Organizations are made up of people, processes and technology. Collectively these capabilities produce products and services for customers and consumers—fulfilling Missions and achieving Visions shaped by the Principals and Values of organizations. This basic concept applies to all organizations whether they are for-profit, not-for-profit, or any Governmental agency, regardless of the nature of the industry.

Typically all organizations are constantly improving their ways of working, developing strategic and tactical solutions, innovating for viability and competitiveness, and solving problems to meet shifting challenges and competing priorities. Organizations also address their Human Capital needs. “Human capital‘ refers to the skills, education, health, and training of an organization’s employees because these skills and capabilities make organizations successful. To enhance human capital, organizations provide learning opportunities to their employees through transfer of knowledge and training in relevant skills and competencies required for their work assignments. To successfully achieve work outcomes, people—employees and other stakeholders—need to have productive meetings, dialogue, and debate on differing points of view. They must challenge assumptions and priorities to establish an effective direction for action. Employees also need to learn optimal ways of cooperation and collaboration across functional and business unit boundaries to ensure their organizations have the best possible capability to shape strategies and then execute them through programs and processes.

The larger the organization, the more complex are the decision making processes—particularly in today’s hyper-competitive and global work environment. It is imperative that effective strategies, solutions, programs, processes, learning needs and teams are aligned to the strategic intent of organizations before valuable resources are committed to action. This alignment is achieved through a process of Facilitation.

The art and craft of enabling individuals and groups to discuss issues and opportunities around a shared objective and develop agreed strategies for a common direction is generally referred to as Facilitation. In addition to meetings, Facilitation also includes enabling people to learn through transfer of knowledge and training in specific skills by a subject matter expert. The person or persons skilled in facilitation are called Facilitators. The method for creating agendas, conducting research, and facilitating sessions to deliver planned outputs and outcomes is referred to as the Facilitation Process.

The Facilitation Process uses a variety of frameworks, methods, techniques, and tools. Skilled facilitators use a combination of these tools along with several other methods that include managing group dynamics, managing the time and process, and leading the sessions to successful conclusions. Some of these tools are general in nature and may be used around any topic such as Icebreakers used for meetings. There are also techniques and tools specific to professional practices such as Stakeholder Analysis used for improving products and services in an organization. Facilitators possess a set of specific training tools for their subject matter to ensure the knowledge transfer is effective.

In some large organizations, facilitators are provided by Human Resource functions, Learning and Development Departments, and other functional areas around specialized Centers of Excellence. In some organizations, however, all line and senior managers are expected to have facilitation skills. Facilitating is a Role, and typically not a job title. Organizations that define and nurture facilitation as one of the core competencies for their managers have both improved and sustainable outcomes in their initiatives and solutions, and developed employees’ leadership attributes. To run and win a race, the horse needs a skilled jockey. Facilitators are the organizational “jockeys” that lead the “race horses”—the work groups—to optimize their success.

Individuals who, whether by accident or design, learn about the facilitation discipline and develop a taste and passion for this unique competency by learning and application, broaden their capabilities beyond their normal functional roles. Good facilitators become more visible and are in demand. This opens up many opportunities for professional and personal advancement in addition to self-fulfillment because of the satisfaction of leading groups to their desired outcomes. Organizations employ facilitators either as internal consultants or from the outside as free agents or consultants. Their skills are similar and complementary. In today’s dynamically changing market and business environment, a skilled facilitator enjoys great flexibility, whether working within organizations or working outside organizations as true free agents.

In the art of facilitation, 50 percent of success is preparation, preparation, preparation and the other 50 percent is “theatrics” (keeping work groups engaged, energized and focused on the topic at hand while “entertaining” them with relevant stories, metaphors, exercises, and good humor). Good facilitators are in the “entertainment business.” The more they practice the more they enjoy this very rewarding discipline, which opens up many windows of opportunities outside of their routine roles that they would have not imagined. The role of a facilitator is truly transferable, regardless of the industry and the nature of the organization. While most organizations do not define facilitation as a core competency for their employees, they use this practice extensively but informally at varying levels of the organization.

The role of facilitation in workplaces has existed since humans began collaborating on their tribal and village resources to provide for their families and protect their interests for survival. As villages formed chiefdoms, then states, and then countries, the role of “facilitation” continued to mature in politics and commerce and the wellbeing of people. Embassies play such a role on behalf of their countries in foreign lands and the United Nations organization plays that role among its member nations. Thus, the role of facilitation can have numerous forms and dimensions. In this book, the focus is on workplace facilitation, which includes all three types of facilitator roles performed by knowledge workers, managers, and executives: Group Facilitator, Learning Facilitator, and Facilitative Leader. Knowledge worker refers to an employee whose job involves use of information and knowledge rather than manually producing goods and services. While there are some unique aspects of the use of the techniques and tools in the above mentioned three role types, the overarching principles, practices and tools used by these roles are very similar. The scope of this book covers all three types in an amalgamated way—as a unified, complete Facilitator Role—rather than segmenting each one separately.

Gary Rush, one of the gurus in facilitation, provides a historic perspective: In the context of organizational workplace, the role of Facilitator is referred to as “Session Leader,” “Group Leader,” “Process Leader,” and so on. As late as the 1990s, facilitation was not even considered a formal competency by organizations. 1n the 1980s, with the increased demand for information technology training, the need for facilitation began to take shape in the form of “facilitated workshops.” This concept started to take hold in various other aspects of the organization such as strategic planning, problem solving and innovation. Some organizations created the role of facilitator as part of human resource functions. Since 2000, the role of the facilitator has become main stream due the realization that good facilitation provides exceptional value for businesses to expedite their projects to gain competitive advantage and productivity that significantly contributes to their bottom lines.

It is hoped that through awareness of the value of facilitation, organizations will incorporate the role of a facilitator as one of the core competencies required of knowledge workers, including individual contributors and managers at all levels. Furthermore, it is my hope that universities and learning institutions will offer facilitation courses to students as a practical skill to better prepare them for their development and success in the workplace.

This book is based on my personal experience of learning about facilitation and then embarking on a passionate journey to become a dynamic and accomplished facilitator, both inside an organization and later as a consultant/free agent. I have outlined practical and proven techniques and ready-to-use templates and checklists for immediate use. The facilitation know-how in the book is described in an easy to understand format and is guaranteed to enhance the capability of any manager or professional in any industry and at any level of the organization. This book provides the building blocks for effective facilitation practice to enable individuals to be successful in delivering superior results and advancing in their careers while adding unique value to organizational initiatives and decision making.

Enjoy your facilitation journey!

Best wishes,

“Artie” Arjit Singh Mahal