Radical Acts of Delight: Design Thinking for Faciliators

Led a session for 100+ professional facilitators at the 2025 Faciliation Lab Summit in Austin, Texas.

Summary

Based of my experiences working with product teams, I facilitated three strategies to break participants out of traditional linear thinking and simultaneously increase delight to build trust among teams.

Date:

February 2025

Client:

Voltage Control

Services:

UI/UX

Background

Tasked with engaging 100+ facilitators at the 2025 Facilitation Lab Summit, I drew from my experience running innovation workshops to introduce three powerful methods: Visual Processing, Inverted Thinking, and Lateral Thinking. These techniques break participants out of habitual thought patterns, sparking fresh perspectives and deeper engagement. More than just warm-ups or energizers, these approaches can seamlessly integrate into any meeting or session, transforming the way groups think, collaborate, and generate ideas.

“Create Some Space.”

What I learned

1. How People React to Nonlinear Thinking

I observed that facilitators, while open to creative approaches, often default to structured thinking. Visual Processing was an instant hit, the more advanced topics, ex. Inverted Thinking required more setup to help participants feel comfortable flipping assumptions. The biggest insight? People need permission and structure to break habitual thought patterns.

2. Showing How I Used Them

The biggest challenge wasn’t introducing the methods—it was helping facilitators see how to apply them beyond the session. Some immediately saw opportunities, while others needed concrete examples to connect the dots, sharing photos and stories from my teams was helpful. I also learned that framing these methods as remixable tools, rather than prescriptive exercises, made them more actionable.

3. Facilitating Facilitators is Next-Level

Facilitators naturally analyze facilitation as it’s happening, which led to some fascinating meta-moments. They pointed out that I did most of the teaching in the debrief, allowing them to reflect on how the methods could be applied in their own facilitation. This made me realize that transparency in facilitation choices creates deeper engagement—explaining the ‘why’ behind what I was doing built more trust and curiosity.