How to Be the Absolute Best at Low Ego Facilitation!

Welcome to the Modern Facilitators Manifesto. This year Gareth and I will reflect on what meaningful facilitation looks like for our ever-evolving world. We have been practicing for some time, building and experimenting with facilitation styles that reflect creativity and co-creation in order to design experiences which are important for progress for any group. We will be sharing steps we’ve taken to design meetings, conferences, and strategy meetings (and more) that invite the world into learning how we might communicate to each other differently, so we can do things differently.

We use a dialogue format in this blog because as far as we can tell, it’s the best tool to allow for difference and find emerging themes that can help all of us grow.

Gareth: So far in our Modern Facilitators Manifesto we’ve touched on what facilitation means to us as practitioners and how to begin to develop one's own facilitation style. This time around we wanted to unpack the difference of low-ego vs. high touch facilitation and what that means to us. Join us as we dive a bit deeper into the discussion about when to use one over another and why.

Katy: It should be said up front that this is still an idea I am playing within my work. What is the true importance of the facilitator? How important it is to bring in my experience and technical knowledge, and when it is more valuable to leave that all at the door and instead trust that the group in front of me has what it needs to create the next best steps.

The idea of Low-ego facilitation came up trying to remind me of my role. It means embracing the reality that the group you are facilitating and the path they are building is ‘not about you’ at all. My job for these gigs is to focus on building bridges between people and connecting the dots between ideas and experiences as they emerge. It’s to help that emergence.

High-touch facilitation is when I play a greater role in the discussion itself; more often adding my own experiences, expertise, and learning to guide the group through a certain strategy like a Theory of Change or Lean Business Model. To be honest, this even comes into play when I am simply sharing stories with a group working to transform conflict with one another.

In High-touch facilitation I intentionally guide strongly, yet it’s still foundational to pull out voices from the group and encourage other ideas to emerge so that whatever the final deliverable is, there is a sense of ownership by the group. In the name of sustainability that is pretty important! When I do this I am always surprised at how customized everything becomes.

Gareth: So what I’m hearing is Low-ego facilitation is about the experience the group gives each other that you ‘tease out’ and High-touch facilitation is the experience you give the group through personalised ‘interventions’ if you will (that’s my public health background coming through).

The crux is making conscious choices about what is needed and when. I have seen sometimes that facilitators elevate their position amongst the group end up playing the ‘expert’, when that isn't what the group needs. For example in Low-ego facilitation, the group would interact and with your support discover together what might work for them. In High-touch facilitation you perhaps could start with a case study or a snapshot of ‘what we know’ and then see what the group gleans from that.

It's surprisingly easy to fall into the ‘expert’ role if you do know the topic or issue well. I’ve worked in abortion advocacy for a long time and I’m passionate about the science as well as the politics. However, there is nothing more obnoxious than a male ‘expert’ mansplaining fetal development or women’s health policies. Instead, I lead with body-autonomy and speak to how institutions that exert control, oppose comprehensive sexuality education and dictate what queer people do with our bodies--are often the same groups denying a women’s right to choose.

How do you make sure you don’t facilisplain?

Katy: (Laughing) I work in stories and always end with questions. It sounds very politically correct these days, but saying “Here is a story that may be relevant for you from my experience”, and ending with, “do you think that applies to this environment as well?”

Another one to steal for any group is, “What are we learning from this discussion?” This helps me make sure I am not driving a process around my own experience. Over the years I can catch myself much quicker when I fall into the I KNOW EVERYTHING THESE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ATTITUDE and I instead picture myself reaching into people’s heads and hearts and pulling out what they have been through, worked for etc, and stepping on it. That visual helps!

When do you feel Low-ego facilitation is the most important G?

Gareth: Good, question. In the social impact field working with groups that aren’t often asked to solve challenges or set strategy, I’ve encountered groups with low self-esteem who feel like they have nothing to contribute and consequently look to the facilitator for answers. It’s what all of our education systems teach us and is a hard habit to break for both the group and facilitators.

In those situations, I would really want to resist a High-touch role and rather reinforce that they know the challenge best and can ‘solve problems’ in many ways by themselves. I establish my role at the outset, explaining that although facilitators create spaces so people can have needed conversations, we were hired to listen and support, not give answers.  

For me, I do my best work outside of the room. What I mean by that is often I will set up a task and leave the room, to demonstrate not only that I am unimportant right now, but also so that a task is wholly and completely owned by the group. It’s surprisingly reaffirming when a stranger reminds you that you are smart and important to this process and trusts as they step away. None of us hear it enough and the reminder can set a group in the right direction.

Katy: It’s interesting you say that you’d avoid High-touch facilitation in that case. It is ok to drive forward strategy and bring in your own experiences to help move the group through a process. It is ok if the group is about to start on a strategy and you know that the strategy falls apart at a certain point if you don’t get them to think about this or that. It isn't ok to think you know all the answers. There is a middle ground to be found.

This drives back to my tensions about the topic of low-ego vs. high touch facilitation I mentioned earlier. It feels like such an important role in the room. You are the orchestrator and provide the tools people need to set the path and yet, I don’t want them to remember me but rather remember the time they built this thing -and hopefully built even an inch of closer relationships with one another.

Your Turn: What does low-ego facilitation look like to you? What does High-touch facilitation look like? And what is in the middle of those two?