Mana Shah - Facilitator

  As tiring as the drive from Delhi to the hills maybe, once that green tapering landscape starts unfolding something shifts in my energy - my body relaxes, my shoulders droop, my eyes light up ..... mountains have a way of bringing ease to our whole being - they engage all our senses and bring ourselves to a calmer state of happiness!  As we design and hold spaces, an intention we can hold dearly is how can we bring more ease into the space - how can we inspire that same feeling of the sight of the hills? A participant at a recent in person workshop (my first in 2 years!) said that she liked the " informality that was pervasive in the whole day while the supporting the group have deep conversation and make important decisions..."  This was a very senior group of leaders across the country gathered together to discover common ground around a collective.  As people walked in, the space felt inviting with visuals all across the walls, the chairs arranged in a circle w...

Today as I was jogging in my neighbourhood, I got to thinking why I like to jog - is it because it helps me feel energetic, it loosens my body, it gives me a sense of working towards my personal well being....yes it is all these things...and yet more than that... it is ALSO how much I actually love to jog....and then I got to thinking how it really feels in all my senses .... the touch  of the red sand on the track, the wind and sun on my skin, sweat (the good kind!) dripping on my neck, the strain on my leg muscles that tell me they are getting activated.....the sight of diverse dash of green with bursts of Gulmohar reds and Amaltas yellows - and the birds flying (if I am lucky I spot rufus treepies and barbets!)...the sun's rays streaming through the denseness of the forest...the sounds of the steady beat of my feet touching the ground, the birds, the rustling of leaves, kids laughing and the temple bells, the smells  of the freshly watered earth or the flowers (oh the cha...

Silence on asking a question can mean many things - one that the question was not clear and the less obvious one is that question was surprising. When asked to define what they understood by the term " meeting culture " - 15 people across sectors, timezones and ages who had gathered to unpack this topic - fell silent...until..one of them said... "let me give it a shot - it is a combination of behaviours, practices, values around meetings in a group".. others chimed in.. "its the ethos of the group...the choice of tone and language".... after 90 minutes of a spirited dialogue it was realised that while meetings are such a pervasive part of our groups, we very seldom pause and reflect on the "meeting culture" that we are ending up with or that we want to nourish.  This article  that provides an interesting meeting culture framework says " Meetings bring culture to life, amplifying both the positives and negatives within an organization..... . ...

After years of fumbling about physical routines and numerous excuses, I finally feel I have settled on a body practice with my new physiotherapist! I attended a four part session in January with her to start with focusing on hips, shoulder, upper and lower back mobility. She shared recordings with me later. I tried in my earnest to make these exercise a daily part of my routine for next couple of months. I put up a  visual poster with the routine on my cupboard, placed my yoga mat in my room at night and started my day with the routine! (Thanks James Clear for the habit teaching)! My son would help me keep track which exercise I had to do every day! Yes I did slip/ skip on some days - on the whole I have never been this consistent with my own physical routine.  Yesterday I had a follow up session where she reviewed all that we had done, corrected some, added more challenge to existing ones and added some new ones! I am so amazed that finally the habit and consistency has come...

In my work with groups to build collective strategic focus, one of our core questions for exploration right at the beginning is " what is your core purpose as a group? " - what is your group's north star - what makes you wake up in the morning every day despite the many moments of frustration and despair? What is at the core of your work beyond the issues, the projects, the strategies?  It is a unique combination of what is our passion, what is our competitive advantage and what the world will pay for/ what it needs. It is a deeper sense of what is the heart of our work! Over the years I have found inspiration from various sources to facilitate this conversation (Jim Collins, Simon Sinek, the Genuine Contact program).  While it can be a very inspiring and uplifting conversation, it is also be very challenging. Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a very exciting dialogue around "the primary task of the non profit" hosted by Group Relations India . T...

Every year I try and take some new courses to remind me of what it feels like to be a participant and also to add fresh energy and perspective in my facilitation practice and being.  I just finished this amazing online course by a dear friend and awesome facilitator - Nikhil Mehta . It was a 3-hour self paced course on how to create and nurture Safe, Caring, Inviting Learning Spaces - SCILS !    I loved the course design - it was playful and intense at the same time! I was quite hooked to it till the end and here is an attempt to reflect on what made it so -  a) Safety - The whole anchoring of the course on "safety" was a very unique perspective for me. In my own approach, creating a "life nurturing" environment is the anchor and the lens of physical, intellectual and emotional safety widened my thinking around this. Safety as the thread was woven in through the entire course. I now have a deeper understanding of how to look at needs of the learners and consciously ...

I used to believe that being in balance within your body, mind, spirit and emotions is what sets you up to have amazing experiences in life and work. 2021 was a good reminder that sometimes it can be the other way round. As we were just getting used to living with Covid, the second wave hit our family and we lost our Dad in May. He was a beacon of health and good living and it just swept him away in 3 weeks. I cannot begin to reflect on the year without feeling this lump in my throat of the biggest loss of my life.  Life changed for all of us in many ways and I just felt so scattered with bits of me being pulled in all directions - but my Dad's consistently lived values and habits helped me navigate the chaos.   For my Dad, work was worship. All work was important. He genuinely loved getting up and ready for work and would come back looking so content - as if he had given his 150% every day. He would not shy away from doing anything - my Mom fondly remembers how he would...

  I finally got my driving license renewed! Yay! The freedom that comes with being in control of your own path is exhilarating even if it is only to the neighbourhood market:)  Given this long gap, I noticed today that when I shifted gears I felt a bit of a jerk. When I drive and when it is the right time for the gear to change, it just shifts so smoothly as if it was calling you out to change!  I remember when I was learning driving, my brother in law made me really sense what was happening with the gears.....so if I stayed in a lower gear longer than needed, the car made a weird screeching sound. If I changed to a higher gear before it was needed, I felt a jerk. He told me (this was 19 years ago and I still remember!)...."Mana, listen carefully.....what is the car telling you..."  Today as I was driving, I realised how deeply this is connected to facilitation. One of the skills we have is to sense what is the the next right move. We may come up with a very detailed...

As the year was winding down and I began to visualise what I wanted to see in my facilitation practice, one realisation came was that I wanted to invest in my own learning. I have been following some groups for a while and I decided to spend a certain percentage of my annual income on learning experiences that appealed to me.  Two weeks down, 6 online sessions, a board full of stickies, a stack of learning notes (mostly drawings!) and 23+ global connections later I am so happy I chose to sign up for the online  "expedition" on game storming.   Why GS for me? I wanted to get more comfortable with a more complicated visual platform that offers a bigger canvas for collaborative working.   I wanted to get better at convergence.  I wanted to integrate more "methods"/ "games" more consciously into my process to offer a diverse set of ways for participants to explore, innovate, discuss, decide together in an engaging way.  I wanted to experience what it feel...