Louise Robb Associates Services
Facilitation
What is facilitation? It means working with a client to design a process whereby the delegates can be responsible for the content. During the facilitation, the facilitator is responsible for managing the process, not the content, which remains the focus of the client. The facilitator is also responsible for noticing and reflecting in order to help the delegates through the process, so that delegates are freed up to create their own contribution. The facilitator will also help the delegates create the container – or combination of process and systems - for working behaviours.
Facilitation services also includes the scoping stage, carried out with you, the client, and your people, planning, process, tools and delivery, including the follow-up reports of true facilitation and participatory work. It can be as simple as facilitating one meeting to longer term contracts, facilitating whole projects.
Dialogue and systems thinking work
One of our associates has a special interest in frameworks that support teams in making sense of complex environments and situations. Complex issues (or “wicked problems”) typically ignore management and organisational boundaries and are dynamic with many unknowns and uncertainties. Handling multiple perspectives and ambiguity become key leadership practices and teams often find that different kinds of relating and communicating are required. Systems thinking and dialogic approaches to conversations are two frameworks that can help teams with this kind of transition.
When complexity is present, understanding the issues and taking an exploratory, sharing stance is essential in finding “frames” that reflect the complexity before attempting any resolution or action. Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology can support this process by bringing a rigorous action learning approach to developing multiple models of “the system”. This, in turn, provokes new questions and stimulates new insights. This methodology is best explained and piloted in intensive workshops with participants from the relevant whole system.
Dialogic approaches to conversation are many and varied. What they have in common is a desire to enable conversations where the aim is shared understanding rather than a decision taken, a deal done or a problem solved. Dialogic conversations are often slower, deeper, more attentive. They have space for reflection, for uncovering assumptions, for letting go of positions and preconceptions. They can be quite challenging as people let go of the conversations gambits that have served them all their lives. The development of key practices can increase the likelihood of a conversation being dialogic, in the way that practicing scales and arpeggios supports a musician in playing complex music. Developing skill in the practices takes time and this work demands commitment and sustained application from teams over time.
Talk to us if you wish to investigate more.
What people say.
“The facilitated day was very productive and I feel we are now in a much better position to carry the work forward within Food in Schools. – Senior Health Promotion Officer.
Tool Box
Although we offer a tool box of processes, every client’s situation is unique and no two Core project offers are ever the same.
The tool box used will vary according to the end in mind. The following is a sample of what is currently available:
Systems thinking
Dialogue and focused conversation design – the key step to better staff and client relationships
Visual facilitation
Use of NLP processes
Strategic development
Public Consultation Project Planning
Balanced Scorecard Participatory Appraisal
Meeting Facilitation
Conflict resolution
Emotional Intelligence Questioning processes
Consensus Decision making tools
World Café - a way to facilitate large groups of people to have good conversations
Facilitation Training (See Training page for more)
Louise Robb Associates is licensed to train in the Group Facilitation and Dialogue Methods of the UK’s Institute of Cultural Affairs. We have significant experience in running these, both as open public courses and as specific in-house events, where organizations have identified a need to build capacity in a team quickly and efficiently.
We also deliver and design 2-day workshops in facilitation for project managers, showing how to handle process and behaviours to obtain genuine, significantly improved team results.
What people say:
“An ideal introduction to Facilitation, with Practical, ‘hands-on’ skills gained” Fife Health Promotion Manager
“Anyone would benefit from the knowledge of process- the world’s leaders need this”
“The course demystifies the craft of facilitation: take the course, you will be confident that you can facilitate” HR Director of Scottish Legal Firm
“A very enjoyable, comfortable experience, can be adapted to suit numerous situations” – Practice Nurse, NHS Edinburgh.
A quote from a delegate some months after the workshop. “The most valuable thing I have learned – the more you use it the more you realise its value”