5 Polarities of Facilitation

Facilitating a cross-sector collaborative is a job of constant conflict resolution and constant communications. Anyone who takes on this demanding, but critical role in their community would benefit greatly from the lessons of Adam Kahane of Reos Partners and the author of several books, including Collaborating with the Enemy. In August, his new book, Facilitating Breakthrough, will be published.

In the Conversation Factory podcast with Daniel Stillman, Kahane shares a key element of his upcoming book: the five polarities of facilitation. Polarities are inherent tensions, especially in collaborative environments. One very common polarity is short-term outcomes and long-term outcomes. To learn more about the concepts of polarities and the value of polarity thinking with a collaborative environment, I recommend the workshops of CoCreative and the work of the Polarity Institute.

What Kahane highlights in the podcast and his book is that facilitators need to excel at balancing and leveraging five different polarities:

• Telling & Asking

• Concluding & Advancing

• Mapping & Discovering

• Directing & Accompanying

• Being Apart & Being A Part

As I work on my facilitation skills, I’m going to spend a lot more time framing my behaviors and practices through these five polarities and I look forward to gaining more from Kahane when his book is published in August.