i-Facilitation or Open Source? Why facilitators should give learning away

-->

At a recent gathering of facilitators organized by AMED and the IAF I found myself thinking comparatively deeply. The cause of this creative thinking was a question:

“What are the challenges of building learning capacity in our clients teams and organizations for our profession (facilitators)?”

It took me a little while to understand the question. The challenge seemed to be whether or not facilitators should make themselves redundant by helping their clients to become more effective.

Facilitation to what end?

Idealist that I am, my immediate reaction was to blurt out that people who facilitate learning teams have a duty to develop people, teams and organisations. This line of thinking led me to more questions. What are my principles and values as a facilitator? Why do I facilitate? To what end?

Sustainability or dependency

My work as a facilitator is mainly about building leadership capacity in the context of sustainable development and climate change. If I believe that people are the key to creating a more equitable and sustainable world, then I must be happy when people learn how to do things without me. My approach to learning and leadership is best summed up by a quote from Lao Tse.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

When I am working with groups I want them to take stuff away and to feel confident enough to use whatever they have found useful. When someone tells me they have used a tool that I taught them and it worked I am delighted. My aim is to get myself out of the way so that people can get on and change the world. Do I want to encourage dependency? Certainly not.

i-Facilitation or open source?

I remember years ago when I worked as a trainer for a charity, quite often our participants would ask for copies of training exercises. This caused a certain amount of angst in the office where I worked. Should we be giving away materials that had been developed for the charity? Were we doing ourselves out of a job?

The discussion at the AMED / IAF workshop made me think about different business models. Something I had read in a biography of Steve Jobs seemed relevant. Steve Jobs had vision of a walled garden where people bought products curated by Apple. Eventually this became i-tunes. What kind of garden do we want to have as facilitators? Closed or open source? Is it realistic to think that we can stop people from using our tools and models unless they pay a subscription to access to our (metaphorical) platform?

 What goes around comes around

I strongly believe that the more you give away, the more you will get back. If someone asks me for a concept or a training tool I am happy to share it. First of all I am pleased to be asked. Probably this means that they found it useful. Secondly, they most likely see an opportunity to use my materials to help their work with another group.  

The fact is most trainers and facilitators use concepts and models that have been developed by someone else. Few of us are so creative that we ‘own’ all our materials. If we want to build a more equitable society, the answer to the question posed at the workshop is a no-brainer. Give it away!

Take a break: get a new perspective

I’ve just had the most wonderful experience walking with a friend in Torridon, North West Scotland. Only a week ago, we were taking in the beauty of the Cairngorm valley from the window of the Caledonian Sleeper: snow-capped mountains in the distance, stations built like Victorian hunting lodges, silver birch and Dulux white snowdrops growing by the line. Despite the inspiring view, I was worrying about work. Was there anything I had not done that I should have done? Were there things I had done that I should not have done? Even though I slept soundly on the train, I could still feel the ties that bind me to work.

The power of time, distance and novelty 

Removing myself from a situation and waking up in a totally different environment can help to reduce my killer sense of responsibility for everything. After a cooked breakfast at the station hotel, I felt the ties weakening. Maybe it was admiring the grand hotel staircase that is the original of the one in The Titanic. Probably it was the black pudding that helped most. Meeting the owl from the Harry Potter films outside Inverness M & S was magical. With one eye closed and one eye open, she turned her head from side to side like a clockwork toy. I couldn’t help noticing that the owl’s keeper looked very like an owl himself, with his owlish glasses and long snowy white hair. Time, distance and novelty all helped to make me feel less responsible for everything.

Take a SMART challenge

Walking in Torridon for the first time helped me to focus on a practical and immediate goal: getting to Coire Mhic Fhearchair and back safely. Unlike my never ending ‘to do’ list at work, a guided hill walk is a SMART challenge. You know where you are going (specific) and how far you will have to walk (measurable). By turning up you agree (agreed) to the route.  Your guide has assessed your fitness for the walk (realistic) and you know roughly how long the walk will take (timebound). Ryan, our guide, showed us the remains of a Lancaster bomber that crashed in Coire Mhic Fhearchair in 1951. He had recently taken part in a ceremony to mark the 60^th anniversary of the crash. Someone had cut the wreath from the skeletal wing of the plane.

The Importance of Treats

When you have walked to one of the most beautiful places in the world, it’s quite all right to stop for tea and scones. A gin martini can add value to the view from the hotel of the loch and the mountains. It would be impolite not to drink local beer and eat haggis with 2 GPs, an anaethetist, and an accountant in the bar. Talking nonsense to strangers is a good way to see how far you can reinvent yourself. Losing (respectably) at the pub quiz is part of the fun.

Cathedrals in the sky

The hills of Torridon look as if Andy Goldsworthy has arranged them. They guard the entrances to valleys like sphinxes. They change colour in the evening sun. Scottish hills are a bit of a tease. Sometimes they hide in the clouds. Just when you have forgotten about his existence, Ben Eighe will reappear. Several walkers in our group said that being in the mountains gives them a sense of humility. Ryan McLean, our mountain guide, has lived in Torridon all his life. When challenged by the local minister to come to church, Ryan told him that walking in the mountains is his equivalent of going to church. Seeing the mountains through Ryan’s eyes made me question why I live in London. If you want a different perspective, try going for a walk in the hills of Torridon. 

http://www.thetorridon.com/inn/

Writing proposals: make it easy on yourself II

Part Two

What do you need to write a proposal the easy way?

Start with your objectives: It’s easy to write the paragraph about your organisation and what it does. This is the equivalent of picking the chocolate chips off the cookie. What you need to do first is write the aims and objectives. This will give you a framework for your proposal and some boundaries. If something is not covered by your objectives, don’t waste space writing about it. Or review your objectives if you think they do not cover what you want to achieve. Then describe what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and what the impact will be. When you have done all that you will be able to write an elegant proposal summary that will knock the assessors’ socks off.

Ask for feedback Ask your colleagues (Nina in my case), to read what you have written and to edit what you have written. Unless you have a particular reason for writing something in a particular way, accept the changes immediately. Nina looked surprised when I said I liked her changes to my text. Note to self: I must work harder at listening to feedback.

Lay in provisions: Just before we started to write Nina asked me if I would like anything to eat. She brought me a tasty box of baklava. ‘Honey is good for energy’, said Nina, and she was right.

Be realistic:  At 10.00 pm I said to Nina “Please read what I have written so far. If you really don’t like it, let’s give up now and have a beer”. Nina said she liked it. We decided to give it another two hours. Supposing Nina had not liked what I had written then I think I hope I would have had the good sense to say let’s stop because we don’t have time to make it better. Martyrdom when writing proposals is not required.

Take breaks: After a while Nina’s eyes hurt and my back ached. We got up, walked around. I made a cup of tea, Nina had a smoke. Each to her/his own.

Stay focused: Decide the order of the tasks and keep going. When I was worrying about not having the specified number of words for a section, Nina said wisely: “Better to have quality than padding”.

Tell each other what you enjoyed

At close to midnight Nina and were alive and fully functioning. I could not believe the energy we had created just by collaborating on something we both cared about. We told each other how much we had enjoyed working together. We sent each other e-mails congratulating ourselves on our achievement. We swopped texts till the early morning.

Can you fall in love with someone while writing a proposal in an office late at night? I bet it happens all the time...They should make a film about that, maybe Brad Pitt and Angela Jolie could play the hero and heroine...