I am convinced that the value of a facilitator is in fostering free flowing conversations among participants, related to the job in hand. During this process they generate meaning for the work they are involved with, for example coming up with new ideas, enhancing a relationship between 2 units, proposing a collaboration between 2 groups or understanding a situation from the other person’s perspective. There are many more possible outcomes – these are just a few examples.
And yet how many times have you seen facilitators who:
- Create structured activities that are engaging but do not foster real conversation about real things going on in the work place (e.g. cutting articles out of newspapers, getting people to vote on arbitrary rating scales).
- Are more intent on getting through their predetermined programme than meeting the needs of the participants (and the sponsor).
- Build in restrictions on the conversation (e.g. speaking only one sentence at a time) that interfere with the natural ebb and flow and repetitions of normal conversation.
- Get participants to talk to the flipchart or to the facilitator, but never to each other?
- Regard participants talking to each other as a waste of time, something to be discouraged. Why is it that the most lively conversations seem to happen at breaks?
- Close conversations down rather than opening them up.
- Divert attention from what is important to participants, for example through skits or artificial presentations.
- Generate ideas in brainstorming sessions but never discuss the merits of the ideas?
- Ask questions that they already know the answers to in order to reach the predetermined outcome – this amounts to a subtle manipulation.
- Use devices that touch on, but avoid, dealing with real concerns, for example getting people to write their concerns on yellow stickies and posting them anonymously on a flipchart (never to be seen again), or posting anonymous ratings of how we are getting along at the moment or how we are doing as a team. If the items raised by these techniques are not discussed in the group then they amount to disguised manipulative techniques to get the group to think that something has been done just by undertaking the exercise.
- Getting through a set number of Powerpoint slides in the time available (e.g. "These ones are not relevant to you so I’ll just go through them quickly").
- Facilitate sessions that generate long lists of ideas or issues that never see the light of day again.
- Have a pre-set agenda that gets in the way of what is meaningful to the participants (e.g. even though we know the answers now, we won’t answer your questions about the space you will have because according to our plan we will address that in stage 2, which takes place next month.)
These are examples that I have seen over the last four years or so. The embarrassing thing is that in the past I have been guilty of some of them myself!
Hi Stephen,
I agree with your view that the facilitator’s primary purpose should be to encourage, assist and enable healthy, free-flowing conversation around real business issues. I also agree that it’s easy to get seduced into using tools and techniques that artificially close down the very conversation that they ostensibly set out to foster. Or to use others that sacrifice meaningful conversation for the sake of packaged ‘fun’.
In my experience, participants enjoy themselves most when they are addressing real issues that they know about, care about and can do something about.
It’s perhaps telling that the word “facilitate” has the same Latin root as “facile”. Clearly, the shared meaning is intended to be around ease of accomplishment – either accomplished easily (facile) or made easier to accomplish (facilitated). Unfortunately, facilitation practices can too often be more accurately described by the alternative definition of facile; that is, shallow and simplistic.
Comment by Chris Rodgers — November 26, 2008 @ 10:53 am
Thanks for commenting Chris, I have used this Latin derivation of facile myself in the past, but you have given me fresh insight with your point about the alternative definition!
Comment by Stephen — December 2, 2008 @ 6:57 pm