Kind Words

“Tenneson Woolf reflects a peaceful soul coupled with outstanding facilitation skills. He is wise, and he helps each participant feel wise as well. He has a rare gift for reaching directly into each participant’s mind and heart.”
Phyllis Winter
Wisdom’s Way Alumni

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“Tenneson is a bold and gentle seeker, always looking for companions to explore new questions and new possibilities in both earnest and playful ways.  A rare and delightful companion for the journey.”

Margaret Wheatley
author of ten books of exploration,
from Leadership and the New Science to Who Do We Choose To Be?
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“You are a medicine man, a bridger of worlds. This is such a wonderful piece (In Troubled Times of the Heart, p 4). I love the spaciousness and humility and trust of your invitation.”

Jeremy Nash
Creator and Convener, Poetry Tribe
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“Tenneson brings wisdom and heart to all he does. He is particularly gifted in teambuilding work and is a wonderful coach in the art of hosting. His insights have helped me enormously to be a better leader, manager, and pastor. Working with him is a gift.”

Rev. Rebecca Floyd Marshall
Minister, United Congregational Church of Little Compton
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So good to hear from you, Tenneson. 
I was reminded on the podcast how I am often moved
by the way you put language to deeper experiences. 
It is poetry, even when you are just in ordinary conversation.”  

Carla Kimball
Photographer/Filmmaker
revealedpresence.com
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“Even when we don’t realize it, we are always seeking someone with an educated heart. Someone who has traded ignorance for experience, naivety for maturity. Tenneson is such a person. Life has put him through the tumbler, smoothing out his hard edges without dulling his sharp intellect. If you’re looking for deep-hearted and clear-minded, Tenneson is your guy.”

Roq Gareau
Colleague, Friend and Author of Soulful Fellowship: Men, Meaning and Purpose (CentreSpoke 2018)
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“Tenneson is a rare gem that brings his own deeply embodied humanity, into the professional sphere, in service to people inspired by purpose. He has a remarkable kind of efficiency, an economy of presence that seems to encourage clarity and coherence to emerge and organize of its own free will. He helps people find what matters most, and get organized around doing and being that with more inspiration than fear.”

Lawrence Kampf
Executive Director, Creator
Nova Earth Institute
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“Tenneson’s style of facilitation is kind and considerate. He is a lovely soul with an ability to help journeyers go deeper faster by connecting to the heart of a matter, calling it out by name and ushering it to the center of circle for all to encounter. That’s a quality you want in a facilitator.”

Brandon Black
Drawnversation
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“I have known Tenneson as colleague and friend for over a decade. Through the storms and times of joy, he has always carried a careful precision and innate humility in his approach to the world of the subtle in relationship. His love for people and for unearthing the healing power of community is unwavering. I have always found Tenneson to be a powerful listener, modeling what it means to be profoundly present in service of others. His friendship and care along my path has been priceless.”   

Kinde Nebeker
Wilderness Rites of Passage Guide, and Integral Coach
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“Working with Tenneson has been a transformational experience for our staff. Applying his insights into how we can convene our network with greater intentionality and care has resulted in a deep sense that we are bringing the best of ourselves to our work and our members.”

Nessa Richman
Network Director, Rhode Island Food Policy Council
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“Of all the people I have had the privilege of knowing in my life, I don’t know if there has been another person who translates their curiosity about the human condition more fully into their work and into their writing for the betterment of us all than Tenneson. He’s not afraid to talk about love and loving, for real, because he is love and loving. When all the work has been done and we can take stock of what we have accomplished how many of us can really say “I did it with my whole loving self.”  Tenneson can.”

Phil Cass, PhD
President, Physicians Leadership Academy
Columbus, Ohio
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When looking to dive deeper than you have before, it’s wise to go with someone able to be clear-eyed in choppy waters. Tenneson can hold discomfort, gentleness, presence, and look to what is next with as small or large a group as gathered. I’ll be real, there is a great deal of dishonesty and masking in group facilitated processes. It’s a Russian doll situation. Tenneson will gladly show you his mask, and set the space for all to lay theirs out on the floor. Human, simple, and true. This work of connecting to ourselves and each other is one of the more dangerous choices available. Danger then is unavoidable, and the real work is to do dangerous things with care. Tenneson carefully crafts spaces, and it will not be easy. Join in, you are held here.

Chris Smyth
Orchardist
Ohio, USA
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Tenneson is a rare combination of friend, sage and facilitator.  His work is unapologetically grounded in relationship.  He is gifted at simplifying and refining conversation — invoking our essence and our courage.  And he offers a wisdom not found in a book, but a wisdom that only comes from walking together with him.” 

Bill Muhr
LCSW 
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“Tenneson is a thoughtful and inspiring leader and coach. He has walked alongside me on my journey into wise leadership, manhood, and healing of self. He is the kind of leader we need at this moment – kind, insightful, with a firm guiding hand.”

Prentiss J. Haney
Co-Executive Director, Ohio Organizing Collaborative
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“To experience Tenneson’s genius is to learn more about yourself and the story you’re weaving with your team. His work serves to surface the deeper “why” and to make it relevant and resonant and useful to every single person in the group. All of a sudden you realize you’ve begun to build a new frame filled with aliveness, interconnectedness, and gratitude — crucial energies to any successful endeavor.”

Katie Kinnemeyer
White Paw Adventures
Former Fire & Water Participant
Innovation Facilitator, Experience Designer
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“We reached out to Tenneson and Quanita hoping to find partners in our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work. Our curriculum included protected space for medical students to meet in small groups called “Care Teams,” where they could discuss challenging topics and debrief lecture content. The Circle Trainings were meant to provide a framework for students to serve as peer facilitators in these Care Teams.

After just one Circle training session, I could feel that something was different about this kind of education. Though the students had been with us in classroom, labs and skill centers since late August, this was the first time we were teaching them how to truly care for each other. Each learner was given permission to be present, authentic and vulnerable and the students responded with gratitude. My hope is that these medical students are starting to learn how to create that same permission and space for their future patients.” 

Stephanie White, DO
Associate Dean Clinical Education
Western U COMP
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There are a mere handful of people in the world with whom I would ever host a circle that demanded deep presence, humour, attention to beauty and a fierce holding of the container. Tenneson is one of these few whose gentle and inviting demeanour belies a strong commitment to human beings working together past fear, ego and division. Being hosted by Tenneson makes me grateful to be in this field, as a host, as a colleague, and as a friend

Chris Corrigan
Global Art of Hosting Steward
Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
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“Tenneson’s creative and welcoming style transforms complex challenges
into intentionally simple constructs that invite sustainable change.

Carla Kelley
The Human Rights Education Center of Utah
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“Thank you for the wonderful training in December! I really enjoyed meeting the participants as well as this stellar facilitation team (Denver Art of Hosting, 2018). It was a real treat to see your team working together so closely and joyfully. I also appreciated the confidence boost you all provided at the training (and in our one-on-one chat). I know I needed that. I’ve just gotten home from organizing a week-long residential program for social entrepreneurs from all over the world. I and our team couldn’t be more thrilled with how it went. I’m crediting a bunch of that to the AOH training: the tools you provided, and perhaps even moreso, the opportunity for some inward reflection. I gave myself permission this time around to just be myself, and I think that made all the difference.

Anna Dausman
Program Manager, Center for Social Impact Strategy
University of Pennsylvania
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“Oh Tenneson. I love how down-to-earth you are. It is always serious fun to work with you, and I appreciate your articulation of these practical tips for “slowing down to the speed of life”. And for holding space for possibility and reminding us what we are REALLY doing together.”

Amy Lenzo
Founder, weDialogue
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“We are a more nimble and experimental congregation since working with Tenneson, more attentive to our values, and more accountable to our mission. But what has meant the most has been the emergence of a lighthearted and joyful community of passionate leaders. It turns out that when we focus on meaningful and humane connections with each other the organizing and programming that we need comes with considerably less effort.”

Rev. Cameron Barr
Senior Pastor, United Church of Christ
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“Your transparency, attunement, and navigation skills impressed and taught me volumes.”

Sean Talbot
Writing Coach & Workshop Facilitator
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“Tenneson has the unique talent of compassionately yet firmly leading a group through an emerging process to consensus. For our group he helped 25 divergent view points define 
the boundaries under which their new endeavor could thrive.”


Barbara Gayle
CEO, Paradox Consulting
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“Tenneson is deeply experienced leader and guide in the inner and outer world of doing things that matter, able to recognize and notify the better qualities in each of us. He invites that into the room in service to what is being called out in all of us. I have the privilege of calling Tenneson both guide and peer. In my decades of working with purpose groups and leadership, he stands out brightly as one of the good ones, the rare ones, that have made it past the illusion that it’s our busy doing that matters, into the zone of being, in every breath, with every thought word and deed, as the necessary medicine for the moment.”

Lawrence Kampf
Executive Director, Creator
Nova Earth Institute
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“Tenneson, in partnership with Teresa Posakony, facilitated the inspirational and governance assembly for our sisters and affiliates. He was a delight. He was able to move us out of burdensome seriousness into a playful quest that took us to places we never thought we’d go. Through risky conversations, open space explorations, speaking our truth, we truly embraced our theme of ‘Risk Boldly the Future.’”

Sister Karen Lueck
Past President, Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
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“What a gift our journey has been since 2011! To experience your leadership as a host, consultant, coach, and colleague has benefited the work I do, the relationships I have, and my willingness to be open to risks, promises, and mischief [not always in that order!]. You have had great integrity throughout, great willingness to accompany Global Ministries’ missionaries and executives, and great sense of humor. I have great gratitude for where we have been, the great and tiny accomplishments we have achieved, and the possibilities of where we are going.”

Rev Kathleen Masters
Global Ministries | The United Methodist Church
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“Meeting and hosting with you was a special gift to me. I experienced your presence and approach to hosting as an invitation of sorts – to be myself, to bring my own voice, into this work. So, thank you for being who you are – and, in that, for giving me that invitation to be myself in this work as well.”

Molly Matheson Gruen
Engagement Specialist, Bush Foundation
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“I am still floating from our experience and am beyond grateful for this time of deep transformation, or as i feel it now a deep remembering of what we all knew/know.”

Corbin Tobey-Davis
Pastor, United Church of Christ
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“I truly did appreciate the layout of the event 
and left telling my manager who attended with me 
that it was the best workshop I’ve ever attended. 
Thanks for the work you put into it. It was great!”


Emily Hill, RN, BScN
Public Health Nurse, Middlesex-London Health Unit
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“Thanks for a beautiful event in Chicago on the lovely shores of Lake Michigan. It exceeded every hope that I had and I already knew that it would be wonderful!”

Christine Ageton
Managing Director, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
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“I could see the possibilities in so many of the things we did last week in our continued effort to develop the Saskatchewan health system as one big community, as it needs to be to really make a shift to a new system.”

Nicole Wohlgemuth, BSc, MA
Program Director, Health Quality Council
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“The design of the Nebraska Rural Futures Conference was quite complex….but Teresa and Tenneson made it all seem so simple. The open-space portion in which they took the lead was masterfully orchestrated. Magical seems like the right term. More than 30 groups were working simultaneously and these groups generated powerful content for our next steps.”

Sam Cordes
Professor and Associate Vice Provost,
Emeritus, Center for Regional Development, Purdue University
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“My days with you and the group were transforming. Today at a meeting about energy efficiency projects we introduced how to shift the paradigm with our audiences. Thanks to you and your team.”

Bonnie Christiensen
Utah Clean Energy
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“I cannot thank you enough for this most amazing, deep, transformative, exhilerating and fun adventure in hosting healthcare.”

Michelle Murton
Public Health Practitioner
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“Simple. Clear. Beautiful. Still. Connected at the core. These words describe the personal energy and the professional work of Tenneson Woolf. He feels, at the most visceral level, the shifts going on in the human experiment — how we ARE, how we ORGANIZE — and where we need to go. With formal education in psychology and organizational behavior, Tenneson moves beyond the box in every way. His work is no less than radical cultural change, bubbling up from the authenticity of our primordial, Buddha nature. Becoming conscious of and acting in the world from this place is the evolutionary task that Tenneson seeks to midwife.

Kinde Nebeker
Kinde Nebeker Design
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