Desiree Paulsen Facilitation

My previous blog post ended with this paragraph: There are many ways to do diversity work but the real power lies in creating a space for honest conversation and deep listening whether it is in a large group, in smaller groups, pairs or triads. The more we can connect as a society and create spaces to talk the less we will find the need to spew out our hatred on social media! I believe that because we have become a society obsessed with electronic engagement, from email to whatsapp, from facebook to twitter, we are not having real conversations and may even have lost the art of conversation. We hardly make the time to talk to each other even when we work in shared open plan spaces. Without honest face to face conversations our society will remain locked into our frozen perceptions about each other. We need to begin to name every part of the elephant and how it affects everything we do. Have you heard the favourite saying ‘not everything is about race?’ – yes we...

This is a post that has been wanting to be written for a while now. I have been exceptionally busy facilitating back to back transformation and diversity workshops, and have not had time to write, but feel compelled to pause and share some reflections. These are conversations that South Africa has been needing to have since 1994 but we have not made the space and time to focus on the real issues of diversity and transformation. As a society we have been deeply divided and there has been oppression which has spanned generations - after 1994, we experienced change at many levels, but we did not deal with the deeper issues and the psycho social impact of apartheid which has permeated all the spaces in our society. Now we find them popping up in racial incidents and social media posts and in many spaces where we are finding ourselves confronted more and more with the shadow reality of the rainbow nation dream.  In most of these workshops I find on the one side...

Journaling as reflective practice Journals and diaries have been used ever since people could find ways of capturing their thoughts and ideas. Many people have used it as a deeply personal process, others to capture important moments and events in their lives. Journals can also be used as part of a conscious practice of reflecting and learning. As organisational development practitioners, often we are very action oriented and may not always make time to capture or document through writing. Our work may already be consumed with many other writing tasks like field reports, developing materials and donor reports and the thought of starting a journal may seem like an indulgence. If we can begin to see journaling as part of a reflective practice and not an indulgence we can begin an exciting self-directed learning process. Journals can become an important reflective tool for practitioners who want to become more conscious of how they practice. The advantage of a journal is t...

 I want to emphasize that we need to reconnect humanity through different ways of interacting and engaging. Dialogue and conversation is a better form of reconnecting humanity than just using debate.I have always found Margaret Wheatley's writing on the topics of new ways of leading, new ways of interacting and new forms of organisation very interesting and I have drawn from her work often in my practice as a facilitator and organisational development consultant. As an independent practitioner  I still use this approach in my facilitation and I am very grateful for a wonderful community of practitioners where I learnt most of what I know today! We also need to reconnect to the concepts of Paulo Freire - giving voice and conscientising in mobilising communities and civil society to fight for their rights!    "Hu man conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change – personal change, community and organisation...