Midwest Facilitation Network
2001 Event Schedule

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2001 Schedule
25th Facilitators' Conference
(Winter Conference)
Friday
January 12, 2001
Summit Executive Centre,
Chicago, IL
(Downtown Chicago)
Managing Up!—Strategies To Build A Career-Advancing Relationship with Your Managers, Supervisors, And Executives
Improving the quality and effectiveness of your relationships with supervisors and managers is the foundation for career success. “Managing Up!” is the art of managing your relationships with higher ups in order to get results such as being listened to, having your ideas respected and getting decisions in a timely fashion. 
Michael Singer Dobson
(Dobson Books) & 
Deborah Singer Dobson
(GATX Corporation)
Leadership Coaching: How to Break Through Resistance When the “Heat is On”
No matter how good your facilitation, if a leader gets stuck in resistance, the project will get stuck as well.  Coaching can help leaders get “unstuck.”  This session will show how to guide a leader to move from resistance to readiness.  It will show how a coach can help a leader notice recurring patterns and see his or her part in the impasses. 
Toni Hupp 
(Organizations by Design)
Facilitating Innovation: Structuring Knowledge, Identifying the Real Problem, Systematically Developing Inventive Ideas and Turning them into Implementable Concepts
This presentation provides the latest information on the structurization and facilitation of the innovation process.  Attendees will receive practical knowledge about the basic premises of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) and its advanced application.  TRIZ provides the ability to raise the creativity and innovation skills of large groups of employees responsible for resolving technological problems.
Dana Clarke
(Ideation International Inc.)
Leadership Roles in Creating Value for Organizational Stakeholders
Effective leaders are continually learning and finding new ways to work collaboratively, to encourage teamwork, to motivate individuals and to generate results. In this highly interactive workshop, participants will examine and document what leaders do that either creates or destroys value for organizational stakeholders.
Bob Shaver 
(University of Wisconsin-Madison 
School of Business - Executive Education)
26th Facilitators' Conference
(Spring Conference)
Friday
April 27, 2001
Accenture,
Chicago, IL
(Downtown Chicago)
Morning: Coping with Agreement in Organizations or How to Deal with the The Abilene Paradox
Have you ever wondered why organizations frequently make decisions that no one agrees with, including the people who make them?  This session will deal with the symptoms, causes and treatment of such bizarre organizational behavior. Click here to download a PowerPoint version of The Abilene Paradox
8:30am
Dr. Jerry Harvey
(George Washington University)
Afternoon: The Road FROM Abilene - How Far Have We Come from the Abilene Paradox and from Groupthink? The afternoon will begin with a full-group discussion, break into multiple simultaneous tracks, then conclude with a full-group de-brief.  The purpose of the afternoon sessions is to examine tools and processes that can help us uncover and share internal dialogues and learning.  This could include the development of various non-structured learning communities that encourage disclosure, dialogue and discovery, beyond the scope of this conference.

The track coordinators will briefly reflect on Jerry's morning session and it's relevance to their breakout.  Each will give an overview of possible session direction and objectives. Participants will have the opportunity to provide input to clarify or re-calibrate session direction and objectives.

Track 1 - Built to Die: Can Awareness of Organization Mortality Bring Added Meaning to Its Existence? 
Roger Breisch and Gretchen Neve will convene a dialogue on the topic of organization mortality, and how our natural inclination towards sustainability at any cost can lead to groupthink and organizational dysfunction. 
Roger Breisch 
(The Webber Group) &
Gretchen Neve
Track 2 - Minding the Bumps in the Road FROM Abilene: Group Intelligence, Not Groupthink!
Gil Herman will lead a group in examining various ways participants have found to facilitate group discussions around burning issues that get the most and best ideas on the table.
Gil Herman
(Managing Horizons)
Track 3 - Rules, Games and Exercises of Improv Theatre to Facilitate Brainstorming and Teamwork in Organizations.
Brendan Sullivan will lead a workshop on a group's struggle to remain, creative, positive and supportive while also daring to take away the keys before getting in the car and leaving for Abilene.
Brendan Sullivan
(Corporate Creativity Coach)
Track 4 - Candor and Rigor in Organizational Problem Solving.
Paul Collins and Carl Aylen will facilitate a session in which participants will get hands-on experience using techniques and tools that help individuals and groups get beyond the superficial attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that may inhibit them from being better problem seekers as well as problem solvers.
Paul Collins 
(Jordan-Webb) & 
Dr Carl Aylen
(The Cambridge Don)
Shared Discoveries and Learnings The full group re-convenes to de-brief and share discoveries and learnings from the breakouts.
6th Skills Development  Workshop
(Summer Workshop)
Monday-Tuesday
August 6-7, 2001
BP Amoco - Cantera Two Conference Center,
Warrenville, IL (Naperville)
(W Chicago Suburb)
Graphical Facilitation
This workshop is designed to help facilitators, trainers, consultants and presenters develop skills in adding graphic images to flip charts to in order to illustrate concepts.  Participants will see demonstrations and then will practice drawing simple shapes, objects and people and will learn to identify when and how to apply graphics to specific situations.
Monday 8:30am
Arnie Gallenbeck 
(John Deere Horicon Works)
Selling Strategies for Internal & External Consultants
Whether you are working as an internal or external consultant, you still have to get your prospective customer to "buy into" what you are offering.  This requires you to understand some things about your prospective customer and about the process of selling.  This workshop is designed to help you learn how your customer probably views you and your service(s), and to give you some practical strategies for improving your concepts of and your approaches to the selling process. 
Monday 1:30pm
Merit Gest 
(Total Selling Solutions)
Keeping the Energy and Motivation Flowing - Turning Ingenious Thoughts and Ideas into Actions
After attending a training session, listening to a powerful motivational tape series or reading a good book by an inspiring author, your adrenaline begins to rush and you may feel heightened energy and compelled to take some bold action steps in your life.  Hours later, that excitement may have dwindled as your energy is now focused on dealing with the day-to-day necessities of life and work.  Participants in this session will learn how to harness the energy developed in those moments of euphoria, how to maintain motivation and how to turn those ingenious thoughts and ideas into actions.
Tuesday 8:30am
Frank Mallinder & Lynne Murray
(Nightingale-Conant)
I-TRIZ:  The Next Generation of Business Problem Solving and Employee Empowerment 
This session will provide participants with information on the underlying theory, advancement and practical application of the inventive problem solving, I-TRIZ, for the purpose of empowerment of employees, to identify business process improvement opportunities, and to position those opportunities for implementation using Ideation International’s Knowledge WizardTM.
Tuesday 1:30pm
Dana Clarke 
(Ideation International, Ltd)
2nd Annnual MFN in the Park Thursday
August 16, 2001
Ravinia Park, IL
(N Chicago Suburb)
Picnic on the lawn at Ravinia Park Performances Featuring the Temptations and the Four Tops
27th Facilitators' Conference
(Fall Conference)
Monday
October 15, 2001
Sears, Roebuck & Company
Hoffman Estates, IL 
(NW Chicago Suburb)
“What’s the Problem if We All Speak English?  Culture’s Impact on Global Communication"
For many of us, it is fortunate that English is the language of global business.  However, communication involves more than language alone.  Diverse cultural values produce different communication protocols.  This session will help you develop an understanding of how these values work within different protocols to create the trust, comfort, and respect necessary to work effectively in multicultural situations.
8:30am
by Douglas Stuart & Roger Marsh
(IOR Global Services)
"The Art of Session Design"
Facilitation is part art, part science.  This session highlights the artistic aspects of preparing for and facilitating a meeting. As such, design permeates multiple dimensions of the facilitation process: preparing to use self as tool, planning to realize design intent, designs that pull people into change (rather than push them), and enhancing design judgment.  Participants will explore the use of creativity in meeting design and ways to become more intentional about adopting design as a strategy for helping clients change. 
10:30am
by Jim Ulrich
(Inflection Points)
"Continuous Innovation: How to Turn Everyday Ideas into Innovation Every Day"
This session will focus on creativity and innovation. Participants will learn about the 6 ingredients of cultures that produce Continuous InnovationTM; about the 4 roles of highly innovative teams and leaders, about the 6-phase Continuous InnovationTM process; and how to apply the ThinkathonTM brainstorming technique and award-winning KnowBrainer® creativity and innovation tool.
1:30pm
Gerald "SolutionMan" Haman
(SolutionPeople)
Organizational Design Workshops – Agenda and Issues
This session will focus on facilitating workshops where the outcome is the design of an appropriate structure for an organization (i.e., hierarchical, matrix, project team, etc.) and who should fit into given positions of said organization.  Such workshops are typically required after mergers or as part of reorganizations.  The session will cover how to plan for and facilitate organizational design sessions and how to manage the issues involved.
3:15pm
Gary Rush 
(MG Rush Systems)


Midwest Facilitation Network
2001 Event Schedule

MFN Mission / MFN Beginnings  / MFN Organization / MFN Constituency / MFN Directors
MFN  Membership / MFN Highlights / MFN Event Overview / MFN Event Chronology
2001 Schedule / 2002 Schedule / 2000 Schedule
MFN Home Page / Links to Related Resources / MFN Calendar