The Case for Collaboration and Facilitation

Why do today’s problems seem so much harder than they used to? Maybe it’s the glossy veneer that our memories put on the past, but it sure seems like most of the problems of yesteryear could be solved with a handful of smart folks and a few pots of coffee.

The truth is, the nature of problems has changed. They are no longer just “engineering” problems – where you have to work with a certain number of parts to find the optimal solution. No, today’s problems are much hairier than that. There is no “right” answer in the back of the book. These problems require collaboration among many people with very different interests, and this complex collaboration requires facilitation in order to be successful.

Wicked Problems
"Wicked" problems do not have a “best” solution. There is no “right” answer. These problems involve lots of different people and perspectives. The solutions must address the different and often conflicting needs of these different groups. What kind of community should we build? How can we be innovative and profitable? What and how should our schools be teaching our children? How should our offices be set up? How can sales and support get onto the same page? The solutions to such problems often require input from a variety of disciplines and professions. There are a number of workable solutions to such problems, and some of them are excellent. The trick is how to find them.

When we run across such a problem, our gut response is to grab some smart people, experts if we can find them, and ask them what we should do. This works some of the time – just enough, in fact, to encourage us to keep at it. But how many times have you heard the complaints that the expert just didn’t understand “our situation” ? The truth is that experts became experts by being deeply involved in other situations, other organizations, with other issues and requirements. No one understands your problem like you do, like your team does, like your partners and customers and suppliers do. So while it certainly doesn’t hurt to get some “expert” advice, the best solutions to your problems are going to come from within.

More Eyes on the Problem
I imagine that you have had experiences similar to this one. You work for hours, days, or weeks on a problem, yet you find yourself stuck. You show the problem to a colleague or a friend or a spouse, and their response is “Oh, why don’t you look at it like this?” Voila. Problem solved.

Every problem can be looked at in such a way that it is easy. There are some problems that you find easy that other people would have to wrestle with for a lifetime. And, sadly enough, there are problems that you find “impossible” that another would solve in a few seconds. This is not a reflection of your “brains” or your intelligence. This is simply a matter of the kinds of tools and associations that your brain has acquired over your lifetime. Different people will look at the same inkblot and see very different objects in them. In the very same way, different people will take very different paths to solve the same kind of challenge. Not all paths will work for each problem, but no path will work for all problems, either.

To solve a wicked problem, then, you need to bring to bear a variety of vantage points. You need to bring all of the stakeholders together – from investors to builders to end-users. Each of these people will bring their unique needs to the table, but they may also bring a perspective that allows the problem to look easy. Instead of limiting the size of the group to a very few “key decision-makers”, you should expand the group to include anyone who has an interest in the outcome. This will dramatically improve your chances for finding an excellent solution.

Facilitation
Now that you are dealing with both a complex problem and a large group of self-interested stakeholders, it may be time to consider using a professional facilitator. There are several reasons to bring in an outside facilitator.

Outside Perspective
You only know what you know. You have tremendous experience with your problem, but you may not have experience with many different variations of this problem. A professional facilitator will have worked with hundreds of different groups facing similar and dissimilar challenges. The facilitator may not bring you “the answer”, but he should bring a lot of important questions and issues to consider. He will also not be biased by the experiences and culture of your organization – he can serve as a reality check.

Politics and Relationships
As a key stakeholder yourself in this problem, you have already established relationships (good and bad) with the other stakeholders. Your role in the organization is already defined, and others might have some idea (right or wrong) about what your positions might be. If you were to facilitate this meeting yourself, you would either A) have to squelch your personal opinions and insights in order to appear unbiased, or B) may bias the entire event with your perspective – this will make buy-in and implementation all the more difficult. Outside facilitators can be much more neutral in asking the group to explore possible solutions because they will have no stake in one outcome vs. another. People support that which they help to create - a neutral facilitator allows the solutions to come out of the group and not be forced on them by the boss.

Free Yourself
By bringing in an outside facilitator, you free yourself from the business of running the meeting. You free yourself to dig into the work and help to solve the problem yourself. The facilitator will deal with people showing up late, making sure the food is on time, crafting the assignments, and setting up the room. There are a lot of logistics related to an event like this. Dealing with those logistics will prevent you from bringing your entire focus to the problem at hand.

Flexible Design
A professional facilitator will work with you to design the event, not just establish an agenda. The design will push participants to explore your problem from different points of view before trying to build a solution. Each participant will come to understand everyone’s needs, not just their own. When the group starts to build and test possible solutions, these solutions may look very different from what you and the facilitator expected in advance. In fact the group’s solution should look different from your solution – otherwise, why should all of these people get together in the first place? A good facilitator will keep the design flexible so that it can respond to the needs of the group and of the work as they arise.

Documentation
A professional facilitator will also provide you with some kind of record of the event – not just what decisions were made, but also how you reached those decisions. It is critical to record the journey, not just the destination, because it is in the journey that relationships were built, context was created, insights were achieved, and consensus was reached. In complex problems like these, it is as important to remember how you reached the goal as it is to remember the results themselves.