224 - Cracking the Code: Mastering Activism Facilitation and Empowering Communities with Anuschka...

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Myriam Hadnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Anoushka Ruge, and we speak about activism and how to facilitate those who are engaged in a shared mission with their heart and their soul and their passion. So stay tuned. And by the way, if you want to support the show to remain free and accessible for all, please consider a small donation via workshops.work/support. And now lean back to enjoy the show. And if you need the one-page summary, you'll find it on my website. Scroll down to the show notes to find all the links there. Enjoy. Anoushka, welcome to the show. Finally.

Thank you, Miriam, for finally having me.

Yes, I'm very— we've been working together for over a year now, maybe 2.

Almost a year and a half. Yes, 2 years.

And sometimes it's those who are closest to you that you somehow consider, consider last. Not last.

No, I don't think I'm last.

Hopefully not. Yeah, we will geek out about facilitation as we do, as we usually do off the record.

Yeah, true.

And hopefully also speak about a side of your facilitation that I don't get to see on a daily basis, which is your activist life of facilitation. So I'm very curious about that one. And before we're getting there, always start with the same question: when did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

I thought about the question. I cannot pin down the exact same moment anymore, but I remember it was very organic how I got there. So yes, I call myself a facilitator and other things, but for sure facilitator. I came to holding space, designing learning as an activist. So I was trained in non-formal education by my, my youth movement back then. And so I started calling myself a non-formal education practitioner educator. So a very big word that always felt a bit restrictive because it's towards a very concrete form of facilitation, which is non-formal education, which comes with concrete methods. And at some point I called myself a trainer because people were booking me as a trainer. So, can you do a training on topic X? So I thought, yeah, I'm a trainer. Well, I was not really training people in anything. I would just hold space for a topic. And then I went to a training for trainers finally again, where they compared different names or different titles. So they said, this is it. What does an educator do? What does a trainer do? What does a facilitator do? What does this and this person do. I was like, I'm a facilitator. This really feels like what I am doing and what I like to do. So from that moment on, from that training for trainers on, I was like, no, I'm not a trainer. I'm a facilitator who also does training. So I'm also a trainer who also does visual work, like graphic recording. So I'm also a visual practitioner, but I'm first and foremost a facilitator. I think that's the most concise answer I can give you.

Yay! And it's beautiful to listen to your journey as it shows how complex facilitation is, or in how many different areas the skills we are using and practicing as facilitators actually merge into.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what have you learned in your times of non-formal education and youth movement about facilitation?

A lot, especially that it's like a very transversal, transferable skill. It's like you facilitate as a youth worker, you facilitate as an activist, facilitation is really a core skill in that area, even though we might not be able to call it out that way. Like, even a community organizer is a facilitator in parts of their work.

Oh yeah.

So it's a skill that really runs in all of that work. And I think that's part of why it's so beautiful doing it in those spaces, because people understand it very easy. So when I gather groups, they very easily are like, oh, Yeah, I follow what this person gives me as instruction. There's a purpose to the instruction. So for me, it always makes it very easy to facilitate spaces when it comes to the general mechanics. I mean, there are different hiccups where it gets tricky, where groups kind of have more a bit of a resistance, but I think that facilitation in its nature comes very natural to those spaces.

And those spaces, you mean the, the informal spaces, the activist spaces, the spaces where people find themselves because they're intrinsically motivated?

Yes. Yeah, because they care about the cause, you know, like they come to a meeting not because someone put that on their list or because someone said this is part of your job to attend this meeting, but they come because they care about a cause. They care, let's say, about climate change. So they come to a meeting on climate change. They come together in a group that talks about feminism, gender equality, all of those things, because it's something that in some way, shape, or form resonates to them emotionally, or emotionally, intellectually, all of these things. It's really a connection in the first place. And then I come to that space.

Thank you. Beautiful. And I have so many things now that I want to unpack. Because when I— one is, when I hear you describe this space where everyone comes because they're passionate, and they might even call themselves activists to fight for a better world or a good higher cause. Isn't there something missing that we usually play with in facilitation, which is a different perspective or some sort of friction which induces energy with which we can then play and be even more creative? Or is it just an illusion that everyone is agreeable and agrees to the same thing when you facilitate activists.

What comes to me as an example for this kind of space is, and that also explains good the friction, is climate change. People care about climate change for very different reasons. There are people who come into this space who say, oh, it's all about mitigation. How can we kind of make the impact of what is happening with the climate as little as possible? Others come and her passion is for adaptation measures. How can we actually change our ways so we live with the realities we have now or the realities that are unavoidable? And then it's automatically, there's a friction between those 2 groups because one group says, okay, we have to live what is unavoidable. And the other group is, can we still change what is unavoidable? So there's an inherent friction between often between activists because of different ways of solution, because of different expressions, especially if you look at, if you have dialogues between the Global South and Global North. It's like in the Global South, you have the direct impact of those things we want to fix in the Global North.

Mm-hmm.

The Global North don't have the lived experience of extended drought. I mean, now we're having, but we don't have it for that long. So you always come— I think activist topics or social good topics or how you want to call them are less concrete in application. Whereas KPIs, for example, if you make a team meeting, we have to increase our KPI, let's brainstorm KPIs. Everyone kind of agrees on what KPIs are and how they can increase.

And now, thank you for explaining that. Makes total sense. And actually now, shows me that it's even the opposite of what I expected. So if you have a room full of people who are all passionate about the same topic but actually don't agree on what this topic actually means precisely and what can or should be done about it, then it's even more emotional and there's even more friction because everyone comes in and is so motivated. So how do you deal with all these emotions, especially Because I know from having been in your facilitation and knowing you and being so talented in holding space, and yes, there's space for all emotions are welcome, we have to hear everyone, but then I can see the risk of all these meetings turning into group therapy because we're going to hear all the emotions and then time is up.

Some ways I found to work with emotion very well is timeboxing. So there is a practice I adopted from, from a facilitator called Adrienne Maree Brown. She's an author facilitator from the US who worked a lot in movement spaces, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter movement. And what she does is what she calls a plume of rage. So there is a dedicated time at the beginning of the sessions where we can all say what we are so angry about and how we are so angry about it. And this is just giving a space, like it's like getting it— in German, we would say getting it off your liver. It's like, just give it a space and it belongs there. And then it is okay. We have acknowledged we all care about this. We're all angry. We all are like, or we are all about something else because life, life activism, these topics, they come together, but it's like, it has a container. It has its space. And then let's see, how can we move on from that? That we agree of, we are angry about something.

Okay. So it's less about the individual. Anger, the individual emotions, but acknowledging that, okay, we're all in the same space, literally.

Yeah, kind of in the same boat.

Basically, in the same boat. And then to come back to what you said earlier about the KPIs, and this makes a lot of sense, that in the world of activism, it's very difficult to set KPIs, also if we're speaking of volunteer groups, because who is setting these, right? Is there a magic formula? Or maybe I see ghosts and there is no danger, but what I can imagine is that it's easy to end in complaining modes or in the wishes for a better future and a better past without moving forward and actually to action.

Mm-hmm.

So activism sounds as if there needs to be a lot of action, but I can imagine that, that to come to a decision and an action list And these meetings can be rather difficult.

I think it takes more time because before decision-making, there's a lot of sense-making work that we need to do. Like, how do we make sense of this situation? How do— what we want to do, because you're kind of always in conflict with idealism. Like, what would be the perfect solution to poverty? What would be the solution that eradicates famine. That would be the ideal because we come into activist spaces because we really, really want to fix a thing. But rarely is the thing that we want to fix a small thing that we can fix with one action.

Yeah.

We can change something about our neighborhood to make our neighborhood more socially cohesive, but do we solve division on a large scale? Not necessarily. And that's a friction you're always in. It's like, how can we find maybe micro solutions that can work towards something bigger, almost the idea of fragments. How can we create a behavior that then trickles out into larger complexes? And I think that's the hardest part to make peace with when you participate in these pieces. It's like, okay, I have to kind of have my idealism here and then a practical solution there, and I need to like bring those 2 together. And that's what a facilitator can help you do.

Mm-hmm.

By, by showing you what does connect those 2. Like, how does my little action contribute to my idealism? How can they nurture each other? And then it gets easier.

Yeah, and I was just thinking that it's actually something that businesses also sometimes face, maybe not with so much emotions or so much engagement, but to connect the idea, the vision, the mission statement with some action planning is the big challenge.

Absolutely.

With then the difference, I guess, that in the space of activists you have maybe a little bit too much energy in the space, and in corporate settings, strategy discussions, you have too little energy in terms of motivation from the group.

And while you were talking, I was thinking what you don't have in activist spaces that you have in corporate spaces is the authority of knowing you achieved a goal. Like, it's easier to see, okay, there's the bottom line in the business, that increased because our team did whatever practice we did. We contributed to that mission because they're— I think they're more or easier measurable.

Yes.

Like, in activism, there's not like a standard or a benchmark or whatever you want to call it that actually measures the impact so concretely. So it's always kind of like more iterative and sense-making, and then again about impact and outcomes than it is in, did my team achieve KPIs or not? Did my KPIs contribute to the business's mission or not. That's a bit of a wishy-washy place in activism, I think.

Yeah, and what I hear is that it's difficult to celebrate.

Yeah.

How do you keep the motivation there if you basically never arrive, and by definition you almost always know— well, maybe an example is the anti-nuclear power movement in Germany that has finally arrived 2 days ago.

Yes, it did.

And now the entire country wonders, what are they doing next? Exactly.

I think activist spaces have a hard time celebrating because it's like always, like always this feeling of insufficiency. Like, yeah, we did our small action, but what did our small action contribute to the big solution? I think that's something where activism spaces can still learn. And sometimes we as facilitators help them do celebration, but it's something I think that's also like what contributes to stuff like activist burnout. Like you see that, or even resentment. I think resentment is a result of not seeing progression enough or not having a way to measure the impact of what you're doing.

Yeah, which reminds me of the progress principle by Teresa Amabile. She says that the most important factor that motivates an employee work is a sense of meaningful progress, and that's what keeps us coming back to work and engaging. And in activism, if we don't have this sense of meaningful progress— I was just thinking, everyone who has fought for 20 years to turn off the nuclear power stations in Germany, 2 days ago, did they celebrate or did they look to France in anger that the French are still building new ones?

Yeah, most likely they did. No, I think in that example they actually celebrated a little bit from what I heard. But it's, yeah, it's like, it's almost like fighting windmills a little bit sometimes. Like, also for me, it feels like, like for me, my facilitation in those spaces often is activism because those spaces cannot afford to pay me as a professional. So I say, okay, this is my what you would call in America pro bono part of my business or low price or whatever. So going back into where I come from, youth work and holding spaces in youth work is not something that will pay me as much as another gig would do. So it's a form of my activism. So sometimes I sit after a meeting and I'm like, yeah, but how does this fix anything now? It's like, And then I'm like, no, but it's in those people that were in my room that did something for them. I'm—

So you become a catalyst.

Yeah. It's like way back in the days, I had a training on active citizenship. So it was a week long and had this young woman. I think she's very bright and very kind, but she didn't say a word in these sessions, not a single word. She was like, Just participating, but she would never speak if we have a whole group discussion. And then about 6 months later, in another meeting on another topic, I met her again and she came to me and she was like, Anoushka, I ran for parliament. This active citizenship meeting gave me so much confidence in my beliefs and in my wish to change something that I decided to run for parliament. And I was like, Oh, that's why I do it.

Wow.

And it's really believing. My mother always says, you change the world one person at a time. So for me, when I do facilitation as my activism, I have to remind myself it's about the seed, the idea, the, the empowerment that I gave my individual participants that then hopefully will lead to something. But it's not necessarily the fix of climate change.

And it's beautiful. It almost sounds altruistic where you basically give, you contribute your superpower, which is facilitation, to enable others to do the work, which brings to mind the concept again of neutrality. So we're speaking so much about facilitation neutrality that you cannot participate and facilitate at the same time and that you have to be neutral in order to hold space, and you wouldn't be in that space if you weren't an activist by heart yourself. So I assume that you have one ideal solution to climate change, whatever, that is different from those who are in the space, probably. How do you deal with that?

I mean, I don't believe in perfect neutrality to begin with. I think If you hire a facilitator, you hire a person that has a specific way around facilitation that uses a certain set of methods. So the facilitator is not really, really neutral because otherwise we could just exchange each other. Like, you could run my trainings, I could run your trainings, we would have the exact same outcomes. But I don't think that's how facilitation really works. We, like, because we bring a lens. But I always say I cannot have a stake in it. I cannot, like the outcome of this meeting cannot have any meaning for me. Like I cannot prefer one solution over the other because it's not my solution at the end of the day. A training where it was the hardest for me was a training or a facilitation gig on, it was basically the, what the client wanted at the end of the weekend was that the group decided on a definition of prostitution. So it was on prostitution and human trafficking, and there is a big world out there around legalization, sex work, sex slavery, all of those. And I had to hold a container for them where they could explore that, and at the end of the day say, we think prostitution is, or prostitution looks, or prostitution could be whatever. I personally have a very strong opinion on prostitution. Like, I know what I think about it, but I cannot tell them. Like, they came coming to me and they were like, oh, well, how do you think about this? Like, do you think it's legal? Do you think it's work? Do you don't? And I'm like, I will not tell you. I have an opinion, but I do not tell you. So it's like kind of withdrawing the personal opinions and really putting on a really strong facilitation hat where it's really.

Mm-hmm.

If I want my solution, I do it somewhere else. I go as a participant. Like, if I want my solution, I have to advocate for my solution somewhere else, but not in this space because this space does not belong to me. That's for me, it's like I don't have a stake in this. Wow.

And where do you then offload? I can just imagine I would walk out of the space like a feeling like a full container that I need to download or kind of Share my opinion with someone. Please, someone listen to me.

Yeah, indeed. There are different ways. So I have friends who I talk to, like my flatmate, he knows all about my political theories and how we're going to fix the planet and everything. I have a good friend who I can just say, like, I facilitated a really hard session. Can you just like listen to me for half an hour, an hour? And she just is like, yeah, I can listen. She's a facilitator. She is a facilitator in activist spaces. So she gets me.

Mm.

So I can just be like, oh, this just happened in my group. And they say, oh, this felt heavy to me to hold. So there's a little bit more care work you need to do for yourself. And I think creating communities of care where you have people who understand the base function of, of what you do. So who understand facilitation, who I then can share with what happened in that concrete session is, is It's a honeypot, Jack. It's, it's, uh, it's the best thing you can do. Yeah.

And especially having a group of those who do understand what facilitation is and who know that you don't need a fix, you don't need an action, you don't need agreement, just need a space where you can speak and they can listen.

Yeah. And where it's like, where it's not about structure or someone having to like do something. It's just like, I need, I need my plume of whatever emotion comes out of me right now.

Yeah.

And sometimes it's joy. Like I did a training for like today, it was a consultative meeting for youth activists and they were basically giving input to a political resolution on youth and climate change. And I had a party afterwards. I was like in love with all my participants. I was like, these young people, if Anyone fixes it, it's this group of young people who's going to fix it. And I was like, yeah, more of those.

Wonderful. I like that. I like the energy and I can relate to the sensation. What do you think when you compare the structure of a session in the space of activism as compared to a corporate workshop? I am curious because on the one hand I think, well, we are all using the same activities. Maybe we frame them And actually, yeah, is this true? Are you using the same activities? And then what is different?

Yeah, I use a lot of random agile or KPI activities that I just give a different spin. Instead of looking for the solution for a business problem, we're looking to the root causes of a systemic problem. You can use those fishbone diagrams, you can use all of those methods. And that's the assumption because I don't facilitate so much in corporate spaces because it's not where I come from. So it's not a market so accessible to me. So I'm assuming, I think my groups need a stronger why are we doing this?

Mm.

Like for them, it needs to be worth their time almost. Like sometimes I have spaces where young people, especially young people come in and they're like, we're so used to tokenism, so used to people wanting to hear our voice, people to want to support our action just to have done their bit. So they come into this space already with a lot of resistance, like they're burned. I always say with this group, they're burned. They have been burned by so many politicians, so many organizations, so many sponsors who were like, yeah, we are for it. Yeah, use young people against God knows what. But they come in very tense and very like, oh, So why should I contribute to this? Is this just another way of exploring? And then you need a really strong grounding in why. Where do those results go if you share your experience in this activity? What does it contribute to long term? They need stronger funding in that.

That is so interesting. And it's— I find it interesting on 2 levels. One is it's basically a similar resistance as I know from corporate workshops where Participants, employees come in and say, why again another CEO who wants to show off that they are so open to hear our voice, to collect our ideas, and then nothing happens afterwards? Is it worth my time? So I think that's something that is definitely present. But then maybe since it's less volunteer work or volunteer attendance in the corporate space, maybe they even come with more negative energy, because the activists, at least, they arrived because they wanted to in the first place. So there's a little bit of hope, or at least curiosity. And the other thing that appeared to me is that, well, it's nice that apparently politicians are now interested in listening to the youth, but what seems to be missing are facilitators on their end. So you don't fix the world with one workshop or one demonstration or one hearing. It's what comes afterwards. It is about the minor actions and the mini steps that you mentioned earlier.

Absolutely.

Do you see there any— because you're located in Brussels, where if not there?

If not here.

Do you see a positive development in the sense that politicians, the Parliament or the Commission, would invite facilitators for these hearings with the youth so that something can happen with the results?

Yes and no. I think they're always very eager to hear young people on young people topics, as they are to hear activists on activist topics. So they're happy to bring in civil society on climate change, but on economics, then it's a different story. And I also think that that is another friction between the movement and the political apparatus. It's like a young person can speak to everything. And like, don't just ask me because I'm young, so I'm asked on a young topic. I think that is one barrier, but it happens. But when I facilitate such spaces, the biggest challenge is on the institutional side, there's still a very strong hold to the labor of an expert.

Hmm.

So a policymaker as an expert or a scientist as an expert. So it's often, even though it's supposed to be a participatory hearing, it's often a, oh, there's a panel discussion and you can ask questions kind of setting. And from what I know of the institution, there's like, there's still like this resistance of like letting things go, or they even give you a blank slate. They're like, oh yeah, we can do this super participatory thing. And then, ah, but MEP 1 has to say something and MEP B has to say something and MEP C has to come and do a presentation. I'm like, yeah, but that's not a blank slate. So it's a lot of almost advocating on behalf of the group that I have to do as a facilitator is to be like, yes, I understand your need for protocol. I understand your need for having those people having a role because maybe they sponsor the meeting or they're at the end of the day, the people who, who carry on outcomes. But we need to find ways where this is a space for the group.

Yeah, and where it's not corrupted by members of the European Parliament.

MEP? Yeah, sorry, member of the European Parliament.

I fell into the trap recently where someone said MP. I was like, military police? This cannot be right. Yeah, and it's interesting because it's so contradictory to what we understand by a facilitated space or workshop where we do our best to flatten the hierarchy. So if you have one sponsor who says a few welcoming words, that's nice, but if everyone is killed by boredom, yeah, of all these speeches because they have to, to show off or to compete with each other— when you think of an activist workshop, what brings it to fail?

When everyone goes out with tokenistic Sensation, like when it's really, uh, this was just another performative act at the end of it. So that maybe doesn't bring it to fail in the sense of outcomes, but that brings it in to fail in the sense of what does it do for the participants. Another challenge, especially in very progressive spaces, if you as the facilitator haven't done your work. So if you didn't reflect on your privilege, you didn't look at inclusive facilitation. So when you really come and facilitate these spaces without having done the self-work of where do I fit in all of this, what is my, my role of power? Like, I had a, a train— I know, like a youth summit where we had youth from Canada being half of the event and the other half being from Europe. And I'm more used to facilitating within European spaces. So I have done a lot of the work that I need to do for those spaces, putting myself But in this meeting, there were a lot of people who were in the progressive views of North America, let's say, as unconcretely as possible, because if I go too much into detail, but for them, they thought I, as the facilitator, haven't done my work. Like, I'm a white person, I'm middle class, I'm here, I'm coming and claim authority. And I was not able in that space to kind of translate what I was doing as a facilitator as coming from a place of awareness and of practice of inclusion. So these views were just like projecting me as a facilitator.

And what I hear, and it's— I don't hear it for the first time, I've also experienced it firsthand, that there's a lot of judgment in these spaces. Yeah. And under the umbrella of inclusivity, it becomes rather exclusive, and then suddenly some people are not allowed to have an opinion because of the color of their skin or the work they've done or their nationality. Or, um, how do you deal with that as a facilitator?

It's difficult. Like, it's so— I mean, it's highly context-dependent. It comes to— I mean, for example, this group that I work with I was supposed to, I had to facilitate that for them for 3 days. And the project in which context this event happened needed some outcomes from this. So we needed to make it work. So for that group, a lot of small group work. Have them in small groups, have them in small conversation as much as possible. So they disconnect the space from you. So you're just the evil person who tells them the time is over and this is the question you have to ask, have to discuss.

Mm-hmm. And it brings them then closer together because they're connected against the same—

Not necessarily against the same, but within the same constraints.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So it was not against me or against what we put, but it was like, this is the container we have to work with and now we have to find the work. And it can be voicing things like letting them have the time or the space to say something that bothers them. Like, it's just something they need to say, like, oh, we feel like the use of materials is not environmentally friendly enough. Like, we are creating so much waste with this. And then often what I have done is that another participant says, but this waste, I need it because it's an access need for me. And another participant says, oh, but they help us think, these materials. So often it can self-regulate within the group. But you as a facilitator need to be brave enough to open that conversation because that conversation can go any way. And then you, you need to, to see where you go with. I think you need a lot of flexibility as a facilitator, but also you need to have a good way of communicating with your client that you maybe might not achieve a goal what they had or an outcome or, or whatever. But it's something the group needed for their process to get anywhere, because otherwise they could just get stuck on that irritation with you that they have with you as the facilitator. They're like, ah, like, yeah. And it's inviting them for responsibility for the space. I think it's also another way. It's like, yeah, this is our space. This is our, I don't know, 90 minutes, our week, our time that something happens. So how can we make the most for all of us? How can you contribute to an agenda? How can we make— have the right conversations? Because sometimes I and the client decide before, or I think it's good to have a conversation on that, but the group actually somewhere else. So you need malleability in what you bring to the space.

Yeah, I can see that. And I love what you just mentioned about the need to be brave enough to open the container and trust that it will self-regulate, that there are some in the group who disagree with the complaint. And I can see the trap of then becoming defensive and starting to explain why things have been decided and set up as they are, and thereby basically opening Pandora's box of more and more complaints.

Yeah. And sometimes it's a side conversation. I had someone, like I was facilitating something on accessibility and disability. It was a network for independent living. So for people with disabilities to live on their own accord, basically. The client chose me because I also have a long, like a chronic illness. So I kind of belong to the community of disability and chronic illness. But you don't see it in, like, when you look at me, you know, I'm not a wheelchair user. I don't have a prosthetic. I don't have any visible expressions of my illness for most of the time. And the resistance of one of the participants was very against me as an able-bodied person to hold this space. They were like, oh, why didn't they bring someone in who has a disability, a chronic illness, who has something— That is making them part of this us that we're creating. And then I just took them to the side and like, listen, I don't want to make it a big thing, but this is who I am and this is what I bring. And that's why they decided to choose me. So sometimes it helps to have that little side conversation, not open it in a big Mm-hmm. hooding, but be like, over lunch, over break, over what, can we just have a check-in? What is going on here between you and me? Because often it's not a thing with a group. Sometimes it's really between me and the participant, and I'm like, what do you need?

Yeah.

To act, be active in this space. What, what assurances, what considerations can I offer you? But then I'm also saying like, listen, we're 25 people. 24 people don't have a problem. How can we, you and I, make it work for those 24? Because then they also feel a sense of responsibility for, for the rest of the group process.

Good one, very good one, because I also wonder what it is that makes them angry, given that the facilitator is not an elected representative. Yeah, so the facilitator is there to hold space, and yes, I can sympathize that it's nice to have someone who one can refer to, but that's not their role as a facilitator.

Yeah, and I think Sometimes it comes out of also out of the unknowing of what a facilitator is. Like, maybe they come from spaces where they're more facilitated with someone who also gives input, who's also a reference person of knowledge, who's not really this removed holder of space. If they come out of meeting cultures where there is like facilitation and participation mixed, if that's their experience in facilitation, yeah, then, and then they meet a facilitator who practices in the removed sense of way the first time, they're like, oh, what's like, I don't understand this. And then it's just explaining your role, explaining why you're here. What is your function in this space? It's not me being the input giver. Yeah.

And I like that. I think it's so important as an introduction in the beginning to state, okay, I'm here. I'm not here to represent any opinion. I'm not here as an expert, although this is what I bring, but it's not what I'm putting on the table because you are the experts now.

Yeah, it's a lot about collective knowledge, a lot about them as holder of knowledge, um, very flat hierarchies. Like when I have mixed groups where I have like activists and I have maybe scientists and I have politicians, just putting them in a circle of chairs already starts to like the politicians or the scientists feel a little bit uncomfortable, so they get a little bit shaken up in their authority. And then everyone kind of being on the same level, on the same kind of chairs, on a random order. No one has like a nicer chair or, or whatever marked chair. That helps because it kind of shakes it up like a little bit. Yeah.

And it literally puts them on the same page. Yeah, it flattens the hierarchy. And I wonder whether there is something, an equivalent to the corporate spaces that have allergies against woo-woo. So as soon as we put chairs in a circle, we ask them to check in, there's always a voice or two saying, hey, don't do woo-woo. Don't ask me to talk about my feelings and to hold hands. Is there an equivalent to that in the activist space? Or like, we don't do corporate?

I think there's still a fair amount of we don't do wolves. Like resistance against energizers is a crosscut. It's like, it's sometimes they're like, I do this energizer for a reason, not to torture you. I promise. I think if we have to find an allergy, then it's an allergy against expert input. In the traditional way, if it's done with a microphone and, uh, like a speaker's pod at the front of the room, then there's a real, like, shh. If we work with experts or authority holders, quote unquote, in a way where they are more part of a process or they're on the hot seat or something, like if it's a conversation, a format where they steal the pod. to the content is with the group, like the group still holds on to the content and the process and the outcomes is still theirs, but they can kind of like consult someone more than someone coming in and doing a PowerPoint presentation, then you can do expert. I think it's— there's a really analogy against this very typical presentation mode expert input kind of shebang.

Which makes sense. Because it's a different format. And I guess in the corporate space, they're just so used to it, they wouldn't even occur that this is misplaced.

Interesting.

I realized that whenever in the community— so you're the Never Done Before community facilitator— and whenever someone asks a question about how to facilitate XYZ, you always have kind of an entire box of like Mary Poppins, right? Oh, you can do this, and there is this, and can check out this expert and that expert and read these 10 books. So yes, I see you as Mary Poppins of facilitation. What are— where did you learn the core of it? When you— because you said that you learned it in the youth movement and you did a lot of trainings. So what would you think are the core trainings that would help to own it and to have air quotes done their work, as you referred to it previously, so that the activists don't kick you out as soon as you step in?

I think what helped me, and I don't know if it's generalizable, if that's a word, is I basically learned to facilitate spaces that I was an activist in before. So I started to understand which spaces I enjoyed as an activist and which I didn't enjoy. And once I had an idea of what non-formal education does, what is an experiential learning cycle, like all of those things, I started to understand which are the dials I can turn to make it a good experience or a less good experience. And then I'm a very curious person. So if, if there's like, I don't know, or I can't give a recommendation, I'm like, I need to learn more. I need to deep dive on this. I read a lot of like facilitation manuals, really weirdly. That's my, my free time. I like read toolkits on—

Really?

How to do volunteer management. That, it's a really weird streak of mine. But I think for activist spaces, especially if you don't want to do, if you want to do more of like like content work, so you want to work with people on a topic, then it's really like, for me, understanding how to run an experiential learning activity is like the base. You need to understand that there's the experience, you go for act to reflect. So what did we see in this experience? What happened in this experience? To conceptualize, like, why did these things happen and how did that work in that experience? To apply, like, how can we take what we now learned about this experience and apply it to a concrete situation? If you understand those mechanics, you can run a workshop on any topic. You can run a workshop on migration rights, you can run a workshop on whatever you want if you understand this basic cycle. And when you see a method to which phase of this cycle it applies, I think that makes it very easy to facilitate those spaces. But then it's of course activism spaces or social good spaces, also strategizing. It is decision-making. So it's all the methods you kind of also need for a corporate meeting, I don't know, a neighborhood meeting or whatever else you want to facilitate. Does that answer your question? Why am I the Mary Poppins of facilitation?

Because you love reading manuals. Of course you do. And now what appeared to me— so you're the community facilitator of a paid community, never done before. And one could think on the outside that it's— these are very similar spaces, activism, where— because in both places people are there in their free time and they want to achieve something either from them, their They enjoy community and they want to do something together for one reason or another. Where do you see the similarities or differences? As I believe now there are more and more communities popping up also in the world. So what have you learned from activism about community facilitation?

It's a good one. I think what I learned from activist spaces that helps me in community is the actual, the understanding of the need for community. Like, community is not something we decide to be from today to tomorrow. Like, it's not 5 of us meeting and we're saying, oh, we are community now. In community, we all, at least in my experience, come together because we're, we're seeking for something that might be fulfillment of an interest, that might be the need to learn something, that might be be an interest in communicating with others who do something similar or to work on, on a cause together. That's kind of like, for me, the basic building block of, of community. And, and that was what NDB does. Like, there are people who want to talk about facilitation and they don't have that anywhere else. So they come to the other people who want to talk to about facilitation and we decide to be a community. Plus, There's a certain degree of care we need to be community. Like, just you and me or 5 of us meeting, I don't know, once a month to talk about facilitation does not make us a community because there's no necessary— not necessarily any care for each other or for the whole thing. I think community lives also for this container that holds us matters to me.

Mm-hmm.

And I want to be part of creating this container and upholding this container. I remember in the, in the first festival that I joined back in the days as a, as a participant, I was in a, in a session on leadership. And I asked the question because I was new to NDB. So I didn't know much about this space. I was just like, oh, I follow Myriam and I was interested in this and I was like, oh, it looks like my kind of people. And I asked in this group, and it was about different types of leadership, and we were talking about what makes a good leader, and do we need a leader? And my question for them was like, would there be NDB if Miriam would say, I'm done with it? Like, I'm not gonna be your community host anymore. I'm like, I retire from this. And they still found ways to describe the community without you. As much as they loved you and wanted you to be part of it.

Even back then, that's good news.

Even back then, they had a very clear expression of what NDB means to them. So it's like, it's one is the community is something that satisfies a need you have. It is something you're part of caring for. And it's something that is meaningful for you. I think that's something also activists do. Like, I have the need. of doing something more with my life than to consume and exist. I care about a topic and it gives me meaning to do something about it. I think those 3 things are both there if you talk activism or if you talk community.

Yeah, and wanting to surround yourself with people who are like-minded and similar.

Rarely do activists meet with their opponents and be like, let's have a strategic meeting.

What a pity.

Yes, what a pity. Competing, but yeah, your core is still like, where can we nurture each other? And I think that's also what a facilitator can hold is like a space that nurtures, that allows others to, to care for each other. And we, because we really don't know sometimes, we don't know how to care, care. Like we don't know how to care for ourselves, but we also don't care, know how to care for others. And like in a way that is inclusive, empowering, upholding all of those things. And I think for me, facilitation is an act of care. I care about this group of participants. I care about their experience. I care. I want to hold that for them.

Yeah. Facilitation is an act of care. And have you observed something that works in the community that wouldn't work in an activist space or vice versa?

On top of my mind, I don't have one very concrete thing, but also like NDB is a little bit special in, in a certain way is that we very much believe in that this is not a buffet. You just go to NDB and pluck and choose what you want, but it's a lot of the idea of NDB is, is around the more you bring, the more you get. It's like, how can you contribute to that?

It's more potluck.

Like, yeah, it's more a potluck than a buffet. But I think in other communities, there's more sense of being served something. So here is the offering I'm giving you, this deck, where it becomes more transactional. And I think if it would be a more transactional community, like I pay for this, so I get, I think that, that wouldn't necessarily translate the same way into activism. It's like you give your time, so— That, that there's not a direct link. Like, okay, you, you volunteer for, I don't know, a neighborhood cleaning and you feel better. That transaction might work.

Yes.

Or you like your neighborhood more. So you help cleaning and your neighborhood is prettier.

Okay.

That, that is a transactional activity that works, but as sooner the problem gets more complex, just doing one thing does not result in the other necessarily.

And I think as an activist, it's kind of the pure definition is an intrinsic motivation of bringing yourself into something and contributing with whatever you have to offer.

Yeah, they're our Dare to Ask section. NDB is very, very activist. Yes. Like it's the section where everyone can ask their facilitation-related question and we get like 25 answers from community members across the world. It's like them volunteering, literally volunteering their knowledge.

Yeah.

Even though they're in a paid community and knowing that they enrich the other person by doing so.

Yeah, true. It's a little bit like the Wikipedia effect where people contribute their knowledge without being compensated for that other than with acknowledgement and appreciation.

Yeah.

Yeah. Which is maybe also in the nature of facilitators.

Yeah.

And that's why I'm actually surprised that there are not more facilitators in the activists, or I've heard from other activists that they would be in not facilitated meetings amongst activists, which then is almost heartbreaking.

Yeah, I think because one, it's kind of this idea we are of grassroots, like Kind of like grassroots scrappiness. We do all by ourselves. We are the facilitator, the community organizer, the comms person, and the whatever else all together at once. Like, it's very kind of in the nature of activism to be a bit more scrappy, like a little bit more DIY here. But then it's also— I find interesting, it's like movements cannot afford a professional facilitator, and maybe they're not enough activists who have facilitation skills and are willing to put their own opinions aside, because that's a big ask.

Good one.

Good one. If I'm just part of a grassroots movement, I go there to participate and not to facilitate.

And to make myself heard.

Yeah.

And to get a voice.

I'm for my solution or not my solution necessarily, but, but like The solution I believe in. Yeah, the solution I believe in. So it's like, yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, there is not the money to get an external person, not the structure to get an external person. I think we're still like, when we talk funding for movements or for activism, we still live in a world where informal groups don't have access to a lot of funding because you need a formal structure, you need, I don't know, a tax number, you need a A rulebook, a formal rulebook that's recognized by the state.

A constitution, yeah.

Yeah, and then you're in, uh, then you're a non-for-profit organization and then you can receive funding. Otherwise it's only funded from whatever else everyone can put in the middle. Yeah, it's kind of like that barrier exists, but then it's like, okay, I have my facilitation skills, but am I willing to give up on my opinion for it? It's a bargain, and not everyone does that.

Yeah, it's a beautiful moral dilemma. Am I willing to put my own opinion aside for the good of the group? Yeah, at the cost of—

For me, it's an easy bargain. I'm not a demonstrator, I don't do guerrilla campaigns or shit, not shit like that, sorry, but it's like, it doesn't come to me. So for me, it's like, oh, I can do something with facilitation, Wonderful. I volunteer all the time you can have.

And what remains your number one facilitation challenge?

I think for me, where I still need to find better ways is how can I support groups after the meeting or after the, the activity, especially when it's like ideation heavy. Sometimes like they go home with so many flip charts of ideas or concepts or, or thoughts or whatever. And then it's like, um, how do we do something with that? And I, for myself, still haven't found, for me, satisfying way of supporting them in the next steps after the workshop. So it's kind of like both the how can I support that long term, but also how can I end my workshop on a note that the outcomes on all of those flip charts are more manageable for whoever takes ownership of it afterwards. So that's like for me personally, like one that I still like try to, to tie a bow on.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Thank you. Yeah. There's one more topic that I would like to, to touch with you, which is visual facilitation or scribing.

Yeah.

And it's something that I found out only, what, maybe a year ago that you also scribe and almost fell off my chair. And so maybe for, for those who are not familiar with the term of a scribe, so maybe you want to explain what a scribe does.

What a scribe does, the very simple definition is a scribe draws live what is discussed in a meeting or is discussed in a panel discussion or what an expert expects in a visual way. That some of us, we work only in images, some A lot of text, some use little text, some use a mix, but it's about visually interpreting what is said. Yeah, I always say it's like putting it in another language that the brain can comprehend another way because we're visual learners as well as auditory learners. So seeing something while we hear it helps us understand it. Yeah.

And what I find fascinating is the nonlinearity of it.

Yes.

So it's not from, okay, we started the conversation here and then from left to right or right to left, draw whatever happens, but it emerges from within so that at the end it makes sense. And I would be curious, because what I realize what you do really well is this deep listening, that stuff appears on your visuals that Nobody else has recognized that they were even happening, but once they see it, I'm like, oh yeah, where did you learn to listen and then to translate into a visual?

The deep listening is very much part of my facilitator nature, because as a facilitator, I also think one of our skills is deep listening, is to pick up on the nuances that the group might, might not hear or might not see, and then Hmm, good question. I'm not entirely sure how to answer it. I know some scribes, they work a lot of— with a lot of prepared information, so they get a good note of the speech, what is going to be covered in the speech, what are high points, or what are certain keywords that should stand out. But when I started to scribe, I immediately started to scribe type more conversational spaces or even group processes and not necessarily a speech. There is not so much I can prepare. I mean, what I do is to prepare my visual vocabulary. So if I do something on the Sustainable Development Goals, I catch up on what are the different goals, what are colors that I use on that, what are symbols that are relating to those goals. All of this I kind of like build up before the event. But then I kind of like go with the flow, literally, and highlight what stands out to me. Maybe it's too simple.

And it actually makes sense, uh, you referring to what a facilitator does. And then it reminds me that some facilitators are really in the emergent— they're highly skilled in emergent facilitation, so deal with whatever comes up. And others really more into the process and define everything that is supposed to happen, even though it might change afterwards.

Yeah.

And it also reminds me, I interviewed Sunny Brown recently, the co-author of Gamestorming, and she started as a scribe and then scribed so many great facilitated sessions that she got into facilitation. Was it the same way for you, or did you start as a facilitator and then got into scribing?

I think I'm a facilitator first. I mean, I picked up by coincidence the knowledge of the existence of the 2 skills at the same training because at this first training where I learned about non-formal education, there were also 2 scribes and they gave like a 45-minute rundown of what is visual language. Mm-hmm. So we did a little bit of like the exercises, making visual metaphors, but it was really 45 minutes. That's all training I ever received on scribing, visual practice. And everything else is self-taught. So when I started, I listened to TED Talks and would draw them and sketch note them, and because I could press pause, so it was easy to kind of learn. Okay, I heard something I like, pause, draw, turn it back on, listen again. But I think the first time I scribed for a group was in a facilitated work, like, well, yeah, it wasn't a facilitated conversation, so I immediately started there instead of speeches, which is more traditional what scribers do. So yeah, even though I learned about them at the same time, I think the first love is facilitation. And that's why maybe I'm more emergent in my scribing than structured.

And last question, if I may.

You can have as many as you want.

Connecting the two, because Because we're, we're talking beforehand about the danger of judgment in activist spaces, because there's so much emotions and you can get so many things wrong.

Yeah.

By not being inclusive enough, by not having the illness, the visible illness that you mentioned before. How do you, air quotes, protect yourself when you scribe? from being blamed of not having used the appropriate visual language?

In a way, like, there's one easy measure. If I use people, I use them in different skin colors and with different physical attributes. So it's already a very inclusive approach I bring to representing people in my scribes. So I make sure I have different representation of hair. I have different representation of hair where I have different ages, I have people using crutches or whatever else I can do to diversify my human representation. Because that's, I think, where the criticism comes the easiest is that like everyone is white on your scribe, but actually this is a space of people with different skin colors. So I try there. But I also find that the things that I have in my scribe are often more conceptual things. So it's like collaboration. There's a way to show it with humans, or there is a way to show it through symbols.

Mm.

And I tend to be more on the symbolic side of the image than on the figurative side. So for me, it's more about that concept. than showing it in a— by drawing an interaction or something.

So less literal.

Yeah.

And thereby also safer so that everyone feels represented.

Yeah. And it's just about, like, let's say, for example, there is faith. Someone says faith or religion, and that's— it's a key point that I make sure it's different religious symbols. It's about me having a vocabulary that is wide enough to include or to be as inclusive as possible. Like, yeah, it's like kind of like knowing my vocabulary here. Yeah.

Fascinating. And then what is then, on the other hand, the danger of having different perceptions or definitions of a same symbol?

I mean, you always have a risk of not covering everything or not covering it in the way everyone wants it. But in my experience, like, people appreciate the effort. Like, if you already start from a relatively inclusive representation, people will forgive you the one thing you didn't catch as inclusive as possible.

Yeah, I totally get that. So, sorry, my question was misleading. It wasn't even the inclusivity, but The definition. So I think nowadays with emoticons—

Ah, okay.

We kind of get what they mean, and they have sort of expressions. But then, for instance, you said collaboration. So is the sign of 2 hands shaking or high five, is it always collaboration, or could it mean something else for someone else? Or is there a universal language for scribes?

I don't think there's a universal language. I think everyone, similar to facilitation, we're not neutral because everyone brings their own spices. But I think there is, to a certain point, representations that are more legible. Um, so yeah, for example, the, the, the idea of 2 hands shaking is some, like, it's a good one for collaboration. Like we do something together, like literally our, our hands crossing. It doesn't need to be shaking, but I rarely see someone zooming in on the individual symbols. So the way I scribe is often like I'm very half words, half symbols. So usually it has collaboration and then a symbol accommodating it. So people have an easier time reading it. So even if they don't get the symbol, because 2 hands touching can be connection, can be collaboration, can be welcome, can be so many things. But by accommodating it with or with context. Yeah, it helps to read. And then, yeah, they're just like thumbs up for something being good is very universal, even though in some cultures it reads as something else. But I think it's just like some things are very legible.

Yeah.

And then you stay there and like one sheet, one sheeting, one little sheet I do is when I don't know how to draw a word. I basically put into Google search the WordPress icon and then I see what Google suggests me. I'm like, I don't like— okay, I can, I can steal that.

I can feel inspired by that.

So it kind of helps me to have like the, the global beehive language of Google sometimes as a support.

Yeah. Good hack.

Yeah, I think that's the easiest cheat.

Nice. Thank you.

Yes, that was fun.

Spoke for almost 1.5 hours.

Yay!

Is there any—

I was so nervous that I was like, oh, we don't have enough. I'm like, I don't know.

It's never happened to me, or never happened to any of my guests, I should say.

You're a good host.

I invite interesting guests. Is there anything that you would have liked to share that we didn't touch upon?

I think one notion that I would like to share, which is true for everyone who holds spaces that are more on the emotional or the, the intense side of things, is to always think about how people leave your space.

Mm-hmm.

So if you're holding a space and things get really raw and people share their own experience, like it can get very, like, very emotionally tensing for people. And I think having a, a good exit or a good way for them to re-enter the world outside of your room— is it Zoom or is it, is it your physical room— helps them to, to not go out there this raw. Because we create a safer brave space in a certain way where this rawness is welcomed and supported and helped. But then if we go with the same rawness, call it vulnerability, into your next meeting with your— at your work, that same rawness has no home there. So you need to find ways to build bridges for your participants coming out of these kind of spaces to not be like— and the knife goes in the heart in the next meeting.

That's a very good Thank you.

Closing, closing.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome. That was fun.

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