Curate Contributions and Share Responsibility (3.2)
- PatriciaKeays
- Jan 1, 2020
- 11 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Shadow Facilitation, Technical Series
Introduction
The tactical series on shadow facilitation covers nine client system pressures that facilitators may experience outside of their formal job descriptions and TORs. Earlier posts covered managing upwards and outwards, navigating organizational options, and helping groups prioritize results over appluase. This post focuses on some of the challenges of curating contributions in support of purpose and sharing responsibility appropriately for event and process success.
Two key client system pressures addressed in this post are process integrity issues relating to pressures on a facilitator to:
Treat all contributions as equal in value: give equal weight regardless of evidence, expertise or alignment with purpose.
Shield organizers from shared responsibilities and accountabliity: allow them to prioritize individual tasks over modelling norms and leading from within.
Introduction
A standard facilitation principle is to ensure that all participants have equal opportunity to participate and contribute.
Without strong process management measures, this principle can subtly expand to take the form of treating all inputs as equal in value, when then are not. Suggested tactics bring substantive judgement and expertise to the consolidation of collective outputs so less valuable contributions are integrated but not given undeserved weight.
Shielding organizers from shared responsibilities is an example of an unexpected shadow facilitation pressure. It relates to the behaviour of lead organizers and co-facilitation team members during an event. Clarifying your expectations and raising capacity to appreciate the importance of full engagement are important to achieve before an event because efforts to address this pressure once an event has started usually fail.
Tactics on curating contributions and sharing responsibility fill the tool kit in this series:
Tactic 27: Separate the right to have a voice and be heard from judgement calls on value.
Tactic 28: Grow what you know about the psychology of hierarchies and apply it to process.
Tactic 29: Confirm that organizers and managers have to engage, be seen to be engaged.
Tactic 30: Maintain your professionalism when you are stretched to the limit by colleagues.
Nuanced facilitation addresses value as well as voice
The primary pressure being addressed through these tactics is to treat all contributions as equal in value: give equal weight regardless of evidence, expertise, or alignment with purpose. Navigating these pressures calls on serious diplomatic skills.
Tactic 27: Separate the right to have a voice and be heard from judgement calls on value.
Treat all inputs as serious contributions to deliberation, even when they are not equal in value. The sifting, consolidation of patterns and application of judgement comes during, managing who gets to speak for how long and in what sequence, and after, in codification.
Facilitators are often described as being “neutral”, not taking a position. Our experience has led to different conclusions. The more you know about the substantive subject matter of a meeting, and the work of the organization, the better able you are to calibrate the value of different inputs. Separating powerful insights from unsubstantiated opinions is not a quality control role that sometimes demands a judgement call beyond surface neutrality.
Not all opinions are equal. Respect and protect each participant’s right to have a voice and be heard. Differentiate that from a commitment to take that input forward into further deliberations or results.
Often, groups calibrate themselves. A person’s left-field input is often addressed by other participants. Give a group opportunities to set its own balance and course. Only intervene if that doesn't work.
Where that doesn’t happen, draw on the recorders and communication / codification team. As they group points to make meaning, consolidate patterns, work with them and lead organizers to create accurate summaries in which off-points are subsumed in broader categories and don’t distort an emerging collective view.
Some contributions may be inaccurate or outdated. Build into the TORs of thematic leads the important role of responding with accurate information “in the moment”, when called on, so that a strong data, knowledge and evidence base is consistently in the group view.
Some contributions may be uniquely specific to one person’s experience. You can validate that experience without needing to place it on the same level as experienced that transfer to a majority of a group.
Sometimes inaccuracies or skewed interpretations surface one day and are not able to be recalibrated. Protect time in the opening of the following day to revisit them, provide updated, checked and validated information. Lead organizers may need to take this on, even if they are reluctant to do so. They sit at the intersection that brings together all of the people and parts of a process. They need to provide the substantive judgement you don’t bring.
Tactic 28: Grow what you know about the psychology of hierarchies and apply it to process.
In hierarchical organizations, tendency is for younger, less experienced, female and less well represented groups to self-censor. They've learned the hard way what prices can be exacted for non-culturally conformist behaviour. In more open contexts, while they may be offered opportunities to contribute, they may not take them.
Keep offering, but don’t push. People engage in different ways.
But the process needs the full diversity that a group brings. When people stay silent, the process is poorer and the results may suffer.
If you’re worried that some perspectives aren’t being shared, meet informally with people. Gently explore how they’re feeling. Be specific. “I’ve noticed that you haven’t contributed yet in plenary exchanges. I’d like to know a little more about how you are feeling.”
Ask if they recognize themselves in the emerging summaries and conclusions. Where? If they feel they are expressing their views, are those being captured and codified?
If not, consider together how that can be addressed. Expand the input mechanisms.
If different participant groups are represented in an event or process, consider inviting one person to be “eyes and ears” for that group. They join the extended facilitation team. Their role is to ensure the group is comfortable in the process and confident that they are recognized in outputs.
Maximize and protect time for smaller group exchanges, table group conversations, triads, dyads, work teams. This excellent practice offers people with different motivations and engagement styles a meaningful place in the process, on their own terms.
Work with the note-taking and codification team before and during a process. Provide guidelines that reinforce the importance of not only recording what senior or dominant people say. Encourage them to use quotations from a cross-section of participants in final reports.
Holding lead organizers and facilitation team members accountable for their share of the heavy lifting
The main client system pressure being addressed comes from within the facilitation lead group, not from outside it. That pressure is to Shield organizers from shared responsibilities, and allow them to prioritize individual tasks over modelling norms in a group setting.
I have not seen this client system pressure mentioned in any facilitation guidebooks. Yet it has caused significant frustration for me, for facilitation colleagues and for participant groups.
Sometimes you won’t be able to avoid it, but you can do your best to minimize and manage it in ways that don’t undermine a process.
Lead organizers, coordinators and facilitation team members cope with competing pressures.
Once an event has started, they may relax right out of it, leaving process management to the facilitator. They may also deal with their individual priorities rather than supporting the process as a facilitation team member.
If people are present, they need to be actively present, not sidetracked, distracted or trying to multi-task. The more support you can get for this principle and practice from your lead organizers and facilitation team members, the more likely that together you will be able to engage participants.
Tactic 29: Confirm that organizers and managers have to engage, and be seen to be engaged.
Some things cannot be outsourced. Occasionally people think that by securing services of a facilitator, their process job is done. They may raise a hand to speak, they may present in a session. But they are blind to the fact that critical co-leadership of a group requires their meaningful engagement in collective work.
Organizers and managers have to be seen by the group to be engaged as well as be engaged.
After some years, co-facilitators and I reached the conclusion that some people suffer from process blindness. It my be unconscious or wilful. They are unaware of the effect their behaviour and actions have on group dynamics and other participants. This is a delicate area for facilitation attention.
In planning meetings, ensure that the topic of the role and behaviour of lead organizers, coordinators and facilitation team members as well as senior leaders is addressed. Make expectations explicit, with examples.
Whatever else they have going on, they need to be present and able to be counted on in the “shadow” part of facilitation, as well as the visible part.
They need to lead from within and behind, distributed through the participant group.
You need them to have their antennae out for changes in mood and engagement, substantive side-tracks, possible spoilers. Perhaps they need to intervene and draw those to the group’s attention in the moment. Later may be too late.
Cover in daily debriefing meetings feedback about observed behaviors and impact, positive and negative. If you notice disruptive behaviour, others will too. Politely decline to accept excuses: I was just: I only had to ...; the boss called.
Establish a norm for the facilitation team members that if they have to go on a device, they take it out of the room. If they need to fight fires, they take the phone call out of the session.
CASE EXAMPLE: In one unhappy experience, the full facilitation team of the organizing entity for a 60 person, multi-cultural, 5-language translated event sat together on one side of a long table stretching the full length of the room. They effectively distanced themselves from the group, rather than joining it, and they maintained that distance for the whole process.
They worked on their own computers, on their own tasks. They occasionally chatted and exchanged papers, while sessions were in progress, presenters were speaking, participants were contributing.
Trying to do it quietly or unobtrusively is a non-starter: it can only be disruptive.
The disruption effect on the wider process was significant, yet the organizers did not seem to notice it. In fact, they contributed to it.
The room layout was already not conducive to group interaction and cohesion. The further disruption of people on the organizing team lowering the process bar was frustrating and disappointing.
In discussions about the pattern, some hidden truths came to light. The end of the budget year was coming up. Reports needed to be filed. They were only able to come to the event if they completed their regular work. So the lead organizers approved the multi-tasking, and did it themselves.
The venue was fully booked. We could not find anywhere else for them to work. On some of the required deliverables, they had to confer with each other.
The experience was painful, with significant gaps in process support. The evaluations reflected a low level of support.
Tactic 30: Maintain your professionalism when you are stretched to the limit by colleagues.
The case example of process blindness was particularly challenging. In constrained circumstances with requirements unknown to you, you may be stuck having to work around a bad set of circumstances. I’m not opposed to “winging it” when circumstances demand it, or to making quick pivots to accommodate the unexpected. I accept that as part of the job. I could not have imagined that so many things could go wrong.
Central to maintaining your professionalism is protecting the participants and the process, even when you cannot rely on your colleagues.
An internal facilitation team had been established, but the main contact was a person new to the organization. One was a manager of a closing project about to leave. The third was an administrative support person.
The person to whom creation of session plans had been delegated did not draft them in time to share with others. We did not know how weak they were until we arrived at the venue.
The venue had been booked late, when few options were available. We weren’t advised that several participants were people living with disabilities who could only attend with full-time aides. One had a large wheelchair that access to the facility did not accommodate: she had to get to the sessions in a freight elevator.
Security to enter the premises was time-consuming and slow. Morning sessions could not start on time because at least a quarter of the participants were stuck in the security lineups.
Copies of the agenda and handouts weren’t delivered on time for distribution.
While others on the facilitation team handled security delays and did their own work, one colleague and I ended up handling the room set up, briefing the translators, managing the registration, and coping with dietary restrictions.
The microphones were fixed to the tables, so it wasn’t possible to stand and face the group with a microphone. I had to either sit at a high table or curl around the microphone stand, neither of which was comfortable or effective.
I expected to be able to rely on the internal facilitation team and could not. I had worked with them before, enjoyably. But because they had to work on other things, they had invited several other people to facilitate break out groups. Those people had not been briefed, and no guidance had been prepared for their sessions.
No flexibility with time was possible because translators were only available on a fixed schedule. Some sessions in break out rooms required people to join over Zoom, but the translation equipment didn’t work in those rooms.
The design included methods that were not possible in the only available rooms. The internal facilitation team members weren’t available for debriefing meetings or to make adjustments. The two other external facilitators, my colleague and I ended up in a bar for two hours one night revising the agenda and plans.
Some key lessons from this experience relate to experience and professionalism.
No matter how experienced, competent and confident you are, no matter how well you try to prepare yourself and a team, sometimes you’ll face challenges that limit what’s possible. They can be humbling as well as instructive.
People you’ve worked well with before may disappoint: circumstances change. The only one who can manage your disappointment is you.
Find allies where you can when you’re struggling. In the case example, the colleagues who co-facilitated were agile, adept, and experienced. Thank goodness they were there!
Keep the participants and their experience in the centre of your focus. That helped put the context frustrations into perspective, in the background.
My professionalism slipped at points in this process. I was short-tempered and brusque with several people. I seemed unable to manage the distraction of the facilitation team members doing their own work: it irritated me throughout.
Events organized too late for adequate preparations may be ones to consider declining.
I liked all of the people involved with organizing this meeting, but previous positive experience caused me to make assumptions that led to double the facilitation work as I had to try to shield organizers from the impact of their own decisions and behaviour.
In conclusion
The nine client system process challenges are not a complete map of the shadow facilitation terrain. Probably you have experienced your own similar or unique pressures, as a facilitator or as a participant. If you’d like to add them to the reference set, please contact us about a guest post.
Some pressures can be planned for, or avoided. Some cannot. Plan for what you can, and aim to be flexible and diplomatic on the ones you experience.
Part four of this series is under development, a TOOL KIT with things that can help navigate shadow facilitation, for example agenda templates with protected time for interactions and exchanges, time cards to support time management, and directions for different techniques described in the shadow facilitation tactical series. If you need some specific related support, please get in touch and we'll share what we have ready.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the blog series. Connect with us at facilitateit.ca for more information about services and resources on facilitation.
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