What kind of facilitation

11 Flavors of Facilitation for Business Meetings

My latest book co-author, Elise Keith writes articles that are a blessing for anyone in the meeting industry and she is currently considered one of the top thought leaders in the art and science of meetings.

One of her latest is titled - 11 Flavors of Facilitation for Business Meetings - and for the ones approaching this field with curiosity, these 11 flavours are not only comprehensive but useful orienting not just newcomers but also all practitioners in this industry.

Elise wrote:

"If you have an especially important gathering, high-stakes, sensitive, or complex, you can get a lot out of working with an expert facilitator who has an outside and impartial perspective. But where should you start? There are lots of approaches and schools of thought to this business of facilitation, all very cool in their ways."

And then dwells on explaining more about these 11 different 'flavours' in professional facilitation and you can read it here.

Now, that said we shouldn't be confusing this useful map with the territory which is messy, to say the least.

Several facilitators are doing Agile coaching and if you enquire about members of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) (quite rightly the reference association in this field) many will answer that they are hybrid professionals that offer unique of kind consulting services (including designing innovation and change, executive training, coaching, design thinking, scrum, event planning, etc).

In a word, let's all be certain that Facilitation is just a means to achieve an end: group collaboration.

Without a client who understands how to use group collaboration and why, hiring a facilitator will be just a "show off".

Without a 'collaboration architect,' nothing of significance from facilitation will happen besides a certain amount of 'team building' with many hugs and kisses in the end but scratching only the surface of what could be the real structural change the organization is begging for.

'Collaboration architect' is a title that has been used to refer to professionals who work in the IT field specifically in what is termed Enterprise Collaboration Architecture.

Yet, I have argued elsewhere (check on LinkedIn Pulse "What's a collaboration architect?") and started a book series on this subject, claiming that the term could also be employed to any professional that has to deal with human collaboration.

Every manager, teacher or trainer in the world, whenever trying to run a business organization or a classroom can also be a collaboration architect without even knowing.

A collaboration architect intervenes at these three levels: People, Workplace/Workspace and IT infrastructure, but with different job titles.

The role of a collaboration architect

David Strauss's seminal book "How to Make Collaboration Work and the Five Principles of Collaboration" introduced the concept of group facilitation to the business world and proposed 5 key principles for collaboration at the 'people' level.

1. Involve the relevant stakeholders
2. Build consensus phase by phase
3. Design a process map
4. Designate a process facilitator
5. Harness the power of group memory

These two last points are probably the least understood by business managers when acting as collaboration architects. The need to appoint a neutral figure that manages the power of group memory in meetings is equally important for a successful collaboration than the design of an overall process map and the step-by-step consensus with all relevant stakeholders.

Conclusion

Regardless of the facilitator flavour, you as a client must see yourself as a collaboration architect. Your understanding of the situation should help you to make decisions on who to involve and what the outcomes of the collaboration you need and the steps involved (a process map) where you can start to build consensus each step at a time.

Then, hire a facilitator who helps you convert these ideas into an actionable meeting flow and implement the process that she or he would be managing as a neutral external person.

Any of the flavours that Elise mentions in her article should be fine. Of course, being a Certified Professional Facilitator from the International Association of Facilitators, I would have my preference clear.

But so long as you know what you want to achieve as a collaboration architect any type of facilitator should be able to deliver tremendous value.

About the Author

Paul Nunesdea is the English pen name of Paulo Nunes de Abreu, a Facilitator, Master of Ceremonies, Author, and Publisher of the Architecting Collaboration book series. He is an IAF Certified Facilitator™ who designs and hosts events for clients ranging from large corporations to governmental organizations.

As the curator of Architecting Collaboration, Paul shares insights on collaboration, facilitation, and digital transformation through his blogs and thought leadership. He is also the founder of col.lab | collaboration laboratory, a hub for collaborative innovation, including Debate Exímio Lda.

Paul leads the Health Data Forum, a registered UK charity, which organizes the Health Data Forum Global Hybrid Summit, drives the Data First, AI Later movement, and hosts a curated network of independent health data and AI experts.