Facilitating Breakthrough: Reading Club Reflections Part 2
Chapters 3, 4, 5
This series of reflections are based on Adam Kahane’s new book Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together, and the reading club Anne Heberger Marino @leantocollabs organized. We meet once a week from Oct. 28 to Dec. 2 in 2021.
You are invited to join our book club conversation through this mural board @leantocollabs has created. Please feel free to put stars on the ideas you connect with and add your own ideas in the middle.
The second book club gathering was as lively and insightful as the first one. It is amazing how much ground a group of six could cover in one hour, when all of us are present. This week’s highlights for me included presence online versus in person, metaphors for facilitation, and a deep dive into the five essential questions.
Being present online versus in person
Nobody has ever asked me to explain transformative facilitation while standing on one foot. But if anyone ever did, I would reply: “Pay attention; the rest is interpretation. Go practice.”
— Facilitating Breakthrough by Adam Kahane
The COVID induced remote working and meeting poses interesting questions about facilitation. During our book club, we had a lively conversation about being present: how similar or different it feels to be present online versus in person.
My personal observation for participants’ virtual presence can be summarized as “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer”. It is easy to keep the attention of those who are already present. They may be even more conscientious about being present to compensate for constraints of online conditions. One participant of my three-hour workshop at the Science of Team Science virtual conference this past June complimented on my facilitation by saying “It is hard to keep people’s attention for three hours. You have done that excellently, despite being online.” I have facilitated virtual meetings where the energy was so palpable that I could almost feel everyone’s physical presence, even though we were scattered all over the world.
What is the nature of presence in a virtual world? Where does the collective presence reside? I have always believed that thoughts transcend the boundaries of time and space. Maybe the collective presence resides in a shared space that does not necessarily need to be attached to a physical location. Maybe it is in the “field” as described by the mystical poet Rumi “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. ”
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
— Rumi
However, I do find it harder to engage virtually with those who are not inclined to be present. There are just so many distractions online, and it is so much easier to hide behind the screen than in a physical room. For in person meetings, facilitators have more cues to read the room, esp. non-verbal cues; facilitators also have more means to engage the participants, such as inviting them to walk around, or putting stickers on posters . I believe the special power of sharing physical space comes from the embodied experience: while online we engage primarily through the brain, in person we have more opportunity to engage the whole body. One insight from this reflection: engage the whole body when possible. Even for online meetings, I have been invited to move around my room, to dance to the same music, to breathe together. All these activities help tremendously with improving presence.
I recently attended the virtual Mindfulness Summit hosted by Wisdom 2.0. To kick off, the host said “we need everybody’s presence to create the field that keeps us together”. For me, this invitation summarizes the essence of presence for both online and in person facilitation. The quality of presence of both the facilitators and the participants determines the vibrancy of the “field”.
As a facilitator, I do not find being in person or online impacts the quality of my presence. Although one of book club members did share that being online makes it easier for clients to ‘backseat drive’ by sending messages to the facilitator while the event is going on. I can totally empathize with that.
I do want to add a note of gratitude for the possibilities enabled by online connections. My network has grown exponentially since COVID, so has my reach. Maybe instead of comparing one against another, a better question could be: how might we enable presence under any conditions we find ourselves in?
Metaphors for facilitation
The facilitator chooses both the vertical and horizontal poles the same way we all choose both inhaling and exhaling. Nobody ever argues about whether it is better to inhale or exhale. We cannot choose between them: if we only inhaled, we would die of too much carbon dioxide, and if we only exhaled, we would die of too little oxygen. Instead, we must do both, not at the same time but alternately… The crucial point about this rhythm is that inhaling and exhaling must each fall only partway into the downside before the body shifts to the opposite upside: if it fell all the way, the result would be death.
— Facilitating Breakthrough by Adam Kahane
This book explores “meditation” as a metaphor for facilitation, with its reference to “inhaling and exhaling”, “pay attention”, and sports psychologist Tim Gallwey’s “inner game that takes places within the mind of the player”. We find meditation quite a useful metaphor, and asked questions such as “how might facilitators prepare their inner conditions in order to notice?”
We also explored another metaphor: house guest. My husband and I recently hosted his cousin for almost a week. To welcome her, we spent quite some time cleaning our house; while she was here, it felt as if she held up a mirror for us to see our relationship between each other and with our surroundings; when she left, we felt we were in better relationship, and our house was in better order. In similar ways, when teams work with a facilitator, they need to do preparatory work to get the facilitator on board which can be an intervention in and of itself; in the process of interacting with the facilitator, teams gain shared “situational awareness” about where the team is at; hopefully the facilitator leaves the team with more clarity, coherence and commitment.
Most teams need facilitators to help with certain “pain points” they have identified, so there is usually a certain degree of openness for reflection. Good facilitators can help expand that awareness as more trust is built in the process. For example, with one team I worked with, I was invited to facilitate a two-day workshop. Then in the process of preparing for the workshop, I uncovered some team science process related challenges, and shared that with the team leader. As a result, he wanted me to lead one session for the team to reflect on their processes and carved out a generous amount of time in the busy workshop schedule. While I was leading that session, I literally felt like I was holding up a mirror for the team to see itself. Once the team is able to gain agreement in answer to the question “how do we see our situation”, a path forward is much more likely to emerge.
There are other useful metaphors. In Part 1 of the series, I compared a facilitator to a catalyst who enables the chemical reaction. Another metaphor I use quite often is a music producer. I recently watched two documentaries about George Martin, the producer of the Beatles, and found so many similarities between a music producer and a facilitator. The bottom line is: both roles are to enable the success of the best and brightest minds.
The Five Questions
These five questions exemplify best practices for facilitators. I believe these five questions should be asked in two batches: the first three questions, and then the last two questions. The first three questions focus on the “whole”; they are like AWACS scanning the territory from the top. The last two questions focus on “parts”, how each team member sees themselves as related to the overall goals and visions; they are like the infantry, implementing the plans.
The first three questions solidify the “creative tension” by clarifying the starting point, the destination, and the plan. Asking these three questions is like an intervention in and of itself. It is like holding up the mirror for the team to see itself in its context. Having a shared understanding about these three questions between the facilitator and the team is a pre-condition for successfully working together.
The last two questions operationalize the plan. They help to connect the doing with the knowing. To assign roles, I find the RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted and informed) methods quite helpful. It is important to have role clarity early on; it is equally important to reflect on the role assignments periodically and make adaptations as needed.
Counting on communities
I recently listened to a talk about the ever increasing importance of good facilitation. The speaker said “You can outsource a lot of things, but the human dynamics is the only thing that cannot be outsourced. Facilitation is about human dynamics.” I could not agree more.
Facilitators can benefit from reflective communities of practice. In most cases, I facilitate on my own. In my efforts to reflect, I often find myself stuck in a loop about ‘what if’ scenarios that can become a heavy weight to carry. I really count on my network of fellow facilitators to share that weight and gain insights.
I am so thankful for this book club Anne Heberger Marino, MSW is hosting.
This is Part 1 of the series if you are interested in reading.
