Wearing Two Hats

More often than not, facilitators are members of the group they are facilitating. As efficient as this might be staffing-wise, it does have its downsides. One is that if the facilitator has content to contribute, and/or is invested in a certain outcome, he/she cannot give the process his/her full attention. As Thomas Kayser writes in Mining Group Gold, "if the primary facilitator actively participates in the content of the meetings, he or she invariably gets swept up in the debate, discussion, analysis, disagreement, etc., and forgets about the facilitation (p.19)." Even worse, a facilitator who is invested in an outcome might unintentionally use their power to help accomplish the outcome that they desire. A similar dynamic often plays out when people in leadership positions facilitate. In these situations it is not uncommon for people to tell the boss what they think the boss wants to hear.

In order to work with this tricky dynamic, consider the following guidelines:

• Use co-facilitators who are invested in different topics so that the rimary facilitator is not heavily invested in the content of the section they are facilitating
  
• Hire an outside facilitator for discussions to which you want everyone to contribute to
  
• If you need to facilitate the section of a meeting to which you want to contribute, signal to the group that you are taking off your facilitator at and contributing to the content. When you are finished tell them that you are once again stepping into your facilitation role.
  
• If you get pulled into the content of a discussion that you are facilitating, ask someone else to take over the task
  
• Invite the group to tell you how they perceive your use of power as a facilitator, i.e., are you facilitating to achieve your desired outcome (which may not be the group's desired outcome). It will be much better for you to hear this at the meeting, than to have the group make a "decision" about something that they are not invested in.
  

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