As Earth Day approaches, I find myself contemplating—with some alarm—the ways in which humanity is laying waste to the planet. We are closer than we ever have been to threatening the continuation not just of human civilization but of complex life on Earth. The list of existential threats is long: runaway climate change, nuclear war and nuclear accidents, habitat destruction, pollution of air, water and soil, over exploitation of Earth’s bounty, ocean acidification, mass extinction of species—to name only a few.

It would be hard to overstate the magnitude of the current crisis, or how unprecedented is this moment of converging perils. And yet it gives me some comfort to remember that if these problems are made by the human mind, they can be unmade by the human mind. It gives me comfort to remember that humans have the capacity to bring into being what has never been before. It is our very inventiveness that has gotten us into trouble. Perhaps that same capacity to innovate—channeled in service of life—can get us out of it.

What is most clear to me in all of this, is that our collective survival requires collective intelligence. No one genius or strongman leader, no one ideology, will get us out of this mess. What we need now is what William Isaacs calls “dialogue” or “the art of thinking together.”[i] What we need to address the complex and wicked problems of our time, is for individuals from different walks of life, from various sectors, with diverse areas of expertise, to bring together their ideas and inspirations. We need collaboration. We need co-creativity. The most promising technologies in this age are the ones that allow us to access, as Tom Atlee puts it, “the wisdom of the whole on behalf of the whole.”[ii] What we need now, in other words, is facilitation.

James Smart defines facilitation as “an approach, mindset and set of skills that a facilitator or leader employs in order to support a group during collaborative work.” “Facilitation,” he continues, “means creating space for everyone in the group to contribute.” It supports, as he says, “group members to discuss [a] problem together and co-create a solution.”[iii]

I have had the opportunity to bring the facilitation approach, mindset and skills to many situations, including some related to the impact us humans are having on the planet. Whether it’s a council of federal-provincial-territorial ministers, a municipal climate change agency, a local climate action NGO, or a regenerative design enterprise—I have been able to bring facilitation to help harness the wisdom of the collective in service of life.

Based on these experiences, I would like to propose four ways facilitation can support our response to the planetary crisis, with examples of specific methods and tools for each.

1. Collaborative Innovation

We have never been here before—so we need new approaches and solutions.

Facilitation helps us to listen together—not just to each other, but to the future that wants to happen through us. In this time of unprecedented challenges, we cannot rely on what has worked before, because those are the ways of thinking and doing that have created the problems in the first place. If anything will save us, it’s the admission that we don’t know what to do. It’s the ability to sit in the uncomfortable uncertainty for long enough for the still, quiet voice within to whisper its secret knowing. This is the place of inspiration. This is the field of the unmanifest to which we all have access, and facilitation can help us get there.

Tools/Methods: 

• Theory U– A framework for deep listening, sensing, and co-creating the future.

Otto Scharmer, who founded the Presencing Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has articulated how human innovation happens. He has developed methods that help groups co-create new paths forward. He has brought Theory U to a range of contexts, from climate labs and UN Climate Conference of Parties events to grassroots sustainability initiatives and the sustainability transitions of global companies like Shell and Siemens.

• ICA’s Model Building method– An approach to co-generating a structural solution to a problem.

The Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) offers a simple and powerful way to bring everyone’s best ideas to develop a comprehensive structural solution to a problem. Model Building lets everybody take responsibility for the whole problem—and its solution. Take ICA Associates’ Leading Dynamic Teams course to learn the method.

• Pro Action Café– A dynamic conversational process to refine and advance innovative ideas.

First conceived by Rainer Von Leoprechting and Ria Baeck in Brussels, Belgium, the Pro Action Café blends the “World Café” method and “Open Space Technology.” It is a way to host creative, action-oriented conversations about several projects, ideas, or questions that matter to those in attendance. Conversations link up and build on each other, ideas cross-pollinate, and through peer coaching, the group’s wisdom is called forth to help great ideas manifest in the world.

2. Collective Impact

We can’t do it alone—we must collaborate across sectors and multiple stakeholder types.

Facilitation helps us bring the system into the room to work across differences in pursuit of the common good. A threat to life on Earth like global climate change is a “super wicked problem:” no central authority is dedicated to addressing it, and those trying to solve it are also the ones causing it.[iv] A problem like that involves complex interdependencies and competing interests. Addressing such an issue requires bringing together many stakeholders and their different perspectives, areas of expertise, and roles. Information sharing, coordination, and collaboration help to mobilize collective action—all the things facilitation is purpose-made to do.

Tools/Methods: 

• Collective Impact – A structured approach to cross-sector coordination and collaboration.

John Kania and Mark Kramer first proposed collective impact as a structured way to bring people together to achieve systems level change.[v] Five conditions define the approach: a common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and a strong backbone coordinating team, with equity practices incorporated throughout. With support from the Tamarack Institute, seventy-three communities from across Canada have used this approach for local climate change adaptation and mitigation.

• The ToP Consensus Workshop Method– A powerful way to help groups coalesce around a common direction.

A foundation of ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP) is the Consensus Workshop. Even in large groups, it involves every participant, elicits everyone’s ideas, and builds a sense of team and partnership. It reliably brings diverse groups to a place of shared commitment based on clarity, understanding and support for one another’s ideas. Take ICA Associates’ Group Facilitation Methods course to learn the method, and consult R. Brian Stanfield’s The Workshop Book (New Society Publishers, 2002), for a deeper dive.

3. Transformational Strategy

The obstacles are daunting—but together, we can craft strategies to overcome them.

Facilitation helps us engage people in the plans and decisions that affect their lives. For our plans to work, they need to engage our highest dreams. Yet they also need to be grounded in the realities of our context. What is getting in the way of creating the world we want? Getting to those underlying contradictions, the blocks and barriers in the way of where we want to go, is the essence of strategic thinking. Yet too often we stop at the visioning stage. Then we skip over strategy to get straight into action that only tinkers at the edges or is too far up in the clouds. Transformational strategy is not only participatory—it’s also long-range, strategic, and concrete. For groups to move through the disciplined thinking process involved in truly strategic planning, they need facilitation.

Tool/Method: 

• ICA’s ToP Transformational Strategy Method– A participatory strategic planning process that goes beyond visioning to generate innovative strategies for success.

ICA’s method, Transformational Strategy, harnesses the power of the consensus workshop and takes groups of any size through a spiral process from vision to contradiction, strategy and action plan that reflects how people naturally make decisions. It leaves teams with a sense of common purpose and commitment, and the practical action plans they need for immediate implementation. Take ICA Associates’ Transformational Strategy course to learn the method, and consult Bill Staples’ book, Transformational Strategy (The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs, 2012), to go deeper.

4. Active Hope

The crisis can be overwhelming—but we can transform our difficult emotions into empowered action.

The scale of challenge, the pace of change, the impacts of accelerating collapse on our lives and livelihoods…in the face of all this we can easily veer into panic or paralysis. The issues are so daunting they can be hard even to think about, never mind talk about. And when we do try to solve the problems that face us, we can so quickly burn out. Whether we are facilitating or directly engaging in collective analysis and action, we need to resource ourselves. We need to tap into our deepest well of resilience, our widest web of solidarity. Here too, facilitation has a role to play.

Tool/Method: 

• The Work That Reconnects– A workshop methodology that deepens our capacity to act on behalf of life on Earth.

Developed by Joanna Macy and friends, the Work that Reconnects offers a theoretical framework for personal and social change, and a powerful workshop methodology for its application. The Spiral of the Work takes participants through four stations: Coming from Gratitude, Honouring our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes, and Going Forth. This open-source body of work has been used by ecological activists and changemakers all over the world, including Deep Adaptation, Global Ecovillage Network, the Transition Movement, and many others.

This is just a sampling of the many facilitation tools and methods leaders and communities can use to respond to the current polycrisis. What is evident is that we need to stop reproducing the habits and patterns that have brought us to this precipice. To climb out of this mess and evolve a society that allows life on Earth to flourish, we need new ways of thinking, being and doing together. If anything might give us hope that we can co-create a life-sustaining society, it is the mindset, skills and tools of facilitation.

 

Natalie Zend, M.A. (International Affairs), is an IAF^TM Certified Professional Facilitator, a Certified Training and Development Professional, and a Consulting Associate with ICA Associates Inc. in Toronto. She brings over 20 years’ experience in international cooperation, with expertise in program design, policy implementation, and monitoring, evaluation and learning in a range of sectors. For facilitation support with any of the tools and methods described above, contact Natalie at natalie@zendialogue.ca. Learn more about Natalie’s work at www.zendialogue.ca. 

 

[i] Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue: The art of thinking together. Currency.

[ii] Atlee, T. (2003). The Tao of Democracy. The Writers’ Collective.

[iii] Smart, J. (2024). What is facilitation? Definition and principles. https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/what-is-facilitation/

[iv] Levin, Kelly; Cashore, Benjamin; Bernstein, Steven; Auld, Graeme (23 May 2012). “Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change”. Policy Sciences. 45 (2): 123–152. doi:10.1007/s11077-012-9151-0. S2CID 15374462

[v] Kania, J., & Kramer, M. (2011). Collective impact. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 9(1), 36–41. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/collective_impact