facilitation & process, LLC » community of practice

Facilitating for Organizational Learning

mark — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:59:01 +0000

I have organized my facilitation practice around a range of practice foundations, which helps as I work with potential clients. In recently discussing a potential large-scale facilitation with a client, I found myself drawing from the foundations of performance improvement and empowerment education to help frame the project. At first, the client was jumping ahead to facilitation methodology as I was still trying to wrap my head around the process. As we spoke, it became clear that while the primary goal of the facilitation was focused on operational planning that there was a secondary goal to foster a nascent learning community. With that perspective in mind, I focused the discussion around the larger process of facilitation before discussing facilitation methodology and suggested that the methodology would reveal itself if the process was clear. Once we agreed that the process needed to align both goals (community-building and operational planning) the rest of the discussion focused on the “how” of the convening (e.g., would open space or action planning be an appropriate methodology). The challenge of the facilitation was to both create a useful operational plan and accelerate the curve of the developing learning community. Had we launched right into methods planning we might have missed the larger process. In this post I would like to describe a basic framework of group/organizational learning and discuss its implications for facilitation design.

If you were to align models for program planning, strategic planning, instructional design, organizational learning, and knowledge management, it would become apparent that the contour of all these processes includes a similar pathway of gathering information, making connections between information, interpreting information, and acting on information. Specific to structuring a “learning group” facilitation there is the added dimension of community building. As such a learning group processes needs to be grounded in a participatory framework (more on frameworks) while moving through four phase pathway that looks like this:

Generating: For most group processes, the first stage of the convening is to help all participants gather and share information. Whether the information is derived from a structured assessment process in advance of the meeting or is a real-time sharing process, participants need to open the universe of information before moving to understanding and action. In addition, when you are trying to help nurture a learning community it is critical to build interaction and participation into the generative phase.

Integrating/Interpreting: The second stage of the learning group pathway is to begin to create a share understanding of the connections between information. As a group starts to move towards learning the process of synthesis begins to take place. In group settings this is also the stage where participants begin to weave together socially. In this context, the process of integrating and interpreting is both a constructivist activity and is also a social exercise where transparency, listening and sharing become stated values.

Participatory Meaning: As the group’s understanding how the information connects together as a whole, the group is then able to start to create meaning out of the information and begin to sort and choose what is relevant and actionable. In essence, the actions of this stage are prioritizing and narrowing. Critical to this stage is that the process of narrowing must be grounded in principles of inclusion, voice and democracy. Without a sense of authentic participation and ownership, the process of collaboration and network weaving is undermined.

Creative Action: The final stage of of the process is moving towards creative action. This is the point where the group decides “what’s next.” At the end of the day, all group process requires the facilitator to focus on concrete next steps. For a learning group process, the next steps must also include discussion of what’s next for the social network weaving. There needs to be the dual focus on both “where is the group going” and “how will they get there together.”

In talking to my potential client, I suggested that, on the surface, the process of moving from information to action looks like the primary task of most facilitation processes. However, if organizational learning is also a goal for the process, the second layer of “movement” is not just about information but the “movement” of social relationships. The implication for such a facilitation process is that the facilitator should not only understand how to manage a group process but also understand principles of coalition building, adult leading, empowerment and constuctivist learning. In a day when the processes networking weaving and organizational learning are, in many ways, more important that creating a product, facilitation becomes a higher order practice that simply “running a good meeting.”

As always, your comments are welcome.

Book for your bookshelf

Nancy Dixon: The Organizational Learning Cycle

Empowerment Education in Facilitation

mark — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:06:51 +0000

Raise you hand if in the last three months you have sat in a meeting that was dominated by process model of information presentation ==> discussion ==> and decision; followed by information presentation ==> discussion ==> and decision, in a pattern that was repeated until the end of the meeting? Unfortunately hierarchical meeting structures are still all too common in meetings today. You can put your hand down. In my last post I discussed the shift of group interaction away from hierarchical, government thinking towards governance as a dominant facilitation model. In this new facilitation environment the old framework where the facilitator imparts and the group members receive, memorize, and repeat is wholly inadequate in meeting the challenges of facilitating for governance. My contention is that governance thinking requires the re-discovery of community organizing tools and methodologies and constructivist learning theories. One place where the theories of community organizing and constructivism meet is in the framework of empowerment education.

The father of empowerment education is Paulo Freire and I encourage all facilitators to read deeply of his work. There are a three principles that I would like to briefly discuss as touchstones of Freire’s work. These three principles, in my view, are integral to informing the skill-set of any contemporary facilitator.

Conscientization: The first touchstone is that Freire’s believed that all learning is political. Conscientization, as he described the concept, was that education had the function of developing a critical awareness about the social, political, and economic contradictions and realities so that individuals would take action against the oppressive elements of reality. Transferring this concept to facilitation, it forces the facilitator to see that facilitation is not simply the process of information presentation ==> discussion ==> and decision. Facilitation becomes the process of making the connections between the internal context and external context to not only create change but also open the possibility for sea change. In another post I wrote extensively about facilitating for community engagement, which serves as the basic process for a conscientization approach to facilitation.

Constructivism: The second touchstone of Freire’s pedagogy is that learning is not a process of transmitting of information and imposing decision-making from the top-down. In the hierarchical model, the experts are on top and the majority of the group (below) are passive receptacles in the process. Constructivism purports that learning is an active process of construction on the part of all learners that involves making meaning out of a multiple perspectives and data. Constructivism requires a facilitator to move beyond simple brainstorming, sorting and prioritizing exercises and engages groups in such authentic tasks as creating, designing, analyzing and deciding (a topic for further exploration in a follow-up post).

Praxis: A third touchstone of Freire’s thinking is the concept of praxis. Freire believed that local transformation is the product of praxis at the collective level. Together, groups need to move from theory to practice. In application, praxis becomes an iterative process of theory, application, evaluation, reflection, and then back to theory. Learner driven experimentation is the basis for true system’s change and performance improvement and the facilitator’s role is to create the dynamics of iteration. One approach to engage learners in iterative learning is to use strategies of rapid cycle testing (such as the Plan, Do, Study, Act model). Additionally, the concept of praxis also implies learning over time and that creates for a facilitator the need to think in terms of the long view.

Empowerment education is a critical theory that serves well as one of the foundation stones of facilitation. A facilitator needs to understand the experiences and worldviews of the group in order to successfully foster change and further the learning process. Moreover, strong facilitation uses empowerment and critical reflection to not only solve the pressing and immediate need but also seeks to equip groups to applying such thinking to future problems.

As always your thoughts are welcome.

References

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Freire, P. (1995) Pedagogy of Hope. Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum.

Facilitating Knowledge Creation & Management

mark — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:02:29 +0000

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As groups and teams work together on planning or performance improvement initiatives there is often a secondary agenda of creating and capturing knowledge. So, for example a healthcare team wanting to improve patient services might meet to develop a series of rapid cycle tests using the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PSDA) model. While the primary purpose of the group process is to improve the quality of services, a secondary agenda might be to document the PDSA experiments in the form of case studies to be used as learning tools and to inform future quality improvement projects. Capturing knowledge even at this level requires more than simply writing things down. There is discussion, synthesis, observation, and conjecture that is based on both explicit and tacit knowledge coming out of the PDSA cycles.
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Facilitating a team such as this, not only requires facilitation skills but also the ability to create, share and manage knowledge. Knowledge management is the larger discipline that informs these facilitation skills. At the risk of oversimplification, knowledge management roughly falls into two categories –the technology process used to filter, create, sort, store, and share knowledge and the people process related to these same functions. So when facilitating a group process that involves knowledge creation and management, the facilitator needs a strong understanding of knowledge management. In this post, I want to discuss the facilitation skill for managing the “people” side of knowledge management and in a follow up post I will hazard a discussion about the technology side of knowledge management (although I outlined some principles two other posts).
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It goes without saying that one of the critical competencies of a facilitator is to help foster interpersonal communication and relationships among group members. It is assumed that facilitators have competencies in group dynamics, communication process, mediation and negotiation. However, as I have worked with “knowledge management” teams over the years I believe that there are four unique aspects of the facilitation process that fosters knowledge creation. These include the following dimensions:
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Understanding of knowledge management theory: Facilitators of knowledge management need some understanding knowledge management theory. One theory (that I adapted) comes from a text on knowledge creation (1) and maps knowledge in a 2 x 2 matrix created by two axes. The horizontal axis ranges from individual knowledge to shared knowledge and the vertical axis ranges from low to high on interpersonal relationships. The theory is to envision each quadrant of the box and predict the result of knowledge management. So, when there are low interpersonal relationships and a tendency to value individual knowledge, the each team member hordes the knowledge they have. If there are low relationships and a recognition that the information needs to be shared, then knowledge is exchanged. In the upper quadrants, when there are high relationships then knowledge starts to be imparted in a teaching or mentoring context and in the high functioning quadrant, information becomes communal where interactions support a knowledge culture across the team. Understanding this simple frame helps a facilitator design a process that heightens both relationships and a shared ownership of knowledge.
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Understanding a community of practice approach: While the concept of communities of practice can be traced back to the days of artisans and guilds, the proliferation of technology has spawned a new field of research in organizational development specific to how professional communities of practice are developed and sustained (2-3). Facilitators of knowledge initiatives need to understand mechanics of developing a community even if they are only capturing knowledge as a secondary objective of the facilitation process. The study of communities of practice highlights such ideas as the process of sharing knowledge in the context of high relationships, communal ownership, membership and participation, boundary spanning, networking and managing the public and private space between meetings. Understanding these concepts are critical to the facilitation process.
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Understanding the Strategic Intent: A third facet that enables an effective knowledge management process is to be intentional and strategic in the process design. How is the knowledge that is captured to be used? Is the knowledge going to be used in training and coaching other employees? Will it be used to define best practice or quality standards? Will it be used as the engine for innovation? To be an effective facilitator, the strategic intention needs to be clear.
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Understanding the context of Social Media: One cannot consider the facilitation of a knowledge oriented group process without considering the democratizing influence of the social media culture and its impact on knowledge creation. Technology has erased the concept of binding knowledge creation to a geographic time and space. In this social media environment, knowledge creation has been amplified and informed by the medium rich environment. Coming back to our opening illustration of the quality improvement process and subsequent knowledge capture. a facilitator assigned to this task needs to understand the influence of social media and connectivity. In this example, in addition to what happens in the formal group process, the quality team members are also likely subscribed to quality management listserv discussion groups, dropping in on webinars about quality improvement, streaming quality improvement blogs using RSS readers, Linking in and following Twitter feeds. Facilitating for knowledge creation needs to incorporate the external environment in which team members operate because these social circles influence the knowledge creation and in some cases such external influences can become proxy members of the group process.
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Once contention of my consulting practice is that facilitation is no longer a generic skill-set that people can learn from a book or gain by attending a workshop. Rather, the dimensions of facilitation demand a broad understanding of multiple disciplines and the ability to think and act in ways that are consistent with project management, business process design and performance improvement. It also requires the ability to understand the dimensions of the facilitation assignment. Near gone are the days when the facilitator can show up with a markers and an easel pack, write down a bunch of stuff and “type-up” the notes as a deliverable. Knowledge development and management is increasingly being connected to facilitation. Facilitation is no longer simply running a good meeting but is a discipline and practice grounded and anchored to the process of performance improvement.
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As always your comments are welcome.
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References:
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(1) Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation
(2) Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
(3) In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work