What is advanced facilitation?

I have had a number of conversations in the past fortnight about ‘advanced facilitation’.

 

There are some facilitators that believe that having a broader array of tools and techniques makes someone a more advanced facilitator. Having mulled this over, I think there was a stage in my development, as a facilitator, when more tools did help me get better. Awareness of more techniques enabled me to have a greater array of choices, especially when under pressure.

However, if I liken facilitation to cooking, it’s like a cook who keeps buying recipe books and kitchen appliances. Will this make them into a Masterchef? I’m not sure. I think some of the best chefs can make the simplest dish taste great, through their skill in knowing exactly what ingredients to put together, and how to prepare them.

If I think about where I am on my own personal development journey. I think that being ‘advanced’ is about really getting to the bottom of a problem with the group I am working with. It’s about being insightful enough to identify the real causes of conflict; brave enough to confront things that others won’t mention; self aware enough to know my own impact on a group. I sometimes think it is less about being highly trained and more about just getting older:-)!