This is the third in a 6-part series of on INIFAC competencies, where I speak to more experienced facilitators on their insights on their facilitation practices.
INIFAC competency on Communication requires that master facilitators be skilled communicators. They actively listen, making sure to playback and confirm important points. They have highly-tuned analytic skills which allow them to process information quickly, differentiate various content issues and isolate critical points in a discussion. They ask questions that help groups to engage effectively. They deliver instructions that are accurate, clear and concise. They effectively identify and verbally summarise agreements.
In this interview, I spoke to Khai Seng, the founder of Studio Dojo, a design studio, and Sabarudin (or Saba, as he prefers to be known), who have both been process facilitating for more than 10 years.
From computers to people
Before Khai Seng worked with people as a process facilitator, he was designing computer interfaces, as a User Experience Designer.
It seems an entirely different field from where he is today, as the founder of Studio Dojo, a consultancy that’s devoted to exploring the intersection of design thinking, futures thinking, organisation development and leadership development.
Since moving out of User Experience, he has been process facilitating for the last 17 years.
Khai Seng work at Studio Dojo and released a report ‘ When Work Conversations Don’t Work’, together with Common Ground, “A beginner’s field guide for professionals who want to get good work going but get stuck by difficult conversations along the way.” in 2022.
Communicating, is about first listening to others, and yourself
Khai Seng laughs and acknowledges that when he first started, he was guilty of listening to others, without listening to himself.
During facilitation sessions, he found himself trying to catch a pause in the speaker’s response, so that he could chime in with a comment.
But am I listening to understand, or listening to respond?
He found that he was not listening to his own internal anxieties around trying to control the flow of the conversation, or feeling that a conversation might be getting out of hand.
He mimes a boxer jabbing.
Sometimes you can be like a boxer whilst you’re facilitating.
You may cut in and interrupt.
But it’s about learning how to be self-aware and grounding yourself.
This comment brings me back to the time when I first facilitated a work-plan meeting. Throughout the meeting, I was constantly looking at the other speaker’s lips, trying to find the moment when it closed, so that I could cut in.
But if I dug beneath that, I would have found that I was constantly in my head, trying to figure out the right thing to say to ‘steer’ the conversation in the right direction.
Ironically, the conversation, ended up being steered nowhere.
Thus, Khai Seng’s first principle for younger facilitators is to learn how to be self-reflective.
He recommends that facilitators learn how to check in with their breathing, meditate, and do other practices that centre them.
Active listening is also about listening before the session
Khai Seng’s second principle is ensuring that the contracting phase, before the session, is done well. One of his beliefs is that “not every issue can be solved with facilitation”.
Thus, rather than going in with a ‘facilitator’ hat, it is going in with a problem-solver hat.
It is about first diagnosing the problem, before providing a solution and figuring out if the solution is facilitation.
Listening and hearing are very different
Here, Khai Seng pauses.
Listening and hearing are very different things.
Sometimes, you can say things without saying anything.
Listening is about understanding the meaning behind the words. It’s about the subtext analyses.
In other words, it means looking beneath what people are saying, or not saying, and making meaning from it.
Ernest Hemingway, the acclaimed author, introduced this idea of the ‘iceberg theory’, in his book ‘Death in the Afternoon’, where the parts that were omitted, left out, and not seen, just like the submerged part of an iceberg, were what would give a story strength.
Similarly, during meetings, it’s looking for the submerged, unseen part of the iceberg in the room.
It’s looking beneath what’s being said, that may help you better understand what the issue is.
Often, as facilitators, we hear, without properly listening.
Do you remember the last time a loved one came to you, angry, and said,
Are you even listening to me?
The answer, you know, is no. But why?
Haven’t you been seated there, patiently trying to understand?
Yes, you are, but you are hearing, and not necessarily listening.
Lastly, despite more than a decade of facilitation experience, Khai Seng still believes that he has more to learn. One of his biggest learning points has been around being open to mental models. In the past, he remembers that when he heard a comment, he might think,
Why are they so off-tangent?
Now, his approach is, “maybe the lack is in me. How can I be more open to wider worldviews and mental models?”
Collecting and corralling points in a discussion
But during the session, Khai Seng believes that to process points well, facilitators must be careful not to reinforce power dynamics, especially with their body language.
We need to address the power in the room to ensure that participants even want to bring out their points to be processed.
For example, a head tilt towards the boss after listening to a point shared may signal that ultimately, it’s the boss’ opinion that matters.
In asking questions, it is often about intent
When I was in university, I was in trouble. A lot. I asked too many questions.
On placements, I would ask pointed questions during team meetings, so much so that one day, my manager pulled me aside and said,
John, you need to be clear about when you’re asking a question, or making a comment. They are not the same.
Similarly, in the same way, when we ask questions as facilitators, sometimes we may fall into the trap of letting our own thoughts and opinions influence the ‘question’ being asked, so much so that the question is no longer a question, but a comment.
These are often known as rhetoric questions, or comments masquerading as questions.
As facilitators, trying to ask the right questions can be difficult.
What we need to note is when our own biases creep in, and end up affecting the content neutral position we hold.
As one wise board member once said during a feisty board meeting whilst discussing a controversial issue,
I’m not here to share an opinion.
But to hold a position.
What does this look like practically?
One of the key tasks under communication is to ‘ask appropriate focusing questions that help groups to engage effectively,’ with appropriate follow-up questions.
Often we think our role as facilitators is to ask questions to unpack positions. But sometimes, when these positions get stuck or conflictual, we need to unpack what is beneath these positions.
We need to find areas of interest.
Exploring mutual areas of interest, rather than simply positions, can get groups unstuck. This follows Roger Schwarz’s famous Harvard Business Review article, on the 8 ground rules for effective meetings, where his fifth rule is ‘focus on interests, not positions.’
This is also where Saba recommends a two-step method to identify these shared areas of interest.
Firstly, he often advises process facilitators to be clear what the ‘focusing question’ is. This can be a question like ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’
Then, he reminds facilitators to use clarifying questions such as ‘Tell me more’, to probe beneath the stance taken.
But with these different positions, how does one eventually summarise for the group?
In User Experience Design, Khai Seng was responsible for designing by iteration, testing, getting feedback, and refining so that you would eventually get a better product.
I suggest to him that here, perhaps process facilitation is similar.
Iterating, so that a better conversation, is produced.
In much the same way, summarising can be the same. It is not about bringing out the comments in the room, plonking it on the flipchart, and going, “Tada! Here’s what you’ve done.”
Rather, it’s about bringing clarity, amidst the chaos of different opinions and ideas that have come up.
It is being a mirror, so that you reflect what the group reflects.
And here, I know you are looking for the tidy how-to.
But perhaps there’s none.
Khai Seng closes off with this.
Facilitation is a process of differentiating, and integrating.
It’s a constant learning journey that is never easy.
That is why I still love it.
Do not look for the tidy 10-step list on how to communicate better during process facilitation too.
Instead, look within.
Hear what is inside.
Listen, and you may just start communicating better.
Byline
John is excited about helping young people to brave challenges of the 21st century and writes about how young people can flourish in work at liveyoungandwell.com.
If you desire to be hone your skills as a process facilitator, check out our SPOT on FacilitationTM where we cover the core competency of communication using QLASS (Questioning.Listening.Assumptions-surfacing.Synthesising.Summarising).
For more information, please contact us at admin@fns.sg or check out our website at www.fns.sg.
