
221 - Unmasking the Hidden Influence: The Clean Language Approach with Judy Rees
About this episode
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!
👉 What happens when being “professional” gets in the way of being human? My new podcast Unprofessionalism explores the rules we’re taught to follow at work, and what happens when we break them. Listen here: https://unprofessionalism.buzzsprout.com/ 👈
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