A recent thread on the AFN e-list focused on an "elevator pitch" for facilitators - how do we describe what we do in 60 seconds or less?

The "what do we do" discussion seems to rear its head on the e-list about every 6 months with many people trying to define facilitation by what we do.

I waded into the debate with a comment that it would be more useful to focus on our role and why we exist rather than re-inventing the wheel by trying to come up with a perfect definition of facilitation. There is no perfect definition anyway.

When training facilitators I hand out 5-6 cards with different definitions of facilitation and people discuss which ones resonate most and why.

A good discussion ensues with different perspectives based on people's previous experience of "facilitated" events and different understandings of the role of the facilitator. Facilitation is still developing as a profession so it's not surprising that people are confused about what facilitation is. On the AFN e-list we often see comments that indicate people don't differentiate between facilitative training, chairing an informal meeting or facilitating a deep dialogue event.

People come to our Introduction to Facilitation Workshop wanting to learn the basic skills so that they can be a facilitator (oh if it really was that easy - most of us have been long learning trajectory to be facilitators). They leave saying that the most important thing they learned was an understanding of the role of a facilitator. Once they have grasped the purpose of the job, the skills and knowledge fall into context and learning is accelerated.

"It's not what you do when you're there but what you're there to do."

Years ago, in a previous iteration of our current workshop, I used an acronym to help when training facilitators:

SKAT - standing for Skills, Knowledge, Attitude and Techniques / Tools

Inspired by scat jazz and scat singers who improvised within a theme we would discuss how facilitation requires flexibility within structure. Like jazz musicians, facilitators need a solid basis of theory and knowledge, they need skills and a range of techniques to chose from.

To me the key word within our acronym was Attitude. This goes to the core of the values and beliefs of the facilitator (and of jazz musicians): a mindset of serving the group; the capacity to shift the focus outside from ourselves to others; a high tolerance of ambiguity; suspension of the need to be in charge or always in the spotlight; deep respect for the views of others, and the preparedness to depart from the "script" but still achieve a great outcome. We could all add to this list I'm sure.

And when we discuss attitude, values and beliefs we are talking about a ‘way of being" when with a group. A person can have great discussion leading skills, know lots about group dynamics and have a great facilitation toolkit - and still be a poor facilitator.

If you're interested in the jazz improvisation / facilitator metaphor have a look at the Wikipedia entry of scat.

Facilitation and jazz have a lot in common. It's about a "way of being" when we're working. But if you still need to focus on what we actually do as facilitators then take a look at this small video segment that I use when training facilitators.

"Not everyone can do what we do"