[OSList] A new term for 'facilitation'? was: Teach Them to Fish / A Note to My Friends

Mon Feb 27 09:08:06 PST 2012

the thing i like about "inviting" is that it is something we can *do*
and practice as a technical task, but also a way that we can aspire to
*be* as people, leaders of meetings and participants in the open space
of life.  i don't know enough about other languages to know if this
possibility of two meanings will exist if i say inviting in other
languages.

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

http://MichaelHerman.com
http://ManorNeighbors.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Artur Silva <arturfsilva at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi, Agustin:
>
> I don't know if the word "contexting" exists in English, but I agree that
> "creating the right context" is crucial.
>
> In what concerns formal education and training, the orthodoxy is still based
> in the "impart of knowledge" and, in that model, the most important is to
> create "contents" or, as they often say, "knowledge objects". On the
> contrary, IMO what is important is to create the right contexts for learning
> to emerge. (So we may talk about "designing” only in the sense of “designing
> for emergence”).
>
> The same is true about facilitation. With the bulletin board, the market
> place, the law of two feet, etc., what OST does is to create a rich
> "context" that allows for multiple interpersonal contacts, cross pollination
> and the emergence of the new.
>
> Facilitation methods where the facilitator designs and intervenes a lot and
> controls everything (or so he believes) do the contrary of that.
>
> Ok, I agree that probably in 1% of the cases that can be useful, but not in
> the majority of the cases I have seen.
>
> Artur
>
> PS: talking about languages, may I remind you all that in Portuguese my name
> is written as above, and is not "Arthur". Indeed, if you want to know the
> correct pronunciation it is more like (in English) "Urtoor"; very different
> from "Arthur" ;-)
>
> -------------------
>
> ________________________________
> From: agusj <agusjs2002 at yahoo.com>
>
> To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
> <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 3:36 PM
>
> Subject: Re: [OSList] A new term for 'facilitation'? was: Teach Them to Fish
> / A Note to My Friends
>
> Hi Bernd,
>
> Maybe “contexting” could be an usefull word in your quest. What I mean for
> "contexting" is to create the appropriate context that allows the
> participants to make distinctions that develop capacity “to fish”.  In other
> words, a facilitator does not teach to fish, a facilitator creates
> (facilitates, generates)  the conditions that allows participants to make
> sense of "fishing",  to realize that they can “fish” and to find the best
> way to "fish" for them.
>
> What do you think about "capacity developers"?
>
> Agustin
>
> ________________________________
> From: Bernhard Weber <weberb at gmx.at>
> To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
> <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 11:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [OSList] A new term for 'facilitation'? was: Teach Them to Fish
> / A Note to My Friends
>
> Artur
>
> As I said, there is probably no super word fully integrating all aspects we
> want and excluding what we do NOT want to say,
> but yes, your three examples show that there might be useful words to be
> used  in this or that occasion.
>
> I  try to get a feeling for the connotation-environment of each of these
> three words (within the limits of a non-english-native speaker)....
>
> nurturing still having the connotation of giving (and the related asymmetry,
> non-mutuality),
> inviting also not having enough of the intended range of meanings for me
> As a perma-culturist I immediately jumped on "cultivating". Especially since
> I have not yet used it in this sense. But it also has its unwanted
> connotations of course. e.g. "beeing non-cultivated" is a distinction that
> may be used/perceived as pejorative/as a part of a power-game
>
> So thank you all, who contributed to this discussion until now: finding more
> words that may be appropriate under specific conditions is what I could
> realistically expect. And I got it
>
> Bernd
>
>
> On Feb 26, 2012, at 7:26 PM, Artur Silva wrote:
>
> Nurturing (from Lisa)?
>
> Inviting (from Suzanne)?
>
> Cultivating (in a sense similar to "cultivating the land")?
>
> Artur
>
> ________________________________
> From: Bernhard Weber <weberb at gmx.at>
> To: OSLIST New Adress <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 6:53 AM
> Subject: [OSList] A new term for 'facilitation'? was: Teach Them to Fish / A
> Note to My Friends
>
>
> Hi again
>
> The last years I was again and again discussing adequate wording of our
> "interventions" as consultants, facilitators (in German: ModeratorInnen,
> BegleiterInnen), trainers...
> With myself and others.
>
> There was the classical "Change Management" (Consultancy) which we
> substituted by Change Facilitators, mainly because it had become evident,
> that you can not "manage" change (at least not in the classical sense of
> management, which has (the possibility) of control at its core.
>
> Of course "facilitate" has a connotation of "making things easy" which is
> not necessarily what I understand by facilitating. Let me go back to the
> teacherlearner example: sometimes there was more learning happening when I
> did not make things easier, sometimes I was building barriers for my
> students.
>
> For me "facilitating" (in contrast to "helping") has a lot to do with
> systemic perception/action: finding a good setting, trying to find ways of
> improving the conditions of learning, indirect interventions but also
> breaking down the walls between classical "training/learning" and "(group
> work) facilitation" by contributing to learning whilst problem-solving or,
> more positively, whilst "solution inquiring", with a longer term perspective
> of "capacity building" (in its complex dynamics between
> persons/groups/organizations/environment alias micro/makro).
>
> In that sense I could use the word "facilitation" to make clear that I was
> not speaking of old approaches and that we should not go back from a
> systematic systemic perspective. This  also gave me a good feeling of beeing
> "progressive", although or because it was clear that I had squeezed in a lot
> into this 'innocent word'
> And the term 'facilitation' made quite some carreer (especially outside of
> the english-speaking world as a 'foreign word'.
>
>
> But maybe  it is time to look for a better word in the sense of the aspects
> that are emerging during  this "Fishing Discussion".
> I can understand why you avoided the word 'to facilitate' but a wording like
> 'helping to learn' does not seem to be a step forward, to the contrary. Both
> wordings evidently need a lot of explanation about "in the sense of...." And
> for me this is an indicator that we should perhaps look out for another
> wording, ....
>
> That includes (or is able to include) what I have uttered in my previous
> postings  to that thread, and much of what others have contributed here,
> especially that term should be able to include also "Learning the art of
> silence seems to be much more rewarding for both for there's no Godot with
> fish in hands." (Stanley Park) and also "hat the facilitator should not be
> the 'catalyst' or 'interventionist' but more the 'nutritionist'" and "our
> roles before the event, during and afterwards" and the role of "'conscious
> non-interventionist'" (Lisa Heft), the
> empowerment/dis-empowerment-contradiction and the 'sequence ... Fish
> Distributors, Fishing Teachers, and then “Gone fish ‘in” – looking for other
> fish to fry'(HO), not forgetting that we have to care that 'nobody pollutes
> the environment in the meantime and that there is still fish to fish....
>  (Joanne)...
>
> and - whilst again using such heavy loaded wording - never forgetting that
> the base self-organization in its non-logic/Yin-Yang/dialectical movements,
> the last term allowing us, to never reduce ourselves to the either/or
> thinking (so, eg. depending on the context to also be catalyst,
> interventionist and nutritionist and e.g. also understanding the sequence
> Fish Distributor, Fishing Teachers, ... Fishing-Zen (Diane G.)
> masters/students.... not necessarily as a step-after-step-sequence but
> consisting of aspects to phase in, be 'dominant' phase out, the 'sequence'
> beeing parallel and interdependent processes like as 'overlapping threads'
> of changing intensity.
>
> Well, reading over my own text once again, I get the impression, that it is
> not possible to find such a Superword, but playing around, looking out for a
> new and better word might be fun. In fact that is, what we are implicitely
> ALSO doing here all the time right now in this list.
>
> Hmm. maybe we have to change the context.
>
> I do not know. Any ideas?
>
> Bernd
>
>
> P.S. regarding the "nutricionist" role: Two year ago I experimented with
> that in a non-metaphorical sense: to contribute a discussion process of
> adequate change facilitation approaches  in our Change Facilitation s.r.o.
> company I invited Rik Berbé (one of the other members of our company
> management team) to come to my home in Vienna/Austria for a two day
> workshop. Instead of preparing contents, methods, program etc. I prepared
> food and drinks, plenty of choices, healthy, not too heavy, .... (well the
> kind of snacks you would always like to have in a perfect OST event
> environment) and during our 2-person workshop I concentrated on two roles
> (participant and barman). We had a wonderful workshop and Rik who was at the
> beginning very amazed about such an approach agreed, that caring for the
> best possible environment in the sense of beeing a 'nutricionist' was a very
> useful role aspect I had contributed.
> Not only ;-)
>
>
> On Feb 25, 2012, at 11:46 PM, Artur Silva wrote:
>
> Yes, Bernardo, you are right. Sometimes one must give the fish, teach to
> fish and also help learning how to learn.
>
> You are also right that this "to help to learnr" is indeed "to facilitate".
> I avoided the term because quite often - as HO mentioned - many people think
> (and do) "facilitate too much", disempowering the other and making more
> difficult for him to learn by himself.
>
> And your story in Mozambique (Beira) is marvelous.
>
> Abraço
>
> Artur
>
> ________________________________
> From: Bernhard Weber <weberb at gmx.at>
> To: Artur Silva <arturfsilva at yahoo.com>; World wide Open Space Technology
> email list <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
> Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 4:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Teach Them to Fish / A Note to My Friends
>
> Yes Artur,
>
> based on my own life and working experience, meanwhile most of it in
> Ex-colonized countries, our job is, to HELP (I would meanwhile formulate it
> in a more systemic-adequate way: FACILITATE) to learn, to learn how to learn
> (as a way of being) and - though inicially accepting the Teacher-Student
> "Übertragung" (S. Freud, that means also: including the Gegen-Übertragung)-
> learn how to disappear.
>
> Only one thing. Let us not be put into a perception and thinking limiting
> TRANCE by strictly following logic thinking. That means there are times,
> when the logical either/or is simply not the best solution or even not
> human. So there may be cases where we give the fish AND teach to fish. Or
> give the fish under conditions that fishing is learned.
>
> I still remember the blind beggars in Beira, who got only money from me if
> they accepted to go to the training center for blind people and look if they
> would not be interested to be trained for a job there.
>
>
> Bernardo
>
>
> On Feb 24, 2012, at 6:49 PM, Artur Silva wrote:
>
> Amen for almost everything! And thank you, Harrison, for reminding us of all
> this.
>
> (...)
>
>
>
>
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