221 - Unmasking the Hidden Influence: The Clean Language Approach with Judy Rees

Facilitation can be a messy business; what can we do to clean it up?

Judy Rees, who’s been working with groups for almost 20 years, thinks the answer lies in clean language. A focus on clean language in turn creates what Judy calls ‘clean facilitation’.

Specificity and neutrality is the name of the game, but can facilitators ever truly be neutral? Judy and I wrestle with the big questions of influence, manipulation, and communication in this episode as we try to clear up clean facilitation and explore how to apply it in our day-to-day work.

Find out about:

• What Judy means by ‘clean facilitation’
• Practical examples of how clean language can help facilitators dig deeper into a discussion
• Why getting out of the group’s way is a noble goal, but not always possible
• The ways in which we manipulate without ever realising
• How to use our influence with the group in a beneficial way
• How clean language can help us better understand a group’s idiosyncrasies and uniqueness
• Why focusing our influence on the process, rather than the content, is a valuable path to follow

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Links:

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Free Clean Language ebook.

Judy’s Clean Language for Facilitators course.

Video guide for a Clean Language-based change process.

New Rules for Work experiment, applying Clean Language.

Connect to Judy:

On LinkedIn.

Support the show:
Make a one-off donation and contribute to the ongoing costs of running the podcast.

Any thoughts? Share them with us!

Support the show

✨✨✨

If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/