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This article has arisen out of a day’s facilitation Derek and I did this month. Two pieces of insight emerged. Insights are so blindingly obvious the second after they arrive. So those of you who have already arrived at this knowledge, rejoice that I got there in the end!

Training v Facilitation

When does training become facilitation and vice versa? As a more dominantly procedures person, one who gains a sense of control through methodical planning, I approach a training event with thorough preparation. I see this as a virtue. So the lesson plan, the slides, the way the exercises are delivered, the materials and handouts are all created in advance. This helps me gain a real feel of the day(s) ahead, and allows me to be apparently free whilst delivering.

The idea of turning up on the day, and going with what is presented is my idea of laziness and showmanship, much loved by the extreme options person. It tends to indulge the most vocal, and bully the passive into submission. And I’ve been to training events where the objectives of the day have been contracted and publicised, only to have the day hijacked by the whims and ego of the trainer, leaving many dissatisfied and the training manager a tad annoyed.

(Have you noticed my map creeping in here?)

So I hold dear my interpretation of professionalism. And I never truly understood the notion of facilitation.

So the other day, one that was intended to be a Review of the application of learning in the intervening two months, I arrive true to form with slides prepared. We knew that few had done any conscious application, and we would have been surprised if any had committed to ink their thoughts in the stunningly clever journals we had lovingly created for this purpose. So I stifled thoughts of punishment, and planned that we would use the day to go through the points in the Journal and gain a collective reflection.

By Slide 2, it became clear (even to me) that no point would be served by this plan of action! The issue wasn’t that they hadn’t done ‘it’; it was why they hadn’t done it; which in turn opened up an even bigger issue. How often do trainers find out if their input has been effective? The participants, as in this case, went off bubbling with enthusiasm and inspiration as a result of their learning. But for many, the learning stayed in the outer circle of ‘knowing about’ and hadn’t been given entry ‘into the muscle’. They and their practices had not changed, certainly not significantly.

Now interestingly, all of them are involved in enabling others and communities to develop and change, yet they were demonstrating their own inhibited patterns and approaches to change.

Once the planning was chucked out the window, the day became an exploration of their own individual approaches to change. (see Exercise of the Month and second half of this article) By the end, it became clear that if they wanted to implement change, they had to live change themselves. They had to know change in all its facets, not only to develop a deep understanding of what their client group might be experiencing but also offering themselves as exemplars of the process. This increased awareness would soften the sting of the imposed imperatives and bring humour and recognition into the proceedings.

At the end of the day, I was left marvelling at my new found flexibility. Actually it was not so much the flexibility since I had gone ‘off piste’ before with pretty sticky and unsatisfactory results. It was the effectiveness and the results achieved that impressed me. How had I been able to let go and go into free flow and get a result?

Well strangely, at the time, I became aware that I was experiencing a state similar to the one I have at the start of a 1:1 session. I already had a deep regard for everyone in the room. This combined with the realisation that our expectations had been unrealistic, meant I shed ‘my map’ painlessly and tuned in what they were saying, and how they were saying it. I stayed in this state long enough to detect the patterns which were emerging, and to recognise the well intentions behind each of them. So the issues surrounding change emerged. I also new I had some understanding in this area and what I didn’t know consciously would likely be offered in an internal whisper.

It will not come as a surprise that this got me thinking about the connections between modelling and training and facilitation. What do you think of this?

Training = Product Modelling

Facilitation = Therapeutic Modelling or ‘Modelling in the Moment’*

With the Facilitation approach, the following points arise:

• The Modeller needs to keep the intended outcomes clearly in mind, so these inform the direction, depth, and focus taken. This can prevent the experience turning into a group therapy session (unless that is the intention).
  
• the Modeller doesn’t know if or when a punctuation point may appear, where an intervention would appropriately address the emerging structure. The event may become a continuous process of exploration without overt closure.
  
• The Modeller needs to be confident in his/her residual knowledge and the range of interventions they hold at their finger tips. The danger lies in the age-old shoehorning of any problem into tried and tested familiar models.
  
• Reference materials, handouts etc need to be provided after the event, making use of flipchart content.
  

This approach requires a conscious belief in the modelling process, a commitment to leaving one’s own map at the door, and a faith that the exemplar/group/individual will not only guide you to what needs to be explored, they will also provide you with the direction they need to go in. It also requires a clear contractual arrangement to take this approach, knowing that there would not be objections from above that the intended plan had not been following. Plus there needs to be receptiveness to the idea from most if not all of the people in the group.

The question is, are they or you ready for it?!

Change and the Change Agent

Understandably, within this group the dominant motivation trait for Change was a preference for evolution – they were predominately more, less, better, clearer, with a few new and differents thrown in. So they were well suited in their chosen roles, although they could begin to understand why they felt pressured because of the deadlines they were set. They needed to accelerate their natural change patterns. They were able to identify their source of motivation - carrot and/or stick. When they explored just how much change they had introduced into their lives over the past two months, and then twelve months, some were aware that the year had been full of change, whilst others realised that in fact nothing much had altered. This was obviously determined by their Scope of thinking and some were invited to chunk down. At the same time, they were able to determine how much of this was self motivated or imposed, and their levels of comfort for each of the changes.

They then explored what could have stopped them from changing and what would happen if they had. Identifying the range of secondary gains for staying the same, not only revealed their own patterns, it also offered empathy for their client group.

The group was then invited to look at the risks they had taken in all facets of their life in the past 2 and 12 months, and to notice what risks they had been avoiding. Discovering how they could take risks in one set of circumstances opened the possibility that they could transfer their own natural patterns into a different context.

It was an interesting day, with lots of learning – for me at any rate!

© 2006 Fran Burgess January 2006