Facilitation, Objectivity, Worldviews, Innovation and Coping with Complex Problems

It’s tempting to blame this on the facilitators, but with a couple of exceptions the facilitation of these sessions was done brilliantly. It’s equally tempting to blame it on the audience, saying they weren’t the right people, or lacked some of the critical capacities needed by the collective group for breakthrough thinking, or fell victim to groupthink, or weren’t engaged, or lacked energy. Open Space has a rule that “whoever comes are the right people” but also asserts the importance of a well-crafted invitation and getting that invitation out to the people you hope to draw to the event.

So it was interesting to hear Dave Snowden say the other day that self-managed facilitation events like Open Space “punish mavericks” — their ideas are usually too complex or too difficult to grasp or too difficult to articulate clearly, and therefore get ignored or even ridiculed. Could this be the problem with these methods? I’ve had several experiences where the most brilliant ideas I heard at an event were not even recorded in the official or unofficial record of the event. I’ve even used mindmaps, displayed at the front of the event or breakout room, to record what I’ve heard being said, only to be challenged by those who ‘heard’ something completely different.

I’m always surprised at the response to my own ideas at such events. Half the time they are simply not heard, because the group has preconceptions of what the event or outcomes would or should be, and my ideas just didn’t fit with them, and so were considered ‘out of scope’ or even ‘out of order’. The other half the time they are embraced with such zeal (one of my distinctive competencies is my ability to imagine possibilities that others don’t seem to be able to come up with) that I feel guilty for having hijacked the process and ‘bullied’ the group into adopting my solution without thinking it through adequately and without properly making it theirs. This is not a robust innovation process.

Or does the problem perhaps lie in the very nature and premise of facilitation — the belief that the facilitator can really remain objective and avoid steering the supposedly self-managed group in a direction that betrays the facilitator’s bias (or the facilitator’s sponsor’s bias)? Can we really be objective, or does our presence as part of the event inevitably colour it? Just as the observer’s very presence is said to affect quantum outcomes, does the facilitator’s very presence affect the event outcomes? Some of the most popular current research and analysis methodologies stress the importance of being ‘fact-based’ or ‘evidence-based’ — euphemisms for ‘objective’ — but the world’s best researchers will tell you the defining characteristic of world-class research is asking the right (sometimes ‘naive’) questions, and such questions are inevitably provocative and subjective.

There are some (a growing number, it appears) who believe that it is impossible to be objective, and that all news and information is inherently biased, not least by the selection of precisely what information, and details, to report and to not report. George Lakoff’s work tells us that we see and interpret everything through a personal worldview that colours what we accept and how we react to it. Perhaps, these objectivity-deniers might argue, the so-called facilitators should just present their own (or their sponsors’) context and hypotheses, as a ‘straw man’, and let the participants start with those, and alter or challenge them as they deem appropriate.

When I start to ‘redesign’ such methodologies to try to accommodate these objections, the most experienced practitioners tend to shout foul, arguing that these methodologies have been honed to be functional yet as simple as possible from years of practice and experience, and if they don’t work perhaps a different methodology should be used rather than adulterating an established methodology.

But I can’t resist tinkering nevertheless. Here are some early thoughts on things that I think might make a methodology like Open Space work better:

1. In accordance with Snowden’s complexity model, set the initial conditions for the event, and interject attractors (things that encourage certain desired, productive behaviours) and barriers (that discourage other, counterproductive behaviours) at appropriate times to ‘manage’ the initial and emerging direction of the event without interfering with the actual content — the ideas, knowledge, insights, perspectives and intentions that come out. If you’re going to do this, however, you have to, as facilitator, be open to challenges that your initial boundaries and subsequent interventions help rather than hinder the process. So much for the pretence of objectivity.
2. Constantly adjust the balance and volume of critical thinkers versus creative thinkers. The best facilitated events I’ve participated in have got this balance just right, but it’s tough to sustain. Think orchestra conductor rather than improviser — an approach that these days is unfashionable.
3. As a corollary to the above, actively squelch the bullies and manipulators, and draw out the wallflowers. At the same time, when groupthink emerges rather than consensus, call it for what it is.
4. Allow time — set expectations and objectives at a level modest enough that sufficient time is available for new ideas to emerge and be articulated, for people to think and reflect, for new information and ideas to sink in. This is a horrifically difficult task in today’s time-starved attention-deficit society. I don’t know how you solve this — maybe events need to have a series of sessions spread over weeks or months with some momentum-sustaining and reflection and rethinking time in between, to provide enough time for real ideation and understanding and meaningful intention to emerge.
5. Teach participants the capacities they need to be productive participants in this type of event. Ideally in advance, have self-directed learning events and resources available to learn and practice holding oneself open, letting go, brainstorming, creativity, imagination and innovation skills and processes, and consensus-building and conflict resolution. Reinforce this learning by pulling participants clearly lacking these skills aside for some just-in-time one-on-one instruction.

Of course, even if these complications of the facilitator’s role are desirable, there’s a question whether they don’t so complicate that role as torequire a small army of facilitators to manage.

It should be an interesting discussion on Monday and Tuesday. Stay tuned.