Keep Leading!® Podcast 103 | Becoming a Certified Virtual Facilitator™ | Eileen Dowse, Ph.D.

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Eileen Dowse, Ph.D.
Certified Master Facilitator® and Chair of INIFAC
Becoming a Certified Virtual Facilitator™

Episode Summary
Dr. Eileen Dowse is the Chair of the International Institute for Facilitation (INIFAC). She explains the importance of the newly created Certified Virtual Facilitator™ credential and how to achieve it.

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Bio
Eileen Dowse Ph.D. is an insightful, global leader specializing in creating ‘collective impact’ for her clients. She is blazing new trails in the practice of Agile Leadership- which emphasizes quality, speed, and collaboration. As an Organizational Psychologist, she is one of the thought-leaders helping organizations focus on being responsive, adaptive, and effective in an era filled with confusion, contradictions, and corruption. She has extensive practical experience in the field of global leadership and cultural competency development.

Eileen is an award-winning author of “The Naked Manager, How to build open relationships at work.” She has also written “The Agile Business Leader, The Four Roles of Successful Leaders,” which has been translated into Chinese. She is widely regarded as one of the leaders in international facilitation and a co-founder and Chair of the International Institute for Facilitation.

Clients seek Eileen for her services in executive coaching, educational programs, and facilitating sessions to produce innovative results. She has mastered the art of identifying the root of organizational issues and implemented strategies that allow leaders, teams, and entire organizations to become more effective.

INIFAC
INIFAC advances mastery in facilitation that helps individuals, groups, and organizations around the world achieve collaborative results.

The International Institute for Facilitation (INIFAC) was created in 2003 when five facilitators came together to develop a certification program at the master’s level.

The Certified Virtual Facilitator Credential
The INIFAC Certified Virtual Facilitator™ credential focuses on the facilitator’s experience in using virtual platforms while facilitating meetings. This credential is for anyone who leads virtual meetings and wants to distinguish themselves as someone who has completed a quantifiable performance review by a trained virtual facilitation assessor. This certification confirms you know how to conduct and participate in virtual meetings effectively.

Eileen’s Website
https://human-dynamics.com/

INIFAC’s Website
https://www.inifac.org/the-inifac-certified-virtual-facilitator/

Eileen on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eileen-dowse-ph-d-cmf-mcec-b3a449/

INIFAC on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/international-institute-for-facilitation/

Twitter
https://twitter.com/eileendowse

INIFAC Twitter
https://twitter.com/INIFAC

Check out Eileen’s First Interview on the Keep Leading!® podcast
https://eddieturnerllc.com/keep-leading-podcast/kl028-the-agile-and-facilitative-leader/

Leadership Quote
“Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s little nut that held its ground.”

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Full Episode Transcripts and Detailed Guest Information
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Keep Leading LIVE (Live Recordings of the Keep Leading!® Podcast)
www.KeepLeadingLive.com

Transcript

The key to sustainable leadership lies in the ability to thrive during uncertainty, ambiguity, and change. Grand Heron International brings you the Coaching Assistance Program, giving your employees on-demand coaching to manage through a challenging situation and arrive at a solution. Visit GrandHeronInternational.Ca/Podcast to learn more.

This podcast is part of the C Suite Radio Network, turning the volume up on business.

Welcome to the Keep Leading!® Podcast, the podcast dedicated to promoting leadership development and sharing leadership insights. Here’s your host, The Leadership Excelerator®, Eddie Turner.

Eddie Turner:

All right. So, welcome to another or I should say, in this case, a special episode of Keep Leading LIVE™. This is a special episode because the Keep Leading LIVE™ stream as well as the Keep Leading!® Podcast are dedicated to leadership development and insights. And so, every show is surrounding that theme. Today’s theme, well, it will be about leadership, in fact, Facilitative Leadership. It will be dedicated exclusively to the International Institute for Facilitation or INIFAC and I am joined by the chair of INIFAC, Eileen Dowse, Dr. Dowse, as she’s better known.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Hi, Eddie. And what a delight it is to be here. You and I are both very passionate about this topic about virtual facilitation or facilitation in general. So, I can hardly wait to have this discussion.

Eddie Turner:

Can’t wait. And so, what we’re going to ask you to do is we talk about something very important to us today. We’re both on the board of INIFAC but Dr. Dowse is not just on the board. Eileen is one of the co-founders. There are the two people that co-founded INIFAC and she is one of them and she serves as the chair. And what we’re going to talk about today is how you can become a certified virtual facilitator and why it’s important, why it matters.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I was just going to say apparently it does matter, Eddie, because we began this certification on June the 10th and now about six weeks out, we have almost 60 people certified. So, this is a hot topic and your program today is a hot topic.

Eddie Turner:

Well, thank you for sharing that because even I didn’t know what the new number was. So, I’m already learning something. And that’s saying a lot because that number matches our credential holders for both of our premiere credentials almost in total in that short window. So, that’s good to know.

So, we’re broadcasting today on three platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. And we want to encourage you to be a part of this discussion. This is not a presentation, unless you don’t join us. It’s going to be a discussion with you the audience and all those people out there around the globe who’ve been sending emails or calling, asking us questions. And so, I said to Eileen “Hey, you know what, I’m getting a lot of questions, you’re getting a lot of questions and I’m answering the same questions over and over. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way we could talk to everybody at once and did it with you?” and it hit me. I know.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I know. Let’s do a trifecta of everything.

Eddie Turner:

So, we’re doing it here on the Keep Leading LIVE™ channel. So, ask your questions in the chat, say hello to us, let us know you’re here let us know where you’re joining us from around the world, put your questions in the chat, hit LIKE if you like what we’re talking about and hit the SHARE button. You’re going to want to share this so your friends could be a part of our discussion so that even if they miss the discussion, they will have access to the recording live immediately on their feed.

We started on June 10th. So, that means somewhere in May, I don’t remember exactly what day, I called Eileen and I said “Eileen, I got an idea.”

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

That was your first mistake.

Eddie Turner:

I am now a certified virtual presenter and that’s different from being a certified speaking professional. Less than 17% of the speakers in the world have this credential but just because you know how to handle a stage, it doesn’t mean you know how to handle the virtual platform. And so, if we’re doing that for speakers, I think it’s even more important for facilitators.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah.

Eddie Turner:

I gave the closing keynote at the National Speakers Association’s Winter Conference in 2018 and I said “The future of speaking is facilitation.” Now, I didn’t know how precious that was because now I would say what I’ve said so much in our speaking world is that all speakers need to be more facilitative and now because everything’s online, it’s even more so important.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Not only is it important from the online perspective, I believe, that a lot of people are wanting that type of interaction with their colleagues and with the people they report to. So, if you don’t know how to facilitate a discussion, please go out and find out how. It’s really important.

Eddie Turner:

It’s really important, absolutely.

Before we begin talking about the Certified Virtual Facilitator credential, it probably makes sense to talk about what is a facilitator.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. Eddie and I have hung out for many years. So, he’ll know that I’m about to go inappropriate and he’s like “Oh dang! Why do I invite this woman on my show?” So, I’ll give you an appropriate answer and an inappropriate answer. Let me start with what could be an inappropriate answer. And I only say that because this response might not appeal or connect with a lot of audiences. Sometimes, when I’m describing what a facilitator is, I say it’s like being a midwife. You didn’t make the baby but you’re helping to deliver the baby, right? And some audience members are like “What! I don’t get it.” So, another analogy I give for facilitation is it’s like being a sherpa. You are helping a group climb up the mountain, right? What they see on the mountain, that’s not the sherpa’s responsibility. It is the group member’s responsibility for the content. The sherpa is responsible for getting there safely. The midwife is responsible for helping to deliver that baby safely. What happens after that journey up the mountain or after that baby is delivered, that’s up to the parents, that’s up to the mountain climbers. And that’s really what a facilitator does. They are the person that deals with the group dynamics and deals with the process that’s going to be used and all the different tools and techniques or “Do you put them in breakout rooms? Do you put them in an activity? What do you do?” That’s what facilitators do.

Eddie Turner:

Wonderful. And INIFAC happens to offer the highest credential in the facilitation industry. What’s it called it?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

It’s what we do and it’s the Certified Master Facilitator. And what we found is there are some different certifications out there and there are some facilitators who do a great job. And then there are some meetings with different participants that the volume is turned up a little bit, the dynamics that I was talking about, the dynamics are a little bit more challenging, the types of topics that need to be dealt with can be a little bit more challenging. And so, it’s the certified master facilitator who not only has experience but, I often say, have more tools in their toolbox to help that group achieve that end result that they want to achieve.

Eddie Turner:

Excellent. And so, to come up with the certification for the Certified Master Facilitator, this wasn’t something that was just thrown together. What did you do in terms of competencies when you created that?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Great question. Thank you. Maybe I’ll just begin by saying INIFAC is a certifying body only. We are not a membership organization. There is a huge benefit to having membership organizations out there and that network and camaraderie. INIFAC only certifies. And so, when we looked at “Okay, what does it take to be a great facilitator?”, the academic in me was like “Well, we have to do research.” So, we went out and we certified people who hire facilitators, people who are facilitators, people who attend meetings and we said “What works for you?” And we took all of that information and from that information, we came up with six competencies – presence, can you assess the group for what they need, can you communicate with the group, can you control the dynamics and the frustrations and the anger and the people who are perhaps just wanting to talk to speak and just wanting lots of attention, and can you do that consistently, and then the last one is can you evaluate the whole process, can you learn from your experience and be better tomorrow than you were yesterday.

Eddie Turner:

Excellent. So, six key competencies and 30 total sub-competencies.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Correct.

Eddie Turner:

So, I asked about the Certified Master Facilitator because when I came to you and said “I have this great idea. Here’s a certification we should offer that meets the needs right now of facilitators around the world.” I said “Here you go, Eileen. Here’s what I think we should do.” And I want people to know that what INIFAC is certifying people on today looks nothing like what I brought because you took it and you added the INIFAC qualifications for a Certified Master Facilitator, you took those key competencies we used for that premier credential and you used that to build out the Certified Virtual Facilitator credential.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. You know what, Eddie, you know I’m a camper and it only takes a little match to start a big bonfire. So, I think you started a bonfire. And the reason why I say that bonfire is what we wanted was something simple and I was going to say easy but it’s not easy, something that’s simple and something that’s quick and something that’s all-inclusive. Now, those are pretty high standards to set. And I have to say I am really proud of this because we achieve that every time I do an assessment. And I don’t prompt the candidate. At the end, they say “I can’t believe how much you covered in 30 minutes.” And that’s what it is. It’s a 30 minute-interview. That’s all it is. There’s a group of assessors. The assessor sits down with you for 30 minutes and you have a conversation and we pick your brain. We pick your brain about all kinds of things. So, I would love to hear in the chat box if anybody wants to know what some of those brain picking things might be.

Eddie Turner:

Yes, I’m going to share that in just a hot second but first let me show, I got ahead of myself, this is the credential that you end up with, this is the medallion – the Certified Virtual Facilitator – specifically an INIFAC-Certified Virtual Facilitator. And why an INIFAC-Certified Virtual Facilitator? For the reasons you just explained. An INIFAC-Certified Virtual Facilitator has mastered specific competencies that are considered the highest in the industry. You receive this medallion and a wonderful certificate to put on your wall from Dr. Eileen Dowse.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

And the executive director.

Eddie Turner:

And our amazing executive director Cameron Whitehead, absolutely. We’ll have more right after this.

This podcast is sponsored by Eddie Turner LLC. Organizations who need to accelerate the development of their leaders call Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. Eddie works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact. Call Eddie Turner to help your leaders one on one as their coach or to inspire them as a group through the power of facilitation or a keynote address. Visit EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more.

Hi. This is Dr. Steven Stein, psychologist and Founder of MHS Assessments and you’re listening to the Keep Leading!® Podcast with Eddie Turner.

Eddie Turner:

The other thing I’m going to talk about in terms of our certification is I’m getting a lot of questions directly and one of the big ones has been who should pursue the CVF, who is it for.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Wow! Great question. The flippant answer is “Well, anybody” and in a way it is anybody. We’ve had some business leaders who say “You know what, I’m really interested in this. I want to be a certified virtual facilitator” even though they’re a manager, in this case, this person was a VP. We’ve had a lot of internal and external facilitators. We’ve had speakers. Basically, this credential is for anyone who wants to get some peer review on themselves and who conduct virtual meetings. This is not can you get on a camera and look okay and turn on the right buttons. This is actually can you facilitate. So, some of those questions that we ask are things like “How do you move from one agenda item to another?” And there are some techniques to do that.

Eddie Turner:

Yeah. And if the person says “What’s an agenda?”, then we know we’re in trouble, right? It’s amazing how many people still don’t use agendas. They invite you to a meeting and you’re just supposed to show up – “We hit the start button on the Zoom session and here we go.” No, what is the order of events or, as we say in mathematics, the order of operations?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

That’s right. And the other thing is we often will say, some people go “Oh my God, the facilitator is coming on. We got to do those stupid ground rules or whatever” and there’s been a bit of a change to virtual etiquette and now people have gotten very jazzy and we now call that virtual netiquette, right? And no matter what you want to call it, it’s still framing up the conversation. So, so in a way, we do that all the time. We frame up conversations – “Hey, Eddie, could I just talk to you for five minutes?” or “Could I talk to you at 6 o’clock for five minutes?” So, we frame up conversations. Why the heck don’t we do that for meetings? Why the heck don’t we start and say “The purpose of this call is to X. And if we could get done five minutes early, then all of us can go run off, get a bio break before we have to jump on to another meeting.”

Eddie Turner:

And we want you to understand at all levels, no matter who you are, how are you operating on different platforms because certain skills transfer over nicely from one platform to the other and there are others that are very platform specific but a certified virtual facilitator typically has mastery of two or more platforms to achieve the credential.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

That’s correct. And, obviously, Zoom is bubbling up to the top for ease, not only ease for the participant because it’s becoming so common. There are some nice features like breakout rooms that facilitators are really liking.

Eddie Turner:

Yes, indeed. And then speakers have asked me, I’m a part of a lot of organizations, I guess, but my primary organizations, of course, are my coaching career, we’ve got the International Coaching Federation and the National Speakers Association where I hold my speaking credentials. And so, some of the speakers have said “Do I need that?” and I’ve said “Yes.” My whole premise in 2018 when I gave that speech was speakers should be more facilitative and, certainly now, all the more so because speakers are not getting on stages, they are having to work within this little box or should I look at my camera up here instead of looking at you but we’re having to work that. So, how do you work that effectively, how do you do the engagement differently than what we do in the big grand ballrooms?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah, that’s right.

Eddie Turner:

So, to your point, I think everyone can benefit from having facilitative skills and by demonstrating that competency and during this downturn, for many people, they’re finding that an extra credential doesn’t hurt.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. And you know what, let’s talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly here., We have had some people that have not passed the CVF. And in one case, the person had logged on and after five minutes they said “Peace out. I just realized I need to do some more thinking” and it was like “You know what, you’re right.” And then they came back and they knocked it out of the park. Another person came close to passing and didn’t and within a week went back, did a little bit more studying, came back again, knocked it out of the park.

So, the reason why I’m telling you this story is not because it’s particularly difficult, if you know the information, and we try to make it very conversational and not nerve-wracking and “oh my goodness!” If you do this and you do it right, then it’s really, really simple and you have this lovely conversation and you share what you know and then you are able to tell folks “I’ve had a peer review and I can do this.”

Eddie Turner:

Yeah. In fact, while I ask you this next question, I’m going to put this up so folks can see this. If you are interested in seeing what we’re talking about, head on over to INIFAC.org. You can see the website URL at the top of this image and click on the button that says “CVF”. Then you will get all the details – How long it takes, 30 minutes; what exactly this is and what it costs. So, what an individual who achieves this can say if you are an employee, you’re not looking to be a paid facilitator as an independent one but you can say inside your organization “Here’s the competency I have.” Of course, if you’re independent, you can say this to your clients.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah.

Eddie Turner:

Now, Eileen, I notice here that we’re only charging 88 dollars for this credential. Why are we only charging 88 dollars for this credential?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah, what were we thinking? What were we thinking because we’re not making any money if we charge that amount? Well, here’s what we’re thinking. We’re thinking that this is really valuable and let’s do this at cost and get the word out there.

Eddie Turner:

Actually, we’re not doing it at cost, right?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Well, just about at cost.

Eddie Turner:

We’re kind of losing a little bit of this but we’re doing it.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah, we’re doing it. That’s right. Yeah, just barely doing it. And partially the reason why we’re just barely doing it is because folks like you, Eddie, and me are volunteering our time and saying “We believe in this. We want to share the knowledge. We want to share the love and the credential. So, get out there and do it.” And what we’ve said is “You know what, by December 31st, holidays are over. Well, then we will be upping the price at that point.”

Eddie Turner:

Yes. And even at that price, that’s more of our breakeven, right?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Exactly.

Eddie Turner:

And you talked about the process. So, people are going through this 30-minute process which is very reasonable and they’re talking about what they are learning through the process of going through this. What’s been perhaps for you because I found that by doing these I’m learning and I thought I knew this stuff really, really well like nobody’s going to show me anything that I haven’t seen, I’ve heard of all the platforms, I’ve used them but I’m finding there are some platforms out there and some have come online because of this that I have never heard of. What are you learning?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I’m learning how excited people are about FAST.com. One of the things we check on for the certification is we check your bandwidth and your latency. And sometimes people don’t know about that. So, we give a little tutorial in the middle of the assessment. And people love the website to check how their internet is. And we have a standard that you need to meet in order to conduct virtual sessions. Some of the things that I’m learning about is … one very sad thing I learned was that I have a bit of a jealous streak because someone in San Francisco, their bandwidth was one gigabyte and I was like drooling on the camera, I’m like “Oh my God!” And he said to me “Eileen, I pay for this one gigabyte” and it was like “Oh wow! I didn’t even know you could do that work and I’d get some of that.”

And then the other thing I learned partially from you, Eddie, and then partially from another candidate was this whole idea of it’s important to have different camera angles. It’s almost like the old days of television where it was one camera, one angle. That’s what’s starting to happen in virtual. You need to have multiple cameras. So, because of that, I went out and got myself a document camera which is think of the old overhead projectors. So, you can change cameras and you can do some writing. And people like that because we are getting exhausted by constantly looking at a screen all day.

Eddie Turner:

Absolutely. And it’s interesting when you talk about FAST.com and how you arrived at that because when we showed this to the rest of the board, everybody had their favorite testing site for speed and we just settled on FAST, we said “Hey, this is better.” We didn’t disagree with the other sites but this was better. Now, this became very important because I did a very high-level program where I was the guest and the bandwidth came to a crawl and it was not pretty. We got through it and it was still a success but how much better it would have been had the individuals known that here’s a couple little small things you can do to test this connection beforehand or “Hey, if it’s high stakes, don’t run it on wireless. Hey, there’s something called ethernet.” – “Well, what is it?” So, we go through that when we’re assessing people. And we talk about redundancy and we get into what that looks like, what it means and candidates are learning from that.

And then we get into engagement strategies. What’s been your favorite engagement strategy? I want to put you on the spot.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. Some of the engagement strategies are like the same ones – “Well, we can engage people with the chat box. We can engage people with breakout rooms” – but how these people are using those different tools are really exciting. And I may be saying things that everyone knows but who knows like chat bombs, right? So, you get everybody to put in their answer and then “1, 2, 3, push enter and send” and it’s like “Wow! We have all these answers” and it just adds a little bit of thrill. I just heard last week that someone suggested doing a scavenger hunt because it’s about getting people up out of their chairs. And sometimes we think “Well, you’re in a virtual meeting. You’ve got to sit down. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to be serious.” It’s all changing. We’ve got kids running through the rooms, we’ve got cats on the desk and we need to figure out the balance of all of that, that how can we make this a little bit more enjoyable and more human.

Eddie Turner:

Yes, absolutely. So, we’ve been getting new strategies and I thought we were pretty good. We’ve got a lot of documented strategies both individually and our board collectively. We’ve got some serious strategies but I think all of us are learning something new as we go through this process as well.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I had one more. This one is kind of cool and I haven’t ever heard this one before and it’s all about getting you to use upper body because we’re just sitting here. So, this one is using your arm like a dashboard. So, so often we’re doing this “Hey, thumbs up. We agree.” Well, this says if it’s flat line, you don’t agree and then if you go up or where are you in the dashboard. So, it’s just getting people to move a little bit in their chair and circulate some blood and maybe get some blood going to their head.

Eddie Turner:

Yes. Yeah, I remember that one. We can go through a whole lot of them. if we give too many, then we’re giving away the exam. Good. So, that’s one or two, if you want to use it for your exam. You got one or two.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

And if you’re really hungry, get talking in that chat box and we’ll answer more.

Eddie Turner:

So, here’s the other thing that comes up, Eileen. So, people have said “Okay, I’m interested in getting the certification. Great. I’m going to go to INIFAC.org, I’m going to click on CVF and I’m going to get certified but what if I need training? Do you offer training?”

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I am sorry to say we do not and we are very specific at INIFAC to say we are a certifying body. Now, there are lots of different sources out there for training. And, Eddie, you and I have talked about this and it’s like you could get so overwhelmed, it’s like “What!” And quite honestly, I find that just talk to some of your colleagues. And Eddie and I will carry on conversations or I’ll talk to someone else and pass this information out to him and vice versa. So, share the knowledge with colleagues. And sometimes colleagues will say “Oh, I found this great site” and it just seems to help the absolute barrage of information coming to us on the how-to.

Eddie Turner:

Absolutely. Good. So, I’m enjoying this conversation with the co-founder and current chair of INIFAC – the International Institute for Facilitation – where we offer the highest credential in the facilitation industry.

If you are enjoying this conversation, hit the LIKE button, let us know that you like what you’re hearing. Let us know you’re here by saying hello in the chat. Tell us who you are and where you’re from. What question do you have about facilitation or the certified virtual facilitation credential or anything? We’re coaches. We’ll answer any question.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah, there you go. You know what, Eddie, you were talking about how we’re getting lots of questions. And one of the questions that I get a lot about is the “How do you appear on the screen?” because you only get your little box, right? So, for those who are presenters, it’s how do you work the room. For those who are facilitators, same kind of thing, but it’s how do you look on the screen. And I would like to propose that we just have a little conversation about that, things like lighting because you’ve got the circle lamp, you’ve got the soft box lamp, you’ve got not to sit in front of a window. Those are some of the things around lighting. What have you found?

Eddie Turner:

Well, one of the most painful lessons I learned is not to have a window open behind me. I did that one time for an interview but, yes, lighting. And then if you wear glasses like you and I, what type of light you want. The ring light is not our friend. So, soft boxes are your best lighting. Where you want it, whether you want one box set up or you want two set up. So, we talk about that and we ask people to explain that in their certification. We talk about the process in terms of selecting the platform you’re going to use, selecting the tools you’re going to use. You talked about using, I’m going to say overhead, the document camera earlier. I love being able to use the iPad and to be able to log into a session and then instead of using a whiteboard, being able to use an iPad and engage the visual learner, kinesthetic learner by simply the process of using that.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. One of the things that I’m finding that a lot of people aren’t necessarily aware of is that you have to imagine your screen is divided horizontally in thirds and vertically in thirds.

Eddie Turner:

Oh, sorry, you were asking me about the screen piece. I apologize. I went away from that.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

That’s okay. As a good coach, I just brought you back on topic. And the goal is to be in that middle third. And I’ve had people even on the assessments or even in conversations, it’s almost like they’re using their body which is great but they get really close and then they get far away almost to the point where you can get nauseous of what’s going on or I have people who are sitting very high and then they’re looking down at you or the camera is o up and you can tell if they should have their nose hairs trimmed. So, it’s really important about staying in that middle third.

Eddie Turner:

Yes, it is. And you come close when you want to make a point where you want to lead in, right?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah, exactly.

Eddie Turner:

There’s something I was going to tell you. My friend Dr. John Molidor, he’s a neuroscientist, he would say, if I remember correctly, we should always be to the audience’s right. So, I should be more further left. So, everybody has a different thing.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah, you’re right.

Eddie Turner:

I do like center third is usually a good rule.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I’m with you. You would drive me crazy if you were just off balance but that’s me. The other thing is just around distractions too, right? We’ve had people, not only in this assessment, just talking to colleagues, the ceiling fan is going around. And, again, anyone who gets seasick, I’m like “Oh, get me the drama meme.” So, you have to watch out for those things.

Eddie Turner:

Yes. And then it shows up in terms of sound, which is another thing that we talk about the importance of having the proper microphone and then if you’re using a microphone, what you should be aware of between the difference in the microphone and the headset, where the audio is going, where it’s coming from and how you separate the two channels and why you do that. So, we get really specific when we get into this assessment.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. And have you noticed that those people who are understanding all of this, “Oh, I need a better camera,” “Oh, I need a better microphone,” sadly, I want to say them, good luck trying to find one because it’s like the market has been glutted right now and everyone thinks “Oh, the microphone on my laptop is fine.” Yeah, kind of, sort of it is. It’s better to have an external mic in our minds anyways.

Eddie Turner:

Absolutely. All right. So, what did I miss? Did I leave anything out? I think I tried to ask you all the questions that I have been receiving. Is there anything you’ve been receiving that I missed?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Anything I’ve been receiving? There are a couple things that I’d like to bring up for folks that I think would be beneficial to them.

Eddie Turner:

Okay, go for it.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

One thing that I believe people forget about is those terrible horrible awful moments when your internet crashes, your electricity goes out or if you’re using Zoom, your platform fails. So, we have conversations about what are your backup plans, what do you do in those “Oh my word” moments. And if you’re facilitating a meeting, you have to have a backup plan. Even if your backup plan is a backup person, that’s fine too. You’ve got to have a backup plan.

Eddie Turner:

Yeah, that’s that redundancy we were talking about. And an uninterrupted power supply goes a long way.

Angie is chiming in. Angie says she uses wireless Bose earbuds and the sound is so much better than using wired buds or the laptop. Thank you for chiming in.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. Thanks, Angie. And you know what, on the receiving end, I’ve heard that those are pretty good. I’ve heard that those are pretty good and I’ve also heard that Apple now has noise canceling earbuds that I need to go check with my bank first if I can afford those but, yeah, I do think that they work just as well and sometimes they’re not as clunky. I was talking to someone the other day, a psychologist, who said there is something mentally disarming when you wear the earbuds. If you have the headset, you kind of look more formal or whatever. So, thank you for your point, Angie, because I think that is spot on.

Eddie Turner:

Thank you, Angie. Yeah, indeed. In fact, the audience who watches me every week will probably notice that I shift between using these and my Apple earbuds. Because I want a certain look, I don’t like to wear the headset. I use these when I’m doing the podcast behind the scenes because I separate my voice from the audio I’m hearing so that we have a clean track but I have found when I do these live episodes, for some reason, the times I use Apple earbuds, the audio was horrible because it was not using my main microphone. And so, it didn’t make those episodes as good. So, I’ll just say I’m going to stick with these for now but, yes, we’ll even notice that the newscasters, when we’re watching television, they’re all using the Apple earbuds. So, it is a thing. It is an official thing. That’s another way that Apple has taken over our lives.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Yeah. Okay, Angie, you’re on next on this show. You do the show. The other thing that I wanted to bring up that I think people really forget, and we talked about moving the body with different activities, is how do you get people engaged. And a large portion of that is your own energy. So, sure, there’s use the chat. Sure, there’s the put people into breakup rooms and have discussion but just be so conscious of your own presence and when a facilitator presenter comes up at a high level, the group will be a little bit lower. So, if that facilitator presenter is coming in at a medium level, your group is going to be at a low level. So, you really have to be on. And more and more I’m hearing how many facilitators who are doing this virtually are more exhausted at the end of a virtual session.

Eddie Turner:

Yeah, you’ve got to bring it. You’ve got to bring it.

Hey, someone you assessed has joined us – Iris Lopez.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Hi, Iris.

Eddie Turner:

She says “The certification experience was awesome with Eileen.”

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Thank you.

Eddie Turner:

How about that. She’s joining us from Puerto Rico and she was one of our talent development leaders there who ran the ATD chapter for Puerto Rico and she was also a guest on this show a couple of weeks ago. So, thank you for chiming in, Iris.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

And Iris, if you could chime in some more if you have any takeaways that you found from this assessment. I had shared some of the things that people have noticed along the way but if you have a specific “Ah, this is something I learned or something I didn’t realize I knew,” we would love to hear from you or anybody on this call.

Eddie Turner:

Yeah. So, we’re headed toward the wrap-up. So, if you’ve got any questions, this is your chance to jump in with your final questions. And if you haven’t hit SHARE yet, hit SHARE please so that your friends can get the answers to these questions. We hope to see you going to the INIFAC.org website and taking advantage of getting your medallion to become a certified virtual facilitator and having your certificate that you’re able to share with your friends. So, head on over there, check it out and we hope to be sitting in front of you assessing you really soon.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

And with that assessing, please know, we also laugh. I mean, this is not a scary thing, I promise you. We view this as colleague to colleague and really just sharing information and setting that standard.

Eddie Turner:

Yeah. No, we’re not scary.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I mean, people are nervous. I get that but you know what, we just relax them and …

Eddie Turner:

Although true confession, I’ll tell people that when I went for my first INIFAC certification, Eileen Dowse did fail me.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

And baby, look at you now.

Eddie Turner:

Who is this Eileen Dowse person? Doesn’t she know I’m the best facilitator there is and she shot me down?”

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

And baby, look at you now. Look at you now.

Eddie Turner:

Oh gosh! So, she’s not scary but she is tough, I will tell you.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

You know what, I’m not going to argue with you on that and probably neither will my children. And you know what, you’re right. No kidding around, INIFAC does set a standard. I mean, we’re not throwing out credentials all over the place. We do have a standard and not everyone passes the CVF. And people come back and say “You know what, I learned.” Not everyone passes the CVF. You aren’t the only one, Eddie, and you’ve come back. So, it’s about raising that standard.

Eddie Turner:

Yes, raising the bar and keeping it high.

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Eddie Turner:

Well, Eileen, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show today at the last minute to talk about this because we talked about this on Sunday and then I was like “You know, I got to do this.” And even yesterday I had some more stuff come in.

Oh, before we part, Iris, is saying here “Yes, for me, it was a tremendous insight just being in the process.” That’s what I was saying earlier, right? “I became more aware of things that I already knew but during the assessment, Eileen just helped me figure out how important they are.” Wow! What a testimony! So, thank you for sharing that testimonial, Iris.

All right. So, any parting words before we leave?

Dr. Eileen Dowse:

I think it was Henry Ford who said “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” And that’s kind of how it is with all this certification. whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. So, go ahead and try. And we really do believe that these kinds of peer reviews based on researched, surveyed checks and balances of what the credentials are, these are very important skills that you need to have. And I’ve even had people say “Wow! This has helped me in my marriage,” “This has helped me in my dating life.” Facilitation, like you said, Eddie, is the way of the future. We have got to know how to engage and interact with people better.

Eddie Turner:

Absolutely. Well, thank you.

And thank you for tuning in. This has been a special edition of the Keep Leading!® Podcast and Keep Leading LIVE™ and this will live on the INIFAC.org website for you to reference and get answers to the questions about how you can become a Certified Virtual Facilitator.

Thanks for tuning in, everyone. And remember, no matter what you’re doing, always keep leading.

Thank you for listening to your host Eddie Turner on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Please remember to subscribe to the Keep Leading!® Podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen. For more information about Eddie Turner’s work, please visit EddieTurnerLLC.com.

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The Keep Leading!® podcast is for people passionate about leadership. It is dedicated to leadership development and insights. Join your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator® as he speaks with accomplished leaders and people of influence across the globe as they share their journey to leadership excellence. Listen as they share leadership strategies, techniques and insights. For more information visit eddieturnerllc.com or follow Eddie Turner on Twitter and Instagram at @eddieturnerjr. Like Eddie Turner LLC on Facebook. Connect with Eddie Turner on LinkedIn.

The post Keep Leading!® Podcast 103 | Becoming a Certified Virtual Facilitator™ | Eileen Dowse, Ph.D. appeared first on Eddie Turner.

Facilitation Archives - Eddie Turner

Keep Leading!® Podcast 103 | Becoming a Certified Virtual Facilitator™ | Eileen Dowse, Ph.D.

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