Roger Schwartz: Roles of Facilitation Roger Schwartz, in The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook, talks about facilitation with several different ranges of differentiation. Definition of a Facilitator First of all, in Chapter 3, he defines a facilitator: "A facilitator is a substantively neutral third party, acceptable to all members of the group, who has no substantive decision-making authority. The facilitator's purpose is to help a group increase its effectiveness by diagnosing and intervening largely on group process and structure." Facilitator Roles In Chapter 3, p. 28 he sets out a continuum of different roles: Facilitator: Helps a group increase its effectiveness by diagnosing and intervening on group process and structure. Process expert, Content neutral Facilitative Consultant: Helps a client make informed decisions by bringing content expertise to the client's particular situation. Process expert, Content expert Facilitative Coach: Helps individuals achieve their goals by helping them learn to rigorously reflect on their behaviour and thinking. Process expert, Involved in content Facilitative Trainer: Helps clients develop knowledge and skills they can apply to real problems or opportunities. Process expert, Content expert Facilitative Leader: Helps groups of which they are the formal leader or a member increase their effectiveness by diagnosing and intervening on group process and structure while contributing their content expertise. Skilled in process, Involved in content He suggests that even if you are always not a substantively neutral third-party facilitator, facilitative skills are essential for working effectively as groups. The facilitator does what he calls "basic facilitation". Developmental Facilitation In Chapter 43, Anne Davidson and Dick McMahon explore Developmental Facilitation. They note that Roger Schwarz's original definition of developmental facilitation in The Skilled Facilitator did not fully capture the range and depth of the concept, and add a new one. p. 339: "Essentially, we see developmental facilitation as facilitation aimed at helping people reflect on and change their behaviour and thinking, including generating deep-level personal and organizational learning. The work is designed to help group members and organizations reflect on and change their mental models and core values. " On p. 340, they lay out a "Developmental Facilitation Continuum". They go on to say that seldom does a client call requesting developmental facilitation, but either they ask for deeper results or realize during a process of basic facilitation that they need to go deeper to solve a problem or have lasting results. They suggest that developmental facilitation requires complex, repeated contracting process, deeper, more time-consuming interventions, clarifying and intervening on organizational values and beliefs, and intervening on organizational defensive routines. From The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook by Roger Schwarz, Anne Davidson, Peg Carlson, Sue McKinney, and Contributors, Jossey-Bass, 2005. |