SPONSORS For This Conference	This Facilities for the 30th Midwest Facilitation Conference are provided by the Hickory Ridge Marriott Conference Hotel of Lisle Illinois (http://www.marriott.com/chihr) and the Corporate Learning Institute of Lisle, Illinois (http://www.corplearning.com)
SPONSOR: Nightingale Conant	Since 1993, Nightingale-Conant (Niles, Illinois) has been a most significant contributing sponsor to MFN providing the vast majority of door prizes. Nightingale-Conant is the largest producer and distributor of instructional and motivational audio and video tapes for Personal and Business Development, Wealth Building, Sales, Mind Technology, Health & Wellness and Spiritual Growth. Nightingale-Conant also provides Coaching Services and has a full-service Speakers' Bureau. Please visit their website at: http://www.nightingale.com
SPONSOR: University Associates	Since 1993, University Associates, has been another significant sponsor and supporter of MFN activities, providing products and a number of high-value door prizes, such as tuition-free seats in their workshops. Please visit their website at: http://www.universityassociates.com
Conference Fees	$100.00 per participant on or before October 14th (Early Registration Discount) $120.00 per participant after October 14th $120.00 per participant at the door (no guarantee of availability) Fee includes Conference, Materials, Continental Breakfast & Lunch.  Fee Does NOT include Lodging (see suggestions below). Cancellations after October 14th or no shows may be assessed a cancellation fee
5 Ways to Register	Click Here to go to Registration Information Page Phone: (773)-463-2288 - During the recording press the "2" key. Please announce 'MFN Conference Registration', your company name, and the name, phone # and payment information of each registrant. Fax: (773)-463-9322 - Fax completed registration form with payment information for each registrant. E-Mail: register@midwest-facilitators.net - E-mail completed registration form with payment information and subject: 'MFN Conference Registration'. Snail-mail: Mail completed registration form with payment information to: MFN c/o Jordan-Webb, 2656 W Montrose Ave,  Suite 110, Chicago, IL 60618. On-Site: Registration and payment ($120.00) on-site is subject to availability. No guarantee without pre-registration.
On-Line Information	Chicago, IL Information Websites: Weather Information - http://www.weather.com/weather/local/60601 City of Chicago - http://www.cityofchicago.org  or  http://www.ci.chi.il.us City Search for Chicago - http://www.chicago.citysearch.com  World Web Travel Guide - http://www.chicago.worldweb.com Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau - http://www.choosechicago.com All About Chicago - http://www.allabout-chicago.com AreaGuides.Net - http://chicago.areaguides.net Chicago Tribune - http://www.chicagotribune.com Chicago Sun-Times - http://www.suntimes.com Chicago Reader - http://www.chireader.com Navy Pier - http://www.navypier.com Wendella Boat Rides - http://www.wendellaboats.com Mercury Boat Cruises - http://centerstage.net/other/mercury-boat-cruises.html Daily Herald - http://www.dailyherald.com Chicago Public Library - http://cpl.lib.uic.edu Fun Places to Go With Kids - http://www.FunPlacesToGoWithKids.com Ken Schessler's America/Chicago Tours - http://members.aol.com/KSchessler/wizzk.html Palmer's Walking Guide - http://www.palmersguide.com/chicago Sears Tower - http://www.searstower.com Museum of Science & Industry - http://www.msichicago.org Field Museum of Natural History - http://www.fmnh.org Shedd Aquarium - http://www.sheddnet.org Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum - http://www.adlerplanetarium.org Art Institute of Chicago - http://www.artic.edu Museum of Contemporary Art - http://www.mcachicago.org Chicago Historical Society - http://www.chicagohs.org Chicago Children's Museum - http://www.chichildrensmuseum.org Morton Arboretum - http://www.mortonarb.org Chicago Botanic Garden - http://www.chicago-botanic.org Chicago Architecture - http://www.yelodog.com Chicago's Greektown - http://www.chicagosgreektown.com Chicago's Chinatown - http://www.chicagochinatown.net Musicals - http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Performing_Arts/Theater/Musicals/Shows/Chicago Theater - http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/Illinois/Cities/Chicago/Entertainment_and_Arts/Theater Chicago White Sox - http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/cws/homepage/cws_homepage.jsp Chicago Cubs - http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/chc/homepage/chc_homepage.jsp
Meals	Continental breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack are included in the Conference fee.  Participants with special dietary needs contact Linda Romansic: (847)-566-0644 or  romansicl@aol.com
Dress Code	Business Casual.

Monday, October 21, 2002

Facilitators have a clearly defined role in tactical assignments such as chartering cross-functional teams, conflict resolution, and problem solving. However, considering the massive changes facing organizations today, a more strategic role is called for. Senior management needs help in creating appropriate strategies and even more help in translating them into action plans. Facilitators have many of the skills necessary to providing this help. As they step into this more-strategic role, I choose to call them change agents as in many cases they act as agents of the senior management team in making sure the change initiative stays on track.

Learning Points:

• Importance of organizational alignment
• Assessment of organizational capability to implement a change initiative
• Needs of different levels from CEO to middle manager to employees
• Denial and other defense mechanisms


This session is organized into four sections:

• Organizational change drivers
• Failure modes of most change initiatives
• Fixing organizational change capability
• Career opportunities for facilitators as change agents


The strategic role of change agents is recognized in a small fraction of companies. Unfortunately, many who take such assignments lack the interpersonal skills common to facilitators and thus execute surface implementations based on fear, power, and formal authority. By failing to deal with the so-called soft issues of culture, emotions, communication, education and training, and personal commitment, their change initiative fades away in the nooks and crannies of the organization. This session has as its goal to demonstrate how skilled facilitators can fill the gap in most organizational change initiatives and to suggest a challenging career option with strategic impact on the organization.

Organizational change is driven by four primary issues:

• Globalization
• New technology
• Government deregulation (or more properly reregulation)
• The expectation that all stakeholders can get more (shareholders, employees, vendors, customers, tax collectors, etc.)


Globalization has created expanded markets overseas, but at the same time has generated new competitors and new competitive pressures for American companies. New product specifications, different currency systems, laws and regulations, language barriers, distance-related problems, logistics, and market differences have all created challenges. Technology makes it easier to communicate, to collect and analyze data, and to automate complex production processes. Unfortunately, it seems that competitors are either ahead or only slightly behind in adopting new technology rendering any advantages short term at best. Many who eagerly awaited deregulation of telecommunications and utility companies anticipated huge profit-making opportunities. As we look at the landscape of bankrupt companies, shrunken 401K's, and layoff announcements we recognize that the challenge was far greater than we thought. Finally, 15% mutual fund returns, government treasury surpluses, comfortable salary increases, and desire for high quality products at lower cost have driven productivity-related change initiatives aimed at increasing the size of the pie so that all of the slices can be bigger. A few companies have succeeded. Many have failed to meet any of the expectations.

Failure has many causes. Some companies embark on a five-year change initiative to deal with a rapid loss of market share only to find that they run out of cash long before the customers can be lured back. Flavor of the month programs burn out just about that fast only to be replaced by equally ineffective short-term measures. Programs get launched but eventually burn out due to lack of continued leadership or just plain exhaustion. Power-based programs fail to deal with the natural resistance such approaches automatically generate and eventually erode. Most executives under-communicate by a couple of orders of magnitude, assuming that a few banners, t-shirts, and coffee cups will get the job done. And few have the time, skill, and inclination to do process-based improvement properly, instead hoping that a couple of rounds of layoffs will reduce cost and demonstrate to Wall Street that they are serious about improving the bottom line. Successful organizational change requires strong leadership and strong leadership commitment to the change. Alignment of line management is essential to maintain consistent approaches across complex organizations. But who coaches the line managers on the subtleties of organizational behavior that they must understand, anticipate, and deal with as the change unfolds? And who has the personality, time, contacts, availability, approachability, and listening skills to serve as front line intelligence sources and credible information sources? This is where the facilitator has the advantage and smart leaders nurture, support, and listen to their facilitator network.

In addition to the usual backpack full of facilitation tools and skills, modern change agents must be comfortable working at all levels of the organization from the board room to the shop floor. Since nearly all organizational-improvement efforts involve significant cross-departmental issues, the change agent must be skillful at organizational politics. Perhaps the most valuable role of the change agent is to be the honest broker of information - helping the rank and file understand what is behind the change and reporting to various levels of management how things are really going.

The ability to successfully implement change is becoming the most salable and most broadly applicable skill an employee can offer to a prospective employer. Taking on a complex organizational change is difficult, risky, frustrating but potentially positive for your career. The pluses of this role include exposure to the senior management team, perspective across all departmental boundaries, customer contact opportunities, and a chance to make a major contribution to the survival of the organization. At the opposite end of the plus and minus scale are exposure to the senior management team, potential for upsetting change-resistant incumbent managers, getting left out on the end of the limb if the management team loses interest before the change is baked into the culture, and the important question of "where do I go from here"? This session will explore this opportunity and help you to assess the risks and rewards of an opportunity that is probably there for all good facilitators.

Bob Anderson is a chemical engineer with a Master of Management degree earned at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management Executive Master's Program. He spend 37 years with UOP LLC in Des Plaines, IL where he held a number of technical and business leadership positions including Managing Director of two European subsidiaries, General Manager of Katalistiks, Inc., Vice President of Quality and Productivity, and Vice President of Marketing. Bob is a strong supporter of people who have the badly-named "soft skills" and is proudest of the network of facilitators he nurtured at UOP. After retiring from UOP, he established a consulting practice focused on Unleashing Untapped Potential. He returned to his alma mater, Illinois Institute of Technology, to help them with technology transfer and intellectual property management. In this job he has the further responsibility for helping IIT faculty members launch new companies and he currently serves on the Board of Advisors or Board of Directors for four startups. He is active in a state-supported entity that provides assistance to entrepreneurs across the metropolitan Chicago area. He also teaches an engineering course in IIT's Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department and a change management course for Keller Graduate School of Management. Bob has seen change initiatives from several perspective in both line and staff management positions. He served on AlliedSignal's steering team for their massive productivity improvement initiative and was exposed to a sampling of the best consultants in this area. In his teaching role he has had the opportunity to help employees analyze over 120 different organizations and has provided them with the skills to understand and contribute to their organizations' success. Memberships include the Midwest Society of Professional Consultants and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He is a registered professional engineer in Illinois.

This session looks at a class system developed centuries ago that still has many companies locked into predictable patterns of negative behavior. While most of us recognize that constant change is the lifeblood of any organization, resistance to that very change is the natural outcome of a flawed process. Roger D. Hartwig Sr. looks at life from the shop floor where change is not welcome. In his book, Bricks Without Straw, he writes of his experiences as a wage employee at The John Deere Horicon Works in Horicon Wisconsin. Hartwig contends that the class system that forms the boundary between wage and salary also forms many of the barriers to change.

People who are made to feel that they are not part of the organization they work for will find ways to express their dissatisfaction. Many times that dissatisfaction manifests itself in the form of resistance. Doing just enough to get by without getting into trouble. Sometimes it's covertly sabotaging change initiatives just see the other side fail. Wage employees have a tremendous need to know that their lives have value to the organization. Not just their job skills, but the knowledge they have as well. If people are not allowed to find that value in their working environment, they will find it elsewhere.

On the outside, wage people do run successful businesses. They serve on school boards, run city governments, church boards and any number of public and private organizations. They use the knowledge of people, systems and processes they've gained within their own organizations to help others become successful. What Hartwig has proven at John Deere is that teams provide a way for wage employees to use their knowledge and skills to help the organization. In his work with teams, he found a knowledge base on the shop floor that resided at no other level of the Horicon Works. If allowed to function as a business within the business, teams could develop systems that not only work well, but ones that satisfy the basic need in all of us to find meaning in their work.

We need to develop systems to support teams rather than teams to support systems! Teams are hard to develop and maintain within the traditional autocratic system that still forms the basis for most forms of business management. This system spawns the cultural barriers to meaningful change that teams bring to the organization.

Learning Points:

• Class system in business.
• How was it formed?
• What does it produce?
• Teams and Change
• How are they developed?
• How do we need to change to support them?
• Change and Teams
• How is it regarded?
• What is their role in the process?

Roger D. Hartwig Sr. is a 38-year veteran with The John Deere Horicon Works in Horicon WI. He began work as a welder in 1963 and remained in that position for 28 years learning many of the concepts he now uses in team development. In 1989 he was a charter member of the Quality Steering Committee, a joint wage/salary team that was the initiative behind the present team process at Horicon. In 1991 Hartwig became a Team Training Facilitator and worked at that position until his retirement until 2001. Working with shop-floor teams he developed his skills teaching a variety of soft-skills throughout the Horicon facility. Those classes include communication, listening skills, problem solving, decision-making, team dynamics; basically anything that had to do with team development. Several of his teams at Deere were the focus of state and nation attention for their efforts as "Self Directed Work-Teams." Those teams went on to win awards within the Deere & Co. organization as well as conducting workshops at Horicon for visiting companies and organizations. In April of 2000 Hartwig and one of his veteran teams were invited to conduct a workshop at the prestigious Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service convention in Chicago IL. In 1998 he started his own consulting business as a sideline to working at Deere. Hartwig chose the name Synerdreams, because he wanted to focus on synergy. He believes that getting everyone involved in the organization is the answer to business success. In his words, "The essence of team building is the concept that combined efforts accomplish more than the sum of individual abilities!" His client list includes: Kraft-Oscar Meyer foods, Davenport IA. Social Security Administration Ctr., Grate Lakes Region, Chicago IL. Beaver Dam Charter Schools, Beaver Dam WI. Dodge County Social Services, Juneau WI. After retiring from Deere, Hartwig went on to write a book. "Bricks Without Straw" is a working autobiography than chronicles his life as a wage employee and subsequently his association with teams. The book focuses on cultural barriers to change that need to be addressed if companies want to be successful. It looks at change from a worker's perspective in why they resist the very change that will help them. His goal is to use what he's learned in his life at John Deere to help small to medium-sized companies who may not have training budgets like a John Deere.

Two tools for developing a deeper understanding of self to help keep your focus on your clients issues rather than your own. One of the fundamental elements of effective facilitation is to have enough awareness of your own issues, styles, and biases to consciously choose to keep them out of our facilitation. We will be spending time looking at the DiSC personal profile (yours), and time out on our Expedition High Ropes Course. While spending time with the DiSC, we will look at things like how your style affects your pace, or your thoroughness. Does your style indicate a preference for direct conflict? If so, how good are you at determining your clients preferred style and flexing accordingly. Later on, during our high ropes course element, give yourself the opportunity to "play with risk" in a very safe setting. While on our ropes course, with expert facilitation, you have the opportunity to learn how your orientation to risk and being uncomfortable can impact the risk your willing to take when working with a client.

Find out how your DiSC style impacts your facilitation style, and how your orientation to risk taking and working outside your comfort zone impacts the nature and direction of your client interventions. This is a highly interactive pair of sessions, which will give you the opportunity to take and then apply the output of the DiSC personal profile to your own facilitation style and tendencies. In addition, you will examine how your perception and orientation to risk taking impact the direction and nature of your client work.

DiSC Session Learning Opportunities Include:

• How my style affects my pace
• How my style affects my thoroughness
• How my style affects my ability to connect with clients
• How my style impacts the type of programming I do, and the learning modalities I choose
• How my style impacts my willingness to bring fresh new ideas to my clients
• How I can maximize the effectiveness of my style
• How I can minimize the liabilities of my style
• How to identify strategies for style flexing to be more effective overall

Expedition Ropes Course Session Learnings Include:

• How my orientation to risk impacts the issues I raise with a client, and the issues I avoid
• How my willingness to work "outside of my comfort zone" impacts the richness of my work
• How my willingness to work "outside my comfort zone" impacts the people and departments
• I work with in an intervention
• How my willingness to take risk and "work outside my comfort zone" impacts the degree to which my work changes the world

This will be a rich and exciting experience, which will give you a number of powerful insights and actionable items. Plan to be with us! Visit The Corporate Learning Institute's website at: http://www.corplearning.com

Bryan Mullen is a certified Meyers-Briggs consultant. He has used this tool to train groups and individuals in such areas as communication patterns, facilitation, decision-making, conflict resolution, time management and increased knowledge of employees' work preference. This certification meets the criteria of consulting Psychologists Press. He is also certified as a facilitator on teams course and high ropes course. During the past five years Bryan has facilitated over a hundred work groups. He has gained experience by working with such groups as colleges, social service agencies, municipalities, and corporate entities. Bryan instructs the training programs for Lincoln Marsh Teams and Ropes Course Facilitator Certification. He leads the annual re-certification and in-service training programs for sixty certified facilitators. Bryan is also the former Coordinator for the Lincoln Marsh Teams and Ropes Course in Wheaton, Illinois.

Tim Buividas founded the Corporate Learning Institute in 1992. His passion is working in change management consulting, training and development, team and individual coaching and facilitation interventions. His goal is to create provocative learning experiences that change people's lives. Through the delivery of his services Tim has impacted over 10,000 participant lives from major corporations throughout the world. Tim provides services that focus on managing change, leadership and management development, team building, and personal style assessment for organizations that are ready to create positive change throughout their organizations. In his position, he is certified in experiential education, Meyers Briggs, DiSC Personal Profile, and Situational Leadership. Tim brings 17 years of leadership and management experience to his practice. His experience includes expertise in management, sales, marketing and operations. He has worked internationally in Venezuela over a period of 4 years. Tim received his degrees from Benedictine University. He holds both a Master of Science in Management & Organizational Behavior, with a focus in organizational development and a Bachelor of Science. Buividas has expanded his education as a dedicated member of many organizations including the Organizational Development Institute, Organization Development Network, Association of Experiential Education, American Society of Training & Development, SHRM, TEC and the Association of Psychological Type. He has used his education and memberships as a continual growing experience to better serve his clients' needs. Tim is also an adjunct professor for Benedictine University and past adjunct for Dominican University, Keller Graduate School, and College of DuPage Business and Professional Institute.

Mark Stailey's training experience is extensive in both facilitation and design of team development and community building workshops. Mark is especially skilled at facilitating difficult group discussions and transferring the learning to practical business applications. His facilitation with participants always reflects the ability to be insightful, flexible, and energetic, while his style is a blend of "down to earth" realism with a focus on getting tangible results. He loves to actively engage clients utilizing an energizing, hands-on approach with a generous amount of humor. Mark most enjoys working with clients on projects that involve transforming working groups into high performing teams. Mark specializes in experiential learning and team building with over 10 years of experience. He holds a bachelor of arts in psychology with a focus in social behavior and group process from the University of Iowa. Mark's academic studies also include an emphasis in sociology and business. Mark has worked with groups from the executive management level to the front line worker in small and large group settings. In addition to working with all levels within an organization, his experience encompasses a wide variety of industries including manufacturing, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, hospitality, telecommunications, health care and technology. Mark has also provided training for a variety of non-profit and government organizations including fire and police departments, social services, associations and educational institutions. Mark is a certified experiential ropes course practitioner at several challenge courses in the Midwest. His expertise includes team problem solving initiatives, low and high ropes courses, leadership development, program logistics, and group process. Mark is a certified DiSC Personal Profile System trainer. He is also an experienced and enthusiastic facilitator of the world famous FiSH! Philosophy. Mark has delivered a variety of FiSH! Workshops and discussions as stand-alone sessions and also as components of larger programs. Mark continues his passion for learning through workshops, seminars and association memberships. A few of the associations he is involved with include ASTD, AEE, ETD Alliance, DVCB and MPI. Mark also recently completed the first of a two-year program through the Second City Improv Theatre in Chicago and continues to study and perform improv in Chicago.

Are you an innovator? A synthesizer? A challenger? The Creatrix Inventory ™ measures your inclination to take risks and generate new ideas. Based on the concept that risk + creativity = innovation, the Creatrix Model is used to increase the innovative capacity of individuals, teams and organizations. During this fun and interactive session, you'll receive a mini-version of the inventory. Learn your personal risk-taking and creativity profile, how you contribute to your team, and the different uses of this powerful tool to drive innovation. This session will give participants a basic overview of the Creatrix Model, the Creatrix Inventory, and their individual risk-taking and creativity profile. A fun, interactive exercise will give participants a chance to learn how to recognize the profiles of others, and how the profiles impact team performance. Various ways the Creatrix can be used as a tool to increase the innovation capacity of individuals, teams and organizations will be presented.

This session will include:

• The Creatrix model
• History and background of the Creatrix Inventory
• A mini-version of the inventory given to participants
• The eight profiles
• The seven drivers of innovation
• Innovation exercise
• Application to individual, team and organizational development

Experienced facilitators know that the success of any meeting can be derailed by conflicts among participants-conflicts arising from differences in perspective and knowledge, or from "political" issues that exist between participants. This program provides facilitators with insights and techniques that will improve their ability to 1) prevent group conflicts from emerging and 2) turn situations of conflict into positive, collaborative experiences when they arise.

Corporate reconstruction expert Dr. Carl Aylen will explain how to recognize and manage the key personality characteristics and motivational priorities that shape participant behavior in meetings and can lead to poor meeting dynamics. He will demonstrate unique and proven techniques for spotting these factors in people and for using this knowledge to reduce group friction and maximize positive participation in meetings. Dr. Aylen will illustrate his points with examples drawn from his career as a corporate reconstruction and organizational assessment expert.

Dr. Carl Aylen is a former Cambridge University professor and the founder of The Cambridge Don, a management consultancy and research-oriented think tank that specializes in the field of corporate reconstruction. For over 25 years, Dr. Aylen has helped hundreds of organizations worldwide to identify, and resolve, the people-related issues underlying their operational performance. He specializes in advising corporate clients on how to navigate difficult periods of change amid challenging business environments. As a component of this work, he has facilitated numerous conflict resolution and strategic planning sessions with executives, board directors, and senior managers at client companies. The unique methods and technologies he employs during these facilitation sessions are based on groundbreaking research into the links between behavioral science and organizational performance. This research was based on concepts first conceived at Cambridge University and verified through many instances of industrial application. Dr. Aylen's reputation is global and is built on numerous experiences working with a range of firms in the U.S. and Europe, from small-capitalization companies to Fortune 500 organizations. He has also served as an advisor on organizational management to political figures and government agencies, including members of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet, the Lord Mayor of London, and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Visit The Cambridge Don's website at: http://www.thecambridgedon.com