DYNAMIC FACILITATION... WHAT IS IT?

Although we’ve been teaching Dynamic Facilitation since 1990, it is still relatively new. It’s a social and organizational innovation that is beginning to take off! Dynamic Facilitation is a way to assure that time-constrained managers, ordinary citizens in public meetings, conflicted employees in team meetings, or family members can speak their minds and hearts in a meeting, without being specially trained, and have it work out great. The dynamic facilitator structures the flow of conversation so each comment becomes an asset to the group, building shifts and breakthroughs. With Dynamic Facilitation skills you empower people to solve impossible-to-solve issues because you bring out a quality of thinking where they are creative and extraordinary.

The dynamic facilitator establishes a “zone” of thinking and talking known as “Choice-Creating” where shifts and breakthroughs are normal. It is like when people face a collective challenge and pull together to creatively overcome it. Sometimes these shifts take the form of new ideas, other times they bring a new sense of what the “real problem” is, and other times there is a change of heart.

Some Benefits of Dynamic Facilitation

  • Meetings arrive at better solutions to problems, faster and with more consensus
  • Groups achieve breakthroughs on impossible-to-solve issues
  • People determine and resolve what’s really on their minds
  • The process builds trust, respect, and the spirit of community
  • Everyone is engaged, enthused, and committed to the results
  • People grow in personal creativity and capability
  • Groups can access their broadest range of capability...
Levels of Thinking

How is Dynamic Facilitation different?

Rather than seeking to manage change, the dynamic facilitator elicits, sustains, and enhances the self-organizing dynamic of change. He or she helps people figure out what they want and get it themselves.

The dynamic facilitator works more completely with self-organizing change than a traditional facilitator. The traditional facilitator uses methods of control to manage how people think, talk, and decide. They aim toward managing problems by breaking big issues into smaller ones, following an agenda or logical steps, and tracking progress toward predetermined goals. This approach works well for smaller, unemotional issues, but is less effective for the big messy ones. It aims to minimize what might go wrong.

The dynamic facilitator elicits a self-organizing dynamic both in what people talk about and how they talk. He or she follows group energy as being more important than any preset agenda, expecting progress to happen in “shifts” of insight, feeling, and awareness. This process builds trust and new capabilities via a more heartfelt, creative thinking process known as “Choice-creating”. This approach maximizes what might go right instead of minimizing what might go wrong.

Download a chart comparing Dynamic Facilitation with Traditional Facilitation: Chart DF vs TF

How Dynamic Facilitation works…

The dynamic facilitator helps people to determine an issue they care about deeply. Then he or she helps them to be authentic, speaking their minds and hearts. Normally, this causes problems because others can take offense, but the dynamic facilitator assures that each comment is appreciated, using four lists:

  • Solutions
  • Concerns
  • Data
  • Problem Statements

The high-quality dialogue that results yields spontaneous conclusions, which are placed on a fifth list: Outcomes.

When to apply Dynamic Facilitation…

Dynamic Facilitation is appropriate to:

  • RESOLVE BIG ISSUES – dealing with difficult times, crises, or “impossible” problems; strategic planning; sparking a leap forward; or visioning.
  • BUILD COMMUNITY – to generate a sense of respect, resolve conflict, build trust, develop shared values, and the spirit of working together.
  • ASSURE EXCELLENCE – When new levels of organizational capability, where the ultimate product or service is extraordinary.
  • BUILD A CIRCLE CULTURE – to shift the organizational system where the ultimate process of making decisions is collaborative and respectful.
  • DEVELOP PEOPLE - For coaching, managing, training, and personal development experiences where people awaken to new levels of empowerment.
  • IMPROVE ORDINARY MEETINGS – For making small group decisions, planning, presentations, and problem-solving.

Traditional meetings encourage transactional conversations rather than transformational conversations.

In your next meeting notice…

  • Are people afraid to say what they really think? Do they hold back?
  • Is the group caught in an agenda of minor topics? Or, over-analyzing?
  • Are people trying to persuade others? Arguing? Or, just tight-lipped?
  • Do people leave the meeting thinking it was a waste of time?

If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, learn more about Dynamic Facilitation.