LARGE GROUP DEVELOPMENTAL FACILITATION FOR SOCIAL IMPACT
We know that we are pretty unusual, some would say weird, in our view that changing how we meet can change the world. Literally! #changehowyoumeetchangetheworld.
However, most people can envisage that the momentum from convening a large group of people can have a significant impact. So, hopefully, you can share our excitement at the prospect of a key meeting for 160 people we are developing for WWF in Cape Town in January. This is the first in a series of articles that will chart our work on this project.
Our initial excitement stems from the social impact we hope to create by combining large group intervention principles & methods with developmental facilitation.
Let’s start by explaining what we mean by this:
LARGE GROUP INTERVENTIONS
The principles of LGIs are rooted in applied behavioural science which looks at organisations as living human systems. This approach to working with large groups is aimed at creating a momentum for change in an organisation by doing real work in a large group of people to co-create a future state.
DEVELOPMENTAL FACILITATION
When a skilled facilitator uses their skills to enable a group to achieve some results, this is known as Basic Facilitation*. The missed opportunity in this approach is that a skilled facilitator’s interventions will be largely invisible to the group and the group will learn very little about themselves from this experience. Developmental Facilitation* prioritises the group learning about themselves through the process of facilitation and therefore has learning as an explicit outcome alongside the work to be done.
AN ALCHEMICAL COMBINATION
When we combine the principles from these two approaches, we develop a large group experience in which:
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This is a vast contrast to the traditional approaches we see in the Town Halls, Kick-Offs and conferences we experience in most organisations. Whilst many people experiment with ways of creating more interaction and engagement in these forums, these experiments rarely challenge some of the fundamental aspects of how organisations engage with large groups of people and what this means for their organisational culture.
Inherent in most traditional large meetings are these ways of working:
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As you can see from the tables above, there is SO much potential to create a significant positive impact in large meetings within organisations if we actively avoid the pitfalls of the traditional approach.
HERE IS THE MAGIC!
The language of collective intelligence and co-creative collaboration are widely talked about in business these days but it takes a specific mindset and a willingness to build the necessary skillset to really leverage this way of working. It also requires the courage to create new ways of working by working in new ways!
In this meeting, WWF has decided to embrace something that embodies all the values that they hold at the core of the work they do in the world in the way that they work internally too. This programme’s agenda and how we’re working together to create it is an example of this commitment. We couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with them in this endeavour.
Part Two will look at how we’ve approached the co-creative design process…
* Definitions coined by Roger M Schwarz, The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches, Third Edition
