Let me introduce Greg, a Russian!
Prabu, the cofounder of Facilitators’ Network Singapore, chittered as he put his fingers in front of his lips, looking extremely nervy.
But fortunately he’s a friendly Russian.
The crowd laughed.
Greg immediately put the music on, and got us to draw out 3 different pictures representing what we did, who we were, and why we had come to the workshop.
We were then supposed to introduce that to the group.
He then asked us to look at the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and to pick one that resonated for us.
I started sharing about how economic development was something that mattered deeply to me. As someone who ran a design agency that was now employing remote designers based in Indonesia, I felt guilty. Was I not giving Singaporeans a chance, by getting hooked onto the cheaper labour from abroad?
But how could I survive in a business environment like Singapore, where labour was so expensive?
I paused, wondering what I just shared. That was deeper than I expected.
What had Greg just done? He had just played some nice music, got us to draw some pictures, and then talk. There wasn’t even a professional facilitator in our group.
But somehow, we quickly felt the psychological safety to open up and share more.
Diagnostic, and dialogic work
It led me to see that what Greg had done was to create the container, where we could share. In the past, I used to think that facilitating good conversations had to come through an extremely structured process where I heard systematically from the participants, wrote down their points on a Flipchart, and then got them to share more.
But Greg showed me a different way.
Greg set up the space where we could share in a more unstructured way, from the outset. In the first activity, he insisted that we draw our introductions, rather than writing them out. This employed our ability to think visually, and differently to what we were used to.
How comfortable are you with uncertainty?
As facilitators, we face the tension between delivering an outcome the sponsor wants, and delivering an outcome the participants feels invested in.
Recently, when we were engaged to do a strategic retreat, I was anxious to deliver a highly structured process to our client. For the introductory visioning activity, I wanted them to talk and write about their vision.
I hoped that would reduce the need for any uncertainty in terms of the outputs produced.
My (wiser) co-facilitator recommended that we do a more visual activity, where we led them on a visual thinking process. We would get them to draw what they envisioned in 2026.
Fortunately, we did the visual process. My desire to control the process could have limited the creativity on their end. When we think of creativity, we often think of processes like drawing.
But what about sparking creativity through a game?
Through games we learn
Greg quickly introduced the SDG 2030 game, which was first started in 2016 in Japan.
What was interesting was the thinking behind the game.
We believe that for this transformation to occur, it is essential to have individuals and groups who make up those systems transform their own consciousness in tandem with the social systems they are trying to change.
This game helps people to have a higher level of mindfulness towards their own activities and choices in the world they live in.
Our group of 20 was split into 12 groups. We were then assigned a goal card, which told us what we were supposed to achieve.
But we were limited in terms of the amount of time and money we had.
To get more of these resources, we had to complete projects.
An example of a project is listed above.
The game seemed simple. Complete enough projects, and you would get to your goals.
But here, there was another snag.
To complete each project, you had to make sure that the World Condition Meter was just right. For example, in the ‘Build Transportation Infrastructure’ project, we had to have 3 blue dots or more under Economy. If we didn’t, we couldn’t complete the project.
But what if you wanted a project or a resource that you didn’t have, but which another team had? Well, you could ask them for it.
Negotiate, discuss, collaborate to get what you needed, in a way that made it palatable for the other party too.
These simple rules resulted in a complex game of choosing, deciding what to do at which time, and balancing that with the condition of the world.
But this game brought our choices to life, with every project that each group chose to undertake resulting in an indelible impact on the state of the world.
For example, one project my group decided to undertake was to ‘Promote Industrialisation’. The implicit cost of the project was that it would result in a decrease in the social aspect of the World Condition by 1.
Immediately I thought,
That sounds like an assumption.
Wouldn’t an economically poor society function worse than a highly industrialised society?
Whose assumptions were correct? The answer, as we always know, is that it depends. But playing such a game brought such assumptions to light, and helped us to be more aware.
Carmen Teo, the founder of Transform Heart Minds, used to be a high-flying corporate consultant. She was advising a big food corporation on how they could price their menus differently in varying areas to achieve maximum profit. Burnt out and tired, she turned to mindfulness to find rest.
That practice helped her to see that what she was doing was not sustainable for planet and people. Whilst profit was definitely increasing, dynamically pricing products could sometimes mean that people who could not afford to buy the meals, might not be able to eat.
That was dangerous. Sometimes, simply being more mindful of how we are habitually approaching certain issues can be the first step.
You might not need to do anything, but being mindful of your mental habits can be a big step forward.
Even in our approach to the growing concern around climate change, we might already see certain mental models quickly popping up.
Where do you find answers?
When we come to such big issues, often the tendency is to think that the issue is too big to solve and that our efforts wouldn’t count for much.
After ending the game, I walked up to Greg, feeling somewhat indignant. I had played the game for 2 hours, but I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do!
Gently, Greg told me that sometimes, these games could be more of a conversation-starter than an idea-generator.
It bears in mind one of the core essences of being a process facilitator.
We aren’t there to find answers. We are there to guide people to find their own.
Byline
John is the writer of 3 books, and regularly writes articles about adulting at Live Young and Well.
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