Facilitation
From GPWiki
Monday 08 of February, 2010
Facilitators create the following 10 entry points for innovation
The Following Extracts From HBR
- At meetings - facilitators add zip to roundtables because people speak and feel heard.
- Across professions - facilitators inspire shared language that leaves behind jargon to favor communication.
- In learning circles facilitators draw on multiple literacies to engage voices on the other side and leave no brains behind.
- On projects facilitators expect solutions from multiple intelligences and then give back to their wider community.
- Through diversity facilitators ensure quality access for all by setting high standards and then encouraging alternative approaches.
- For business facilitators open new opportunities for fair practice by guaranteeing ethics for all they engage.
- In conflict facilitators seek kindness and model positive tone to build goodwill among even those who disagree.
- Across genders facilitators call upon, respect, and act on insights equally from both female and male perspectives.
- Within leadership facilitators choose humility and resist arrogance, in return for visible benefits to others they lead and promote.
- In change facilitators act courageously to avoid ruts in order to favor growth and improvement for those they serve.
"Imagine miracle results from brain based faciliators who restore broken systems, renew flawed practices, and promote shared visions. Begin to envision the results, and you have already opened a segue into new facilitation possibilities where you work." - Harvard Business Review
Facilitation
There is a great privilege in working with the senior managers of the worlds biggest companies and governments. The word facilitation is one that has been hijacked and therefore our definition is specific. We assist our clients to think, be in control of the debate that is caused and contribute to the development of the frameworks or artefacts. We facilitate with a light touch, deliberate questioning and the application of the pen.
See Also Listening eye
See Also Pattern Recognition
"Facilitation or Hosting? - From a complexity stand point, facilitation is seen as a reductionist activity, reducing complexity to simple problems with simple outcomes and a simple path for getting there. Facilitators help groups to seek answers and end states. Hosting from within the field however is more aligned with the nature of complex systems, where there are no answers, but instead only choices to make around the next question, and the paths where those questions lead us. There are no end states. The idea of a healthy community is a vector, not a point. It is a direction to move, not something that can be achieved and then crossed off the list." - Chris Corrigan
Semantics
We don't particularly adhere to the traditional definition of facilitation. We don't want to simply question for questions sake. We are curious and we want to get to the root cause of business issues. Our passion is to find the right sequence of questions, recognise patterns and this involves listening. This sequence can only come from accurate observation, structured thinking and logical interpretation.
We want to cause structured thinking through careful questioning and we want to integrate the response together with sense-making and we do this via the notion of visualisation within proven structures, frameworks.
We create a valuable relationship between the question, the framework (context) and the conversation and thus cause the more powerful activity/outcome of the thinking process. An experience We aim to build the basis for confidence and courage. We certainly strive to find the value in the Collective Intelligence.
We seek to foster discussion around this term and welcome experiences and other definitions but after almost a thousand recorded interventions and sessions over many years we have begun to understand what techniques work and what techniques don't.
Some basic definitions
- A Facilitator is a temporary manager, providing leadership , but without taking the reins permanently.
If they do - they become the manager.
- Facilitators should help others to take responsibility, to take the lead, to manage.
- Managers should learn and use facilitation skills in today's environment to get the best out of their people, create consensus and ensure quality decisions.
