One of the many harvests of my 45+ years of practice as a facilitator, is a fundamental understanding that facilitation is about supporting stakeholder systems to engage in focused, meaningful and productive ‘conversations’ on topics of significance to them. To be clear when I first started to facilitate, I understood the practice to be about making it easy for groups to solve problems and achieve aspirations. While that is still true, the idea that the field of facilitation exists to serve stakeholder ‘conversations’ is both expansive and energising.
In this blog I want to highlight the profound role and function of conversations and point to a series of conversations that we at Core Creators call the Vision to Action framework. Also shared in the blog is the outline of a meta facilitation process for driving each conversation in the framework.
Having focused, meaningful and productive conversations doesn’t require the skill of a magician or a degree in rocket science. A cursory analysis of ‘effective’ conversations will reveal a progression from factual observation of the situation under discussion, to emotive associations triggered by the aspects of that situation, to interpreting the significance/ conceptualising new understandings, to finally drawing conclusions regarding necessary action. Effective conversations help knit the social fabric amongst people engaging in the conversation and provide a sense of direction to their decision-making and action. Effective conversations are inquiry oriented and collaborative in style (not competitive or just expert driven), spiralling to increasing depths of meaning and understanding.
Our conversations have the potential to develop results at multiple levels.
- A practical level at which tangible outputs are produced in relation to a topic of conversation.
- Then there is the rational level at which understanding and knowledge in relation to the topic of conversation is developed or enhanced.
- Thirdly, there is the experiential level at which the values and beliefs held in relation to the topic are reinforced or reframed.
As any stakeholder system is also a social system, effective conversations over time help to reconfirm or reframe the cultural norms of that stakeholder system.
A useful way to categorize many of our everyday conversations is to think in terms of archetypal conversations. Another harvest of my 45+ years of facilitating is the conclusion that all the conversations we engage in, particularly in the professional realm but not limited to it, fall into six categories. The six are: conversations about the ‘why’, the ‘past’, the ‘future’, the ‘now’ and, the ‘how’ at both the strategic and tactical levels. I call this the Vision to Action framework of conversations.
The Framework
‘Why’ archetype conversations are about the reasons for existence of a group, organisation or organisational unit. The focus of this conversation is on the sources of meaning and significance in what group, organisation or organisational unit engages in. While we may call these conversations by many names such as Mission, Purpose, Values, the fundamental conversation we are engaging in is about naming our ‘why’.
‘Past’ archetype conversations are about our shared history as a group, organisation or organisational unit. The focus of this conversation is on the events, happenings, people, decisions and stories of the past that we are carrying forward as learnings, accomplishments, trends and celebrations. While we often call these conversations history timelines/scans, reviews and evaluations, the function of this conversation is to wrap our arms around what has been in an affirming way.
‘Future’ archetype conversations are about the concrete, tangible future circumstances we want to have or create. The focus of such conversations is on the hopes, dreams and aspirations we hold in relation to an issue or opportunity before us. Irrespective of the names we give these conversations such as vision, objectives, goals, etc., these conversations are about describing and claiming in practical terms the kind of future circumstances we want to have bounded by an issue or opportunity.
In contrast, ‘Now’ archetype conversations are about the present we have. The focus is on the current reality (creating a juxtaposition to the desired reality of the future archetype conversation); what current drivers and constraints are to the desired future. While situation analysis and SWOT analysis are some of the names we give these conversations, they are primarily about understanding what and how the present contradicts the future.
There are two ‘How’ archetype conversations, a capital letters ‘HOW’ which is about the strategic, and a lowercase ‘How’ about tactics. The strategic conversation focuses on the broad directions, pathways, initiatives that shift/transform the ‘what we have now’ toward the ‘what we want to have in the future’. These two conversations can be consecutive or concurrent. Either way they are about both the pavers and edging of the pathway from the now to the future.
The reader will note a certain logic in the sequence of the last four conversations archetypes from the Future to the Now to the HOW to How. While there isn’t necessarily a right sequence between the Why and the Past conversations, the assumption is that they would precede the last four conversation archetypes.
A simple meta process to facilitating each conversation archetype is encapsulated in a divergence, emergence, convergence flow, or phases of ideation, exploration, and conclusion. Two bookends of an opening and closing to each conversation provide the necessary framing and concluding phases. The specific facilitation tools employed to drive each of phase would be the choice of the conversation leader or facilitator.
Authored by Kevin Balm, Managing Partner, South-East Asia and Australasia
Kevin is based in Melbourne, Australia with responsibility for the management, development and delivery of Core Creators’ business across Australia, South-East Asia and Africa.