4c Unity

Group and Team Facilitation

Generates extraordinary ideas and excellent results

from your team meetings or offsite, with ease and in record time

I invite you to contact me to discuss your facilitation requirements.

Mail Marjoleine Dates & Book

Group and Team Facilitation

Generates extraordinary ideas and excellent results

from your team meetings or offsite, with ease and in record time

I invite you to contact me to discuss your facilitation requirements.

Mail Marjoleine Dates & Book

Innovation, Inclusiveness & Trust

Let’s give each other our generative attention so that everyone can think deeply. In meetings where people truly appreciate each other’s thinking, and therefore truly listen, strategies are better formed, goals are better achieved, budgets are better set, products and services are better delivered. Things like respect, inspiration, innovation, engagement, inclusiveness, trust, are given a real chance.

The results of our meetings and of everything we do depend on the quality of the thinking we do beforehand. The quality of our thinking depends on how we treat each other while thinking.

As a Time To Think Facilitator, I produce this quality of thinking and decision making in your group. Together, we create a Thinking Environment where everyone has an equal say, is heard and respected, and feels safe. Everyone in the group can do excellent thinking. How would that be?

We do this by applying the following 10 components:

These 10 components we commit to as a group make everyone feel more relaxed and confident. All participants can think more deeply and thus come up with better ideas.

When we give sincere attention with interest, people think better. That means listening without interrupting, without opinion and in silence.
Seeing each other as equal thinkers, regardless of hierarchy. Each is given equal time to think and talk to tap into all the potential present in each. Everyone is asked to speak briefly and concisely.
Be at ease so that others can be at ease too, regardless of haste and urgency. Haste and urgency worsen the quality of thinking.
See and mention what you appreciate in the other person. Appreciation creates well-being for all of us and it fuels positivity and creativity.
Should feelings arise, we make space for them and acknowledge them, in order to be able to think properly again. People think better when feelings are allowed to be. Otherwise it blocks them.
Encouragement. Encourage the other person to go to undiscovered thinking by asking open-ended questions beginning with “how” and “what”.
Just enough information. When everyone has all the information, it makes thinking clearer in service of the topic and everyone’s thinking.
Celebrating differences in a group. Diversity makes everyone’s thinking and outcomes better, more diverse and richer through cross-pollination.
Incisive question is a question that frees the brain from limiting untrue assumptions about the situation, yourself or others. Negative assumptions hold the group back from taking the next step. The incisive question helps you look for creative solutions. It taps into your resourcefulness.
Place. Create an environment, meaning the meeting room or online space, as well as the listener’s body that radiates to the other: “You matter. I sincerely want to know what you are thinking.”.

What does this look like during a meeting, gathering, workshop, offsite or conversation?

Nancy Kline has developed several applications that meet the 10 components and encourage people to deepen their thinking and share their best ideas. The applications suitable for group faciliation are Thinking Pairs, Dialogue, Round, Open Discussion and/or the Time to Think Council. These applications can be used individually or in combination during a meeting and will be facilitated by me.

Thinking Pairs

Two people form a group and take turns thinking deeply and listening intently to the other. Each person chooses their own topic that they want to think about. This can be anything.

Dialogue

Two people form a group together thinking about the same question with short, frequent turns back and forth.

Rounds

Systematic uninterrupted rounds to hear everyone’s opinions and ideas, also of the quiet people.

Open discussion

Everyone can speak, with no particular order. No one “chases” the speaker. No one interrupts the speaker. The speaker keeps his promise to be brief.

The Thinking Council

If there is a dilemma or problem that needs to be solved, it can be formulated into a question and presented to colleagues. Everyone speaks from their own experience and shares their ideas that come to mind. This gives you access to the wisdom of your colleagues.

Mindfulness as an additional option

If desired, it is possible to combine Time to Think Group Facilitation with yoga, breathing and/or meditation. The way we breathe affects how we think, feel and act. Being aware helps you to understand what is on your mind and in your heart. It then allows you to listen more deeply to each other and understand each other better. Your team will bond more and be able to produce better ideas and solutions.

Cultural awareness

As a business anthropologist, I help people listen between the lines to ‘catch’ the signals, interpret them correctly, tune your own message properly to the other person and think deeply with people with different cultural backgrounds to arrive at the best insights, solutions, decisions and actions.

What do you and your team want?

You determine the topic of the meeting and the needs to be met.

do you need a decision?
do you need new ideas?
do you want to discover the implications of a past decision?
do you need everyone to say how they feel?
do you need to hear and consider new information?
do you need to bring each other up to date?
do you need to face something dangerous?
is there a need to connect with each other now?

As a facilitator, I help you set the agenda in advance. We formulate each agenda item into an open-ended question, which prompts the brains of the invitees to think deeply beforehand and during the meeting.

Contact

I invite you to contact me to discuss your facilitation requirements and for me to understand your business context and what you want to accomplish for the day or during the meeting.

Mail Marjoleine Dates & Book

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Hofstad 6
5298 AP Liempde
The Netherlands
contact@4cunity.com
+31 (0)6 30209326