The Future of Facilitation

At Creaholic’s School of Applied Innovation, we help beginning and experienced workshop leaders gain new knowledge, practice effective techniques and boost their confidence as facilitators. Scrum masters, team leaders and product developers can step into a facilitation role when they bring team members together to brainstorm, think outside the box, foster collaboration to solve a problem and get on track toward a shared vision.

It requires knowing when to take charge and when to stand back and listen. Additionally, facilitators need to have empathy and understand people’s emotions and motivations. Contrary to popular belief, one doesn’t have to have a special title or level of leadership to be a facilitator. Anyone with the skills can wear this hat. So… can AI do it?

Angela’s keynote introduced a topic that sparked spin-off discussions throughout the event. An important take away: AI will not take over the facilitator role. In fact, Angela believes businesses must evolve from being ego-systems to eco-systems in order to survive. And to do so, facilitation skills will be a requirement of employees in strategic position. The pivotal work facilitators do today – enabling collaborations between departments, business entities, leadership levels, and people with varying skill levels and even competitors – will come to the foreground and will be the key to transforming organisations as part of an eco-system.

In our virtual and in-person facilitation training sessions, one topic will always come up in the group: how to facilitate effectively in critical situations. What should a facilitator do when an individual wants to take over, when some people in the group think the workshop is a waste of time, or when a team member brings down morale with a bad attitude?

In the future of facilitation, these situations, unfortunately, won’t go away. What is required is unwavering empathy and a wholehearted belief in transcending hierarchy. No doubt this stance can be challenging – but that is one reason why AI will never be able to get the job done. As the future of facilitation unfolds, it can be reassuring to know that some parts of facilitation will remain the same. The skills to manage critical situations today will be needed to manage the critical situations of tomorrow.

So if you’ve attended our facilitation training, then you are already a future-ready facilitator!