The concept of facilitation

"To be empathetic is to see the world through the eyes of others, and not to see our world reflected in their eyes.

Origin of the concept

Sylvie Lessard 's dissertation (2015) provides an historical overview of facilitation practices and the beginnings of an interest in group dynamics in the corporate world, by digging up nineteenth-century manuals on conducting meetings. She situates the gradual emergence of an interest in the efficiency of these groups within the humanist movement, with a growing territory of applications based on the issues of leadership, quality, organizational change or personal development, without however producing a stabilized definition.

Indeed, the 20 reference authors identified for the 1998-2013 period each assign specific attributes to the roles and functions of facilitators. Of the 25 facilitation activities identified, it is rare for more than 9 authors to agree. This suggests that facilitation is as much a matter of style as of know-how or standardized practices.

According to Prost (2018), facilitation as a concept was born in the post-war years in the Anglo-Saxon world. It saw its definition clarified in the 1970s and 1980s through training courses such as the "facilitation diploma" as part of the Human Potential Research Project (HPRP) led by the University of Surrey by John Heron, as well as in publications. These initiatives originated in research into pedagogy, but also and more broadly into human relationships from a psychological point of view, with the aim of deconstructing the verticality of relationships.

An emblematic figure often cited is Carl Rogers, who initially displayed his reflections on non-directiveness before refocusing his attention on the individual (ST-Arnaud 2006) .

The facilitator's posture

Among the points of convergence between authors, the facilitator's posture is marked by horizontality in his or her relations with the group, and by increased attention to the processes that animate them. The facilitator's role is one of process expertise. Whether the facilitator is a member of the organization or an outsider, he or she aims to position himself or herself within the group in such a way as to ease social relations and support reflection, creativity, decision-making and action in the pursuit of an objective.

The facilitator is less in the position of transmitting knowledge in the form of content to be delivered, but rather of animating reflection and collective construction. In the pedagogical context, the facilitator's role is to support participants' self-determination. This posture is not so easy to observe, as the activities of leader, facilitator, coach and mentor overlap or partially overlap, making it difficult to make a univocal reading, or else proposing purely theoretical models.

Facilitation as a process

According to Cross (1996), facilitation is a process of change that helps to create a climate conducive to learning, with the development of mutual trust, acceptance and respect in speech and action.

Factors relating to the nature of the process are learner-centered, negotiated and collaborative. The facilitator is expected to be realistic, caring and empathetic. Facilitation is characterized by access to a learning situation and the effects of motivation and social influences. For Cross (1996), the consequences of effective facilitation are reciprocal change (learning and understanding), reciprocal feedback and increased independence.

For Burrows (1997), the conditions for successful facilitation are

• the establishment of genuine mutual respect ;
• a partnership in learning ;
• a dynamic, goal-oriented process;
• critical reflection.

Facilitation takes place in a variety of contexts

1. Pedagogical contexts with pedagogical approaches to professional co-development, communities of interest or practice, online devices, self-directed learning devices such as Personalized Pedagogy Workshops.
   
   
2. Organizational contexts - facilitating the emergence of new products by facilitating co-design or design thinking processes, supporting organizational change or transformation.
   
   
3. Societal contexts, with facilitation of public policies and associative dynamics.
   
   
4. If the tools and instrumentation of facilitation are omnipresent, it is probably the question of the posture and intention of facilitators who learn to step aside in front of the facilitation processes they experience that remain the major questions to be explored.
   

Sources

Heron, J. (1989). The facilitators' handbook. (No Title).

Wikipedia John Heron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Heron_( social_scientist)

Prost, J. (2018) From prescription to facilitation Innover: pour un militantisme de posture.. Bulletin des bibliothèques de France (BBF), n° 16, p. 106-114.

Burrows, D. E. (1997). Facilitation: a conceptual analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 25(2), 396-404.
Cross, C (1996). An analysis of the concept facilitation. Nurse Education Today Volume 16, Issue 5, October, Pages 350-355 https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/nurse-education-todayhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0260691796800086

Haan, D., Hoznour, P., and Grigioni Baur, S. (2020). Dispositif de Formation - Recherche Lesson Study: Recueil de pratiques de la facilitatrice et du facilitateur [Educational document]. http://hdl. handle.net/20.500.12162/5288

Lessard, S. (2015). Les rôles exercés par le facilitateur externe et l'équipe de facilitation en soutien au changement organisationnel (Doctoral dissertation, HEC Montréal). https://biblos.hec.ca/biblio/memoires/2015NO16.PDF

St-Arnaud, Y. (2006). La non-directivité. Approche Centrée sur la Personne. Pratique et recherche, 4, 44-45. https://doi. org/10.3917/acp.004.0044