FS57 Open Source Facilitation with Perle Laouenan-Catchpole

Facilitation Stories

In today's episode, Nikki talks to Perle Laouenan-Catchpole, an Amsterdam-based facilitator and experienced designer. Perle shares the origins of Perle's award-winning, open-source workshop that aids individuals in identifying their personal climate action.

Perle discusses the importance of open source in facilitation work and the impact it has on personal growth, relationship-building and work perception. She firmly believes in the need for collaborative and shared resources in addressing pressing issues like climate change. T

he discussion also touches on different platforms for sharing open-source material and how they can be leveraged by other facilitators.

Links:

Website https://helloperle.com/

Perle's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/perlelc/

Session Lab Template https://www.sessionlab.com/templates/find-your-climate-sweet-spot/

Nikki's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/

Here's the transcript of the conversation:

NIKKI

Hello and welcome to Facilitation Stories, brought to you by the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Nikki Wilson and my guest today is Perle Laouenan-Catchpole.

Welcome Perle. For listeners that don't know you, could you start by telling us a little bit more about you and your work?

PERLE

Yeah, absolutely. So, I am Perle. I'm a workshop facilitator, moderator, experienced designer and aspiring spoken word artist. It's something I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do for a while now. And I'm based in Amsterdam. I was actually born and bred in Cornwall, so you'll notice a very British accent on me, and I've been living in Amsterdam for the past twelve years and have the great joy of co-parenting a five year old daughter. And yeah, that's about me.

NIKKI

Excellent. And so the inspiration for this episode came from a post you made on LinkedIn saying that you'd won a thing for a workshop you've designed. So, first of all, could you tell us a little bit more about what you won, and how that came about?

PERLE

Yeah, absolutely. Well, to give you a little bit more context about my work, so I went freelance in January and I was working as a full time facilitator before that. And over the past couple of years I really recognized that my skill as a facilitator is facilitating large groups online and that opportunity doesn't come along very often. So I started seeking out communities that could use my skills and landed on a community called Work on Climate, which is a 20,000 strong community of individuals trying to find climate work in climate or transition their roles into climate work.

And I facilitated a workshop for them using Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson's Ven diagram. That basically similar to Ikigai, which is the Japanese concept for finding purpose, helps you identify your personal climate action. So that workshop, 200 and something people turned up for it and it was incredible.

And the workshop design, I then submitted to a contest hosted by Session Lab, which is a facilitators platform, and then won in one of the categories. And I was just really happy to see that workshop then become an open source template for other people to use. So that's how I ended up writing a post on LinkedIn saying I want a thing.

NIKKI

Well, first of all, congratulations Perle, that's great news and you just touched on it there. But one of the things that had really caught my eye about that post was that you said that you'd made it into an open source template. So I wondered if you could tell us a bit more about how open source features in your facilitation work.

PERLE

Yeah, absolutely. And I'd say I kind of categorise it in two ways, because as a facilitator and experienced designer, I rely hugely on open source materials. I'm constantly seeking new ways of doing things, new concepts, new exercises. So I'm leaning on other people's open source material all the time - and then that then encourages me and it inspires me to do the same. And I actually believe that facilitation is an abundant skill set.

We need more Facilitators in the world. We need it in our organizations, in our teams. And I fundamentally believe that if we can support one another to grow those tools, that mindset, that approach in our work, then the world is better for it. And yeah, I just believe there's enough work for all of us. So why keep my skills, my knowledge, my understanding of how to facilitate to myself, if we can kind of trigger other people to do more with their work too, especially when it comes to climate?

NIKKI

Excellent. You've talked a little bit about kind of drawing from other people's work as a key tool for yourself. But how did you first start working in a way where you were sharing more of this information? And how do you go about that?

PERLE

Yeah, I feel like that it kind of reinforces some of my key values as just a human being, where I aspire to be and try to be open and kind and authentic anyway. And then I have had the pleasure to work for many organisations and companies that do the same. So they either are open to partnering with lots of different partners to achieve their goals or providing services that increase access to global needs such as health care and education. So in a way, my value system makes me seek out organisations or types of work that allow me to be an open source minded person, I guess.

NIKKI

So thinking a bit more about what impact opening up and sharing your own work has had on you, could you tell us a little bit more about that? How has it affected how your work is perceived or the relationships you build, those kind of things?

PERLE

So I truly believe that if you're open with your work and your approach to work and you are authentic in that process, then you attract the same types of people and opportunities back. And I also have a fundamental belief that we are able to grow with each other. I'm not somebody who works very well individually. I really work better when someone else is able to spark my energy, grow my energy, add to my ideas, add to my body of work. And I know that I am valuable for other people in that way. So if we kind of can approach facilitation with that kind of mindset, then we only make it better for people receiving that facilitation.

So yeah, it's just a belief system, I guess. And I'm feeling the benefits of it because I meet incredible people, I work with incredible people and I do a job I love.

NIKKI

And so, I mean, personally, I'm really a convert to the benefits of open. Now, I was before this conversation, but you've even convinced me more. But I think when I first started to become more aware of this way of working, it felt a bit counterintuitive. And you've said that you yourself have more recently gone freelance. And I think there was a sort of mindset around, if I give too much away, how will I justify charging for the things that I do want to? And also always being aware of things like risk of copyright and ownership. And for any listeners that are kind of grappling with some of those ideas, even if they've heard about the benefits from you, what would you say to them to kind of reassure them or convince them to give it a try?

PERLE

Yeah, I actually want to just first acknowledge that it's a very real feeling, right? Because it took me a second to press that button and submit my template to be open source, because in the end, well, anyway, that is a free workshop that I'm offering so a couple of hundred people could join it without any monetary benefit to me. So I was already making that choice for it to be open source. And yeah, it's a workshop that I could have monetized. But I also believe there's different types of level of my work that I can monetize and there's other types of work that I can open out to people to learn myself, learn what works, what doesn't, and test new concepts, test new ideas. And so I use often my free workshops or my open workshops as testing grounds. And that enables me to get stronger as a facilitator, hone my skills. So I won't provide all workshops open source or all templates open source, because in the end, I need to also grow my paid work, my clients, I also want to be able to provide my clients with tailored solutions that work for them. And some of it can work for other organisations, and I will share the bits that could.

So in a way, it's not one or the other, it's about the gradient and just giving parts of you or parts of your thinking or your work out into the world so that you can spread a certain message or spread a certain need that the world needs.

NIKKI

Okay, and you mentioned that the workshop that you won this award for was shared on Sessionlab. So is that the main place that you might open out workshops and designs, or are there other places that you also share content?

PERLE

Yeah, Session Lab is the first. Honestly, there are a few different platforms that I'm looking at to expand my work. One of my main clients, Limelights, that I work for quite a lot as a freelance facilitator, they have a couple of Miro templates that are available really around Sprint methodology, but also using Kotter's Eight Steps for Change in sustainability teams. So in a way, there's many different avenues that work can be shared. And as facilitators, we should be looking for these platforms to put our ways of working out there.

NIKKI

And so if anyone is listening and they're interested in finding out more about open source and how it could apply to their facilitation, what would you recommend as kind of sources of information/first steps?

PERLE

Yeah, well, I feel like there's obvious spaces to look for. So in Miro, Mural, there's so much abundance of resources that are available for facilitators. And then, of course, Session Lab is my daily go to. It's a gold mine of resources. The library is free, it's open, it can be used by anyone And then actually Chat GPT, it's becoming my sparring partner and it's the place where I often put in the big questions like, where are the places that I could look for putting open source material there? What type of material should I be putting out into the world? So it's an aspiring partner that allows you to think with you to increase your accessibility to different resources that you may never have heard about before.

NIKKI

Okay. And for all those places that you mentioned, is it possible for other facilitators to share their work on those places as well? Just to confirm, apart from Chat GPT obviously.

PERLE

Yeah, of course. Yeah, Miro, for sure. And actually, it triggers me, Nikki, to talk about Slack because there are so many Slack communities, Leapers, which is a freelance network, and then Freelancers Get Done. And that actually is a Slack community that has a facilitation bench and facilitation skills channel. And those channels are really great sources of ideas, but also just going, hey, I have 100 people in this workshop, two days, any inspiration of how I could get them from A to B or working on this challenge? And there are so many incredible kind of minds within minutes jumping on your challenge and helping you to come up with ideas.

NIKKI

Okay, there's so many different suggestions there Perle, so hopefully everyone's got a notebook, but we’ll include them In the show notes as well. And so we had a quick sort of message exchange on LinkedIn after your post and you said that you felt that open source was where it's at, particularly around climate. And what is it specifically around climate that you think makes this a particularly important approach?

PERLE

The urgency, fundamentally the urgency. We need fundamental change and action and we need it fast. And the more we do things, do things together, open out... I got the workshop idea based on Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson's open Source Ven diagram that she created that helps people find their climate action. Based on that work, I am able to create a workshop on it. And based on that, 200 people joined. And that's how movements start, that's how movements spread, start, and fundamentally, when it comes to climate, we know that we have to keep acting and keep acting fast.

So, yeah, fundamentally, open source is exactly where we should be, the kind of mindset we should be approaching with climate. And there's amazing case studies and examples of open source climate actions that are happening out there in the world and it's inspiring to see how many people are motivated to put their time and effort and their skills to solving world problems.

NIKKI

No, definitely with that in mind and all that we've talked about. I know myself that you're always working on things because I see them popping up, as I said, particularly through LinkedIn. But have you got anything in the pipeline that you're working on or that you want other listeners to know about that you know others are working on? Is there anything we should be looking out for?

PERLE

Yeah, so I'm working on quite a few open workshops with the Work on Climate community. So they're popping up every month or two and you can basically just follow me on LinkedIn and you will see the work. I feel like we've got summer approaching, things are a little bit quiet, so, yeah, I'm really focusing on testing concepts and doing that with communities like Work on Climate.

NIKKI

Great, well, I think it sounds like you're going to be keeping yourself busy in the slowdown over summer. So if any of the listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?

PERLE

For sure, LinkedIn, my name will be spelled out for you in the show notes. I'm sure it's not an easy one. And then I also have a website that you can drop me a line on which is

https://helloperle.com/

And yeah, I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you.

NIKKI

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Perle. It's been really good to talk to you this afternoon, and I hope you can keep spreading and sharing the open message and that some of the other facilitators listening kind of had their interest sparked in learning a bit more about this. Because I think totally agree with what you've said about kind of spreading the word, spreading the resources. It's so important. Thank you.

PERLE

Thank you, Nikki.