We decided to write a manifesto about our particular style of facilitation training. Like any manifesto, it outlines what we believe and our philosophy towards facilitation and facilitation training.

1. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Sometimes we can’t see the wood
for the trees.
Sometimes it seems more important
not to change how we solve
problems, than to solve the problem.
Sometimes we are more satisfied
with comfortable defeat, than a
challenging success.
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2. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Leaders know what they want from their people but they
sometimes don’t know how to get it. Why is it that it is so
difficult to stand back, get new perspectives, find new
possibilities?
We believe every organisation and community, indeed, every
individual, has the potential for facilitation as a deep
capability.
A capability that will enable an organisation or community
to create a way through the complexity and constant
change that challenges us.
The challenge for leaders is how to build this deep capability.
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3. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Why, when the world faces its most complex, challenging
problems, do we not apply all of the resources available to
us to respond?
When was it that making things easy and fun to do became
the wrong way?
Getting together, seeing what’s happening, getting things
done, making things better is the natural human order.
It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done.
When did this become so complicated and not fun
anymore?
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4. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Why is it, in organisations, of any size, there are only a few
people we call upon, or can trust, to solve problems, think
about the future, convert opportunity into reality?
We believe that it’s not that people can’t, or don’t want to,
but they don’t know how to call upon others.
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5. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
The environment in which we are operating is faster
paced, more complex and less predictable. It’s an
environment where we are often side-swiped by the
unexpected, and tripped up by the unseen.
We believe that we do have the capability to expand our
peripheral vision, bring different perspectives and ideas to
make sense of this world we’re operating in, and to see
ways forward.
Just because the problem is hard, or complex, doesn’t mean
the road to resolution needs to be hard.
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6. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
When faced with modern complexity we often constrain
thinking and make things too hard – we’re reluctant to
respond and act.
We believe that we need to build capacity and confidence
to explore options, open possibility, and enable others to
act and contribute constructively.
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7. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
We believe the new capacity is confidence.
Confidence is what enables you to act even when you are
not certain about the problem, the proposition, or the ways
forward.
Confidence is what has others follow.
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8. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Facilitating with confidence allows others to shine. So it’s
not always about what you do but about the room you give
to others to work.
We believe that people don’t need more stuff, more tools,
or even more processes.
What they do need is to be able to work with what is, and
create what could be, from what they have got. And that’s
more about the space you create than the space you fill.
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9. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
What is Facilitating With Confidence?
If you google facilitation techniques you get 3,840,000
results in 0.22 seconds.
The world doesn’t need another technique.
And you don’t get deep capability just by googling it. But
you do need to know when to use that rich vein of
creativity.
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10. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Our approach is bounded by a single rule.
The key to advancing any problem or situation is to get others
to work on it together.
And facilitating with confidence is the skill of not doing the
work of others.
Think back to your last meeting.
Who did all the work? And who had all the work to do
after the meeting?
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11. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Our approach is also bounded by the practice of light
facilitation - little effort, major impact.
Even in the toughest situations, when conflict is present, the
confident facilitator creates a third alternative: not just
stepping back, not just hitting out, rather, stepping in.
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12. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
What difference will it make in the world
Leadership is different, getting work done is different, how
we work is different. Thus, the skills, competencies, and
readiness for work need to be different.
Facilitating with Confidence taps into the essence of how
we, as humans, progress. We try things. We work things
out together.
Not because we are certain, but because we are uncertain.
It is uncertainty underpinned by confidence in ourselves,
and others. And awareness of the bigger picture.
Together we can create the world anew.
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13. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Does this describe you and your organisation?
Are you adaptable? Can you be relied upon in changing
times? Are you spontaneous? Are you experimental,
improvisational?
Are you prepared to create better solutions, and clearer ways
forward, by changing how you lead and how you work with
the people in your organisation and community?
Call us.
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14. Facilitating With Confidence
Manifesto
Anne Pattillo and Viv McWaters are experienced facilitators who
work with clients worldwide to transform the way people work
together in organisations to solve problems, deal with complexity,
resolve conflict and think about the future.
Facilitating With Confidence is a comprehensive range of programs that
builds on this experience and is tailored to the specific needs of
organisations and its people.
www.facilitatingwithconfidence.com
info@facilitatingwithconfidence.com
+61 417 135 406
PO Box 665, Torquay, 3228 Australia
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