Balancing Questions with Proposals

In a recent article in OD Practitioner (Modeling Basic Team Facilitation, 2005), Nicholas Mann has suggested that questions and proposals are two critical tools for good facilitators to have. The art of facilitation comes from knowing the right moment to ask a question, and the right time to make a proposal.

Mann writes, “Competent practitioners realize when a situation presents an opportunity to intervene with a question (e.g. how do you want to proceed here? … or, what groupings do you hear as I re-read your list of ideas?)”. These questions highlight work that the group needs to do and should do whenever it can. As an ancient proverb goes, “I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand. But if I have to think, I start to really learn.”

However there are other times when groups get stuck and frustrated. Questions at these times only add to the frustrations, especially when the group is not in complete agreement. At times like this the facilitator’s job is to summarize what he or she hears and make a proposal about how to move forward (e.g. here’s a suggestion for getting past this stumbling block…, or it sounds like while you are not in complete agreement, there is a lot of energy around exploring idea x and I’m wondering if a next step might be …).

As with any art, timing is everything, however learning how to use these two tools to complement each other is a major step towards artful facilitation.

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