The Skilled Facilitator Approach

The Skilled Facilitator approach is an approach to effective human interaction - an approach my colleagues and I have been developing since 1980 when I began teaching others facilitation skills. My colleagues, clients and I have come to realize that the principles and techniques we were teaching facilitators applied equally well to most human interaction, not just facilitation. Our most satisfied clients consistently tell us that they take this approach and get results from it in a wide variety of circumstances - in all their roles at work, with friends and family, in their communities, and with their children. We do too.

Whether you are working with another person, a group or team, or an organization, The Skilled Facilitator approach will help you create the following outcomes:

• Decisions that get better results
• Decisions that people actively support
• Decisions that save time
• Better relationships - at work and in your personal life
• More personal satisfaction and less stress
• Learning that allows you and others to adapt and change where most others can't

To achieve these outcomes, the Skilled Facilitator approach has a number of key features:

• Exploring and Changing How We Think
• The Group Effectiveness Model
• A Clearly Defined Role
• Applicable To a Wide Range of Roles
• Explicit Core Values
• Ground Rules for Effective Groups
• The Diagnosis-Intervention Cycle
• Non-Judgmental Thinking
• A Process for Agreeing on How to Work Together
• A Systemic Approach

Using the Skilled Facilitator approach is challenging work because it requires us to examine and change our behavior. It is especially difficult when we find ourselves in situations we consider potentially embarrassing or psychologically threatening. As the research done by Chris Argyris and Don Schon demonstrates, in these situations, 98% of us seek to unilaterally control things, win the discussion, and minimize the expression of negative feelings. We are usually unaware of this; if we are aware of it, we typically feel justified in taking this approach. We also act as if we think:

• We know all we need to know while thinking others who disagree are uninformed,
• We are right and others who disagree are wrong, and
• We have pure motives while others motives are questionable.

All of this leads us to act in ways that create the very results we are trying hard to avoid: misunderstanding, increasing conflict, defensive reactions, and the strained relationships and lack of learning that accompany them. To make matters worse, we are usually unaware of how our thinking leads us to act ineffectively. Ironically, we usually point to things outside ourselves as the cause of these problems.

Over the last 25 years, my colleagues and I have worked with thousands of people from multiple cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, races and both genders; all of our work has all reinforced these conclusions for us. Whether they are productive or counterproductive, our thoughts and action and the consequences they generate make up our theory-in-use. The Skilled Facilitator approach, at its core, is about examining this theory-in-use and choosing to change it when it gets us consequences we don't want.

Because it is common to most people, this unilateral control theory-in-use that reduces our effectiveness also reduces the effectiveness of the groups and organizations we try to help. And like us, these groups and organizations are generally unaware of how they create these problems for themselves.

The theory-in-use portion of the Skilled Facilitator approach helps us understand why we act ineffectively. And it helps us understand why approaches that focus on simply changing behavior create superficial change that doesn't last. The Skilled Facilitator approach provides tools for increasing our effectiveness particularly in situations we find emotionally difficult. This involves changing not only our behavior, but also how we think about or frame situations, and the core values and assumptions that underlie our approach.

This is difficult but highly rewarding work; it's the main reason I have devoted myself to developing and practicing the Skilled Facilitator approach. By doing this work for ourselves, my colleagues, clients and I continue to increase our effectiveness and satisfaction with work. This helps us help others learn to reflect on and change the ways they think in difficult situations so that they can work more effectively.

Because we are called on to help groups become more effective, we need a model of group effectiveness as part of our approach. To be useful, the model needs to tell us what an effective group should look like. The Skilled Facilitator approach includes a Group Effectiveness Model that identifies the criteria for effective groups, identifies the elements that contribute to effectiveness and the relationships among them, and describes what these elements look like in practice.

To help groups, we need to clearly define our facilitative role so that we and the groups we help have a common understanding about and agree on the kinds of behaviors that are consistent and inconsistent with our role.

For facilitators, this has become more difficult in recent years as organizations have used the word facilitator to define many different roles. Human resource experts, organization development consultants, trainers, coaches, and even managers have sometimes been renamed "facilitators". The Skilled Facilitator approach clearly defines the facilitator role as a substantively neutral person who is not a group member, who works for the entire group, and who helps a group improve the way it identifies and solves problems and makes decisions, in order to increase the group's effectiveness.

The facilitative leader role involves using the Skilled Facilitator approach while having a stake in an issue. Executives, managers, team leaders, and group members are Facilitative Leaders. Facilitative leaders model the set of core values and ground rules in The Skilled Facilitator approach, think and act systemically, increase responsibility and ownership while reducing unnecessary dependence, and create conditions for learning.

The Skilled Facilitator approach distinguishes between two types of facilitation - basic and developmental. In basic facilitation, facilitators and facilitative leaders help a group solve a substantive problem by essentially lending the group their process skills. When the work is complete the group has solved its substantive problem but, by design, has not learned how to improve its process. In developmental facilitation, facilitators and facilitative leaders help a group solve a substantive problem and learn to improve their process at the same time. Here the facilitator or facilitative leader also serves as teacher so the group can eventually become self-facilitating. Developmental facilitation requires significantly more time and skill, and is more likely to create lasting, beneficial change.

The Skilled Facilitator approach recognizes that most everyone has an interest in interacting effectively with others, even if they are not neutral third parties or not working in groups or teams. So, the Skilled Facilitator approach includes the roles of facilitative consultant, facilitative trainer, and facilitative coach as well as facilitator and facilitative leader. The approach also recognizes that people often move back and forth among these facilitative roles in the course of their work. Because all of these facilitative roles are based on the same underlying core values and principles, you can use the Skilled Facilitator approach in all of your roles and others will view you as acting consistently and with integrity across situations.

All approaches to human interaction are based on some core values. Core values provide the foundation for an approach and serve as a guide. These core values are usually not explicit, and are sometimes counterproductive: some examples include valuing winning, not losing, and achieving predetermined goals regardless of others' views. The Skilled Facilitator approach is based on an explicit set of core values and principles that follow from them. We try to live these out in our work and personal lives. The core values are:

The Skilled Facilitator approach also rests on three key principles:

• (Genuine) Curiosity,
• Transparency (being open about our thoughts)
• Joint accountability

When you watch a group in action you may intuitively know whether their conversation is productive even if you can't identify exactly how members either contributed to or hindered the group's process. But to create successful teams and organizations, it is essential that you understand the specific kinds of behaviors that improve a group's process. The Skilled Facilitator approach describes these behaviors in a set of nine ground rules for effective groups. The ground rules make specific the abstract core values of facilitation, facilitative leadership, and effective groups. Examples of the ground rules are test assumptions and inferences, share all relevant information, agree on what important words mean, and explain your reasoning and intent.

The Group Effectiveness Model, the core values, and the ground rules for effective groups are all tools for diagnosing behavior in groups. But you still need a way to implement these tools. Specifically, you need to know when to intervene, what kind of intervention to make, how to say it, when to say it, and to whom. To help put these tools into practice, I have devised a six step process called the diagnosis-intervention cycle. It gives a structured and simple way to think about what is happening in an interaction and then to intervene consistent with the core values. I've found that people get better results and fewer unintended consequences when the intervener uses this cycle.

We constantly try to make sense of what is happening in our interactions with others. We watch group members say and do things and then we make assumptions about what their behavior means and how it is either helping or hindering the group. For example, in a meeting if we see someone silently folding his arms across his chest, we may infer that he disagrees with what has been said but is not saying so.

The kinds of assumptions we make are critical because they guide what we say and do and they affect how others react to us. To be effective, we need to make these assumptions in a way that:

• Increases the chance that they'll be accurate
• Enables us to share them with others to see if they disagree
• Does not create defensive reactions when we share them

The Skilled Facilitator approach accomplishes this by focusing on what I refer to as "low-level" assumptions. Essentially, this means diagnosing and intervening in groups by making the fewest and the smallest inferential leaps necessary. For example, consider two facilitators or facilitative leaders with different approaches working with the same group simultaneously and hearing the following conversation in a group:

Tom: I want to discuss the start time for the new project. Next week is too soon. We need to wait another month.

Sue: That's not going to work. We need to do right away. We can't wait.

Don: I think you're both unrealistic. We will be lucky if we can start it in ninety days. I think we should wait until then.

Someone making a low-level assumption might privately conclude and then publicly point out that members have stated their opinions but have not explained the reasons for their opinions nor have they asked others what leads them to see the situation differently. Observing the same behavior, someone making a high-level assumption might privately conclude that the members don't care about others' opinions or are trying to hide something.

Facilitation and facilitative leadership involve developing a relationship with a group - a relationship in which the group gives you permission to help them because they consider you expert and trustworthy. Building this relationship is critical because it is the foundation on which you use your facilitative knowledge and skills; without the foundation, you lose the essential, trusting connection with groups that makes your facilitative work possible and powerful. To build this relationship you need a clear understanding and agreement with the group about your role and how you will work with the group to help it accomplish its objectives. Many of the facilitation and facilitative leadership problems my colleagues and I have seen stemmed from a lack of agreement with the group about how people will work together.

For facilitators, The Skilled Facilitator approach describes a process for developing this agreement that enables the facilitator and the group to make an informed free choice about working together. The process begins when someone first contacts the facilitator about working with the group and involves a discussion with group members. It identifies who should be involved at each stage of the process, the specific questions to ask, the type of information to share about your approach to facilitation. The process also describes decisions you and a client need to make to develop an effective working agreement. The issues include:

• The facilitation objectives
• The facilitator's role
• The ground rules that will be used

Facilitators, leaders, consultants, coaches and trainers often tell me stories of how despite their best efforts to help a group in a difficult situation, the situation got worse. Each time they did something to improve things, the situation either deteriorated immediately or temporarily got better before getting even worse. This situation often occurs when we do not think and act systemically. In recent years, the field of systems thinking has become popular in part through the work of Peter Senge and his colleagues.

Facilitation and facilitative leadership are challenging work that calls forth a wide range of emotions. Part of the work involves helping people deal productively with their emotions while they are addressing difficult issues. I think it is equally, if not more important to deal effectively with our own emotions.

Facilitators and facilitative leaders experience many emotions. When faced with a difficult situation, you may feel both excited by the challenge and anxious as you wonder whether you are skilled enough to really help the group. You may feel satisfied having helped a group work through a particularly difficult problem or proud to see the group using some of the skills they have learned from you. Yet, when your work goes so smoothly that the group doesn't recognize your contribution you may feel unappreciated. When the group is feeling confused and uncertain how to proceed in their task, you may be feeling the same way about helping them. Finally, you may be frustrated when others are acting in ways that seem ineffective - for reasons you don't understand.

I have experienced each of these feelings. When I discuss my feelings with colleagues, I find that although the specific situations that trigger our emotions and our specific responses may differ, our feelings are an important part of our work and personal lives. We ignore them at our peril.

Because your emotions and how you deal with them can either increase or decrease your effectiveness, The Skilled Facilitator approach involves understanding how you feel while working with a group and learning to dealing with these feelings productively.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, my colleagues and I continue to try to apply this approach to our personal and work lives. Our most satisfied clients do as well. We've seen impressive results in both areas, and we continue to learn where and how the Skilled Facilitator approach is helpful. Whenever we think and act consistently with it, we're more successful, we learn why, and we build our ability to be more effective in the future.

© 2005 Roger M. Schwarz