The Skilled Facilitator A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Coaches, and Trainers

The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Trainers, and Coaches, Third Edition is a fundamental resource for consultants, facilitators, coaches, trainers, and anyone who helps groups realize their creative and problem-solving potential. This new edition includes updated content based on the latest research and revised models of group effectiveness and mutual learning. Roger M. Schwarz shows how to use the Skilled Facilitator approach to: boost improvement processes such as Six Sigma and Lean, create a psychologically safe learning environment for training, and help coaches work with teams and individuals in real-time. This edition features a new chapter that explains how to facilitate virtual teams using conferencing technology.

Facilitation skills are essential in many kinds of work, and if you are looking to bring your skills up to date it is critical that you rely on trusted information like the knowledge offered in this go-to reference.

• Develop the facilitative mentality and skills that enable you to help groups get better results, even in the most challenging situations
• Help groups achieve greater performances, stronger working relationships, and higher levels of individual well-being
• Quickly develop productive and trusting work relationships with the groups you help
• Establish the functions of your facilitative role
• Implement a research-based, systematic approach to diagnose and intervene in groups and improve their performance and results

The Skilled Facilitator is a practical resource for corporate, government, non-profit, and educational practitioners, as well as graduate students in group-focused programs. This edition contains up-to-date material, based on recent studies, to help facilitators move beyond arbitrary tactics to utilize cutting edge, research-based strategies that improve group processes, relationships, mindsets, and outcomes.

ROGER SCHWARZ is an organizational psychologist and president and CEO of Roger Schwarz & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm that helps teams create fundamental change to get better results. He facilitates leadership teams and teaches, consults, coaches, and speaks on facilitation, leadership, and developing effective teams. He is the author of Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams and The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook, and blogs for Harvard Business Review. Contact him at www.schwarzassociates.com or find him on Twitter @LeadSmarter.

Preface to the Third Edition xvii

What The Skilled Facilitator is About xvii

Who This Book is For xix

How the Book is Organized xix

Features of the Book xxii

What’s Different in the Third Edition xxiii

Part One The Foundation 1

1 The Skilled Facilitator Approach 3

The Need for Group Facilitation 3

Most People Who Need to Facilitate Aren’t Facilitators 3

Is This Book for You? 4

The Skilled Facilitator Approach 8

Experiencing the Skilled Facilitator Approach 10

Making the Skilled Facilitator Approach Your Own 11

Summary 12

2 The Facilitator and Other Facilitative Roles 13

Choosing a Facilitative Role 13

Basic and Developmental Types of Roles 23

Serving in Multiple Facilitative Roles 25

When It’s Appropriate to Leave the Role of Facilitator 25

The Group is Your Client 28

What is Your Responsibility for the Group’s Results? 29

Summary 33

3 How You Think is How You Facilitate: How Unilateral Control Undermines Your Ability to Help Groups 35

How You Think: Your Mindset as an Operating System 36

Two Mindsets: Unilateral Control and Mutual Learning 37

How You Think is Not How You Think You Think 37

The CIO Team Survey Feedback Case 38

The Unilateral Control Approach 41

Values of the Unilateral Control Mindset 41

Assumptions of the Unilateral Control Mindset 45

Unilateral Control Behaviors 46

Results of Unilateral Control 50

Give-Up-Control Approach 55

How Unilateral Control Reinforces Itself 55

How Did We Learn Unilateral Control? 56

Moving from Unilateral Control to Mutual Learning 57

Summary 58

4 Facilitating with the Mutual Learning Approach 59

The Mutual Learning Approach 59

Values of the Mutual Learning Mindset 61

Assumptions of the Mutual Learning Mindset 75

Mutual Learning Behaviors 77

Results of Mutual Learning 80

The Reinforcing Cycles of Mutual Learning 84

Are There Times When Unilateral Control is the Better Approach? 85

Summary 86

5 Eight Behaviors for Mutual Learning 87

Using the Eight Behaviors 87

Behavior 1: State Views and Ask Genuine Questions 89

Behavior 2: Share All Relevant Information 94

Behavior 3: Use Specific Examples and Agree on What Important Words Mean 97

Behavior 4: Explain Reasoning and Intent 99

Behavior 5: Focus on Interests, Not Positions 101

Behavior 6: Test Assumptions and Inferences 103

Behavior 7: Jointly Design Next Steps 114

Behavior 8: Discuss Undiscussable Issues 117

Learning to Use the Behaviors 119

Summary 120

6 Designing and Developing Effective Groups 121

How a Team Effectiveness Model Helps You and the Teams and Groups You Work With 122

The Difference between Teams and Groups—and Why It Matters 122

How Interdependence Affects Your Work with Teams and Groups 127

The Team Effectiveness Model 128

What’s Your Mindset as You Design? 132

Team Structure, Process, and Context 133

Team Structure 134

Team Process 139

Team Context 143

Interorganizational Teams and Groups 150

Helping Design or Redesign a Team or Group 150

Summary 153

Part Two Diagnosing and Intervening with Groups 155

7 Diagnosing and Intervening with Groups 157

What You Need to Diagnose 158

What You Need to Intervene 160

The Mutual Learning Cycle 160

Summary 163

8 How to Diagnose Groups 165

Step 1: Observe Behavior 165

Step 2: Make Meaning 171

Step 3: Choose Whether, Why, and How to Intervene 178

Challenges in Diagnosing Behavior and How to Manage Them 186

Summary 192

9 How to Intervene with Groups 193

Key Elements of the Intervention Steps 193

Using the Mutual Learning Cycle to Intervene: An Example 196

Step 4: Test Observations 198

Step 5: Test Meaning 200

Step 6: Jointly Design Next Steps 203

How to Move through the Intervention Steps 205

Choosing Your Words Carefully 209

Summary 212

10 Diagnosing and Intervening on the Mutual Learning Behaviors 213

How Mutual Learning Behaviors Differ from Many Ground Rules 213

Contracting to Intervene on Mutual Learning Behaviors 214

Intervening on the Mutual Learning Behaviors 218

Behavior 1: State Views and Ask Genuine Questions 220

Behavior 2: Share All Relevant Information 220

Behavior 3: Use Specific Examples and Agree on What Important Words Mean 221

Behavior 4: Explain Reasoning and Intent 222

Behavior 5: Focus on Interests, Not Positions 223

Behavior 6: Test Assumptions and Inferences 225

Behavior 7: Jointly Design Next Steps 227

Behavior 8: Discuss Undiscussable Issues 230

Summary 231

11 Using Mutual Learning to Improve Other Processes and Techniques 233

Using Mutual Learning to Diagnose and Intervene on Other Processes 233

Diagnosing and Intervening When Groups are Using a Process Ineffectively 235

Diagnosing and Intervening on Processes That are Incongruent with Mutual Learning 237

Diagnosing and Intervening on Processes That Espouse Mutual Learning: Lean and Other Continuous Improvement Approaches 244

Summary 246

12 Diagnosing and Intervening on Emotions—The Group’s and Yours 249

The Challenge 249

How People Generate Emotions 250

How Groups Express Emotions 252

Managing Your Own Emotions 254

Deciding How to Intervene 256

Intervening on Emotions 259

Helping People Express Emotions Effectively 259

Helping People Reduce Defensive Thinking 259

Helping the Group Express Positive Emotions 265

When People Get Angry with You 267

Learning from Your Experiences 267

Summary 268

Part Three Agreeing to Work Together 269

13 Contracting: Deciding Whether and How to Work with a Group 271

Why Contract? 272

Five Stages of Contracting 272

Stage 1: Making Initial Contact with a Primary Client Group Member 274

Stage 2: Planning the Facilitation 283

Stage 3: Reaching Agreement with the Entire Group 293

Stage 4: Conducting the Facilitation 295

Stage 5: Completing and Evaluating the Facilitation 295

Summary 297

14 Working with a Partner 299

Deciding Whether to Partner 299

Dividing and Coordinating the Labor 306

Allocating Roles within Your Division of Labor 308

Developing Healthy Boundaries between You and Your Partner 310

Debriefing with Your Partner 314

Summary 314

15 Serving in a Facilitative Role in Your Own Organization 317

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internal Facilitative Role 317

How Your Internal Facilitative Role is Shaped 320

Shaping Your Facilitative Role 321

Changing Your Facilitative Role from the Outside In 329

Summary 330

Part Four Working with Technology 333

16 Using Virtual Meetings 335

Choosing Which Type of Virtual Meeting Technology to Use—If Any 336

The Challenges That Virtual Meetings Create 339

Designing and Facilitating Virtual Meetings to Meet These Challenges 341

Summary 345

Notes 347

Acknowledgments 361

About the Author 363

About Roger Schwarz & Associates’ Work with Clients 365

The Skilled Facilitator Intensive Workshop 367

Index 369

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