Road to Monterrey | Session 2: Everyone with a Pen | IAF World | International Association of Facilitators | Promoting the power of facilitation worldwide

When

February 24, 2026

1:00 pm America/New_York - 3:00 pm America/New_York

Where

Event Type

IAF Americas Conference 2026, RoadtoMonterrey

What does it really mean to be Facilitating on the Edge?

Is it about tools?

Courage?

Or being willing to change the very structures that shape how people interact?

As we build toward IAF Americas 2026 in Monterrey, the Road to Monterrey pre-conference series is living into this theme by offering bold, participatory experiences before we gather in person.

These sessions aren’t informational, they’re immersive.

They’re designed to move us.

Check out the Session 2, happening on February 24th!

Session 2: Everyone With a Pen – Authoring the Future with Liberating Structures

Featuring:

Keith McCandless, Co-developer of Liberating Structures
Nancy White, Co-author of the Liberating Structures Fieldbook
Carolina Ribeiro, Liberating Structures Practitioner (Brazil)
Fernando Loureiro, Liberating Structures Practitioner (Brazil)

We’re living in a high-stakes world where trust is eroding and complex challenges feel impossible to even discuss. Yet many of us still rely on:

Presentations
Managed discussions
Open brainstorming

…and then wonder why the needle doesn’t move.
Facilitating on the edge means questioning those defaults.
Liberating Structures offer the “structural DNA” to shift the micro-rules of interaction—moving groups from deadlock to discovery. Instead of chasing a single optimal decision, we ask:
What seems possible now?

In this highly interactive session, you’ll explore how to:

Scale beyond small fixes and address real complexity
Unleash the whole room, not just the usual suspects, so everyone co-authors the future
Navigate the edge by evaluating progress in real time and generating creative group flow

Simultaneous translation will be provided.

What Is the Road to Monterrey?

The Road to Monterrey is a curated four-part online experience running January – April 2026, intentionally mapped to the conference tracks.

Each monthly session includes:

90 minutes of open dialogue and interaction with the speaker
A 30-minute informal “after party” to connect with conference organizers and fellow participants
Space to ask questions about the conference and deepen the topic as energy flows

We are building shared language, trust, and momentum before we arrive, because facilitating on the edge isn’t something you switch on for three days. It’s something you practice.

If our theme is #FacilitatingOnTheEdge, then the Road to Monterrey is where we begin stepping toward it!

Register here

#IAFacilitators #AmericasConference2026 #FacilitatingOnTheEdge #Facilitation #OnTheEdge #AmericasConference

Upcoming sessions:

Session 3:

Wednesday, 25 March | 11:00 am – 1:00 pm EST

From Attendance to Presence: Creating Connection in the Attention Economy
A powerful exploration of how we move beyond “showing up” to cultivate genuine connection in increasingly distracted spaces.

Session 4:

Tuesday, 14 April | 11:00 am – 1:00 pm EST

Facilitation as a Profession & Business
A candid, practical conversation about what it means to build, sustain, and evolve facilitation as a professional craft and business.