Mana Shah - Facilitator

  One of the core foundations of a connected & purposeful community are their  "rituals". They create predictability, bonding and reverence to shared values. For our family, one of our most looked forward to ritual is attending the annual Ishara Puppet Theatre Festival ! We have been watching this since the past 11 eleven years (minus Covid years) It is a pure sensory delight and ignites all those latent childhood urges we have been suppressing since we grew up.  As I sat watching the show last night managed all by one single person on stage - I could not help but wonder what can puppetry teach us about holding spaces. Of course one can learn so much from the stories (the content) themselves - but we can learn so much more from the process and behaviours of the puppeteers!    Orientation helps build ease  First Ishara's founder comes on stage and introduces the festival, how it started, a bit about its journey, what their values are in organising these ...

photo credit   I was seated at one of the lunches at a facilitator exchange workshop recently. I looked around the table and was wondering what interesting question I could ask that could give me a glimpse into people's authentic selves! And then popped the question.. . what makes you comfortable ... We were just talking about travelling so I customised the question as " what makes you comfortable at a new place you travel to....?  This opened the door to amazing and diverse sharing - knowing where to go, having wifi access immediately, a smile, meeting friendly people, a comfortable space to stay, being familiar with the surroundings...each and every person on that table brought a new perspective to the table that was so uniquely them.  I just started imagining what awareness and connection can happen if we ask questions starting with these simple words... * what makes you comfortable at a party? * what makes you comfortable at an internal meeting? * what makes you comf...

  This was the result of my recent Linkedin poll. Majority responded that trainings do not lead to real life impact because of no follow up mechanism followed by more content less practice and incorrect need assessment. Some of explanations were very insightful: Often people who ask for the workshops to be conducted have a completely different idea from those who are participating of what is required. a rooted belief that workshops are different from real life. more theoretical workshops v/s practical ones because very often the intention and purpose of the trainings are limited to the training itself - like an end in itself. Participants invest themselves in any training, to the best of their abilities, interests, etc...and yet, I feel, with very few people either reporting back on some key aspects of the training, or taking up some follow up work/processes- over a period of time, the curiosity and/or relevance of trainings as potential to be applied in real life is reduced. ...

Logo credit - Harshit Manocha  With Gathering Genie, I take a step towards inviting in my life more of my favourite conversations - those about rethinking and reimagining gatherings . " Manali Shah has been a gathering Genie long before this idea came up! I have reached out to her multiple times with SOS requests before facilitating important meetings and I've always gone away with insightful takeaways and specific tips for my facilitation opportunities .. highly recommend Mana for her vast experience and facilitative approach even when guiding other facilitators. All the best facilitation Genie!"  Rohit Shenoy, L&D lead at a global corporate organisation. ☘ If you have a meeting, conference, workshop, training, celebration coming up and want to explore ways to make these more engaging and impactful, let's talk!  Share some details in this form   and I will get back to you with some slots for a conversation.  🍁 If you have a story about a magical gatheri...

Photo credit - Digant I have been browsing India Hikes website and lusting over the snow peak mountains in their trek stories since many months now... Doubts about my own fitness levels, managing in the cold and living with frugal means in the middle of nowhere overtook every time I felt like clicking on the sign up button. But finally in March 2022 I signed up for their most basic  The Dayara Bugyal Trek  with my son! This was a experiential family trek meaning there would be many more opportunities for my son to really get a feel of trekking and living in the high mountains!  I had six months to get ready. This needed mental, emotional and of course physical fitness to really be able to enjoy the trek - India Hikes was amazing in helping prepare for all three! For my son I had no worries - he is quite physically fit and mentally much stronger to navigate through this experience - having just recently returned from a 18-day community living trip with his class mates in K...

  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..... . ...