About Us

Learn more about the GFI, its people and what drives our work.
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Our Approach

Find out about the Art and Mastery of Generative Facilitation.
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Our Programs

You want to shift your facilitation practice to the next level? Check out our Curriculum!
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Inspiration

Looking for inspiration and resources for your facilitation practice?
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Upcoming Events

The times call for a deeper transformation in our organizations, societies, and lives.
We want to strengthen you in making this happen –
with curiosity, compassion, and courage!

Welcome

Enjoy our introduction to the Generative Facilitation Institute, the place for leaders, changemakers and facilitators to learn about the latest approaches in facilitating innovation and transformation.

Explore our webpage and learning programs for shifting your facilitation practice to the next level. Looking forward to seeing you!

Warm regards,

Christine Wank
Founder and Director

A call for profound change

The time is ripe for a deeper transformation that requires change beyond quick fixes on the structural level. Currently, there is a need for deeper and more intentional holistic change that includes our thinking, our feeling, the quality of our relationships, and our search for meaning and purpose. In other words: change that is informed by who we are and who we want to become. Facilitating generative change means connecting to our future potential and allowing this future to become a reality.

How to make it happen?

Generative facilitators leverage the intelligence of the head, heart, and hands to make these kinds of transformation happen. They do so by supporting people to see what is possible, to hold and transform difficult challenges along the way, and to unleash their full creative potential. In this process groups move beyond dysfunctional patterns and obstacles in order to arrive at innovative, healthy systems that serve the larger whole. Generative facilitation allows collectives to co-create the future for the wellbeing of all.

Shifting facilitation to the next level:
From steering to navigating collective discoveries

In fields such as leadership and change management, a paradigm shift is occurring due to a growing understanding that we cannot control or micromanage change and that change is not only external but also internal in that it includes the way we think, feel and who we are. We are about to witness a similar shift in change facilitation, moving in the direction of creating the right context conditions needed for holistic change to emerge in the moment, instead of steering the process top-down. Rather than mapping out a route to get from A to B and sticking to that path, facilitation is increasingly about discovering the road as you go; about the shifting of the quality of relationships and how we listen and communicate with each other and about navigating journeys of collective discovery and transformation.

This shift includes that we master both the inner and outer dimension of facilitation and that we strengthen our inner ground and quality of our presence as well. There are many powerful innovation methods and tools available for this. The challenge, however, lies in how we apply them to open the minds and hearts of people – and ourselves – and to spark action that allows us to collectively move forward.

Our aim is to strengthen you as a facilitator, leader, and changemaker in order to:

  • Stay open and connected to the potential future and fields of possibilities, even when the times get rough.
  • Master both the inner and outer game of facilitating shifts in thinking, feeling, and identity.
  • Remain centered in your inner ground to be able to hold difficult feelings and thoughts along the way.
  • Embody an open mind, heart, and will by cultivating curiosity, compassion, and courage – in yourself and in others.
  • Help transform old thinking, routines, and stuckness to flow and unleash the generative potential of groups to innovate.
  • Help move from ego-centered systems to healthy, purposeful eco-systems that serve the wellbeing of all.
  • Sustain such deeper changes and continued learning.

To this end, the Generative Facilitation Institute provides cutting-edge programs and aims to nurture a community of practitioners wanting to facilitate generative change for society, organization, and self.

Our Approach:
Generative Facilitation – Facilitating Transformations
with Curiosity, Compassion, and Courage

Our cutting-edge programs are designed for you to become more effective in your work as a facilitator, leader, or changemaker by leveraging your most important facilitation tool: your Self.
We enable you to integrate the intelligence of the head, heart, and hands in facilitating deeper changes and transformation processes.

It takes curiosity and an open mind to see with fresh eyes, to think out of the box and to challenge your own mental models.

It takes compassion and emotional intelligence to connect well with others and yourself and to deal with difficult feelings.

It takes courage to step up and move forward to places where you have not been before, to ask bold questions, and to show and live from your authentic self.

Deeply rooted in a systemic understanding of change, our GFI approach is cross-disciplinary and comprehensive in that it includes all those dimensions and intelligences mentioned above. It draws on some of the best proven facilitation and innovation methodologies, the latest insights and approaches from research, as well as old wisdom traditions, and synthesizes them in fresh ways to makes them applicable for the field of generative change facilitation.

Our GFI approach draws from frameworks such as:

  • Theory U and Presencing:
    Providing a clear roadmap for navigating transformation and facilitating emerging futures by opening minds and hearts and unlocking the willingness to act.
  • Generative Coaching:
    Helping to master both the inner and outer game of facilitation by activating your full generative self and presence, and being connected and creative – every day! Helping to integrate your brilliant cognitive mind with your creative generative mind.
  • Neurosciences and Neuro-systemic Approaches:
    Tapping into our different (cognitive, emotional, heart, and gut/somatic) brains, allowing them to (co)operate smoothly. Helping to activate all the necessary inner resources to both facilitate AND sustain profound changes by building new neural pathways to anchor change and allow changes to manifest on the behavioral level.
  • Holistic Change Facilitation and Innovation Approaches:
    Leveraging the wisdom and methodologies from communities of practice around the world such as World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Art of Hosting, and Circle Work, as well as innovation methodologies such as Design Thinking and Agile.
  • Mindfulness and Embodiment:
    Moving beyond a mere cognitive level by integrating the emotional intelligence and the wisdom of the body. Building the inner ground for facilitators and groups, allowing for a sense of calm and focus even when times get rough. Strengthening your presence and awareness to be able to embody the intended change and hold space for others to do the same.

Our Programs:
Mastering the Inner and Outer Game of Facilitation

We are currently offering 3 learning streams
for facilitators, leaders, changemakers, coaches, and consultants:

1) Generative Facilitation Curriculum, incl. Certification and Coaching

Shift your facilitation practice to the next level by learning how to facilitate generative change and navigate transformation. We offer a foundation program and a one-year in-depth program, including the option to become a Certified Generative Facilitator.

2) Learning from the Masters Series

Our MasterClasses are taught by outstanding and inspirational pioneers, thought leaders, and practitioners in the wider field of Generative Facilitation. They offer a unique learning opportunity for deepening and nourishing your facilitation practice and learning from latest insights and practices in the field of generative facilitation. Moreover, you get a chance to engage in a deep dialogue with masters and peer practitioners.

3) Facilitate U Curriculum (in German)

Learn how to apply Theory U/Presencing in your field and how to design and facilitate U processes of profound innovation and change. We help you shift your facilitation practice to a deeper level and increase your impact in this experimental and practice-oriented part of the institute. Learn from our in-depth experience on how to apply Theory U in your own practice as a facilitator, leader, changemaker, coach, or consultant – helping people and organizations to navigate profound innovation and change. There are foundation and advanced programs, as well as regular practitioner circles for the German-speaking community.

Learning by Integrating the Intelligence
of the Head, Heart, and Hands

What does learning with GFI look and feel like?

Come and join our growing international learning community of practitioners in an inspiring, compassionate and engaging  environment.

All of our programs are designed as journeys of collective discovery and deep learning by integrating the intelligence of the head, heart and hands. You will practice experiential learning, state-of-the-art frameworks and methodologies, sensing journeys, working on real-time cases and challenges, peer learning and coaching, and giving and receiving direct and personal feedback. The following components make up the foundation of the GFI learning experience:

  • Cutting-edge frameworks and methodologies across disciplines:
    drawing from a wide range of latest research, communities of practice as well as state-of-the-art approaches to innovation and transformation.
  • Highly experienced international faculty that embody the GFI principles:
    facilitating learning with mastery, integrity and appreciation.
  • Joyful, engaging and inspiring learning environment and community:
    creating safe containers for learning so that you can stretch your self in order to accelerate and deepen your learning.
  • On-site and off-site learning combined, including state-of-the-art online tools and platforms:
    integrating the latest in digital learning, allowing you to continue your exploration and skills development from wherever you are and whenever you want (online learning, webinars, self-monitored learning journeys, etc.).
  • Personal Coaching and Feedback:
    one of the most effective ways to accelerate and deepen your learning.
  • Visual Facilitation, arts, and aesthetics:
    using visual facilitation and the arts as an integral part of facilitating creativity, learning, and change in groups beyond graphic recording and visual note-taking. Using the intelligence of the hands to help groups see themselves, to think, feel, and act outside of the box, and to gain a sense of orientation while navigating transformation.
  • Inspiring places and locations:
    using the vibrant city of Berlin as well as other engaging places to learn and explore how spaces influence deeper learning and the possibility for profound change and innovation.

You want to learn more about how you can strengthen your inner muscles for change and innovation?

Check out the TEDx Talk on the three Cs of Curiosity, Compassion and Courage by the founder of GFI, Christine Wank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV6MlT9Y0Jk