Samenspraak: conditioneren van situaties

In my opinion, there is no definitive definition of facilitation. Its definition depends on context: situation, group and requirements. This is true for every concept, but because facilitation is about the creation of meaning – once you know the meaning of you situation, you can decide to act (or not) -, it is double so. On the other hand, here is what I’ve written in our book:

Facilitation Processes or skills by which a (independent outside) party supports → meeting(s) of participants to move toward improvement or resolution of a → problem. Usually more than two parties are involved.
Facilitation can operate at many levels, from providing → meeting space to active intervention as a → mediator, → moderator, → chair, → coach, counselor, → MC, manager, teacher or → trainer.
Supporting parties to set ground rules and designing agendas for meetings, promoting better communication between parties, and analysis of the situation and possible outcomes—in general, helping the participants keep on track and working toward their mutual goals. It may also mean helping them set those goals.
It is procedural assistance provided to enable → participants to → communicate more effectively and move towards agreement.

If you want to know more, please buy our book or download the Glossary of terms on facilitation.

Nicholas C. Westbury posted a question in Systems Thinking Network. What is your perspective on ‘relationships’ ?

As a facilitative facilitator, I was drawn to this question. Here is my reply (with some comments between { [and even highlights] }):

Are you familiar with the drawing by Escher of the hands drawing each other?

{Of course, the picture illustrates a paradox, an illusion. These are not “drawing hands”, but a picture of “drawing hands”. And hands cannot draw each other. Or do they? Furthermore it is a picture within a picture.}

That’s my perspective on relationships: I’m in the process of both drawing something which is drawing me. When I/you relate to something, I/you create (“shape”, or ship) in the same movement, a relationship with my/yourself. So I’m also “drawn” and “drawing” and “being drawn” in the process of drawing. And in doing so, there emerges a (fourth) “thing” I can call “meaning”. In Dutch, the word “drawing” (tekenen) is the same word as “meaning” (betekenis).

{You see [ (:-) ] , I’m drawing – with words – a picture here of both “I” and “U”. Of course, it is a picture of “U” and not you (dear reader). Yet, as you’re reading this – you are relating, creating relationships – you create a picture of “U 2”, and “I” and “U and I”. So you’re both hands too. For practical purposes, we’re not aware of this double interact – off course.

Yet, this “unawareness” is – in my opinion – the source of our (systemic) problems. For instance, the situation with the refugees at the “border” of U-rope has its roots in our “unawareness” of the fact [a word that also means “to create”] that I (relate to) am drawing U and U are drawing (relate to) I. “there are no others, only human beings“. Drawings within drawings, pictures within pictures.}

Meaning, in my opinion, is an emergent quality of relationships. Or, to put it differently, what is being created (“shaped”) emerges from the relationship it-self. So a relationship is also self-referring. Please note the use of “to make” (the Latin facere) and again (“re”) {yes, fact again}. Relationships also recreate “me” {or should this have been “I”?}. We have been trained to ignore, that every relation contains a creator. And this “creator” has to be both “U” and “universal”.

{so from this, it is easy to see how a universal creating [a being I can call creator or g’d or the great drawing drawer [yes, Spinoza’s God. As this being coincides with the meaning and therefor the meaning of life, it explains why it has been written “in the beginning there was logos” (words)”]} is being (re)created from every relationship AND that this creating creates both “I” and “U”. There exists nothing outside creative relationships [facilitating facilitators, pun intended]. I’ve also hinted at a fact [created by me and “I”], that this universe should always be fourfold and that the fourth element – meaning, or fire – cannot exist without the other three [“I”,”U” and US (U and I)], both destroying and recreating “this” full stop.}

Commenting on a Pulse by Ruben van der Laan, it occurred to me, there is a distinction between being in a meeting and having a meeting. In every meeting you attend, you’re having both: you’re having a meeting and are in a meeting. The distinction is subtle and the enigmatic part of “a successful meeting”. It requires a participant (sic) to move between one “part” (having) to another “part” (being). Becoming a facilitator.

People both meet to make sense of their situation and to make sense of the meeting. As a meeting is “a situation” also, the latter classifies the first. You could call the sense making part the “content” (what and how?) and the meeting making part (who and why?) the process. You cannot resolve – to quote Einstein – a problem on the process level through the content. Nor vice versa. A meeting is therefore also a meta-meeting (a meeting about meeting). The latter part often goes unnoticed, AND is the source of difficulties in having a successful meeting. As you do not notice this source, you’re bound to try to “improve” meetings through the what and how, the content. For instance by SMART-goals and better agreements. And reinforcing the stale-mate.

So every meeting also constitutes a pragmatic paradox: there is a social difference between “who is having the meeting”, owning, chairing and “who is in the meeting”, attending, sharing (pun intended). At some point of time, the content part can only be “solved” through the process part. The process part of the meeting (context) becomes the content of the meeting (text). The chair might not notice this and continues pushing the content. Then participants can only “solve” their situation by resisting (escalating), “leaving” the meeting mentally (stagnating) or both. The body is there, but the mind has gone or You check out any time you want, but never leave.

Facilitators have developed a kind of sixth sense to move through these two interlocked parts. They – we – operate at the limes, the border, the edge, moving seamlessness between content and process, to balance between stagnation (“converging”) and escalation (“diverging”), translating the literal into the figures of speak and the figurative into text.

Off course I’m hard to follow. That’s why I’m making a mess of my blogs. For instance, this one is here, on one of my other sites: Faciliteren als Tweede Beroep. I did add a few suggestions.

Last Friday, at a meeting of facilitators called Facilitator INNovation, I introduced a new approach I’m developing for – amongst others – an intake. The approach is based on using LEGO(tm) figures in a constellation, arrangement or system, mixing it with the games or plays of change.

Systemic work
In systemic work, we usually represent a given situation by human beings who “represent” elements of the situation. These representations, take in positions relative (!) to each other. In working with the tensions between the elements and their positions, usually there emerge some possible “outcomes”, which can be explored. A solution is being offered through the system, without an explicit analysis of the situation and without trying to understand (in my opinion, “control”) the given situation. The approach is holistic, mindful, non-dual and based on working within the unknown. Solutions present themselves spontaneously, often more as an insight, a “knowing” or acceptance of “what is”, rather than a concrete action. But often it highly creative solution present themselves.

In family therapy, these are most often family members, represented by “strangers” or “others”, not family members. In organizational settings, we usually represent functions (as opposed to people) and other elements. For instance, a report, a budget, or any other relevant elements. Furthermore, most of the time, we have involved participants, who may be invited to take a stance, take up a position for an element. In complex situations, where a lot of (emotional) resistance is involved, I more than once noticed that participants have difficulties in expressing the position of an element. The emotional or systemic pressure becomes too much too bare. Mind you, this is a subconscious process, and easily denied. It is also not something to be discussed in groups. And, as with an intake, sometimes, we do not have participants present. In these cases, we can use objects, articles or even cards with words. While working with these issue, the thought occurred, that we could use small LEGO figurines, as elements in a constellation.

Using LEGO figures
The use of dolls of figures is not uncommon in situations, requiring mixed emotions, complex causes, and therapy. Even in e-mail, sms and Twitter we regularly use figures to convey emotions: :-(, :-|, 😉 etc. Our ability to project our feelings into them makes them more accessible to us and others. We can safely split off our emotion, thought or intuition, project them into the puppet, (re)search for alternatives and solutions and re-own them. Projection in communication precedes use of words, as every baby knows.

LEGO figures are available with many different bodies, faces and attributes. Although most are male based action figures – police, carpenter, pizza-boy, …., more and more female and fantasy figures are available.

Intake of a meeting
In this experiment, I asked facilitators to represent a situation of an intake for a group meeting. One facilitator brought a case and played the client. Another acted as facilitator in the in-take. I stipulated that a client usually already has an idea of a solution and an appropriate meeting. Also, the client usually feels insecure, is unalble to tell what really is playing and doesn’t want to loose face.

Rules:
The play board consists of four squares or area in four colors: red, blue, yellow and green.
In the center is “the presenting situation”, represented by a white block
First, the facilitator chooses a figure to represent her or him and puts it on the board.
The the facilitator invites the client to choose figures and put them om the board:
– one element representing him as client
– one element representing his of her leader, manager or boss
– several elements representing parts of the relevant groups (this might be from the same type, to make it easier)
– element representing the environment