The Participation Blog

Jack-of-All Facilitators

Over the years, I’ve responded to lots of requests for a facilitator with very specific expertise in some kind of technical field or another, like transportation, public lands, public health, education, mining, environmental contamination or whatever the topic might be. Clients are most comfortable feeling that you know what they know, but I’ve always found that requirement to be way overblown. It helps knowing some of the basic language of the area you’re dealing with, but I find that my facilitation experience and the solutions that we developed from some completely unrelated project is even more valuable when you’re helping people who can only see the problem through their own limited lenses. That’s why I found this quick story from Harvard’s blog to be worthwhile. Read More…