Facilitation as a Profession

[Gary_Rush]

I'm starting this discussion because of a comment that Stephen Thorpe made in the thread regarding content versus process. The question raised was, "Raising the profile of facilitation as a profession".

My view is that facilitation is truly a profession. When I was a military officer, we were taught that a "profession" was not something you did - i.e., a job. It was something you were - i.e., all the time. The Facilitators I know are Facilitators all the time. Facilitators tend to live the role. We become Facilitators rather than do facilitation. I do believe that we, as an association, need to do more to promote the profession of Facilitation. We need to:



Help develop higher education programs (i.e., colleges) around facilitation.
Continue to promote and develop the certification program. This needs to both encourage "Professional" Facilitators (to help overcome the bad rap that some "consultants" have given us - as Ruth encountered in the content vs process thread) but also encourage those who use facilitative skills in their other job to grow and use the skills properly.
Encourage Facilitators to study the history of facilitation (which is quite fascinating and helps us understand the concepts behind what we do).
Encourage research to better understand people, process, and how to have them work together.
Promote Facilitation as a profession to our employers, clients, and potential employers and clients.

Well, that's just a few of my thoughts to get this going. What do the rest of you think? Are we a profession? If not, why? What else do we need to do to make this a profession? Thanks. :)

[Patricia Nunis]

Gary Rush said.....


My view is that facilitation is truly a profession. When I was a military
officer, we were taught that a "profession" was not something you did -
i.e., a job. It was something you were - i.e., all the time. The
Facilitators I know are Facilitators all the time. Facilitators tend to
live the role. We *become** Facilitators* rather than *do* facilitation.
I do believe that we, as an association, need to do more to promote the
profession of Facilitation.



Thank You very much Gary for this very clear defintion of facilitation as a
profession - something we are - rather than something we do ... . I was
drawn to facilitation and the choice of certification because of individual
facilitators I have met from IAF who live facilitation - all the time. The
challenge for us in Malaysia is that we have only a handful of people who
practice pure facilitation - as per IAF values. The word facilitation is
often used when what is meant is training,consulting - even event
coordination - . The idea of Professional Facilitation is growing among
those of us who are linked to the IAF events and forums - we need to be more
focused in the kind of things we do here to grow facilitation - and perhaps
look at more concerted efforts to build a nucleus or core group. For
myself - I think it would be of great interest if the history of
facilitaiton is made readily accessible - either on the webstie - or as a
mailout to Asia forum participants... . - Also - it would be great if
some clinics or tips could be shared on how to promote facilitaiton as a
approach to clients and contacts.

Thanks once again.... would love to hear /see responses from others working
in Asia... to share your experiences.

Patricia Nunis

CPF & IAF Member, Malaysia









-----Original Message-----
From: Gary_Rush [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, 23 October, 2008 9:19 PM
To: patnunis@streamyx.com
Subject: [Group Facilitation-t-232] Facilitation as a Profession

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I'm starting this discussion because of a comment that Stephen Thorpe made
in the thread regarding content versus process. The question raised was,
"Raising the profile of facilitation as a profession".

My view is that facilitation is truly a profession. When I was a military
officer, we were taught that a "profession" was not something you did -
i.e., a job. It was something you were - i.e., all the time. The
Facilitators I know are Facilitators all the time. Facilitators tend to
live the role. We *become** Facilitators* rather than *do* facilitation.
I do believe that we, as an association, need to do more to promote the
profession of Facilitation. We need to:


* Help develop higher education programs (i.e., colleges) around
facilitation.
* Continue to promote and develop the certification program. This needs to
both encourage "Professional" Facilitators (to help overcome the bad rap
that some "consultants" have given us - as Ruth encountered in the content
vs process thread) but also encourage those who use facilitative skills in
their other job to grow and use the skills properly.
* Encourage Facilitators to study the history of facilitation (which is
quite fascinating and helps us understand the concepts behind what we do).
* Encourage research to better understand people, process, and how to have
them work together.
* Promote Facilitation as a profession to our employers, clients, and
potential employers and clients.

Well, that's just a few of my thoughts to get this going. What do the rest
of you think? Are we a profession? If not, why? What else do we need to
do to make this a profession? Thanks. :)



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3:29 PM

[Penny_Walker]

Thanks Gary and Patricia for kicking this off.

I'm looking forward to some interesting discussion.

This is a kind of aside - but I'm wondering whether we can get a critical mass of UK-based members together for a certification event, and if there are particular reasons why this hasn't happened for a while?

Getting even more specific, London or close would be good for me.

I have to confess that no client has ever asked me directly whether I'm certified, and a lot of my colleagues & peers are ambivalent about the value of it, but I'm a bit of a sucker for getting a qualification / external validation (it's a weakness I'm working on!) and I was disappointed that the Edinburgh conference was while I had client work on, and the Netherlands session was not practical for me either.

Anyone else want to get certified, and would find London convenient?

Cheers

Penny

[Ned_Ruete]

Gary Rush said.....


My view is that facilitation is truly a profession. When I was a military
officer, we were taught that a "profession" was not something you did -
i.e., a job. It was something you were - i.e., all the time. The
Facilitators I know are Facilitators all the time. Facilitators tend to
live the role. We *become** Facilitators* rather than *do* facilitation.
I do believe that we, as an association, need to do more to promote the
profession of Facilitation.

And it is when I am most living the role that I most feel averse to the
notion of putting people in boxes, and feel most antithetical to the notion
of CREATING a box called "certified facilitator" into which to put ourselves
and from which we exclude all others.

I feel about facilitation the way I feel about Organizational Development
(OD). The OD field has given us a lot of good principles, practices,
research, models, etc. But I haven't yet found one of them that SHOULDN'T be
a part of EVERY MANAGER'S toolkit. Every manager and executive should every
day be living the role of developing their organization. Setting aside OD as
a profession gives managers the excuse to do only the immediate and leave
the important-but-not-urgent to "those OD guys."

By the same token, everyone in business, public sector, NGOs, politics, and
community service should be living the role of facilitator every day. By
creating a profession of "facilitator" and saying you're not one unless you
separate yourself from every other profession and get certified to be "a
facilitator" lets the people to whom we are trying to teach this way of life
off the hook.

There are a lot of jobs in the army, but every one of them is a professional
soldier.

And OBTW, I think the OD and the facilitative way of life overlap about 99
and 44/100 percent.

What do others think?

Ned Ruete
East Lyme, CT USA

[John_Butcher]

Hello: I appreciate and understand Gary's (and others') perspective on what makes a "profession" and "professionals". But I am not sure that members of other traditional professions (law, medicine, engineering) would necessarily share that perspective. What those professions (at least in North America) have that facilitation does not have is a rigorous regime of formal education preceeding entry-to-practice, and the means to discipline (and potentially expel from the profession) practitioners who violate pre-established codes of conduct. Anyone can self-describe as a "facilitator", and can proclaim that this is something they have "become". While IAF has an excellent Statement of Values and Code of Ethics, we have no way to discipline violators. While IAF has a professional certification program, successful completion of that program is not yet a criterion to be recognized as a "professional facilitator". In the end, I do not believe that any group of practitioners can credibly describe themselves as professionals without a formal process of entry to practice and an established disciplinary system. For these reasons, I do not feel that "facilitation" is yet a true "profession". Personally, I am perfectly proud and happy to describe myself as a 20-year member of a valued, respected, socially-useful "occupation". Best wishes.

John

[Gary_Rush]

Hi All,



And it is when I am most living the role that I most feel averse to the
notion of putting people in boxes, and feel most antithetical to the notion
of CREATING a box called "certified facilitator" into which to put ourselves
and from which we exclude all others.

Well, I hate to create boxes - especially hate labeling people. However, I don't feel that creating a certification process boxes people. It helps our profession (even those who don't get certified) because it helps to define what a "facilitator" is and helps correct problems that many of us have encountered - consultants and others who feel that they can do the job without training or any help and do so badly that the client feels that all "facilitators" are bad. I won't label people, but I will whole-heartedly support and promote the CPF.


I feel about facilitation the way I feel about Organizational Development
(OD). The OD field has given us a lot of good principles, practices,
research, models, etc. But I haven't yet found one of them that SHOULDN'T be
a part of EVERY MANAGER'S toolkit. Every manager and executive should every
day be living the role of developing their organization. Setting aside OD as
a profession gives managers the excuse to do only the immediate and leave
the important-but-not-urgent to "those OD guys."

By the same token, everyone in business, public sector, NGOs, politics, and
community service should be living the role of facilitator every day. By
creating a profession of "facilitator" and saying you're not one unless you
separate yourself from every other profession and get certified to be "a
facilitator" lets the people to whom we are trying to teach this way of life
off the hook.

While I completely agree that facilitative skills should be part of the repertoire of every manager, teacher, analyst, and many others, I fully believe that there is a major difference between facilitative skills and a professional facilitator. I teach people to use these skills in their jobs - they are not "facilitators". They know it, too. A Professional Facilitator is on a different level - this person can facilitate a variety of workshops - strategic planning, analysis, community outreach, etc. While I strongly support using facilitative skills - just as we need to use other types of skills in our profession - there is a significant difference between using facilitative skills and a professional facilitator. That is true of many other professions as well. It doesn't let anyone "off the hook".

There are a lot of jobs in the army, but every one of them is a professional
soldier.

By the way, every officer in the military and every life-time Sargent/Chief/etc. will disagree with you.

And OBTW, I think the OD and the facilitative way of life overlap about 99
and 44/100 percent.


I also believe that my use of facilitative skills overlaps much of my life - about 99.44 percent as well. I'm still a professional facilitator and that is very different than using facilitative skills.

[Gary_Rush]

John,

In many ways I agree that a profession should have more rigorous entry and disciplined removal - that is what I'd like to bring to our profession. I would support much more education and background to becoming a facilitator. In the mean time, the CPF is helping. I firmly believe that we need to study our history, background into the concepts that we promote and use, and rigorous entry into our profession. I would also support tossing out those who violate ethics - not because of facilitating differently - there are many ways to facilitate - but those who have no idea what they are doing and profess to be "facilitators" or those who profess to be neutral but openly violate it for their own benefit.

Given what you have said and what I said, we could be on the verge of being a profession - but just need a few pushes to make it a real profession by any definition. It is still something I am - not what I do and that's a major difference from when I was a programmer, a project manager, a chef, or any of my other careers.