Facilitation!

The last 2 weeks have been workshop weeks: have co- facilitated workshops over 4 days.

My legs may be a bit tired but my mind is refreshed. I have stumbled across a few fresh insights, and a few realizations from the past have got re-enforced. In this blog entry I would share insights and realizations about facilitation styles. A blog entry on realization about specific knowledge/practice areas would follow soon.

Analogies!

We love analogies. Analogies provide a non – threatening situation for individuals and teams to explore sensitive issues they might be facing at work. These analogies might take the form of business games, case studies, evaluating similar situations in different industries, etc. With a combination of smart program design and on the spot improvisation a facilitator can ensure such experiences are full of energy and fun. But are these exercises an end in themselves? Is it a fair assumption to make that a participant would reflect by himself/herself on his/her experiences and take away whatever learnings s/he feels is relevant for him/her?

I feel there are two additional steps a facilitator should ensure. Facilitating the group to:

• draw out generic learnings from the situations.
• discuss how these learnings might be transferred on to the job. The focus here should be on the immediate context an individual/manger works in.

These two steps would complete the learning cycle.

The Missing Participant!

Periodically, during sessions, I observed someone busy fidgeting with his phone and someone else scribbling an indecipherable picture (some modern art form I am sure) on his notepad. There was an apparent paradox here – the majority of the participants were in the midst of intense and animated debates while these handful participants seemed lost. I tried bringing these “missing participants” back into the discussions. But they soon drifted back into their world. At times I got a bit perturbed. I thought “What should I do?”

I was reminded of the Adult Learning theories I relate to. Individuals learn what it is important for them to learn and when the learnings have meaning for them.

I chose to focus my energies on the participants who were intensely involved in the proceedings. My belief seemed to bear fruit over time – participants who seemed “not to be in the room” in the initial few sessions became intensely involved in the discussions/proceedings for some of the sessions. Probably the discussions during those sessions had more meaning for them!

Where are you?

There was a youtube video I had seen a few years back. The video was about the artisans of Kumartuli – the famous center near Kolkata where idols of goddess Durga are made. The video tracked the making of a Durga idol from start to finish and included intensive interviews with some of the artisans. One of the artisans was asked “Making an idol is physically demanding. It requires you to work 12-14 hours a day over 2-3 months. You also would not be sitting throughout your work. You would be standing at different places and in different angles. You can’t afford to go wrong with your strokes/work, as rework would require a lot of effort/time/cost. You would be working at a place around your home, so family distractions would be there too. How do you maintain your focus?”

The artisan replied “Before we start our work every morning, we physically draw a circle around the space we work in. When we step into that space the only thing that matters is the idol and what can we do. Our focus is only there. Working like this over a period of time has trained us to be able to focus on the work we do to the exclusion of everything else. Crowds, noise, changes in weather, family – nothing distracts us.”

The response of the artisan has stayed with me.

I had caught an early morning flight to get to one of the programs. This meant that I hardly got any sleep in the night (what if I don’t hear the alarm and keep on sleeping J) and had woken up around 4 am. How do I ensure that my attention doesn’t flag or get diverted anytime during the day?

When I enter the boundaries of the training room, that’s the only place I belong to. This also helps me sense individual energies and inter-personal dynamics within the room.

Partners!

I had 2 different co-facilitators for the 2 workshops.

We had planned before about our roles during different parts of the session. But then, at times, I found my co-facilitators stepping on to my shoes: playing the role I was to play. I was a bit perplexed, and a little later annoyed. I thought “should I let this continue? How can I constructively respond?”

I remembered the famous coaching paradigm of ‘positive intent’. Assume that whatever the other person is doing, s/he is doing it with ‘positive intent’. This helped me look at the situation with new eyes.

However much you plan, on the spot improvisation would happen. It probably is needed too, as the group might behave in a manner you would not have expected. This means that I as a facilitator at times might also have to deviate from the initial agreed on script.

Subsequently co-facilitators would have to shift roles in a manner that they complement each other. I am not sure whether there is any science to this shifting. The underlying theme is “Positive Intent”.

One simple mechanism I used with my co-facilitators was to ask them after each session “So what are the things we did right/wrong in this session? What should we do differently in the next session?”.

What’s in it for me?

I must make a confession.

I have often wondered as to why people love to teach or facilitate sessions. The first thought which usually strikes me is “Probably they love to teach or share their knowledge with others.”

I have realized that the above answer is only half the truth for me. I love to facilitate sessions also because in the process I chance upon realizations, gain insights, clarify my own conscious/semi-conscious doubts and consequently grow and learn.

If you love facilitating, what would your answer be?

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Sourav