The fifth chapter of Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation, downloadable here as it’s own resource. Can assigned as independent reading, as a conversation starter, or in a facilitator training.
From the chapter:
Let’s consider two situations. In both, someone is facilitating a training with a group, and their goal is to help the group understand humanity’s effect on global climate change. One participant is struggling with the material. For this example, let’s do our best to empathize with that participant.
In the first situation, the participant in the training who is struggling pushes back. They say, “I don’t understand how you can think the planet is warming. We just had a terrible blizzard last week.” The facilitator, confident that the material being covered is factually true, sensitively responds, “I appreciate you sharing your perspective. A lot of people share that concern, but extreme weather is actually a symptom of climate change.”
Now consider an alternative situation, where everything is the same, except for one word being changed: the facilitator responds, “I appreciate you sharing your perspective. A lot of people share that concern, and extreme weather is actually a symptom of climate change.”
You may have already had a feeling in your gut in response to that simple word change: the feeling of “and” and the feeling of “but” can be dramatically different.
Read on by downloading the chapter above.
