FACILITATION MADE EASY

This is the slightly tautological title of a short paper that I've just written. I found writing it both cathartic and illuminating. I had to quickly let go of the idea that it could cover the whole subject - not just because there would be a lot to say, but also because the boundaries of facilitation as a concept or discipline are fuzzy to say the least.

I also had to dispense with the idea that I could define it in any rigorous fashion. The engineer in me protested: how can you write about something that you can't define? Well I can define it, but how does that help if someone else's definition is different - and maybe just as valid?

In the end, I've just written a series of observations and conclusions on some of the aspects of facilitation that interest me. It is non-linear, it is not intellectually disciplined - in fact in some ways it bears resemblance to some of the conversations that I've facilitated. It is certainly open to rebuttal and I'm sure that you may disagree with some of my points.

I'm happy with that as questions and uncertainty are often more powerful than answers.

If you want a copy, just go to http://www.clarityspace.co.uk/ and fill in the form.

If you have a copy, post your comments on this blog!

MARSHMALLOWS AND FACILITATION

I was reminded by The Times how deferred gratification applies to facilitation:

Walter Mischel, a professor of psychology, tested whether children could resist eating a marshmallow for 15 minutes if they were promised two after that time. After being left alone, a third of the children ate the marshmallow straight away, a third cracked during the 15 minutes and a third successfully resisted temptation. Those who refrained did better academically on the whole.

I think I see something akin to this when working with groups on strategy. Many individuals and groups are understandably keen to solve the problems that meetings inevitably identify. After all, if you've found an issue that needs dealing with, why waste time, why not get on and devise a solution? Metaphorically, if you have a marshmallow in front of you and you're hungry, why not eat it?

Strategically, a period of reflection interposed between identifying an issue and agreeing a resolution, is critical. Firstly, it allows the problem to be explored by the whole team, making it a shared issue. Secondly, it allows the team's thinking to develop, moving from symptoms to causes; intervention at a causal level is more likely to succeed whereas intervention at the level of effects can be counter-productive. Thirdly, it helps restore the balance between process and outcome - see previous blog entry.

As I write, I'm aware that the marshmallow metaphor is far from perfect and can't support much further comparison with facilitation - but I will take some marshmallows to my next strategy session anyway.

WINNING HURTS

Great article by Matthew Syed in the Times last month on Victoria Pendleton's olympic win:

Steve Peters, the cycling team’s psychiatrist, has said that many other Olympic champions — as well as some among the support teams — have also struggled with depression since Beijing. “This is true not just in cycling but across the sports I’ve worked with,” he said. “A number of people I’ve been in touch with following the Olympics, people who’d succeeded, said the same. They felt quite depressed, almost like a sense of loss"

Matthew then goes on to suggest that this crippling anticlimax is an evolutionary mechanism to ensure that the struggle to be best is not abandoned to feelings of satisfaction.

Here I struggle too. I suspect this is more about over-investing in the outcome rather than the journey. I think there's a cultural fixation with outcomes which undervalues the process of attainment - the journey. And that depression is an evolutionary mechanism telling us that something's out of kilter.

CHAOTIC LEARNING

Arthur Battram's excellent Navigating Complexity has this little gem from Sheila Harri-Augustin:

Learning operates on the edge of chaos, somewhere between a stable system of order and an unstable system of disorder!It is here that personal meaning...gets constructed. At the two extremes of behaviour of all systems, order and chaos pervades. Between these two extremes, at the edge of chaos, one finds complexity!

So the edge of chaos is where the action is - take the original sense of chaos as chasm and we get a sense of standing on the edge of an abyss - comfort zone, perhaps, in the vernacular.

I can relate to this aspect of learning - a far cry from the received wisdom of learning as a process of filling memory with data and algorithms.

CHAOS = CONFUSION?

I thought it did until I looked up chaos in an etymological dictionary. It derives from the greek for empty space, abyss and links to chasm. So it's about a lack of organisation or structure. But is it confused? Or are we so conditioned by our love of structure and certainty that we project confusion onto what is perhaps better termed a possibility space?

OUT OF STEP?

I came across this notice on Thursday, up in Scotland. Is it me, or this one step on the Health and Safety ladder too far?

PROBLEMS OR SOLUTIONS?

Yesterday's facilitation of a local government management team reminded me of polarised management approaches: "Don't bring me problems - bring me solutions" is at one end of the scale and provides a sink-or-swim development opportunity. At the other end, the directive approach, where the manager tells their report what to do and how to do it, short circuits the development opportunity but gets the job done.

Somewhere between these two extremes lies what you might call the coaching approach: the manager supports the employee to find a way forward. This reduces the risk of error and failure, provides development for the employee and the manager, and fosters delegation, independance and, paradoxically, collaboration.

Clearly this won't work for all occasions, but perhaps it'll offer long-term growth possibilities for the whole organisation that the others can't?

COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE OBJECTIVES...AGAIN

The client wants to encourage collaboration amongst his associates. We design the day to lead them gently to the point where they have an opportunity to form teams. The closer we get to the point where they might start to form them, the more we veer away from the possibility and the less fun everyone has. Now, don't get me wrong - the day was a success and everyone seemed to have an engaging, valuable time. Just that the outcomes were subtlely different from expectations, and the client learnt as much as the delegates, if not more. Some embryonic alliances did form, but 'off-line'; mentoring relationships sprang up and many made new contacts that seemed to be of no immediate business benefit.
I'm now thinking that this was another, albeit gentle, indication that objectives and emergence are mututally exclusive. In this case, the emergent properties (including some pretty critical feedback for the client) were not surpressed by objectives, but the reverse could so easily have been true.
So next time I'll be advising clients to temporarily suspend their need for outcomes and deliverables in favour of the unexpected - on the basis that one is real, the other is fantasy.

THINKING MAN'S FOOTBALL

Here's what happens when the balance between doing and thinking isn't quite right.

FEAR OF FAILURE

Mitchell Sava is starting the Glory of Failure project with the RSA. Lots of events celebrating failure. He cites how Venture Capitalists look for signs of past failure before investing and how Penn State Uni runs a Failure 101 course for engineers. There are signs that we're beginning to accept the benefits of failure - even though Galileo wrote about it 400 years ago. It'll take a while though while we still have people like Ian stringer (Apprentice candidate) who can't even say the word.