Philosophy of Facilitating and Skill Building

Future Search facilitators believe that:

Every person and every group is doing the best they can with what they have every minute of every day.
People do only what they are ready, willing and able to do.
People do not have to change their own minds or anyone else’s for a group to discover its common ground and potential for action.
The facilitator’s task is to keep the group whole and working together, not to fix problems, resolve differences, or motivate action.
Groups stay whole and develop greater capacity when they discover their real differences in belief, skill, and function, and integrate their capabilities for a common purpose.
Groups tend to fragment around differences, whether real or imagined. The facilitator’s job is make sure no person becomes a scapegoat due to a personal trait, feeling, or point of view.
Facilitators are responsible for boundaries of time and task, not for content analysis, direction, interpretation, meaning, or synthesis.

People acquire Future Search skills one meeting at a time. Useful skills include:

Managing large group dynamics.
Letting people struggle. Living with the unfamiliar.
Planning with a group that includes skeptics.
Trusting people to self-manage tasks without prior training.
Stopping action if people fight or flee.
Using designs faithful to key concepts and values.
Saying “no” to conference requests that defeat the sponsor’s purposes.
Working on your own issues around “looking good,” control, stereotyping, rescuing, lecturing, etc.

There are several ways to speed-up your learning:

Managing a Future Search – a Leadership Workshop and Lead More, Control Less – a Master Class in Leadership

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