Facilitation Defined

Facilitation is a word which describes an activity. It is something that someone does. It is a process. Yet it also includes non-action, silence and even the facilitator’s absence.

Carl Rogers, in his book The Freedom to Learn, talked about people having freedom to ‘… learn what we wish as we wish’. For this to happen the right atmosphere has to be developed so that the facilitator can concentrate on providing the resources and opportunities for learning to take place rather than ‘manage and control’ learning. Here is how Rogers described one of his courses and his role as facilitator:

This course has the title ‘Personality Theory’. But what we do with this course is up to us. We can build it around the goals we want to achieve, within that very general area. We can conduct it the way we want to. We can decide mutually how we wish to handle these bugaboos of exams and grades. I have many resources that I have on tap to be available, and I can help you find others. I believe I am one of the resources, and I am available to you to the extent that you wish. But this is our class. So what do we want to make of it?

The word facilitate comes from the Latin facilis which means ‘to make easy’. The dictionary definitions vary. Here are three:

‘To free from difficulties and obstacles, to make easy.’

‘To lessen the labour of.’

‘To render easier, to promote, help forward.’

None of these satisfies me, nor do they hint at the empowerment of individuals to achieve for themselves, and it is this latter aspect which is for me the key to facilitation.

At dinner on Monday evening the group energy was high, and there was an air of fun and excitement. I was sitting next to Derek and Melanie. Derek, in contrast to everyone else, was still dressed formally in suit and tie and wearing his badge. Several comments were made in his direction about relaxing, and being stuffy. Derek turned to me and said, ‘Is there any rule about dress?’

‘No’, I replied, ‘you can wear what you want. Why do you ask?’

‘Well, on the courses I run we usually wear a jacket and tie for dinner’, he answered.

I told him that I never set any rules about dress, behaviour drinking etc. I explained that I believed that individuals are quite able to make their own decisions about such things. Then he asked me if I had noticed his badge.

‘Yes, I Have. Why?’

‘Well, I believe it is important that we are able to identify each other easily’, he responded ‘and you don’t seem to agree’.

‘Oh, but I do agree with you. However I believe that it is important that we make good contact with each other and badges act as barriers to good contact. Without a badge’, I continued, ‘everyone has to ask, and learn who the other people are. If I can avoid this by reading your badge I am avoiding making contact with you. So in order to facilitate good contact I don’t use badges.

Melanie, who had been listening, said, ‘So sometimes to facilitate something to happen you do nothing’.

‘Yes’, I replied, ‘and this is perhaps the most important thing to learn about facilitation.’

It puzzles people at first, to see how little the able leader actually does, and yet how much gets done.

There are many similarities between what people often describe as leadership and facilitation. These similarities are to do with the way that the process is carried through. However for some people leadership means being able to direct and move a group in a direction which the leader decides is appropriate. This is only one form of leadership. It is sometimes useful but is often not very effective.

Facilitation is about empowering people to take control and responsibility for their own efforts and achievements. If we grow and develop as people we do so because we make a choice to do so. We cannot be ‘developed’ by others. Good leaders know this. Around 500 BC, Lao Tzu is believed to have written the Tao Teh Ching. It describes a philosophy for life, The Way. Here is Chapter 17, about leadership:

A leader is best
When people barely know that he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worst when they despise him.
‘Fail to honour people,
They fail to honour you;’
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, ‘We did this ourselves.’

Facilitation echoes this message from Lao Tzu by trying to determine ‘the way’ that the groups want to go, and by trying to encourage and support them in this process. This does mean sometimes leading from the front, but it is how we do this rather than what we are doing which is important. Sometimes we have to lead from within the group, by example and participation rather than persuasion. And there are times when it is important to lead from the back, to follow, and by following willingly and with skill to enable the group to lead.

In his book The Tao of Leadership, John Heider, building on the writing of Lao Tzu, says:

What we call leadership consists mainly of knowing how to follow. The wise leader stays in the background and facilitates other people’s process.

Following is not something which comes naturally. We have to learn to follow. Those of us who learn well will acquire the style, attitude and ability to lead. The skills of followership that we need to learn are described below.

Listening in an open and quiet way. This enables me to hear what is happening and to be aware of the feelings and emotions that lie behind what others are saying. It also gives me a basis for the choices that I can make about what is happening, how it is happening, and what I might want to do.

Questioning in an enquiring and learning way. When I do this, and when I listen quietly and attentively to the replies, I am able to learn and to understand what is happening. This then gives me the knowledge to make choices about what I do.

Communicating my thoughts, feelings and ideas clearly about what is happening. I am unable to do this unless I listen and understand what is happening. When I do this I can contribute and share whatever I believe might be of help. It also gives me a sense of freedom to act as I think appropriate.

Acting in my chosen way and in the best interests of those I am with, so as to achieve shared objectives. When I act I choose, and take responsibility for what I do. This choice is based on my clear understanding of what is happening and on the clarity with which I express my thoughts, feelings and emotions about what is happening.

Reviewing what is happening. This is particularly relevant after I have acted, so that I can assess what changes my action has had on what is happening. This reviewing process is concerned with listening, questioning and communicating with others about what is happening NOW. By constantly checking what is happening in the here and now I can stay grounded in the present rather than keep replaying the past, or fantasising about the future.

Adapting to the changing conditions in which I am living and working. When I am aware of how things are changing I can choose to adapt my actions accordingly. This allows me the freedom to change my mind and to adjust what I do to suit the particular needs of the moment rather than stick to previously relevant, but no longer appropriate, ideas.

When I am aware of how things are changing I can choose to adapt my encouraged to follow, and so we all share in the leadership. If we accept that everyone has their own process which they have developed as a means of being and surviving, then we need to acknowledge that process and to work with it, not against it This means that the six elements of followership described above come into operation continuously whenever we make contact with others.

By learning how to follow I am learning how to relate and hence how to relate and hence how to lead. Nothing could be more important for the facilitator who wants to give people the opportunity to grow and develop their potential. Or as John Heider puts it:

The wise leader is of service: receptive, yielding, following The group – members’ vibration dominates and leads, while the leader follows.

It was 9.15 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The group had assembled on time. One or two people seemed a little worse for wear after a late night Joe and I decided to sit quietly and wait for the group to take the lead. We didn’t have to wait long.

‘Well I feel like a nice quiet start to the day.’ It was Sid speaking. He was looking tired and decidedly fragile.

‘How would you like it to be then?’, I asked him.

‘I don’t really know, but something not too demanding.’

‘Why don’t you do what you’ve planned for today?’, Derek interjected. ‘What makes you think I have planned something?’, I asked. ‘You must’ve done, you can’t run a course without planning every session.’ ‘I agree’, David added. ‘You must know what we are going to do next.’

‘OK’, I responded ‘If I did have a plan, what do you think would be the next thing I had planned we should do?’

Michael sighed, ‘Here we go again’, he said, ‘throwing the ball back to us.’

‘Well it is your workshop, and we do have an agenda that you created, so what do you want to do?’, I asked the group.

‘I would er . . like to have a er . . . better understanding of what facilitation is, er . . . if that’s OK.’ It was Gregory speaking.

‘Yes, that would be very useful,’ Margaret added.

‘Well that seems like a reasonable suggestion. Does everyone agree?’, I asked. No one appeared to dissent.

‘Now I suppose you will ask us how we want to do it,’ Derek stated. ‘Yes, that’s pretty much what I was thinking; I replied. ‘Has anyone any ideas?’

At this point in the workshop it might appear preferable for me as facilitator to suggest ways in which we could deal with the understanding of facilitation. But you will notice that no one has asked me for my ideas yet. If I make suggestions before I am invited to by the group I am pushing, which is exactly what I don’t want to do.

In fact, I have prepared in advance for the workshop, but I have not planned a programme. I have planned to have available lots of ideas and materials that can be used if the group want to make use of them. If I offer these in advance of the group requesting help and support then I am disempowering the group from finding their own way. It is the struggle that is important not the resolution, though we do want to reach a satisfactory completion of each topic.

The group debated a number of ideas and then Doreen turned to me and quietly asked me if I had any ideas on how they could do it.

‘Yes I do have several options’, I said. The group went quiet as I suggested that we could work in pairs, and each pair could select a topic from the agenda and facilitate a session on that topic for the rest of the group.

‘But we need to know about facilitation first’, Margaret said, ‘I don’t want to look a fool.’

Several people nodded in agreement with Margaret.

‘But what do you think of the idea?’, I asked.

There was general agreement that it was OK as long as they received some input on facilitation.

‘OK, then why don’t you select a partner and choose a topic from the agenda?’, I suggested. ‘As far as input about facilitation is concerned there is a paper on the table which I have written about facilitation skills. In addition, when you have thought about how you are going to facilitate your session you can, if you want, talk to me and Joe about it.’

At this stage in the facilitation process I am working from within the group, or perhaps I am leading from just in front of the group. However and this is the key, the group is going where it wants to go and using me as a resource to help it get there. In addition, the group working in pairs, are now going to select what topics they address and how they do it. They are in effect taking control and responsibility for the direction and shape of the next day or so of the workshop.

In the paper I had prepared for the workshop I included the following (my own) definition of facilitation:

Facilitation is the provision of opportunities, resources, encouragement and support for the group to succeed in achieving its objectives, and to do this through enabling the group to take control and responsibility for the way they proceed.

To empower people is to help them to believe in themselves, and from this base to explore their potential. Once this process starts it is difficult to return to a position where control can be exercised by the facilitator. In truth, facilitation is not relinquishing control to the group, because the facilitator never had control in the first place, but rather the recognition and acceptance that the group are in control from the very beginning, even if they have to be reminded that this is the case.

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