Reflective Practice in Facilitation

To create opportunities for greater professional development and personal growth, facilitators can consider including reflective practice in their facilitative processes.

According to Bolton (2010), to generate developmental insights, one needs to reflectively and reflexively examine his facilitative practice by ‘paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform' him of his faciltative actions.

Instead of formal education or training, the facilitator acquires and enlarges his knowledge, skills, emotional and experience bases in facilitation by staying in action – that is by constantly and consistently engaging in creating, developing and conducting facilitative conversations, and by reflecting on their execution and outcomes, before, during and after these events.

Schon (1983) stated that reflective practice is ‘the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning’.

Definitions of Reflection

Reflective thinking involves the consideration of ‘personal achievements and failures, and asks what worked, what didn’t, and what needs improvement’ (Given, 2002). It asks the facilitator to think about his own thinking.

Dewey (1933) was the person to bring the term 'reflective practice' to the public discourse. He described reflective thought as an 'active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends'.

Hatton & Smith (1995) have identified four essential issues concerning reflection:

·      Our thoughts should be systematically extended by examining our actions some time after they have taken place,

·    We need to direct our reflective practices towards finding solutions that address specific problems,

·  We should frame and reframe complex or ambiguous problems, test out various interpretations, and then modify our actions consequence to these analysis, and

·      We should consciously account for the wider historic, socio-cultural, and political values or beliefs while framing practical problems to arrive at solutions.

This is the reason Habermas (1971) suggested that the ‘power of reason is grounded in the process of reflection’.

Many learning theorists have recognised the contributions of Dewey and Habermas, and continued to study and analysis the topic to further provide clarification on reflection. Van Manen (1977), Schön (1983, 1990), Boud et al. (1985), Mezirow (1990), and Brookfield (1995) have concluded that the practice of reflection is an important tool in the learning process.

Applying Reflection

Schon (1983) indicated that there are three kinds of reflective actions:

·  Reflection-in-action, which requires us to look at what is happening during the event

·         Reflection-on-action, which requires us to look back after the event has ended, and

·   Reflection-for-action, which is reflecting for the purpose of planning the next action.

Let's explore these in greater detail.

Reflection-in-action

Greenwood (1993) has further clarified this reflection as ‘thinking about what one is doing whilst one is doing it’.

Usually, the facilitator conducts this type of reflection when he is surprised, confused or puzzled by his audience's responses - where the expected outcome is outside of his knowing-in-action (which forms the basis of his assumptions), whilst he is executing his course of action. It requires him to ‘think on his feet’, and to draw on his knowledge, experience and emotional bases to build new understandings and to inform him of his follow-ups – to continue, modify or stop the activity, as the event unfolds. Reflection-in-action allows the facilitator to redesign and re-orientate his plans and actions on the fly, and is a skill commonly associated with very experienced reflective practitioners.

Reflection-on-action

According to Fitzgerald (1994), reflection-on-action is ‘the retrospective contemplation of practice undertaken in order to uncover the knowledge used in practical situations, by analysing and interpreting the information recalled’.

This is the traditions of reflective practice - reflecting after the fact by bringing to mind the processes that were deployed, the outcomes they had created, and the drivers behind these outcomes.

Boyd & Fales (1983) also suggested that reflection-on-action is the ‘process of creating and clarifying the meanings of experiences in terms of the self in relation to both self and world. The outcome of this process is changed conceptual perspectives’.

Here, they have alluded to the importance reflection-on-action has on self-development. Reflection is posited as the mechanism for challenging our knowledge, experience and emotional bases so that we do not just see more (assimilative learning) but also see differently (accommodative and transformational learning). Reflection-on-action promotes future innovations and change.

Atkins and Murphy (1994) have went a step further to suggest that the real differences between actions happen when we stay committed to our actions. By staying in action, we give ourselves the raw material to conduct reflections and to growth our facilitative practices.

Reflection-for-action

Schon (1983) defined reflection-for-action as the critical framing and reframing of ideas with the intent of developing an action. This is the desired outcome arising from applying the first two kinds of reflection. It engages one in reflection to guide his future actions.

However, it is problematic and incomplete to totally rely on these three kinds of reflection for development and growth. They ignore the prior knowledge, experience and emotional bases of the facilitator, and they do not recognise his abilities, when well informed, is capable of contextualising his plans and course of action before the new event. These definitions make no mention about the importance of reflection-before-action.

Reflection-before-action

Nepo (2011) stated that we can ‘take the time to reflect on the methods of our art, before we even begin the art’. This acknowledges the importance of reflection in preparation for professional action. This enables the facilitator to identify relevant theories and underpinning knowledge, past experiences and emotions, and skills and resources that may be helpful in carrying out the planned action.            

Depths of Reflection

Argyris and Schön (1978) have proposed several frameworks that allow us to reflect at various depths. 

Sticking to the Norms Single-Loop Learning

In single-loop learning, an entity adjusts its behaviours to narrow the gaps between expected and actual outcomes. Here, the focus is determining the gaps and reducing the discrepancies. The entity introduces rigid strategies, policies and procedures, and spends resources detecting and correcting deviations from their norms. Organisations operating in this realm tend to correct an action to solve or avoid a mistake. 

Breaking the Norms Double-Loop Learning

In double-loop learning, the entity questions the values, assumptions and policies that drive their reactions to a given gap.  They ask whether the 'norms' are keeping with time and thereby correcting the underlying causes of a problematic action. This kind of learning involves more than just 'thinking outside the box'. It is learning about the single-loop learning. This learning helps the entity understand the reasons of a working solution in solving a problem or achieving a goal. There is learning even when things fall into place. Double-loop learning is essential for organisations facing rapid changes.

Double-loop learning requires the skills of self-awareness and self-management, and the willingness to candidly inquire into the reasons behind an event, without becoming defensive, blaming, reasonable, and politically correct or any other autonomous or unconscious patterns of behaviour that may block honest feedback, inquiry and learning. In other word, for double-loop learning to work, we must stay responsible to ourselves.

Learning About Knowing Triple-Loop Learning

Triple-loop learning involves 'learning how to know'. Not only do we reflect on the 'norms' and whether they should be changed, we also reflect on how we learn to become aware of these 'norms'.  This form of learning helps us understand more about ourselves and others regarding our and their beliefs and perceptions.  Triple-loop learning can be explained as double-loop learning about itself.

Models of Reflection

There are several models which we could use to guide our reflective practice in facilitation. These are:

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle

The Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988) describes a process of conducting a structured analysis of a given event through the use questions.

This reflection model mirrors the stages of the Kolb’s Experiential Cycle (1984), and are presented in the following stages:

·         Stage 1: Event Description

Describe, in detail, the event that we are reflecting on. The questions we may use to facilitate our reflection in this stage include:

• Where was I?
• Who else was there?
• Why was I there?
• What was I doing?
• What were other people doing?
• What was the context of the event?
• What happened?
• What was my part in this?
• What parts did the other people play?
• What was the result? 

·         Stage 2: Feelings Identification

In the stage, we recall the inner thoughts or conversations that we carried out from the time the situation had happened.

We may use these questions to explore the drivers that make the event sticks in our minds:

• How was I feeling when the event started?
• What was I thinking about at the time?
• How did it make me feel? How did other people make me feel?
• How did I feel about the outcome of the event? What do I think about it now? 

·         Stage 3: Event Evaluation

Here, we try to evaluate and make a judgement about what has happened. We consider what was good about the experience and what was bad or has not went well.

·         Stage 4: Analysis

In Stage 4, we break the event down into its component parts so they can each be explored separately.

We may explore the outputs of the last stage, and ask:

• What went well?
• What did we do well?
• What did others do well? What went wrong or did not turn out how it should have done?
• In what way did we or others contribute to this? 

·         Stage 5: Conclusion

In this stage, we ask what we could have done differently. This calls for a detailed analysis of the knowing we have gathered from the previous stages, and applies an honest exploration of issues from different angles to develop insights into our and others' behaviors that may have contributed to the outcome of the event.

·         Stage 6: Action Plan 

In the final stage, we think about what we should do - to act differently or to do the same, when we encounter the event again. Basically, now, we plan what we would do so that we know what to do when it happens again.

John’s Structured Reflection Model

John’s model of Structured Reflection (2006), which is guided by Carper's (1978) Patterns of Knowing, is an analyse of the dialogues between the reflective practitioner and his or her supervisor (guide), who works with him and her throughout his or her learning experience.

The model contains the original Casper's patterns of:

·         Aesthetics, which is a dialogue of knowing the art of what we do

·         Personal, which is a dialogue of knowing about ourselves

·         Ethics, which is a dialogue of knowing the moral principles that guide our actions

·         Empiric, which is a dialogue of knowing the science of what we do

To strengthen his model, John also has also added:

·         Reflexivity, which is a dialogue of knowing how the current experience connects with previous ones

Borton’s Three Stem-Questions Model

Borton’s (1970) 3 Stem-Questions of 'What?', 'So What?' and 'Now What?' were first developed by Driscoll. Driscoll (1994) has added stem-questions to the stages of a typical experiential learning cycle to trigger reflection throughout the learning.

These stem-questions help the facilitator analysis the event:

·         What…

• … is the purpose of returning to this situation?
• … happened?
• … did other people do who were involved in this?
• … did I see/do?
• … was my reaction to it? 

·         So what…

• … did I feel at the time of the event?
• … are my feelings now, after the event? Is it any different from what I experienced at the time?
• … were the effects of what I did (or did not do)?
• … positive aspects now emerge for me?
• … have I noticed about my behaviour by taking a more measured look at it?
• … observations does any person helping me to reflect on my practice make of the way I acted at the time?
• … is the purpose of returning to this situation? 

·         Now what…

• …are the implications for me and others in facilitative practice based on what I have described and analysed?
• …difference does it make if I choose to do nothing?
• …is the main learning that I can take from reflecting on my practice in this way?
• …help do I need to get to 'act' on the results of my reflections?
• …aspect should be tackled first?
• …additional information do I need to get when I face a similar situation again?
• …modifications do I need to make to my practice if a similar situation arises again?
• …should I do to keep noticing that I am different in the practice? 

Enhancing Your Level of Reflective Practice in Facilitation

Facilitators should strive to reach deeper levels of learning across all types of reflective action.

Here, the ThinkInnovation's Deep Reflective Action Map (DRAM)^TM can provide facilitators insights into their current level of reflective practice across all dimensions of their reflective actions, which will inform them on the actions they could take to build mastery into their facilitative practices.

Documenting Our Reflections

By recording the reflective actions, and our thoughts and feelings we have about them, we can:

·     Think about our own thinking to give us greater clarity over the topic of our reflection

·    Be informed of the changes we want for ourselves to give meaning to our reflective practices

·  Track, over time, our progression in order to trend our professional development and personal growth

There are a few ways to document our reflection. These include:

Critical Incident File

This is a log-book used for developing our understanding of the critical events and issues arising during the course of the facilitation. 

The file may contain notes on the events, actions or episodes as having happened and which we may experience 

Action Research Journal

This is an effective way to identify starting points for improving practice. It can be used to:  

·         Follow interests and record situations

·         Face the problems and accept challenges by:

·         Clarifying the situations, aims and outcomes

·         Overcome difficulties by:

·         Finding solutions 

·         Implementing proven ideas

·         Critiquing them

·         Modifying common techniques

·         Making improvements

·         Changing routines

·         Inventing variations

·         Replicating successes and assuring quality outcomes

Planning for Change

Change is an important aspect of the reflective process. You may consider:

·         Keeping the outcomes realistic

·         Working with evidence that informs on the success of the change

·         Use critical friends to help you find patterns that limits your mental models

·         Using ideas that produce quick-wins

Reflective practice, whether a formal or informal process, can help us become better facilitators. Although the professional development may be slow process, it offers real satisfactions in elevating facilitation into the art of promoting engagement and understanding.

This article was written by Anthony Mok on Aug 2012.

Copyright 2012. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

References

Atkins, S. & Murphy, K. (1994). Reflective Practice. Nursing Standard, 8 (39), pp49-54 

Bolton, G (2010) Reflective Practice, Writing and Professional Development (3rd edition), SAGE publications, California. ISBN 184860212X. Page xix

Borton, T. (1970). Read, touch, and teach: Student concerns and process education. New York: McGraw Hill, Inc.

Boud, D. et al (eds.) (1985) Reflection. Turning experience into learning, London: Kogan

Boyd, E. & Fales, A. (1983).Reflective Learning: the key to learning from experience. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 23 (2), pp99-117

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think. A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process (Revised edn.), Boston: D. C.

Fitzgerald, M. (1994). Theories of Reflection for learning. Reflective Practice in nursing, A Palmer and S Burns (eds). Blackwell Scientific, Oxford. 

Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford.

Given, B. K. (2002). Teaching to the brain’s natural learning systems. Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. Washington, DC

Greenwood, J. (1993). Reflective practice - a critique of the work of Argyris & Schon. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 19, pp1183-1187

Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and Human Interests, Boston: Beacon Press.

Johns, C. (1995). Framing learning through reflection within Carper's fundamental ways of knowing in nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 22: 226–234

Nepo, M. (2011). The Practice Before the Practice. Building Leadership Bridges 2011, Barbour, J.D. & Hickman, G.R. (eds). International Leadership Association,  2011

Schon, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, New York

Van Manen, M. (1977). Linking ways of knowing with ways of being practical.  Curriculum Inquiry, 6, 205-228.

Facilitation as an Important Learning Intervention

The main value a facilitator brings to any facilitated conversation is the affective and cognitive spaces that he creates to enable the sharing of ideas and springboarding of new ones amongst his session participants, the mirror he put in front of his participants to help them gain greater awareness about themselves and clarity of the issues they face, and the processes that he adopts and implements to access, widen and deepen the collective wisdom of the groups participating in the session.

It is for these superior qualities of the facilitated conversation that makes it popular as a form of learning and developmental intervention.

Inroads to Higher Collective Awareness is Inquiry

The gateway into the ingenious connective abilities of our brain is the question. Ask the question:

'Has safety been a consideration in the decision-making process?'

and the syntax of the question and its phonetic qualities push our usually homeostasis staved brain into overdrive. It draws on its mental and cognitive resources to hunt for the connections that may be synthesised into insightful answers.

Not all Questions Share the Same Qualities

We are chemically designed to generate insightful responses. So the facilitator need not have to worry about the lack of this biologically driven outcome.

However, his concern is one of asking the right questions so that he could intentionally navigate his participants through their individual and collective cognitive reservoirs to give them the access to their breakthroughs.

The challenge is to identify the kind of questions that is capable of creating this type of outcome. This is because each genre of questions has a unique way of focusing the brain and channelling its connective functions.

Questions like:

'Tell me the aftermath of leaving the consideration of safety from the last decision-making process?'

charge the interaction emotionally, and we become so dramatically embroiled in our own personal struggles that we are unable to take the conversation forward.

Questions like:

'Why is safety a consideration?'

overpower us with long calculations and contemplations that give us those elaborated justifications that fool-proof against all other competing interests. In doing these, little mental and cognitive resources are available to collectively bring the conversation to a brand new level.

Questions like:

'What do you think are the challenges of improving safety at the workplace?'

engage our mental and cognitive functions into examining the nature of the problem, and exploring its varied interpretations and manifestations. Here, our focus is the problem, and the feeling is one of stagnation and disempowerment.

Questions like:

'How should we go about seeing improvements in safety?'

organise our thoughts reasonably and logically around the collective actions or steps to be taken to obtain a pre-determined outcome, an act which may be too premature at times.

To know what are the right questions for the moment the facilitator has to distinguish mere expenditure of mental energies and deployment of cognitive abilities in expanding and deepening current thoughts and ideas from those used for creating new thoughts and ideas informed by laterally unknown connections and insights.

Questions like:

'Tell me the patterns you have noticed each time you think about the issue?'

force us to reflect on our thinking processes and thought patterns to uncover what is present and showing up to us.

In other words, by using these 'thinking' questions, the facilitator is inviting his participants to think about their thinking to explore the ways out of their current doldrums, and in the process get to their breakthroughs which are usually not available just by working hard on what they are current presented with.

Science of Asking Questions

Therefore, the skill of asking 'thinking' questions on the fly is an important competency asked of any facilitator. While the way the questions are created seems intuitive, crafting them for a particular moment is actually more of a science. This is a function of practicing the correct values, focusing the brain on the most important matter, and listening for the potentials of illumination.

Earlier, I have spoken much about the different ways questions channel our brain's connective abilities. Now, let me explore a bit more of the other two areas - values and listening.

The facilitator believes that each of his participants is whole and complete, and possesses all the capabilities and tools to be successful. So, he does not tune into the conversation to listen for opportunities to counsel but to catch instances of personal illumination - moments of insightful awareness, and invite its originator to explore these new thoughts and ideas out loud so that they are collectively owned by the larger audience.

In an actual facilitated conversation, we use our ears to listen into the conversation. As this is a written article, we will instead use our eyes to look at what I am going to share in a moment. Now, let's take a look at this recorded conversation:

'I would really like to be less stressed at work, but it just seems to get busier every week.'

By tracing our eyes on this segment of the conversation:

'Less stressed at work......'

The facilitator may question his audience:

'Could you tell me more about the stress you are facing?'

Or our eyes could follow this portion of the conversation:

'Just seems to get busier every week......'

and the facilitator may ask his audience:

'What do you think are the causes leading to this development?'

These are good questions. However, they are not great. They will overly focus the brain on the least important things - the in-depth examination of the problem and detail exploration of its causes. They depower the respondent since they cause the brain to focus on matters that are at best described as 'what is' or 'what was' rather than 'what could be'.

The true value of facilitation is in the creation of illuminations and leveraging on the energy they produce. The efforts employed in building new connections generate more mileage for the audience than those used for re-examining existing ones. The excitement generated at the spur of individual awareness is to be captured to further broaden and deepen the collective conversation to drive it forward.

Again, the facilitator can turn to the conversation for information about the 'thinking' questions that he could generate to create these two types of outcome.

Let's get back to our recorded conversation and shift our attention to:

'I would really like to....'

When the facilitator responds with:

'What has changed that had brought this matter to the forefront for you?'

He is constructing a clearing that invites his audience to reflect on the matter. His audience is dumbfounded. This is because he does not have the ready connections to respond to the incoming query, and he will struggle to locate one in his mind. After hanging the mirror in front of his participant, the facilitator steps back and stays out of his way so that he works out the solution in an uncluttered environment. The facilitator listens for the signs of illumination and brings on more 'thinking' questions to bear to speed up, enhance the quality or clarify the source of the illumination. These are the settings for illumination.

Facilitating with questions is like watching a facilitator doing a waltz with his participants. It is not ideal to construct the questions ahead of a facilitated conversation. One cannot anticipate the 'thinking' questions most helpful in moving the conversation forward. He has to listen for the markers in the conversation that may inform him of the ‘thinking’ question he needs to ask next. Therefore, to listen without agenda is an important ability. This is the art of the facilitated conversation.

This article was written by Anthony Mok on 1 Feb 2011.

Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

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.