Systemic Modelling Foundation Level

Have you ever thought about the 'shape' of the interactions in your meetings, trainings or other events you lead or facilitate?

Are some of your meetings 'command and control' - where all the comments go through the chair and group members don't really interact with one another?

Have you experienced lacklustre 'pinball' meetings where the chairperson asks a question of one specific person and then the questioning stops? Another person might ask a closed question of a specific colleague, that person says yes or no and then the interaction stops?

Or do you run lively 'star' shaped meetings where everyone comments in a more equal way and as the meeting progresses, problem or issues are put to the whole group. Different people propose ideas or ask questions to build up a group sense of what is going on and what could happen differently?

By building a network of attention, where group members challenge one another or ask for clarification, and where everyone speaks to the whole group, issues can be resolved more quickly, groups can learn about their strengths and everyone can learn from one another's expertise and experience.

This 5 x half-days workshop will equip you with the core skills needed in any context where you want to introduce a topic, find out each person's experience of that topic, enable the group to ask questions of one another and extend that topic until the group can have an intelligent 'whole system' response to the topic / situation.

Regular in-depth and intensive training will enable you to develop competency in applying the principles that underpin Systemic Modelling. You will learn how to use clean questions and metaphor models to support a group to better understand one another and to develop the skills and capability they need to collaborate meaningfully.

During this Foundation level module, our focus will be on the basic skills of using Clean Language to facilitate a group to build a network of attention:

How to get into – and stay in – a good state for facilitation
What’s the minimum you need to say to gain the group’s interest, without imposing your thinking on them
What kind of questions work well as ‘openers’ to get the network going
How to use clean and cleanish questions to accept and extend each person’s response, giving equal attention to all group members
How to encourage diverse contributions so everyone feels their ideas are accepted and valuable
How to get group members curious about one another’s responses
How to use your posture and your voice to draw attention to yourself (when you need more control) and away from yourself (when you have already got a network of attention going in the group)
How to direct attention to different kinds of information as they emerge
How to ensure people get maximum learning from every session and that they leave knowing how they’ll apply what they’ve learned

All of this will be done by following a basic template that you will learn to adapt based on the group’s needs, the opening question and what emerges as you go along. We’ll be integrating the first stages of learning about the other Systemic Models too. For example, you’ll be learning how to give feedback to your fellow participants using the Clean Feedback model and how to create a Developmental Task to make the most of your learning opportunities. This is also a great module to attend any time you want to get back to basics.

Frequently asked questions

What is Clean Language?

Clean Language is a simple set of questions developed by counselling psychologist David Grove. These questions are used with a person’s own words to direct their attention to some aspect of their own experience. Asking these questions in the right context often results in an interesting new insight or the recognition of some new possibility. And if that new possibility is then questioned using Clean Language, the result can be quite profound. Clean questions invite people to consider their experience from different perspectives and they are often surprised by their own capacity to generate new, powerful and useful ideas about their own experience.

More detail

What is Systemic Modelling?

Systemic Modelling is an approach for supporting groups to use clean questions and metaphor models to better understand one another and to develop the skills and capability to collaborate meaningfully.

More detail

Testimonials

This course has given me fabulous strategies and the confidence to help teams be more effective. Systemic Modelling enables teams to get to the real issues of why they aren't working as well and to create their own solutions. A must for facilitators, coaches and trainers working with teams.
Denise Chilton, Coach

A ‘learning by doing’ journey for a group of 7 practitioners carefully guided by Marian and her amazing assistants Sarah and Karrie. The pace that was just right, fun exercises, time for reflection and inquiry, in-the-moment feedback and a welcoming space for celebrating our development in Clean! Highly recommended to anyone who wants to see groups self organize and build network wisdom through masterful facilitation.
Katya Rudelson, Management and Development Consultant

This course was highly enjoyable and I took away a bunch of tools and techniques to support the work I do as a systems coach. The trainer was really flexible through the programme working hard to meet the needs of everyone. The course was made doubly enjoyable by the very relaxed atmosphere.
Louise Yates