A Facilitator's Tale

My story begins on an otherwise normal day in the office. Things are going along as usual when I receive a phone call. It's opportunity calling.

The lady on the other end of the line tells me that she attended a session that I delivered a few months back when I helped a group develop a strategic plan and begin work on their Team Charter. She says she really enjoyed my style and approach and wonders if I would be able to work with her organization at an upcoming retreat.

The group is Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada. It's one of the new formulations that occurred on December 12, 2003. The organization is now comprised of members from three or four former departments and they are looking to create more of a team identity for the Prairie Region. In addition, they will soon be asked for their input into the National Crime Prevention Strategy and they would like help formulating their thoughts.

The idea is certainly appealing to me. It's clearly an opportunity to get more practice using at least a couple of Chartier's tools and a chance to work with an entirely new group of people. There must be a catch, and I soon find out what it is. The retreat is taking place in nine days. YIKES! Not much time to do the preparation I think is needed or to learn about the organization. What's a boy to do?

Then it hits me: Facile! I have my brand new copy of the booklet and surely it'll have all the answers I need. I now take the time I haven't had until now to read the booklet cover to middle, and cover to middle. I now know all the processes I should go through in preparation for a job such as this one. The problem: To follow all of the recommended steps I would need about 3 more weeks than are available to me. The solution: Call Bob.

A half hour conversation with my mentor (hope that doesn't come as too much of a surprise to you Mr. Chartier) and I feel much more secure. We've discussed the approach I had planned to take and I've gotten some great tips and advice from Bob. I now feel ready for the next steps.

I make a call to the Regional Director of the group and discuss my plans with her. She agrees with the process, says it sounds great and exactly what they were hoping for. She tells me they are "really excited that I've been able to find the time to do this for them and know the session will be terrific!" Now I'm more nervous than ever. How on earth will reality live up to the expectations? No choice now but to go for it and do the best I can.

So, here's my plan:

I'm going to start the day talking about Culture. I'll use the pieces from the Coaching Practices workshop because they fit so well with what they are facing with the various organizational cultures coming together. Next I'll talk about Groups and Teams and their characteristics. The group can examine the differences between the two in areas such as structure, commitment, life expectancy, objectives/goals and mutual responsibilities. Once they've done that (I'll flip chart their thoughts) I'll talk about Team Charters and start working with them to develop theirs. I plan to use the Interview Matrix to address four key segments of a Team Charter: Roles & Responsibilities; Internal Service Standards; Values (what we stand for) and Code of Conduct. Once they've done the interviews they can prioritize the input and wrap up that segment of the day.

Next step will be to do a Challenge Wall to identify the key areas to be included in their input to the National crime Prevention Strategy. We'll gather the brainstorming input, have the group theme the results, prioritize the themes and do another Interview Matrix to get the in-depth input they are looking to be able to provide.

Sounds like a pretty full day, doesn't it? That was the plan, here's the reality:

The day started very well. We had a good discussion about culture and they enjoyed the opportunity to talk about the subject as they were living with this right now.

Next we discussed the comparison of Groups to Teams. This also went well and they were all very participative. We had lots of great input and they really understood the differences between the two. Once I had all their input flip charted I said:

"I'm now going to ask you a very important question and your reply will to a large extent determine what happens for the next part of the day. You've described the characteristics of a true team and how they differ from a group. Is that how you would like to see yourselves? I know your Regional Director would like you to be a team but it doesn't work if she's the only one who feels that way. You all need to be committed to the concept for it to truly be successful. If you don't want to be a team there is little value in moving on to work on a Team Charter."

I thought they'd all jump up and down and say "Yes, of course we want to be a team" and we'd move into the next phase. Now I had my first great learning of the day: Always be prepared for the unexpected.

The response was not what I had expected at all. Instead the group held a wide-ranging, in-depth discussion about teams and commitment and personal responsibility. The discussion lasted approximately an hour. I don't need to tell you the impact this had on "my" agenda. My second great learning: It's not my agenda - it's their agenda. As a facilitator it's my role to help them reach their goals. It's not about what I want to achieve, it's about getting them where they want to go.

At the end of the discussion, the group decided they'd like to move ahead with the Team Charter piece and see how that went. The problem now was that we had half the time to do the work that I had planned. Through some very focused work and a lot of cooperation we managed to get some quality work done on the Team Charter. They understood that the document was far from complete and that they would still have work to do on it should they wish to complete it in the future. I made the offer to them that if they wished I would re-join them at some point to complete the document.

Now it was on to the second objective for the day, to gather the group's input into the National Crime Prevention Strategy. We began with the Challenge Wall and that went great. There were lots of ideas raised and soon the wall was full of post-it notes. Then the group moved to the wall to theme the ideas. This also went well as did the prioritizing of the themes. Each member was given two check marks to identify their choices - they could put both checks on one theme if they thought it was appropriate. Four clear priority areas were identified. I advised the group that those not selected in the top four would not be forgotten but given to the Regional Director for later attention.

Then it was on to the second Interview Matrix to look at the four priority issues. It was here I had my third great learning of the day: Don't mess with the tools.

The key to the Interview matrix is getting the four questions right. Because were running very late by this time I decided to have the folks assigned each number develop their own question addressing the issue identified for them on the Challenge Wall. This meant that the groups of four had to move into the groups based on their particular number to work on the question, then move back into the groups of four. Needless to say this resulted in mass confusion and resulted in much more time being lost than if I had left them in their groups of four and written the four questions myself. This is a lesson I will not soon forget.

Despite the confusion the group did manage to get down to business eventually and the final product was excellent and some key points were identified and prioritized for input to the document. Because the end of the day had come and there were plans for the period immediately following our session, running over time was not an option. The Regional Director indicated she would be willing to give the group time the next morning to complete the work of finalizing the ideas into concrete proposals and the group was happy with that idea.

It was interesting to note the differences in the group and how they reacted to the tools and the processes I was using. One or two of them were very results oriented and they felt the time taken to go through the exercise took away from their opportunity have a discussion regarding their input into the strategy. Most, however, found the process met their needs and gave them an excellent method of getting their thoughts and ideas into a format that would be most usable for their Director.

Following the retreat the Regional Director sent an email message to the Federal Council Executive Director regarding my time spent with her group. In part her note said:

So, in the end, even though the process was somewhat different than any of us had anticipated, this was a positive experience for the group and me. Certainly it was a terrific learning experience for me. When I look back on the day the thing that I believe kept me on target was constantly reminding myself that "it isn't about me." It seemed that as long as I kept the fact that the day was for the group and not the facilitator I could react to situations and discussions without worrying about ownership of the process or the agenda. Other than that my greatest learning from this event will definitely be "Don't mess with the tools!" There is a reason they are set out the way they are and that's because they work best when followed. While there might be some wiggle room in the planning stages, to try adapting them on the fly is to invite disaster.

I hope this record of a particularly challenging and event-filled day will be of some use to other facilitators as they continue their learning. They say life is too short to just learn from your own mistakes. You have to learn from the mistakes of others as well. Perhaps some will learn from mine.

Lloyd Legaré
June 2004