LA WORKSHOPPEUSE

Facilitator Sticky Diaries

Hi Reader🙋🏼‍♀️

I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve spent over 20 years working inside companies and organizations—leading interdisciplinary and multicultural teams.

And you know what used to drive me absolutely crazy?

👉 The silos.
👉 The unspoken assumptions.
👉 The emotional reactions in meetings (yes, people shouting at each other).
👉 The misunderstandings that kept conversations polite—but unproductive.

There is always a gap between

what we think,

what we say,

and what others hear and understand.

Give the same information to an engineer, a purchaser, and someone in assembly—and you’ll get 3 different interpretations.

That’s normal. But back then, I didn’t know how to work with it.

That’s when I began to develop my facilitation skills — not out of curiosity, but out of necessity. I wanted them to collaborate, get the job done, and save me the chaos of constant misalignment as a project manager.

Here are a few things I tried that actually worked:

🧠 3 Ways to Help Teams Collaborate (Without Forcing It)

Sometimes, it starts with simple things—obvious, even. But that's how I began to shift back then. Some of the foundations I now share with team leaders to help them support their teams better, along with great resources that made a difference for me too.

Clarify roles and expectations early. Even before the kick-off, I’d make sure everyone knew their roles, responsibilities, and what I expected as project lead. This prevented 90% of confusion later.
Establish positive and agreed behaviors . One tool I loved is the Team Contract by Strategyzer. It helped teams define how they wanted to work together—not just what they needed to do. This brought ownership, accountability, and reduced tension. Download it for free
Design productive meetings. Make sure meetings have a clear agenda communicated in advance, defined objectives, and tangible outcomes. One great resource here is “Magical Meetings: Reinvent How Your Team Works Together” by Douglas Ferguson & John Fitch—highly recommended!
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That was years ago. But I believe it’s even more valuable now.

Because the pace of change isn’t slowing down.

Not in projects, Not in teams, Not in organizations, Not even in the world!

We’re all leading and collaborating at the edge of what’s been called a Permacrisis—a constant state of change, challenge, and uncertainty.

And that brings me to this week’s podcast conversation…

🎧 This week on There’s a Workshop for That

I talk with Ceri Newton-Sargunar—a neuroscientist, facilitator, interaction specialist and chaologist (yes, that term exists!).

Honestly, I wish I had someone like Ceri by my side back in my project management days. Because her work is exactly about helping leaders lead through permacrisis.

What is it exactly—and how can we navigate it as leaders and as facilitators?

That’s what we dive into in this episode.