ProMeet - Professional Meeting Faciliation

ABOUT PROMEETProfessional Meeting Facilitation

Professional facilitation of meetings, workshops and conferences

Strategy | Innovation | Change | Learning | Design
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Welcome from ProMeet founder Sean Blair
"Thanks for visiting our website, ProMeet's award winning facilitation enables you and your people to be focussed, productive and work-together effectively. We all about outcomes and impact."
With over 30 case studies on this site, our case study finder aims to show you the kinds of assignment you might be interested in. Our blog has many ideas that you can use in your meetings without our help. And this page tells you about the ideas underpinning ProMeet and introduces you to ProMeet associates."

The key ideas underpinning ProMeet:

Effective meetings are led by participatory leaders

ProMeet founder, Sean Blair set out with an intention to design and build a system that would help improve the effectiveness and productivity of meetings. The simplicity of the ProMeet tools belies the ideas they are based on. Read More>
A bit like the 'Intel inside' campaign that helped users understand the central processing unit, CPU or 'chip' was the key component of a computer, the key component inside ProMeet is participatory leadership.


The ProMeet definition of Participatory Leadership

“The participatory leadership paradigm is based on respect and engagement. It constructively focuses energy in every human to human encounter. 

An advanced, democratic and effective model of leadership, it
harnesses diversity, builds community, and creates shared responsibility for action.

Because it deepens individual and collective learning, yielding
real development and growth, it is a leadership paradigm that is particularly effective in enabling change within organisations."

Participatory leaders are typically post conventional leaders (1). Their action logic is driven by wanting to interact with people to make meaning, work with purpose, learn and grow, both self and others and transform organisations.

Participatory leadership is a sustainable and empowering way to create successful organisation development and change.

Participatory leaders use time working together, often in meetings, as a mechanism through which to release potential, grow a collective understanding of, and commitment to vision, strategy and aligned action. This capacity is especially important in the fast changing times we now live in.

The ProMeet methodology and tools have been designed specifically to enable participatory leadershipProMeet is a simple tool, powerful in the hands of participatory leaders. In this sense, ProMeet is participatory leadership at work.



Participatory leadership, not a new-to-the-world idea.

'Participatory management' might have been first suggested in 1926 by Mary Parker Follett a management consultant and social worker. Follett advocated the principle of what she termed "integration," or non-coercive power-sharing based on the use of her concept of "power with" rather than "power over."

Wise words indeed.
Participatory Leadership References >
Change

From a management perspective, the ‘model’ of change leadership has grown from understanding and use of other bodies of work, notably;

John Kotter, and his work on
Leading Change, a small and well respected transformation consultancy, the Bridge Partnership, and the work of Bill Torbert and David Rooke and their work on personal and organisational development.

Our change leadership work, embodied by leaders using meetinge to participatively create change, could not function without the insight and wisdom provided by these practitioners.


Philosophical Underpinning

Our work is underpinned by an abiding belief in the emergence of a ‘participatory worldview’, written about in many, many guises.

Particular thanks is given here to Henryk Skolimowski for his book, ‘
The Participatory Mind’, Richard Tarnas for his book, ‘The Passion of the Western Mind’.

Two excellent books that lay the foundations for the idea of Participatory Leadership.


Other key influences

There are very many other very well respected practitioners who work has been an inspiration to the development of our own practice,
key influences to our work include:

Lynda Gratton’s work on ‘
Hot Spots’.

Harrison Owen, and his seminal work on
Open Space Technology.

David Staus and his work on how to make meetings and
collaboration work.

Andy Bounds excellent and entertaining work on clear communication, the
Jelly Effect.


Acknowledgement and thanks to others thinkers and writers:

James Surowiecki, Malcolm Gladwell, Willam Isaacs, Gary Hamel, David Bohm, Ken Wilbur, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras and countless other people who’s work has informed the thinking of all the authors here as well as ourselves.


Thanks also to:

Dan Start, Jo Howard, Nick Neilsen, Richard Wilson, Tammy Siebert, Michael Frye, Lynda Gratton, Valerie Hannon, Lee Sears, David Wilcox, Charles Handy, Mike Gibbons, Gareth Wynne, Charles Leadbeater, Sheelagh Douglas, Elizabeth Rouse, Pat Christie, Jan Conway, Liz Kerr, Emiliy Leadbetter, Chris Wainwright, Linda Drew, Peter Hawkins, Bridget Farrands, Brian Clivaz, Paul Crake, Judith Hemming, Kerry Sullivan, David Young, Penny Egan, Jules Goddard, Richard Tyrie, Jayne Hilditch, Anja Kluever, Richard Eiserman, Clare Byers, Stefan Moritz, Jamie Anley, Jonathan Carr-West, Suzie Harries, Angela Kennedy, Richard Brow, Matthew Taylor, Susan Butler, Katie Christie, Graham Honeywill, Dan Brophy, David Jackson, Simon Milton, Stuart Hampson, Nick Atkins, Harvey Dodson, Kevin Gavaghan, Birgit Mager, Nick Udall, David Grayson, Charles Fallon, Nick Horswell and Andrew Summers.
You have all helped develop this body of work.

Footnote: 1. Torbert & Rook, Seven Transformations of Leadership Harvard Business Review

Effective meetings have four phases

We ensure your meeting is productive by clarifying the objectives then designing and facilitating a participative process to meet those objectives. Read More>
Most meetings conclude well by establishing the actions that result from the meeting and learning about how to make the next meeting even more effective.
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Objectives
1. Clarify
objectives
We work with you to establish clear meeting objectives, both overarching organisational objectives and specific meeting objectives.

More...
We convert traditional 'agenda items' into a set of objectives.

Each objective uses an active verb, such as 'create', 'plan' or 'agree'.

Clear objectives imply the process by which participants will interact with the subject at hand.

For example, agreement objectives use agreement processes and so on.
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Process
2. Design a
process
We plan and facilitate a sequence of engaging discussions, tasks or activities to ensure each meeting objective is met, in a lively and engaging way.

More...
Clear meeting objectives imply the way people can address the subject at hand in the meeting.

There are many ways groups can agree, decide, create or plan.

We prepare a meeting plan with the processes that work best with the size and nature of the group in the time available.

A clear process helps keep participants attention focussed.
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Actions
3. Clarify
the actions
We clarify and capture the actions at every meeting. This creates cultures of accountability and enables participants to act and progress shared goals.

More...
We think it's a good idea to review the actions captured from the previous meeting to acknowledge progress, and unblock anything stopping progress.

Learning about inaction or blocks to action is a helpful way to understand what is needed to create an action oriented culture.
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Learning
4. Learn and
grow
Taking time to learn together creates trust, respect and growth. In a fast moving world, this practice helps keeps conversation relevant and teams healthy.

More...
A brief period of learning at the end of a meeting is optional.

However organisations committed to learning can grow significantly by using the time working together to learn about working together.

Effective meetings are based on five principles

Whole hearted participation, focussed on clear objectives, using processes to harness energy and diversity, creates visible results and healthy respectful teams. Read More>
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These five principles of effective meetings help us plan and run excellent meetings, workshops or projects. You can use them too. Download our booklet - how to have great meetings to find out more.

ProMeet tools help meetings work brilliantly

ProMeet tools help plan and deliver great meetings. They look simple and help focus attention on the same subject at the same time, succinctly gather views and create a record of ideas, plans, decisions, intended actions and team learning. See these tools in action>
  • Clear objectives for our day ahead
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  • 8:50am - room set up and ready for the workshop
  • Recording key ideas on gridcards
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ProMeet people

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Sean Blair
ProMeet founder Sean Blair >
Sean is a facilitator with over twenty five years’ experience of leading and supporting organisations to innovate, learn and change.

Originally trained as an industrial designer, Sean went on to the be Design Councils’s first Design Director. Afterwards Sean worked as an innovation and service design consultant.

His non-executive roles include being a co-founder of the Service Design Network and an honorary Fellow in Enterprise at Durham University. He served as a Trustee of the Royal Society of Arts, a council member of the Design Council and a commissioner on the Mayor for London’s Creative Industry Commission.

Sean has written, spoken and broadcast, on TV and radio on design, innovation and creativity in the UK and overseas. Sean lectures on MBA programmes.

He serves on the leadership team of the European branch of the International Association of Facilitators. Sean is an award winning IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator and a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator.

He is the founder of ProMeet and he runs the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® London MeetUp group. He is the lead author and designer of 'SERIOUS WORK"
a book about facilitation with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. He is a practitioner who occasionally trains other professionals how to facilitate using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

Read
more on LinkedIn
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Caroline Jessop
Associate Caroline Jessop >
Caroline is curious about people. Truly, exceptionally, curious. In working with clients this drive to understand what turns on a light for people is central to helping them achieve great outcomes for themselves and others.

As a leader within the communications sector Caroline witnessed meetings with superficial levels of engagement and agreement - the sort where what was said, was not what was meant. The sort where participants weren’t really participating. The sort where peoples' time and their talent were wasted. Her resulting frustration ignited her interest in the impact that facilitation could have, and how she could enable people to be more effective.

Caroline is a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator and contributed to the development of ProMeet’s book and SeriousWork training platform. She is a qualified Coach Practitioner through the Academy of Executive Coaches and also holds a Masters Degree in Marketing and Management.
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Associate Paul Brown >
Paul is passionate about design, product and co-innovation. Using agile, lean and design thinking methods, he helps build digitally capable organisations and high performing teams.

Paul fixes problems and make things happen, especially in product leadership, digital transformation, lean change and innovation.

He practices the art of the possible and facilitates workshops with a wide range of visual techniques. He is a SeriousWork certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator.
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Associate Jessica Ball >
Jessica is passionate about real communication (especially listening) and positive social and environmental change.

Jessica is design trained and facilities collaborative communication grounded in Non-Violent Communication, mindfulness and Bohm Dialogue.

Jessica provides a creative and engaging space for participants to create meaning by better understanding themselves and improving their relationships with others and the world around them. Jessica is also a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator.
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JB Bailey
Associate JP Bayley >
JP inspires and encourages teams to build great working environments. He is known by colleagues to have a “great understanding of Agile” and to be a "very competent, good-natured facilitator that efficiently enables cultural change in teams and organisations". As an Agile coach, JP’s focus is always to achieve best business value through optimal performance. He coaches teams to gel and helps them do their best work.

JP helps people to achieve their goals and teams achieve their potential by facilitating organisations and teams to unleash what they know and get to where they want to be.
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Mirjami
Associate Mirjami Sipponen-Damonte >
Mirjami has worked for 12 years supporting the growth and well-being of people in organisations across Europe. Organisational culture, communication and empowerment are at the centre of her work.

Mirjami supports organisations in developing high performance cultures, working with teams and individuals helping them to better cope with changes and to be better equipped with communication and facilitation skills.

Mirjami is an IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator and a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator. She was recently awarded with a Gold Facilitation Impact Award. She serves as a voluntary Victim Offender Mediator in Uusimaa Mediation Office and is the Regional Director for Europe, Middle East and North Africa in the International Association of Facilitators.
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Associate Gary Austin >
Gary specialises in the design, preparation and facilitation of workshops in the public, private and not-for profit sectors. He is an IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator and an assessor of candidates applying to become Certified™ Professional Facilitators.

He also serves on the leadership team of the European branch of the International Association of Facilitators and is developing the framework for advancing the professional development pathway for professional facilitators.
© 2021 ProMeet - Professional Meeting Facilitation
Mobile - +44 7802 773307
Email - Sean@ProMeet.co.uk
Certified Professional Facilitator
Facilitation Impact Award Winner
Sean Blair Master Trainer

Learn to facilitate LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® certification from ProMeet sister company:

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