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Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 03:49:42 -0500 
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Subject: [LuxWeb] International Institute for Facilitation and Consensus / 
My Worst    Facilitator's Nightmare Came True! / David A. Lillie 
 
 
 
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My Worst Facilitator's Nightmare Came True! 
David A. Lillie  
 
International Institute for Facilitation and Consensus 
http://iifac.org/fl/fl-2004-09-en.html 
 
 
My worst facilitator's nightmare was to fail so badly that the group would 
replace me. Fortunately, when it actually happened, it turned out to be a 
great learning experience for everyone involved, something I can look back 
on with appreciation. 
 
In the 1990s, I facilitated several of the national congresses of the Green 
Party USA. By 1997, I had survived enough of these strenuous meetings (three 
long days with sessions sometimes going until 2 am!) to feel confident 
facilitating them. For the first two days of the 1997 Congress, another male 
co-facilitator and I were doing what I thought was a good job of helping the 
group move through a long, sometimes difficult agenda. 
 
The Greens have always strived for gender equity in all positions of 
leadership, and as part of that process, hold a women's and men's caucus 
during their events. On the last day of the congress, a representative from 
the women's caucus stood up and announced that the women were not happy with 
having two male facilitators. She claimed that we were not creating a 
balance between women and men speakers during discussions and proposed that 
the male facilitators be replaced by a woman for the remainder of the 
meeting.  
 
I explained that before the congress began we had put out a call for women 
facilitators, but none had responded. The representative said that they now 
had found a woman who was willing to take the job. So, following the Greens' 
process, we immediately suspended the agenda and took up the proposal to 
replace the current facilitators. A brief discussion was followed by a vote 
in which more than 75% of the participants declared themselves to be in 
favour of the replacement. 
 
The other male co-facilitator was upset at being replaced and left. I, 
however, following Bea's First Law of Facilitation -- Never abandon your 
group! -- stayed to see what would happen. 
 
As those of you who have facilitated large, national groups know, the 
facilitator's job starts months before the meeting, with much background 
preparation, agenda planning, memorizing the group's procedures and bylaws, 
discussions with leaders, etc. Anyone who is suddenly steps into the 
position of facilitator without this preparation is likely to be overwhelmed 
in a very short time. 
 
Knowing this, I decided to support the new facilitator. Staying in the 
background, I coached her on where we were on the agenda, what the 
procedures were, helped with the speakers' list, and so on. She did a good 
job under difficult circumstances and the meeting ended well. 
 
After the session was over, the women's caucus representative thanked me for 
my help. I expressed my appreciation for the clear stand taken by the 
women's caucus against gender imbalance and how much the experience had 
taught me about supporting women in leadership. I also said that I hoped we 
could work together in the future to avoid a repeat of this situation. I 
went home feeling satisfied in my work. 
 
 
So what were the main lessons I learned from this experience? 
 
1.    Don't take things personally. I could have taken the request for a 
woman facilitator as a personal attack on my facilitation skills. I could 
have felt accused of being someone who was stuck in patriarchal patterns of 
domination. I could have gotten upset and abandoned the group. If that had 
happened, there is a good chance that the meeting would have collapsed in 
chaos, the woman facilitator would have felt hurt, other men would have been 
upset with the women's caucus, and so on. Fortunately, I have done a lot of 
work on myself and my sexist patterns through the years and was able to stay 
present, not be upset, and facilitate my own removal! 
2.    ³Make the best of any situation,² or ³Don't allow others to fail when 
you can help.² I am not completely enlightened (understatement :), so part 
of me still reacted with ³Humph! Now they'll find out what a tough job this 
is.....² but I was able to move beyond that and look for ways to support the 
facilitator without taking over her role or disrespecting her. After all, I 
was doing this voluntary work for the Green Party because I believe in their 
values and sincerely want them to succeed. 
3.    I am no longer afraid of being replaced in a meeting. It really is 
true that ³the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.² The reality was 
not as bad as my nightmares and I felt good about the overall outcome. 
4.    The process worked. I had helped formulate the Green Party's Charter 
and Working Guidelines (their bylaws and process). Previous bitter 
experiences helped me make sure that procedures existed for handling the 
difficult times as well as when things are going well. So when the issue of 
replacement came up, I knew the defined process, executed it, and within 15 
minutes we were back on track with the agenda. Without such guidelines, we 
could have gotten lost in a process quagmire that could easily have consumed 
the rest of the time available. 
5.    Sexism runs very deep. Even after years of work on my self, 
counselling for many, many hours on the topic, attending several workshops, 
leading men's groups, interacting with many brilliant women on the topic, I 
still am not free of sexism. I know that it did affect my ability to notice 
and call on women in the audience, to not set up procedures for alternating 
men and women in the speaking order, to not work harder to get a woman 
co-facilitator, and to not make more of an effort to recruit and train more 
women for the task. When I started facilitating for the Greens, there were 
two men and four women facilitators on the team. In 1997 there were no 
women. What happened? I suspect that we males continued to cling 
(unconsciously) to the patterns of behaviour in which we have been so well 
trained and failed to be loving, active allies to the women, so they left. 
 
 
May you all learn so much from your nightmares! 
 
IIFAC affiliate David Lillie is a native of the USA currently living in 
County Wicklow, Ireland. 
He can be reached at lilliewilde1@... 
 
International Institute for Facilitation and Consensus 
Domingo Diez 1589 #113, Cuernavaca, Morelos 62250, Mexico 
+52 (777) 102 2288 email@... www.iifac.org 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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