The Conversation Factory Book Club: Facilitating Breakthrough with Adam Kahane
The Conversation Factory book club is an experiment I’ve been running for a few months now. I’m experimenting with deeper conversations and collaborations with the subscribers of the Conversation Factory Insiders group as well as working to go deeper with some of the ideas that have been shared on the Podcast. This is a round-table conversation with Adam Kahane, author of Facilitating Breakthrough, with a few special guests from the Conversation Factory Insiders group. If you haven’t listened to the interview I did with Adam last season OR read the book, I think you can still enjoy the conversation. Adam does show some slides during the conversation, so head over to YouTube if you want to follow along. A note on process: In this session, you’ll hear the panel share what parts of the book were most impactful to them, and then Adam responds to their comments with some deeper thoughts. The wisdom Adam drops here is absolutely worth the price of admission! Check out the show notes on theconversationfactory.com for links to Adam’s book, our podcast conversation last year, and his work as a Director at Reos Partners. If you’re unfamiliar with Adam and Reos, Reos is an international social enterprise that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues. Adam has over 30 years of experience facilitating breakthroughs at the highest levels in government and society. His own breakthrough facilitation moment came with an invitation to host the Mont Fleur Scenario Planning Exercises he facilitated in 1990s South Africa at the dawn of that country’s transition towards democracy and the twilight of apartheid. He’s gone on to facilitate conversations about ending civil wars, transforming the food system, and pretty much everything else in between. Adam is amazingly honest and open about how he looks back at his past books and sees them as not just incomplete, but sometimes dangerously incomplete. So, read Power and Love, Collaborating with the Enemy, Transformative Scenario Planning, and Solving Tough Problems (all amazing books) with a grain of salt...or just get Facilitating Breakthrough! It’s all about 5 key pairs of polarities in transformational, collaborative work and it’s an eye-opener. As you’ll hear, many of the panel members had an eye-opening moment, as I did, around the idea of Vertical and Horizontal facilitation. Vertical and Horizontal Facilitation In the opening quote, Adam points out that Vertical and Horizontal facilitation are two poles of a polarity. And like all good polarities, the key is to hold them lightly and dance between them mindfully. Vertical Facilitation is focused on singularity: We have the right answer, and a right answer can be found and advocated for. Horizontal Facilitation is focused on multiplicity: We each have our own answer, our own view, and there is no right path. As Adam says...the “bad guy” isn’t one or the other pole of the polarity...it’s choosing one over the other. I also deeply loved that Adam makes clear that the work of the Facilitator mirrors the work of the group. Adam points out (on p.70 of his book) that: A facilitator can only help participants if they, like participants, move back and forth between bringing their experience and also listening and adjusting to the needs of the situation Again: it’s not about choosing verticality (finding a single answer) or horizontality (exploring multiplicity)...it’s about the opening and emergence created when we shift from one side of the polarity to the other. Can we move between Inquiring (the move to the horizontal) and Advocating (which shifts to the vertical)? Complex situations rarely have solutions that can readily and easily be identified and advocated for. So, finding a path through truly complex challenges requires careful and artful shifting between these two modes of Vertical and Horizontal. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did, and that you check out Adam’s recent book, Facilitating Breakthrough. If you want to take a deep dive into mastering facilitation and leading conversations through complexity, check out my Facilitation Masterclass. The next 12-week cohort starts in February. Learn more here. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes, and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! Go to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links Facilitating Breakthrough, by Adam Kahane Reos Partners Adam Kahane on The Conversation Factory