I have worked and taught internationally.

My work has strengthened conference coordinators, businesses, governmental and community leaders, meeting planners, facilitators and educators through facilitation, consultation and training about engaging groups in dialogue and knowledge-sharing.

Learn more about my background and experience facilitating in many cultures and countries.

I am not currently taking new clients - however I welcome you to contact me if you would like a referral to a skilled facilitator who works in the same realm of methods and processes as my areas of specialty.
I have facilitated, consulted, given workshops and collaborated in learning exchanges in Spanish and in English in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Euskal Herria, Germany, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zambia - and within those settings people of many more countries and cultures. 
Lisa Heft
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator

​​​​​President Emerita - Open Space Institute US
Fellow Emerita - Columbia University Center for Conflict   Resolution
Chief Curate, Culture and Learning Facilitator - 7th Generation Labs
Founder - Fabulous Facilitators
Author - The Mouse and the Earthquake: An Introduction to Systems Theory - also published in The Systems Thinker Magazine
Chapter author - SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research
Chapter author - The Bonfire Collection: a Complete Reference Guide to Facilitation and Change and The Bonfire Collection 2003-2010: 150 Articles to Inspire Positive Change - International Institute for Facilitation and Change
Chapter co-author - Beyond Bullets and Bombs: Grassroots Peacebuilding Between Israelis and Palestinians - Judy Kuriansky, Ed.
Co-author - It’s the Conversations that Matter: Recommendations to the UNGC and UNGC Local Networks for Designing, Maximizing and Supporting Participant Engagement in Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues
Poet Laureate - 2006 and 2014-15 - World Open Space community

This is what I have done:

Facilitate
  • small, large and very large groups
  • dialogue-based task work, planning, product and program design, strategic planning
  • knowledge exchange and interaction
  • interdisciplinary thinking
  • understanding across diversity and differences
  • conferences, meetings, retreats and forums

Consult
  • design interactive conferences and interactive plenary sessions
  • include participant voice and interchange in conferences, forums and summits
  • analyze a meeting or conference’s objectives, desired outcomes and other elements for right-fit interactive process to maximize engagement and productivity
  • review and evaluate invitation and other messaging and meeting process for face-to-face or online events in advance, for maximum diversity, access and inclusion
  • explore, teach and reflect on face-to-face participant and facilitator dynamics of interaction and inclusion for those who design and invite online meetings
Teach and mentor, offer feedback and support
  • to seasoned and newly-emerging facilitators, educators and subject matter experts
  • about Open Space Technology and other facilitation processes, pre-work for face-to-face dialogue events, the facilitator’s role, interactive learning design (how to teach without lectures) and other topics of interest for people who convene groups

Host
  • conversations
  • conferences
  • learning opportunities
I specialize in face-to-face dialogue processes that
  • scale up (only one facilitator needed for a group of 5 or 3000+)
  • work across country and culture (without requiring participants to learn someone else’s vocabulary; without working through the facilitators’s own cultural filter)
  • where participants frame their own experience (rather than the facilitator doing so)
  • inform the design of successful online meetings that are inclusive and accessible to diverse participants