What is Facilitation?

Some thoughts on a core practice of Campden Hill International

According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, "facilitation" is the act or process of making something easier.

I make it easier for individuals and groups to do what they need to do.

There are a number of related practices that go into making this to happen.

Any group is influenced by the ongoing stream of interactions within it and then the meaning members make of those interactions.  Indeed, that is all a group (or an organization) is: a network of interactions and relationships.  

As a facilitator, I draw attention to these interactions, processes, and relationships in a way that is unique and beneficial to the group.

I make it easier for people to say what they need to say by being non-judgmental, open, and non-anxious.  I separate what I say and do from any reactions I'm having to what's happening in the meeting.  

Some think of that as “being objective”, but it’s different.

I try to keep clear intentions for the group and then use these intentions to drive what I choose to say and do.  I talk about my intentions and motives to reduce the opportunity for misunderstanding.

Having this kind of self-awareness means I realize that others are experiencing the meeting in a way that is different than me.  This makes room for people to talk about their different experiences.  

Letting people know what's going on and where we're headed contributes to the environment, too.

Being a different presence in the group is at the heart of the practice.  Something beyond techniques and devices like ground rules and structures,   A calm presence that makes it possible for the group to deal with its anxieties. 

These anxieties are not always interpersonal; more often, they are related to the substance of the group’s work: differing perspectives on strategy or direction, disagreements about policy, conflicting operational practices.

There is always sufficient intelligence and experience in the group to accomplish its objectives.  Sometimes, though, the group needs a little assistance in accessing that intelligence.  

That’s where I come in.

Mastery is Staying on the Path

Some thoughts on how to master whatever it is we choose to do.

Sitting at my desk today, taking a break from everything I was doing, I picked up my copy of Mastery, by George Leonard.  For those who don’t know it, Mastery is a short, deceptively simple book that is about what its title says: “the keys to success and long-term fulfillment.”

A grandiose claim, no doubt.

Still, it’s all in there.

As I thumbed through the little book, it fell open to the section on Practice.  Leonard identifies Practice as one of the “Five Master Keys.”

Practice, he says, is not just something you do (a verb).  For the master, it is also something you have, something you are (a noun).

I have a team development practice.  A doctor has a medical practice.  My web master has a marketing and design practice.

The interesting implication of this wordplay is its impact on how we think about outcomes.

If practice is something we do, we tend to think of that as a means to an end.  A way to reach a goal.  “I practice my guitar so I can get to Carnegie Hall.”

If, on the other hand, we have a practice in something, then that something tends to be an end to itself.  A way to keep learning.  A journey.  “I am committed to my horticultural practice.”

In our goal-obsessed culture, it feels a bit awkward and foolish to talk about a journey that isn’t focused entirely on winning and accomplishment.

Still, those people (or teams or organizations) we know as masters in their fields don’t devote themselves to what they do only to get better at it.  In truth, they love to practice, they love to be in their practice.  And the irony is that because of this they do get better.

What are you practicing?  What is your practice?  In what are you seeking mastery?

Painful Lessons are the Best Teachers

What it can mean to go with your gut.

I spent the day yesterday facilitating a big event for a new client.  By all accounts, it was very successful for everyone involved.

Added bonus: I got a great piece of feedback from one of the members of the group who came up to me at the end of the day wanting to share a specific annoyance.  She related how really angry she got at me for cutting off another person in the group: a woman who was nervously, tentatively making some really important points.  These were issues many in the group were thinking but didn’t have the courage to say.

I knew exactly the situation she was talking about.  

We were running late and I wanted to keep people “on schedule”.  My schedule.  To make things worse (for me), this courageous person was going on too long, not fitting into the carefully crafted process I had painstakingly laid out.

I had to do something.

And as soon as I did, I knew it was the wrong thing.  My gut told me so.

The gut begins to form in a human embryo at around the sixteenth day of development.  The brain doesn’t start to take shape until three weeks or so.  The brain stem is the oldest part of the brain and it controls functions like digestion (there’s the gut again), breathing, and heartbeat.  The neocortex shows up only much later.

I point this out to say -- crudely -- that we are guts before we are brains, and there is a lot of embedded “intelligence” in our guts.  It’s why we talk so much about the importance of going with your gut. 

My ability to tune into this person at a more basic emotional or gut level was drowned out by the shouting coming from my head that she was not operating according to the established rules and was taking more time than she should.

If I had made the effort to really hear her, and not worry about myself so much, the group would have been better off for her full contribution.  It would not have been fatal for the process, nor would it have thrown us terribly off our precious timetable.  

More important, the group would have been able to respond in a way that would have met its needs far better than anything I did.

This is not the first time my supposedly higher functioning brain overruled my gut to my detriment.  If I could just get the two listening to each other a bit more ...

The Power of Questions

What happens when you ask a question?

I love asking people questions.

For one thing, it usually gets them talking, so I don’t have to say as much.  Plus, if it’s a good question, I get really interested in the answer.  What’s more, whatever comes out is important information related to the work we’re doing together.

Problem is, how do I know I’ve asked the right questions?  The questions that will give us all the clearest insight into what is going on and will yield the clues into what we should do next.

That’s the hard part.

There’s that whole thing that happens as an observer or intervenor.  That what I am observing is affected by my observation.  The questions I choose to ask have an impact on the answers I get.  More bluntly, I only get answers to the questions I ask; nothing on the ones I don’t.

That seems obvious, but it’s not trivial.

The only way I know to combat this dilemma is to be consistently transparent in what I’m doing and why.  To disclose the intent behind the questions and the method to my madness.  Then, and only then, can my partners in crime (my clients) verify that we’re on a productive track and that we should keep going.

Or, that there is another story to be told, and new questions to be asked.

The Questionable Value of Benchmarking

Look inside, engage your team’s expertise, test your ideas, and you’ll find that what others are doing is much less important than what you originally thought.

Working with a client the other day, the request came to do some benchmarking: looking outside the organization for best practices, points against which her team could be measured and assessed.

I asked her to stop and think for a minute about what she hoped to accomplish with such an exercise.

She explained that she was looking for some new ideas to break her team out of its complacency.  

I told her she could stop right there, because no one ever found anything new by benchmarking.  It’s impossible.  By definition it’s not new if someone else is already doing it.

“New for us,” she protested.

“Maybe you could find something like that,” I agreed.  But no one ever became the best at anything by copying someone else.  

“I’m also interested in seeing how we stack up against the market, whether we are even on market with our practices,” she offered.

“OK,” I said.  “That will get you a study that points to what some consultant wants to sell you as best-in-class, or worse, a bunch of ideas that don’t fit in your organization.”  (I was beginning to feel like I was raining on her parade with all this cynicism and negativity.)

“You’re really not being very helpful right now, you know, Michael.”

(Ouch.  That confirmed my cynicism.)

From there, I suggested that no one knows the business better than her own people.  Engage them.  Have a conversation with them about what they know and see.  If you need to bring someone in to help you have that conversation, fine, but let your people carry the load on content.

If they’re stuck, expose them to new and different things (including people).  Not through benchmarking, but through a visit to a museum or a walk in the woods.  If that’s too far out there, just go to a different place for your meeting.  Talk about what people notice.  Challenge the group to use that to find real opportunities.

Tap your own expertise and inner wisdom first.  Then, run small experiments with clients (or potential clients) to get some help in refining what you think.  Expose your ideas to light and air.

Remember something we’ve talked about in the space before: reality is something you create yourself through your words and deeds.  Use that to construct and define your own market, not what someone else says your market is.

These kinds of strategies will build commitment in your people and lead to results.