Review of "The Skilled Facilitator"

I wanted to read parts of the book The Skilled Facilitator by Roger M. Schwartz, because it was suggested to me as an in-depth work, and Schwartz is an expert in facilitative leadership and facilitation in organizations. In a chapter on Guidelines for Using Experiential Exercises, Schwartz looks at experiential exercises in a critical way. This chapter is interesting to me because Schwartz gives cautions about using them, whereas other authors I've read have been more in their favor. He warns that they should be "consistent with the core values and principles of group facilitation", and that the "exercise needs to generate valid information", among other things (p. 374).

His main point, I think, is that the exercises shouldn't be forced, artificial, and rely on deception--for example an exercise where participants are asked to solve a puzzle that is missing a piece. He is also saying that experiential exercises really need to be tailored and valid for each specific group, and should provide actual useful information for the group to improve its functioning. Schwartz says: "In some situations, members learn more when the experience comes from the group's real tasks, and they experience the full consequences of group process." (p. 376) So, many experiential exercises probably may not fit this bill in an extensive, developmental facilitation approach for an organization.

This critical perspective of ineffective experiential exercises has made me think again about what the purpose of percussion-based experiential exercises is. Can a group drumming really engender changes in group behavior and effectiveness? Does a debriefing technique (such as the one I'm studying--funneling), really make an impact as far as carrying the learning forward into a person's work or life? Does the experiential exercise really have an impact?

Some ways that I think that group drumming/percussion-based experiential exercises ARE effective:

- they allow group members to function as a group (playing the group rhythm), but in a way that is out of their usual experience
- they increase feelings of well-being and stress relief (the benefit of the HealthRhythms approach)
- they allow a kinesthetic and musical experience in a low-stress setting; basically, participants can use their musical intelligence and have fun
- they allow groups to have a memorable, unique experience

Looking at this list, and having read several books now on facilitation for changing group behavior and improving group process, I can't help but feel that group drumming is only a small piece of the puzzle. From what I've seen and experienced in the group drumming sessions I've facilitated, it is fun and energizing, and can engender positive group feelings. But it's only one of many tools, and really has to be aligned with an overall learning goal to be effective.

Fresh Air

To give some context of my state of mind, today I read some from a book about creativity, wrote a song that came to me in a flash of inspiration, and got a much-needed therapeutic massage. I'm on Spring Break, and feel like I can catch a breath of fresh air.

With this awareness of wanting to slow down, I can feel my mind turning into introspection, to reflection. I am keeping the momentum going, but slowing down a bit, too. In the next few weeks, I'm going to work on laying the groundwork for another "percussion-based experiential exercise" for students. Let it Spring.

Processing the Experience: Drum Away Your Stress Session (2/24/11)

I can't believe that I've facilitated three drum circles at BSU in the last two weeks!

Only 4 people attended the most recent "percussion-based experiential exercise" that was sponsored by the BSU campus wellness group, but even then it was energizing and fun; the drum song was a good one. Because of the low turnout, I decided to do things a bit differently, and only asked a couple of brief "How did that feel?" questions (the What Happened? funneling question). During an informal conversation with a couple of people at the end of the experience, one person told me how it reminded him of his background in dance, and how he would like to get back into dance; so I would say that the circle might have helped them recall that, learn something about himself (the so what?), and apply the learning to his life (the now what?).

I am beginning to learn that the debriefing methods (such as funneling) may be best used in specific circumstances with specific audiences. In the end, it really depends on the purpose of the drum circle you are facilitating. Judging the three most recent experiences, I would say that the more oriented toward fun and stress relief the circle is, the less useful are the debriefing questions. The BSU Women's Hockey team seemed to have a mixed view of the debriefing questions--some said that the experience was too short to really go that deep in questioning, but some said that the questions were useful to think about and discuss. On the other hand, if the exercise were part of a larger experience, perhaps over a few hours or a one-day workshop, I could see the funneling questions having more of an impact on the learning.

At this point in the project, I would say that I've learned a bit about the funneling technique, through applying it in real situations; however, I do want to try out a different debriefing method (such as "Rounds",where participants in a circle each answer a simple question with a word/phrase, number, or by playing on their drum ) in a future circle--perhaps at a conference presentation such as ALA REFORMA, or an Association for Experiential Education conference.

Processing the Experience: Traditional Skills Workshop - Drumming (2/17/11)

The Traditional Skills - Drumming workshop was a different group from the hockey team, high energy and great grooves Participants were mostly students (some who had real drum circle experience!), but also a community member, a faculty member, and a few kids; it was neat that people came out to participate on a Thursday night! It was also great to have the help of the Sustainability office staff to promote the session, and to have a staff member there to help out with setup (and to drum as well).

The students really wanted to play, and mid-stream I decided this one would be better served to do some great drumming together, talk a bit about the traditional aspect of drumming, and to teach some basic ethnic rhythms. So, I skipped the debriefing exercises, except by quickly checking in about how the drumming rounds felt.

As far as my continuing goal to improve my drum circle facilitation skills, these two experiences felt like stepping stones to a higher level of familiarity with my own personal style and approach to group drumming. Being prepared for both (by outlining the session) made me more comfortable during the experiences, and more flexible to change in mid-course, because I know my overall goals. Keeping these goals in mind--practicing debriefing exercises and deepening my facilitation skills--helped me integrate the learning and apply it to my life. Who knows, there may be opportunities for repeat sessions.

One area of improvement for next time: I wish that I had prepared more information about the roots of ethnic drumming (from West Africa, etc.), and also brought in more of the research I've done on drumming in American Indian culture. I decided to make this circle more about drumming than teaching or lecturing, but perhaps in the future I could structure it with a bit more interspersed information--though I did provide some information brief tidbits about traditional/indigenous drumming.

Overall, a really fun circle, and good learning experience!

Processing the Experience: BSU Women's Hockey Team (2/16/11)

This was such a great and energizing experience to have, of the three I'm doing this month. The athletes were very attentive and helpful (even helped pack and unpack the drums!), and we all had fun as we went through a drumming ice-breaker and a couple of basic rhythms together. A memory I'll take with me is the smiles on our faces, as we got into some fun grooves.

This experience also gave me a chance to try a structured debriefing of the drumming with a test group. The debriefing questions focused on applying the experience to team work, hockey, and life. It was nice to process the experience with a willing group in a very team-oriented setting. I also got some great feedback at the end (using a quick pencil survey). It gave me much to ponder over

The question on the survey about the utility of the debriefing questions were telling. A good number of participants thought they were only somewhat useful, and that they would rather be playing than talking! (perhaps a difference between aural/oral learners and kinesthetic learners?) Perhaps one-shot circles like this are more about having fun and de-stressing, rather than reflecting? Depending on the group, more or less structured debriefing activities may be appropriate. I will definitely document the survey responses for this project, because they were interesting and helpful.

I was definitely feeling good after this experience....thanks to the BSU Women's Hockey assistant coach for taking a chance on a different team-building activity, and thanks to the athletes for being such good sports!

BSU Women's Hockey Drum Circle

As I plan for Wednesday's experience with the BSU Women's Hockey team, I found that some of the ideas that I read about in The Essential Elements of Facilitation (by Simon Priest, Michael Gass, and Lee Gillis) were sticking with me. In particular, they focus a chapter on the funneling technique, which is variation on the questions of--What? So What, Now What? These questions can guide participants through the processing of an experiential learning activity.

Here is what I am planning to ask the hockey players after we've gone through a couple of rounds of the group drumming:

• What? (Review and Reflect on Experience)

⁃ How did that feel? Encourage to first play it on your drum, then tell us what it felt like.
⁃ How do you think you sounded together?
⁃ Did anything surprise you?

• So What? (Apply and Generalize the learning...what did you learn?)

⁃ What did you learn about yourself from this experience?
⁃ What did you learn about your teammates during this experience (if anything, invite comments)

• Now What? (Commit to action or change)

⁃ What, if anything, might you try to carry forward from this experience to your hockey playing, or your team, or the game on Friday?

I'm really getting excited to do 2 drum circles this week! The other one is the Traditional Skills Workshop, being sponsored by the BSU Sustainability Office. I'm hoping to get some good feedback about how the debriefing exercise and questions worked (or didn't work).

Luckner and Nadler

I found the Luckner and Nadler text Processing the Experience a good read because they ground their discussion of effective debriefing on the foundational theories of experiential learning. They argue that learning (and all effective learning, they would say, is experiential in nature) takes place in a cycle of Experiencing, Reflecting, Generalizing, and Applying, in a continuous feedback loop.

While reading some of the chapters of the text that seemed to be relevant to this project (much of the book was relevant, because debriefing and processing the experience are pretty much one in the same), I noted with interest the best-practices the authors suggest to guide processing (debriefing) activities after an experience. They suggest

• to structure regular periods within an experience for reflection/processing
• to vary the type or method of processing used, so that one does not get stuck in a rut
  
• to ask open-ended questions of participants (for deeper learning), and to start with simple to more complex questions
• to give specific and relevant feedback; avoid generalities

Little Drummer Boy

The month of February brings several opportunities to play the "little drummer boy". I'm excited about them because they will each be different, and will challenge me to design the group drumming experiences to enhance some learning objectives, using the debriefing activities that are the focus of my project this semester.

The first one coming up will be open to the public, and will focus more on the drumming as a traditional activity (part of the BSU campus Traditional Skills Workshops series), and so will have more of a general flavor. The second will be specifically for the BSU Women's Hockey team, and will focus on team-building and some stress relief (the last game of the season is the day after the session). The last will be a session for campus faculty and staff, and will be more for wellness and stress relief.

Also, I'm currently reading the experiential learning text book "Processing the Experience: Strategies to Enhance and Generalize Learning" by John Luckner and Reldan Nadler, on which I'll provide more details in a later post.

Reading

Sitting on my desk now are several books about facilitation from the organizational development perspective, written by experts in the field (as well as some online readings). One reading from an eBook on facilitation edited by Biech, called "Creatively Debriefing Group Activities" (author: Beaulieu), had a nice summary of the debriefing stage of a facilitated learning activity.

In short, the debriefing stage occurs right after the experiential learning activity, and is intended to help participants understand what happened in the exercise and why it happened. Ideally, they can then apply this knowledge to their organization or work situation. Some of the questions asked at this stage include:

1. What happened during the activity?
2. Why did it happen?
3. Does anything like that ever happen in work (at home, in life, etc.)?
4. Why does it happen?
5. What might you do differently to improve the work (home, life, etc.) situation?
   

Overall, in the debriefing stage, participants can process what they've been through, and apply the learning in a relevant context, such as their work or life situation.

The article was also interesting because it outlined some inherent challenges of the debriefing stage. Debriefing the activity is usually harder than the activity itself because, according to Beaulieu, it forces participants to speak in public, give spontaneous or unplanned comments, follow a structure that is sometimes only known to the facilitator, and to discuss objectively a situation that they were a subjective participant in. It also is hard sometimes for participants to analyze their own and others behaviors and motivations right after the experiential exercise.

Beaulieu suggests some creative ways to debrief groups, which I would like to follow up on in my own practice. He suggests, first of all, to give people advance time to prepare for debriefing, perhaps by giving people time to read, reflect, or discuss in small groups the questions that will be posed.

One creative way to debrief, which I would like to use, is to use a game-like activity that extends the energy and spontaneity of the original exercise into the debriefing period. For example, I could have participants in a drum circle reflect on the debriefing questions for a minute, and instead of saying out loud their answer, ask them to use the drum or percussion instrument to express their answer or feelings about the experience. Finally, he also suggests moving the focus of debriefing from the facilitator to pairs or small groups, where participants are more likely to "own" their learning, and may feel less constrained to speak about what they experienced.

I'm excited to begin using debriefing techniques in the two drum circles I will be facilitating in February. Drum circle facilitation as a new way of facilitating groups was pioneered by Aurthur Hull, considered the "father of the community drum circle movement", and I am currently reading his textbook on drum circle facilitation--"Drum Circle Facilitation: Building Community Through Rhythm".

Reviving the Blog

The act of revisiting this blog has a special sense at this time in mid-January, during a cold and snowy northern Minnesota winter. The sun is slowly and surely lengthening the days as this month goes on. That means it is time to return to the Circle, and pick up some threads that were left over from a previous project in which I explored teambuilding methods, including group drumming, for organizational development. This time around, the thread I want to focus on is how to use debriefing methods to process the experience of a facilitated "percussion-based experiential exercise", to borrow a term from my colleague Keith Russell from the University of Kansas.

Here's a taste of what this semester's project will be "all about":

My research questions are: What are some best practices skilled facilitators use to debrief experiential exercises? What is the funneling facilitation technique? What is it used for, and why?

Which debriefing techniques are most effective in percussion-based experiential exercises (group drumming), and why?

And my learning outcomes: 1) to learn more about debriefing techniques (such as funneling) used in group facilitation. 2) To more effectively facilitate group learning with debriefing methods, and to evaluate their use in percussion-based experiential exercises (group drumming)

As I planned out my project calendar and envisioned how the next few months would go, I got an excited feeling, as well as a lessened feeling of anxiety--funny how filling out a calendar can help you settle into a better mental space. I can see that the pieces of the puzzle should hopefully fall into place to have a successful "journey". I'm already slated to do a percussion-based exercise for a "Traditional Skills Workshop" next month (sponsored by my workplace, Bemidji State University's, Office of Sustainability), and have a couple of other drum circle opportunities in the works. I hope that the synergy between this project and the drum circles continues to build. I am excited about what the next few months will bring!