vision. Whether you work within an organization or are the leader of your own business, it is important that the way you act is aligned with your deeper values, purpose, and spirit of intent. When your conduct is consistent each action helps you create what you would like to see in your life and world. When you have developed a conscious awareness of this alignment it will help you in each decision you make as you move as a leader on your path.
During this workshop, originally recorded in November 2019, we will use the Deep Essence Tool from the Genuine Contact program to:
- guide you into clarity about your own conduct to help you see where you are in balance and where you are not.
- draw to your consciousness how to align your conduct to that which you want to bring into the world.
- Deepen your understanding of how your unique conduct is linked to your experience, and become clear on where you may want to make adjustments to help you become more consistent
This will help you to DO Leadership – to develop a consequent set of actions that are consistent with your deeper purpose and vision. It means developing a way to conduct yourself, a way to be that feels in harmony with what you are creating.
The English word Conduct elegantly describes this combination of action harmonized with your deeper values and purpose in the world. Conduct is what helps you to move in new directions when you don’t know what to do. It is what guides you in your difficult decisions when it is unclear which path to choose, it is the set of behaviors, structures, assumptions and values that guide you in daily life. It is something you DO internally and something that is experienced by others who interact with you. When your conduct is consistent with this purpose and vision it acts as a guide you can trust to lead you to the right action. When it is inconsistent you can enter into confusion, this will be experienced by you and those around you.