Successful organisations today are engaging in deep conversation. As organisations move from the old hierarchical, command and control structures to the new world of flexible empowered workers and short term projects, they are engaging in intense discussion and dialogue. Deep conversation is a prerequisite for teams to stop clinging to what doesn’t work any more and move to learn new behaviours. Discussion and dialogue is often characterised by passion and strong views. The conversations often break down. Sometimes tempers flare and things are said which the group does not know how to manage. Sometimes the conversations drift gently in circles with no-one daring to question the points raised or the process of discussion. Even when groups know they need to talk, at times they find it difficult to initiate and maintain conversation.

In 1994, the peaceful transition from apartheid to the new government in South Africa amazed people all around the world. Later it emerged that there were many many deep conversations between people with strong, sometimes opposing views, about the options, implications and what the future held.

Any group can learn to have effective conversation

In effective conversations people listen to each other. And listening is difficult. Organisations are turning to people with skills to support the communication process. These people act as catalysts. They bring communication skills and the ability to grasp the key concepts within the arena in which they work. These are the facilitators, a new role in the organisation. Facilitators create and implement agendas and frameworks to guide groups through managed conversations such as:

  • Skilful discussion to reach consensus.
  • Dialogue to open a deeper understanding of their assumptions and mental models.
  • Brainstorming to create new ideas.
  • Conflict resolution to deal with negative energy.

The facilitators help people communicate within these frameworks allowing people to tap into each other’s creative and caring potential.

But there is more to facilitation than may be first appreciated

Good facilitation requires a certain set of behaviours and attributes. Some of the core attributes of facilitators are deep and not easily developed. Amongst other things good facilitators will balance:

  • A passion for working with people with the need to set boundaries against interaction fatigue.
  • Empathy with detachment.
  • The ability to influence with humility.
  • Pattern and trend recognition skills with allowing the group to reach its own conclusions.

Don’t confuse behaviours with facilitation styles. Facilitators develop a signature style. Naturally some clients will prefer one style over another but they may all be appropriate. Some facilitators come in like a hurricane, full of energy and panache but this does not necessarily make them better than the soft spoken introvert. Sometimes the contrary is true. Facilitation is more about listening than about being out there letting it all hang out.

Workshop facilitation is a process. The facilitation process requires a consulting mindset. The facilitator must complete the necessary steps in each phase of the process. Then they must deal with each arising situation in an authentic way. Some skills required by the facilitator are:

  • Proposing and Contracting. Even internal facilitators need to negotiate their time.
  • Designing and implementing an agenda.
  • Identifying and managing group dynamics.
  • Managing disagreements and strong views.
  • Sifting and sorting information.
  • Dealing with disruptive behaviour.
  • Defining conclusions and bringing closure.

What’s in your toolbox? Facilitators should have a broad set of tools. Even during the most well structured workshop, unforeseen issues may arise. And when these issues require special tools and immediate attention, all eyes turn to the facilitator. These moments of truth can take a facilitator to great heights. They can also be damaging to a facilitator if she does not handle them carefully.

At times like these the facilitator should be able to quickly access and implement tools for:

  • Dealing with complexity
  • Sifting and ordering information
  • Analysis and decision making
  • Resolving Conflict.

Case example:

While facilitating a team session it became clear that the marketers were trying to provide the same high level of service for too many clients. Some clients were returning high value while others were not. The team wanted to focus more attention on the better clients. The sponsor asked me to add a session to address this immediately.

Using a grid analysis I was able to help them identify and weight criteria, evaluate their clients, and agree a prioritised list for each marketer in the team. Each marketer tweaked their own list to allow for additional considerations. This provided high value to the team and was very satisfying for me as a facilitator.

Do you have the right people facilitating your sessions? Workshop Facilitation is not training, where information flows predominantly from one person to everyone else. With facilitation information flows around the room, channelled through the facilitor for resolution or recording. Facilitation is not the same as chairing a meeting either. The effective facilitator creates a subtle freedom within the form without expecting participants to speak through the chair and refer to each other as “the honourable member” or “my esteemed colleague”. And facilitation is not delegation. I heard one facilitator referring to themselves as a “facipulator”. If your facilitator is manipulating you into their view of what you are saying, you are not getting value for your team.

I have been facilitating workshops for about 20 years

Although I have been facilitating full time for the last 10 years, I began my facilitation career, doing JAD sessions for software development on a large mine in Namibia. My internal clients needed to align their requirements for systems such as Hazardous Chemicals Management, Flight Bookings for the mine aircraft and the Mine Suggestion Scheme. With nothing more than a week’s course on data and process modelling, a couple of years experience as a programmer, my intelligence charm and chutzpah I set out to change the world of analysis and design. I turned my office into a workshop facility and hosted some exciting and high energy sessions. That is when I learnt how far you can get on a good dose of energy and enthusiasm. Since then I have learnt many valuable lessons about workshop facilitation, some through bitter experiences in front of groups. And now I am sharing these lessons with facilitators in the course I have called “An Introduction to Facilitation”.

An Introduction to Facilitation

What can you do if you are keen to facilitate workshops but are not sure how to begin? I compiled the course to support someone either starting out as a facilitator or already facilitating workshops and seeking greater understanding, new skills and techniques. The objective of this course is to present facilitation as a business tool, and to give the course participants an opportunity to practice facilitation skills in a safe and supportive training environment. This course is intended to boost this life-long process of learning.

The Manual

Facilitation is a vast and deep field of endeavour. It would be impossible to convey a complete picture of what is involved in a three or four day course. Developing facilitation skills is a lifelong process. Effective facilitation requires continuous learning. I have compiled a 200 page manual of valuable information as a resource and framework for learning for each delegate. As course facilitator I refer to these notes throughout the course.

The manual covers following subjects:

  • An Introduction to Facilitation
  • The Group
  • The Individual in the Group
  • The Facilitator (a special case of “Individual in the Group”)
  • The Consulting Process
  • The Workshop Process
  • An Introduction to Facilitation Technique
  • Some useful Tools
  • An Initial set of Workshop Structures
  • Additional Reading.

Although lecturing is kept to a minimum during the course the facilitator gives the group an overview of the notes to ensure they understand how the notes have been structured.

If you would like to learn more about how I could get involved in your team, please give me a call. I would be happy to meet with you to discuss your requirements and a general approach to an intervention at no charge.

Call me on +27 +83 708 2588.

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“By Stephen Quirke of StrategyWorks. Please visit Stephen’s web site at www.strategyworks.co.za” (Make sure the link is live if placed in an eZine or in a web site.)