Greetings, dear friends -
Hello, my name is Liane, I earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, and this month, I served as facilitator for seven events: one (1) leadership workshop in a university environmental science course, three (3) planning meetings for Conscious Dance, and three (3) Conscious Dance sessions. (This is not a usual schedule for me, but my future schedule could be more like this!)
You may have some questions. I do too, and I have been working out some answers.
What is a facilitator?
I like Wikipedia’s take on this one: a facilitator is “a person who helps a group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives during meetings or discussions.”
How so?
The facilitator “contributes structure and process to interactions so groups are able to function effectively and make high quality decisions.” The structures and processes encourage everyone present to participate fully, work to mutually understand each other, and share responsibility for the group’s visions and activities. “By supporting everyone to do their best thinking, a facilitator enables group members to search for inclusive solutions and build sustainable agreements.”
In other words, a facilitator helps the members of a group to contribute and to connect those contributions in a way that addresses the issue at hand, or, if consensus cannot be reached, the facilitator helps the group understand the differences.
Either way, the group moves forward to being more like it wants to be.
What does this have to do with chemistry?
This is all about connections. You can have smart people in the room, talented people in the room, people who are really good at doing what they do. What they achieve as a team, however, hinges on how they connect with each other.
Have you ever felt like you wasted time in a meeting that didn’t stay on track?
Or where contributors couldn’t agree or deliver their contributions in a fair way?
Or where some people took up way more airtime than others and the final decision felt like a product of the loudest people rather than a balanced involvement?
Have you ever wanted to contribute in a meeting but felt like you didn’t get the opportunity?
Often, these issues stem from the quality of the connections in the room more than the quality of the people.
Let’s switch to an example in chemistry – what’s the difference between starch and cellulose?
Starch – the carbohydrate in potatoes, bread, pasta, and many other foods we call ‘carbs’.
Cellulose – is the non-digestible part of dietary fiber, the material most responsible for plant structure, and primary fiber for paper, rayon, and even some plastics.
In chemical composition – nothing. They’re the same. They have the exact same number of carbons, oxygens, and hydrogens.
Furthermore, their building blocks are the same – they’re both made of glucose, one of the simplest sugar molecules.
Starch is made of chains of glucose molecules.
Cellulose is also made of chains of glucose molecules.
The difference is – the chains of glucose in starch tend to be quite flexible and sometimes fold into a spiral-like shape. These chains are relatively easy for our digestive system to break apart and extract energy to fuel our bodies.
In cellulose, the chains of glucose are more regular, more ‘straight’, in a way that parallel chains can form bonds (hydrogen bonds for you chemists out there). This arrangement allows them to form a rigid material – plant structure, paper, fabric, and plastics, all materials that the human digestive system cannot handle well.
If there are no connections between the glucose molecules, then you just have glucose.
Back to the question – what does chemistry have to do with facilitation?
Facilitation is all about human chemistry. What outcome and characteristics would the group like to have as a result of interacting with each other?
A facilitator can enable a group to connect with each other to reach their vision as a group.
What does this look like for my leadership workshops?
My leadership workshops aim to raise self-awareness, promote reflection, review core skills of listening, understanding, and communication, and provide opportunities for participants to practice these core skills.
Depending on the audience, group size, and their common interests (e.g. sustainability), each workshop is designed to engage participants to learn about themselves and each other in the context of leadership, both anonymously and through interaction in pairs or small groups. These exercises help individuals ‘feel out’ and internalize what it takes to listen, interpret, and influence. We can find plenty of knowledge on the internet, but the only way to get good at these skills is to use them.
In some ways, the facilitator can act like a coach on the sports field, giving guidelines and rules for the exercises, and if possible, speaking up when needed to enforce the practice. Unlike sports though, there may be no perfect form, no exact right way for many of these skills. They are highly contextual.
Leadership is an activity, regardless of title, and by the end of the workshop, participants of any role will have identified an area in their life and/or work where they would like to drive change, raised their awareness of a few skills that will help them work with others toward, and named a few actions that will help them move forward.
What does this look like for planning meetings?
When I facilitate planning meetings for Conscious Dance, I hold a structure that enables everyone on the call to contribute while biasing us toward actions that address tensions and issues within our operations.
In other words, there are rules of order to the meeting. There is a segment where we build and agree to the agenda in real-time before we go into the agenda items one-by-one, giving us a roadmap for our one hour together. For agenda items, there is a system for moving toward a decision by starting with proposals to solve issues, raising clarifying questions, giving each person present an opportunity to contribute their reactions and suggestions, and opportunities for the proposer to revise their proposal and opportunities for anyone to raise an objection if they feel the proposal could do harm to the organization if implemented.
The method enables the group to arrive at the next step on addressing issues in a way that stays on topic while fostering inclusive participation. So far, it works well for a small group of 3-8 people.
Its success hinges on the buy-in of all participants to follow the structure and their consent for the facilitator to call out and disrupt any participation that might be out of turn and/or take the group off track. This requires moment-to-moment awareness and discretion.
I wasn’t born with these skills and they are very much supported by connecting with published knowledge and a much more experienced organizational facilitator.
I SO wish I knew about these skills in my research science career.
What does this look like on the dance floor?
The Conscious Dance Monday sessions give individuals a space to explore their own connection to movement, music, and a theme. This space is non-judgmental and can be quite collaborative. It’s not a class – there is guidance to facilitate our attendees getting in touch with their bodies, their inner world, and then their outer world in the room – including the shape of the space and the other dancers.
Through instructions delivered with words and timing in tune with the human energy in the room and the music, the facilitator invites dancers to experiment with movements and imagination by themselves and with each other. This can invoke insights, or just draw out the inner children to play, freely and confidently.
Now you have an idea as to how, as a chemist, I am still mixing it up – just with more focus on human potential now.
Over to you – let’s see if I can facilitate something for you today…
What is an area or activity in your life where you must coordinate with other people and where you would like that coordination to feel easier?
It can be academic, professional, personal – whatever comes to you right now.
To what extent is everyone in your group aligned in a shared goal, vision, purpose, and/or plan?
In what ways is everyone participating fully?
In what ways has each person been heard?
What are three (3) actions you can do towards working together with your counterparts are your shared effort(s)?
These need not be large actions. They can be as simple as – write about this in my journal to untangle my brain, talk with a supportive person, share a thought/concern/invitation with someone, ask something you’ve been afraid to ask.
Would you like to share this with your coach/facilitator?
Feel free to do so by replying to this email.
Positive change is a long road. Hang in there, and thank you for your consistent support!
Upcoming in November, 2023!
Exact dates and EventBrite link to register coming soon!
This month’s science post
This month, instead of our usual summary of another team’s publication , we are celebrating one of our own!
Health disparities are everywhere and we are unlikely reach health equity when diversity among health professionals does not represent the diverse population they serve.
What is it going to take to increase diversity in a field like health informatics in the United States?
Angelita Howard, EdD, MBA, MAT, FACHDM, LSSYB and her colleagues at Morehouse School of Medicine have been tackling this question for the past five years and are ongoing. Their intensive Summer Bridge programs expose members of ethnic and racial groups that are underrepresented in health informatics, biotechnology, and related fields to:
✅ Industry-relevant skills
✅ Professional certification
✅ Business experience
✅ Advanced graduate training opportunities
Students who complete these programs are perfectly positioned for an Master's degree in one of these specialties, expanding their opportunities for careers that lead social and industry change.
This month, I’m pleased that we are celebrating “Bridge to health informatics—a 5-week intensive online program to increase diversity in health informatics” now published in the STEM Education section of the journal Frontiers in Education.
Congratulations to my amazing collaborators! Angelita Howard, EdD, MBA, MAT, FACHDM, LSSYB Consuela S. Simmonds, MSHI Nia Kennedy Rebecca McPherson, M.S., Ph.D. Keisha Bentley, MSBT, M.Ed.
More information on the next Bridge to Health Informatics program
Human Resources – the most important resource in any enterprise
Rachelle Conradie - Hong Kong-based Expressive Arts Therapist and mental health professional. Fueled by growing up in a racially divided South Africa, Rachelle has devoted her career to bringing connection and healing through research, arts, movement, and clinical practice, sometimes all together. Prior to Hong Kong, she researched and worked at Leiden University, The Netherlands, where she also built a movement-based business incorporating neurological studies, different movement forms and body awareness, within her Nia Technique and extended yoga training.
Having deep respect for the healing that is possible in connection with nature, she chose to specialize in nature-based work during the dissertation she recently completed in the Expressive Arts Therapy professional program at the University of Hong Kong. She also formally qualified with the required clinical hours with diverse populations in HK including elderly clients, stroke patients, schools, ethnic minorities, and mothers in need.
She is the go-to professional for groups and individuals, especially those who wish to understand the environmental impact on mental health and increasing nature connection to promote wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour change. Anyone ready to enliven and rediscover ’spark’ in their lives can benefit from the guidance of her eclectic expertise, clinical experience, multi-cultural perspective, and bright humor.
She is also involved with community work for individuals in financial need and is a regular facilitator with Conscious Dance Hong Kong. She frequently holds workshops and is open for collaboration, commissions, and individual sessions. Her next wellbeing offering will be 7-8 October at the Vision Festival, to promote nature connection and wellbeing through the arts.
Interesting Reads
Bangkok Eight - a novel by John Burdett, published - A crime novel starring a half-Thai, half-American, totally Buddhist cop cracking the case around an American marine murdered with snakes written in language invoking all the senses needed to navigate Bangkok. If you’re OK with a little spoiling, you can enjoy the 2003 review in the New York Times by David Willis McCullough.
Anthony Fauci on becoming the ‘devil’ and a warning for his successor - An interview in the September 25, 2023 issue of Science magazine. After 38 years at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) during which he advised seven (7) United States presidents on outbreaks, most famously COVID-19, Anthony Fauci retired in December 2022 at the age of 83. According to Science writer Jon Cohen, he was able to visit and interview Dr. Fauci for a whole uninterrupted hour, during which they explored perceptions, policies, and what he might teach when he resumes teaching at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in Spring 2024.
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About
The Clear Water RoundUp is Clear Water Science Consulting’s regular newsletter – a collection of sharable business updates and insights, news from select locales, and features of interesting people and media.
Clear Water Science Consulting provides coaching and communication solutions to bring clarity to complex and often confusing situations. Lately, we are focused on leadership - especially empowering the leader in each of us through personalized coaching, workshops, web content, and academic publications.
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