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abstract
The question of facilitator competencies and skills has been explored by the International Association of Facilitators and the Institute of Cultural Affairs for several years. One of the new insights of progressive organizations is the value of participatory processes to address new needs for analysis, decision making, and action in today's environment of fast, complex change and global competition. Facilitation is increasingly being used as a participatory tool for getting results in group dialogue, analysis, decision making, and planning. Competency in the design and delivery of participatory processes is the domain of the facilitation profession. This article presents six areas of facilitator competencies and the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to demonstrate those competencies. It also suggests a number of areas where this model of facilitator competencies can be applied.
Introduction
Organizations across all sectors of global life are confronted with myriad operational, purpose, value, and relational issues. The rapid rate of change in issues affecting organizations creates new needs for analysis, decision making, and action skills. One new insight of forward-thinking organizations is the value of participatory processes to address those needs in both substance and style. Business organizations are well aware of the costs of rigid, top-heavy hierarchies and over supervision. Under authoritarianism, the few think and the many either follow orders or constantly rebel and strike. Clearly, authoritarianism is not cost effective (McLagan & Nel, 1995, p. 2). The shift to participative governance in the workplace is both inevitable and necessary. It is inevitable because the capacity for participation is widespread. It is necessary because the issues that we face in the workplace are too complex and interdependent to be solved by a few people in authority (McLagan & Nel, 1995, p. 3). People in organizations may become aware of the need for participation to develop creative solutions to difficult problems, to align employees around common action, to facilitate shared understanding, or to provide access to information that is required for effective organizational action. Organizations vary in their development and evolution toward utilizing participatory practices. Evidence of an organization's movement toward participation may include any of the following emerging assumptions, which are contrasted here with more established authoritarian assumptions: These emerging assumptions call for new competencies and skills not...