For much of the last 25 years, I’ve been a “facilitator” by profession. I’ve facilitated planning sessions (strategic and otherwise), trainings, seminars, and other learning events, board and staff retreats, and multi-organizational collaborations. And yet, despite all that facilitating, when people ask me what that really means, it’s not as straightforward an answer as perhaps it would seem. And that’s mainly because, when I look at the work I’ve done, both as an employee and as an independent consultant, it’s ALL facilitation.
I’ve long been a supervisor, essentially facilitating (supporting, guiding, making possible) the success of my direct reports. I’d like to think I’m a practitioner of leadership, facilitating the confrontation of tough challenges and making space for progress. A strategic planning facilitator? That’s facilitating the future and the impact of an organization or team. And I’ve been a trainer and a teacher of some sort or another for decades now. By which I mean responsible for facilitating the learning of people eager to access new information or skills. Best I can tell, it’s ALL facilitation. But that still doesn’t really answer the question of what facilitation itself really is.
The Almighty Dictionary would have us believe that the act of facilitating is to make a process or an action easier. The root is Latin, facilis, meaning easy; in English, think facile, in Spanish, fàcil.
Facile has an alternate definition: "appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the complexities of an issue.” That's where things get messy I think. Facilitation is actually about ensuring that the complexities of an issue don’t get ignored. In other words, sometimes facilitation doesn't make things easier, at least not in the short-term.
I work with people and teams every day that seem to be leery at best, terrified at worst, of calling out the complications and naming the components of a problem that make things messy. For all their good intention, that leeriness just means that the roots and the causes and the hearts of the matter often go unearthed. And that makes it more likely they'll go untended and unaddressed. A good, capable, present, and courageous facilitator makes sure that doesn’t happen.
Simple, right? Or, you know, terrifying itself! Facilitation can be risky business. The best out there ask the right questions, in the right way, at the right time, and then fade back to let those most responsible or most invested do the work needed to realize progress, growth, and change. They also know when and how to address those complexities at times and in ways that people can manage, and at a rate of discomfort that they can tolerate. Maybe, in that way, facilitation is about making things easier. The “thing” a facilitator is making easier though isn't so much a process as it is an individual or group's capacity to face complexities, to not ignore them and, perhaps, to not even solve for them.
Being a facilitator is definitely a big part of my professional identity. I acknowledge that could be a limiting factor for me and my own impact. Namely because facilitating a process carries a little less risk than actually owning the decision or the outcome. Or maybe it’s right where I’m supposed to be, serving the growth, success, and impact of others. Either way, I don’t expect I’ll abandon the practice, or the persona, of facilitator anytime soon. Getting to work as a partner to so many dedicated and amazing people is just too damn rewarding!
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