The Center for Graphic Facilitation

Facilitator U: Are You a Catalyst or a Control Freak?

photo by Matt Andrews

Russian writer Isaac Babel believed that “no iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.” In working with others, can anything bring a group of people to the brink of breakthrough more effectively than an unexpected, yet perfectly timed question mark?

What about those exclamation points!

This post from Steve Davis of Master Facilitators Journal describes the subtle art of knowing when to apply pressure to catalyze movement and when to allow openness for people to struggle.

Silly as Service: What Facilitators Don't Know Can Help Their Groups

PHOTO: "Mud Pie" by Matt Andrews © All rights reserved.

This article from www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com describes the value we bring as facilitators when we let go of our (false) image as an authority figure and empower our people to access and utilize their own wisdom and problem-solving skills as a group. Often, this requires us to look a little silly!

Facilitation U: Beware of the McDonalds Approach to Group Leadership

PHOTO: Beijing McDonald's by Peter Durand

Follow your natural rhythm to stay connected with yourself and your group.

From Facilitation U: As facilitators, particularly when you're training, have you ever felt compelled to speak fast and spill out the goods in order to keep people interested and engaged? In a world where the McDonalds paradigm often infiltrates our better intentions, do you let quantity trump quality and speed overtake depth? I know I've done this before. I get caught up in the moment and loose myself in a frantic desire to deliver the agenda...my agenda!

Most of us already suffer from information obesity and we're starving for quality, depth, and connection. And though we're conditioned to respond to high speed, broadband relationships, I believe we all yearn for a taste of thoughtful sincerity that touches our souls.

Facilitator U.: Are You Too Smart for Your Own Good?

PHOTO COLLAGE by Matt Andrews Photography. © All rights reserved.

Ever feel like you are speaking to a room full of warm bodies, but no one is home? 

Feel like you poured your life experience into your presentation, crafted every bullet point for maximum impact, practiced your speech to perfection, suited up, showed up, but no one is even listening up?

Steve Davis of FacilitatorU.com reminds us: "Speakers and seminar leaders don't need to know everything." 

Below, Davis shares insights on how to engage participants as an authentic facilitator (rather than facilitating through speechifying).

Facilitator U.: The Process is Always the Same

"Stuck in Mumbai Traffic" via Flickr by kent21

Treat "Problems" as Learning Opportunities

From Steve Davis, www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com:

Sometimes the objective of a given session doesn't go as planned. Things can be going just fine when suddenly, the unexpected happens and threatens your entire process. In my humble experience as a facilitator, I've learned to look forward to things "going wrong!" Why? Because, if they are handled well, they can present some of the richest learning or barrier-removing opportunities available. In fact, I've come to see these occurrences as gifts, offering my groups the chance to explore in ways I could never have planned.

FacilitatorU: Getting to the Truth

Be familiar with the tactics people use to cloud an issue.

PHOTO: A crowd watching the annual stick-bashing festival in Lombok by simpologist

The front of the room can be a disorienting place to be... especially when the crowd turns hostile. All it takes is for one or two people to kick up some mud and suddenly the group is disoriented and off-target.

Steve Davis of Facilitator U. shares some wisdom from a short article written by David Ellis, author of Becoming a Master Student, entitled "How to Fool Yourself: Six Common Mistakes in Logic".

These six points seem relevant to our interest in clear, critical thinking as facilitators, in his article, Getting to the Truth.

Celebrate

image: Fractal Artist

With all the topics to lament in the news and society today, let's remember the power of celebration.

When working with your team or clients as you kick off the new year, Steve Davis of FacilitatorU.com reminds us in the post below to celebrate successes, challenges, wins and losses, friends, colleagues, children and bosses.

Facilitation Skill: Be a Catalyst for Clarity

Establish clear, manageable objectives, and deliver them.

From Steve Davis of Facilitator U:

It's easy when we're trying to present something new, particularly in a training environment, to be overwhelmed by all that we want our participants to know on the subject. 

As good trainers, teachers, and facilitators, we want our audience to get the most learning in the least time. The problem is that this type of thinking can get us and our audience confused. 

Trying to deliver too much information impedes learning. Learning isn't solely about information. It's about using information to accomplish something we couldn't accomplish before. This requires time to digest, integrate and apply new ideas.

Assimilation vs. Accumulation

The practice of getting full nourishment from everything in your life.

Steve Davis of FacilitatorU.com describes how we can discern and distinguish the urge to accumulate stuff (information, relationships, customers, ideas, experience, food, etc.) vs. the process of assimilating and nourishing our bodies and careers as facilitators.

Is Facilitation Necessary?

ABOVE: An elderly man and a child perform tai chi together. source

Three Insights about Facilitation
from Master Facilitator Journal | Issue #0368, Nov 11, 2008:

Truth by its nature is simple. Expressing our simple truth to the best of our ability is curative. Expressing our relative truth allows the wisdom of life to unfold as needed, when needed. We must be willing to jettison the idea of political correctness in service to our personal version of truth, however it looks. If something sounds complicated or doesn't make sense, it's not really true. It's a head trip. How the process unfolds can be extremely complex but always elegant and beyond the mind's ability to anticipate or significantly influence.  

Trusting in the intelligence of life gives it the space of operate. Any issue in the life of an individual or group will find its own best resolution if those involved express their truth and provide the space and time for the solution to unfold. Any efforts to force, cajole, or manipulate what is, impede the natural flow of life. 

Presence facilitates flow. The inner space occupied by each participant influences "the field" of the group. Noise in any mind adds noise to the field. Quiet minds clear the field. A clear field makes what's next self-evident and facilitates the flow of the group's work.