Archive for Facilitative Leadership

Aug/19/10//Curtis Ogden//Facilitative Leadership

Portrait of a Facilitative Leader

Erich Jarvis is a neurobiologist at Duke University and a specialist in bird songs and calls.  He was raised in New York City, attended the School for the Performing Arts (where he was an accomplished dancer), and went on to study birds while a student at Hunter College and Rockefeller University.  His ongoing research suggests that birds are more intelligent than we give them credit for, and Jarvis hopes that his focus on the complexity behind bird songs will lead to therapies for human beings with speech problems.

There are those in the scientific community who have objected to Jarvis’ and others’ assertions about avian intelligence, in part because the terminology used to describe a bird’s brain had long emphasized its primitiveness. This is precisely what Jarvis set out to change a few years ago.  He took it upon himself to pull together colleagues from around the country and across disciplines to collaboratively rename parts of the avian brain. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jun/22/10//Gibrán Rivera//Facilitative Leadership

Facilitative Leadership

seven practices

Over the next three days I will have the privilege of training the Interaction Institute’s Facilitative Leadership® workshop.  Just yesterday I was talking to my colleague Curtis Ogden and asking him for his latest tips on offering this workshop.  As often happens with us, our conversation evolved into a very interesting inquiry. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jun/03/10//Curtis Ogden//Facilitative Leadership

Whose Problem Is It?

I have been struck by how much guidance an enlightened parenting concept I recently learned offers to the work of leadership and facilitation.  The concept comes from a book that a neighbor lent to my wife and me as we were beginning to think more about how best to address some our 4 year old daughter’s testing of limits.

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May/18/10//Curtis Ogden//Facilitative Leadership

Vision, Microtrending

A couple of weeks ago, during a training with early childhood advocates from around Connecticut, an interesting conversation ensued about vision.   This was prompted by one participant’s comment that in this day and age, “There is no such thing as vision.  There is no such thing as magic or miracles.  People are cynical.  People just don’t respond to vision anymore.”  There was some immediate push back to this comment, and also some acknowledgment that vision may not be what it used to be, thinking of the old standards a la MLK and JFK.

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Apr/15/10//Curtis Ogden//Facilitative Leadership

Working the Lizard in Us

Science has confirmed what many of us feel, that we are each more than one person.  We are minds and bodies, left brains and right brains, controlled and automatic responders.  This last division is due in part to the fact that we each have more than one brain.  Our old reptilian brain is what we can depend on to keep us safe from physical harm most of the time.  Our newest brain is what gives birth to the wonders of critical thought and creativity.  The amazement I feel about the evolution of our higher thinking is dampened somewhat by my understanding and experience that my multiple brains are not often well coordinated.  I walk into a meeting on the one hand (or brain) excited to facilitate, while on the other I am anxious, my more primitive wiring believing there’s a saber toothed tiger in the corner).  Welcome to what Seth Godin calls “the lizard” inside.

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