Inspired by the title – Facilitating across cultures – unleashing the power of diversity, I came to the IAF conference in Geneva hoping to learn new tools, see expert facilitation, meet new people and challenge my thinking. After two days my strongest impression is that as action learning facilitators we have a depth of connection that we make in action learning which is rarely reproduced in other facilitated environments.
Maybe it is unfair to compare a conference of 120 people meeting in three hour workshop sessions with a three day programme with six participants which I had just completed. In Geneva of course I have learnt some new things and met some interesting people but the scope and depth of the questions we ask ourselves in action learning make no comparison to the superficial exchange that has happened in most of the conference sessions.
I find myself confirmed in the power of action learning; the simplicity of the methodology; the rigour of our process; the challenge to participants and the amazing outcomes we see.
