From free jazz and the musical echelons of piano concerto, to indigenous beats and the didgeridoo, this week’s episode is an invitation into the wondrous world of Music Thinking. Christof Zürn is the inventor of this mindset; his storied background in musicology, creative direction and service design became the symphony to his brainchild. He now helps organisations to apply the principles of music to their daily lives, offering a new lexicon with which to interpret and understand business,...

It is wonder, curiosity and imagination wrapped up in one. It is both a suspension from reality and way of navigating the world, a problem solver, a flow of creativity, a creative outlet, a language and a state of mind. It is: play! And true to its nature, we cannot possibly box play into one definition. Lily Higgins, Pauline McNaulty and Jules Gilleland join me in my digital playground this week to unpeel the many layers of play: purposeful play, play without agenda, play as the essence of...

We are all made of stars. The elements of our bodies were first forged in celestial matter across the cosmos billions of years ago. As humans, we tend to think of ourselves as separate from nature, but we are of course, nature itself. So when Life Guide, astrologist and founder of Happiness U, Alice Inoue introduced me to her fascinating psychometric assessment based on the five elements of ancient traditional Chinese medicine - water, wood, fire, earth and metal – I knew this conversation...

Earlier this year, SessionLab published the second edition of their State of Facilitation report, surveying the ever-evolving landscape of our profession. 93 countries, 372 hours spent answering the survey and a generous 975 respondents later, and the NeverDoneBefore community joins together with the SessionLab community to put the 2024 report findings under a facilitation magnifying glass in our very first fishbowl conversation! Together, we dissect three juicy and provocative, yet important...

From her debut in episode 53, to episode 261 many years later, my guest this week Tanja Murphy-Ilibasic makes her return to the podcast this week! Tanja is a corporate coach, facilitator and communications specialist - and a master at manifesting potential. But potential, the capacity for future success, is only possible with the right conditions at play and the energy to propel it forward. We unravel the dynamics of effective facilitation, the necessary conditions and questions we must ask,...

The act of naming something gives it presence, it makes it visible. So how then, do we navigate something as infinite and nameworthy as facilitation, when invisibility is so often its modus operandi? Scrum-master, agile-coach and chief explorer of Exploration Labs, Charles-Louis de Maere joins me this week for a juicy, macro-to-micro exploration into facilitation as we toy with this question. We discuss the power of surrender: why stepping back, ditching the instructions, and detaching...

This week we take a look through the iridescent, rainbow lens of leadership, with Dr Steve Yacovelli, aka ‘The Gay Leadership Dude™’, to ask the question: what does it mean to be a truly inclusive leader? Well beyond the DEI acronym and its all too often tick-box allyship mentality, we explore the essence of inclusive leadership and what every impactful leader can learn from the six competencies that naturally show up in the LGBTQ+ community: being authentic, leading with courage, having...

Can I get your attention? Because this week, I have none other than Colonel Walt Holmes with me on the show, Air Force Commander, author, and master facilitator of community-based education. Walt has been helping individuals to progress through the ranks of military units – and of life – since the 1999s, designing the systems for success in both soldiers and students. His 5 levels of achievement offers a unique gamified approach to change: encouraging meaningful metric-based accountability,...

Dominant, supportive. Immediate value, gradual value. Explicit, implicit. Scarcity, abundance. Consultant, Facilitator. It might be tempting to view the roles of a consultant, and that of a facilitator, through these opposing dichotomies, but nothing is ever really that black and white. And as Benjamin Taylor and I speak about this week, there’s a great deal to be learnt from the intersection of the two! This episode takes a look at facilitation through the meta-lens; from afar, we inspect it...

Dialogue is a form of sense-making in motion. Thoughts become words become ideas, and ideas then enter reality splintering into fresh, new routes of discussion – a map begins to form, ready to be navigated. Although, that map might not always have the right people reading it, it may even have dead-ends along the way, or the wrong starting point entirely. This is where Amanda Harding comes in! As a Curator of Conversation, she designs a third space for deliberate dialogue to be held between a...

Is there an art to creating human connection? My guest this week Yaniv Rose, would certainly say so. As an Authentic Relator, his craft lies in facilitating deeper, more meaningful connections - transforming the relationship we have with ourselves, and the one we have with others. It’s a tool for life: a grounding practice that asks us to consciously observe, fine-tune, and recalibrate our human interactions by showing up unequivocally as our truest selves. And when we rewire ourselves to...

Master-manipulator, con-artist… facilitator? When we think of manipulation, facilitation is probably the last thing that springs to mind. We are neutral, we are trusted shepherds, we encourage emergence! So where does the line between manipulation and facilitation start, and where does it end? This week, my brilliant colleagues Thomas Lahnthaler, Cate Czerwinski, Shamir Joseph and Florentine Versteeg sat down with me to examine this ethically grey, but endlessly fascinating area. We explore...

Motivation is a complex, elusive creature. We either have it, or we don’t, right? But what if I told you, there is a science to motivation, after all? And motivation mogul Ahmet Tamtekin has cracked its code! His passion project for coaching led him to discover his life’s purpose: motivation, how we experience it, how to read it as a language, and how to inspire it in others. He now uses the wonders of neuroscience to tap into our wildly differing motivators, to boost team performance and get...

And, action! This week, Stoyan Yankov takes us on a journey from behind the clapperboard to discuss the fascinating symmetries between movie production and facilitation. The world of cinema can be unpredictable, filled with plot twists, creative agendas and diverse characters, and when the metaphorical smoke-machine breaks, it requires a sixth sense for when to keep the camera rolling, and when to end scene. Stoyan joins us with all the learnings, stories and curiosities he’s collected in his...

We all speak the language of music. It’s life’s medicine, a beautiful escape when we need one, and it feeds our soul in ways that feel, somehow, inexplicable. But there is of course method to the magic. Musician, vocalist, singer, and songwriter Sam McNeill has been singing all his life – from the Sydney Opera House, to the heavyweight headquarters of Spotify - he now works as a musical facilitator for SongDivision, bonding teams all over the world through the science of music. In their...

From the US Military, to the world of professional coaching, my guest this week is not only an ex-army officer, but an executive coach, leadership mentor, facilitator, and an inexorably passionate learner. At aged 17, Pat D’Amico was enlisted into Valley Forge Military Academy where he went on to serve in multiple humanitarian and combat deployments around the world. But it was here in military training, that his personal leadership journey began. It shaped him into the exceptional...

This episode is a special one! You’re invited to time travel back to the NeverDoneBefore Festival, and join me in my virtual podcast boat where I speak to six of our talented facilitators over the 24-hour event: Becky Sawle, Sonja Sinz, Mirjam Leunissen, Célia Rene Corail, Etrit Shkreli and Marianne Oh.  It’s a jam-packed journey, full of rich, multifaceted wisdom; each conversation offers a fascinating and thoughtful perspective, making the next hour and a half an exploration into...

My guest this week is not an artist, nor a designer, but a facilitaper. A self-confessed chaotic creative, Matthias Lenssen has honed his craft over the past 10 years, finding creative freedom and wonderous new ways to facilitate with a bare wall and simple rolls of coloured tape. His workshops spark curiosity among participants, encourage exploration of movement, illustrate stories and ideas, and establish creative parameters. In the process, Matthias transforms his spaces into an...

Most of us live our lives in a natural, psychological state of comfort. It’s cushioned, it’s safe - it’s what we know. But what happens when we dare to seek out the unknown? When we raise our heads above the parapet of comfort? Jenny Theolin dares to live her life in this space. As a facilitator, she braves the difficult questions, has a sixth sense for when to change course, and has curated a toolkit of techniques that intuitively challenge participants to yield the greatest impact. After...

The fundamental skills of leadership have changed in the 2020s. Whether you’re brand-new to a leadership role or a seasoned veteran, the remote work boom has added a new layer of complexity to your work. What does it mean to lead in a virtual space and how can we connect, communicate, and inspire others without that face-to-face contact? Stephan Dohrn has been asking these questions for longer than most. In fact, they have been key to his work with Radical Inclusion, Remote-how, and his own...

A sense of belonging is one of the incalculable elements of a healthy, happy team. It’s either there or it’s not, right? Not so, as Kate Spacek explains in this episode. Kate’s work, for many years, has been in the realm of belonging: how we feel it, generate it, and nurture it. That work has brought her closer and closer to a strong thesis: that movement, sensing, and awareness are foundational to the whole process. In this episode, she shares the journey of discover she’s been on, the most...

From the basketball courts of Northern Ireland to the C-suites of tech giants, Tony McGarahan just can’t stop coaching! After a decade at Google, Tony set up his own training and people development company, People Playbook. Calling on experience from Sweden to Singapore, Tony’s honed his skills worldwide and with a huge range of groups. In that time, he’s found some common truths and universal experiences. He shares them in this episode — dribbling between basketball and facilitation,...

Changing behaviour is something of a holy grail in our line of work. It’s one thing to help a group see things in a new light, but to integrate it in a way that creates lasting change… that’s the ultimate goal. As one might expect, its not the easiest task. Shamir Joseph’s approach to this challenge is especially interesting to me — because he isn’t focused purely on one variable. He looks at the full picture of facilitation: frameworks, methodologies, inner game, repetitions. It’s refreshing...

The corporate world can feel like a theme park — a place that’s recognisably ‘of our world’, with all the normal features (people, furniture, work), but an unshakeable feeling that something is… unreal. People aren’t quite themselves, conversations and relationships don’t work the way they do elsewhere in life, and the coffee often tastes strange! Göran Hielscher notices it, too, and his work in corporate workshops looks to undo this unrealness and bring something more authentic to the room....