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Transform the Way You Lead and Connect

Join us in this online listening circle training for organizational and community leaders.

Mind Builders
Listening Circle Training (online)

January 17th, 18th, 24th and 25th 2026 

In this online training for organizational and community leaders, you’ll gain practical tools to foster trust, collaboration, and meaningful dialogue—allowing you to strengthen teams, navigate change, and drive progress.

Using the Listening Circle practice and principles, you will learn how to:
✔️ Cultivate inclusive, high-trust environments where diverse perspectives are valued and aligned around a shared mission.
✔️ Strengthen collaboration and innovation by facilitating conversations that bridge divides and generate fresh insights.
✔️ Lead with confidence and empathy, creating spaces where individuals feel heard, respected, and motivated to contribute.

Who This Training is For

This program is designed for leaders, facilitators, and community who want to build trust and engagement in their teams and communities. Whether you’re navigating local challenges, leading a growing organization, or fostering cultural change, these skills will empower you to bring people together and create lasting impact.

What You’ll Walk Away With

By the end of this training, you will be able to:
✅ Facilitate productive, inclusive conversations that strengthen collaboration and decision-making.
✅ Move beyond assumptions and listen with clarity, allowing for deeper understanding and creative problem-solving.
✅ Gain insight into team dynamics and organizational culture to lead more strategically and effectively.
✅ Foster a growth-oriented environment, ensuring continuous development and adaptability in times of change.

A Proven, Non-Clinical Tool for Meaningful Impact

This method is backed by research and practice, helping leaders and teams:
✔️ Develop cognitive, emotional, and somatic empathy
✔️ Strengthen individual and group confidence and effectiveness
✔️ Foster inclusivity and deeper understanding
✔️ Promote self-regulation and resilience
✔️ Support a culture of learning and growth
✔️ Sustain collaboration even in complex, high-stakes environments

How the Training Works

This unique online training combines self-paced learning with four live practicum sessions (+ one optional Q&A session) in a small group setting (limited to 12 participants), ensuring personalized coaching and hands-on experience.

Live Practicum Session Dates (held via Zoom)

Jan 17th | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET USA)
Jan 18th | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET USA)
Jan 24th | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET USA)
Jan 25th | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET USA)

Pricing options

This training is for people who want to...

  • Integrate various perspectives and feedback to drive impactful change in the workplace and their communities.

  • Break free from conventional thinking patterns and listen beyond the confines of preconceived notions and limiting assumptions.

  • Empower themselves and communities with the tools and insights to adapt, innovate, and thrive within an ever-evolving landscape.

Secure Your Spot in the Listening Circle Training!

What Do People Say About The Listening Circle Training?

“As a leadership consultant and master coach with over 30 years of experience, working all over the world and facilitating groups, teams, and circles, I had some trepidation about going into this unknown training as a participant. Would the workshop challenge me? Would it hone my understanding of power relations in facilitation? Would I learn something about myself? Would I develop new and useful skills? Would it embody a truly experiential, dialogical, improvisational and exploratory ethos? Would I find the workshop leaders mature, stimulating and inspiring? The answer to each of these questions was a resounding 'YES!'”

Sara 'Zora' Boas, MCC, MA, RDMP, Founding Director, Boas Partners

“I would recommend Open Circle Foundations training because one can learn a creative way of providing a space with care to enter a dialogue that connects participants/trainers in personal ways of finding human commonalities that form conscious ways of challenging beliefs”

Carolynne Abdullah, Racial Equity and Inclusion Consultant

“Excellent pioneering work. The Listening Circle Practice has transformed how I work as a leader and facilitator. Rather than standing in front and leading, this Practice has allowed me to sit with people in Circle, and walk with others as we share our stories and discover together the possibilities beyond what we could imagine on our own.”

Brett Robin Wood, Founder, Creative Wisdom

“The highly skilled team members at Open Circle have a range of listening and facilitation skills that span from formal to informal, inviting to challenging, easy to highly advanced. They are clearly on a mission to humanize the workplace.”

Don Lubach, UC Santa Barbara Ombudsman

Course Curriculum

    1. Course Prep and Logistics

    2. Participant Agreement

    3. Quick Preparation Exercise

    1. Video Welcome

    2. Resource: Types of Listening Diagram

    3. Resource: Worldwide Cultural Circle Practices and References

    1. Video: The Five Elements and Four Intentions

    2. Resource: Slides to Accompany Video

    3. Quiz: The Listening Circle

    1. Video: Collective Wisdom and The Principles of Facilitative Leadership

    2. Reflection Exercise

    1. Video: The Form of The Listening Circle

    2. Resource: Guiding Principles for The Listening Circle Practice

    3. Resource: An Invitation to Brave Space

    4. Video: Opening and Closing the Circle

    5. Quiz: The Guiding Principles of a Listening Circle

    1. Video: Prompt Forming

    2. Resource: Slides to Accompany Video

    3. Resource: Notes on Prompt Forming

    4. Exercise: Prompt Forming

About this course

  • 9 hours of small group online Practicum with 1:1 Coaching
  • 7 Online self paced modules for pre & post training
  • Invaluable tools and skills for immediate application within your work

Meet Your Instructors

Gala Narezo

Facilitator

Gala Narezo is a facilitator, educator, activist and mindfulness instructor who is committed to mindful change-making. In her groups she uses storytelling, mindfulness, art and circle practice as guiding principles. She has collaborated with a variety of amazing partners on transformational education through awareness campaigns, public art, curricula and transformational media. She has degrees from Yale University and Art Center College of Design. She recently completed an M.A. in Art Education at City College of New York CUNY. She has done extensive training and practice in circle based facilitation running weekly groups online and live retreats in the USA and Mexico.

Miriam Jones

Open Circle Co-Founder

I am a facilitator and guide of transitions. I am a mother, an entrepreneur, a woman growing and expanding into myself in the world. I am committed to contributing my gifts and whatever wisdom I have gained from my experiences to supporting people, organizations and communities moving and growing through change in themselves and in the world. I am offering these retreats and trainings to serve people strengthening their inner compass and heart to be courageous in how they use their gifts and voice in the world. You can find my professional background here and more on Open Circle website here: https://www.weareopencircle.com/about/our-team

Included in Your Registration Fee

  • 7 self paced modules in online training prior to in-person training, complete with videos, exercises, checklists, and resources

  • 9 hours of guided practicum and 1:1 coaching (2 coaches with a group of 6-10)

Pricing options

Special 45% off discount: from $350 - $195 to make these skills accessible and support community, connection and collaboration in this time of disruption

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