The Big Picture: Using Visual and Spatial Tools in Facilitation
In this program, Graphic facilitator Brandy Agerbeck will introduce graphic facilitation, its benefits and its best practices. She will also introduce some beginner techniques that will help you integrate the visual into your work. Graphic facilitation is the practice of using words and images to create a conceptual map of a conversation. It focuses the group as they work, aiding concentration by capturing and organizing their ideas. Everyone can watch their ideas take shape - a powerful tool of recognition, transparency and accomplishment for group work.

Teambuilding - the Racing Metaphor
Chicago Indoor Racing is one of Chicago's most exiting learning and entertainment complexes. Housed in its 86,000 square foot facility are state of the art conference and meeting rooms, a bar and restaurant featuring an array of award winning culinary delights, full catering facilities and capabilities, alternate gaming and billiards, and of course, two professionally designed Indoor European Kart Racing Tracks. Drivers over the age of eighteen will be able to race wheel to wheel in specially designed Indoor Racing Karts that are able to provide a real sense of the thrill and excitement, until now only experienced by professional racing drivers. Participants will be divided into teams with team members participating in various roles, including non-driving support roles. Teams will have to use creative problem solving and communication skills to be successful, as all races, without exception, are won or lost in the "Pits" during driver changes. The CIR staff will facilitate the pre-race orientation on procedures, equipment and safety. Each racing guest will receive fitted safety equipment.

What Motivates the Professional Facilitator?  It’s More than Money!
What are your own internal drives and motivators?  DISC, MBTI, 16-PF and other instruments describe how someone does their job, i.e., the observable behavior, or ways of thinking.  This session will explore the values, drives and long-term intrinsic motivators that reveal why you do what you do.  Discover your own “Workplace Motivators” through a unique on-line instrument that yields a 24 page report on the strengths you bring to the facilitating enterprise. 

All participants (including those who attend Track 2A) in this MFN Conference will receive a complimentary “Workplace Motivator” report.  Instructions will be sent after you register.

Post-race De-briefing and Analysis (during lunch)
MFN board members will facilitate post-race debriefing exercises, taking a look at manifestations of healthy and unhealthy competition within the race and within organizations.

Prologue - Racing as a Metaphor for Teambuilding in Organizations
Chicago Indoor Racing’s owner, Tony Stewart, has developed a blockbusting business in this unique track and has great insights on using the racing metaphor for today’s business challenges.   Racing is a dynamic process. Every lap is different and no two races are the same. There are numerous parallels between racing and working in all types of organizations – large & small business, academia, not-for-profit, government, etc.

Pre-flighting Your Client's Strategy and Preparing for the Unexpected
When you engage a client, you may not specifically be doing strategic planning. But, your ability to quickly diagnose their strategic plan will provide you with valuable insights into how comprehensively and critically they have looked at themselves, their environment, their competitors, and their resources. You won’t be able to help them launch their mission if they haven’t built a strong, competitive plan that helps them scope and focus on their goals. A “strategic pre-flight” will give you and your client a common basis for understanding what they are about and what you can offer them.

MindSights’ Consultants On-Demand – Facilitated Thinking Technology
MindSights is a unique suite of workforce development products that amplify natural thinking abilities. This Facilitated Thinking Technology improves the thinking productivity of knowledge-workers in much the same way that the assembly line improved the labor productivity of manual-workers. This session will examine selected applications from MindSights’ Consultants On-demand” application suite.  These “thinklet”-driven applications function like hired consultants who deliver advice by asking the right questions, recommending the right tools, and offering successful methods and insights.  For example, a person can take Six-Sigma training that lasts 10 to 20 days, over a 2 to 4 month period, at costs ranging up to $40K.  Alternatively, they can immediately begin to use the Six-Sigma “Consultant On-demand” product that emulates the knowledge, skills and abilities of a Six-Sigma black belt and be continuously mentored in Six-Sigma as though they gone through the training.

40th Facilitators' Conference
(Spring Conference)

The MFN Board regretfully announces that it must reschedule Monday's (05/22/06) MFN Spring Conference at Chicago Indoor Racing to Monday, October 16, 2006.

Looking at this experience positively, since the MFN's inception in 1992, the organization has produced 40 Facilitator Conferences and 7 Skills Development Workshops. This is only the second time we've had to reschedule an event due to lower than expected registration numbers. We expect these numbers to improve with advance notice of the October date.

We are very pleased that Chicago Indoor Racing has offered us an alternative date for this exciting, challenging, fun-packed program. Themes for this conference's activities will tackle parts of the challenge to innovate and change that we and our clients must address on a daily basis. We're talking about the amazing dance between competence and new development - between reducing variation and disrupting everything - between serious business attention and a playful approach to new ideas and directions - and between safety and risk.

Using Experiential Education AKA "Stupid Games" to Spice Up Your Facilitated Sessions
In this fast paced session Bruce will share his methodology of Building High performance teams. A number of exercises will be reviewed and taught. Participants will explore how these teambuilding exercises can be used to explore their client's performance issues. Bruce will share techniques from which can enhance your ability to team build and focus groups. Ways that groups can utilize to measure and improve their performance will also be explored.

Building Success through Effective Impression Management
All the world is a stage and the role that each of us plays, intentionally or unintentionally, determines both our personal and organizational success. The ability of a leader to craft a role that reflects the vision, mission, goals, competencies and culture of an organization is critical to effectiveness and success of any organization. The purposes of this workshop include: helping participants create and structure their desired impression and roles and giving participants skills in helping others to define their impressions and roles.

Wayne Stone
(Waubonsee Community College - Sugar Grove, IL)

Jim Rough
(Jim Rough & Associates - Port Townsend, WA)

Beyond Expectations: What Coaching Can Do for You
Everyone possesses untapped potential. Explore how working with a coach can help you tap into your potential and find the courage to act on it. Learn what coaching is and is not, what to expect from a coaching relationship and how to find a reputable coach.

Jerilyn Willin
(JWillin Consulting - Bloomingdale, IL)

Exploring Leadership: An Innovative Program for High Potential Staff
"Exploring Leadership" combined readings from Harvard Business Review articles and interviews of local and nationally known leaders to broaden the leadership perspectives of high potential staff at Peoples Energy. This session will review the experience, its highlights and lessons learned through the program.

From Dream to Destination: Pursuing the Life You Prefer
The biggest obstacle to achieving our goals lies between our ears. Habits and beliefs can keep us from being open to possibilities and opportunities. Don¹t live on auto-pilot! This interactive program gets you on the road to the destination you desire. Discover the amazing power we each have to create a more fulfilling life. Make 2006 the year you DO IT!

The Effectiveness of Narrative in Facilitating Online Relationship Development
The focus of this research is the use of narrative (also referred to as story) because it potentially offers a useful catalyst in developing online relationships. The overall goal of the project is to develop some practical processes and techniques that are useful in building and maintaining relationships between members in online groups. Stephen will report on the status of the group's testing of approaches, methods and techniques to facilitate online relationships and will solicit narratives from MFN participants.

Stephen Thorpe
(Aukland (NZ) University of Technology - Aukland, NZ)

Dynamic Facilitation and Emergent Leadership
Dynamic Facilitation engenders a quality of thinking known as "choice-creating," which is more heartfelt than "decision-making" and forms the basis for emergent leadership. It's where each person rises to the occasion, contributes his/her genius and works with others to solve the most important issues. This process opens new doors of possibility because one dynamic facilitator can elicit this "zone of thinking" in a group or in a large system of people. This session is for leaders, group facilitators, internal consultants, therapists, dialogue practitioners, educators, and activists.