Team Facilitation: two small things in the context of the 2023 review

The Reef
1

Following up to our review session in February (The State of The Reef 2024: chronicles from the review meeting) I wanted to create a mini-post about Team Facilitation (ping @reef-facilitation).

TL;DR:

  • I think it is important that we invest more time and energy in researching and practicing facilitation methods for big groups, like e.g. deep democracy, fish bowls, coloured hat method etc.

  • It’s ok for me if people sign up for Team Facilitation without any prior knowledge, but I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of people facilitating our meetings without a minimum of sociocracy training.

Further details:

One thing that I would like to get more clarity about is the aim of the Team, which to me is not only to facilitate plenary meetings and provide training and support to team facilitators, but also to actively research facilitation methods for big groups. Examples could include deep democracy, fish bowls, coloured hats methods etc. With our group getting bigger and the stakes getting higher, the latter is now becoming urgent and important to me.

The other thing that doesn’t feel right to me is the membership process for Team Facilitation. What I see is that people were signing up for Team Facilitation without much of an idea of what facilitation entails, and whether it is actually something they enjoy and/or are good at. I also feel uncomfortable about the idea of people facilitating our meetings without a minimum of sociocracy training.

In part this should now be solved by the proposal to move consent on the teams set-up to the end of the associate membership stage (Teams set-up process: moving it to the end of the Associate Membership stage?)

Proposed action points:

  • Invest more time and energy in alternative facilitation methods for big group (preferably with a deadline)

  • Move consent to team membership to the end of the associate membership stage (becoming an informal member earlier on is of course always possible)

  • Organise facilitation trainings (I’m coming up with that shortly now)

2 Likes
2

i would add a 4th action point: clearly defining the aims/responsabilities of Team Facilitation and maybe defining sub-circles with each its own aim/responsability. We are a very small team, so maybe it doesn’t make sense. My point is just that maybe not every member of Team Facilitation should take up (=feel comfortable with) all aims/responsabilities of team Facilitation.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for the input @Lee !

Regarding the proposed action points:

This is something that has been discussed at every Team Facilitation meeting since the beginning, but which often slips down the priority list. However, clearly the time has come for that dynamic to change. We’ll have a team meeting in the near future and set up a concrete plan/deadline for moving forward with this…

If I’ve understood correctly, the main change is that Associate Members participation in teams will now always be provisional until the point where they decide to become (or not to become) Full Members. In terms of this team, the shift is that no-one would expect to actually facilitate until that time. The advantage is that with the new training schedule that’s about to manifest, it can reasonably be expected that people will have had some sociocracy training, experienced a number of sociocratic team and plenary meetings, and done some facilitation training (which is important in terms of knowing whether one has an affinity with it).

Looking forward to it :slight_smile: I’ve successfully signed up for the 6x2 facilitation training with Sociocracy for All, so I can share that material with you if it’s changed and seems useful.

I think this is a really good point! If we see being part of this team in a wider way, it’s fine to have people involved who are actually facilitating meetings, and others who are helping the Reef with facilitation in a more general sense (researching new methods and supporting the facilitators).

:slight_smile:

1 Like