I was facilitating a creative workshop in Manila
for a multinational group of senior managers. One of the head honchos came from
New York to observe.
Mid-way through the second day, I asked him what he
particularly noticed.
“What strikes me most is that you’re so unafraid of silence,” he said. “Sometimes you are prepared
to just wait and wait till something emerges.”
That certainly was not the case when I started out as a
facilitator. Nature abhors a vacuum. And, when there was silence, I would
panic, worrying that the wheels were falling off, and I would fill the void with words.
But silence can be valuable in so many ways.

