Facilitating Breakthrough

Facilitating Breakthrough Plot Summary

Introduction

In a sunlit outdoor restaurant at a small country hotel in Colombia, a former guerrilla commander and a wealthy businesswoman greet each other by name. The workshop organizer, surprised by their familiarity, learns they had met years before when the businesswoman delivered ransom money for someone kidnapped by the commander's soldiers. "The reason we're at this meeting," the guerrilla explains, "is so that no one will have to do such things again." This poignant moment captures the essence of transformative facilitation—creating spaces where those divided by deep differences can work together toward a better future. At its heart, transformative facilitation offers a powerful approach to helping groups collaborate across differences to create meaningful change. It's not about pushing people to advance but about strategically removing the obstacles that prevent their natural forward movement. Like clearing boulders from a mountain stream allows water to flow freely downhill, this approach liberates the collective energy and wisdom already present in the group. Whether you're a leader, manager, consultant, or simply someone who wants to help others work together more effectively, understanding the art of transformative facilitation can help you create breakthroughs in even the most complex and conflicted situations.

Chapter 1: The Colombian Peace Process: When Enemies Learn to Work Together

In late 2017, seventeen months after the Colombian government and FARC rebels signed a treaty ending their 52-year war, a diverse group of leaders gathered to discuss how they could contribute to transforming their country. The workshop brought together politicians from different parties, former guerrilla commanders, businesspeople, nonprofit managers, and community activists—people who, if they could collaborate, might make a real difference in rebuilding their torn society. The first day was tense. These participants carried major political, ideological, economic, and cultural differences. Some were enemies. Many held strong prejudices. Most felt at risk simply by being there. One politician insisted no photographs be taken, fearing repercussions if it became known he was meeting with rivals. The facilitators had organized a carefully structured series of exercises to help participants understand each other's perspectives. They began with timed one-minute introductions in a circle, ensuring everyone's voice was heard equally. Throughout the day, participants worked in various configurations—in plenary discussions, pairs, and small groups—sharing and synthesizing their thinking using sticky notes, flip charts, and even toy bricks to build models. They met in the main room, at meals, and during walks around the hotel grounds. By the end of this first long day, the atmosphere had transformed. One participant remarked that he was amazed "to see the lion lie down with the lamb." That evening, Francisco de Roux, a renowned Colombian peacemaker who was observing the workshop, approached the lead facilitator with excitement: "Now I see what you are doing! You are removing the obstacles to the expression of the mystery!" When pressed to explain this cryptic observation, de Roux elaborated: "Everything is a manifestation of the mystery. But you cannot predict or provoke or program it: it just emerges. Our key problem is that we obstruct this emergence, especially when our fears cause us to wall ourselves off." This insight captured the essence of transformative facilitation—not pushing participants to work together, but helping them remove the obstacles to doing so naturally. This approach unblocks three essential ingredients for moving forward together: contribution (enabling participants to bring their diverse ideas and resources to bear), connection (helping participants build relationships across differences), and equity (creating conditions where everyone can participate on equal footing, regardless of their status outside the room).

Chapter 2: Vertical and Horizontal Facilitation: Why Both Fall Short

When Trevor Manuel, head of economic policy for the African National Congress, sat on a sofa during a 1991 South African workshop and proposed a scenario called "Growth through Repression," he was doing something remarkable. By suggesting a right-wing Black government might promote economic freedom while suppressing political freedom—a mischievous play on his own party's platform of "Growth through Redistribution"—he was openly questioning his party's orthodoxy. Even more surprisingly, when Mosebyane Malatsi of the rival Pan-Africanist Congress then stood to propose a scenario where Chinese forces would help defeat the white government, other participants didn't attack his idea. They simply asked, "Why does this scenario occur?" and "What happens next?" Malatsi quickly realized his story wasn't plausible and abandoned it without defensiveness. These exchanges during the Mont Fleur scenario exercise in post-apartheid South Africa demonstrated something profound about facilitation. The participants weren't stuck in either of the common facilitation approaches that typically constrain collaboration: vertical facilitation (where authority figures direct the process from above) or horizontal facilitation (where everyone simply expresses their own views with little integration). Vertical facilitation focuses on the singular whole of the collaboration: one united team, one definition of the problem, one best solution. It assumes expertise and authority are required to make progress. While this approach produces coordination and cohesion, when overemphasized it leads to rigidity and domination, with dominant members forcing others into straitjackets. Horizontal facilitation, by contrast, focuses on the multiple parts: individual members' positions and interests, different understandings of the situation, and multiple possible solutions. It assumes each participant must choose for themselves what they'll do. While this promotes autonomy and variety, overemphasizing this approach produces fragmentation and gridlock, with everyone doing their own thing and unable to work closely together. Neither approach alone can create transformative change. The South African participants weren't simply insisting their perspectives were right, nor were they accepting all perspectives as equally valid. They were moving fluidly between advocating their views and inquiring into others'—a hallmark of transformative facilitation that transcends the limitations of both conventional approaches.

Chapter 3: Transformative Cycling: Moving Beyond Traditional Approaches

"In the first Possible Mexicos workshop," recalls the author, "our facilitation team had a fierce argument." The project had brought together thirty-three Mexican national leaders—politicians, human rights activists, army generals, business owners, religious leaders, and journalists—to address issues of illegality, insecurity, and inequity following a series of corruption scandals and massacres that had rocked the country. During the second day, some participants felt confused and frustrated by the unfamiliar process. When a committee of facilitators reworked the agenda to address these concerns, one organizer became indignant: "You don't know what you're doing! You are just improvising!" This sparked an hour-long argument that continued by email for another week. The tension mirrored a larger one in Mexican society—between the hope that brilliant leaders could direct a clear way forward, and the messy uncertainties involved in actually moving forward together. It exemplified the fundamental challenge of transformative facilitation: cycling between what Spanish poet Antonio Machado captured in his famous line, "Walker, there is no path. The path is made by walking." This cycling approach is fundamentally different from either vertical or horizontal facilitation alone. Rather than choosing one pole, transformative facilitators move fluidly between both, like cyclists pushing alternately on left and right pedals to enable forward movement. When excessive verticality leads to rigidity and domination, they emphasize plurality to move toward horizontal autonomy and variety. When excessive horizontality leads to fragmentation and gridlock, they emphasize unity to move toward vertical coordination and coherence. This alternation maintains a dynamic balance that enables groups to move forward together. The crucial point is that facilitators must notice when their approach is falling into downside territory and shift toward the opposite upside before getting completely stuck. If facilitation falls too far into either downside, the result is polarization and stalemate. Transformative facilitation employs five pairs of moves to help a group collaborate effectively: advocating and inquiring (about how they see their situation), concluding and advancing (about how they define success), mapping and discovering (about how they'll get from here to there), directing and accompanying (about how they decide who does what), and standing outside and inside (about how they understand their role). This cycling approach removes obstacles rather than pushing against resistance. As psychologist Kurt Lewin observed in the 1940s, removing obstacles is more effective than applying pressure because it creates change with lower tension, less aggressiveness, and greater constructiveness. The facilitator's role becomes like rocking a boulder blocking a stream—creating movement that allows natural flow to resume.

Chapter 4: Removing Obstacles to Contribution: Creating Space for Full Participation

In November 2018, Melanie MacKinnon, a member of Misipawistik Cree Nation and executive director of an Indigenous health institute in Manitoba, Canada, launched an ambitious project to transform the Manitoba First Nations health system. Systemic anti-Indigenous racism was producing worsening health outcomes—First Nations people's life expectancy was eleven years less than other Manitobans, a gap that had widened from seven years in 2002. The facilitation team, which included six professionals from local First Nations organizations plus five from an international consulting group, designed a process to work with Indigenous elders, chiefs, youth, and professionals. After eight months of preparation, they were ready for the first workshop at a small hotel on the shores of frozen Lake Winnipeg. The workshop began with what the international facilitators considered their "best tried-and-tested methods," but participants immediately pushed back. When facilitators rang a bell to limit introductions to one minute, many participants, especially elders, were offended by the echo of bells from abusive residential schools. When they introduced an exercise where partners looked into each other's eyes, some found it culturally inappropriate. Then George Muswaggon, a former grand chief, spoke up calmly: "I don't trust you." This moment of confrontation forced the lead facilitator to truly pay attention. The resistance wasn't just "difficult participants"—it reflected centuries of colonization and oppression where white people had arrogantly imposed their way of doing things. The facilitator stumbled through his presentation, and afterward MacKinnon asked Muswaggon whether he now trusted the facilitator. He replied, "No, but I trust the process." At that moment, the facilitator saw what needed to be done. "I am not asking you to trust me or the process," he said. "I am suggesting that we just take the next step and then see where we are and what we want to do next." With this statement, he moved from standing apart from the group toward also being a part of it—a fundamental shift in facilitation stance. During the break, the facilitation team huddled, upset that their process had been rejected. But within fifteen minutes, they decided to pivot sharply. They reduced the dominance of their methodology and increased traditional spiritual ceremonies, shortened structured activities, shifted more facilitation to First Nations team members, and added a parallel track for elders. By the third day, the lead facilitator had shifted to a humbler position—not speaking in sessions and focusing on serving snacks and picking up dirty plates. This experience illustrates a key principle of transformative facilitation: when we advocate processes that worked elsewhere without inquiring into the specific context, we create obstacles rather than removing them. True facilitation requires suspending our expertise, redirecting our attention to truly hear others, and sometimes letting go of our plans entirely. Only by doing so can we create the conditions for full and equitable participation.

Chapter 5: Balancing Structure and Freedom: The Food Lab Experience

In June 2004, a diverse group of leaders gathered in Bergen, Netherlands, for the kickoff workshop of a two-year project called the Sustainable Food Laboratory. Participants included regional farmer organizations, global food companies, retailers, banks, foundations, government agencies, and environmental groups from across the Americas and Europe. They shared concerns about the sustainability of the mainstream food system but had deep disagreements about which issues mattered most and what needed to be done. The workshop was progressing well. Participants appreciated meeting across their differences and examining their situation from multiple angles through panel presentations, dialogues, breakout sessions, and field trips. On the last day, during a plenary conversation, one participant suggested that before going further, the group needed to agree on their definition of "sustainable." This proposal seemed logical—how could they agree on how to advance without agreeing on what constituted advancing? But the facilitator sensed that at this early stage, with limited shared understanding and trust, trying to reach such a complicated agreement might break their building momentum. The participants decided not to try to agree on the definition, and the project continued. Over the next fifteen years—far longer than the originally envisaged two years—they made important contributions to achieving a more sustainable food system, including managing water supplies and greenhouse gas emissions, improving supply chains, reducing food waste, and increasing smallholder farmer incomes. It turned out that making useful advances didn't require agreement on fundamental definitions. This experience highlights a critical insight about transformative facilitation: agreement is not required as often or on as many matters as most people think. The Food Lab participants and facilitators succeeded by cycling pragmatically between concluding (slowing down to reach agreements when necessary) and advancing (continuing to move forward even with partial or no agreement). This same tension appears in many collaborations. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos once remarked that a scenario planning project had been significant in the country's peace process because "it is where I learned that, contrary to all of my upbringing, it is possible to work with people you do not agree with and will never agree with." Marriage researcher John Gottman makes a similar point that happy couples don't resolve all their conflicts—nearly 70 percent of marital conflicts are perpetual—but they develop "strategies and routines to deal with them." Transformative facilitation involves discerning—making thoughtful choices about when to slow down for agreement and when to keep moving despite disagreement. This requires what poet John Keats called "negative capability"—being capable of staying in uncertainties and doubts without irritably reaching for premature resolution. By cycling between concluding and advancing, groups can maintain progress even through profound differences.

Chapter 6: The Inner Game: How Facilitators Navigate Complexity

Sports psychologist Tim Gallwey observes that "in every human endeavor there are two arenas of engagement: the outer and the inner." In the outer game of transformative facilitation, the facilitator makes ten specific moves to help a group collaborate. But in the inner game—which takes place within the facilitator's mind—they make five attentional shifts that enable them to know, moment by moment, what move is needed next. This inner game became starkly visible during a facilitation experience in Thailand. When the military staged a coup in 2014, some Thais thought the junta would contain conflicts and allow progress on critical challenges. By 2018, most concluded the junta had failed. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the former general leading the government, reportedly complained: "I have given fifty thousand orders, but only five hundred have been implemented!" This comment reveals a common assumption—that someone in control should provide simplicity, stability, and security. Many people default to this command-and-control model, wishing it could work. But in complex situations characterized by irreducible volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, directive approaches alone inevitably fall short. Conversely, a story from Mexico illustrates the limitations of purely horizontal approaches. During an evening of personal storytelling in a workshop, a transgender government official described being ridiculed and rejected in a job interview at a major food company years earlier. Months later, another workshop participant, an investment banker, retold this story to that company's board of directors and prompted them to change their hiring policies. While this self-initiated action contributed to greater equity, such uncoordinated individual actions typically produce only modest results. The inner capacity that enables facilitators to cycle effectively between directing and accompanying is serving. When facilitators are genuinely seen to be serving the work of participants—not manipulating them or advancing their own agenda—they gain the trust needed to move fluidly between firm instruction and relaxed support. As business leader Bill O'Brien emphasized, "The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor." This serving orientation was powerfully demonstrated in Ethiopia. In 2019, amid ethnic, religious, and political tensions that had displaced three million people, the Destiny Ethiopia project convened fifty national leaders from every major group. At their second workshop, an opposition politician who had initially been so frightened that he traveled disguised with commando protection was asked if he needed similar arrangements to return home. Gesturing toward his government counterpart, he replied, "No, I'll ride back with him." This dramatic shift occurred simply because participants had met, observed, and talked with opponents during various workshop activities. Trust had replaced fear, enabling openness, fluidity, and willingness to take risks. The project team later stood together on stage before dignitaries and media, held hands, and read a declaration of actions they would take together. The common theme across their testimonials was: "I thought it would be impossible for us to work together, but I discovered that it is possible." The facilitation team succeeded because participants recognized their genuine commitment to serve. As facilitator Negusu Aklilu put it, their role was doing the "professional, technical, donkey work" to maintain the integrity of the project. This sincere, humble orientation to serve enabled transformative cycling between directing and accompanying, creating conditions for breakthrough.

Chapter 7: Justice, Power, and Love: The Three Essential Drives

When diverse Mexican leaders had spent a day working together—arguing, laughing, and making progress—one facilitator exclaimed in awe: "This is heaven on earth!" Later, over dinner, a participant reflected on what might merit such an exalted description: it was seeing everyone able to bring their full selves to meaningful work together, embraced as fellow humans, participating in something worthwhile that none could do alone. This experience points to something profound about transformative facilitation. At its core, it helps people remove obstacles to three fundamental drives: love, power, and justice. Love is the drive toward unity that manifests as connections among participants and between them and their situation. Power is the drive toward self-realization that manifests as contributions participants make to their collaborative work. Justice is the structure that enables and directs love and power, manifesting as equity within the group and in their work. These three drives exist in permanent creative tension. Under stress, most people contract to their comfort zone and favor one or two drives over others. A facilitator must continuously attend to rebalancing all three, particularly strengthening their own weaker drives. Consider how facilitators can obstruct these drives. They block love and connection when they organize processes so formally that participants cannot engage fully with one another, resulting in complaints of insufficient creativity. They obstruct power and contribution when they structure processes so tightly that participants cannot express themselves, leading to complaints about being cut off. They block justice and equity when they allow the power of some participants to dominate others, resulting in complaints of unfair treatment that often mirror inequities in the larger system. Transformative facilitation offers a way to escape these constraints. In a stuck society in Haiti—where protests against corruption and violence had shut down the capital for six months in what locals called peyi lok or "country lockdown"—the author experienced terrifying gridlock. Streets were repeatedly blocked by protestors, barricades, and burning garbage, requiring constant stopping, questioning, and rerouting to find a path forward. This experience captures the starting point for transformative facilitation: a problematic situation where unilateral approaches of forcing, adapting, or exiting have produced stuckness. Through helping people cycle between advocating and inquiring, concluding and advancing, mapping and discovering, directing and accompanying, and standing outside and inside, transformative facilitation creates movement where there was stagnation. As Francisco de Roux reflected after years leading Colombia's Truth Commission: "There is no future without opening up to one another, with sincerity, as fellow human beings. There is no other formula." It is only through such opening that we can enable love, power, and justice. And it is only through working with all three drives that we can truly move forward together.

Summary

Transformative facilitation offers a radical departure from conventional approaches that either push from above or fragment from below. By cycling between vertical and horizontal moves—like a dancer performing a complex tango—skilled facilitators help groups navigate complexity and conflict with greater fluidity. They remove obstacles rather than adding pressure, enabling natural forward momentum to emerge. The essence of this approach lies in understanding that true breakthrough requires engaging three fundamental drives: love (the urge to connect and unite), power (the drive toward self-realization and contribution), and justice (the structure that enables equitable participation). When any of these elements is blocked or imbalanced, collaboration falters. By attentively removing obstacles to all three, facilitators create conditions where seemingly impossible collaboration becomes not only possible but transformative. Perhaps most importantly, transformative facilitation offers hope in our increasingly divided world. As we've seen in examples from Colombia to Ethiopia, South Africa to Mexico, even bitter enemies can learn to work together when given the right conditions. While success is never guaranteed, the art of removing obstacles creates opportunities for breakthroughs that rigid or fragmented approaches cannot achieve. Whether you're facilitating a small team meeting or a national peace process, the same principles apply: pay attention, serve the group's purpose, and trust that when obstacles are removed, the mystery of human collaboration will find expression.

About Author

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Adam Kahane

Adam Kahane is a Director of Reos Partners, an international social enterprise that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues.Adam is a leading organizer, designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders can work together to address such challenges. He has worked in more than fifty countries, in every part of the world, with executives and politicians, generals and guerrillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists. Adam is a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2022 he was named a Schwab Foundation Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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