From Conflict to Creative Breakthrough: Dynamic Facilitation in Action

Dynamic Facilitation (DF) is a high-energy way for groups to enter a state of creative flow, where differences become a resource for transformation and breakthrough thinking. This non-linear approach helps people work on complex challenges with authenticity and creativity. It is effective in a variety of contexts including organizational strategic planning, project teams, and civic participation initiatives.

Dynamic Facilitation is a key part of the award-winning deliberative Citizens’ Council process in Vorarlberg, Austria, and has a history of application in organizational settings around the world. In all cases, it’s known for generating deep insights at the head level (e.g., a group “aha!”) and the heart level (e.g., reconciled relationships, renewed motivation and commitment).

This unique approach helps facilitators maximize the creative tension in a group, while at the same time, minimizing interpersonal anxiety.

Facilitators who have trained in this approach report the following benefits:

• greater ease in working with conflict
• grounded trust in a group’s emergent process
• greater skill at helping participants shift from defensiveness to engagement
• greater ability to help groups enter into and remain in a state of flow

We are hosting this workshop out of our desire to increase our shared capacity for working with tension and fostering collective breakthroughs here in the Bay Area. We hope this seeds a strong learning community and network of practitioners so we can work together to apply skillfulness to the challenges humanity is facing today.

About Rosa

Rosa Zubizarreta, the principal at Diapraxis, is one of the leading DF trainers in the world today, the author of From Conflict to Creative Collaboration, which has been translated to German, Spanish, and Russian. A much earlier version is available online as the Manual for Dynamic Facilitation, and you can find more articles on this method on her website.

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Who is this training for?

This workshop is for anyone who facilitates groups — especially groups that need to accomplish something challenging and come together through the process. We are particularly calling in civic practitioners, though are equally motivated to apply it in organizational and business contexts.

What’s the cost?

Tickets are $495, with a sliding scale. Rates include light-breakfast and snacks. If you would like to talk about sliding scale tickets, please email share@civicmakers.com.

What to expect

We will ground in the tools and experiences that people bring into the room, introduce the DF theory, work through a large group demonstration, and then spend the majority of our time working in practice groups. Every participant will have a chance to lead in the practice groups and receive feedback & coaching from Rosa.

Expressions of interest

To create a rich and balanced group and to begin the learning process before arriving at the workshop, we are asking interested people to respond to a few questions beforehand. This includes something about your previous experience with facilitation and why you are interested in attending.

Testimonials

“…a dynamic shift in the capacity of the participants and the group as a whole to hold diversity and complexity with their eyes and hearts wide open.” – Former DF workshop participant

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DiaPraxis’ Guiding Principles

• As humans, our natural tendency is to care about one another and want to contribute. Of course, whenever we are hurt, frustrated, or burnt out, we tend to hide how much we care.
• Each person has a valuable contribution to make. All of us are continually trying to make sense of the world around us, given the information we have available. Yet when humans feel threatened, we can easily become protective and defensive.
• No one likes feeling stuck. While all of us can get stuck in unproductive beliefs or unhelpful interactional patterns, feeling stuck is not fun for anyone. At the same time, our shared understanding deepens when we are able to consider each perspective with empathy.
• When we experience a shift in perspective, new possibilities become apparent. As Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems by using the same kind of thinking that we used when we created them.”
• We can ALL learn how to create a space in which “shift happens”. Clients often comment that this work “feels like magic”. Yet there is both an art and a science to creating spaces that are conducive for shared meaning-making.