This episode is one of our quarterly “Chapter Chats” where Helene and Nikki talk to a member of the leadership team from another IAF Chapter. Today’s guest is Jan Lelie, founder of IAF Netherlands. Outside their IAF role Jan is a facilitator with a background in experimental physics. Key topics from the conversation include: How Facilitation and the role of Facilitators has changed over time What Jan has learned and continues to learn from other facilitators “you have to practice what you preach. When I go to an IAF conference, I will do a workshop of myself and I also work with other facilitators to see and to learn from each other” How the IAF Netherlands Chapter was established “ we wanted to have a certification process, and at that time, it was only in English… ” we were the first organization which offered certification in their mother tongue.” Topics and themes of past IAF Netherlands conferences The IAF Netherlands Initiative: ‘diverging conversations through facilitation’ “We wanted to know, where did you make the difference? What was the turning point?” “a suggestion of one of our facilitators that we should have a kind of year book” Ways the IAF Netherlands brings people together A full transcript is below. Links Today’s Chapter https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/netherlands Today’s guest: Contact Jan by email IAF-netherlands@kpnmail.nl To find out more about the IAF and the England and Wales Chapter Facilitation Stories website: https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/ And to email us: podcast@iaf-englandwales.org IAF England and Wales: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/chapters/england-wales The Facilitation Stories Team Helene Jewell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenejewell/ Nikki Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/ Transcript H.J Hello and welcome to facilitation stories, the community podcast brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. I'm Helene Jewell. N.W And I'm Nikki Wilson. H.J And this episode is one of our quarterly chapter chats, where we talk to people leading other chapters in the IAF global community. We ask them about how they see the status of facilitation where they are, and the history, priorities, current projects and aspirations for their chapter. Today, we will be talking to Jan Lelie, facilitator and founder of IAF Netherlands. N.W So welcome Jan. So to start off with, could you tell us a little more about yourself and the work that you do Jan? J.L Yes, of course. Well, I facilitate, and I said, I've always facilitated. I worked for six weeks as a consultant in 1984 and then decided that it was not for me, and that any situation requires all the participants to be in the same room, in the same place, and if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And find out actually what the problem is about. So I studied physics, experimental physics, and there I learned that the definition of the problem is part of the problem. So in most of the situations, people have a, how shall I say, the rudimentary idea of their problem, and then they start to implement a solution. And when the solution doesn't work, the solution actually becomes a problem. So you're asked to get a solution implemented which is not the solution to a problem, so it will never work. And I started out in IT, information technology and communications, and there, often IT is not a problem, it's a solution that doesn't work. H.J And so you have been part of the IAF for nearly 30 years, I think. How have you seen the practice of facilitation and the role of facilitators change in that time? J.L Well, first of all, I think that everybody facilitates. It's like everybody communicates. So facilitation, in my experience, is about making connections. It's how you connect with people, how your relationship works, and from there, and everybody connects with each other, only like with communication, nobody has been trained into effective communication and in effective facilitation. So most people work from an expert position, like a consultant or a trainer or even a moderator, and facilitation, in my opinion, is a different paradigm, a different way of dealing with relationships, and the only way to progress is to to learn from each other in working as a facilitator and facilitating. So that was one of the reasons I went to an IAF conference in London in the end of the 1990s which was organized by the IAF, and because we had a computerized brainstorming solution, we wanted to show and also I already had organized a group of what we call moderators, a network of moderators. And then I learned that what I was doing was called facilitation. H.J It's interesting. I think a lot of people have said that, that they, they didn't necessarily call it facilitation, or call themselves ...
