The Facilitation Stance

The Facilitation Stance

Stewards often facilitate—guiding groups through difficult conversations without imposing their views. This requires a particular stance.

What Facilitation Is

Facilitation is:

- Helping groups think together

- Creating conditions for good conversation

- Tending the process, not the content

- Trusting the group to find its wisdom

Facilitation is not:

- Having the answer

- Steering toward your preferred outcome

- Being passive or invisible

- Abdicating responsibility

The Stance

A facilitator holds:

Curiosity: Genuine interest in what will emerge. Not knowing the answer in advance.

Neutrality: Not attached to particular outcomes. Able to support views you disagree with.

Presence: Full attention on the group. Not distracted by your own thoughts.

Service: The group's needs matter more than your own. You succeed when they succeed.

The Authority Question

Facilitators have authority, but it's different from content authority:

- Authority to manage process

- Authority to interrupt, redirect, summarize

- Authority to name what's happening

- NOT authority to decide what the group should conclude

This requires holding authority lightly—using it in service of the group.

When You Have Views

What if you have views about the content?

Options:

- Step out: "I want to share something as a participant, not as facilitator. Then I'll return to facilitation."

- Pose as question: "I'm curious whether the group has considered X?"

- Withhold: Your view isn't needed for the group to work well.

- Disclose and hold: "I do have a view here. AND I'm genuinely open to where the group goes."

The key is transparency about your role in any given moment.

The Inner Work

Facilitation requires:

- Comfort with not knowing

- Trust in group intelligence

- Patience with slow emergence

- Ego discipline (it's not about you)

This doesn't come naturally to many high-performers. It's a practice.