Introduction
In today's complex world, bringing diverse groups of people together to collaborate effectively is a significant challenge. Whether it's in the workplace, community organizations, or even on a national scale, the need for skilled facilitation has never been greater. Adam Kahane's book "Facilitating Breakthrough" offers a powerful solution to this pervasive problem: transformative facilitation.
Kahane's approach is based on a simple yet profound idea: facilitation should be about removing obstacles that prevent natural collaboration, rather than forcing people to work together. He likens this process to a stream – you can't push it to flow, but if you remove the blockages, it will flow naturally. This analogy captures the essence of transformative facilitation, where the facilitator's primary role is to identify and remove barriers to cooperation.
Throughout the book, Kahane draws on his extensive experience facilitating high-stakes meetings and workshops around the world. From post-Apartheid South Africa to conflict-ridden Colombia, he shares valuable insights and practical strategies for bringing people together, even in the most challenging circumstances.
The Power of Transformative Facilitation
Transformative facilitation is a unique approach that combines elements of both vertical and horizontal facilitation methods. To understand this concept better, let's consider a hypothetical scenario of a struggling basketball team.
Imagine you've been brought in to help a basketball team that's having a terrible season. The players aren't getting along, frustration is high, and their performance on the court is suffering. They have all the necessary skills to win, but their poor communication and teamwork are causing them to lose games.
In this situation, you could take a vertical facilitation approach, which is top-down and hierarchical. This would involve making the players listen to and follow the coach's instructions. After all, the coach is an expert with years of experience and a well-thought-out strategy. This approach makes sense on the surface – without a unified strategy, the team could descend into chaos.
Alternatively, you could use horizontal facilitation, which is bottom-up and places everyone on an equal footing. This would involve having the coach listen to the players' concerns and ideas. The players are the ones on the court, and their firsthand experience is invaluable. Even the best tactics won't work if the players are unhappy and unmotivated.
Both approaches have their merits, but they also have significant drawbacks. Focusing solely on one method inevitably leads to the other side feeling ignored and frustrated. This is where transformative facilitation comes in.
Transformative facilitation combines both vertical and horizontal approaches. As a facilitator, you ensure that the players listen to the coach's guidance while also making sure the players have a voice in the process. You constantly assess the situation and adjust your approach accordingly. If the coach has too much power, you give the players more say. If the players are disregarding the coach's input, you emphasize the importance of the coach's role.
This back-and-forth process requires a lot of listening and communication. It takes time and patience, but it's what effective facilitators do. By ensuring everyone feels heard and valued, you can make working in a team easier, more enjoyable, and ultimately more successful.
Removing Obstacles: The First Step in Facilitation
One of the most powerful aspects of transformative facilitation is its versatility. It can be applied to solve problems in any group setting, from small teams to entire nations undergoing political transformation.
Kahane shares a powerful example from his experience in South Africa, just a year and a half after Nelson Mandela's release from prison. He was tasked with facilitating a workshop on the country's post-Apartheid future, attended by 28 leaders from across the nation. These leaders represented a diverse range of groups, including black and white communities, left and right-wing parties, as well as business and civil society organizations.
As you can imagine, the tension in the room was palpable. Many of these leaders had been bitter enemies for decades. Kahane's first step as a facilitator was to remove as many obstacles to collaboration as possible.
One of the most crucial actions was setting up the venue to be as egalitarian as possible. Everyone shared small bedrooms, ate together, and even played volleyball during breaks. This seemingly simple setup had a profound effect on the participants. Lifelong enemies found themselves going for walks together and engaging in open, respectful conversations. Capitalists listened attentively to communists, and vice versa. Participants were able to express their opinions freely while also being open to hearing others' views.
Kahane applied similar principles while facilitating talks in Colombia, involving a diverse group of stakeholders including politicians, former guerillas, businesspeople, researchers, and indigenous leaders. Before the first session began, he rearranged the chairs into a circle, ensuring that everyone could see and hear each other equally. He also used a small bell to keep everyone's introductions to one minute, regardless of their status or importance.
These examples highlight a crucial lesson for facilitators: the importance of removing obstacles before the event even begins. By creating an environment of equality and mutual respect, you set the stage for productive collaboration, no matter how diverse or conflicted the group may be.
The Importance of Humility and Service
While facilitators often work on important and high-stakes issues, the best facilitators don't see themselves as heroic leaders. Instead, they approach their role with humility, understanding that their job is to serve the group rather than to lead it.
Kahane draws an insightful parallel between facilitators and orchestra conductors. While it may appear that a conductor is leading the performance, in reality, it's the composer who's in charge – they wrote the music, after all. The conductor isn't producing any sound themselves; that's the role of the musicians. Instead, the conductor's primary function is to serve the music being performed. Sometimes this involves directing musicians to play louder or softer, but most of the time, they're simply keeping the tempo and accompanying the musicians.
Similarly, a facilitator's role is to serve the group members, not to lead them. Occasionally, you may need to guide participants in a certain direction, but most of the time, you're there to support and accompany them as they create change themselves.
Kahane shares a powerful example of this humble approach in action through the story of Negusu Aklilu, an Ethiopian facilitator. Aklilu spent nearly two years patiently organizing a workshop aimed at promoting peace in his country. His approach was marked by unwavering dedication to serving others rather than seeking personal gain or recognition.
Aklilu met with each invitee individually over the course of months, proving to them that he had no hidden agenda. Many were initially skeptical, but as they witnessed his commitment to meeting everyone's needs, they gradually came to trust his intentions. After two years of preparation, the workshop finally took place. Even during the event, Aklilu continued to prioritize service, holding twice-daily meetings with his facilitation team to ensure they were providing the best possible support to all attendees.
This commitment to serving the greater good is at the heart of effective facilitation. Whether you're working on a small team project or a national peace process, demonstrating your dedication to serving others is crucial to your success as a facilitator.
The Delicate Balance: Stepping Inside and Outside
Even with the best intentions and preparation, not all facilitation efforts are successful. Kahane candidly shares his own experiences of failure, including two instances where participants rejected him as a facilitator from the outset. These challenging experiences taught him valuable lessons about the importance of perspective and self-awareness in facilitation.
One particularly enlightening example comes from a 2018 workshop in Manitoba, Canada. The goal was to improve healthcare outcomes for local First Nations communities. Despite his decades of experience, Kahane found himself in a difficult situation almost immediately. His standard one-minute introduction activity, which he had used successfully many times before, caused offense to the Indigenous elders present. The bell used to signal the end of each minute triggered traumatic memories of abusive state-run schools they had attended as children. One elder explicitly stated that he didn't trust Kahane to facilitate the workshop.
This experience forced Kahane to reflect on his approach and his own position in the context of the workshop. He realized he hadn't taken enough time to understand the perspective of the First Nations participants. Moreover, he hadn't considered how his identity as a white man – a member of the group that had colonized and oppressed Indigenous people for centuries – would impact the dynamics of the workshop.
In response to this realization, Kahane and his team made significant changes to their approach. They incorporated traditional Indigenous ceremonies to open and close the sessions and had First Nations members of the facilitation team lead the activities. Kahane himself stepped back, supporting the workshop in less visible ways like cleaning up and organizing refreshments. This shift in approach led to a remarkable turnaround. By the third day of the workshop, which happened to be Kahane's birthday, the elder who had initially distrusted him gifted him a sacred object and offered forgiveness.
This powerful example illustrates the importance of facilitators knowing when to step back and maintain objectivity in the eyes of participants. By doing so, you can inspire participants to gain fresh perspectives on their own situations.
However, Kahane emphasizes that stepping back is only half of the equation. It's equally important for facilitators to step inside – to acknowledge and understand their own role in the situation. Even if a facilitator's connection to the issue at hand seems minimal, recognizing and addressing it is crucial for effective facilitation.
Kahane suggests a useful exercise to help participants (and facilitators) understand their dual roles in a situation. He recommends writing two short essays: one describing the problem as an external observer would see it, and another written as if the author were personally responsible for the problem. This exercise typically results in new perspectives, increased responsibility and agency, and greater motivation to work toward solutions.
The Art of Transformative Facilitation: Key Principles
As we've explored the various aspects of transformative facilitation, several key principles emerge that are crucial for anyone looking to master this approach:
Flexibility: Transformative facilitation involves constantly switching between top-down and bottom-up leadership styles. Be prepared to adapt your approach based on the needs of the group at any given moment.
Obstacle Removal: Before beginning any facilitation, focus on identifying and removing potential obstacles to collaboration. This could involve anything from the physical setup of the room to addressing historical grievances between participants.
Humility and Service: Approach your role as a facilitator with humility, understanding that your job is to serve the group rather than to lead it. Your success depends on your ability to put the needs of the participants first.
Self-Awareness: Recognize your own position and potential biases in relation to the group and the issues at hand. Be prepared to step back when necessary, but also to acknowledge your own role in the situation.
Active Listening: Pay close attention to the dynamics within the group, listening not just to what's being said, but also to what's not being said. Use this information to guide your facilitation approach.
Patience: Transformative facilitation takes time. Be prepared for a process that may involve many small steps forward and occasional steps back.
Empowerment: Your ultimate goal should be to empower the participants to take ownership of the process and the solutions. Facilitate in a way that builds their capacity to work together effectively, even after you're gone.
Conclusion: The Transformative Power of Effective Facilitation
In "Facilitating Breakthrough," Adam Kahane offers a powerful framework for bringing people together to solve complex problems. Through his concept of transformative facilitation, he shows how skilled facilitators can navigate the delicate balance between providing structure and allowing for organic collaboration.
The book's key message is that facilitation is not about forcing people to work together, but about creating the conditions where collaboration can naturally emerge. By removing obstacles, fostering equality, and maintaining a stance of humble service, facilitators can help diverse groups find common ground and work towards shared goals.
Kahane's approach is particularly valuable in today's increasingly polarized world. Whether you're working to improve team dynamics in a corporate setting, fostering community engagement, or even addressing national-level conflicts, the principles of transformative facilitation offer a path forward.
The book serves as both an inspiration and a practical guide. It challenges us to think differently about leadership and collaboration, emphasizing the power of creating spaces where everyone's voice can be heard. At the same time, it provides concrete strategies and tools that readers can apply in their own facilitation efforts.
Perhaps most importantly, "Facilitating Breakthrough" reminds us of the profound impact that skilled facilitation can have. By bringing people together in meaningful ways, facilitators can play a crucial role in addressing some of society's most pressing challenges. Whether you're an experienced facilitator or someone just beginning to explore this field, Kahane's insights offer valuable guidance for making a positive difference in the world through the art of bringing people together.