Michael Soth has been involved in group facilitation since the late 1970's, and has been offering training in facilitation skills since 1985. Being familiar with established theories, practices and methods of facilitation, he has developed a way of grounding these in modern depth-psychological principles. This represents a paradigm shift in how we approach the task of facilitation, both in terms of our understanding of the individuals and groups we work with, but also in terms of our own role, task and potential in relation to the system we are engaged with. |
What is Facilitation ? - Take the Introductory Tour (coming soon)
"Facilitation is the art of leadership in group communication. A facilitator is one who fulfills this leadership role." Antioch University McGregor |
Whatever your business, enterprise or project, at the end of the day you need your people to be motivated, to be involved and to be with you.
Whatever your management or leadership style, at the end of the day you depend on collaboration as well as synergy between people in teams and groups.
Occasionally, if not all the time, you will therefore want events and meetings that engage and involve staff, team members, employees and maybe other stakeholders.
You will want meetings that motivate people, where they feel heard and valued for their contribution.
You will want an organisational culture where meetings are an enjoyable, energising and satisfying aspect of people’s work.
A useful brief introduction to facilitation can be found on wikipedia. Or a detailed introduction, representative of the field and put together by a collaborative effort of a variety of organisations involved with facilitation, is the following Basic Primer in Facilitation. Whilst I am working to complete this section, here is an unfinished paper on the task of the facilitator and its role in relation to groups that I started in the early 1990's. |
Facilitation has a long tradition and established expertise in making meetings participative, collaborative and productive. Historically, facilitation has always recognised that group communication is essential in all organisations. Meetings and events, in small or large groups, set the tone and create the atmosphere of an organisation.
Facilitation has therefore developed tools and techniques that facilitate and 'ease' (the Latin root is facilis which means 'easy to do') group communication, and therefore help meetings function better.
Attention to the involvement and participation of all group members is one of the main vehicles by which facilitation achieves good outcomes, ensuring shared understandings and responsibility for agreements and higher degrees of motivation all round. Facilitation has also included conflict resolution, as unaddressed tensions and unresolved antagonisms are usually the main obstacles of groups functioning effectively.
Is it 'facile' ?
What does a facilitator contribute ?
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All of these objectives require the facilitator to attend to the 'atmosphere' in the group: group dynamics, relationships within the group or what is colloquially called 'the group energy'.
It is one of the key skills of a facilitator to find ways of aligning group energy and group task, of bridging the 'feel' of the group with the 'activity' of the group.
Considering how laborious and ineffective many meetings usually are, the task of the facilitator is not 'easy'. It requires a high level of perceptive skills, an attunement to and understanding of group dynamics and a rich toolbox of techniques, involving all kinds of group organisation, decisionmaking and conflict resolution interventions. Depending on the established dynamics and often engrained ways of working within a group or organisation, the task of the facilitator can be next to impossible.
What does the role of the facilitator have in common with a chairperson and how is it different ?
Like a chairperson, the facilitator's predominant focus is - quite appropriately - on the task which the group has set itself. The group determines the purpose of a meeting and wants to get the task done as efficiently and productively as possible. Tasks usually involve some discussion and decisionmaking process. This requires not just everybody's attention and participation, but particular kinds of attention, focus and contributions: it requires group members to function rationally and appropriately. It requires from group members the capacity to put the objectives of the meeting first and prioritise the collaborative process and outcomes.
A chairperson focusses exclusively on the coherent flow of the discussion and rational argument - they take responsibility for going through the topics on the agenda in an efficient manner, making sure that the conversation stays on track and that conclusions are reached and recorded. A chairperson typically presumes people's capacity to cooperate and at best restrains people going off topic or repeating points.
A facilitator pays attention to the group atmosphere and monitors whether the group as a whole or individuals are actually managing to maintain the required attentiveness and collaboration. A facilitator does not just monitor the content of the discussion, but the quality of the process. A facilitator sees people's psychology influencing and sometimes interfering with the group's task, and makes it their task to deal with the state of the group in pursuing the task.
The main difference between a facilitator and a chairperson, therefore, is in the exclusiveness with which they are focussed on the task and the rational discussion.
Task and Process
The essence of good facilitation is to attend to both task and process, as it's called in the jargon, and to find ways of aligning them: getting the task done in and through a good group atmosphere. A good group atmosphere will bring the best out of its members, maximising creativity and productivity, ideally breaking through the sound barrier of individualistic co-operation into synergy.
Established practices and theories of facilitation and their limitations
Practical task-oriented facilitation
Limitations of practical task-oriented facilitation
However, if you have a look through the established definitions and practices of facilitation, you will find that its practice largely relies on out-dated psychological ideas, derived from the 1950's and 1960's. In order to do their job, a facilitator needs to combine 'group psychology' with the 'business' of the group. But if the understanding of group psychology relies on antiquated models and concepts, that half of the facilitator's job suffers.
How does this manifest ?
Traditional facilitation manages conflicts between task and process implicitly, trying to 'ease' any friction, tension or disturbing influences. In many group situations, this works well and is more than sufficient. Depending on the facilitator's charisma and facilitative as well as persuasive skills, this works well even in situations where an established 'negative' group culture actually inhibits and interferes with the work.
But traditional facilitation, being based on out-dated psychological principles has its limitations.
In some cases 'facilitation' needs to be balanced by 'arduation' (from Latin: arduus difficult, lofty, tall, high, proudly elevated, steep) - when the group or organisation has reached a threshold which requires transformational change rather than 'easing'. Such change is never just 'easy', and needs to be supported by an equivalent transformational psychology.