Managers as Facilitators: A Practical Guide to Getting Work Done in a Changing Workplace

Managers as Facilitators: A Practical Guide to Getting Work Done in a Changing Workplace

by Richard G. Weaver and John D. Farrell

(Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, 1997)

Book Review by Fred Niederman

University of Baltimore, 1420 N. Charles, Baltimore, MD 21201, FNeiderman@ubmail.ubalt.edu

It is exciting to see a book about facilitation written for managers. The premise of this book is that the role of manager has been expanding to include more facilitation and mentoring in addition to leadership (vision setting) and managing (work and quality monitoring). The book takes a broad view of facilitation as motivating and enriching employee productivity in the broader context of working within groups as well as leading meetings. As phrased by the authors, "Leaders are concerned with doing the right thing, managers are concerned with doing things right, and facilitators are concerned with helping people do things (p. 5)."

It is, however, a short book. It totals 248 total pages, but the last 48 pages are comprised of checklists, an index, author biographies, and other extra materials. As such, it provides a very light introduction to a wide range of topics. For the experienced group facilitator, much of the material will be familiar, if stated perhaps in different terms. For example, the authors present the classic innovation/diffusion model of Everett Rogers (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971), but have shifted from 5 to 3 categories of adopters and renamed them to be less pejorative (using "defender" rather than "laggard"). This change in terminology is not directly explained, but from the text it is clear that the authors are much concerned about valuing, rather than confronting, those who are slower to embrace a particular change.

The authors present a set of approaches to several major aspects of working with groups. For example, they present a prototype facilitator/group contract based on specification of the task, measures of success, the group's responsibilities, and the facilitator's responsibilities. The approach is straightforward, deceptively simple (in that it looks very lean in an example, but each of these elements can represent the culmination of much thinking, discussion, and negotiation), but probably more useful than a long list of intricate and detailed items. (The reviewer has not tested these specific techniques per se in practice.)

Another example of the approaches presented by the authors deals with addressing conflict. This approach is based on five steps. First, individuals express their different perspectives; second, they are directed to become aware of how these perspectives are in conflict; third, they clarify the differences; fourth, they state agreement on commonalities in their viewpoints; and, finally, they resolve the conflict by identifying and committing to a solution that satisfactorily resolves the conflict (see pages 99-102). In the view of the reviewer, this approach, like that of specifying a contract between the facilitator and group, provides a rather lean framework for the manager to implement. It is lean in the sense that each of these steps will present challenges and complexities that are not addressed. On the other hand, it is potentially of great value where the manager otherwise has no framework to organize his or her actions. It does contrast, however, with the Quaker method I learned many years ago, where the first step was to seek a commitment to formulate a "win-win" solution from the participants, then to begin discussions and searching for a common approach that addresses the major concerns of each individual. My experience has been that the commitment can carry one through some stormy times.

These approaches are reasonably representative of several presented in the book. My reaction to each is that it is potentially very helpful, but significantly barebones. Clearly the appropriate audience is the new manager or one who has little group process or organizational behavior training and who is looking to a book such as this for the beginning of ways of thinking about problems being experienced on the job. I am not sure that the book gives the reader a sense of the degree to which these approaches, methods, and concepts represent only a beginning of what can be a very rewarding, but difficult set of processes. My concern is less for "truth in advertising" and more for the manager who tries some of these processes and does not experience immediate success. I would expect lack of success to be due to either the need for high levels of persistence in implementing these approaches before encountering success, or the introduction of complexities or interactions in the workplace that extend beyond what the book covers. On the other hand, the new group facilitator will find much value from this book's excellent summaries of foundational concepts (in addition to those mentioned previously, the book has a good presentation on basic individual personality styles, conflict resolution styles, the norming model, and many others) and clear examples.

The reviewer would expect most experienced group facilitators to find the bulk of material presented in this book to be quite familiar. The experienced group facilitator may find value in (1) review of the basics (like the all-star athlete reviewing basics during spring training); (2) occasional nuggets that are novel; and (3) a book to share with new clients coming to facilitation for the first time. Managers can probably read this book in a weekend and grasp the intellectual content without difficulty. However, returning to the book after implementing its ideas for a few weeks or months will, I believe, create a sense of how powerful these ideas are as well as how complex to truly implement.

The book presents a "tool-box" describing nine group processes that facilitators can use during meetings. Even the experienced facilitator may profit from being introduced to one or more of these for the first time, or be reminded of one or more that is powerful, but has been seldom used. For example, in a recent survey of facilitators, I found that the vast majority of facilitators indicated seldom or never using force-field analysis (a surprising number of facilitators wrote in that they had never heard of it). This is one of the nine tools presented in the "tool-kit."

As a style issue, I tend to be put off by series of checklists and this book is filled with them. My distaste for them comes largely when I have occasion to examine them closely. I frequently find myself uncertain as to what they signify, what to do with them, or where individual items, of which they are comprised, come from. My experience with managers (including many of my graduate students) is that they generally do not share my bias against lists. Naturally, if you read or use this book, you can judge for yourself.

In summary, Managers as Facilitators is a useful but limited book. It is most appropriate for beginning managers and facilitators, but will probably have value for the more experienced as well. Its strengths are in the range of issues it covers and the useful skeletons of ideas and action plans that it presents.

References

Rogers, E.M. & Shoemaker, F.F. (1971). Communications of innovations: A cross-cultural approach. New York: Free Press.

Copyright International Association of Facilitators Winter 1999
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