Employing Differences, Episode 194: How do we share facilitation?

"How do you do something other than just the tag team approach? For me, that's really all about designing the partnership. If we're going to partner on facilitating this meeting, what does that look like? And one way that that partnership can be structured is we're going to take turns. But that's not the only choice that we have."

Paul  & Karen discuss the benefits and challenges of co-facilitating. 

Transcript

[00:00:00]  Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals. 

[00:00:11]  Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:12]And I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:13] Karen: Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, how do we share facilitation?

[00:00:22] Paul:  So Karen and I have done a lot of facilitation on our own. We've also done some facilitation with other people. And one of the things we we often get questions about is the our situations where, "Hey, I need to facilitate with another person for a variety of different reasons." We'll talk about what some of those might be. 

[00:00:43] Paul: What do I need to be thinking about? What are the challenges of co-facilitating with another person? What makes it work well? What are some challenges? What are some things to think about? And we wanted to kind of explore today what some of our experiences with that have been. Obviously, everyone's experiences can be different. 

[00:01:01] Paul: And some tips, some advice, some things that we like to help people think about ahead of time so that they don't suddenly get into the room with not only all the people that they're supposed to be helping to run this meeting for, but the person who they're supposed to be doing it with, looking at each other and going, so what are we gonna do?

[00:01:29] Karen: Yeah, and I think one of the reasons that my clients facilitate with each other is because I tell them to. And that suggestion of, co-facilitation, having that shared space, having real benefits for all kinds of reasons, including when you share facilitation, this is both a tip and a reason to do it, you talk through the meeting. 

[00:01:45] Karen: So you've got two brains working together. And as you have different ideas about what order are we going to put things in or what facilitation strategies are we going to use or that kind of thing, doing the prep together actually usually means that it gets done more thoroughly and that the coordination doesn't mean it takes more time to prep. 

[00:02:03] Karen: Yes, it does. Almost always. But that time turns out to even be well spent. So I start with the premise that it's a good idea in many cases, particularly larger meetings. A lot of my clients, typically their meetings are, you know, thirty people at a time. Particularly in that case, having two facilitators I think can be really useful. And I also think particularly for folks who don't facilitate all day, you know, Paul and I, well, either of us could facilitate an all day meeting and it's just part of what we do.

[00:02:32] Karen: For most folks that we're training and working with, it's not their primary job and it's exhausting. So having some share in that so that you're not just 100% on for two hours straight say, can be a real benefit. Where I'm hoping we can go today and think about is more than just the turn-taking element, which is what usually happens when I say make sure there are two of you. It ends up being well I'll do the first half and you do the second half or I'll do these topics and you do those topics. 

[00:03:05] Karen: And I think that's useful. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do. What I'm hoping is that we can delve into a step up from just that, so that we don't have one plus one equals one at a time, and we can get to one plus one equals something more like two. How do the two actually work collaboratively to give the meeting a better experience than the meeting participants would have if there was only one person there?

[00:03:32] Paul: Yeah. How do you do something other than just the tag team approach? You know, which, as you point out, has its benefits, but there is another layer to that there of what you can do. And for me, that's really all about designing the partnership. If we're going to partner on facilitating this meeting, what does that look like? And one way that that partnership can be structured is we're going to take turns. But that's not the only choice that we have. 

[00:03:58] Paul: In some ways, I actually do this with almost all of my facilitation because I'm designing some sort of partnership with usually with whoever the meeting owner or meeting sponsor is. Right. So like when I'm working at the board, for example, I'm partnering with the chair. And there are times when I really, you know, I'll say to them, like, I really think you need to be leading this part. Here is what I will do to support that. But here's where you need to take the lead, because that's part of your role, you know, as the chair of this board.

[00:04:23] Paul: And then when we get to this part, right, I can take the lead on that because that's, you know, you've established here's why we're doing this thing. And then I'll hold the structure part of it. So part of it is for me is about and that's just, you know, I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily co-facilitating with that person. Then there are times when I've got another person who I'm working with where we have what is much closer to, you might call it an equal partnership, where we're playing similar roles and we're kind of fluidly dancing back and forth a little bit. 

[00:04:55] Paul: So for me, it's really about looking at for this particular meeting, for this particular group of people, what is the partnership that those of us who were sort of leading the meeting, were helping to facilitate a meeting? What does that have between us? Right. Sometimes it's going to be there's explicit pieces and roles that we're going to break out. Right. And you're going to do this piece the whole time. And I'm going to do this role the whole time. And sometimes it's not. So it's for me, it's about saying what type of partnership is useful for us in this and that. How do we get to doing that?

[00:05:28] Karen: And I think there's, there's an ideal that may not always be achievable, but, you know, Paul and I have done this podcast long enough that I suspect if we sat down to do a meeting together, we would have a pretty easy toss it back and forth and if, and if Paul was facilitating a particular piece and I am watching the room and seeing.

[00:05:45] Karen: And, you know, I might jump in and say, well, "What if we did this thing now that that that fluid addition thing would happen just in the meeting without us feeling like we were stepping on each other's toes or that kind of thing that we could just sort of toss ideas in as needed." And I think that is the ideal, like that, that, you know, each other well enough and you work together well enough that you're each kind of headed in the same direction.

[00:06:10] Karen: And if, the person who isn't right now talking has an idea that's really going to help, they say it, right? So there is this sort of fluid back and forth. And I don't think you can assume that that's going to work. And so I think there's a balance of kind of know you're aiming for that and talk about that. Like, how do we feel if we jump in with each other? And if it seems like that's workable, try it out. and sort of work toward that. And at the same time, you can't count on being rescued by your partner all the time.

[00:06:43] Paul: Yeah, that that fluidity is definitely, you know, certainly stylistically, that's how I like to do it. And also, I recognize that not every person who I'm facilitating with is going to that is that going to be their preference or their style. And so I can't assume that. I actually had an experience very early on, one of my first co-facilitating experiences, working internal with a company. I was working with another colleague and we were co-facilitating this thing together. 

[00:07:12] Paul: And I thought things went really well and we were debriefing afterwards. And she basically said, you know, you kept coming in and rescuing and stepping over me and not basically letting me stand in the space that I needed to stand in. And I realized it was because I had so much attention on what was happening in the group, I wasn't paying attention to my partner at all. 

[00:07:35] Paul: And we hadn't been explicit about how did we want to handle when things go wrong. When I notice something is missing, I shouldn't assume that I should jump in. We should have that conversation ahead of time. And if I do notice there is something that I want to throw in, how do you want me to let you know? Do you want me to just say something? Do you want me to try to flag you? How do we want to do that? In some ways, I think that the most useful thing that we can do as facilitators is have an agreement for how we're going to handle it when things don't go according to plan. 

[00:08:08] Paul: We need to plan for how we're going to recover when we suddenly discover, "Oh, we thought there were going to be seven people in this, and there's actually fifteen. What are we going to do?"  We forgot to introduce this part of the activity. 

[00:08:21] Paul: What are we going to do? How do we want it to be between the two of us so that our working relationship in the room is still functioning well enough so that we can hold the rest of the meeting? And that's one of the things that I try to do a lot of ahead of time when I'm going to be co-facilitating with somebody, is just be like, what do we want it to be like when I'm working together? When something goes wrong, how do we want to recover? What do we not want to do? Like, what's the worst thing that I could do while we're working together that's going to throw this off? So that particular if we haven't worked together, that's a really, really quick and useful way for me to help sort of design some of that partnership with the other person.

[00:09:01] Karen: Yeah, I think that pre-contracting might think about that, and I think it's super important. And I think part of that pre-contract pre-contracting conversation can also be, where do we each feel skilled Where do we see each other skills, because some of the division, is about what are you good at? 

[00:09:25] Karen: So if someone has fabulous handwriting for writing on a whiteboard and feels comfortable with that, maybe they, you know, when there are times that things need to be recorded on a whiteboard, they're the ones who are going to do that. Maybe somebody is really good with the tech side. So when the tech side piece is more significant, they'll turn their focus there. So there may be task assignments within a topic. 

[00:09:45] Karen: And then you can think about what goes with that. So if I'm writing on the whiteboard, I might also be repeating back the responses. So if, if Paul and I are working together, Paul may be leading the meeting, calling on people, you know, directing questions or guiding, you know, the direction of the conversation, I'm going to have the part of repeating back, mirroring back to people what they have said, and then recording it in whatever way we want to do a shared recording thing. So we're both involved in the same piece of the meeting, but with different roles.

[00:10:18] Paul: And that role stuff is interesting, right? Because there are some people who, sometimes it's just like, we're going to do this together, and I'm going to feel most comfortable if I do this part, right? I may be a little nervous about that. I could do that other piece, but it would be better if. And sometimes that stretch is useful also, right? But yeah, and it can be nice, you know, to know that, and this is where the partnership stuff around, like you and I have talked about before, that sometimes the best sign of collaboration is when each of you feels like you're not pulling your own weight and the work is getting done. 

[00:10:52] Paul: So it's like, great, I'm doing the part that's easy and comfortable for me. You're doing the part that's easy and comfortable for you. And we're getting a great result. Like finding what that's going to be if you haven't worked together before can be a little challenging. And sometimes that explicit assignment of roles around things like recording or timekeeping or things like that can be really useful. 

[00:11:13] Paul: I think it is always good to be ready to jump in if, for whatever reason, you realize, "Oh, actually, that division is not working right now. We need to pivot on that." But yeah, like so there is there is both a relational aspect of that contracting in terms of here's how we want to be together when we're working together. And there's the logistical, right? The the the great I'm going to write these part. You're going to lead that part. You're going to do this. We're going to divide it up this way. We're going to pair on this sort of thing. And I think both of those elements are important. If you only do one or the other, you can often end up in trouble.

[00:11:50] Karen: Yeah, and I really want to highlight that piece you said about ready to jump in if needed. that sort of ready-to-back-each-other-up kind of thing, because it's so easy when you're up in front of the group talking, doing the facilitation thing to miss a step or, you know, not look at the agenda or not notice the time or any number of things like that.

[00:12:12] Karen: And so it's part of it is even if I'm not actively facilitating or don't actively have a job at this moment, that mentally I am still tracking as though I were. so that I am able to notice the things that might be missed. So that piece about, "Oh, it's, it's Paul's turn. I'm just, you know, I'm having my cup of tea thing. That's not going to work very well. 

[00:12:37] Karen: What you really want is that full engagement and mental presence of both people throughout so that you've got two brains to rely on. Either because the person actively facilitating goes, what was I supposed to do next? And the other can say, this is the thing. Or that, you know, the person who's not actively facilitating can jump in and say, did you want to say something about whatever or, you know, whatever that thing was that was missed, I think is really important.

[00:13:05] Paul:  Yeah, then that touches on two things that I really like to do when I'm co-facilitating. One is there's a technique that we've kind of alluded to a couple of times that I call, I learned it as whispering out loud, which is there may be points where we're facilitating something together. and we had a plan and one or the other of us is thinking that maybe we need to deviate from the plan or we've forgotten something. And one of the things that I like to do is not pretend to be perfect.

[00:13:36] Paul: And so I will say, hey, just whispering out loud for a minute, I'm wondering if maybe we want to move that thing from after lunch to now. And we can kind of renegotiate, but doing it in front of the participants so that they have a sense of what's going on. I really like to do that. Not everybody who I work with is necessarily comfortable with it, but it's something that I find really useful to do because then I don't have to find some weird way to like, pass you a note while we're doing a thing, and then you're looking at me going, huh? It's a way of sort of mediating a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty in the co-facilitation that I really like. 

[00:14:14] Paul: And if I'm going to do that, and if I'm not going to do it, I still like to do this, I always like to be really clear with the participants what our contract for co-facilitation actually is. Because we're going to be doing some things, and they may be watching us, and they start telling themselves a story about how we're interacting, or what that means, or where that goes. And I really like to just let them in on the secret. It's just like, "Hey, so we're going to be doing this today." We're going to be bouncing back and forth between us a lot. You're going to see both of us do this thing. We maybe do this thing called whispering out loud. We may, this thing, that thing. 

[00:14:46] Paul: Feel free to. And so we have designed between us how we want this partnership to operate. And I like to let the participants know what agreements we have between us so that they know how to interact with us. Because co-facilitation is something that not a lot of meeting participants necessarily have experience with. And so they have some uncertainty about, is one person in charge? Am I supposed to direct all my questions to them? How do I do that? It's weirder for them too. And so I like to be clear about whatever contract we have between us.

[00:15:17] Karen: And I think that has an added benefit, which is you're modeling the kind of collaborative work that we probably want our meeting participants to be doing as well, but really showing people like to say out loud. Would you think it was a good idea to do this thing? Or I'm considering that, how do you feel about that? Or is this a good time for me to make a suggestion? Like all of that stuff that really, whatever it is that I'm going to do to shift the meeting, I layer it heavily with the respect that says, I'm not just gonna take over. 

[00:15:15] Karen: I'm checking in with you. We're having that opportunity to give some permission around it and get both views in there. I think that's fabulous modeling. And it's the sort of thing that people haven't necessarily seen a lot of. So it's really useful to have two facilitators demonstrating that kind of collaboration in a group that you want to be collaborating together.

[00:16:20] Paul: And of course, the challenge is you then have to do it, right? It's like, it's not just that we tell people, you need to be collaborative and work together. It's like, "Oh, well, now we have to model it." Now that's, you know, the pressure is really on. But I do think that that is one of the really powerful things about doing co-facilitation and sharing that facilitative load, is that you get people the experience, not just the. 

[00:16:43] Paul: They have more than a cognitive sense of what this kind of collaboration looks like or the way that you're trying to do it. You get to embody it. And so the participants get to experience you do it. And that often, that goes even beyond the. It's not just we're tag-teaming and it's one or one. Like that's really where the one plus one starts to equal way, way more because you get a much richer experience and not just that you're sharing the load.

[00:17:12] Karen: So I think we started today saying what happens when you have two facilitators, which we think is a really good idea and has a lot of great benefits, particularly for folks who don't facilitate meetings all day long to have two brains involved in the meeting. So there are a lot of reasons to do it. 

[00:17:29] Karen: One is so that nobody's caught out alone. Another is that the process of working together will make you think more deeply in the planning of the meeting and putting it together. Another is that you can back each other up. And in order for it to work, you do have to prep the meeting together. 

[00:17:45] Karen: You need to have some contracting around how are we going to work together when things go badly? How are we going to handle that? If I see something that seems like it should be added while you're leading, What would you like me to do about that? 

[00:17:59] Karen: What skills do you have? What skills do I have? How are we going to make the most of those skills? And where are parts of the meeting where we both have a role and each of us can be doing a piece that's useful? And how can we be modeling that collaborative work? 

[00:18:15] Karen: How can we, in the way that we interact with each other, actually be setting the tone for the collaboration that we're asking of the participants? And so if you've prepped for all of those things, then when it comes time for the meeting, you can get beyond the tag team where one or the other is facilitating and really be making the most of having two facilitators available in a very collaborative way and have a better meeting.

[00:18:42] Paul: Well, that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:18:45] Karen:  And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.