Walking the Line Between Facilitating and Consulting

As a group process professional I'm frequently hired to be both a skilled facilitator and a cooperative group consultant. On the one hand, I'm wanted to work some thorny issues; on the other I'm generally asked to give advice on best practices or on ways to fruitfully approach complex topics (which I style "hair balls"). Often enough, what consultants supply are the "right" questions more than the "right" answers, but I'm ambidextrous and a free swinger.

When I'm hired in the above capacity I try to be careful to tell people at the outset that I'm about to do a dangerous thing: purposefully commingling the role of facilitator (which should be scrupulously neutral) with that of the consultant (who advocates for a certain approach, just like a stakeholder). I call this "wearing two hats" and there have even been occasions where the group asks me to physically don a goofy chapeau whenever I start pontificating as a consultant, so that they have a visual cue that they can no longer expect the same neutrality as they can from Laird the Facilitator.

OK, so what's the problem?

There are a couple.

Problem I: I'm an Active Facilitator
For some reason, the idealized version of a skilled facilitator is someone who is a quick-thinking, dispassionate person who never gets ruffled and always speaks in well-modulated tones. They pour oil on troubled waters and have the empathy of Mother Teresa, the patience of Job, and the wisdom of Solomon. (What's not to like?)

Well, I'm only sort of like that. I figure my job is not to be above the fray (of human frailties), but to be among the people. I believe that the best meetings are ones where participants bring their full authentic selves, and that includes their passion. So I bring mine, too.

Some of the time I talk softly; other times I get loud and raucous. Some of the time I slow things down; other times I step on the gas. My job is not to be liked (though that helps); it's to be even-handed and effective. 

Interestingly, being even-handed—which everyone I know would say is a reasonable quality for facilitators to aspire to—requires that you change things up as you go along, because it's never a truly level playing field and you have to take that into account. Thus, being even-handed does not mean being predictably even in how you run meetings. Weird, eh?

I know good facilitators who can stand in one place with good posture and good attention for two hours, but not me. I prowl and pace when I'm in front of a group.

Some facilitators prefer to work from a script (mapping out formats and blocking out the choreography of the meeting well ahead of time). Not me. I work from a few notes and try to ride the tiger of the meeting's energy: calming the wild horses and ramping up the mules. 

If the conversation loses all its bubbles, I want to put some seltzer in the mix, trying to find the point of entrée that most speaks to the heart of the matter and to the participants' hearts. If there's an unspoken undercurrent in the room, I'll speak about it. (I'm not particularly respectful of taboos and hidden agendas.) I figure that information is concentrated in resistance, so I can't resist asking about it.

All of this dynamism doesn't fit well with what some hold as the facilitator ideal and concerns can surface about whether I'm trying to control outcomes through some sleight of hand misdirection and whizbang. 

The truth is that I'll apply common sense to pose questions that I feel are in the room but haven't been voiced by participants. While some are disturbed that I'm treating the meeting as a séance (bringing in voices from beyond the circle), I think I'm just seeing around the curve and cutting to the chase.

Taken all together, I believe in good meetings; I just don't believe in dull meetings. In the process, not everyone is comfortable with my swashbuckling jocular panache. Oh well.

Problem II: I'm a Facilitation Trainer
When I teach facilitation (which I do a lot; I'll have three two-year training programs running concurrently in 2016—one on Portland OR, one in New England, and one in North Carolina) I make it a point to see that the students understand the line between facilitator and consultant.

The facilitator runs the meeting, acting with the authority bestowed on them by the group's process agreements. Their job is to structure and manage the conversation, keeping participants on topic, making sure that everyone has a reasonable opportunity to offer relevant input, and helping to uncover and articulate the solution that best balances the input and the sensitive application of group values.

The facilitator is responsible for the integrity of the container in which the consideration happens; they are not responsible for the outcome, and they should be disinterested in which solution emerges.

The mantra of the facilitator is to trust the process.

In contrast, the consultant is there to provide additional resources for the consideration (what have similar groups done in similar situations and how has that worked out?); to suggest pathways to consider the matter that have worked well with other groups; to frame the questions (and perhaps the sequence in which to consider them) that experience has shown will lead to a complete response; to explain the pros and cons that typically accompany different choices, giving the group a look "around the curve" before the die is cast.

The consultant is knowledgeable about topics being discussed and the best way to navigate them. They are like the bourgeois on a canoe trip, with a map in their head that is a larger scale than anyone else has.

The mantra of the consultant is to trust their experience.

When I train facilitators I am trying to teach good process and along the way, everyone gains experience.

Still, there are gray areas. Based on years of experience as a facilitator (note how experience helps people be better at both roles) my advanced skills include:

o  A feel for workable solutions. Because I've rigorously retrained myself to see the glass as half full—looking for common ground before looking at differences—I'm often the first person in the room to "see" a solution. This is an important distinction. I often see solutions earlier than others simply because you're more apt to find what you're looking for. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I have accumulated an enormous pattern library after 40+ years of community living, making it that much easier to "know" the productive approach.

o  An ability to see ghosts. When you've been to a lot of meetings and studied the patterns you begin see that sometimes there's an unarticulated presence in the room that's significantly impacting dynamics. As a skilled facilitator it's my job to feel into that and try to name the invisible intruder. It could be a missing person, or a missing viewpoint but you can discern its presence by observing how others are mysteriously affected by its gravitational pull or magnetic repulsion. This allows you to intuit its presence. Like a Jedi knight, you're sensing disturbances in The Force.

o   An ability to feel the deeper undercurrent when a group is skating over the surface, avoiding the deeper issues. This might entail tiptoeing around unresolved emotional tensions, or perhaps sidestepping a clash of core values for fear that an open examination may lead to irreparable damage to the group. If I sense that, it's my job to take the group there even if it's kicking and screaming. Avoidance is a poor long-term strategy. (And if you really didn't want to go there, you shouldn't have hired me.)

o  Sharpening the dynamic tension. Often this means taking a conversation that does not present as that hard and imagining where the sore spots are for the purpose of exposing them in the group. (Hey, we're here to do the heavy lifting; let's get at it.) After all, if the solution only works in the "easy" cases, what have we actually solved?

When I access these advanced skills students sometimes think I've gone over to the dark side (to consulting) because it appears that I'm employing dark arts, inserting myself into the conversation complexifying along the way (simultaneously building the demand for the consultant and making the student facilitator's job harder). But really I'm facilitating. By exposing all that's in play, I'm ensuring that the final solutions will be that much more robust. In the end I'm following the facilitator's prime directive: offering the group it most needs in the moment to do solid work.

It's a fine line, and I walk it all the time.

The Role of Shepherd: Keeping Track of the Sheep

One of the most potent concepts in consensus is that of the neutral Facilitator. That is, the person guiding the plenary meetings should not be a stakeholder on the topics being discussed (or at least not a major stakeholder). The idea, simply, is that if the Facilitator is identified with a certain position, they'll likely slant things in the direction they favor, either wittingly or otherwise. If this is the perception, then participants will not experience the meeting as a level playing field, and it's much less likely that the topic will be examined cleanly.

In the context of plenary meetings, a corollary to this concept is the idea that the Presenter of each topic (the person who lays out why the group is talking about this topic and what the objective of the conversation is) will not be the Facilitator. It is relatively common for the Presenter (someone who knows the topic thoroughly and understands why it's coming before the group at this time) to have a definite opinion about what should happen. While you may want to be able to harness that passion in the presentation, you don't want their opinions to contaminate the neutrality of the Facilitator.

Even when the Facilitator thinks they can introduce a topic neutrally, beware! It is not always predictable what will trigger a reaction among participants, and if the Presenter inadvertently steps on a land mine, you'll be glad to have a separate Facilitator available to clean things up. The Facilitator's prime directive is helping the group move both inclusively and expeditiously through topics; they are there to safeguard the group's process and should be as disinterested as possible in the decisions.

Taking this one step further will get me to the primary focus of this blog: the role of Shepherd. It is quite common for a group to not complete a topic in the same meeting at which it is first introduced. When this happens there's inevitably a question of what will happen next. (To be sure, groups don't always address this question well, but they should.)

Sometimes a topic is advanced to the point where a person or subgroup is asked to work the topic in particular ways: for example, to conduct research, to craft a summary statement, to go door-to-door to solicit input from members who missed the meeting, or to draft a proposal taking into account all the factors that surfaced in the discussion. In addition to that, there is the role of Shepherd, the person or committee who:

o Collects and archives all the input from group members relevant to the topic.

o Sees to it that all assigned tasks are completed in an orderly way (by which I mean involving all the right people in a timely manner). Note: the Shepherd may or may not be the one doing these tasks.

o Makes sure that the topic comes back to plenary when it's ready to be taken up next—when assigned tasks have been completed, the presenter is good to go, and there's group energy for the tackling the consideration. This will involve collaboration with the Agenda Planners [see my blog of Jan 25, 2008 for more on this role].

o Answers inquiries about what's been happening with the topic.

o Tracks progress on the topic until all plenary aspects have been disposed of, at which point the Shepherd role is laid down.

In addition, at the discretion of the plenary, the Shepherd may be asked to:

o Suggest the order and format in which subtopics are considered. It may also have recommendations about what useful work can be done on this topic outside of plenary.

As I am defining it here, the Shepherd is a coordinating role, and not a decision-making role. It is the Shepherd's job to make sure that the sheep (or threads, if you prefer a weaving metaphor) are not lost and that they are properly cared for and sorted; it is not their job to shear, breed, or butcher. The key here is understanding that Shepherds have a defined, limited role. Good ones can significantly relieve the workload of both Agenda Planners and Facilitators—two groups that tend to have overflowing plates, and which will greatly appreciate the pastoral assistance.

The Closing Gauntlet

Today I'm going to write about the sequence of things that need to be taken care of at the end of a meeting, collectively called the Closing. This is the companion piece to what I posted about Openings two days ago. Parallel with what I wrote about Openings, Closings are also a bundle of things and it's important to understand what's typically involved.

In general, it works better if one person (or team) is responsible for the Closing. This does not mean that that person needs to lead all (or even any) of the activities below; it just means that they know who is doing each part, and that they are the one with authority to make last-minute adjustments to any aspect of the Closing based on emerging needs (for example, sometimes the last content piece runs late and you have to make a snap decision about dropping or sharply curtailing some aspects of the Closing you had planned in order to honor the lateness of the hour). Often the facilitator runs the Closing, but it could be someone else. The key is that everyone responsible for setting up the mtg knows who that is, and that the Closer knows the fullness of their job.

I'm picking up the thread from the point where the group stops focusing on the last piece of content for that session. The facilitator will need to protect sufficient time to accomplish all of the following and still end on time. While I am recommending that the Closing proceed in the sequence below, this is not sacrosanct (you might, for example, do Announcements before Evaluation):

—Summary of the Product
There's a natural tendency for most people to focus first on what didn't get accomplished, rather than what did. It's the facilitator's job to briefly remind everyone of all the forward movement that occurred, to leave an "up and out" taste in everyone's mouth. Note: Product is much more than conclusions or agreements; it's also a narrowing of topics yet to be discussed, it's delegation of work to cmtees, it's unifying energy (perhaps by clearing tensions, or by just hearing how everyone feels about something powerful that happened in the group), it's settling on a plan by which the group will tackle a complex topic.

This should take no more than five minutes and be done up-tempo: you are a cheerleader celebrating the team's success. This is where you make it clear to everyone what they got in exchange for spending their valuable time in the mtg. While it is not essential that you do this every time, it is especially valuable if the mood of the group is subdued or diffused toward the end of the mtg, or if there's chronic grumbling about a lack of mtg product.

—Evaluation
This is taking time for the group to reflect on how it did it's work during the session (or, if this is the last session in a string, the scope may be the entire series of mtgs). Note that this is not a time to drift back into discussing content. That part is done (at least for now). Here you are getting responses to questions such as:
o How well did we handle each topic on the agenda?
o Did we do a good job of working differences with efficiency and compassion?
o Did we take enough breaks?
o Did the choice of formats work well for the group?
o Did the visual aids and handouts enhance the conversation?
o Was the facilitation too directive?

Most often groups simply let people evaluate free form, where people can say whatever they want, in any order. Sometimes though, you'll get more useful information if you pose a question or two that focuses attention on key moments in the mtg (for example, "How did people respond to the way I worked the tense dynamic between Dale and Pat?"). Sometimes you'll get different answers if you ask people to write their evaluations rather than speak them.

There are many ways to do mtg evaluations, and they don't need to happen every mtg. They tend to be most useful when the group did something unusual or engaged each other in an unusual way—you'll want to capture reflections about that experience while the data is as fresh as possible.

Caution: The one thing you want to avoid during evaluations is cross-talk, or explanations from the facilitator. This kind of back-and-forth will tend to inhibit frank comments. Group members may hesitate to speak for fear that they may be contradicted (or even attacked) if others have different views. You want evaluative comments to be as open and as unedited as you can get them.

—Announcements
While this may have been covered at the start of the mtg, it is not unusual for a fresh batch to have incubated during the session—people may have suddenly remembered something they had forgotten to announce at the previous opportunity, new needs may have arisen relative to decisions made during the mtg ("Can the members of the new ad hoc cmtee on Cat Policy linger after the mtg to discuss when and where we'll first meet?"), or the timing of the announcement is more pertinent to the conclusion than the opening ("I'll need three volunteers immediately following the mtg to help me put the room back in order.")

—Breaking the Circle
The very last piece is the actual closing of the mtg, which is some clear marker that the mtg has ended and people are no longer in "meeting space" (and subject to the expectations of conforming themselves to good mtg behavior—assuming you have defined what that is). As with the Opening that signaled the start of the mtg, this could be many things: a song, a moment of silence, the reading of a quote, chanting. In general, you want this to be relatively brief and you want it to be energetically congruent with the mood of the group as it concluded its deliberations of the content of the mtg.

Hint: There tends to be a tricky last piece that groups often fumble over: how to actually break the moment. If the last activity is a song, this tends to not be a problem: the song ends and we're done. If, however, the mtg concludes a moment of silence, the person who has led the group into that should take responsibility for ending it (perhaps simply by saying "Thank you"). If you end with a chant, the person leading the chant should say something to indicate that the moment is over. If you end in a group hug, the person directing that needs to think through how they will get the group out of it (nobody wants to be the first person to end the hug).