Facilitation is the key skill for the new paradigm consultant (and for many old
paradigm ones as well!)
The first place to go for facilitation resources is the International Association of Facilitators'
site. They have a library of 7000 articles and also the proceedings of the last few years'
IAF conferences.
The group facilitation list (GRP-FACL) is my
favourite list. The people are always helpful, nearly always courteous (more so than any
other list) and the discussions are intelligent and informative. I have often asked for
help with a workshop or exercise and have always had a brilliant range of suggestions
back. People are really willing to share their knowledge and expertise. You can subscribe by
e-mail. Another e-mail and web resource is the
Master Facilitator Journal,
which can be subscribed to and which is building a small library of resources.
Critical
Incidents, edited by Sandor Schuman (who runs the GRP-FACL list) contains a number of
illustrations from facilitators (including Richard Seel) of actual issues which faced them
and their approach and learning from the outcomes.
The book on facilitation which I enjoyed most is Facilitation: Providing Opportunities for Learning by Trevor J. Bentley,
McGraw-Hill, 1995. It is written as a narrative account of a residential
facilitation training workshop and explores different course members' changing
attitudes to facilitation and in so doing unfolds the delicate nature of the art
in subtle and powerful ways.
