One of the most important skills critical to successfully creating any change movement including transforming life after 50 is how to engage and facilitate community involvement in the process. Strategic facilitation requires a set of leadership competencies that engages stakeholders, helps them to participate effectively and constructively, encourages leadership and innovation, and results in effective strategies and outcomes.

Strategic facilitation combines the art and skill of facilitation with the science of long-term thinking.  It requires leading – empowering others to take ownership of the outcome, asking – framing the conversation by asking powerful questions, and listening – translating stakeholder ideas and contributions into impactful action and outcomes.

IMLS Fellowship Course

Strategic Faciliation

Instructor: Mary Jane Naquin                                                                         m.j.naquin@informedfutures.com

I’ve been facilitating groups for 20 years, starting as a graduate student in the Future Studies program in Houston. In the late 1980s legislation passed requiring industry to communicate with the communities where their work would have an impact.  My work grew as neutral facilitators were needed to organize meetings in areas along the Gulf Coast where many petrochemical facilities were located near residential areas. Creating an environment in which multiple views and differing opinions can be stated and explored leads to mutual understanding and builds relationships. Facilitation continues to be interesting and challenging work and has important implications for how we will live and work together in an ever-changing world.

Tools

Samples

The Berkeley Public Library offered workshops that engaged local Boomers in gathering and recording digital, first-person narratives about the social, political, and personal aspects of Berkeley's voluntary school desegregation of 1964-68 – a turbulent period in Berkeley's history. Digital recordings of 13 narratives were produced on DVDs and are now available as part of the library's circulating collection as well as downloadable movies on the library's website. Read more...