Facilitation Lab Podcast

"Take that risk, take that step forward. Don't think about it, just do it. Sometimes you just have to take that step, and by doing that, my life changed completely."- Tony Toto In this episode of the Facilitation Lab Podcast, host Douglas Ferguson converses with Tony Toto, a facilitator at the Outdoor Wisconsin Leadership School. Tony shares his journey from real estate to facilitation, emphasizin...

"I think that is one of the best gifts that you can give other people is yes, we're all just chemical biological beings at the beginning of these, and we have all the choices in the world to go somewhere else."- Nathan Hughes In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson converses with Nathan Hughes, COO and co-founder of Detroit Labs. Nathan shares his journey from a tech...

"I take the opportunity to build culture and connection with that team to make them stronger. And that's something that's really rewarding for me—when I leave the process to see after nine months of working with them that this team is much more close, more connected, and trusts each other more.."- Julie Baeb In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson speaks with Julie B...

"Now more than ever, we need facilitation, which is different than being a facilitator."- Jim Kalbach In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, Douglas Ferguson talks with Jim Kalbach, Chief Evangelist at MURAL and author, about his facilitation journey and expertise in mapping. Jim shares a pivotal experience leading a workshop at LexisNexis and how it propelled his career. He discusses th...

"Change is inevitable; it's how you adapt to it. It's the tools that you look for, the how do you want to grow so that you can adapt better to these changes that come your way."- Neallie Kani In this podcast episode, Douglas Ferguson hosts Nelly Carney, a UX Specialist from Hogan Assessments, who shares her facilitation journey and the impact of leadership classes on her career. She discusses the...

"I allow myself to be very vulnerable and open because I know I'll grow in it, but I also know it helps others step into being vulnerable alongside me."- Susan Wilson-Golab In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, Douglas Ferguson converses with Susan Wilson Go Lab about her evolution from a K-12 district administrator to an expert in educational leadership and facilitation. Susan delves i...

"Delight is actually a combination of multiple emotions; it is joy coupled with surprise. So, I've really been thinking about how I can bring in more of that delight with very small tweaks to our everyday rituals at my company."- JJ Rogers In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson speaks with JJ Rogers, Director of Product Design at Watermark and a facilitation expert....

"I am a poor participant when I am poorly led, but when I'm well led through a process, I'm really willing to play along."- Rebecca Sutherns In this podcast episode of the Facilitation Lab, host Douglas Ferguson talks with Dr. Rebecca Southern about her journey in facilitation and the nuances of group work. Dr. Southern, with 27 years of experience and authorship of three books, including "Elastic...

"We need facilitators to create that room. There are very few and the scientists who are quite enthusiastic as well as the decision leaders, what they know right now is PowerPoint one PowerPoint after another. And which is quite boring but they don't know what to do, how different, what other ways can we do it, can we pass on this information? Any sector that you talk about within Africa, they wil...

"I think that is my superpower. I do connect. I believe that no one can be successful without the other. We need each other to thrive and we have to realize that we are strong in certain areas and others are strong in other areas. And together, when we do connect, we can do really incredible stuff. So I like connecting people, where people are talking to me and in my mind, I'm already thinking who...

"It was a humbling experience because I was the one leading those unproductive meetings or leading the teams astray and just talking about the work and really not having any action items or decisive plan of action afterwards. It was both a humbling experience but also really exciting because I felt like it was that itch that was finally scratched for me. You see it in action and you realize, yep,...

""When you just take the time to apply a few of these facilitation techniques, it really can help people focus, help them make better, more efficient decisions, and ultimately feel like they're all bought in on it."" - Phil Canning In this episode of the Facilitation Lab podcast, host Douglas Ferguson talks to Phil Canning, leader of the Human Centered Design Studio and Facilitation Practice at Al...

"Listening in the silence, observing, seeing what's not being said in that silence, that tells a whole story as well." - Reshma Khan In this podcast episode, Douglas Ferguson interviews Reshma Aziz Khan, the CEO and Founder of Kenzo Consulting Limited. They discuss Reshma's background in the nonprofit sector and her interest in facilitation. Reshma shares a story about her first experience working...

"We live in such a polarized world right now, at least in the US, and I'm not going to get into that, but I think it is important that we be able to hear each other, really hear each other. Not necessarily agree, but how do we start to move a little bit closer to each other? And probably that's going to have to be through complicated, messy conversations and real listening." In this episode of the...

We are excited to announce that Control the Room is now the Facilitation Lab podcast!

"In today's world, compassion and kindness in the business environment is the most valuable thing that you can bring to your business or any working session." - Eli Wood In this podcast episode, Douglas Ferguson and Eli Wood discuss the importance of facilitation in working with interdisciplinary teams and building successful products and business offerings. They emphasize that facilitation is not...

In this podcast episode, Douglas welcomes Tim Creasy, the Chief Innovation Officer at Prosci, to discuss the field of change management. Tim shares his origin story and how he became interested in understanding human systems and implementing change at scale. They discuss the intersection of economics and political science, the concept of systems thinking, and the potential impact of generative AI...

"It's to stamp out boring workshops around the world forever because i think if you do have the opportunity to bring teams together or people together that's kind of sacred time so how do you get and this isn't about getting the biggest roi but how do you make it more meaningful and a once in a lifetime opportunity for them? - Leanne Hughes In this episode of the Control Room podcast, Leanne Hughe...

"I wanted to find a different way to think about the future and specifically wanted to understand the decision making process that leaders go through when they're facing extraordinary amounts of uncertainty. Because frankly, a lot of what I saw was just bad behavior. I was really lucky in finding my way to this extraordinary community of learners, of questioners, of facilitators, of designers. It...

"Well, for me, I like to think of ensemble as a behavior rather than a specific group of people. And to think of ensemble behavior as a situation when I'm looking at the group that I'm with and we are working to make something that's different than what any one of us would make on our own, and that this specific ensemble I'm going to work with to support the thing that we are going to make togethe...

"I mean, frankly, in a lot of ways it's kind of a frightening time. So both of my parents are artists and I've grown up surrounded by musicians and artists of all different kinds, and a lot of them are reaching out to me and asking about with things like Dolly or most people know of Mid-Journey, the website that kind of aggregates a lot of these generated images, what's going to happen to their li...

"Design systems are the tool that enable us to step out of being individual makers, crafters on particular interfaces. And it elevates our craft to a point where we're able to spend more time focusing on our users, bringing in our stakeholders, collaborating more and less time just kind of grinding through production. That might be scary to some people, but I genuinely think it'll be a better job...

" I feel like I'm a unicorn at times because I'm able to speak different languages in the way that I can connect with people, right? So I was a solar entrepreneur. The pain points that I would have as a solo entrepreneur and growing and scaling and leading teams of contractors, I've done that, or working at a large global company and running an employee resource group along with doing a ton of sal...

"... that ties back to OKRs because it's like what is the one thing that we're going to work on? And that's hard to do, because if you try to focus on 10 things, you're not focusing on anything. But that's what's nice about OKRs and why they can be helpful in meetings or saying no to meetings because well, that's not what my OKR is, that's not what we're focusing on, or we're not hitting this obje...

" Transitions are scary. Change is scary. So depending on the context, it could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing. And all of that can activate our fear response and our grief response. So there's a lot of neuroscience theory and brain science theory around transitions and change that we can talk about. But I think for me personally, I always feel like I step into the light. I'm very curiou...