• There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
    Edith Wharton

  • Education is the movement from darkness to light.
    Allan Bloom

  • The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.
    Hazrat Inayat Khan

  • That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.
    Madeleine L'Engle

  • We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
    Ben Sweetland

  • Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World
    Christopher Columbus

  • The difficulties we experience always illuminate the lessons we need most
    Unknown

  • We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
    Oscar Wilde

  • As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
    Carl Jung

  • What is to give light must endure burning.
    Dr Viktor Frankel

  • When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
    Carl Sagan

Rhonda Tranks - Blog

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Giving Consensus the Finger - How do you get a group to reach consensus …. ?
Written by Rhonda Tranks   
Monday, 25 May 2009 09:50

Firstly the group needs to agree on what’s meant by consensus. Then agreement needs to be reached on how consensus will be reached. Then you can actually start the process … sort of. Add a tight time-frame to the mix and some intransigent group members and things start to get interesting.

My facilitation toolkit includes a number of techniques (ranging from coloured cards or sticky dots to quite intense dialogue) to help groups reach consensus when making decisions.

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Assertiveness – can it make you or break you as a leader?
Written by Rhonda Tranks   
Sunday, 17 May 2009 18:48

How much is too much of a good thing? When is "some" not enough?

According to a study in the Feb 07 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (published by the American Psychological Association) organisational leaders with an "optimal" level of assertiveness may be the most effective.

The authors maintain that aspiring leaders can get assertiveness wrong in both directions - too much or not enough.

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Facilitation and All That Jazz - How Facilitators Can Be Cool Cats
Written by Rhonda Tranks   
Sunday, 03 May 2009 14:03

A recent thread on the AFN e-list focused on an "elevator pitch" for facilitators - how do we describe what we do in 60 seconds or less?

The "what do we do" discussion seems to rear its head on the e-list about every 6 months with many people trying to define facilitation by what we do.

I waded into the debate with a comment that it would be more useful to focus on our role and why we exist rather than re-inventing the wheel by trying to come up with a perfect definition of facilitation.

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