I took a facilitation training class through work this past week and it was both surprisingly interesting and potentially useful. The next phase of our project involves guiding some desk-jockeys through decision-making on some good old government red-tape and this will require not only facilitation skills, but also heavy lifting and a healthy streak of masochism…. na na NA NA NA NA na … na na NA NA NA NA na …… na na NA NA NA NA na ….. na na NA NA NA NA na. I was quite skeptical going into this and I of course questioned the legitimacy of this Master Facilitator the minute I laid eyes on her… See me comin to town with my soul Straight down out of the world with my fingers Holding onto the devil I know all my trouble I’ll hang on your trigger take your eyes and your mind from the road Shoot your mouth off but look where you're aiming Don't forget to pick up what you sow Talking trash to the garbage around you.….Expecting to hear the requisite buzzwords like “synergy” and “value-add”, I was shocked when nary a consulting term spewed from her boca. Maybe this lady isn’t full of shit? She did use the word ‘recalcitrant’ a few times and this made me feel really stupid because I didn’t know what it meant -- all I could think of was Calcium Carbonate….na na NA NA NA NA na … na na NA NA NA NA na …. … na na NA NA NA NA na ….. na na NA NA NA NA na.
This lady was like a bizzaro consultant because her Power Point slides didn’t even have ridiculous looking illustrations or silly elevator music or even CGI. I thought that I would appreciate this bare bones approach because it was so refreshing, but in the end I just wanted some CGI dammit…. See me kickin the door with my boots Broke down out in a ditch of old rubbish Snakes and bones in the back of your room Handing out a confection of venom Heaven's drunk from the poison you use Charm the wolves with the eyes of a gambler Now I see it's a comfort to you hammer my bones on the anvil of daylight....What does one have to do to get some sweet footage of Cyborgs blowing each others’ heads off?
But I was definitely able to add some firepower to my currently empty facilitation arsenal. I learned how to deal with a variety of potentially perilous situations including: “dominating,” when one does not shut the fuck up; “digressing,” when one talks about random shit and “avoiding,” when one withdraws from the discussion and goes to sleep…. na na NA NA NA NA na … na na NA NA NA NA na …. … na na NA NA NA NA na ….. na na NA NA NA NA na….. I was instructed to politely thank the dominators and digressers for their input and then to quickly break eye-contact and ask someone else for their point of view – pretty slick and rather tactless in my opinion, but I’m hoping that my audience will be too stupid or apathetic to realize what happened to them. I was told to address the avoider by name and then ask for their input – a logical approach, but something I probably would have never thought of…. I won't give up that ghost
It's sick the way these tongues are twisted The good in us is all we know There's too much left to taste that's bitter ……
The best part was learning how to get avoid answering a difficult question because I really like avoiding things – work, responsibility, reality, etc…I learned two good techniques: the relay
and the boomerang . The relay technique calls for the redirecting of the question to someone more informed than yourself and the boomerang technique recommends throwing the question back at the questioner….na na NA NA NA NA na … na na NA NA NA NA na …. … na na NA NA NA NA na ….. na na NA NA NA NA na.
I should be getting my official “certificate of facilitation-training completion” any day now so I should be able to help parties reach consensus on many a conflict. I can see myself coming to the aid of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf in their attempt to resolve the dispute over Kashmir, helping the World to peacefully disarm Kim Jong Il, and even brokering a peace between NHL players and owners.