Consultative Roles of Facilitators

The facilitator is first and foremost a consultant at heart even though he is to lead generative conversations by their processes rather than through their contents during the facilitated sessions.

This means an effective facilitator has two roles to play. During the facilitated session, the facilitator uses the language of facilitation to mine the collective knowledge, experiences and wisdom of the gathered crowd.

However, outside of the session, he uses a suite of consulting tools to clarify the initiator's intentions before its execution and recommends strategies to fully leverage the session's outputs so that the initiator gets the most out of his investment.

While some clients may know what they want from the session participants on the outset, most do not. The facilitator could contribute the most value by helping these initiators establish the session's objectives and to uncover the means to correctly tap onto the collective wisdom of the crowd.

A facilitated event is like working with Google's search engine and its databases. When we use the search engine to query its databases with the most appropriate keywords, we get to the pages that most likely to give us the answers we are looking for. The reverse is also true. Google refers us to million pages of useless information when we become lax with our query syntax.

Like Google, the successful mining of the collective wisdom of the crowd depends on the accuracy of the questions we pose to them during the discussions.

When we asked the wrong questions, the participants will focus their cognitive energies in the wrong things, and ultimately we get the wrong answers. Unlike the search engines, which are tireless, human's stamina for prolonged cognitive function is limited.

Therefore, facilitators have to be very nimble with the questions used at such events. To achieve this goal, we challenge the dominant thought processes of the crowd. We call this mechanism the 'Challenge Statement', and let's spend a few moment to deconstruct this.

All 'Challenge Statements' share a common syntax stem that begins like this:

'In what ways might I or we ..........?'

This is the structure that put us in the space that calls us into action. Unlike a statement that describes a problem, which usually presents itself as an obstacle, the ''Challenge Statement' aggressively activates our cognitive functions and resources to create and locate the solutions that may resolve the issue at hand, which is the context. This is a powerful orientation and is

necessary for the successful mining of the wisdom that resides in the crowd.

So, 'not having enough of money' is disempowering since it forces us to focus on the problem, but 'in what ways might I increase my earning potential?' is not. It causes us to explore the different ways in which we could increase our earnings. It focuses our thought processes in solutioning rather than in justifying the reasons for being here and laying blame on others for our current predicament.

However, we must not be led into believing that the context portion of the challenge statement is a product of intuition. There is a couple of steps we need to follow to deliver this to us. There are two broad approaches here - 'Stretching' and 'Squeezing' the challenge statement. We will first explore the construct of the formal approach before examining the latter.

In 'Stretching' the challenge statement, we attempt to question the rationality of including the context in the statement to inform the initiator of the angles of attacking the issue.

So, if the problem was initially described as 'not enough of money' and the first challenge statement was defined as 'in what ways might I increase my earning potential?', we could stretch this challenge by questioning it in the following ways:

For the first challenge statement:

'In what ways might I increase my earning potential?'

Flowing from this statement, we could question the reason for exploring this line of inquiry by:

'Why do I want to increase my earning potential?'

Next, we attempt to answer this question with:

'Because the amount I am earning is below what my peers are having?', and we repeat the process with:

'Why are my peers earning more than me?', and

'Because they enjoy more opportunities than I do.'

We could finally end with:

'Why do they have more opportunities than me?' and

'Because they understand their superiors better than I do?'

When we 'eyeball' the 'becauses', we could create a challenge statement for each of these justifications in the following manner:

For the reason:

'Because the amount I am earning is below what my peers are having?'

The Challenge Statement is:

'In what ways might I match the earnings of my peers?'

For:

'Because they enjoy more opportunities than I do.'

The Challenge Statement could be crafted as:

'In what ways might I enjoy as many opportunities as my peers?'

And for the reason:

'Because they understand their superiors better than I do?'

We could reword this as:

'In what ways might I better understand my superiors?'

The facilitator could work with any of these Challenge Statements. What is the right statement to introduce to the crowd at the facilitated event will depend on the profile of the crowd and the needs of the initiator. By working with one, the challenges presented by it antecedent statements would also be addressed. You may like to download the working template for 'Stretching' the Challenge Statement by clicking on this icon:

Sometimes, when we want to look into the Meta aspects of the issue we may find working with 'Stretching' Challenge Statements inadequate. Now, let's us examine the construct of 'Squeezing' the Challenge Statement to address the limitations.

In 'Squeezing' the challenge, we apply the genre of 'fact-finding' questions to the issue to identify the list of Challenge Statements. Again, we will reapply the problem statement we have earlier identified in this article - 'not enough of money' to demonstrate the process. We could begin the 'Squeezing' process by using:

'Who', we could ask:

'Who else could I approach to help me gain a higher clarity of my issue?'

From this, we could construct the following Challenge Statement:

'In what what ways might I identify the people who could help me clarify my issue?'

'What', we could ask:

'What resources do I need to resolve the issue?'

By repeating the process, the Challenge Statements may look like this:

'In what ways might I identify the resources needed to resolve the issue?'

When we introduce 'where', 'when' and 'how' to the problem, our questions may look like these:

'When is the best time to resolve this issue?', 'Where should the issue be resolved first?' and 'How should the issue be dealt with?'

After converting these questions into Challenge Statements, they could be presented respectively as:

'In what ways might I uncover the best time to resolve the issue, begin solving the matter, and solve the matter?'

Again, the choice of focus will largely depend on the need of the initiator and the target audience from which the wisdom is to be drawn upon.

With the initiator, the facilitator conducts a generative conversation that helps him construct these Challenge Statements from the issue on hand, and to choose from these those that are useful for the workshop. You may like to download the working template for 'Squeezing' the Challenge Statement by clicking on this icon:

This article was written by Anthony Mok on 8 Nov 2010,

and updated on 1 Feb 2011 and 29 Sept 2011.

Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Psyche of Facilitation

Understanding Facilitation

In adult education and training, the trainer is always recognised as the source of wisdom. In this one-to-many learning environment, the trainer is responsible for preparing and encouraging his trainees into accepting his body of knowledge, experience and insights.

The facilitation of group-based learning is very different. In this instance, the source of wisdom is with the participants. They are recognised to have the capacity to enrich and enlarge the body of collective knowledge within the group. The role of the facilitator is to provide the participants his skills of unlocking this wealth of individual experience, knowledge and insights, and transforming them into a collective one. He does this by reading the interactions and motivating them into exchanging their thoughts with each other, and helping them reach a consensus over what they want to do with their collective learning and insights.

To effectively accomplish these, the facilitator needs to know how the brain creates insights, understand the science behind the enrichment and enlargement of collective wisdom, and be aware of the predictable behavioural responses in group interactions. Armed with this knowledge, the facilitator is more capable in using the right questions to move the conversation forward, and applying techniques of paraphrasing and clarification to keep the participants authentic about their conversation. I call this aspect of group facilitation the ‘Psyche of Facilitation’.

Brain and Insight Creation

In his book - ‘Quiet Leadership’, David Rock outlines six key findings about the brain. They explain how the brain creates insights and responds to change. These are:

Brain is a Connection Machine

The brain has evolved to generate new links between unrelated points. It creates trillions of such new connections every day. Each new connection or insight produces chemicals that pleasures our bodies and energise us into action.

No Two Brains are Alike

Each brain has a unique set of connections that defines and controls how it perceives and judges the world. While one set of connections may greatly appeal to a group of individuals, the same set may turn the others away.

Brain Hardwires Everything

The ‘active memory’ understands the connections and operates our behaviours. While powerful, its resources are very limited. Whenever possible, we hardwire our thoughts and behaviours into our ‘long term’ memory, which resource is infinite. So, we largely leave our subconscious to manage our behaviours. Awareness and new wirings only take place when thoughts and behaviours are taken out from this sphere and are placed into the conscious-active memory.

Hardwiring Drives Automatic Perception

We always see things as they should be. Our perception of reality is driven by our hardwired heuristics, circuitries, and old habits. We do not automatically receive fresh data from our surrounding to see things as they are.

It is Practically Impossible to Deconstruct Our Wiring

By focusing on the problem, we are actually deepening the hardwired circuitries that keep it in place. Attention creates change in the brain and the more we are aware of the problem, the more we are driven to complain about it. The focus should be one of solutioning so that new wirings could be created.

It’s Easy to Create New Wiring

The brain creates new connections or insights all the time. Instead of dismantling old wirings, it is more effective creating new ones that support learning.

Enrichment of Collective Wisdom

Evian Gordon, a neuroscientist, suggested that the brain is a machine that ‘minimises danger and maximises reward’. When a person encounters a stimulus that is deemed as ‘positive’, he will become attracted to it and engages it actively for its rewards. The reverse is also true. When a stimulus is labelled as ‘negative’, he will disengage and avoid its dangers. This attraction-avoidance response is a mechanism for survival. It is designed to help us stay alive by quickly assessing and easily remembering what is good and bad in the environment.

David Rock proposed that there are five elements that could increase or decrease this attraction-avoidance response. These are:

Status

Status is the ‘pecking order’ of the group. We sense our status going up when we feel that we are more ‘superior’ to others. We form a mental model of our status in our group. This ranking system affects our mental processes.

Research has shown that when we experience a reduction in status, the region of the brain that lights up in the CT scan is the same as the one when we are experiencing physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003). Interactions that generate perceptions of increasing status amongst participants could create a strong attraction response to the group and with its members.

Certainty

The brain does not draw new data from the environment all the time. The brain predominantly draws on its memory for recognisable patterns to predict the future. Our brains only call us to attention when there is a mismatch between what our senses tell us and what our brains have expected.

Without the ability to predict, our brains must stay attentive at all times. This is not only exhausting, it also distracts us from our main goals. Interactions, which structures and formats are well understood by the participants, are more attractive.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the perception of our ability to exercise freewill over our environment. Interactions that generate the feelings of autonomy are rewarding and attractive. Interactions are stressful activities and when the stress is interpreted as escapable, we become significantly less destructive.

Relatedness

Relatedness measures the degree of how ‘in’ or ‘out’ we are with our groups. Naturally, we like to be in groups to experience the sense of belonging. Trust has significant impact on the relatedness in the group and our attraction towards the relationships within the group. Interactions that build trust amongst group members enhance the attractiveness towards each other.

Fairness

Fair exchange is intrinsically rewarding and unfair exchanges generate strong avoidance responses. When we perceive others as being unfair, we do not feel empathic towards them. In most instances, we feel rewarded when they are punished.

Behavioural Responses in Interactions

Dr. William Moulton Marston, an American psychologist, feminist theorist, and inventor, theorised that the way we perceive the favourability of our environment and the amount of power we could exercise to control it will impact the way we express our emotions and behaviours in our interactions with other people. Marston's Model of Behaviour was first proposed 82 years ago in his book ‘Emotions of Normal People’ (1928).

When these emotional expressions are placed along two conceptual dimensions, he created a 2 x 2 matrix showing four distinct but predictable behavioural styles - Dominating (D), Influencing (I), Steadiness (S), and Compliance (C). This provides a model that informs about the adaptive nature of interacting with people displaying these kinds of behavioural styles.

In facilitation, we need to encourage participation at the individual level. Therefore, how we communicate to encourage an individual’s contribution to the collective wisdom is important. Marston’s model provides insights into the ways we could be make the interaction more effective by suggesting approaches to flex our behaviours.

Here is a brief description of the four behavioural types:

Dominating 'D' Type

The ‘D’ type is full of drive. He packs his daily schedule with plenty of activities. He pushes himself and people around him to their limits, often achieving outstanding results. Some common adjectives used for describing 'D' type are, “decisive, direct, and driven". He is a self-starter, egoistic and bottom-line driven. If there is a challenge to overcome, ‘D’ type will be the first to attempt it.

Influencing ‘I’ Type

The 'I' type is attention seeking, persuasive, influential, and loves to be with others. He is known to be charismatic and capable of commanding and motivating the crowd towards a common objective. 'I’ type enjoys having fun and having others around him.

Steadiness ‘S’ Type

The 'S' type is steady, stable and loyal. Compared to the 'D' and 'I' types, he is more passive and reserved. He will prefer to listen more than speaking. While ‘S’ type is empathic, friendly and helpful, he is more comfortable being with a small group of closed friends.

Compliance ‘C’ Type

Some common adjectives used for describing ‘C’ type are "compliant, controlled, and correctness". The ‘C’ type is neat, detailed, accurate and systematic, and these characteristics are easily spotted. The 'C' type arrives at his decisions from facts and figures.

Reading Your Participants

Most of us will have one or two 'main' behavioural types. We do display a different profile at home, in a training course, and at work. To uncover the behavioural types of your participants, you could get them to complete the DISC Behavioural Type Profile before facilitating the interaction or they could play a game that you have designed to help you discriminate their types ahead of the facilitated conversation.

Facilitators could also read their participants using the following guide:

New Language of Facilitation

Not every participant in an interaction will respond in the same way to the facilitator. Some language of facilitation may attract the participants to the conversation. Others may cause them to stay away. So, by combining the sciences presented and described in this article, I have created a framework that provides a guide on how the language could be better fine-tuned to enrich the collective learning and wisdom of the group. Please visit this link to download this framework.

Here is the Slideshare for this article:

Psyche of Facilitation - The Language of Facilitating Conversations

View more presentations from Xiaohao .

This article was written by Anthony Mok on 17 Sep 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

'Research 2 Practice' Forum

Date: Wednesday, 10th March 2010
Venue: YWCA
Time: 7pm to 10pm
Fees: SGD30 per participant

This event is meant for researchers and practitioners keen in exploring the opportunities offered by recent research in the field of organisational and human resource development.

To benefit from this 'Research 2 Practice' Forum, do bring two copies of a contemporary article from an established journal, book or magazine. This literature will be used to facilitate a conversation between other participants, who may inform you of your current organisational and human resource development practices.

The outcomes from participating in this 'Research 2 Practice' Forum include:

• Exposure to the latest thoughts in Organisational and Human Resource Development
• Informed on the emerging theories in this field
• Bringing these theories into the local social context
• Finding application for these emerging theories
• Creating new interventions through the application of these theories.

Agenda:

7:00pm - Arrival, refreshments and introductions. Exchange of literature. Individual reading

7:30pm - Cafe-style discussions on the readings

8:15pm - Ambassadorial-style sharing of the implications from these emerging theories to practice

9:15pm - Plenary discussions and closure

10:00pm - End of event

Please register for this event here and join us in distilling the wisdom from these literatures to harvest them for your immediate application!