The book “Facilitating Breakthrough” by Adam Kahane was published in 2021 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. The book introduces transformative facilitation, a structured and creative process for removing obstacles so that people can move forward together.
It provides practical guidance and real-world examples of how people can work together on challenging issues, even when they have different perspectives or interests. The book aims to help readers develop the skills and mindset needed to facilitate breakthroughs in their organizations and communities.
Vertical facilitation
The most common approach to facilitation is vertical facilitation.
Vertical facilitation focuses on the singular whole of the collaboration: the one united team, the one definition of the problem, the one best solution, the one optimum plan, and, ultimately, the one superior leader who can decide what the group will do.
It assumes that expertise and authority—of the more knowledgeable or senior participants and of the facilitator—are required to make progress on problematic situations.
How Do We Understand Our Role? Standing Outside and Inside
Transformative facilitation is a process in which participants and facilitators work together to transform a problematic situation. The fifth and most fundamental question they need to work with is: How do we understand our roles and responsibilities?
In vertical facilitation, participants want to fix the problem from outside. Facilitators help them change their actions. The benefit is objectivity. The risk is coldness and abdication.
In horizontal facilitation, participants see themselves as part of the problem and the solution. Facilitators share this view. The benefit is self-reflection and responsibility. The risk is myopia.
Horizontal facilitation
Horizontal facilitation focuses on the multiple parts of the collaboration: the positions and interests of the individual members of the group (who often don’t see themselves as a team), their different understandings of the problematic situation, multiple possible solutions and ways forward, and, ultimately, their separate decisions about what they will do.
It assumes that in order to make progress on problematic situations, each participant needs to decide for themselves what they will do—that no one can or must exercise superior expertise or authority.
Conventional vertical and horizontal facilitation both constrain collaboration
How Do We Get from Here to There?
Mapping and discovering transformative facilitation helps a group change their problem. The third question they need answered is: How will we reach our desired situation?
In vertical facilitation, the participants and the facilitator say, “We know the way.” They map out the steps and the process. The benefit is clarity. The risk is rigidity.
In horizontal facilitation, the participants and the facilitator say, “We will learn the way as we go.” They discover the steps and the process. The benefit is flexibility. The risk is confusion.
How Do We See our Situation? Advocating and Inquiring
Facilitators employ, model, and teach opening—to enable cycling between advocating and inquiring, to understand what is going on, and so to be able to make well-grounded decisions about what to do next. Furthermore, opening is foundational for all four of the other pairs of moves and for the other four shifts. The first question we need to tackle is: How do we see our situation?
In transformative facilitation, facilitators practice opening their talking and listening and, in doing so, encourage participants to do the same.
How Do We Decide Who Does What? Directing and Accompanying
Transformative facilitation helps people collaborate without forcing or being forced, so their actions are both voluntary and coordinated. The fourth question that they need to work with is: How do we decide who does what?
In vertical facilitation, the participants say, “Our leaders decide,” and these leaders assign and coordinate the actions of the collaborators. The facilitator supports the leaders in doing this. The upside of this approach is that it provides authorization for and alignment of the actions.
The downside of overemphasizing this approach, without making room for self-motivated actions, is that it produces debilitating subordination and resistant insubordination.
Conclusion: Collaborating to transform
Transformative facilitation helps people who are facing a problematic situation collaborate to transform that situation. Collaboration offers a crucial multilateral alternative to unilateral forcing, adapting, and exiting.
Transformative facilitation therefore offers a possibility that is larger than only helping groups address their particular situations. It offers a way to escape from the twin dangers of imposition and fragmentation. Transformative facilitation offers a way to create a better world.
How Do We Define Success? Concluding and Advancing
The purpose of transformative facilitation is to help people transform their problematic situations. The second question that the collaborators need to work with repeatedly is: How do we define success in transforming our situation?
In vertical facilitation, participants define success as making a deal, pact, or agreement. They say, “We need to agree.” The facilitator focuses on enabling such an agreement.
Transformative Facilitation
In horizontal facilitation, the participants define success as advancing. They say, “We each just need to keep moving forward, whether together or separately.” The facilitator focuses on enabling such movement. It focuses on taking pragmatic next steps, even if they are partial, messy, or don’t include everyone.
In transformative facilitation, the facilitator and the participants employ repeated cycles of diverging, emerging, and converging, and of concluding and advancing, to move forward together. This requires discernment.
