Lewis University - Romeoville, Illinois (SW Suburb)
Leadership Studies Program

Route 53
University Dining Room
Bollingbrook, Illinois 60446
 
 

Monday, May 15, 2000
 
 

Open your mind, create your future. For this unique industry session, Bob Higa has designed a highly interactive learning session where facilitators and trainers come together to learn from each other and craft a new vision of the future of facilitation and training.  Business today is being driven by radical shifts in the way companies and organizations operate.  This session acknowledges that the only way to predict your future is to create it yourself.

“NEW RULES”
We will explore the “New Rules” that will affect business and organizations.  WE will summarize our discoveries in this opening segment and set in place the first piece of a new vision.

“NEW ROLES”
The key medium for successful and effective collaboration is the creation of a “shared space.”  Shared space is not a meeting room.  It is where ever people put up and play with their ideas and it is whatever promotes creative interactions.

“NEW TOOLS”
Every day an array of technical innovations extend, augment and sometimes kill interaction between a global organization’s employees and its customers.  Continue the discussion as we examine the promises and pitfalls of technology as a collaboration tool.

“NEW SKILLS”
Your peers are the best teachers.  Take charge of the session as we engage in discussions about the skills needed for your success in the new environment explored today.

“CRAFT THE VISION”
Participants will develop a vision for the future.  Based on this vision, you’ll create a plan, set some goals and schedule follow ups with your fellow team members to help institute personal change.

Bob Higa, over the past 10 years, has gained a powerful reputation in corporate America for his dramatic and inspiring program, combining business issues with thought provoking magic & illusion.

Prior to his current work for corporate America, Higa was an accomplished performer having - TV appearances, headlining in Las Vegas at the Tropicana’s “Folies Bergeré” and Atlantic City’s Bally’s Park Place plus opening for several popular celebrities.  Yet, he is educated in Marketing & Business Administration, has 20 years experience in sales, management, marketing and customer service.

Bob’s unique ability to address business issues intelligently and to underscore their value through magic is both impressive and memorable.  Entertaining and filled with humor, Higa’s program features audience interactive pieces.  Bob Higa is known for his creativity in Business Theater.  Bob Higa consults with his clients in helping them craft their meeting presentations to deliver their  messages in a compelling, memorable and unique manner.  He has designed amazing magical effects that range from pharmaceutical products, to sewing machines to automobiles to a 10,000-pound fork lift truck appearing out of thin air.

His father is STILL waiting for him to get a REAL job . . . some guys never grow up.  His A to Z clients include: Abbott Labs,  Arthur Andersen, BF Goodrich, General Mills, Hewlett Packard, Household International, IBM, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Motorola, Price Waterhouse, Rubbermaid, SW Bell and Zenith.
 
 

This presentation will examine the different personality styles of individuals, how to recognize them and how to use them to strengthen the productivity of groups.  Group dynamics is a reflection of the personalities of the individual group members.  Recognizing the style related needs of individuals, validating those needs, and utilizing them in groups may be the key to reducing unproductive conflict and increasing the group’s results.

We will explore and identify:

• 1) the most common personality strengths;
• 2) how to recognize these strengths in others;
• 3) the group roles and responsibilities which will best utilize those strengths and
• 4) what can be done in groups to accommodate these strengths.

As facilitators, we bring a variety of tools and techniques to help groups open up their thinking when generating new ideas.  This session will add to your tool kit several techniques used by improvisational actors which also work well in brainstorming sessions.  A session participant can expect to:

• Understand the connection between humor and creative thinking
• Practice several improvisation techniques to warm up a group
• Learn do's and don'ts of each technique
• Help generate advantages and disadvantages to each approach

Ann Marie Calistro is an independent training consultant specializing in customized training applications and creative meeting facilitation.  Her style in the meeting forum and the classroom is energizing, very visual and fun.  As a certified meeting facilitator, Ann Marie has designed and facilitated over 100 meetings with a diverse range of objectives: information gathering/design,
mission/vision definitions, strategic planning and creative problem solving.  She has also led formal focus groups on competency validation and career path strategies.  Customers include McDonald's Corporation, Chicago Tribune, Baxter, State Government Affair Council, Stanford Financial Group, and the Chicago Youth Apprentice Program.
 
 

As agents of change, effective facilitators and trainers need to be cognizant of changes in themselves and differences in others.  As they facilitate growth and development in others, they struggle to improve themselves to become more effective as leaders, planners and presenters.  Part of that effectiveness is recognizing (Kolb, 1976) that different adults prefer to learn in different ways.  It would seem reasonable that the most effective facilitators and trainers would be those who are highly motivated to become more skillful in recognizing these differences and in learning how to facilitate and train people in a variety of
ways.

This session is designed to help facilitators and trainers to identify their preferred delivery methods in order to:

• 1) identify the areas in which they have the greatest skill and expertise, which they can then share with other facilitators and trainers;
• 2) identify the areas in which they can attempt to increase their skills and effectiveness through a better understanding of the learning styles of those they facilitate and/or train.

Ron has been an administrator and faculty member at seven colleges and universities including Ohio U., Kent State, and Boston University.  He has completed doctoral graduate work in Educational Leadership at the University of Memphis as well as the two-year Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management from Harvard University.  Ronald previously served as Dean of Student Affairs at Benedictine University and resides in Winfield with his wife Lorraine, an early childhood teacher- trainer/curriculum specialist.
 
 

Visit MFN's Website: http://www./midwest-facilitators.net - Watch for future developments on this site. For example, we intend to collect and summarize individual and group insights and learnings from the Summer Workshop, and to post those findings to the Website.  We will also post the findings from the Ongoing Needs Analysis Focus Groups that we've been conducting at MFN Events.

Also visit the Websites of MFN Board Members:
Reginald Taylor: http://www.taylor-made-consulting.com
Dan Heck: http://www.metservice.com
Paul Collins: http://www.jordan-webb.net

Monday-Tuesday, August 14-15, 2000 -MFN Professional Skills Development Workshop (5th) @ Hamburger University (McDonald’s Corporation), Oakbrook, Illinois.  Tentative Programs:

• Sunday Evening Networking Rectption/Dinner (August 13th)
• “Developing a Global Mindset (A Cross-Cultural Management Model)” by Nadia Gould (McDonalds Corporation)
• “KnowBrainer Innovation: 4 Steps to Creative, Effective, and Efficient Facilitation”, by Gerald Haman & Michael Starcevich (Solution People)
• “The Road FROM Abeline - How Far Have We Come from Groupthink?” (Tools, and processes that help us uncover and share internal dialogues and learning - such as learning communities of various (non)structures that encourage disclosure, dialogue and discovery), an interactive workshop led by a group of panelists TBA
• Other Presenters & Details TBA

Monday, October 23, 2000 - MFN Fall Conference (24th) - @ The Center for Information Management & Technology at Loyola University Chicago (Downtown Campus)

"A Process for Deciding" (Decision-Making and Reaching Consensus), by Gary Rush (MG Rush Systems)

Other Presenters & Details TBA

Tuesday-Wednseday, October 24-25, 2000 - Advanced Facilitator Workshop in Schaumburg, IL (NW Chicago Suburb) - (MG Rush Systems), mgrush@mgrush.com or http://www.mgrush.com, (847) 304-1464.
 

Friday January 12, 2001 - MFN Winter Conference (25th) - @ Summit Executive Center - Downtown Chicago

Presenters & Programs TBA

May 16-20, 2001 - International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Annual Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Information: http://neo-humanista.org/IAFWEB/ or  http://hsb.baylor.edu/html/fuller/iaf, iafoffice@igc.apc.org or pbushee@mr.net, (612) 891-3541.

To suggest a future program or presenter, or to become involved in planning events, contact MFN using the information below.

Please send your current e-mail address, phone & fax number and address changes so that we can keep you informed about MFN events in a variety of ways.

Send in a suggestion for future Facilitator Shareware postings (see below) in MFN Announcements or on the website.

Thank You. E-mail: pcollins@jordan-webb.net Fax: (847) 673-9322 Voice: (847) 673-2288