Facilitating involves a process of change – a process that presupposes the existence of the one who facilitates, and the one who is being facilitated. There needs to be a strong trust from the client and an internal mutual agreement: “we are on the same page and share the same purpose here”.
Effective facilitating also involves knowing when the process has been satisfied. The one who has been facilitated knows and feels he or she is satisfied with the results, and the facilitator is satisfied they achieved their facilitating goal.
In order to effectively facilitate anyone towards any result, the facilitator must be able to create a goal for themselves in relation to their client’s success, and also from the perspective of the client, becoming very aware of what the client wants and needs – establish a goal – as a client. All this must happen while being aware of the nature and constraints of the environment within which facilitating occurs. It is a multidimensional system that requires all these processes to happen simultaneously.
In order to effectively set goals from a client’s perspective the facilitator must be able to ask the right questions of the client in order to understand the client’s current constraints (problem), the process of their thinking (a strategy they employed to get to their current unsatisfying result), in order to design a new road map towards a different outcome. That road map becomes a path the client will be “walking” towards a new outcome.
That is possible only if the facilitator has developed a strategy for collecting information from the client, and know when they have enough information to be satisfied they understand what the client’s current reality is , and how they created it, and where the client wants to go.
The process of successfully executing this strategy requires the facilitator to step “outside the box” and ask global questions of themselves such as : “What is it I need to understand about this client and their situation in order to be able to help them”? and “What is it I already know about that person”?
From the client’s point of view, the facilitator needs to ask themselves some questions too: “Where am I now”? “What is it I want”? “Do I really want to get there?”
At that point the facilitator must be effective in asking very precisely and strategically positioned questions so that the client arrives at their own answers, opening doors to possibilities of different outcomes.
Simultaneously the facilitator must be able to strategically position suggestions which the client will incorporate into their thinking strategy, reinforcing their belief change is possible, and develop a burning desire to make that change.
Eventually the client will have arrived at a new decision point having satisfied themselves a new outcome exists and is within their reach. They get inspired to create a new vision for themselves and step into a possibility.
This is what makes our work so worthwhile.
Written by Anita Kozlowski, Founder of Live With Power NLP Seminars.
Anita Kozlowski is an internationally licensed NLP trainer, therapist, strategic business and success coach. She has used innovative therapy to change lives through a unique system that has been proven to work. As an internationally licensed NLP trainer, she has trained thousands of individuals from all walks of life in pure NLP, for which she has received recognition on three continents.