“What I often share with people is that oftentimes at a party, we're doing things together, but separately. Like there's this story we tell ourselves like, "Oh, I'm United with everyone around me," but there's actually very little eye contact. There's very little touch. There's very little attention that we put on each other in these maladapted party environments. So yeah, creating more of that sense of unity and belonging and seeing each other is something that, yeah, I'm obsessed with. And that's why I have like a toolkit of hundreds of games and songs.” -Jacques W Martiquet

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jacques W Martiquet about his time working as an International Facilitator who designs belonging experiences for people-first companies and unusual events.  He shares why it’s ironic that the more he learns about facilitation and human connection, the less he identifies with the word ‘party’.  Later, Jacques explains why his work as an EMT and obsession with public health, and specifically, the health benefits of human connection lead to his current career.  We then discuss a few of his favorite terms like ‘fun quotient and the ‘threshold of acceptability.   Listen in for inspiration on how to host your own events that put human connection first.  

“And to your earlier point about complexity, most of those kinds of models and titles and bands and blah, blah, blah, are complicated solutions that don't serve well in complexity. And so my job as an org designer is to say, what is the lightest most elegant, most intuitive solution that equips us to navigate complexity rather than what is a complicated and over-engineered solution that doesn't actually do anything to cut through complexity, it's just an exercise that we have to go through.” -Rodney Evans

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Rodney Evans about her 20+ years as an adaptive organization designer and future of work consultant.  She shares how rebellion first lead to her interest in helping teams explore new ways of working together and self-managing systems.  Later, Rodney asks some great questions like: “what does it take to help teams thrive?  What are some good foundational agreements for teams?  And what does participatory change look like?”  We then discuss the criteria for filtering out bad clients to work with.  Listen in for inspiration on how to build the shared responsibility to help teams execute their own change.  

“I think we're going to be as vulnerable as we're comfortable or as vulnerable as we're aware. To be a leader today, I think to be able to be vulnerable, to model vulnerability, we still have to be aware of our own stories, and what are we comfortable sharing of our own stories? What are we comfortable sharing of all parts of ourselves? In writing, my book, one of the things that came through loud and clear, is it's one thing for me to be vulnerable with my employees, right? But one place that I found a lot of men expressed fear in the interviews I conducted, was the fear of being vulnerable in front of other men, regardless of if it's at work or outside of the workplace.” -Sean Harvey

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Sean Harvey about his 20+years of experience working in personal, organizational, and societal transformation as a Purpose, Talent, and Org Development consultant.  He explains how the healing work of men serves as a critical lever and catalyst for building compassionate bridges across society.  We then discuss heart transformation and how to use it to understand yourself.  Listen in for inspiration on how to use compassion to unlock the healing power of men.

“We're now entering the fourth industrial revolution, and I think this is really where Jobs 3.0 is happening. And if I had to describe it in one word, I would probably say fluid. It's a much more fluid model, and it comes down to all those different things we touched upon. It's the global citizen, it's the role of the office. It also comes down to your background in education, how that role will play, and these new structures of DAOs, and the way you are being compensated.  One thing as well to add there, which I think is going to be a huge role is truly your skillset and how you evolve that. I think there's going to be a lot of importance of having a mix of hard and soft skills. So as we know, you have to, regardless of what job you have, you need to have some sort of technical skills. And I mean, I'm personally, doesn't come from a technical background, but I do realize that there are certain ways that I can upskill in terms of being more technical. And I need to focus on that.” -Yasmine Morrison

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Yasmine Morrison about her diverse background in management consulting, venture capital and entrepreneurship and how it has informed her view on the future of work.  She explores why lifestyles will determine the locations we work from, the future of collaboration, and the global talent pool.  We then discuss Decentralized Autonomous Organization and how to best contribute to them.  Listen in for more reasons for more tips on how to best prepare for work 3.0.

“Yeah. I think the facilitative approach to leadership it's all the good things about leadership like bringing active listening skills to a group, being able to encourage and generate participative discussion and groups. Help stimulate creative thinking through different brainstorming and idea generation processes. Help people work through different problem spaces. Being able to draw out the opinions of people in objective and non-judgmental ways, be able to create that psychological safety. Help shape more powerful and strategic questions that teams can explore, but being a manager for so long, I've intuitively developed these skills, like really worked on building better empathy and better listening skills, but I haven't found a structured approach to really developing myself in that. It's more like gut intuition and just practice and finding this more structured, tangible skillset of facilitation has been really empowering for me here. I was like, there are actual tools and different techniques that you can learn and frameworks that you can develop yourself and to become better at all these things as the leader.” -Nicole Richard

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Nicole Richard about her ample experience leading product teams, developing STEAM programs for children around the world, and studying the nuances of facilitation.  She shares how to get colleagues to try new collaborative approaches to work and potential pitfalls.  We then discuss her facilitation training and the importance of developing the language and narrative to share your professional aspirations.  Listen in for more reasons to give yourself more grace at work.

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lauren Green about her facilitation journey.  She shares how Organizational Development has changed over the past few decades, how dance has influenced her practice, and how to incorporate more movement into your meetings.  We then discuss why a wider range of leaders need facilitation training and the importance of strong participant communication before and after meetings.  Listen in for practical tips to improve your hybrid meetings.

“It's nice to have someone who is an expert in social behavior, right? Anthropologists, historians, scientists are great UX designers, are great UX researchers. There's no real difference in futures thinking. I think one of the myths that we're trying to dispel is that futures thinking is not this whole other or body of practice like service design isn't a whole other body of practice. It's still designed, it's still systems thinking. They just have some different tools such as a service blueprint, right?” -Phil Balagtas

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Phil Balagtas about his experience working as a Designer with a focus on Futures Thinking.  He starts with an overview of the ethics if Futures Thinking, their implications, and how more thoughtful ethical questions could lead to better decisions.  We then discuss how to study and practice Futures Thinking.  Listen in to learn practical frameworks to introduce Futures Thinking into your organization.

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Denise Withers about her journey becoming a Story Coach and helping leaders drive change.  She shares the importance of developing your Narrative Intelligence to improve our abilities to learn, solve problems, and make sense of the world.  We then discuss stories' influence on culture, change initiatives, and leadership development.  Listen in to learn more about why we need to think beyond just telling stories and start noticing the problem the story is solving.  

“Why does change fail? There are so many reasons why change can fail. I think you could pick from anything. When working on change, change is very much a journey. It's a reason why people call it a journey. The word journey symbolizes a lot of things. It symbolizes the up and downs that you're going to go through, the fact that it's not just going to be smooth. That it's going to have challenges along the way. That it's going to take time.” -Tricia Conyers

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tricia Conyers about her years of experience facilitating change, helping people shift mindsets, and leading reflections.  She shares the importance of tracking the experience of change journies individually and collectively.  We then discuss psychological safety, micro-changes, and liminal spaces.  Listen in to learn more about helping people to get the most out of each other.

“What I learned when I shifted from acting to consensus building and facilitating is, you've got to let go of the idea that people are there for you and you've got to let go of the idea that you're the most important person in the room, that the show's about you, but there's still a similarity around what it means to steward the emotions of the room. And I still carry that from the theater days.  And I believe that a good facilitator is acutely aware of the energy in the room and is constantly tweaking their approach to make sure that they're taking care of the people that are there.” -Reagan Pugh

In this episode of Control the Room, I had the pleasure of speaking with Reagan Pugh about his extensive experience facilitating groups, stewarding the emotions of the room, and consensus-building.  He shares how his background in theater has influenced his current work. We then discuss the importance of getting your mind right, visualizing, and self-awareness before working with groups. Listen in to learn about the neuroscience of presencing and being aware of the current state.