Twitter Talks Breakthrough Facilitation

As IISC Senior Associate Curtis Ogden was scrolling through Twitter, he came across a post from Adam Kahane of Reos Partners who shared five practices for breakthrough facilitation. IISC enjoys teaching the tools of facilitation through our signature workshops. We offered additional ideas using our lens of equity to build on his ideas. 

See how our team responded:

@adamkahane tweeted on Jan 7, 2020

Five simple (but not easy) practices for Breakthrough Facilitation from Adam Kahane

1.     Listening – beyond providing expertise

2.     Cultivating – beyond producing an agreement

3.     Accompanying – beyond directing

4.     Pivoting – beyond following a roadmap

5.     Partnering – beyond standing apart or above

Cynthia Sliver Parker, IISC Senior Associate, added:

• Unmasking – shining a light on power, inequity, and dynamics in the room
•  Reframing – challenging unnamed assumptions, insisting on a systems analysis of the issues being discussed rather than blaming individuals
•  Centering – putting the experiences, wisdom, needs, and aspirations of people suffering the effects of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression first

Melinda Weekes-Laidlow, IISC Affiliate Consultant, added:

• Surfacing (beyond politeness, or emergence)
• Sensing what is being experienced or felt but not acknowledged, named or legitimated

Kelly Bates, IISC President, added:

• Sensing and surfacing the unnamed
• Bringing out voice of those at the margins
• Holding all people and complexities
• Creating intentional and brave space
• Raising up authenticity and transformative vulnerability
• Modeling challenging power in the room