Dear Reader

Facilitating groups is a tough gig, tougher than most people realise.

Teachers know this – they know the challenge of finding that delicate balance of tracking and attending to multiple individual needs, relational challenges, and the group atmosphere.

Do other folks appreciate it? Sometimes yes, often no. One of the challenges of facilitation is that if you’re doing a great job, people won’t notice because it just flows!

When you’re facilitating – it's easy to get overwhelmed – so many bits of information flying around, people’s agendas, the group’s purpose, tasks to get done, decisions to be negotiated, little relationship niggles and power dynamics. In a knot of all these threads, facilitators often come to us with the question – which thread to pull on?

To answer this question we commonly look for steps – a step-by-step facilitation sequence to follow that goes in a nice, straight, predictable line. It feels so wonderful when you find a model or sequence to follow because it relieves feelings of overwhelm and doubts about your own capability and competency. Many facilitation models give sequences or steps to follow, which is great when your group aligns with the model those steps were designed for, but most of the time they don’t. And when the group doesn’t follow the steps, if the facilitator has only got those steps, they can get confused, controlling, self-critical etc: not nice for anyone and certainly not productive.

Facilitators who cling to a set model can never serve their group entirely. The thread analogy is also apt because it speaks to the whole of the weaving – of things going in and out and roundabout (and rarely linear).

The Process Work methodology has been tried and tested on thousands of groups across the world. Thousands of woven threads forming different arrangements in different environments. There is no one picture. There is no one right way. It's evolved over time and by its own nature, will always be evolving. And that’s its strength. The beauty of the Process Work facilitation methodology is that the steps are always related specifically to your group’s signals. It transcends group ‘type’.

So, the first opportunity to hone your skills at knowing which thread to pull on in any given moment, in any group, is to start by getting rigorous not about the steps but about the signals. Become a signal tracker.

When we let go of steps and instead focus on signals – it centres and attunes us to the group, rather than the methodology.

It also relieves the facilitator of some self-judgement because focusing on signals and exploring their meaning in this context with the group becomes a shared endeavour, not a responsibility the facilitator has to shoulder alone. Following the emergent means we can accept that we don’t know what’s coming. It's no longer something for the facilitator to solve or magic away, it becomes something we can get curious about and lean into together.

So what’s a signal? A signal is simply a piece of information communicated in a group (with intention or without). Unintended signals are the ones to watch out for because their meaning is usually not yet known. An example of an unintended signal might be fidgeting or particularly strong laughter after a comment. To track or spot unintended signals in a group try looking out for signals that:

• have some energy
• don’t quite go with the stated/overt intentions
• feel a bit off
• don’t gel
• or disturb the group.

The answer to which thread totally depends on the context and the meaning the signals have in the group. In our Facilitation Masterclass Series, we take you through five key areas of facilitation that support you to understand and work with signals in a group – using innerwork, working with roles, working with edges, negotiating agreement, and working with power dynamics.

Once you can track signals, then you can make interventions by following the feedback of the group. The feedback becomes your compass, relieving you of having to ‘know the answers’ (always a trap!).

The Facilitation Masterclass Series teaches you rich and nuanced signal work, giving you specific content to keep working with for years to come. And because we recognise that the facilitator is also part of the group system, the training develops your own specific and unique facilitation style and practice, building on your strengths and what you have to offer. Here’s what alumni are saying:

If you want to join the hundreds of facilitators who have benefited from this training series, grab your spot in the next cohort beginning on 26 March. Places are limited to keep the learning individually relevant to everyone who attends.

warmly

ANZPOP