Effective Facilitation Leads with Restraint (Facilitation Friday #6)

One of the core principles of effective facilitation

What if, in terms of long-term facilitation effectiveness, doing less might accomplish more?

Individuals using a facilitative approach provide group process leadership without exclusively taking the reins.  Just as a jockey sparingly uses a riding crop or parents limit their cries of “Because I said so” to influence children’s behavior, effective facilitators save being directive for when a group’s safety or success of depends on the facilitator managing the process much more assertively.

Why Operating with Restraint Matters

Facilitators lead with restraint because when group members do not share ownership of the process, the discussions, or their outcomes, they are less likely to follow through on commitments. As author and organizational development consultant Patrick Lencioni puts it, “Weighing in is a prerequisite for buying in.” 

In many groups, individuals too often fail to acknowledge that ensuring a group’s effectiveness is everyone’s job and instead abdicate their responsibility to the leader or facilitator.  As I like to say, “Anyone can—and everyone should—make facilitative contributions.”

For groups to realize their full potential, every individual must be concerned with the good of the whole and share the responsibility for it.  Facilitating with restraint helps achieve that by cultivating peer-peer accountability and commitment to shared norms or agreements instead of mere compliance with the process and the facilitator.  It is the difference between obeying the speed limit because you fear getting a ticket and committing to it voluntarily because you value human life and safety.

Restraint in Action

For this reason, facilitators and facilitative leaders more often ask rather than tell groups what they need to do and help them decide how to move forward rather than control their movement.  They more often lead with questions that invite others' input rather than directives or declarative statements that only invite compliance.  "Are you ready to move on to the next agenda item?" feels very different to a participant than a facilitator who says, "OK, let's move on now." 

While operating with restraint doesn't require participants' explicit permission for every decision related to group process, it does implicitly acknowledge its value, particularly for the questions that matter most or when it takes little time to do obtain it. Effective facilitators more often propose for group reaction and determination rather than impose by imperial decree.

In his classic work Facilitation, Trevor Bentley notes that facilitators position themselves differently vis-à-vis the group, depending on the situation. We may contribute more assertively from the front during a group’s early stages of development, when participants need to clarify their shared purpose, roles, and responsibilities.  Providing more structure and direction helps group members at this stage connect more to the group’s work and to each other. 

As a group develops and members take more responsibility, the leader or facilitator functions more as a trusted and informed companion, serving alongside the other members. Doing so could be compared to a driving instructor who has access to an emergency brake pedal and also is always prepared to grab the wheel if conditions warrant.

Finally, when a group reaches higher stages of performance, the facilitative leader or facilitator contributes more from behind, posing questions and offering observations that help group members build on their momentum and pursue even higher levels of performance.

A Range of Intervention Options

I deeply believe that effective facilitation helps group participants manage themselves, not do the work that rightfully they should own.  The default setting on our facilitation intervention software is best left at “do nothing” so that we only activate our involvement after considering if we absolutely must.

Of course we often do not do nothing … though it is a viable option some facilitators may wish to consider more regularly. Doing nothing allows time for group members to reflect on what is occurring, come to the realization that a facilitative contribution would be helpful, and potentially do something themselves.

In Facilitation, Bentley outlines a range of facilitator interventions from gentle and supportive to directive and forceful with persuasive options residing in between.

Gentle

Doing nothing, silence, support, questions to clarify

Persuasive

Questions to change, questions to move, suggesting choices, suggesting paths, suggesting ideas, suggesting action

Directive

Guidance, choosing for group, directing

Bentley notes that his choice of intervention is “entirely based on what I think will help the group get to where it wants to be.”

Choosing to Intervene Checklist

When I decide I need to do something I first try to answer these three questions:

1. What is the gentlest or most restrained option available to accomplish the desired results?

2. Is my choice the one most aligned with the values I am trying to model in my facilitation?

3. What might be the consequences if I act as I intend, and how would I manage them?  This question essentially helps m do a “pre-mortem” anticipatory analysis of my intervention.

As facilitators we should choose persuasive or directive interventions if we believe that will serve the group best.  But I think we should also later reflect on those moments (post-mortem) and try to identify what preparatory work with the group might have reduced the need for us to exercise less restraint.  We also should consider what processes could be introduced into how a group operates to help minimize the need for any one person to “grab the reins or use the riding crop” to keep the group on track.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not recommending a completely hands-off, laissez-faire approach to facilitation … nor does Bentley in Facilitation. What I do advocate is that we think more carefully about the options available to us and act with greater care and restraint when we feel the need to intervene.

Bottom Line

Intervening as a facilitator generally is a weighted contribution. Just like weighted exam questions, our interventions can carry more force or perceived validity and have a disproportionate impact on a group taking responsibility for itself.  This is particularly true if participants perceive you as not neutral or having personal or positional power over them.   The goal of facilitating with restraint is to build the competence, confidence, and capacity of individuals and groups to be better and do better on their own … now and in the future.

Getting in Action

1. Some groups easily acquiesce to (or may even prefer) more directive facilitation, allowing the facilitator to assume more responsibility for what happens in a meeting or workshop.  What prep work might you do with a group if you want to avoid this from occurring?

2. In what settings or with what people do you find yourself facilitating with less restraint and more assertively managing group process?  Why might this occur, and what can you learn from these tendencies?

3. If group members do not adequately own the process, rather than becoming more directive and telling them what to do, what questions could you pose to help surface why they might lack ownership and what needs to change for that to increase?

4. How might you strengthen your real-time self-awareness when facilitating to ensure you act with your desired level of restraint?

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