DYNAMIC FACILITATION: THE THEORY BEHIND IT
The following article best describes the key theories behind the practice of Dynamic Facilitation. It has been adapted from an article Jim Rough wrote in the Journal of Quality and Participation in June of 1997.
Dynamic Facilitation and the Magic of Self-Organizing Change
By Jim Rough
After a college basketball game I spent a few moments with one of the players to help him improve his shot. The player knew that my son had been the national leader in three point shooting the year before and assumed I was a coach.
He asked me to help him and I eagerly accepted. I watched him shoot a few times and mentioned out loud some of what I was noticing. I wasn’t judging him but just trying to help him see what he was doing through new eyes. Each time I said something, though, he asked what he should do differently. I didn’t know exactly, but I knew giving him direction at this stage was not going to help. I asked him to walk far out beyond his range and then shoot. He couldn’t reach the basket from there and looked at me questioningly. “Do whatever it takes to get it there,” I suggested. With resolution and relying on some kind of innate knowledge, he threw the ball toward the bucket. Without my coaching he was heaving the ball in balance and using more of his body - he was in rhythm. Moving closer to the basket he adapted this motion into a new shot and made buckets with far greater accuracy. He said it felt weird but was no longer asking me for direction. Now he was coaching himself, having learned something his body had taught him.
Two Kinds of Change
Many had tried to change his awkward shot before, but direction wasn’t what he needed. Instead I facilitated a process where he brought himself to a new level of capability. A facilitator elicits and sustains this kind of breakthrough process, whether it is in a person, in a group, or in an organization. Rather than trying to explain or teach what is needed, the facilitator attends to the process of change and trusts that things will self-organize.
Examples of such self-organization are:
- Problems being spontaneously solved through new insights...
- Changes of heart where the trust level shifts and adversaries become friends...
- A shift from dependency to empowerment...
- A change of management style, from control to self-management...
- People discovering what they really want instead of what they thought they wanted.
- Type 1: manageable change.
- Type 2: self-organizing change.
Type 1: Manageable change –
This model has been used almost exclusively to explain the universe for hundreds of years. It holds that extrinsic forces, or causes, make change happen. Because of this, change can be predetermined, measured and controlled. This model views the universe as though it is a giant machine following exact laws. Goals can be set and procedures followed to achieve the goals. Ultimately this view means accepting the idea that the universe is predetermined. Our culture views this Newtonian model as truth, common sense.
Type 2: Self-organizing change –
Self-organizing change is more like a garden than a machine. Things are growing all the time by themselves, drawn out by an inner life quest for quality and efficiency. This growth is transformational. “Things” can radically change course or change levels of capability spontaneously. Aspects of life can be designed or managed but fundamentally, life is self-organizing and is not the effect of measurable causes. In this model success is sought in the quality of relationship with nature, not power over it.
The Dynamic Facilitator Focuses on Type 2 Change
My definition of “to facilitate” is “to elicit, sustain, and enhance self-organizing change.” To facilitate a meeting, for example, is to let go of controlling others toward predefined results and to help them accomplish what they want. The dynamic facilitator takes this one step further. Not only does she or he help meeting participants to self-manage but also helps shift the thinking process to be self-organizing. It’s “choice-creating” instead of “decision-making,” where the mind and heart self-organize as well as the results of the meeting. This is what is meant by the word “creative.”
Self-organizing change can be anticipated but not planned. Progress happens through breakthroughs of different kinds. There might be new insights, which is a form of “head creativity,” but often the people involved are changed as well – heart creativity. They might enter the meeting feeling one way and leave feeling the opposite. In a self-organizing dynamic people grow in trust, in their desire for responsibility and in their systems understanding. Thinking based on Type 1 change is transactional and analytical, helping people understand elements within a system. The thinking based on self-organizing change generates awareness of the whole system and ones part in it.
The results of a self-organizing process can seem magical because change happens by itself. The mechanistic paradigm cannot account for this, so when it happens, it is either ignored, or there is a rush to package the methods. For example, if taking basketball players outside their range works with players in general, then it could become an accepted technique to improve a person’s shot. Trainers would then be hired to teach the technique and "facilitators" used to make sure that people did it right. The miracle of self-organization might still be there, but our paradigm would frame it as though the miracle had been explained.
Too many facilitators are driven by techniques. Brainstorming, visioning, the workshop method, Pareto charts, or fish bone diagrams are all valuable techniques that can elicit a self-organizing dynamic in specific situations. Also, packages of techniques can be used. Examples are: Future Search Conferences for large organizations to build a common vision among stakeholders, JAD for systems design, ToP (Technology of Participation™) for working with communities, or Synectics to seek innovations. The facilitator who focuses on the techniques instead of the dynamic process of the group is a static facilitator. A dynamic facilitator is one who, while using many of the same techniques, does so in support of the self-organizing dynamic.
To illustrate the difference let me tell a story. Once while playing tennis with a friend, a young boy ran across the back of our court. My friend and I hardly noticed. When the boy got to the other court, his father stopped playing and animatedly scolded the boy. At this point I became attentive and managed to discern that the father was scolding the boy for crossing behind our court during play. The boy had not been disruptive but the father’s anger and his way of scolding the boy were.
The father was focused on the rules of etiquette, the static process. But in this case his focus worked against the higher purpose of why the rules were there. The rules are intended to support a dynamic of courtesy. A focus on the static process cannot assure the desired dynamic.
Two Paradigms
Both models of change are essential but in people’s mind, one is more fundamental than the other and this hierarchy constitutes a paradigm of thinking. Those in Paradigm 1 see the universe primarily as a place where outside forces make change happen. The universe is comprised of dead matter which can be broken apart into smaller and smaller pieces. It assumes that life and living organisms will eventually be explained in measurable terms.
This paradigm of Newtonian science has been extremely successful for our culture. However, it can also be destructive when we apply it to issues that are living, like educating our children, managing companies, or for running a democracy. For instance, to assume that people always need to be motivated through incentives, rewards, recognition or punishments, is to diminish them.
Paradigm 1 is in real trouble because modern science has shown that it is not accurate. The quantum revolution in physics has made it clear that the universe is fundamentally more alive than dead. As Margaret Wheatley points out in her book, Leadership and the New Science, our view of management just hasn’t quite caught up with these discoveries. Even inanimate objects like tables and rocks are lifelike at the subatomic level. Within them are complex quanta and fields of energy acting indeterminately, in relationship to the whole universe. Current science, in other words, is telling us that the worldview of self-organizing change is more accurate than the worldview of manageable change.
The difference in the two paradigms can be illustrated by how two teachers work with their children.
A Type 1 Classroom:
- All the children are working on their assigned tasks, each kid on the same page of the workbook, everyone facing the front of the room.
- Objective tests measure progress toward learning objectives - there are gold stars on the wall to recognize excellence.
- Order is kept in the classroom and this assures measurable progress as long as the teacher is present and in control. When the teacher leaves the room, this highly organized structure dissipates and chaos reigns.
- The kids are working on projects of interest to them. There is a low level of disorder as the kids get up and move around the room. This is a different kind of order because it is self-ordering.
- This class also uses charts to track progress, but these are primarily for self-assessment.
- When this teacher leaves the room, the kids carry on with their work as they did before. Since they are intrinsically motivated there is nothing to rebel against.
Mixing the two types of change can be dangerous. Many people remember throughout their lives the pain they felt in hearing judgmental words by a kindergarten or preschool teacher when they first tried to write or paint. When Type 2 change is cut short by the application of Paradigm 1 thinking, people can feel hurt and betrayed. Paradigm 1 talks exclusively about the need for goals, roles, action plans and ways to measure progress. The dynamic facilitator, on the other hand, seems to waffle about these essentials. Having them is desirable, but he or she understands how they are not primary and how they can subvert transformational change.
Those in Paradigm 1 can find dynamic facilitation uncomfortable. A basketball coach, for instance, might become alarmed at my way of working with the player on his shot. He could feel threatened saying, “In our basketball program, we start with fundamentals and build up. We can’t have someone telling players to heave the ball in any manner. We want all our players to practice the same approach.” This sounds reasonable. It is Type 1 common sense. Type 2 changes can threaten this perspective.
For a number of years now, I have taught a seminar in Dynamic Facilitation Skills. The essence of the seminar is for people to experience the validity of the self-organizing dynamic and to learn how to facilitate small groups to think in this “choice-creating,” self-organizing manner.
There are maps of how the thinking progresses and milestones that get reached but fundamentally this can never be a static, step by step process. But is a framework to help the facilitator support a natural unfolding of the creative process. The seminar itself must be self-organizing because this is required for people to adopt a new paradigm or to break through to new levels of capability.
Recently after a seminar, one attendee said he was glad he came because he learned a lot of new techniques he could put in his bag of tricks. I was glad to hear he was pleased, but concerned because his words indicated he may have missed a key point. Those who "get " this point say things like “it’s a new level of thinking,” or “it validates something I’ve always known but just didn’t have words for.” To facilitate dynamically means working from Paradigm 2. A focus on the techniques often means a Paradigm 1 perspective.
The Shift to Paradigm #2
Many companies ostensibly seek to achieve the self-organizing dynamic among employees. They claim to want people to be “empowered.” The quality movement in business is an example. But by its nature our system is deeply rooted in Paradigm 1 and resists such a change. So, it is easier and often more appreciated to be a traditional “type 1” facilitator than a “type 2” dynamic facilitator.
Many managers expect that a good meeting will adhere to the principles of managed change, that roles will be clear, techniques planned ahead of time, people will adhere to the agenda, the results will be measurable. They expect the facilitators to act as a "process cop," holding people to predetermined processes and behavioral outcomes.
These skills are secondary, not primary. They cannot be allowed to get in the way of self-organizing processes that build integrity, respect, trust, relationship, fun, quality, creativity and excellence.
The president of one organization understood what was needed but his next level of managers did not. They had been clamoring for a clear definition of roles. They wanted to know exactly what was expected of them so they could excel. The president knew that telling them his ideas would not generate a self-organizing dynamic.
The group was in a confused state until a breakthrough occurred. The breakthrough came in the form of a paradoxical statement: “NEVER DO THE MISSION OF THIS COMPANY.” This statement served as a symbol for them to remember that their job as managers was to help their subordinates do the mission of the company. This statement helped them to transform their management styles from managing to facilitating. No longer did they need or want clear expectations. They were excited about the new feeling of permission and empowerment they felt, to use their own judgment.
This shift in dynamics from Type 1 change to Type 2 can be initiated at the bottom of an organization as well. A group of road crew workers met each week in dynamically facilitated meetings. They worked on their problem of getting adequate help for directing traffic in construction zones.
The county commissioners had told them, to save money, they could not hire full-time flaggers. The road crew looked at their problem creatively and determined that hiring full-time flaggers was ultimately cheaper and would reduce the county’s exposure to lawsuits if there were an accident. All of them met with the county commissioners in a public hearing. Because they had carefully considered all viewpoints and reached unanimity it was clear that this was the responsible choice.
The county commissioners had been making judgments without understanding the situation. Not only was it clear that their position on this matter needed to be reversed, but the group’s work set a precedent. The road crew’s meetings, which were dynamically facilitated, changed the management style of the county in Public Works from top-down to bottom-up.
The corporation has a “bottom line” that is literally the bottom line on a profit and loss statement. It is objective and measurable, a score. Type 1 change can be effective with such a bottom line. But new corporation needed by society cannot have a numerical bottom line. It must dynamically balance service to society, customers, stakeholders, and to the people who comprise the corporation. Measures are still useful in this new environment, but they cannot be paramount. The real bottom line in life is always a heartfelt, creative, inclusive conversation, where the result is that everyone “just knows” what is needed. The road crew’s conversation helped this to happen in county government.
Changing paradigms in any organization is like changing from a hand tool to a power tool. The power tool is easier and far more productive, but it requires a new level of understanding, fuel and maintenance to keep it working: The fuel of self-organization is an ongoing, high quality conversation. Dynamic facilitation is the way this can be assured.
Some Closing Thoughts
Most management literature assumes that the answer to improved performance and value are ever more stringent applications of controlled change, setting clearer objectives and making more accurate measurements. But these answers often block self-organizing change, limit the transformational possibility and undermine the spirit of excellence. Just the language of control can block creativity and the essential new dynamic.
It is not easy to let go of what has worked for so long. Acknowledging the reality of self-organizing change undermines the old paradigm by which we think. But the paradigm shift is happening anyway. Each new crisis requires that we drop the paradigm of control and just do what we can. A general awareness is growing that the self-organizing dynamic not only exists but is primary. Greatness in basketball, companies, or in our lives, necessarily involves facilitating this self-organizing dynamic.
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