Sorry for the radio silence. Headspace for writing hasn’t been abundant these past few months. I’ve been deep in some fascinating client work, but interesting work doesn’t magically produce blog posts.

This week’s post is a little different. On Thursday @ 5pm CEST (see other timezones), my friend and collaborator Alma Zertuche and I are running a workshop on one of my favourite facilitation topics: how words shape the conversations we think we’re having. You can sign up here (it’s free).

Here’s a small appetiser.

Many of my clients are obsessed with action. If I had a Euro for every time I was told there have to be action items at the end of a session, I’d be a rich woman.

I get it. A series of endless meetings where no decisions are made and no actions are taken sucks. Action feels productive.

I’d challenge that, gently.

Action is important, but it’s not always the most important thing.

I’ve realised that a lot of my facilitation isn’t really about specific actions or decision-making at all. It’s about helping groups make sense of what we know or don’t know, and then helping them agree on what this information means. Only then do we decide what to do.

Looking back, I’d say 95% of the work I do falls into this category of “sensemaking” and as we become increasingly flooded with information and the speed of change accelerates, much more of this work is needed.

My favourite flow

One model I use as the backbone for almost every workshop I run is:

What → So What → Now What1

Everyone wants to get to the Now What (the decision or action)

But there’s very little point agreeing the Now What if we’re all talking about different Whats, or if we’re looking at the same facts but telling ourselves completely different stories about what they mean. So I don’t rush the What and So What stages.

If we need to get to Now What faster, let’s try something out, experiment and get more information to fuel the What and So What discussions. That is how better decisions are made.

Side note: I suspect I honed this instinct in tech, where being vague racks up a bill remarkably quickly. I’d happily bet no two people in history have ever meant exactly the same thing by the word “dashboard”.

From talking about plans to articulating which behaviours we want to change, most groups could do with being more specific.

Specificity can be uncomfortable. It forces us to discover that we weren’t as aligned as we thought we were. That’s exactly why it’s so valuable. I’d take ten uncomfortable minutes in a workshop over ten expensive weeks of people confidently pulling in different directions.

But wait… there’s a catch

If this post stopped here, it would just be another article telling you to be more specific. While I do think most groups would benefit from that, over the years I’ve realised there’s a second skill that’s just as important.

Knowing when to push for specificity... and when to help people move on.

I’ve watched groups disappear into a wordsmithing wormhole, debating the perfect definition of a word that didn’t actually need defining.

Sometimes asking “What exactly do you mean?” unlocks the conversation. Sometimes it’s the thing that kills the energy.

Specificity is a tool and, like any tool, it has an optimal time and a place.

Sometimes the ambiguity is the problem. Sometimes the ambiguity is doing useful work, giving the group enough room to explore before they need to commit.

Learning the difference is one of the hardest parts of facilitation.

The Mindset Shift

When I catch myself reaching for more specificity, I pause and ask:

What job is this ambiguity doing?

Is it hiding a misunderstanding?

Or is it giving the group room to think?

I don’t have a formula for answering that but I’ve found it’s a much more useful question than assuming every vague word needs pinning down.

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P.S. In Thursday’s workshop you’ll learn a series of techniques for going beyond the question: “what does that mean?”.

You will leave with practical tools and a fresh appreciation for language as one of the most powerful instruments in a facilitator’s kit, tested on real examples from the group.

Here’s the signup link again.

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You may know the saying: “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”

Well friend, I used to be that person. Someone who could be relied on to always get things done, motivate my team, the whole shebang. I wore the badge of responsibility for getting things done with pride.

Many of you know how that story ended: A burnout.

Burnout is a brutal teacher, and in this case I believe it really taught me something that helped me become a better facilitator:

Our energy can’t compensate for the energy of others.

I’m not saying that I’m now reckless and irresponsible, I’m saying that I realised I was taking on responsibility for things that ultimately papered over cracks in the system.

When I burned out and couldn’t hold things together any more, the cracks ripped apart… I’d been masking a system that wasn’t functioning by over-functioning myself and that ultimately had helped no-one.

The phrase I use to keep the over-responsible monster in check

Facilitators can also easily paper over cracks.

If we herd the group to an outcome at all costs, we can lose sight of a bigger prize - helping the group grasp something about their dynamic that will serve them in the long run.

One phrase has helped me immensely to calibrate my over-functioning:

I can’t want this more than you.

Sometimes I remind clients of this out loud. Sometimes I just say it to myself to keep myself honest.

We can’t want the outcomes more than the people who are in the room. Those people are accountable for them and have to deliver them.

If we absorb that responsibility, we paper over cracks in the system and make the system as a whole more fragile.

So what can we do?

If the motivation is unequally distributed in the room, with some people very motivated and others dragging their heels, that gives you data.

Typically, I will run discovery interviews or at least a survey with all participants before a session to try and catch as many of these in advance, but if some slip through the net, these are also useful on the day.

Here are three things I probe for:

• Purpose - is it clear to the people why we are here? and crucially, do they agree with the purpose? If they don’t agree with the purpose, there is no clever tactic which will ultimately motivate them… so clarify purpose first always. If they agree with the purpose, maybe they don’t agree with something else, such as the techniques we are using to get there. The distinction matters.

• Role and ownership clarity - do they know how they can contribute to this discussion and why they are in the room? Nothing is more demotivating than being in a meeting you don’t know how to contribute to or why you are there.

• Psychological safety - is there anything that is holding them back from contributing?

The Mindset Shift:

If energy drops, I check:
Am I about to compensate… or clarify?

Compensating makes me a temporary hero, at the cost of the resilience of the system.
Clarifying makes the system stronger.

P.S. I’m opening two private coaching spots starting in March.

This is for leaders actively preparing for a high-stakes session. Note: I only work with people who have a real event on the horizon, because that’s where the focus and growth happen.

You’ll get:

• Access to my facilitation discovery and project management templates

• Theory top-up via bite-sized micro-trainings (15 minutes max)

• Mobile support via voice note & text

• Me as your co-designer and sparring partner to craft the strongest possible session

If that sounds like you, let’s schedule a 20-minute call to see if it’s the right fit.

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But first, a different question

Which questions are mine [as a facilitator] to ask?

This question was inspired by the blog post of a fellow facilitator friend, Ewen Le Borgne, who points out that actually, there are a lot of types of questions which aren’t a facilitator’s to ask.

Why?

Because [my paraphrase] facilitators often confuse their role in asking questions with that of a consultant or content expert and think their role is to ask clever or insightful questions about the topic at hand. It’s not.

Our job as facilitators is to help the group do its best thinking and maybe (depending on our mandate) to improve their process literacy to deal with similar challenges better in the future. Meddling in content questions usually undermines that task and makes the whole thing muddy.1

My hot take: a lot of the most helpful questions a facilitator can ask are not clever at all…

The power of the “stupid'“ question

I sometimes say that I have made an entire career out of being the one who was prepared to ask the stupid questions.

But “stupid” questions are paradoxically, not stupid at all.

They are just ones that many people don’t ask for fear of looking stupid.

I’ll stop putting them in inverted commas now but I’ll keep affectionately calling them stupid questions so that I don’t have to find another term for them.

Usually, stupid questions gently challenge something that people assume (usually incorrectly) everyone in the room already knows or has agreed on.

And that is where we as facilitators can use the power entrusted to us by the group to ask a stupid question to unlock something.

As an outside party, facilitators can often ask things that would be too risky for a participant to ask as it would risk revealing gaps in their knowledge or alignment.

And, by role-modelling asking these types of questions, we make visible how non self-evident the answers usually are. (This builds the group’s inclination to ask such questions in the future which serves them long after we are gone.)

Some of my all-time favourite stupid questions to ask as a facilitator are:

• What does that mean (to you)?

• Which question, if answered, would move us forward?

• Are we answering the right question?

Using questions as workshop goals

Speaking of: “are we answering the right question?”

Besides the questions we ask as a facilitator, the other important type of question is the one which the group is working on such as “What do we need to get done next quarter?” or “What options are there to solve this problem?”

Pro tip: I’m a big fan of using questions in the framing of a meeting - particularly simple ones.

For example, if we look at just some things that “strategy workshop” could mean in terms of questions we get things like:

• What do we want to win at and what will we ignore?

• Where should we focus next to create the most impact?

• If we could only do three things this year, what would they be?

• What choices do we need to make now to succeed later?

• What does “success” actually mean for us right now?

• … and many more

I bet you that very few people will understand the same thing by “strategy workshop” but by picking questions to answer we check we are all likely talking about the same thing.

Facilitator Einstein Chimes in

So are we answering the right question in our sessions?

Einstein once said:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

We might not all have Einstein’s brain, but I think most of us could benefit from making a bit of the same tradeoff. In my experience many groups spend way too little time thinking about which questions they are answering and crucially, whether we all understand the same thing by the question.

And if a group isn’t asking right question, their answers are irrelevant.

Here are a few things to try to sharpen up those questions.

• Question storming: like a brainstorm, but the only thing that people can contribute is questions. Here’s a great article on the approach.

• Check people understand key words in the question. For questions that are central to your workshop: Write the question out and underline the assumptions or any words which might cause confusion and then have a discussion to clarify them. Iterate on the question before you dig in. This saves soooo much time (and potential, unnecessary conflicts) later!

• Flip your question and ask the opposite. Sometimes you get a whole new perspective by asking the inverse of the question you think you need to ask. Here is one of my favourite pairs of questions:

The Mindset Shift:

From: Facilitators should ask powerful, insightful questions about the topic they are dealing with.
To: Long live the “stupid” question and question the questions the group is asking.

p.s. Over on my other Substack, Small. Scrappy. Sustainable I just wrote a post to answer one of the most common questions I’ve been asked since starting a business: “How did you get your first clients?”. It’s behind the paywall but if you subscribe you should get a free one-post preview option if you want to read it. (Let me know if that doesn’t work and I’ll look into it).

Small. Scrappy. Sustainable.

How I actually (accidentally) got my first clients - Part I

Last year, I ran a little survey on what you wanted to hear about from this Substack. I don’t have that many subscribers yet, but all four of the (much appreciated) votes were unanimous. It was the question…

Read more

6 months ago · Lucy Chambers

p.p.s In other Q news. I’m also Questing at the moment as part of one of Channel twelve’s Creative Quests - if anyone has done one before, would love to hear about your experience!

Last week I shared that finding something I wanted to write about for letter O took me ages. With “P” I’m having the opposite problem - I simply have too many words I want to write about!

For some reason, there are soooo many good words for facilitators that begin with P. Candidates for this post have included: Power, Psychological Safety, Play, Preparation, Presence, Purpose, Practice, (Being a good) Participant (as a facilitator)…

For some reason - P’s are very prevalent and popular in facilitation related topics… just google “5 P’s of successful meetings” for a plethora of variants on the theory of successful meetings.

But when I actually sat down to write, it became clear which topic held the most spark for me.

“Politics”.

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What is “politics”?

The word “politics” is one of my favourite examples of words that mean so many things that they almost always need further qualification.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things that I’ve heard “politics” mean:

• office / group politics - i.e. how the relationships and power structures in an organisation or group work which allow certain people particular advantages over others.

• Whether we talk about “news”, or what is happening in the wider world outside our industry, at work.

• Government politics - formal power involving the government, career politicians and public administrations.

• Anything that might produce consequences or conflict that people either don’t want to manage or are worried they won’t be able to manage.

When you look at it like this, it becomes very clear why the topic of “politics” is very relevant to the work of a facilitator. “Politics” creates dynamics that groups find uncomfortable. And when things feel uncomfortable, they call us to help.

There are many angles this piece could take, exploring neutrality as a facilitator, why “non-industry news” is often very relevant in the workplace (a particular topic of interest of mine, read to the end for more here), or what politicians could learn from facilitators and vice-versa.

All of those may be pieces I write in the future, but for today, I just have one point I want to make a case for:

The word “politics” is important. If you are a facilitator, I recommend spending some time with it, watching where it is used, and leaning in to understand more about what it means in context.

For me, “politics” is a lens through which we make sense of human systems. It crops up any time power, care and consequences interact.

It’s important to lean into, because I believe the times when we don’t talk about something because it is “political” are often the places where the most harm is done. Ask me how I learned that lesson…

Something to practice:

Listen for what job the word “politics” is performing in a particular context. Here are some common things I’ve seen:

• Boundary-setting: signalling discomfort, a sense of risk, or a concern that a conversation might exceed someone’s capacity to engage or handle the consequences of.

• Preserving the status quo: phrases like “Let’s not make this political”, can mean, “I’m comfortable with the current arrangement and don’t want it challenged.”

• Deferring discussion for expedience: phrases like “Politics aside…” can signal that someone is making a tradeoff. They are trying to move forward while being aware that there’s something important, often tied to culture, power or values, that is unresolved.

In my experience, when someone says “politics”, it usually means some people are ready to talk and others would rather not. It’s a cue to pay attention because there is something interesting which almost certainly affects the group you are working with.

Some reflection questions:

Depending on your context, some of these may be more appropriate for you to reflect on yourself and some may be useful as discussion topics with groups.

• “What kinds of human issues feel acceptable to discuss at work, and which don’t?”

• “Who gets to decide what counts as ‘political’ here?”

• “What happens when something is labeled political? What changes?”

• “Can a decision affect people deeply and still be considered ‘non-political’? Why?”

• “What’s the cost of avoiding politics? Who pays it?”

I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections on this topic and if you use any of them!

The Mindset Shift:

Facilitation inherently involves reading power dynamics, including the power wielded ourselves as facilitators. And in any profession, we choose what to apply our skills and energy to with the hope that we will somehow bring about some kind of change.

Anywhere where someone or something tries to bring about change, there is politics.

It’s politics all the way down, baby.

Today’s mindset shift spelled out is:

From: Facilitators are neutral - we avoid “politics”.
To: Facilitators work right at the heart of “politics” - listen for the signals politics offer us, get curious, then get to work.

p.s. Want to feature in a mini-guide on navigating “politics” at work?

I’m currently collecting examples of how organisational leaders support their teams through political, controversial, or polarising topics, particularly those triggered by current affairs. In other words: how leaders balance getting their jobs done while navigating the 24-hour news cycle as it seeps into work, affecting people in different ways.

I’m looking for leaders who have approached this in different ways, some encouraging conversations about current affairs at work, others taking a “no politics at work” stance.

Stories can be shared anonymously or with attribution, as preferred.

To be clear: I don’t have the answers, and I’m treating all approaches without judgment, there’s a lot of nuance here!

If you’re willing to share:

• It’s an opportunity to reflect with me on what’s worked (and what hasn’t) in supporting teams through challenging topics.

• I’ll also share some of what I have seen while working in-house and as a consultant.

• You’ll pay it forward. I hope at minimum to synthesise contributions into a guide to help other leaders navigate similar challenges. If there’s lots of interest and the topic resonates, I may have bigger ambitions, let’s keep talking :)

If you, or someone you know, would make a great example, I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to share this post or make introductions!

“You can’t have fun today, as nothing is allowed and nobody wants to have fun with you.

Of course, on Opposite day, all of that means the opposite!” - from DaysoftheYear.com.

I’ll be honest. I’ve been struggling to get back into writing this year.

Partially it is because my body is hibernating and reflecting - it doesn’t want to be out in the world yet.

Partly, I just struggled to find something I wanted to write about for the letter O.

And then Opposites Day presented itself and realised how many examples are of facilitation approaches that play with the power of opposites.

And then I took part in a training on Lewis Deep Democracy and I realised the words Opposite and Opposition are two absolute zingers for a facilitator as often they are tools we can use to get groups unstuck because they are great at making things more visible.

One of my favourite “opposites” exercises

TRIZ - from Liberating Structures

In my experience, people looooove talking about what they are going to start.

Getting them to talk about things they are going to STOP is a LOT harder.

TRIZ is a classic exercise aimed at being honest with ourselves about what we need to stop doing in order to make space for what we want to achieve.

Firstly participants are asked to imagine the worst possible outcome related to the topic at hand.

Next they imagine all the steps or behaviours that lead to that outcome.

In the final step, they reflect on whether there are any behaviours which they are currently doing which remind them of the behaviours that would lead to the undesirable outcome.

From experience this exercise often reveals much deeper insights than if we just asked the question: “What should we stop doing?”

Get the full instructions.

This is just one wonderful technique using opposites as a key mechanism. Let me know your favourites and if I get enough, I’ll do a roundup!

Opposites and Opposition: Deep Democracy Edition

As I mentioned above - last week I got to be trained in Lewis Deep Democracy - Level I.

Trying to summarise Deep Democracy in a few words is like trying to bottle a thunderstorm. You might catch some rain, but the electricity is missing.

I’ll try my best below to give you a tiny taster - but if you’d like a more zingy version of Emerge Book Circles and I will be doing a Substack Live debriefing from the training tomorrow at 10am CET. Join us!

What is Lewis Deep Democracy?

In a (very, very, very shallow) nutshell - this approach is a way to use conflict as an essential part of both good decisions and strong relationships as often only through going below the surface to difficult and emotional topics do we get to solutions that all parties can support.

(Note: There are several types of Deep Democracy, but I was learning Lewis Deep Democracy.)

I picked the words Opposites and Opposition because Deep Democracy has a couple of key approaches that go in the opposite direction to other practices and often, our intuition.

Approach 1: Spreading the “no”

Where many groups default to advocating for a position, taking a vote, and smoothing over dissent, Deep Democracy intentionally tunes in to the “no” even when it isn’t spoken aloud.

The facilitator listens for hesitation, resistance, energy shifts or subtle cues of discomfort. Once a “no” or some form of resistance is detected, it is spread deliberately: the facilitator asks,

“Does anyone else feel this way, even a little bit?”

The principle behind this practice is simple but powerful: if one person feels resistance, it is highly likely that others do too.

By leaning into these quieter or minority perspectives, the group creates space for authentic expression, surfaces hidden concerns, and uncovers whether there is genuine support for the initiative at hand. The result is not just more honest feedback, but decisions that are better understood, more resilient, and more widely owned.

Approach 2: Debates and Arguments

Deep Democracy uses structured methods called Debates and Arguments to surface and work with opposing views when groups are stuck or going in circles.

Unlike traditional “this house believes…” debates, the purpose is not to win, persuade, or perform expertise, but to reveal the full range of perspectives in the room.

Participants physically stand on opposite sides of a line in the room, each side representing a different viewpoint. As points are made, participants are free to cross the line whenever they genuinely agree with something said by the other side. This often leads to people occupying both positions at different moments, making visible the complexity that usually remains hidden.

Rather than polarising the group, this approach typically deepens understanding. Areas of agreement become immediately visible, minority perspectives are seen, and the group can move beyond stuck positions toward decisions that are more informed and more sustainable.

A traditional debate produces winners, losers and often quite resentment because it assumes one side is right. A Deep Democracy Debate, done well, acknowledges that each side holds part of the truth and forms the basis for agreements that have much deeper roots.

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The Mindset Shift:

From: managing disagreement as a problem
To: seeing opposition and resistance as information

More conflict content

Conflict is clearly the theme of the week. I recently had a conversation with professional facilitator and mediator Thomas Lahnthaler about the differences between facilitation and mediation for the #edgesoffacilitation series.

I hope you enjoy it - I learned so much from this conversation.

Also available on Spotify.

I used to think that my ability to be good at my job was about what I knew and what I could do.

Now I think it is about my ability to notice things…

…And name them.

And work out whether other people notice the same things.

And whether they interpreted the things we noticed the same way.

And as we collaborate, build our ability to notice and name more things.

And develop a shared language…

….which makes it easier for others to notice and name things without starting from scratch each time.

I’ve come to think of it as the foundational skill for most work, not just facilitation.

If you don’t notice something, you can’t act on it.

There are many things that cloud our ability to notice in a noisy world.

The ability to notice through noise externally in our environments or internally in our heads, is a true superpower.

Because where we put our attention is where the energy goes.

Some fun resources to build noticing skills

• I love the check-in question: “What has your attention?” (HT to Future of Work Consultancy The Ready for this)

• Rob Walker’s Substack “The Art of Noticing” helps people “pay attention to what [they] care about, and care about what [they] pay attention to. It’s for people who want to stay interested in life.” It’s Delightful. Also the list of check-in questions curated together with readers is wonderful and ever expanding.

• “What else?” - the powerful coaching question from the Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier which asked repeatedly reveals layers and layers of insight we might otherwise miss.

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The Mindset Shift:

We pour energy into teaching people what to do. Yet the ability to notice is what shapes what gets done. Maybe that’s the skill worth investing in?

“A first-class noticer is someone with a good eye, especially for human behavior. First-class noticers are intensely attentive: they recognize talent and see opportunities that others miss.” (The Power of Noticing p. 181). — Max H. Bazerman

p.s. Learning to notice things about myself, and increasing my awareness of my triggers, values, and resulting behaviours, was a pivotal ‘Aha’ moment for me as a facilitator. That’s why these aspects are front and centre in the Facilitation Self-Assessment.

p.p.s Over on my other Substack: Small. Scrappy. Sustainable. I’m sharing what I’ve learned about the business side of being a facilitator. If you like the Facilitation Mindset posts and also run a small business, it might be for you :) Start here.

Small. Scrappy. Sustainable.

When the Question "How's Business?" Made Me Ugly Cry

Welcome to Small. Scrappy. Sustainable. I started this because building a small business has been a rollercoaster, and I kept hearing from others that they felt alone in the struggle… like everyone around them had it figured out except them…

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8 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Lucy Chambers

🚩🚩 This post won’t be for everyone. I’ll respect you if you want to unsubscribe ➡️🚪Zero hard feelings.

But for those of you who resonate with this slightly more unpolished and unprofessional post, there is a little something at the bottom that might interest you.

This wasn’t the post I thought I would write this week. My original plan was to make M = “Messy”, but fate had another plan.

The quote in the subtitle comes from the British TV show Fleabag, a dark comedy about a woman whose life is a complete mess trying to figure out how to keep going.

So maybe this is about how to deal with mess after all?

Messy, complicated feelings about humans.

A quick definition

In case the word misanthrope is unfamiliar; a misanthrope is someone who dislikes people in general or has a low opinion of humanity as a whole.

Or in Fleabag terms, someone who thinks people are a bit “shit”.

In this post, we’ll deal with questions like:

• How do we turn up and do our jobs if we think someone we work with is a “bit shit”?

• How does our overall stance toward humanity show up in our work as facilitators?

• How do we keep going when some humans really test our belief in the goodness of humans?

Complicated Feelings About Humans

As a person, I tend to see the best in people.

I’m generally pretty curious, patient and willing to gently encourage people to show their best sides, and to suspend judgment for long enough for more flattering aspects of their character to emerge.

But for a while now I’ve felt a limit to that patience; a dark underside I was reluctant to acknowledge publicly for fear of being judged by other facilitators as insufficiently neutral.

This feeling, and the idea for this post, has been brewing for a couple of years now. I’ve spent a lot of time around ideas like treating people with unconditional positive regard and people’s capacity to grow and change given the right circumstances.

And while I admire the intention behind these beliefs and in many cases wholeheartedly embrace them, I’ve had to acknowledge that my own feelings about humans are far messier.

I simply don’t believe everyone is willing or able to change or grow.

And after another year of humans being a bit shit on a global scale, it was a small moment this week, tiny against the backdrop of everything else, and yet one of those rare little moments you can actually hold, that finally tipped me over the edge and made me publish this.

What happened

I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that someone did something that deeply disappointed someone I love.

The event in question left us feeling like Machiavelli might have had a point when he said:

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

- Niccolò Machiavelli

If Machiavelli is right, it’s bad news for me, and most people I care about whose conviction for doing the right thing, speaking truth to power and advocating for others often ends up getting them sidelined, punished or even fired.

And yet, despite all that, another more hopeful quote is rattling around in my head:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - Martin Luther King, Jr

If MLK Jr is right, the real question becomes how we continue to show up, even when the bend seems far away and how we hold onto belief in humanity until it gets here.

A Book That Gets It

The reason I chose to write this post in the end was because I came across someone else who perfectly articulated what I am feeling:

I don’t have a hostile disposition toward humankind per se. In fact, I feel quite warmly toward humankind. It’s individual humans I have trouble with.

- Robert Wright - Why Buddhism is True 1

I picked up this book in Thailand last year not because I’m a Buddhist, but because I was sufficiently curious about what I’d heard.

Once I got past the title, which I initially found obnoxious for it’s claims about “truth”, I realised it is actually a science book exploring Buddhist principles through evolutionary psychology, examining whether they can be proven scientifically. It’s also surprisingly amusing and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

It helped me.

So what do I do with all of this?

If you are able to treat everyone with unconditional positive regard, I applaud you.

I have realised that for some people, I simply cannot make myself believe in their capacity for change. If I don’t believe in someone’s integrity, I cannot mask that. I have no poker face.

So I:

• try not to put myself in situations where I don’t believe in people or their intentions from the outset.

• co-facilitate where feasible, particularly to have other perspectives to help me assume positive intent for as long as possible.

• channel my frustration into understanding my own triggers and refining how I facilitate, rather than forcing belief in people who don’t earn it.

The Mindset Shift:

I believe it’s possible to be a great facilitator without a universally positive regard for humanity.

Because while I believe that some individuals can be utter shits, I know that on balance there are more people who aren’t.

Luckily, most of the people who I consider irredeemable shits are the ones with a level of power that disconnects them from reality.

So we need to design groups, organisations and systems in ways that use the power of groups and collectives against those who are only serving their own interests.

Not in the hope of changing the minority of humanity who are shits, for that is futile. Rather in the hope that the majority of the population can realise that the shits do not have humanity’s best interests at heart, and that as individuals they are not alone in feeling this way or powerless to change it.

Because at the moment, there are lots of examples which seem to prove Machiavelli’s point, but there’s just enough of a spark of belief in me that he can be proven wrong for me to want to keep going.

From: You can’t be a good facilitator if you can’t hold humans in universally positive regard.

To: You don’t need to believe everyone is a saint to be a brilliant facilitator. If you can accept that the shits are statistically in the minority, you’re already halfway there.

Final words

Maybe, one day in the future, when I am wiser, and better able to practise whatever it is people more evolved than I do to stay calm in the face of life’s challenges, I will write a follow-up to this post and show how young and wrong I once was.

I look forward to that day. I hope it comes.

For now, I’m going to own the rage and explore ways that I can channel the energy it gives me to explore my own style of facilitation.

A style of facilitation that is important *because* some people are a bit shit.

Because if we allow those people who are a bit shit to surround themselves with other people who are a bit shit, and get more and more powerful, things are going to get a whole lot more shit for everyone.

As Belinda from Fleabag points out:

People are all we’ve got.

And as the quote continues…

So grab the night by its nipples and go flirt with someone channel the rage, sharpen your style, and don’t let the shit people win because there are a lot of people doing good out there and it’s your job to work out how to help them.

I may have taken some artistic liberties here…

Anyone still with me?

For those of you who made it to the end: Thank you and I appreciate you.

Up top, I hinted that I had something to offer for those of you who resonate with this more honest style of post.

In short, I’ve just launched a new Substack called Small. Scrappy. Sustainable. This one will be about the lessons I’ve learned and am learning about building a business.

Why and how does it connect to this post?

Remember how I said I “try not to put myself in situations where I don’t believe in people or their intentions from the outset.”

Well, one of the only ways I can do this is to give myself choices. Choices of clients, choices of business model. Because if we don’t have choices, we have to take shit work. Because capitalism.

And I want to help other people have that choice, because I believe in small businesses as a force for good.

I’ll introduce it to you over the coming weeks but if you are curious already, I just published the first post with an explainer of what is to come.

Small. Scrappy. Sustainable.

When the Question "How's Business?" Made Me Ugly Cry

Welcome to Small. Scrappy. Sustainable. I started this because building a small business has been a rollercoaster, and I kept hearing from others that they felt alone in the struggle… like everyone around them had it figured out except them…

Read more

8 months ago · Lucy Chambers

Thank you for tolerating the 15 times I said “shit” in this post (now 16). I now feel I have it out of my system for a while and will give you a break from it in the next post.

Hi there! There are still more of you joining the list this week. In case you joined for the facilitation self-assessment - that went live last week and you can find it here.

If you are new to the list, we’re now getting back to our regular programming. We’re almost half-way through the alphabet series.

Every week, I’m posting a mindset shift I’ve made for a letter of the alphabet, which nudges me in a helpful direction in my business and my craft.

Let’s get into it.

Look beyond the marketing hype

There is no Olympics of facilitation, no objective standards by which we can measure ourselves. It’s not even that helpful or healthy1 to benchmark ourselves against others because the contexts we work in are so different.

Statements like “become a top 1% facilitator”, which you may see in the adverts of certain courses are, I’m sorry to say, meaningless marketing speak.

Which is a shame, because one of my personal values is mastery, so I am particularly susceptible to such promises. 🙃

That does not mean that the courses who make this promise are bad courses. Actually I have a lot of good things to say about some of them. I just deeply dislike the idea of making a promise which is fundamentally unfulfillable.

I wish a single course could bring me to the top of my game and make me the Simone Biles of facilitation.

I wish even any combination of courses could help me get to the top of my game.

I *love* doing courses, I love learning from other people. I have to work hard on not letting myself spend all of my money on training.

But I know I gotta do the work too.

Look beyond training

While writing this post, I realised that some of the best investments I made in my personal development weren’t training at all. They were conferences and communities.

I say this both in terms of things I learned AND in terms of what actually made me money.

I can directly trace a large chunk of my income back to specific events and communities, because I know who I met there and we now collaborate on real clients on real problems, learn real hard lessons and make actual money.

The Mindset Shift:

Developing as a facilitator feels to me like a pretty good example of the 80-20 rule.

If I have has a maximum potential of 100, where 100 is as good as I am ever going to be, the first 80% of what I needed to know to be a pretty solid facilitator, I think I learned in the first 20% of the effort I ever put in.

I grew by seeing excellent examples of facilitation in action, mentorship, doing a couple of courses, practising in different environments to stretch myself and joining communities.

From: Do this one course and you’ll be a world-class facilitator

To: You can probably learn 80% of the things you’ll ever need as a facilitator pretty quickly. Good training, mentorship and practice will support that, but it also takes work, making mistakes, growing in your self-understanding. That final 19.9999…% - that’s probably going to take the rest of your life, but that’s also where it gets really fun. There is no perfection, so don’t worry about chasing a perfect score.

As promised, the training rundown

Some of you joined because I promised to do a rundown of all the facilitation training I’ve ever taken and other investments I made that were directly related to the goal of improving as a facilitator.

My initial idea was to tell you a bit more about each of them, then I started building the list I realised how many there were and realised it would overwhelm both you and me. 😂

So here’s what I will do instead.

1. As the appendix to this post, there’s a list of all of the training I’ve ever taken & other investments such as conferences.

2. I will open up the Substack subscriber chat for you to ask anything you want to know about. See the appendix for information on how to use the chat.

3. Depending on what you ask, I’ll either answer in the chat, or maybe there is followup post to this one.

This will be my first experiment with subscriber chat. Let me know what you think :)

Here’s the list!

This list contains all of the financial investments I’ve ever made in specifically developing as a facilitator. I’ve focussed on training, conferences and communities where the primary purpose was developing as a facilitator.

What’s not here:

• Free things - I pulled this list from my accounting software.

• Some of the inner-work / self-awareness coaching / emotional support I’ve had.

• Some of the investments on the business side.

Happy to do a followup on these if relevant. Let me know over in the subscriber chat what you want to know :)

2021

LEGO® Serious Play® Virtual Facilitation Levels 1&2 (Individual & Group Builds - Online Facilitation of LSP) - SeriousWork

2022

Workshopper Master - AJ&Smart

International Association of Facilitators Mentorship Programme

2023

Applied Strategic Foresight - Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

IAF EME Conference Berlin 2023: Entering brave(r) spaces

Never Done Before Festival 2023 + Community

2024

Technology of Participation (ToP) Masterclass - Martin Gilbraith & Associates

IAF England & Wales Conference 2024

Group Facilitation Skills - Process Change - based on the book Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making

2025

Virtual Experience Masterclass - By Said Saddouk (aka the Facilitainer)

Facilitate 2025 IAF England and Wales Conference

Art of Hosting Training (As part of Strengthening Resilient Democracies project run by Commit by MitOst gGmbH

Experience Design Lecture Series by The College of Extraordinary Experiences

High Stakes Facilitation Lab - Jan Keck

Virtual Facilitation By Facilitation 101 & Perle Laouenan-Catchpole

2026

Lewis Deep Democracy - Level I - by House of Deep Democracy

Join me over on the subscriber chat to discuss (you should be notified - I think 😅- when I open it!)

Get Started with the Subscriber Chat

If you are new to Substack, think of it as an application with three doors.

1) The newsletter you are receiving

2) A twitter like feed called notes and

3) a subscriber chat - for direct communication. You do not have to use all of them.

How to get started

1. Get the Substack app by clicking this link or the button below. New chat threads won’t be sent sent via email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens. You can also access chat on the web.

Get app

2. Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.

3. That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.

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Hi friends,

Thanks for bearing with me. True to form, I decided to make some more tweaks and additions to the self-assessment today, so this is a version 0.3 fresh off the press.

Make a copy of this document and get rolling! 🚀1

I hope it is useful to you - and I’d *love* feedback on how it is landing with you.

So how about a little swap?

If you would like me to personally review your self-assessment and brainstorm some ideas with you for your next personal development steps:

1. You can answer a couple of questions here and drop me a link to your form.

2. I’ll record you a little video with my thoughts and ideas and send it to you as a thank you

I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep that up but I will commit to review any form I receive by the end of November (turnaround time subject to demand :) ).

Speak soon!

Lucy

So… FYI quite a lot of people joined the list because of that, so we’ve grown quite a lot over the past few days (!)

If you just joined, welcome! Below I’ll quickly introduce myself, tell you a bit more about this list and share some thinking about the self-assessment to get you warmed-up for tomorrow.

If you were already on the list, surprise! You’re getting a free template tomorrow. Normal programming will commence again shortly :)

OK, so:

A brief reintroduction

I’m Lucy, a facilitator and consultant based in Berlin, Germany. I was introduced to the world of facilitation about 15 years ago and facilitated in-house for many years but was only brave enough to make it my main profession 3 years ago.

Aside from facilitating product workshops, strategy retreats or cross-organisational gatherings, I help people set up their asynchronous processes to take the pressure off needing to meet for *everything*. I work both in the tech and the non-profit sector.

Here’s me looking professional…

And here’s what I normally look like in action and how you’ll recognise me in the wild. We call this #facilitationface

About this list

I started this list in 2023 as a way to explore ideas in a lower-stakes way than the professional-polish of LinkedIn. I feel freer here to share some of the more real stuff, like the burnout which ultimately lead to me becoming a full-time facilitator and now motivates me to help others make better use of their energy.

The title of the list reflects my deep belief that mindset is ultimately the main factor in becoming an impactful, confident, healthy facilitator who looks after themselves so that they can be of service to others. As I often say: your impressive activity box won’t save you if your mindset is off.

FYI: We are currently in the middle of a series of unpacking an A-Z of mindset shifts for more meaningful work.

I’m delighted you are here and will endeavour to make your time here worthwhile. I appreciate any feedback that helps make the list more useful to you.

That said mental health and headspace is incredibly important to me, so never feel obliged to stay here if you are not getting what you need, you’ll never offend me by unsubscribing, I promise! I defend my own inbox like a fortress and respect those who do the same.

Take what you need, come and go as you please, the door is open in both directions.

About the self-assessment

The skills assessment I will share tomorrow was inspired by the core competencies developed by the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and adapted based on my personal experience of working and growing as a facilitator.

It is worth highlighting one key difference between what I understand as IAF’s mission and what I’m trying to achieve.

IAF uses these competencies to endorse and certify professional facilitators who are expected to be pretty versatile and handle a range of scenarios. (Feel free to use the original core-competencies if this is what you are looking for).

In my experience, the full list of competencies can be a bit overwhelming if you are just trying to benchmark your skills and decide on your next development area.

Some of them also emphasise things that tend to cause a bit of anxiety to facilitators just starting in their practice. Take “Apply a variety of participatory processes”, for example.

Many early-stage facilitators tend to worry that they haven’t got enough tools or activities in their toolkit, and the word “variety” can make that anxiety worse. So I’ve chosen to emphasise the idea of having enough methods for the situations you’re usually working in, rather than trying to cover every possible scenario.

I have two hopes for sharing the self-assessment tomorrow:

• To help you plan your next development areas

• To help fuel your confidence and see your current strengths, without overwhelming you.

It’s a personal take on the skills I felt I needed to build gradually over the last 15 years and pretty intensively over the last three. Tell me afterwards how relatable it is ;)

Sound good? If this wasn’t what you expected, feel free to unsubscribe now. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow with the self-assessment!

Sometimes a word in one language obscures a much richer meaning. As I often say, “words create worlds” - our ability to articulate things shapes our worldview and our ability to conceive of different concepts. Pretty important stuff for facilitators methinks.

The word of the day is the English word “time”.

That little word maps onto two Greek words with distinctly different meanings:

• chronos (χρόνος) - commonly translated as “chronological or sequential time”

• kairos (καιρός - in Ancient Greek) - which seems to have the meaning of the “right or critical moment”.

I have also heard chronos referred to as “empty time” and kairos as “full time”, “deep time” or “story time”. As ever, Elif Shafak puts it better than I ever could…

Things get interesting when we think about the consequences both of the little words have for how we do and perceive things…

The two “times” in practice

Example 1: Flexible coaching slots

I’ve recently started working with a coach who offers slots between 45-90 minutes.

The reason: we can’t really know how much chronological time we’re going to need to work through whatever I am bringing that day. Very often we are done and dusted within 45 minutes. And then there are days when 45 minutes would seem incredibly rushed and we take longer. The flexibility is delightful and the only way we can go deep on topics when needed.

Now that I have experienced this model, I think I would feel very claustrophobic and rushed in the constraint of a fixed time slot. No going back.

Example 2: #Unhurried conversations

I’ve recently been dabbling more with unhurried conversations: a wonderful format that allows a conversation to flow organically between people rather than giving people fixed time to speak.

With the aid of a talking piece, a participant signals that they want to talk and may talk until they feel they have said what needs to be said, then they put down the talking piece and someone else may pick it up.

The next person to talk does not have to follow on the point from the previous speaker (though they may choose to). Direct questions are discouraged, so that it doesn’t become a back and forth - but rather an evolving conversation which flows between the participants.1

Playing more with this format has helped me realise that there are so few moments where we let people feel fully heard. The conversations are usually inspiring, relaxing and surprising. Heartily recommend.

Including conversations in my workshops is something I have only been bold enough to do in the past few years as I previously found them too unruly and at risk of monologuing. But now, I would never go back as there is a richness in stories that structured, linear activities just can’t parallel.

Example 3: The Art of Hosting

Last but not least, we have the Art of Hosting (AoH). The practice of Art of Hosting takes conversations and stories as tools of change in complex environments to the next level.

It’s kinda hard to explain AoH if you haven’t experienced it, but you can get a little flavour of what is involved in this wonderful conversation with one of the co-initiators Maria Scordialos (also a Greek speaker - coincidence?).

The Mindset Shift:

As facilitators, particularly those of us socialised in the West, it can be easy to let the pressures of clock time undermine the potential impact of our efforts as we rush to get things done by some chronological line in the sand.

But if we really want to achieve the highest impact, perhaps we should be asking what would be possible if we sometimes let kairos be in the driving seat.

From: Letting chronos run the show and boss us around.

To: Having a healthy respect for chronos, while remembering that kairos is probably the dance partner we should pick more often.

p.s. And one final one (I’ve apparently been thinking about this topic for quite some time…)

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Jargon can waste a lot of time and put up invisible barriers to participation, particularly when people don’t feel comfortable to question it.

At the end of this post, there is a list of specific facilitator jargon an an invitation to play the game using facilitation words :)

This is one of my favourite exercises for making people slow down and be intentional about the words they use.

I originally used it as an onboarding exercise for a group of technical trainers - to help them not take for granted that everyone understands the same thing by the words… but I’ve also used it in non-tech situations e.g. to make sure that people understood each other’s job titles.

Ten hundred words

Requirements: This works well online where everyone has their own computer in front of them.

Some of you may be familiar with the online comic XKCD - which shines light into some of the geekiest topics on the planet.

If so, you may know the “Up-Goer-Five comic” where Randall (the author) attempts to label a rocket, in all of its complexity, using only the top “ten hundred” aka “one thousand” words. The result is very amusing:

Up Goer Five by XKCD - CC-BY-NC

The exercise:

It can be very funny to try and explain terms using the same method. You can use the “up-goer five text editor” to help you. The text editor only allows you to enter words that appear in the 1000 most popular words in the English language.

1. Set your participants the challenge to brainstorm a list of the concepts privately. Ideas for prompts:

   1. things people are likely to misunderstand e.g. technical terms in a training course or

   2. things people are likely to take for granted (like people’s job titles) or

   3. words they have heard their colleagues use but they think not everyone understands

2. Instruct the participants to pick a word from their list OR have them submit their words to the facilitator (e.g. via a form) and the facilitator distributes the words (e.g. by private chat message) and then do the same.
   
   The latter option is slightly more interesting but there is a risk some participants might not know the meaning of all the words. This is good because it’s the point, but we need to ensure people feel safe to say so and not put on the spot. If this happens, encourage them to message the facilitator that they don’t understand the word and they will be given another. You can make a judgement whether to reveal the words that confused people at the end.

3. Instruct participants to come up with a definition using the text editor

4. Make it a competition for the best definition. Best definition is measured by reading the definition and seeing who can guess the original word.

5. Revel in the chaos.

6. Remind the participants that they don’t have to use this definition, ever. The point of the exercise is to pause before using terms people may not understand!

I find that using this little game at the beginning of a workshop makes it a bit easier to ask when a word isn’t clear. The constraint of not having a full vocabulary is just silly enough to be useful.

The Mindset Shift:

What (are we talking about?) -> So What (does it mean?) -> Now what (should we do about it?)…

This powerful flow will be familiar to many facilitators. It gives us a way to structure conversations so that they take place in a sensible order. In my experience it is so temping rush the “what” part of the flow, groups crave to get to the action (the “now what”).

But if we aren’t on the same page about what we are talking about, there isn’t much point in aligning the group about what to do about it.

From: thinking that jargon busting is pedantic

To: treating jargon busting as a playful activity which is crucial to the beginning of any process

p.s. Facilitators can be pretty bad at using jargon themselves. Whether it is “popcorn style”, “container” or “car park” - we’re all guilty of using something that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to everyone.

I’m collecting a list of facilitation jargon to play a version of this game with facilitators. Submit a word and let me know if you would like to play here.

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By some estimates, public speaking is one of the most pervasive phobias. More pervasive than arachnophobia (fear of spiders) or acrophobia (fear of heights). That’s right standing in front of a room makes us sweat more than falling off a cliff or meeting a tarantula eye-to-eye!

Now, imagine this: instead of merely speaking to a room, you must actively engage with every single person in the group. That’s facilitation. For some it’s akin to multiplying the fear of public speaking by a million.

I know that the fear of public speaking isn’t the same as introversion, which refers to where someone gets their energy from and whether they find being with people draining or energising. However, I do see a pattern in how both introverts and those with public speaking anxiety often are perceived as less confident, even though their caution and thoughtfulness can be a hidden strength.

Introverts tend to listen more than they speak, which is exactly what good facilitation requires. They pay attention to nuances, unspoken cues, and group dynamics helping ensure everyone’s voice is heard, not just the loudest ones. They also tend to be more sensitive to energy dynamics and the needs of those in the room.

And if it’s anxiety of all eyes on you draining your energy. I invite you to the following mindset hack.

The Mindset Shift:

Confidence can be learned and it is a muscle that needs exercise. I also have come to believe that, by and large, groups want me to succeed. In the unlikely cases that they don’t want me to succeed, that is a them problem and we are unlikely to work together again.

This means that moments when something doesn’t work or I stumble over my words or have to ask the group to remind me what I said five minutes ago are not failures. They are opportunities to create connection and to help the group feel like the crew, not just the passengers.

From: thinking of facilitation as public speaking, with me being alone on the stage

To: thinking of facilitation as a team sport, where I am part of the group and we win together

Are there any introverted emcees out there?

The lovely Hannah Boneham and I recently contrasted facilitation with emceeing for the Edges of Facilitation series.

In the process, we found ourselves reflecting on whether there are any introverted emcees in our network… we didn’t know, but we’d love to challenge our biases. We’ve assumed that emcees (aka MCs, hosts, event leads, comperes…) tend to be more extroverted than facilitators overall, and we’re keen to recalibrate that assumption if it’s wrong - let us know!

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The first thing that pops to mind for me is “horizontal parenting” - how to entertain your kid while lying down, a parenting hack that was taking the world by storm last year as a way to balance kids’ need to play with giving overstretched parents a moment of rest.

To be honest, I usually need a good lie down after an intensive facilitation day. I have a whole album of pictures of me having a rest when we wrap up. So this definition of horizontal facilitation also appeals. See exhibit A above.

But that’s not the type of horizontal facilitation we’ll be talking about today, so let’s look at how this term, coined by Adam Kahane in his book “Facilitating Breakthrough”1 is actually used.

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Pushed for time? here’s a video version for a 60 second summary

I do a slightly clunky paraphrase of the vertical vs horizontal facilitation model in this little clip on horizontal vs vertical facilitation (extracted from the recent video Facilitation vs Project Management.)

Transformative Facilitation

In Facilitating Breakthrough, Kahane emphasises that any process that is truly transformative usually combines two styles of facilitation: horizontal and vertical and that we must alternate between the modes to get the best of both.

Horizontal facilitation, refers to a collaborative and participatory approach where participants are all given space to co-create outcomes through open dialogue, shared responsibility, and mutual learning.

It contrasts with vertical facilitation, where the facilitator or leader directs, manages, or imposes structure from a position of authority or hierarchy.

Each mode has its pros and cons:

• horizontal is great at building ownership, surfacing ideas and building trust, but it can be slow and lack decision-making structure. People can get tired of it if it is the only thing that is used as they will lack structure.

• vertical can be very efficient, as there is often a hierarchy or clear decision-making roles about who will move the conversation forward. However if overused can be less creative and reduce ownership.

Adam Kahane argues that effective facilitation often requires both knowing when to be vertical (to hold structure, safety, and progress) and when to be horizontal (to enable authentic collaboration and shared ownership).

The Mindset Shift:

Kahane says that most people default to vertical facilitation. I’ve seen just as many people default to horizontal. Both have their time and place.

From: Picking one style and staying there

To: Recognising the benefits of both and moving between them to get the best of both worlds.

p.s. Learning facilitation can be very overwhelming. There is a lot of noise and many courses teach stuff you’ll never use. This got me thinking: “what if people had a personal guide to navigate the facilitation landscape, and help them build a development plan tailored to them?”

This is why I developed the “Facilitator in your pocket” programme. I’m currently piloting it by supporting a former colleague develop in her facilitation practice at a new job. We’re building her confidence as she onboards into a new role in a new organisation.

There will be a bit of theory (curated for her specific needs), plus generous voice-note support and weekly session plan reviews as she needs them. I’ll be opening this up to 4 more clients in January next year.

Sound like something you could benefit from? A 20 minute call should be enough to work out if it is a good fit. Book one here.

In today’s post, I unpack how I decide which flavour of collaboration principle I use and show you an example from a recent session.

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So how do I decide what to use?

Here’s my approach:

I’ll use rules if psychological safety is scarce. Without safety, there is little point in meeting as a group IMO. Rules alone do not create safety, but they can provide some of the conditions for it. While some participants dislike the language of rules (feels school-y), and I share that instinct, I still use the term in low-safety settings, where stronger structure helps people feel comfortable enough to participate. Over time, my aim is to move beyond needing rules.

I’ll use agreements if the group needs structure and we have the time to build genuine commitments together. Agreements only work if the group truly agrees to them, so it is worth investing time to co-create them rather than imposing them. Co-creating principles can be powerful, but not every group will know what they need. As a facilitator, part of the job is suggesting ideas that genuinely help the group.

I’ll use suggestions as my default with most new groups. They set the tone quickly and allow me to observe how the group naturally works, without imposing too much direction about behaviour up front. Often, groups don’t need formal rules or agreements. Framing desired behaviours as explicit suggestions is sometimes enough to set the tone. This allows space to prove me wrong.

I’ll (sometimes) use working assumptions if the group is ready for deeper reflection. Assumptions (similar to values and beliefs) often do not specify behaviour directly, but they can be powerful if the group is willing to translate beliefs such as “Curiosity leads to understanding” into practical behaviours themselves without needing a facilitator to spell it out for them. They are powerful because they help groups to see underlying beliefs, values and assumptions that are holding them back and they can be useful ways to get started quickly, but like any assumptions, they need testing.

Practical note: Assumptions can be both a blessing and a pitfall. They’re very powerful when well articulated, because the group can interpret them broadly, without the need to spell out every desirable behaviour. The pitfall is that if the group doesn’t understand how a particular behaviour maps to the assumption, it may not be enacted as intended.

Lastly, remember that even if you choose not to articulate any form of collaboration principle, both you and the group will still have working assumptions, they will just be implicit rather than explicit.

Example

Here is an example which I used at a recent event. I introduced them with the phrase: “here’s what I need from you to do my job”.

For context, this was a group with high psychological safety that I was working with for the first time. I picked a mix of process ground rules (how the group should respond to instructions) and a couple of behavioural suggestions.

The hand up signifies that people should stop talking and put their hand up if they see me with my hand up and the volume button is to make a gesture like you are turning up the volume if you can’t hear me (I have a very quiet voice).

Final thoughts

• If you don’t make them explicit - implicit rules, agreements or assumptions will guide you.

• Every principle is a trade-off. They can encourage positive behaviour, but they may also mask underlying dynamics. The balance you strike depends on the situation. Use as few as you can get away with and all the ones you need.

• Groups are usually not ready for everything at once. More advanced rules can be introduced as the group develops. For example, one of the most powerful collaboration principles I’ve ever experienced is Focus on Interests, not Positions. In my experience, it’s also one of the hardest to convey as it’s based on a whole theory.

• Drop rules which no longer serve you.

• Some rules are there to support you as the facilitator, and that’s perfectly fine — the key is simply being aware that this is their purpose. Some of the resistance to ground rules according to this thread tends to come from very experienced facilitators. If you’re newer to the role, put whatever structures you need in place to feel comfortable and start building your confidence, but it is also worth letting the group surprise you, positively.

Resource Shoutout:

• Facilitator School’s Meeting Ground Rules page an excellent resource for ground rule inspiration based on different scenarios.

• Roger Schwartz’s Behavioural Ground Rules (HBR)

The Mindset Shift:

Ground rules are not fixed commandments, they are flexible tools that must be chosen with care, context, and honesty about whose needs they serve.

From: Ground rules are a standard step at the start of any session, often borrowed from stock lists or imposed without reflection.

To: Ground rules are intentional choices. They are trade-offs that shape safety, conflict, and participation, and the best ones are co-created, adapted over time, and serve both the group and the facilitator.

P.S. Enjoy this? From this month on, I am working with a small cohort of people to learn how to make their facilitation more impactful on the job!

Instead of learning facilitation in the abstract, we work on the design and delivery of a real workshop you’re running, with hands-on guidance, templates and support from me.

Want to know more? Let’s talk. I have a small number of slots in my calendar for 20 minute call to quickly see if it’s a fit.

(This is tongue-in-cheek, the Lions are very friendly!)

That’s what Thomas Lahnthaler did recently on LinkedIn1 when he shared this provocation:

Ground rules deprive us of information.

The comments section lit up.

For some, ground rules are non-negotiable, a framework set by the facilitator to guide behaviour. For others, they must be co-created by the group, though some admit that groups may lack the language or process-literacy to define what they need themselves. Others argue that ground rules can actually obscure the dynamics that need to surface.

And then, almost as if the universe wanted to stir the pot further, I found myself in a workshop with Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator2. For him, ground rules aren’t about hiding group dynamics, they’re a diagnostic tool for making them visible, so that a facilitator can intervene to help the group work together more effectively.

So many wildly different positions. So which is it?

I love a good provocation that gets me to reflect on my process (thanks again Thomas!) AND I also see how this minefield of opinions might be hard to navigate.

So here’s a little mini-series breaking down how I think through if and when I use ground rules for a particular session.

Not all ground-rules are created equal

Let’s play with Roger Schwartz’s advice to use ground rules as a diagnostic tool and also take one of his 8 key ground rules (coincidentally one of my favourites):

Use specific examples and agree on what important words mean.

Here’s where we run into our first challenge: the word “ground rules” doesn’t mean one thing, it tends to be used as a catch-all umbrella for all kinds of practices with the broadly similar intention of shaping the behaviour in the room.

Unpicking the language

Ground rules, group agreements, suggestions and working assumptions… to me are all slightly different and yet the term ground rules will often be used to refer to them. Here are my definitions.

Ground Rules

My Definition: Explicit, enforceable directives about desired behaviour in the session.
Don’t call something a rule unless you are prepared to enforce it or, better still, agree with the group how they will uphold it. Nothing undermines trust faster than a rule that isn’t respected.

Working / Group Agreements

My Definition: Co-created commitments that the group collectively endorses, outlining how members will interact or work together. Like rules, agreements only matter if there are consequences for breaking them.

Suggestions

My Definition: Proposed behaviours or approaches that the facilitator invites the group to try, believing that they will serve the interests of the group.
I often use the phrase: “Suggestions for a successful session”, signalling an invitation for what I think will make the session successful (sometimes groups prove me wrong), or to introduce a new behaviour.

(Working) Assumptions

My Definition: Beliefs about how ways the group can most effectively work together. These are typically a short, often broad statement that encapsulates a key belief e.g. “everyone has wisdom” usually without spelling out a particular behaviour.

Typically, (as I have seen them used) the facilitator introduces these initially as their own beliefs, role-modelling them in action, with the aspiration that the group will gradually adopt them as shared assumptions over time.

Example: “Everyone has wisdom” can stand in for a range of behaviours, such as making space for everyone to speak, honouring different types of expertise, and actively listening to understand rather than respond.

End of part I

This topic is a whopper, so I’m turning this into multiple posts. In the next post, I’ll unpack how I think about when I would use each of these tools.

For sake of clarity, from now on, I’ll use the term “collaboration principles” to encompass all of these terms :)

How do you set the collaboration principles for your group, and which language: rules, agreements, suggestions, assumptions (or something else) do you find most effective?

P.S. Enjoy this? From October, I will be working with a small cohort of people to learn how to make their facilitation more impactful on the job!

Instead of learning facilitation in the abstract, we work on the design and delivery of a real workshop you’re running, with hands-on guidance, templates and support from me.

Want to know more? Let’s talk. I have a small number of slots in my calendar for 20 minute call to quickly see if it’s a fit.

We cover:

• the differences, and overlaps, between chairing and facilitation. From authority and rules to trust and inclusion.

• how the roles are evolving,

• and what we can learn from Indigenous governance traditions about stewarding authority while building relationships.

No time to watch the full thing? Text highlights linked below and there are a couple more shorts coming on the YouTube channel, subscribe not to miss an update.

The series Edges of Facilitation is available on YouTube and now also on Spotify!

Read the text roundup here.

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P.S. From October, I will be working with a small cohort of people to learn how to make their facilitation more impactful on the job!

Instead of learning facilitation in the abstract, we work on the design and delivery of a real workshop you’re running, with hands-on guidance, templates and support from me.

Want to know more? Let’s talk. I have a small number of slots in my calendar for 20 minute call to quickly see if it’s a fit.

I recently watched a Chad Littlefield video in which he talks about the mindset that earns him regular 98% approval ratings. Here’s what he says about it:

Let’s be real: Two out of every hundred people are probably just having a bad day. They’re not going to love what you do no matter what you do. That used to bug me. I’d focus too much energy on the 2% with the crossed arms in the back of the room.

Not anymore.

The trick? Don’t design for the 2%. Focus on the people who want to be there. The ones who want to grow, learn, and connect. And here’s the twist: when you focus on connection and contribution, you often win over even the arms-crossed skeptics.

I agree with everything Chad says here: Our job as facilitators is to be in service to the group, rather than the taste of a particular individual. If we devote too much energy to keeping individuals happy1, it usually detracts from the experience and outcomes for the rest of the group.

But I’d take it one step further, I believe it is also ok if the number of people who didn’t enjoy a session is be even higher than 2%. Here’s why…

One of the people I admire most in the field of meeting design and facilitation, is Elise Keith, who once wrote:

Whenever you invite a group to make real changes, someone will be unhappy. Glowing 5-star reviews are for edutainers, not for those who lead challenging transformations. And the bigger the change, the wider the spread of reactions.

And as someone who has been thinking recently a lot about how to show the impact of the facilitation I do, I’ve been thinking about those words a lot.

Share

A personal example

Once, I was facilitating a strategy day with an extended leadership team of about 30 people.

At the end of the session the group was delighted, most people said things like:

I’m astounded, I didn’t believe we could get this amount done in such a short time.

My heart: 🎉🥳🎊✨🙌🔥💯🚀🌟👏🎉🥳🎊✨🙌🔥💯🚀🌟👏🎉🥳🎊✨🙌🔥💯🚀🌟👏🎉🥳🎊

One person said:

I felt like I was in school with people taking it in turns to talk. There wasn’t enough unstructured discussion with the whole group.

💀

As with all feedback, there’s likely nugget of truth in there. At the time, I probably was over-structuring my sessions a bit, I’ve learned to let go and relax a lot more since I did this.

But the reality is: the fact that this particular person was unhappy, was actually a sign of success for the group overall.

This senior team member was used to dominating conversations, often leaving little room for others.

“Unstructured” for him meant he could speak as much as he wanted, for the others it meant a battle to get their point across.

He was likely one of the reasons I was asked to facilitate in the first place, since without structure he took over discussions. In the session, he felt he had lost freedom because he spoke less than normal, while the rest of the group felt they had finally gained space to contribute, which was the reason we were able to achieve the outcomes we did.

If I’d measured the approval rating of the session, I guess it would have come out lower than Chad’s 98%.2 It certainly wouldn’t have got five stars from everyone.

The Mindset Shift:

Approval is not the same as value. High ratings feel good, and they can help with follow-up work, but they’re often a poor measure of whether the session truly mattered.

Satisfaction reflects how enjoyable or engaging something felt in the moment. Impact reflects whether the group made progress, shifted patterns, or tackled difficult truths. Sometimes those two line up, but not always.

As facilitators, our job isn’t to chase stars or glowing approval ratings. It’s to give the group what it needs, even if it means making part of the group unhappy. In fact, a little discomfort can be a sign that the session worked, because real change is about doing things differently, and not everyone is going to like that.

From: seeking approval as a measure of worth.
To: choosing impact, even when it costs you popularity.

Lastly, it is hard to get this type of feedback and it’s natural to feel a bit rough about it. I’m not immune from my heart sinking. Just remember you’re pushing for something bigger.

You got this.

Lucy

P.S. From October, I will be working with a small cohort of people to learn how to make their facilitation more impactful on the job!

Instead of learning facilitation in the abstract, we work on the design and delivery of a real workshop you’re running, with hands-on guidance, templates and support from me.

Want to know more? Let’s talk. I have a small number of slots in my calendar for 20 minute call to quickly see if it’s a fit.

Why? Because I often work with people who know their field so well that one of the following usually happens:

…there’s so much knowledge in the room that people get lost in the details.

…the “curse of expertise” bites them. Experts forget what it is like not to know something, and communication (and empathy) breaks down with those who don’t know the topic as well. What feels obvious to the expert is anything but obvious to everyone else.

…when some people are labeled as the experts and others as non-experts, it creates power imbalances and limits the group. Complex challenges usually need many kinds of expertise, not always those labelled with PhDs or fancy qualifications.

The group usually gets stuck because their main approaches to problem solving are to think harder, do more research, and try to be smarter… rather than work out why the wisdom already in the room isn’t gelling.

I help them put the puzzle pieces of their expertise together.

Ego wrangling

The other thing I could call my job is ego wrangling. Mostly that means managing my own ego (though of course, other people’s egos show up too).

As a facilitator, it’s tempting to prove your value by showing how much you know. But in my experience that often backfires.

Maybe you say something slightly wrong or confusing because your expertise doesn’t quite fit their context, or maybe you’re so right that the group starts treating you as the authority instead of trusting themselves. The latter is a weird dynamic, and tends not to serve the long term interests of the group as they become reliant on you.

Our role as facilitators isn’t to out-expert the experts, it’s to help their ideas click together across the room. It’s to help turn individual expertise into shared understanding.

That’s why I often do my best work outside my own field.

Not knowing the topic means I have to keep the conversation accessible to everyone, not just the subject-matter experts. And even the experts usually benefit from seeing their ideas explained in a new light.

The Mindset Shift:

For me, expertise wrangling is about making sure deep knowledge is useful without overwhelming, confusing, or excluding people. It’s not about knowing more than the group, it’s about helping their diverse expertise work for them.

From: seeing yourself as the expert

To: to unlocking the expertise of others and helping it stick together to produce something useful.

New Video: Facilitation vs Training

Very relevant to this topic is the latest in the Edges of Facilitation series: Facilitation vs Training (vs Instructing!) with Florentine (Flor) Versteeg.

In this video, Flor shares a model that shows the spectrum between instructing and facilitating. We talk about when each approach makes sense, tradeoffs of efficiency and effectiveness and the different skills required to do each of them.

Hope you enjoy the series.

That’s all for now!

Thanks for reading! I’ll be picking up the pace in September, I’m way behind on this alphabet, and I’ll be traveling in Canada away from my usual client schedule. So expect a few more emails from me then!

Ciao for now,

Lucy

P.S. From October, I will be working with a small cohort of people to learn facilitation on the job! Instead of learning facilitation in the abstract, we work on the design and delivery of a real workshop you’re running, with hands-on guidance, templates and support from me. Want to know more? Let’s talk. Drop me a line on lucy@facilitationmindset.com.