There are a great number of activities that a facilitator can build into an intervention with the purpose of building trust between participants. However, there’s a different, and potentially more important, interpersonal trust relationship that exists in the training room, and ought to be given priority in opening any programme of learning. This is the trust that needs to exist between the facilitator and every one of the learners, and it needs to exist on both an individual and collective level. Ignore this relationship at your peril! So why is it important? How do I establish and maintain it? How...

You don’t need to dig deeply into the literature of Leadership Development before you find advocates of ‘learning on the job’. Strong voices tell us that the best way for leaders to hone their skills is through the first-hand practice of leadership itself. I’ve got some sympathy for this viewpoint, there are some parts of leadership development that benefit from an ‘in at the deep-end approach’, it’s a great way of recognising the adaptability and resilience needed to do the job well, and it blows away the idea that you can learn leadership straight from a book. But I’d suggest...

In everyday business situations, the ability to comprehend abstract knowledge is a prized skill. Anyone who can take complicated information and visualize it in drawings is in possession of an essential key competency and can, by making business processes visible, enable solutions to complex problems to be developed. The following three steps can aid you in doing this! The majority of the participants in our bikablo training sessions are there because they want to learn how to quickly and aptly visualize complicated and abstract concepts. We also teach people how to get started with this during our brief Impulse training...

Sketchnoting or visual note-taking works a lot like writing. To begin, you will need paper and a pen – and then some of the basic visual vocabulary that we’ve developed here at bikablo. Of course, a little finger practice will come in handy, too – but this usually happens all on its own. Then, you’ll be taking your first steps toward becoming a visualizer. A few images from “UZMO – Thinking With Your Pen” will help you to get started. Have you ever drawn an arrow? Of course you have! I personally have always been fascinated by this graphic, which was used...

What does it take to become an effective facilitator of learning? Over the last 25 years, RSVP Design have been involved with the development of trainer training programmes for trainers and facilitators around the world. These have included: Supporting corporate trainers to use more experiential learning methods in their in-house training programmes Helping managers to offer more immediate, on-the-spot performance improvement Developing instructional training skills for medical and technical professionals involved in international health programmes, such as the global drive to eliminate polio Developing pure facilitation skills for those working to resolve conflict, develop strategy or support innovation in their...

When, during discussions with colleagues or clients, you once again get that feeling that there is a lack of mutual understanding, what you’re really missing are just three things: a pen, a sheet of paper, and a couple of drawing basics. With these, visualization opens a second channel of communication, and immediately, people begin to better understand each other’s point of view. Back in 1971, Allan Paivio, a native Canadian, introduced his Dual Coding Theory at the University of Western Ontario. His theory was based upon the assumption that, since we mentally process images differently than we do verbal or written information,...

oday’s organisations: flatter, faster, more pressured, more accountable. This situation has created the worrying paradox that every member of the organisation carries more responsibility for ‘getting it right’ yet there is less resource for the scrutiny that protects these members from ‘getting it wrong’. In these circumstances there is ever greater pressure on the individual to exercise the thinking skills that will spot flawed reasoning in the data that they receive, and detect equally flawed reasoning in the data that they generate. Critical Thinking and Logical Thinking are, more than ever, a personal skill set that needs to be employed in relation...

   #10: Launch of the Referral program and more...   #9: Center for Creative leadership and more...     #8: Bikablo visual faciliation and more...

It is very hard to have clear thought processes due to the bombardment of ideas, information, & observations. It is helpful to put your thoughts on paper be it text, graphics or pictures. More and more people are using 'thought sketching' to make ideas visible. By using icons, symbols, pictograms or graphics as key visuals you can make an abstract idea tangible. Content you have written or drawn is easier to remember and recall as most people learn by seeing and doing rather than hearing. An illusion of having understood something arises when too complex information is delivered too quickly. Slide...

I’m an executive coach and leadership facilitator and a Bikablo certified visual trainer having trained in Cologne under Martin Haussmann the creator of Bikablo. Bikablo is a visual language used by an increasing number of professionals to enhance their ability to express themselves . Bikablo Visual Facilitation trainings are conducted by me in Singapore . The participants are from different fields like sales, teaching, coaching, design, IT, marketing and many more. The numbers are kept small so that personal attention and encouragement can be given at all stages of the training. They are conducted at the Drama Centre in the National Library...

Visual language is defined as a system of communication using visual elements. Just as people can verbalise their thinking, they can visualise it. Our brains are constantly busy with observations, ideas and arguments so it is helpful to put everything that comes into our head down on paper. More and more people use thought sketching in the form of text, graphics or pictures in order to make the ideas visible. Research has proved that people grasp things bette by doing rather than by seeing or hearing them. Visualisation offers learners a chance to "do" something in a manner that is accessible...

When I work with teams it is also interesting for them to get an understanding of how they communicate. Do they really listen to each other? Does everyone's voice get heard? Do they ensure that they have a common understanding? Are they assuming too much? I love using experiential tools as rather than someone telling them its more powerful for them to experience it and have an 'Aha' moment. I find ColourBlind really effective for this. It was developed in 1991 for training Air Traffic Controllers in the UK to communicate effectively. When you think of it the air traffic...