Nicole Bachmann on Facilitation

[michaelbeale@ppimk.com]

Facilitation Interview - Nicole Backmann

Facilitation - Michael Beale discusses facilitation with Nicole Backmann, May 2008

Nicole Bachmann is a masterful coach and facilitator with a strategic business background and a law degree. In her longstanding career across the international media and other industries, she has successfully lead and inspired a wide range of people from many different cultures in four different languages.



(Please allow two minutes to download the MP3 file if you would like to listen to the discussion.)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/facilitation/nicole.mp3

Transcription TBA

[michaelbeale@ppimk.com]

Michael : Good morning Nicole. Can I firstly really thank you for taking part in this podcast, and ask you to kick off by firstly introducing yourself and saying a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Nicole : Thank you very much Michael, thank you for having me. It's a great joy to be here, because I always like to talk about facilitation, because it's one of the things that I'm passionate about. The other thing that I'm passionate about is people as a whole.

When I say that I'm passionate about facilitation it's because I'm passionate about helping people, communicate better with each other. And I do think very often, if you do have a facilitator in the room, especially if it's a group of people, then that happens, and that's why I do a fair amount of it.

I'm one of those people, my title is consultant and facilitator. I've been doing this almost all my life, and I've been making it my business for the last six years or so.

Michael : And what sort of context do you facilitate in?

Nicole : It varies, because I do workshops in a variety of circumstances. So there's the internal industry workshops that I do for medium sized, or large companies. There is the workshop that I run for the university of Essex. In a variety of different guises, some of the stuff that I do Is for their business training program, which are external courses that invite business people to come along and improve their skills in various levels.

And I run a variety of courses there to do with communication skills – Then I also do some staff development work for the university, and I have done some work for both the PHD program and also for the graduates, so university work fairly broadly spread over the last few years.

The other thing I do is that I do workshops for groups of small business's, like for instance, London Jewelers, London Jeweler Exports, Poppet Arts – which is a space where people get a studio space – so they're all designer/makers, and it's about their communication skills – getting their communication skills better, things like that.

And there's also the bigger forum, where I public speak. And most of what I do is always interactive, so it's all about facilitating the learning of the people in the room and that can be anything between thirty and five hundred or more.

Michael : Why do you think facilitation is important in business today?

Nicole : I think it has always been important. I think it becomes increasingly more important as there is increasing collaboration between people who aren't necessarily in the same place - because I think business is changing as so far as a fair amount of people are working from home, or they're working from different countries - there's much more collaboration internationally going on.

And very often these people don't see each other very much. And therefore, the challenges that brings with itself, where we can't read the body language, we're not used to meeting each other all of the time, and stuff like that.

And I do think also that people that are actually meeting a lot, still have a need for facilitation. Because one of the things that I find fascinating is that one of the misunderstanding that happen between people don't happen between people who don't speak that same language - they happen with people who do speak the same language or seem to be.

If you speak English and you speak German - and whether or not you speak a little bit of German and I speak a little bit of English doesn't matter - when we go and communicate with each other, we will be very careful about communication, because we recognize that we're speaking different languages and that we need to make sure that we understand each other well.

Where as, if we both speak English, and this is where we're both coming from, we just think that the words that we use mean the same thing for you and for me. However, this is not very often the case. That's when it starts to get very interesting.

Michael :Very top level answer to this -what do you think are the key factors that make a facilitative session successful?

Nicole : A good facilitator who knows his or her own style very well. Who knows also the absolute, crucial importance of not getting involved in the content at all - which is why sometimes external faciliators have an easier life, because they can find that much more easily than somebody who's internal.

And the talent of the facilitator to create an atmosphere where we are able and willing to take responsibility for the choices we make, and for the communication - for our own communication.

Michael : Looking at some of the facilitation that you do -very basic question - do you have a favorite location and time to facilitate? Do you think that location makes a difference? Do you think that the time of day makes a difference?

Nicole : Depends what you are trying to achieve, I would have thought. It's always easier to have a good session if we are in a room that isn't our office. That's somehow of other taking us somewhere outside of our environment - that doesn't mean that it can't be in the building, it can be a meeting room, or wherever.

It makes us all aware of the fact that we're making something different than what we do when we're just talking on the phone, whatever, with each other. Or just having a chat.

So a separate room is good. A separate location is good if you want to achieve something that is totally out of the box. So brainstorming days, things like that. It's very important to go somewhere which is a different environment then the environment that we usually find ourselves in.

Because that opens up our brains, and it puts people in a little-less comfortable position, so they are more aware of what's going on. And they're more willing to change their minds and things like that.

Time of day does matter. The challenge that you face with it is that biorhythms are different for everybody. So you might hit that 50% of the people are very happy to do it in the morning, but you might find that the other 50% hate mornings and they're at their worse at the mornings.

And that's the challenge, there's many people, many biorhythms. So really the time of day - ideally, if you have regular meetings, if you can change the times of day to facilitate, the various different biorhythms - like sometimes I'm at my best, sometimes I'm at my best, that's great.

But if you can't do that of course, than the meetings are easier to remember if they're at the same time of day and at the same time of the week - if they're regular.

Michael : And just back to rooms for a few seconds - are there good rooms and bad rooms to hold a meeting in? The layout of the room or the actual layout of the room can make the thing go more easily, whereas you can have some rooms where you have to work very, very hard to get it to work.

Nicole : I would totally agree that the layout makes a difference. Because if I can't see you very well, and I can't see everybody in the room very well, than that makes it difficult.

Open rooms with lots of light are preferable, but I have done very good facilitation sessions, that were very successful for the group in meeting rooms that are in the middle of the building where there is no natural light at all.

So I think what's more important to make it successful is the quality of the facilitator, whether internal or external, or the willingness of the people to have a positive outcome - that's more important than the room - but the layout, to me, is very important.

Michael : Ok, lets look at some of the behaviors - if you were to teach somebody to be a facilitator, what sort of things would you ask them to do? What sort of things would you ask them to do, either before a session or after a session.

Nicole : Well the first thing that I'd like to do is - I'd like to participate, not only participate, but watch a session that they're doing, so I can get a good feel for what they're actually doing, that's very important. I need to see what they're doing to be able to assess what they need help with.

So once I've done that it then depends, I mean some people - or actually, let's look at some common problems rather than certain people. One of the most common ones is that they don't take themselves out of the sessions, so they think that the session is about the facilitator.

It never is. The session is entirely about the group. And that's the first thing that you need to know and learn as a facilitator - not only know and learn but you need to have your focus entirely on the group. You are just a tool that they use, or you are just a catalyst, but that's all. And as such you're quite important, but the moment it becomes about you the facilitation has just left the room.

The next one is that there are many different styles to facilitate, and people fall in love with other peoples styles, and I would caution against that. Because, you are unique, and therefore you need to find your own style and there are very good tools and books that will help you to do that. And that's definitely something that I always start with.

We need to identify our own style and then we need to use our own style, with the focus being on the group.

The next thing, a common problem that gets in the way, is facilitators get worried about difficult people - there's no such thing as a difficult person. If somebodies behaving in a difficult manner then that is because they don't feel included, or they have an agenda running, or they have all sorts of insecurities, whatever. Stuff happens, so there are people who are less able than others to enter into communications.

Or it can be about their communication styles, where their style is just not served in this meeting at all - let's say that we have lots of people who are top level, let's say that 80% of people in the room are top level, so they don't like detail, they're very quick thinkers, they think on their feet and they just throw stuff around - they keep the balls in the air and that's what they enjoy.

The 20% of the room who are detailed people who need preparation to make good decisions and to contribute to a meeting, that is basically hell on earth for them. Because they're entirely out of their comfort zone. They will become difficult, or their behavior will become difficult because they become uncomfortable and they feel that this is all airy-fairy stuff when they're making the decisions without having the knowledge of what we need to know.

And so it's recognizing those styles, the difference of styles and accommodating that, creating an environment where you're assuring that everybody is being heard - that's quite important. So therefore, walking into a room as a facilitator thinking 'Oh god they're going to be difficult.' I think is about you, and not about them.

So those are some major problems that come to my mind.

Michael : How did you learn to do this yourself? How did you learn to be a good facilitator?

Nicole : Well I think that the good news was from the very beginning - there's a couple of things about me as a person that mark me out as good facilitator material. One thing is that I love people, I'm endlessly interested in the variety of people, and the different things - what makes them tick, what drives them, what drives them mad - all that sort of stuff is endlessly fascinating for me.

So the interest is always there. and the other one is an absence, as in, I have an absence of the need to judge. I'm not interested in judging people or situations, I'm much more interested in what's going on. And so for me, taking myself out of the situation, or out of the conversation, out of the room - and enabling, facilitating people to communicate well is a natural talent, a natural passion. That's what I love.

So that's where we started all of those years ago. I actually come form industry, so I did a variety of things from across the medias industry and the increasingly senior positions after I'd finished my law degree - and I was just, possibly because of that natural talent, finding myself in the position of facilitation an awful lot. Facilitating one to one, as in a conflict between two colleagues or the boss trying to get a message across and not getting it over right, or somebody being afraid to present in big groups.

And I was always happy to do so. So it put me in the position where I had to do so. So throughout my professional career i had to do an awful lot of it. And as we know, the best way to get better at something is to do it.

So that's where it came from. So when I started to make my business the people business, coaching and facilitation my business, about seven or something years ago, I then went out and got myself some additional coaching and facilitation skills via various courses, which I then filed and honed, whatever, and I'm continuously learning, and that's one of the things that I love, that the more I do of it, the more I love it.

Michael : You've answered this to some extent, but have another go at it - what do you believe about yourself when you're doing this?

Nicole : That I am an enabler and catalyst. That I am willing and also able to create an environment where we're looking for solutions rather that problems.

That I'm here for people to enjoy themselves, for people to have some fun. To have an interesting conversation with each other and to start to understand that because we're different doesn't mean that we're better or worse, it just means that we're different, and that's what makes life interesting.

Michael : To some extent you've also covered this - but what do you believe about your customers, or about the people that you're facilitating?

Nicole : I believe that if push comes to shove, people are interested in wins, if you let them. Everybody enjoys a meeting, where you come out having really achieved something. I'm yet to meet a person who doesn't enjoy that.

Now some know how to do this better than others, and some are naturals at it, some have learned it, and some find it quite easy some find it very hard - but if you can get out the meeting, the teamwork, the project, and everybody goes away feeling that they've won, I think that's actually what the aim is.

And that's what I go in to achieve, and that's what I go in to enable, and from that point of view it's possible to then create a safe environment where we can be open with each other, and if we're open with each other, life becomes easier. And then all of a sudden, things that weren't possible outside the room are now possible inside the room

Michael : And do you have a personal mission when you do this, or who are you when you're facilitating?

Nicole : I'm at most myself, I think. My mission is enable people to communicate well with each other in themselves all the way.

Michael :This might be a bit of a strange question, but I'm always fascinated by how people answer it - if you had to describe facilitation as a sort of story with fairy tale or characters, animals or cartoons, how would you do it? How would you describe facilitation?

Nicole : Well I think if I look at bad facilitation, I'd probably have a look at the duck family,Donald Duck or something like that - with Donald loosing it at any one time and being very interfering with everybody and being as rude as he possibly can to everybody in the room. and being hilarious just to look at.

And he'd be the one to jump in with a conclusion, and he'd tell people off because they're not contributing rather than encouraging them, and all of that sort of stuff. That could actually be quite a fun comic-book story.

Good facilitation, I'd paint it as an Indian fairy tale, where you need the trinity of Hindu gods. Shiva, who is the creator and also the destroyer, Vishnu who is the protector, and - now, of course I can't remember the name of the main one - who unites them all.

But to me, in good facilitation, you'd need Shiva to come in to create something, and probably he'd go in every now and then to destroy something, to actually move us forward, because conflict is good, as long as it's constructive conflict, and he'd make visible the elephant in the room or the thing that we don't want to talk about because that's one of the things that always happens.

And definitely I would have a delicate ornate elephant who is ill on the inside - that is my elephant in the room that everybody tries to ignore and thinks is not there but is. And then the fairy tale would be that Shiva would come in and make it visible to all of us, and because we're looking at it, and because we're seeing what's really going on, that then gets Vishnu involved who comes in for the protection of other involved who are maybe hiding behind the elephant and encouraging him to come out from behind it and look at it, and see that it's just an elephant, it's not an ogre or a monster, whatever - it's something that we can all use to our advantage if we actually look at it and take away the fear of it.

And that's the other thing that Vishnu could do - he could take away the fear - of a caste system, of a system where people are perceived stronger than others, or have more rights that others, or louder than others, therefore the other person gets pushed under.

So yes, I think that's quite a nice image actually.

Michael : Before i ask you for your contact details and if there's anything that you'd like our listeners to know that you're doing - is there any last words that you'd like to say about facilitation? It could be either something that you'd like to emphasis, or maybe something that we haven't covered that you think is of importance as far as facilitation.

Nicole : For me, the most important thing about facilitation is the attitude and the mindset in which we all come in. And that we come in to respect each other, to achieve a win-win, and that it's absolutely fine and necessary to have lots of differences of opinion - and that doesn't mean that we need to have arguments or that we need to start to struggle with our own power or use our own power to make somebody else struggle.

And for the facilitator themselves, I'd like to reiterate that I think the most important thing that you need to know is - it's not about you. Which is wonderfully relaxing - so relax, and enjoy yourself. That will mean that the other people in the room will enjoy themselves and that will mean that we achieve what we are here to achieve.

Michael :Is there anything that you do yourself that you would like to plug or to remind our listeners of?


Nicole : Well, as I say there are the courses at the University of Essex which our available to the business community, and if you go to University of Essex :: Home page, and look for the business management training program, than there they are to be found. And there are still some to be had this year, and there are some to be had in the next academic year.

And also if people do have teams and/or need facilitation, i'd be very happy for them to get in touch with me, because as I said, I like what I do, and I'd like to do lots of it.

Michael : And therefore - could you give us your contact details?


Nicole : So the name is Nicole Bachmann and the email address nicolebachmann@iib.ws and the telephone of my company which is called Brook and Mann, Telephone 0207 3516047

Michael : Excellent, thank you very much for your time.

Nicole : You're very welcome.