A new CFG for experienced facilitators and coaches met for the first time today. For our opening teambuilder, we did a making metaphor activity. We each completed the sentence “When I am my best as a facilitator, I am like a _____________,” drew a picture, and reflected about the strengths and shadows of that image. We then shared with the people at our table and helped each other delve deeper to find more strengths and shadows.
I wrote that when I am my best as a facilitator, I am like a great actress. The strengths that my group and I came up with were that a great actress can be engaging and elicit strong emotions and reactions. She can maintain focus and keep others grounded. She knows where she is going, and that can give others a sense of comfort.
On the other hand, an actress may be too much the center of attention. Participants may feel like a passive audience instead of fellow actors. Most tellingly for me, an actress must follow a script.
Even though “actress” was the first word that popped in my head, I fought against it for a while and tried to think of a “better” metaphor before I resigned myself to working with the image and seeing where it would take me. Like my imaginary actress, I felt confident, comfortable, and secure during the metaphor and text-rendering activities. I saw people engaged in the learning and making great connections. We were focused. But as the evening went on, I found some painful truths in this metaphor. When the group’s discussion wandered from my own vision of the agenda, my confidence dissolved. Without the script of a well-planned agenda, I felt paralyzed. I was unable to quickly improvise and change the “script” to facilitate the group’s decision-making. I also felt somewhat “blinded by the stagelights”—I could no longer discern individual faces and needs.
This experience helped me see that I need more skill and practice with different decision-making modes. The Facilitator’s Fieldbook lists these decision modes:
Absolute Consensus (All must agree to support a decision.)
Modified Consensus (All must be willing to support or “live with” decisions.)
Consultative (Leader decides following consultation with group.)
Consultative Consensus (Leader consults with group, seeks consensus, and then makes decision.) and
Voting (By ______ vote; specify majority, two-thirds, etc.)
We had to decide when the next meeting would be. In hindsight, I think I was going for “Consultative Consensus,” but I didn’t know that, and I certainly did not communicate it to the group. So who gets to decide, and who gets to decide who gets to decide?
Tonight’s experience also pointed out my ambivalence about leadership. I want to BE an effective leader, yet I shy away from difficult decisions. I want to hear and value everyone’s voice, yet I ignore some voices in the interest of “just getting the decision over with.”
Finally, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should pursue this metaphor and improve my facilitation by learning more about the art of acting. Interestingly, Leisure Learning offers a class called “Bite the Bug—Beginning Acting,” and the course description includes this sentence: These techniques will allow you to be more of who you are in life and on stage. Aaah. . .there’s that “BE” word again.