Catalyzing Transformative Learning in Teams and Groups

Michael Hamman and Lyssa Adkins, Course Leaders

Seasoned agile leaders, coaches and consultants who work with groups—as course leaders or group coaching facilitators—are often faced with moments of significant transformative potential. In those moments, we may exercise any number of different techniques, drawn from professional coaching, systems coaching, and/or facilitation.

And yet, many of us find ourselves not quite able to meet the transformative potential presented to us.

Perhaps, we are in a key moment of facilitation, and are caught off guard, unable to bring our full presence.

Or, maybe the group dynamics are wonky and we’re not clear what’s happening.

Or, we sense that the design arc in the context of which the current moment arises is somehow off; we’re not sure why: we just feel that there’s a bit of a generalized muddle of some sort.

Vertical Facilitation: Catalyzing Transformative Learning in Teams and Groups is a program of study, culminating in a 6-week Intensive that will leave you with a new-found mastery in the art and practice of designing and leading moments of deep transformative change for any variety of group learning modalities and situations.

The program has three phases. The first phase consists of a series of two free webinars, recorded teaching, short articles and informative “1-pagers”. This first phase is free to all.

The second phase is a 6-week intensive, which builds upon the learning of that first phase. During this Intensive, participants take a deep dive into the practices, skills and discipline embodied when we are facilitating transformative, or vertical, learning with, and for, others. This phase is paid.

The third phase provides follow-up materials and emails.

The next learning journey begins May 17 with the first of two introductory free webinars. See timeline below for details and sign-up.

Join us for the next learning journey, starting on May 17. Both webinars will be recorded, and will be included in your free package, in case you need to miss attending one of them live.

The course builds upon a combined 25 years experience in leading transformational programs, and leverages a unique blend of human technologies from the fields of adult development, transformative learning, systems relationship coaching, and executive coaching, to foster a powerful, and powerfully transforming, learning environment

Who Is This For?

The course is for experienced agile coaches, facilitators, consultants and organizational leaders who seek to bring a deep and transformative dimension to their training programs and facilitated events.

It is particularly suitable for those who themselves have been on a journey of inner transformation and seek to bring about situational and environmental qualities that reliably catalyze similar transformative pathways for others.

This course is for you if you

  • Conduct leadership training offers;

  • Coach or facilitate learning environments with leadership or management teams;

  • Coach agile product development teams who are ready to go to the next level in their performance

  • Work with non-profit organizations.

The ‘What’, the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’ of Vertical Facilitation

  • Vertical Facilitation is a facilitation methodology by which we help people upgrade their capacity for complex sensemaking, both as individuals and as a collective.

    Such an upgrade leads to a greater capacity for high performance in a complex world.

    Vertical Facilitation is a powerful tool in helping individuals, teams, and organizations grow their capacity for inner agility—a key capability for sustained organizational agility.

  • ‘Agility’, as a set of frameworks and methods and as a management philosophy, has taken the world by a storm. And yet, how often is it the case that organizations are able to truly realize the potential benefits which agility promises?

    The key to this quandary can be found in the phrase “you need to be agile, not just do agile.” This begs the question: How might we evoke such a manner of ‘Being’?

    For the most part (and of course there are exceptions), this question has eluded us. But only because we haven’t been quite sure where to look. What know-how, institutions, and methods might we look to for instruction and inspiration?

    What is needed are methodologies that provide yield the kinds of learning and competency which result in people being agile, in much the same way we currently have methodologies that provide learning and competency which result in people doing agile.

  • Vertical facilitation leverages a unique blend of human technologies from the fields of adult development, transformative learning, dialogical O.D. (organization development), and systemic thinking.

    These fields of research have a long and robust legacy and, consequently, offer a rich body of insights, practices, and methodologies that address, directly and powerfully, the very question of what it means to be agile.

    Building from this rich body, Vertical Facilitation brings about acute awareness of the beliefs, assumptions and psychological strategies by which individuals and groups operate.

    The insights which such an awareness brings about has the effect of shifting the complexity, nuance, and systemic inclusiveness with which people are able to make sense of the situations and circumstances they face.

    Such a shift significantly raises people’s intelligence and effective impact. People become far more able in the face of the VUCA world we increasingly find ourselves in. The end result is far more effective outcomes and results, individually, collectively, and organizationally.

    The Vertical Facilitator provides a rich and practical learning environment for coaches, consultants, and managers who see the importance of inner agility—and who understand that in order to do agile, people will need to learn to be agile.

Learning Journey - How it works

The Vertical Facilitator Learning Journey has three phases.

PHASE I

The first phase is comprised of a series of free webinars and emails, along with other materials to help you get learn the basics of Vertical Facilitation. This phase starts when you Join Us. The next learning journey begins with the first webinar (plus white paper) on May 17 2023. However, you join the Learning Journey at any point — you will always have access to recordings of any of the missed webinars, and any emails you might have missed.

PHASE II

The second phase begins with the Virtual Intensive, which starts on August 15. The Virtual Intensive opens with two 2-3 hour orientation sessions, along with a series of activities, which includes preparing for your Leadership Development Profile (LDP), a key part of the personal leadership development of the program. Registration for the Intensive will open the later part of May.

The Intensive continues with a three-day In-Depth, during which we delve deeply into the model, the discipline, and the practices that are at the heart of vertical facilitation. During this part of the Intensive, you will initiate an Applied Intervention, a short workshop or other intervention which, between the end of the In-Depth and the completion of the Intensive, you will design and, at least parts of which, you will facilitate.

The Intensive continues with one practicum session, in which you try out parts of your Applied Intervention, and get feedback from your course leaders, and from each other.

The Intensive ends with a Completion session in which we acknowledge and celebrate our learning and personal transformation.

PHASE III

The third phase happens post-Intensive. During the weeks following the Intensive, you will receive substantive emails, and have access to additional resources to support your continued journey as a Vertical Facilitator.

  1. The journey starts when you fill out form to Join Us (see below)

  2. You will receive Welcome email with details of the course (including the Intensive)

  3. You will receive full-length whitepaper

  4. You will be invited to two Introductory Webinars, the first on May 17 2023, and the second on June 6. Each will include short practice activities, and will be recorded, in case you need to miss any of them.

  5. Registration opens for the 6-week Virtual Intensive the latter part of May. It is during the Intensive that we dive deeply into the tools and techniques for Vertical Facilitation. You will leave this Intensive with the competency and capacity to design and facilitate developmentally informed programs and interventions of your own.

  6. Virtual Intensive starts on August 15 . It completes on October 3.

  7. You will receive post-Intensive emails and have access to follow-up resources.

Expected Outcomes of the Course

An ability to confidently embody graceful presence in the face of whatever it is that is happening in the room.

A newly found capacity to “read the room” developmentally, and to respond to what’s there in ways that activate new developmental possibilities.

A readiness to stand in the anxiety of not knowing in a given moment, and to draw from that unknown to catalyze transformative learning for others.

A refined design sensibility that informs a new approach to the staging of the events and courses you lead.

A greater awareness of the inner beliefs, assumptions and triggers that trip you up, as well as the inner strengths that empower your leadership.

Your Course Leaders

Michael Hamman is dedicated to the possibility that the workplace be a site for personal, professional and social transformation. Trained in the 1980s in coaching and large group facilitation, Michael went on to train in systems thinking and methods, group dynamics and facilitation, professional and executive coaching, and in human and organization development. He is a decades-long student of the nature of human transformation, both in himself and in others.

His book, Evolvagility: Growing an Agile Leadership Culture from the Inside Out integrates this rich and varied background and experience, and provides a blueprint for what it means to be an agile leader in today’s complex world. 

Lyssa Adkins is an internationally-recognized thought leader in the Agile community. She is deeply trained and experienced  in human systems coaching and facilitation and she is a frequent keynote speaker. Her content expertise is agile coaching, adult human development, and working with change and complexity.

She is the author of Coaching Agile Teams which is still a Top 10 book a dozen years after publication. Her current focus is improving the performance of top leadership teams through insightful facilitation and organization systems coaching to help leaders take up the individual and collective transformation that is theirs to do

Join us for the next Learning Journey, starting May 17

(Don’t worry — if you join after May 17, you will still have access to all learning materials, including recordings of missed webinars, white papers, and email resources.)

Still interested, but you can’t join us for the next Learning Journing, or you’re simply not sure?