Joy of Facilitation

In August 2009 I attended a workshop organized by Bhumi called Leading to Light. It was a workshop on Personal Mastery and Transformational Communication. I had the amazing opportunity to meet a host of trainers who delivered the wonderful program. I liked the job they were doing and casually inquired what it takes to be a trainer.

At Leading to Light I had the life changing opportunity to meet Kiran Gulrajani. He told me that I’m meant to be a facilitator (from my birth date). He also mentioned to me about a unique program he conducts for facilitators called Tao of Facilitation. Prior to meeting Kiran also I had done some training and facilitation.

I continued to wonder how the facilitation journey (actually revenue stream) will take shape. Kiran kept in touch. When Kiran was conducting Tao of Facilitation (ToF) in Hyderabad in Dec 2009, he cushed (loving push) me into the program. ToF was perhaps the single most important element in my journey of facilitation, I can say this in hindsight. We learnt much about ourselves during the program and I came out of the sessions thinking deeply about myself. I also wondered how this was remotely connected to facilitation.

The journey moved on and I kept meeting people in different capacities. When I started paying attention to the different capacities I was involved in one day I suddenly realized I was a facilitator in many ways. I was facilitator as a management consultant, I was a facilitator on the negotiating table, I was a facilitator as a mentor to my team and obviously I was a facilitator while delivering training programs. This revelation that facilitation was part and parcel of my life began to show how few ToF learning I was able to apply in situations. As I became aware that I’m a facilitator the approach to the situations came from depths of the self which would invariably benefit scene of application.

Recently I facilitated a small session at a Bhumi Personal Mastery session. As I could quietly apply what I had learnt at ToF it was a truly joyful experience. While there is much to learn and a long way to go to be a good facilitator, what remains underlined is the Joy of Facilitation.

That’s the story from Tao of Facilitation to Joy of Facilitation.

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