A Christian halfway house, The Helping Hand’s Board engaged Whee Jim to facilitate a series of Board conversations. In our mind, we needed to have these conversations to decide on the way forward for our organisation, while revisiting some fundamental issues to continue to stay true to our Christian mission.

 

I must admit that some of us had reservations about having deep conversations on important issues virtually. Not that we had a choice, given how we could not meet face-to-face. I am happy to report that we managed to achieve this over 3 half-day virtual workshops, backed by lots and lots of behind-the-scenes pre-workshop preparations. Thank God for Whee Jim!

 

What I really like was Whee Jim’s unwavering approach of clarifying our intentions, and designing a simple yet effective process for our conversations. Whee Jim also showed us that there was no need for fancy tools – just good old Zoom, Google slides, and the occasional Mentimeter.

 

Bringing to the table his extensive experience in facilitating strategic conversations, Whee Jim was really effective in conceptualising and framing issues in a simple, clear, and helpful manner. I particularly liked that Whee Jim did not push us any fancy frameworks and complex theories – we just relied on first principles, rigorous analysis, and above all, good old common sense.

 

Working closely with Whee Jim throughout the Board conversations, I am struck by how empathetic, sensitive, and adaptable he has been. I boil it down to Whee Jim’s ability to listen deeply and read visual cues while having the courage to help us course-correct in service of our conversations and our objectives, which continued to morph along the way. It takes a confident, astute, and experienced facilitator to do just that!

 

It has been a joy working with Whee Jim. We are thinking of continuing our engagement, as our Board thinks through how we can start to work hand-in-glove with our management.