Facilitation and change: What are you actually trying to shift?
- Jan 7
- 5 min read
Introduction
A facilitator is often thought of as a moderator or process manager rather than a change agent. But the relationship between facilitation and change raises a more fundamental question: why are you facilitating?
If you’re not facilitating to support a change, you may be moving pieces around without a strong purpose—or, in emergencies, helping rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
This post explores the relationship between facilitation and change and invites reflection on what you are actually trying to shift when you design and lead a process.
“What will be different when this concludes successfully?”
In an interview for a training and facilitation role, I asked the panel a simple question:
“What will be different when this is over?” Later, the project manager told me that question was one of the reasons they hired me. They realized they couldn’t answer it and hadn’t thought enough about it.
Asking What will be different? cuts through lofty language about values, vision, goals, and objectives and forces attention onto the specifics of change. It links the current situation with a desired future and brings the distance between the two into focus.
William Blake wrote, “He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer.”
Unless facilitators can help clients articulate those minute particulars, the processes they support may struggle to achieve their intent.
Change needs a destination
Kurt Lewin famously said, “If you truly want to understand something, try to change it.” His force-field analysis begins by identifying a clear change goal, then examining the forces working for and against it as a step toward action planning.
One strength of this approach is that it keeps attention on change as the purpose of collective work. Another is that it treats change as something people do together, not something imposed or analyzed endlessly from the sidelines.
Trying to diagnose what’s wrong without anchoring that analysis in a serious plan for change often leads to a spiral of complaint that goes nowhere.
For facilitators, this suggests a simple discipline: set a change goal for every process or event, even when change is not explicitly named. This sharpens design choices, helps participants understand why their time and energy matter, and builds confidence that the work has purpose.
When change is explicit, people often have plenty to say about what’s wrong and far fewer ideas about what to do. Structured approaches can help move groups from frustration and complaint to purposeful action.
When change is not explicit, holding a change goal in the background helps you respond to the inevitable “So what?” and “Now what?” questions, reinforcing that the process is going somewhere meaningful.
Change, loss, and resistance: why people push back
Herman Hesse wrote, “What we can and should change is ourselves…” Yet many of us are far more comfortable imagining the changes others need to make.
Bill Watterson captured this perfectly in Calvin & Hobbes. Calvin announces, “I love change!” Hobbes replies, “You had a fit this morning when your mother didn’t have peanut butter for your toast.” After a pause, Calvin clarifies: “I love making other people change.”
Don’t we all? But because most change is dynamic and relational, it asks something of everyone involved.
People often resist change not because they are irrational or obstructive, but because change brings loss and people fear loss. Attachments to familiar ways of working can be strong, especially when familiarity is accompanied by a sense of ownership or competence.
Adaptive leadership frames one of the central tasks of leadership as helping people cope with loss. This is where facilitation and leadership intersect. Meaningful change rarely produces tidy “win-win” outcomes. As Marty Linsky once put it, “When I hear ‘win-win,’ I know nothing is going to change.”
Understanding what matters most to people, and what they may feel they are giving up, is essential to navigating change effectively and responsibly. Assume you don't know and take time to explore individual starting points.
Managing pushback in group settings
Facilitators, managers, and leaders are often challenged by the behaviour of a few individuals whose negativity or dominance can shape an entire group’s climate. Criticism and complaint can be contagious.
Preparation matters.
Good design choices can reduce opportunities for individuals to dominate and increase shared ownership of both process and outcomes. Design sessions for full engagement and participation, use mixed formats, and manage seating carefully and thoughtfully.
Be ready to intervene in the moment.
Set and consistently uphold process norms. Use breaks for quiet, respectful conversations. Be specific about observed behaviours, their impact, and what is needed instead.
These are not control tactics or power plays. They are ways of protecting a group’s capacity to do meaningful work.
A reality check: behaviour change comes before attitude change
I learned early in my adult education training that change in attitudes follows change in behaviour, not the other way around. It took years of practice to fully absorb that lesson. People rarely change deeply held attitudes because they were lectured, trained, or presented with better data. A friend of mine once said, "Near death experiences are the only things that really change people, in big ways." Changes in attitudes and norms often require big change, though no responsible manager will choose near-death experiences as an approach. The alternative of training is often a weak tool for shifting norms.
My clearest lessons came from years of work on gender equality. Despite good intentions, clear policy and strong evidence, results were mixed. Over time, many organizations reached the same conclusion I did: if you want people to change, be explicit about the behaviours required and support people to meet those standards.
This means embedding expectations in job descriptions, performance reviews, and everyday practices, rather than treating values/attitudes and behaviour/performance as separate domains.
A small story of change
After running a workshop on gender and development in my community, I later received a call from a board member. A central part of the analytical framework identifies three main types of resources: money, power, and time. While money and power are well known, considering time as a resource is less common and particularly relevant for women.
She described driving her children to activities, feeling stressed about the work she had interrupted, while listening to complaints from the back seat. She pulled over, turned off the engine, and said: “You’re not treating my time as a resource. From now on, you will. I’ll give you bus fare and you can get to your own activities. My time is my resource, not yours to take for granted.”
Nothing about that moment was abstract. It was a recalibration of value, made real through action.
Change becomes meaningful when ideas translate into specific behaviours and when people experience those shifts in everyday life.
Insights for facilitators
Facilitators are often trained to be “neutral.” In practice, facilitation is never entirely neutral. The processes we design, the questions we ask, and the guidance we provide shape what kinds of change are possible.
Clarity can be contagious. So can confusion.
Sometimes our role is closer to a traffic controller, helping conversations flow smoothly. At other times, we have an opportunity and responsibility to pay closer attention to purpose and potential for change.
Being clear about what you are trying to shift, and about the losses change may bring, strengthens your practice. It helps you navigate resistance, mobilize support, and assess whether your work is making a difference.
If our individual and collective efforts leave no mark—if they contribute nothing to meaningful change—why would we choose to do this work?
Professional facilitation requires us to ask that question regularly and to stay honest about the answers. If we are confident that we are making a difference, what are the “minute particulars” of it, and how can we be more effective? If we are not making a difference, can we redirect our capacity toward some of the realities that cry out for change?
