You-Me-Work
Instructional designers talk about the learning triangle of teacher-student-content. Those three things have to be ready and aligned for learning to happen.
I think that same You-Me-Work model can be applied to a lot of human interactions:
Facilitations (facilitator-participants-approach)
Guided tours (guide-tourist-sites)
Coffee (barista-customer-coffee)
You get the idea.
You-Me-Work is a twofer: it’s a design pattern you can use to inform your preparations, AND it’s a simple model you can share with participants as a lens to understand the conversation they may be having. Draw it as a triangle on a flipchart and label the corners accordingly.
But since this isn’t a blog about tourism or coffee, let’s bring it back to facilitation and look at You-Me-Work as a design pattern.
Facilitator
The facilitator is ready and aligned when:
Their personal and professional presence matches the experience of the event
They know the approach, the prompts, the timing, and the transitions
They can handle whatever the group throws at them through techniques, questions, coaching
They can manage client expectations
They can channel group dynamics and facilitate open conversation.
Approach
The approach is:
The agenda
The materials
The activities and modalities
The presentations
The environment (room, seating, lighting, temperature, decor, sound)
The experience (mood, tone, emotion, atmospherics, branding, activity level, color and imagery)
In short, it’s everything EXCEPT for the facilitators and the participants.
Participants
Participants are ready and aligned when:
They know the event’s desired outcome
They know the agenda
They have actualized to their role
They agree to the ground rules
Their emotional backpacks are empty, and they’re ready to work.
It’s worth saying: a small percentage of participants just won’t be facilitated. That says more about them than it does about the facilitator or the approach. Either they can’t abide any authority figure in general, or they see facilitation as an attack on their job/agenda/identity/whatever, or they got stuck in traffic on the way to the event and are just in a bad mood.
Save yourself a lot of worry, self-doubt, and therapy. Understand that you, as a facilitator, can only do so much to create a welcoming and inclusive space. Participants have to choose to move into it. You cannot force participation.
If you’re interested in other ways you can channel group dynamics towards better outcomes, let’s talk. https://calendly.com/brian-lizardbrain/45-min-discovery-call
