“I wanted to understand and articulate just what facilitation involved and meant to these facilitators, what it is was like for them to facilitate, and how they experienced it when they were doing it at their best.

“This was a piece of phenomenological research designed to understand the subjective experiences of these eight individuals and to articulate the essence of those experiences and structures of meaning associated with them. It was not research into the how-to, process, organizational aspects or outcomes of facilitation, nor an inquiry into who the facilitators were, their backgrounds, skills or experience. It was a search for understanding of what it is like to facilitate, a search to understand and describe the experience of excellence in facilitation 'in the moment', from the facilitators perspective.

“This short paper presents a few key findings from this research. Firstly I present some very short illustrative extracts from participants stories of excellence in facilitation. Then I offer a model outlining five recurring themes in their stories; features of their experience of excellence.

Finally I offer some practical suggestions for facilitators, providers and users of facilitators interested in creating excellence in facilitation.

“One of my primary aims in research was to tell the facilitator's story, to bring the voice of practicing facilitators to the literature on facilitation. Participants were asked to describe in detail experiences of their very best work. I asked them to re-associate with and relive these experiences, to describe from within "exactly what it is like to be facilitating at this time"

“Think of this paper as less of an answer and more of a stimulus for your own curiosity and questions.”

For complete pdf article download (12 pages) http://reviewing.co.uk/download/facilitators-stories.pdf

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