Vodcast 343 : The Paradox of Professional Facilitation with Vinay Kumar

Vinay, it is such a pleasure to have you here with me today.

Myriam, finally I'm here and we're speaking.

Yeah, we're just, uh, when we had our exploration call last week, we were actually surprised how we're orbiting around each other for years on LinkedIn and never had the opportunity to actually meet in person.

Yes, um, that, that's the amazing part of the virtual world. Once we find each other, we can connect and have these really fun conversations. So looking forward to this.

Yeah, and I always kick it off with the same question. Do you call yourself— no, here we go, I asked the same question for 350 times. Um, when have you started called Today is I'm a broken record.

Okay, that's okay, it happens.

Um, okay, Gordon, cut that out. I started, um, recording the first episodes for my new podcast, and I think now—

ah, that's why, that's why you're— you've forgotten which format.

Yeah, and this week I recorded it twice. Um, and now after 350 times I'm just totally confused.

It's muscle memory. It's change management, internal change management.

It's funny, isn't it?

Yeah. Yes.

Um, when did you start calling yourself a facilitator, assuming that you do?

Oh yes, I do call myself a facilitator. Uh, I probably called myself a facilitator In 2005 or '06. And but in the truest sense of a facilitator, that is a process facilitator, I would probably say closer to 2008.

What made the difference?

Well, between 2005 to 2008, I thought I used to facilitate, right? It was a nicer word than calling ourselves a trainer. But then in 2008, you discovered both the art, the science, the methodologies and all of that. And then I discovered that I was facilitating, maybe not necessarily completely. And in 2008, I made that shift to learning more about pure process facilitation. And that's the year I did my first pure process facilitation, which is zero content.

Beautiful. So you went from trainer to pure facilitation.

Yeah.

So, and training then, I assume, is almost pure content, then maybe with some facilitative elements.

Correct. Yeah. So I would have probably said between 2005 to '08, I was a facilitative trainer. Uh, or a trainer uses facilitative methodologies. But in 2008, I was asked to do a— run a workshop where there was zero content, was just helping the group achieve an outcome. And I walked out of that meeting and say, okay, I get facilitation.

And was it then like coming home? Because I can imagine that it's not even imagining, it is a mindset shift to move from being the subject matter expert, having the responsibility to transfer knowledge to the person who is maybe even holding back of sharing your knowledge, your opinion.

Yeah. It was a mindset shift. But actually, the mindset shift for me was easier than this shift in skills, right? It's about— it was actually a relief in a way to let go of the responsibility of content. But the skills needed to do it in a very I'm gonna repeat the word, in a skillful way and hold the space and be fully present and just being listening and then reflecting back what you heard. All of those skills took a little bit more time to develop.

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm just thinking that there are some trainings that I do. I know that someone could wake me up at 2 o'clock in the morning And I'd be able to give the training without any glitch and the group would be happy. And I would never facilitate a process if someone wakes me up at 2 o'clock in the morning.

I can do both now, actually.

Oh, wow.

Right. Yeah. I, you know, before we started, I was telling you, right, I'm a— I, to the frustration of many of my co-facilitators, and my colleagues, I can be very, I'm very comfortable being very emergent. As long as in the back of my head, I have a structure in place and I know the general flow, I don't need to prep as much as I needed to before. So I can probably do both today. Wake me up early in the morning and say, go do this piece of content. Or go facilitate a strategy workshop. I can do both.

And is this experience or is this personal growth?

Oh, good question. Both. And I usually tell people, take it— when somebody tells me I do a bit of both, I say, give me a— don't sit on the fence. Which one is it more, right? So I'm now telling myself that. I would probably say personal experience first, or personal growth first, and then the experience.

Why would you say that?

The growth is, I look for these kinds of opportunities. I enjoy them, I thrive in them, I seek them out very actively. So that's the personal, I mean, I'd like, I do more of my work there in some months than I do on the training side or on the content side. There are some months where I'm largely only doing process work.

Hmm.

So that's choice I made. But by making that choice, I'm gaining the experience of getting the opportunities to sharpen my skills, to try new things, to learn the nuances of just holding space or handling different kinds of audiences. And so I would say personal growth leads to experiences for me.

Yeah, interesting. Thank you. Because I, on the one hand, I was thinking the more we repeat something, and so we The more we are facilitating strategy workshops, the more we know somehow the patterns. We have an idea of the dynamics. We scan the room, see the people, and then emergence becomes easier.

Yeah, yeah.

On the other hand, there's also the piece of personal growth of, um, confidence and trust. I can hold the space even whatever happens and I don't get triggered and I, I can be just this rock in the storm.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I, so to me, it's, I used to be, I mean, in fact, I agree with you. Experience meets the personal growth. But to me, I put personal growth because personal growth In terms of seeking to do these kinds of experiences leads to even more personal growth, right? So chicken, it's, it's a, it's a chicken or egg. Is it personal growth or experience?

Yeah. And what is a— what did you need to, to learn in order to get there? And what did you need to unlearn? To succeed there?

There was a lot to learn. I thought I knew a lot, but I didn't know it. So there was a lot to learn. The unlearning was a little bit more challenging, right? Because that's muscle memory that you have built, mental muscle memory. So unlearning was the need to have structure, the need to be the person in charge, the need to be the center of the conversation, unlearning all of that and just letting that go took a little bit longer. And I couldn't learn a lot of new things from a deeper perspective till I've unlearned it. So, so there was a phase where I was trying to unlearn, but learning facilitation, but I was doing facilitation. Until I unlearned all of this muscle memory, I couldn't become a facilitator. I wasn't being one. And, and when the unlearning happened, it, it was a great combination of I'm not just doing facilitation, I'm being a facilitator.

Hmm.

I don't need, I don't need to be the center. I don't even need to be there. And there was one of the most hilarious experiences I had, which was such a learning for me, was in, I think, 2012 or '14, I think 2013. I think it was amazing.

Would you like to share that?

Yeah. So I was asked to work with a leadership team that was trying to outline the strategy for the next 2, 3 years. So there was the country leader, all his direct reports, maybe about 16, and one level below that. So about 16 or 17 of them. So I spent a lot of time designing the flow, you know, divergence to convergence, all the methodologies, and it was in an offsite in a mountain resort. Up in the hills. So we got there, we started, made breakfast, we started, and I hadn't slept very well the previous night. So at around post-lunch, around 2 PM, so I outlined on a flip chart, okay, step 1, this is what we're gonna do. This is the outcome that you all want to achieve. Are we aligned? They said yes. So here are the 3 steps I'd like you to do. Step 1, do this. Step 2, do this. Step 3, take as much time as you need. But this is— we have a— we, as you all want, you have a hard stop. It wasn't my hard stop. You might discover you need more time in step 1, which means then you'll have to figure out your time and assign roles to keep track of it. So they started, and they started work, and I was around answering questions if they had a process question. And I had a splitting headache. So I just thought, okay, they seem to be working. Let me go up to my room, grab some aspirin, just sit down, calm down, and come down after 10 minutes. I went up to my room. I decided to close my eyes just for 10 minutes and ended up sleeping for 90 minutes. I woke up an hour and a half later in panic saying, oh my God, I have failed as a facilitator. I've Disappeared. This is— so I went back in the room and they were still in step 3, they were finalizing it. And I just went in the middle and said, okay guys, just, uh, and they achieved the outcome.

And nobody noticed.

Nobody noticed I wasn't there. And, and in the spirit of transparency, I said, guys, thank you so much. And I just want to be really honest with all of you. I don't know if you noticed, I was away for 90 minutes. I went up to my room and they all looked at me and said, that's okay, we didn't notice. You gave us very clear instructions what to do. You outlined the process for us. We assigned roles amongst ourselves and we did it. Thank you, Vinay. And I was thinking, huh, am I now the invisible facilitator?

Literally.

Literally.

Upgrade.

Yeah. And that was, it wasn't intentional. It was a pure mistake on my part, if you want to call it that. But that was a huge learning for me reflecting on that experience. I could have got it wrong in so many ways. I may not have given them instructions. I may have only told them step 1 and said, I'll come back in 10 minutes for step 2. But You trust. So the, the, the principle of trust the wisdom of the group, right? So I even learned that.

Yeah. And, uh, isn't it funny how much these buzzwords or sentences, almost mantras, suddenly show how true they are only when we experience them for real for the first time?

Exactly.

Yeah. And I, as you know, I'm working on a book that I call Unprofessionalism, and I would love to look at your anecdote from this perspective a bit, because suddenly disappearing could be perceived as highly unprofessional.

Oh yeah, I had guilt for days. When it was time for me to send them an invoice for the work, I was thinking, You know, I was not there. Did I serve the group? Did I discount it? Right? They haven't, they haven't said anything to me, but I have to be really fair about it. And did—

so you did discount?

No, I, I didn't. I didn't. But, but the guilt in my head was, as a facilitator, I need to be there. I, I— how can I not be there? I beat myself up. Thinking this was so unprofessional of me. And by the way, I laugh at it now, but if you had seen me 3, 6 months or after that event, I was— I had professional trauma.

I totally believe you. And at the same time, I wonder whether it was the best thing you could have done because It really taught you, I assume, that you don't have to do much, that you can trust the process, and that the group then also realized that they can trust each other in the process?

Yes. I mean, it's easy in retrospect to sit there and say, hey, I learned all this. But at that point, I was thinking, I missed out adding value by being there, helping with the transition from step 1 to step 2. Or answering questions when they were going from step 2 to step 3. Maybe I missed seeing if they were involving everybody, or did somebody feel uninvolved because I as a facilitator was not watching the dynamic? So there was so much going through my head.

And there's so many shoulds and assumptions of what are the tasks of a facilitator. And the question is, is this true? Do we need to— so do we need to make them aware that they have to involve everyone, or what, what are we interfering with if we do, and what other dynamic are we inducing in the system?

Yeah, yeah. What if, uh, what, what did I not do? What did I do right? It was, uh, and it— except for one or two colleagues right after that event where I shared this experience with, and, and it was shared with a sense of shame and horror, right? Uh, saying, oh my God, guys, can you believe I did this? It was so stupid of me, and I can't believe— I'm never going to do this again. But over the years, I've learned that what was the— did the group achieve the outcome that they did? Yes. Did the group feel satisfied? And I did speak with everybody and I had follow-up calls with every single one as part of the process. And not one of them ever shared with me that they felt excluded or their voice was not heard. And I was like, over that, I kind of relaxed.

Okay.

Because if one of them had said to me, you know, I just felt not heard by the group, And I don't know if it was luck or it was just the dynamic of that group, uh, yeah, which they were very mature senior audience. They, they figured it out, but it could have gone bad in so many ways.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I, I wonder, I'd assume that if you hadn't trusted the group, Your adrenaline or your excitement, your doubt, all of that would have kept you awake anyway. So that's my assumption.

Yeah, I hope so.

Yeah. And it actually makes me look at this puzzle where such a glitch, you can only do it as a professional facilitator. You had prepared the process, and hence there was no, um, further impact. If you hadn't, if you were a newbie and this happens, it all falls apart. And then we study so hard, or there are many facilitators who take an accreditation certification, who accumulate all these trainings to very often accumulate different methods. And then they, as it seems to be, graduate to professional as soon as they can drop all of that.

Yeah, yeah. So I had already got my CPS, Certified Professional Facilitator, by then. And you're right, and that's why I, I am a fundamental believer in understanding the polarity. I consider this a polarity of doing facilitation versus, or, and being a facilitator. It's a scale.

Mm-hmm.

You can, if you're focused on doing your learning methods, tools, processes, getting all the certifications, all of that, And until you become a facilitator truly, it takes a while. I'm still on that journey. Am I there? I still find myself with things I can improve. But a lot of us make that error of focusing on doing the best that they can and becoming a master at doing. And we need to realize that the doing is the external, being is the internal. And until we— it's like the yin and the yang of facilitation. You've got to have a balance between the both.

Yeah. And how much do you still do or apply methods, or what is your Or is it all questions and guidance emerging?

No, I, I, I still have, um, methods that I use, right? I mean, uh, I, I believe I'm in service of the group. So at a point in time, uh, we have to keep an eye out for energy, we have to keep an eye out for movement. Uh, so there are methods that I have in my toolbox that I may use in the journey of trying to achieve the outcome that help the group to get there?

Mm-hmm.

Do I decide what the methods are before I start? I have in the back of my head saying, Okay, I could use this, this, or this divergent method. I don't know which one will work until I start engaging the group. But I need to have my collaterals, either a sticky wall or the Post-its or whatever it is, before I go in. But I'll decide which one to use at that moment.

Hmm. And I would be very curious if you have a sort of, even if it's unconscious, but way of assessing, okay, if there's, um, if the group is very shy, then there's a specific method that you would use rather than another one. Or if there, um, if there's a lot of hierarchy, then you would use—

Yeah, absolutely. Right. So, so I operate in Asia and I operate in a very diverse set of cultures. Hierarchy plays a role in some of them. Some organizational cultures are much more hierarchical than others. People won't speak up, they'll let the senior person go first and all of that. So, I mean, I'll give you an example, even as a simple thing, like a brainstorming process. It's easy to, you know, have everybody stand around, grab a marker and say, go put your idea on a whiteboard, right? In a very strong hierarchy culture, a lot of the times they're waiting for the senior leader to go up first and put their ideas and then the others will go and Do a plus one, plus one, plus one, right? But, or, or if it's a very vocal group, sometimes I'll say, can, can I get a, can I get a scribe volunteer? They say, yeah, I'll grab it. And then say, let's do popcorn. Each of you throw out an idea, capture, the scribe captures it. And I, I make sure as a facilitator that I give the scribe an opportunity to put a few things on the whiteboard as well.

Mm-hmm.

But then I realized that the group, before we even get there, there's some very vocal voices who will popcorn 100 of them and maybe the rest of the team— I like your popcorn. Yeah, may have only 10. So then I say, okay, I'm realizing I plan to use a popcorn stride method, but I'm sensing that this group, there's a few quieter voices. more reflectors. They, they, they— I'm sensing it even before we get there. So then I'm gonna probably switch to saying, okay, we're gonna brainstorm. And what I'm gonna do is hand out Post-it notes. I'd like each one to give a minimum of 3 ideas, one per Post-it note. Let's put that up there. And I, I won't ask you to put them up there until you've finished all 3. Write 3. And if you could write more than more and just put your hand up when you are done with your list. Everyone has to have a minimum of 3. So once everyone hits the threshold of 3 and some have got more, I say, now you can all rise at the same time and put it up there. Right? So that's a— So then, so the really vocal ones have 9 Post-its, but it's okay. Everyone else, there's many who have at least 3. So, so that decision I won't have made till I start to understand the dynamics of the group, till I experience that in the room.

Yeah.

But the method is still brainstorming. It's divergence, but The way I use it would be so contextual to the group.

Yeah. And there, I mean, brainstorming is just one word that structure. Yeah, it's a structure. So yeah, there's so many ways you can brainstorm with the group. So thank you for this example. I think that's very helpful. When do you think Someone could call themselves a professional facilitator? What makes a professional facilitator?

Uh, that's a tough question to answer. There are many people who call themselves a facilitator who do nothing close to facilitation, right? So there are many people who call themselves a professional facilitator And so, so to me, the term professional facilitator is— let's take away the word facilitator from it. Professional is if a large part of your work or your profession is in process facilitation.

Mm-hmm.

Is in— so if you're a group process, if you're a professional group process facilitator, and a large part of your work is doing that, then it's part of your core profession, right? So the term profession— I've never heard of a part-time doctor. Uh, they're the doctor. When you get your medical degree, you're a doctor.

Hmm.

You could choose to practice it, uh, every day, or you can choose to practice it, but you're in the medical profession.

It's like, yeah, it's a commitment to the craft, right? That's a good one. And I wonder whether— and I think facilitators, or real facilitators, it's very difficult for us to put our head down.

Yeah, correct. I mean, we, we end up facilitating social events also, right?

Yes, and might be hated by our families.

Yeah, exactly. Or we're out with a group of friends and they say, where should we go out to dinner? Oh yeah, instead of arguing about it, let's just go one by one. Let's throw out there, see if— maybe I should just shut up.

Yeah. Okay. So it's basically— so one way to define it is to see, do they have clients who are willing to pay for it? And then basically they earn the title.

Well, not necessarily.

Or is it the commitment to the craft?

Yeah, it's commitment to the craft and is a large part of their work, right? So you might be a professional facilitator in-house in a company and you're called by your internal clients to come and help facilitate various things as part of your core job. So yes. So a lot of OD practitioners and companies, a large part of the work is facilitating focus groups, strategy conversations, change management. So it is, they are, they are in many ways professional facilitators like us who are external, who do paid work with clients.

Hmm. Yeah, and you mentioned that there are a lot of people who call themselves facilitators.

Yeah, and, and that's why— and if you're reading, like, and I'm, I'm the first one to admit that's what I thought I was from till about 2006, '07 or so, right? I thought I was a facilitator and discovered I was a facilitative trainer. So, so it's on that continuum of trainer, teacher trainer, all the way up to group process facilitator.

Yeah.

So it, it depends on how you, uh, so that's why I kind of say to me, if when you say facilitator, I think of group process facilitation.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which, which we learn and we can apply it in other contexts as well.

Yeah. I remember I was at an ecstatic dance festival. So I don't know whether you're familiar with ecstatic dance, but it's basically everything is—

No.

There are only 4 rules. You're barefoot. There are no substances, no alcohol, no drugs. There is, and there's another rule anyway. And you can dance however you want. And this was an entire festival. So when I, Someone asked me, what do you do? I said, I'm a facilitator. And I would say 80% of the others say, oh, me too. So there were yoga facilitators and breathwork facilitators. And, um, and then I realized that, oh, there's a lot of potential for misunderstandings with the term.

Right.

Of facilitation.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, and still what I found then very interesting is that when well done, we're using similar tools to achieve a similar outcome.

Mm-hmm.

Defining the container, creating the safe space, making sure that everyone can be at the best, the best version of themselves, um, whether in thinking or in doing or in dancing or in being themselves.

Yeah. Yeah. So I do think it's a very universal skill when we bring groups together, right? The concept of a facilitator is very, very, very universal. So to me, I have absolutely no problem with anyone calling themselves a facilitator. That's fine. I mean, More power to them, right? Yeah, that's great.

And still at the same time, um, and I think that's something we're not talking about enough, and I'm actually curious because it's not— it doesn't happen only in the field of facilitation, but nowadays it's very easy to grab the lingo and to have the appearance of a facilitator. It's very easy, um, without actually having had done the skills or the experience. Um, and I think there's a danger to that, um, when working with groups. And at the same time, who is there to judge?

Right, correct. And, and, and that is why I think professional bodies, uh, where you bring communities of like-minded people doing similar work, who learn from each other, share best practices, who sort of elevate each other's skill becomes very, very important.

Yeah. So for instance, like the IAF.

Correct. Yeah. And that's, so I discovered them in 2006 and Still, I'm a very active member and I've served on the board. Uh, I've done a lot of that stuff because you sort of find your professional family of people.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, the, to, to what we said, right? Yoga, breath instruction, all of that. Uh, yes, that's the wider universe of facilitators, but working with groups using processes, using similar language, like what's the desired outcome, divergence, the convergence, that narrows a field of people interested in that, be it communities, nonprofits, corporates. We are all up, we're all building the experience and the knowledge base within a I would say smaller, more cohesive group, right? There's a little bit of— so that the communities help.

So, and then if I understand it correctly, it would on the one hand be the signal to the outside world, I'm part of this community, hence I'm committed to the craft and I'm investing in personal growth or in the growth of the skill. And at the same time, it's also a peer learning group. There might be a certification or accreditation, so that's then also again a signal to the outside world.

Correct. Yeah. And also it's, uh, similar experiences that you can, like you said, peer learning that you can share, you can learn from. There are methods that, and processes like that are being developed on a regular basis that I may not have exposure to, but then they bring it to forums and conferences and all of that. So it keeps that, the learning is a huge momentum there.

And then the best way to signal or to show Or to stand out in times where everyone can basically call themselves a facilitator would be to show that you're investing or that you're part of a community.

Um, uh, I, I partially agree with you, Graham. Uh, one is to show, but that's the optics part of it, right? There's a lot of people who show they're part of I'm doing that. That's what I'm saying. But the real measure of success or measure of, or the evidence is when, if you are, so you could show, okay, let me put it this way. Let me simplify it.

No, it's good. I know people.

Yeah, I know people who've been showing up to facilitation conferences a couple of times, a few times. But when I've seen them at work, their skills haven't sharpened, nothing has changed. But they've been very good at leveraging the fact that they showed up. They did this, they did that. But does that translate into real sharpening of their skills and elevating their role or their service to the group when they're when they're with the group. And I don't, and I don't see that. So I think it's got to be both. You show up, you learn, you reflect, you apply. If that application piece isn't there, yeah, you know, every book I read, I try to find at least 2 or 3 things. There are many things I take away. But I try to find at least 2 or 3 things that I can use in my life. If I don't— and I try— maybe I may not be successful in all 3, but I'm hoping I'm successful in at least one.

And I can imagine that, um, you're hosting the Shiny Happy People, um, podcast, interviewing not only facilitators, and I can imagine that there's a lot you learn about facilitation from the non-facilitators.

Oh yes, many, many of them are using facilitation principles in their work, and they may not even, you know, they may not even call themselves facilitators.

Yeah, yeah.

Right, so absolutely, and I learned a lot from them.

I recently interviewed a hot balloon pilot, um, and she would have never called herself a facilitator. She's a pilot. And still everything she had to do to control the group dynamics in such a small space, 2,000 feet up the air. Um, so yeah. And I think with what we are describing, we're at the, that's where my puzzle starts that, um, and I think that's the dilemma of many facilitators. that they're doing the work. And then the better we get, the more invisible we become, right? So the group is not praising the facilitator because they're like, oh, we could have done it ourselves. They might be grateful for the process. Um, and then how do we know, right?

Yeah.

So I think, how can a facilitator Stand out, um, or yeah, without— and there are many who don't, and especially facilitators who really believe in the craft, they don't want to go on social media and praise and talk about all the great stuff they've done. Um, so I think there's a real, um, dilemma here.

Yeah, no, I, I agree with you, right? It also depends. So, so let's put it this way. I, I would— I'll be an optimist. Most facilitators, if not all, want to do meaningful work that has an impact. I, I don't think many people get up in the morning and say, I just want to go do a quick facilitation event and make as much money and never meet the client ever again, and I couldn't care less what happens, right? I don't think—

Yeah.

If they're at that stage in their life, maybe we've got they've got a bigger problem. The ability to hold— so there's 3 parts to this equation. We all want to do meaningful impact. But meaningful impact is not always in our hands. One is the way we contract with our clients. Hmm. Some— so that's the first part, the way we choose to contract. If we ourselves positioned facilitation as a band-aid, as an event. We are training our stakeholders, and I won't just say clients as an external, but even for internal practitioners, that you call in facilitators if there's a particular event or a problem that needs to be solved, right? The second is the client's ability to, or their capability to work with us over a long-term period. So even if we say, look, I know you guys want to do strategy and vision stuff, but if you really want that strategy and vision, do you just want a vision statement or do you want a strategy for the next year? Or do you also want to implement that strategy? And they say, we want to implement it. Okay, so then I need to first understand all the pre-contracting work, run that, and then it would be great if I could be part of that process, or it's important for me to be part of that process, or, or at least if I'm not part of the process, you have a good program manager or a project manager in-house who keeps track of it, does check-ins, brings the group back every 3 months to see how much the needle has moved. hears people's concerns and do all of that. And the clients go, oh, we don't have that internal capability. And ooh, that's gonna cost us a lot more than we thought. So if they are kind of at that stage, then how does it— it's not feasible for us to measure the impact. But, and the third one is Do we have the patience to stick with that client long enough? And do we have the skill? Because facilitating a strategy workshop and tracking and enabling the group over the next 3 quarters for it to become muscle memory and execution is, is a commitment on our part as well.

Hmm.

sometimes we enjoy the process of jumping from event to event.

Right.

So I am, I will be the first to admit, I used to be one of those. I used to love doing the, you know, that event I told you where I was up in the mountains with the, I did that. They loved it. I did a quick check-in with one-on-one call with all of them. had somebody, I documented all their outputs, sent them the report, and then did a 3-month check-in with them. And I was done. Was it impactful? I think so. That was impactful. But the strategy they came up with, did they implement it over the next 1 or 2 years? And did it move the needle? I have no idea. But today, I'm at a stage where I tell clients, Look, I really want to work with you guys long term. And they say, yeah, we really want that as well. We have to try. So I'm with the client now. It's been a year and a half. I'm still working with them every quarter. Even if I'm not there, I'm working with them virtually, remotely designing with their internal teams. And I'm seeing the needle move. They are seeing the needle move. They are happy that they have Continuity. So they used to use different facilitators, like, but for this annual retreat, they use one, next one, they used a different one. Now it's been a year and a half, and it'll probably go on another year, 6 months to a year. So there's, there's a, there's one, I want to do it, but also the clients realize the benefit of doing it. And now I'm seeing their organizational transformation. It's I'm loving it, right? So if you ask me, am I making an impact? Yes. Can we measure the impact?

Yes. Beautiful.

But that's one out of— but that's one out of 5 projects I'm involved in right now. That's one.

And I assume that the other projects are also longer term, that this is what you do now.

Um, no. Uh, 2 of them are events. One of them, this is the longer one, and the other one's like more midterm. They're willing to commit only for this financial year, right? Because that's their budget. Because this is now, I'm into 2 financial years with that longer-term project, and we're gonna go into the 3rd financial year soon. Yeah.

And it sounds a little bit, I cannot help myself but think think about dating. So before you engage in the longer-term relationship where you're really committed and where you're also willing to go through the maybe difficult parts with the client and with the group, um, you cannot do that with just anyone. And you need to have a sort of maturity as a client, but also as a facilitator in order to really commit to this longer term. Relationship, um, and the skills.

I'm not going in with the client yet. Yeah, but it is, right? So are you suggesting a, a, a client and facilitator dating app now?

Yeah, and, um, maybe that's what it's needed. And It's actually funny because I, it sounds as if, so I must admit that I never, I never graduated over the stage of the one-off events because I'm, I realized that I'm, I don't have, I don't enjoy the longer-term commitment, the process facilitation over long-term. Um, and I now focus on training, facilitative training. Um, Because that's my thing.

And, um, by the way, it's still 30-40% of my thing as well, right? And, you know, we have to find multiple sources of work. And if I did only group process facilitation, I'd probably, I don't know, burn out. I've never done only one of something. I've had the I've had myself being pulled with different skill sets and different things, which I also enjoy.

Yeah, and polyamorous relationships are very exhausting.

Yeah.

That's a different level.

Yeah. Oh, you're still stuck on that metaphor, Myriam.

And what I wonder is whether We have to gain the experience in these one-off events and maybe fail a few times because there are certain things we only learn through experience. And then whenever we are ready, the client will also notice by how we, how we step into the conversation and the contracting and how we show up in the place. And then something maybe more longer term will happen. Develop.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're absolutely— because this client, we'd been working with them both on the facilitative training side, on event-based facilitations for a while, right? And, and they had— they, they also evolved. They saw us evolving, me and my colleagues and myself, and that We both grew, and that's when the the match made in heaven using your simple metaphor.

Dum dum dum dum. And I um yeah.

I was just wondering. It's not love at first sight, love at twenty-fourth sight. Something like that.

That's the one that lasts usually.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um. And I then was just wondering because coming back to my initial thought on this. There's so much noise, there's so much bling-bling around facilitation. And from what I hear, what I sense is those who are really the master facilitators, they don't need that. Um, and then how can we fail safely at these beginnings? So damage control. Um, is there some Or maybe the IAF, does it sort of apprenticeships?

Not apprenticeship. There's opportunities to do practice sessions with your peer groups. There's opportunities to facilitate at conferences, which is very interesting because you are facilitating to a peer group of facilitators, right?

Herding cats.

So with, yeah, which can be Which is an interesting challenge because if you can manage that, it's easier to manage the clients. So there's plenty of opportunities for you to sort of practice that. There's this thing about something you said earlier, right? We learn from failure. While that is true, we also learn from Mediocre work. We learn from work that we walk out of, the client is happy, but we're not happy.

Oh, yeah.

We learn from our own complacent behavior at times. So, to me, reflection and feedback. And without becoming overly self-critical, some level of positive self-criticism is useful as a learning as well. You don't always have to fail.

Yeah.

But the failure could be only in your mind. It doesn't have to be a failure that's seen by everyone.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that was the beauty of the Never Done Before community, where we could just practice new things.

Right.

Um, and I was— while you spoke, I also realized how much I learned from sitting in workshops and just sensing, this doesn't feel good to me, so, oh, maybe I wouldn't do that as a facilitator. So assuming the role of a participant, um, while keeping the facilitation hat on. Um, yeah, there's a lot.

Yeah, I, I, it's also about, you know, what I said, personal growth and experience. I was invited by a client to attend their internal facilitator academy for new facilitators. And I'd already been doing this. I mean, this was just a few years ago. And the client was so apologetic saying, look, Vinay, you're gonna go to a— I'm embarrassed to ask you to go there because you have so much, you should be running that. But this is part of our compliance. Would you mind? And I said, you know what? I'm okay. I'm gonna go because I can learn from another community of facilitators I've not worked with. Plus the facilitators running it are people I know and respected, so I can learn from them. And it was fun. It was 3 days invested of my time, but I walked away with such— so one, it was validation that there's things that I'm doing that I'm doing well. There are things that I'm doing that I could do better, and there were new things I learned. that I added to my toolbox. And there was a wonderful feedback process. And I received some feedback that honestly surprised me and I loved it.

Right.

So it's about, but I know of people who decided not to go to that event because they said, look, I'm senior. This looks like it's a beginner course, a beginner program. And I'm like, okay.

And it's, oh, it's so funny because what does it say? We spoke about the inner, the personal growth, the ego that we have to leave at the door as a facilitator. So all of this as becoming a facilitator. And then if we are still in the mindset of, oh, I'm a senior, I cannot learn from that. What does it say about the journey?

Yeah. And also, you know, of course, some people said, well, there's an opportunity cost because the 3 days that I'm spending in that room, that's a different thing. I could go earn. And I'm like, sure, I could as well. But I give myself about 5 to 10 days in a year for my own personal development. And I just did the 3 days that I've gone there. Yeah, which is great.

Beautiful. What remains your facilitation challenge?

I don't know what I don't know, so I'm sure there are plenty of challenges, but, uh, there's, there's a few. There's— I want to do some strategic M&A integration facilitation, where 2 leadership teams of 2 companies come together. How do you define the culture of the new firm? You know, there's some really interesting stuff happening in that space. I haven't had the opportunity to do that, but that's more like the bucket list of types of facilitation that I want to get into. But to me, it's The challenge is facilitating groups, facilitating different kinds of group dynamics that I have not encountered.

Can you give an example?

I haven't done— so I'm much more a corporate facilitator. I work with the corporate field. I've done some in the field of education with school teachers and stuff like that. But I haven't done a lot of them. I've done a few nonprofits, but I haven't done a lot of community-based facilitation. I haven't done too much government work or United Nations agency work and stuff like that, and I'd like to just try that.

And may I double-click on that? Because I think that's interesting. I would be curious what you assume to be different. So what are the particularities, starting with the M&A. So you have 2 different companies merging into one. What is particular— what do you think is the particular skill set needed for that? And what— how would you see the facilitation to be different when you then go into the UN or NGO or teachers?

Yeah, with teachers, I've really enjoyed it because for them, they're learning methods and tools to take back into their classrooms to elevate the student experience of learning, right? So it's, it's really helping them learn methods and tools. It's almost like train the teachers or facilitate the teachers to use facilitation. That, I've loved that. And they soak it in like sponges. With the UN group, because very often when you do government, intergovernment agencies, Uh, I, I have never done it, so I can only speak from hearing, uh, some of my colleagues who have been doing it, some of my peers, uh, doing this work. And they say hierarchy plays a significant role. It's not the— things move a little slower. You've got a whole bunch of organizational dynamics. Many of them are volunteers, so the accountability is different. So, so, so I, I'm looking forward to being challenged in those things.

Yeah. And then I can imagine that especially in these spaces, there might be less heterogeneous. So, um, so in corporates, I think there is a certain international culture that has developed where you can assume certain things to just work a certain way, independent of where the company is located.

Right. And the interesting thing is like stakeholder conversations, you don't necessarily get access to all of that in those days. If somebody says, here's the mandate, this is what you need to do. And this is the time you've been given. There's a lot of non-negotiables that you need to do in the developmental world.

Yeah.

Whereas in the corporates, you can say, hey, one of my colleagues, He says they don't pay as much in the corporate world, as much as the corporate world in the developmental world. But the work that you do in the group that you are working with are really trying to do meaningful work on the ground. And that, that's where they get their sense of achievement in. And, but then there's very strict boundaries and limitations, whereas in the corporate world, you can negotiate a lot of them.

Yeah. And I've heard, I've interviewed a few facilitators of NGO work. And I was amazed by the complexity because also it's, everyone is there because of passion.

Yeah.

And then if you have a lot of passionate people coming together, there are a lot of different opinions and very often the devil lies in the detail.

Yeah.

And how to achieve this. We, yes, we have a common vision, but what does it actually mean? And do we agree on how we want to achieve that?

Yes. Yeah. So it's just, it's never been about, you know, it's not even the money right there at that level, but—

Very different work, I think.

It's a very different kind of work. And the way I show up will be different. It's definitely put me out of my comfort zone, which is, yay.

Okay, audience, if you have a little challenge for Vinay.

Yes, please.

Um, and so does it mean— is there still a situation where you walk in the room and something happens and you're like, oh no?

Oh no, it always— I, I expect— I walk into the room and I expect something to happen, and I'm like, at the end of the day, oh my God, nothing happened, something's wrong. So I expect the unexpected. I expect conflict to emerge. I expect disagreements. I encourage it. So I am, for a while, I used to love doing conflict facilitation. That's something that's like when there's 2 different functions that are constantly in conflict, they've reached a stage they can't work together. You know, in the corporate world, it's supply chain and finance, maybe, or finance and sales, or when you get those 2 groups together. Oh, I love that.

And what is usually— is there something that you would say that's the most underestimated part in such a facilitation? The 80/20?

Time. If you do a good job, of surfacing the elephant in the room, the real elephant in the room, you've got to do a very good job of closing the issue or resolving the issue. And sometimes if they've only given you X amount of time to do it, many facilitators will say, if I surface this, I don't think we'll be able to resolve this. So let me, let it stay hidden. Let's just do a superficial go. And I love surfacing it. And I said, guys, do we want to move this? Yeah, I think we need to stay on a couple of hours, or can we come back to this in a week?

And by elephant, you mean, so the way how I imagine it is that they, do have a point of conflict, um, usually involved with finger-pointing, but what is actually below that they're not talking about? So their shared history or the issues that they don't talk about.

The root cause, right? It's, it's the root cause, right? What, what is— why is it happening? So that is— yeah. So, so I can give you an example. I was doing this workshop. It was supposed to be a day. By the end of the afternoon on day 1, it was an offset. We were in Goa, if you know that part of India, which is this coastal beach town. None of us were— we had all flown in for it. And I had told my stakeholder, the problem statement you're saying cannot be done in a day. I'm sorry, but we only have a day. We need you to do it. I said, okay. By post-launch, we knew that this was a bigger issue and it had surfaced. So I took my key stakeholder aside. I took a couple of— and I said, what do we wanna do with this? Do we just wanna close it at 5 PM because everyone's got flights to catch?

Yeah.

At 4:30, we need to go. Tell me what's expected of me. And if, if the wound has been opened, how are you all going to close this? Right? And they just said, give us a couple of minutes. Can you step away? So I stepped away. And I was like, oh, they're gonna blame me for opening the wound. They came back and said, we're going to check with our admin whether we can get— stay an extra night, continue tomorrow. And we're gonna try and change everyone's flights. Are you available to stay on for tomorrow?

Beautiful.

And I said, well, I gotta move a couple of things around. Let me try. So I went out, we, we were taking a longer break. So we came back, we asked the group, by the way, do we wanna— they said, yeah, we have to close this because this is gonna help us in the longer run. So that one day became 2 full days. Mm-hmm. And we actually, well, it was 2 full days. We left post-lunch on day 2.

And you resolved it?

But we resolved it. I mean, it took a— we continued till about 7 PM, went out to drinks, dinner, back in the room in the morning after people having slept on it. And it was really just cathartic for many of them to talk about it. And it was— but that's— that is, these anecdotes are exceptions. The fact I can give you only one example where that happened Is very, very rare.

And at the same time, I think if more, if more people would know, would be aware of the return on investment or the opportunity costs of not going there, because I think having the opportunity to really resolve that and then knowing how much faster everything will continue to go in the future as opposed to returning to work with an open wound, That can be traumatizing.

Well, you know what's the easiest? Don't even open the wound. Don't even go there. Yeah. And I would have done my job to the happiness of the client at the end of day 1. We would have just had some superficial actions. They would have gone away and they would have said, okay, we got one.

But hey, And what do you think is the, is the method of the skill? What have you learned that helped you there? And I'm, so I'm thinking of nonviolent communication, for instance. Um, I think what I've learned from about nonviolent communication totally changed everything and how I deal with my relationships, with my clients, with groups. Around conflict. Is there something where you say, oh, once I learned that, it helped me with everything else?

It's a little bit of that. It's a combination, right? It's precision questioning, nonviolent communication, picking up on emotions, asking the awkward questions, allowing silence to happen.

Right. Nervous system regulation.

Yeah, exactly right. So it's sort of all of that. It's never one. Yeah, just one easy— it isn't a magic ingredient that you apply in every situation.

I was hoping you were giving it to us.

I wish there was a— I always say if facilitation could be a pharmaceutical drug, then we just have to pop 2 pills before we go facilitate. And then we do an amazing job, and then we're done.

Yeah. And still, I think there is some 80/20 rule to apply here, as you said. Okay, it's sometimes it's time, sometimes it's breaking down how we, how we speak with each other.

Um, so it's, it's also, it's, it's timing as well. Is the group ready for it? It's also important to recognize I might want to do it, The group is just not ready for this. It's not the right space-time for them to do it. And there are unintended consequences of, you know, opening up the, opening up the, the box of skeletons.

Yeah. And then we cannot force them anyway, right? So it must be, we must have the consent.

Yeah, exactly.

Wonderful. What is the advice you would give your younger self after 20 years of experience?

Um, challenge. I, I took a while to challenge clients a little bit, which is be confident in yourself so you can challenge. And the second one is you should have said no to some kinds of projects.

Hmm.

Which, which, you know, I don't regret saying yes to them because there are points of time where we take on projects where we need to pay the bills. Let's be practical when you're in the consulting world. But I was also thinking, had I said no, could I have gone and found more other kind of work? So, or did I just take the easy way out and say yes?

I would love to hear more about that.

Well, yes, no, it's more you just do work, but you finish up and you say, okay, I finished it. Did I get joy, a sense of accomplishment? Did I truly enjoy it like some of the other work? Not necessarily. But I also reconcile myself to the fact that, no, I mean, you can't always enjoy 100% of everything you do, right? Because I don't enjoy doing expense reports, doing all my bills and collecting my receipts and all of that, but it's got to be done. So same thing sometimes, but it's also sometimes you take on work to build a relationship with the client, with the stakeholder, which then in the long run gets you to more interesting work.

So that's also mindset.

Yeah, yeah. But it also could have been a little bit more conscious of those choices. When you start your practice or when, you know, when you start your consulting practice, there's a point in time where you say yes to everything, right? Because you don't know when's the next piece of work. When you're an independent consultant, obviously, or in consulting firms, it's sort of a feast or famine. For a few months, you get a lot of work and you're feeling really good, and then suddenly all dries up, and then you're like, there's work.

Yeah.

I'm gonna pay the bills. And yeah, so, so that's when you start taking on work and I think it's part of the learning experience.

Yeah. And now, final question, because I'm curious. So how do you know now that it's— how do you assess the work to know, oh yeah, this is a hell yeah?

Well, luckily now I have a team, so I assess the work that, okay, we're gonna do this, but it's not gonna be me. It's gonna be one of my colleagues because it's, it's part of their learning and all of that. So I'm gonna do this because I'm gonna enjoy this. So, so to me, it's, do I wanna work with them? Is the work that I'm doing meaningful to me and to them? And the third is, can I make an impact? And fourth, will Will this lead to a long— I mean, not in terms of longer-term client engagement, but is it something that I can see the impact over a period of working with them, a longer-term one?

Thank you. This makes a lot of sense. It's beautiful then to have a team.

Yes. Absolutely.

Thank you, Vinay.

Thank you, Myriam. It's been fun.

A beautiful exploration.

Brilliant.

Is there anything that you wanted to share that you didn't share?

That's like, is there a question I have you haven't asked me that you should have asked me? That's what I do. Yes. When do we get to meet in person?

That's a very nice question. Yeah.

Yes.

Let's make that happen.

One day, one day we should have a cup of coffee and have this conversation in person.

Yes, I would love that.

That would be, that would be fun.

Yeah, we'll make that happen.

Yes, we will. Thank you again, Myriam.

Thank you, Vinay.