Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Key Facilitative Skills: Becoming Multi-tongued

As a professional facilitator for more than three decades, I've had ample opportunity to observe which skills make the most difference. As a facilitation trainer the past 15 years, I've collected plenty of data about which lessons have been the most challenging for students to digest. Taken all together, I've decided to assemble a series of blog posts on the facilitation skills I consider to be both the hardest to master and the most potent for producing productive meetings. They will all bear the header Key Facilitation Skills and it's a distillation of where I believe the heavy lifting is done.

Here are the headlines of what I'll cover in this series:


I. Riding Two Horses: Content and Energy
II. Working Constructively with Emotions 
III. Managing the Obstreperous
IV. Developing Range: Holding the Reins Only as Tightly as the Horses Require
V. Semipermeable Membranes: Welcoming Passion While Limiting Aggression
VI. Creating Durable Containers for Hard Conversations
VII. Walking the Feedback Talk
VIII. Sis Boom Bang
IX. Projecting Curiosity in the Presence of Disagreement
X. Distinguishing Weird (But Benign) from Seductive (Yet Dangerous)
XI. Eliciting Proposals that Sing
XII. Becoming Multi-tongued
XIII. Not Leaving Product on the Table
XIV. Sequencing Issues Productively
XV. Trusting the Force   
• • •
XII. Becoming Multi-tongued
I've been a process consultant and teacher since 1987. In all that time every meeting I've attended, observed, or facilitated has been conducted in English—my native tongue. By degrees though, I've discovered that that's not the only language being spoken.

There is also the language of process, body language, and the lingua franca of emotions. If you aspire to become a skilled facilitator it behooves you to develop a facility with all four.

1. English
Leaving aside the challenge of learning English as a second language (which is a torture I've never been subjected to), the challenge here is much more than mastering parts of speech, vocabulary, and diction. There are, for example, the nuances of regional dialects. And all of these aspects enjoy a longer half-life than the evanescent meanings of metaphors, colloquialisms, idioms, and humor. What you learned as au courant a decade ago may now be passé. It is, as they say, complicated.

New words (or meanings) are constantly being forged in the ever-changing crucible of contemporary discourse. So you have to pay attention, or you'll never be woke to all that people are saying.

And that's just the easy part.

2. Process Language
In cooperative culture the how matters as much as the what. The promise of cooperative culture is that decisions will be made collectively—rather than by the strong, the quick, the rich, the loud, the privileged, or the clever. Doing that well means creating and sustaining openings for the input of all interested parties to be heard and taken into account. When you factor in the wide variance that exists among people's articulateness (see the prior point) and their relative comfort speaking in front of a group, quite a bit of care needs to be taken to insure a reasonably equal opportunity for all.

It is no small matter learning how to read what someone needs as an accessible onramp to the conversation; what acknowledgment someone needs to feel heard; how to offer a variety of ways to engage on a topic such that everyone has at least one format that works for them; how to bridge between people who are not hearing each other; how to accurately and concisely summarize disparate input. Skilled facilitators need to be able to do all of these things.

3. Body Language
Words, tone, volume, and pace are all part of how we communicate, yet we also covey meaning without sound—in the way we hold our bodies, facial expressions, and hand gestures. While much of this happens without conscious focus, it is this element that is greatly compromised in making the switch to Zoom when everyone cannot be in the same room (for reasons of expense, time, or pandemic). Most of us rely heavily on body language to corroborate the meaning we extract from words. 

When we're missing body language—say, with email—there is considerable risk of misinterpreting intent and meaning. Confusion that might have been cleared up in a matter of seconds if you had sight lines to a speaker can persist for weeks when all you have are the words to go by. When we lack information in an exchange, most of us tend to fill in the blanks with guesses and projections, rather than ask for clarification. When you indulge in that, all manner of mischief can ensue. Thus, Zoom (video-conferencing) helps because it supplies tone, volume, pace, and facial expressions of the speaker, which substantially cuts down on the misinterpretation that email is vulnerable to. You just have to be careful to remember that you are generally not able to get a clear read of the body language of the listeners, and you may be missing important clues about how the speaker's offering is landing.

Aside: because reading non-verbal cues is important, it's generally a poor idea for facilitators to self-scribe (in those times when it's deemed valuable to record what's happening on flip chart paper or a white board). You have to have your eyes on the group, not just your ears.

4. Emotional Language
In my experience, most cooperative groups do not have any agreements about how they'll work with emotional input. Not because members don't have feelings, or don't bring them into the room during meetings—but because welcoming feelings, especially strong ones, tends to be scary and chaotic. Lacking agreements about how to work with feelings there is marked tendency for groups to try to put a lid on them as soon as they arise. Most of us only have bad experiences when strong feelings are expressed (people are attacked or things are said in the heat of the moment that are later regretted), and have learned to be afraid of the damage to relationship that can occur.

Central to what I believe is a more productive approach is to have facilitators develop the ability to work deftly with emotions and to be able to harness feelings as a source of information and energy. I am suggesting that you'll be better off if you can view strong feelings as an indication that something important is happening, rather than as a sign of something dangerous happening. I understand that for many this may require undoing a considerable amount of conditioning, but it's worth it.
• • •
Of course, some of these languages overlap (for example, conveying emotional pain through tone and facial expressions as well as words), yet I've separated them out in this monograph to make clear that they are distinctive forms of communication and that skilled facilitators should strive to become fluent in all four, as well as the ability to translate from one to another. Think of it as fourplay.

Friday, May 15, 2020

Laird on Tap

Welcome to my world of virtual consulting.

Now that I've had a chance to get into the rhythm of home quarantining, and to digest the reality that travel is a distant dream (as an at-risk senior it's not prudent for me to venture away from home sooner than there's a reliable COVID vaccine available), I've been putting serious thought into what I can deliver at a distance.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

I. Conferences
As gathering folks together in numbers for multiple days is especially contraindicated right now, community networks are scrambling to develop ways to deliver useful product safely. Understandably, everyone is thinking webinars, and I'm currently in dialog with three networks about being on their menus:

1. Foundation for Intentional Community
Elders and Intentional Community • May 27 • 4-6 pm (Eastern)

I'll be doing a 15-minute presentation at the front end of this, laying out the pros and cons of choosing a senior-oriented community (where everyone is 50+) or an intergenerational community. It's a more complicated choice than you might imagine.

2. Coho/US
The Heart of Community • May 30 • 12-6 pm (Eastern)

I'll be doing a one-hour presentation (2-3 pm) on Consensus Challenges—the places where groups tend to get stuck. For populations steeped in competitive culture (which is just about everyone), the transition to cooperative culture tends to be predictably bumpy. I'll lay out the roadblocks and potholes on the road to utopia… and what you can do about them.

3. Canadian Cohousing Network
TBA

This burgeoning network is mulling over what to offer and when. I've given them a host of possibilities but I don't know yet what will be selected. Visit the Canadian Cohousing Network website for updates.

II. Facilitation
I sat in, from home, as an observer on a cohousing community's two-hour Zoom plenary last weekend, affording me an initial taste of what this might be like, and I was buoyed to discover that I could accurately read the undercurrents of a complicated conversation without any visual clues about how the speaker was landing with the audience. 

This is an affirmation, I believe, of how I can bring my decades of experience into play. Having "been there before" I was able to recognize what was happening even without a full range of input. While it's still better having everyone in the same room, it doesn't mean that important work must be postponed until that can happen.

Thus, I'm now willing to offer my services as an outside facilitator—literally outside—maybe not in the same time zone. However, that's only one side of the equation. Now we'll see what demand exists for disembodied facilitators. (I know there is need, but that's not the same as demand.)

III. Training
Since 2003 I have been delivering a two-year facilitation training program where a group of students (typically 10-12, but occasionally more) concentrated in a geographical area gather eight times for intensive three-day weekends, spaced approximately three months apart. I have delivered this program a dozen times in its entirety, with an additional two programs currently underway. 

Understandably, the pandemic has interrupted the current programs and I am in the process of figuring out how to continue the work without gathering in the same room. (Who's zooming who?) I'll be experimenting with this in both training groups in the coming weeks and I'm excited by the challenge—there are even advantages to changing up the formats and doing things differently. I like to think of the training programs as teaching improv, where the trainers adapt to what's happening. In that context, this is just another opportunity, both for the students and the instructors.

IV. Mentoring
Although this has never been a large part of my portfolio, it's been a steady one and something I've been doing for more than 10 years—almost all of which happens via phone or email, augmented in recently by teleconferencing, such a Google Chat or Zoom. Although this is not a service I have particularly marketed, it is highly personal and usually quite enjoyable. I'd be happy to do more of it if there was interest and the fit seemed right.

If this possibility appeals to you, send me a note.

Together, we'll figure this out.

Friday, May 8, 2020

The Doctor Is In (Virtually)

For the second time in five years, my world has been turned upside down.

This time though, I have a lot of company.

During the stretch February 2015-January 2016 I went through a 12-month period in which I lost my marriage, my community, and my health. It was a rough year. When I recovered from that triple whammy, I was in a new relationship and living in a new state (Minnesota, not the state of confusion). After a long pause to cope with debilitation associated with the discovery of my having multiple myeloma, and getting it under control, I was able to resurrect my career as a group process consultant and facilitation trainer—to the point where I was sailing along much as I had pre-2015.

Apparently though, that was too easy. So the Magic 8-ball of my fate was shaken once again, this time returning the enigmatic "Try again later." As it has for many, the emergence of the novel coronavirus has introduced major uncertainty into what the next couple of years will look like.

My work with cooperative groups (whether as an outside facilitator helping a community negotiate a patch of heavy sledding, or as a facilitation trainer) is predicated on being able to accurately read and work with the energy in the room. It's not just paying attention to what people are thinking and saying, it's also about whether relationships and group cohesion are being enhanced or degraded. As a good deal of energy work is nonverbal, the overwhelming bulk of my work is done on site—where I travel to the group and everyone is in the same room.

For the first time in my career, however, that's not an option. And it's not clear when it will be again. My odometer rolled past 70 last fall and I'm immunosuppressed (by virtue of my cancer and its treatment). My oncologist has made it clear that when pandemic officials discuss people in high-risk categories, they're talking about me. As it's a very bad idea for me to contract COVID-19, I probably won't be traveling much until and unless there's a vaccine or herd immunity to protect me—both of which could take a while. (I had my cyclical 28-day visit with my oncologist yesterday and he confirmed my thinking on this.)

So… it's time to reinvent myself (again). Never mind that I'd prefer to deliver my services in person, what can I do when that's not on the table? We're about to find out. The need for assistance didn't dry up with the pandemic; just the ability to respond in the same room.

Of particular interest is how to facilitate emotionally volatile dynamics with a dearth of nonverbal clues. It's hard enough when all the clues are available.

In the last two weeks I've participated in Zoom calls with the students in both of my facilitation training classes (one on southern BC and one in central NC) and fielded inquiries from five groups around the continent: one each in British Columbia, California, Maryland, Michigan, and Virginia. And the beat goes on.

If you have concerns about group dynamics where you or friends think my experience with cooperative groups can help, the doctor is in. Instead of a daily rate, I'll now be thinking in terms of an hourly charge—dispensing group process advice and instruction by the tenths of an hour. We'll see what happens.