RETHINKING FACILITATION

Admin
Nov 7, 2025
10 min read

Updated: Nov 10, 2025

BREAKING NEWS:

FACILITATION IS

A PROCESS ROLE

NOT A CONTENT

ADVISORY ROLE.

WITH DEEP HISTORY, THE SHIFTING IMPORTANCE OF FACILITATION IN THE CONTEXT OF RISING COMPLEXITY PRESENTS A SET OF METHODS AND SKILLS RELATED CHALLENGES TO THE GRADUATE DESIGN EDUCATION COMMUNITY. SLOW ADAPTATION INEVITABLY CASCADES INTO PRACTICE.

Of all the issues bubbling up and shifting around Skill-to-Scale considerations related to Design for Complexity, the rising importance of cross-disciplinary cocreation facilitation is certainly among them.

The top of this chapter is not-jokingly shaped as a news bulletin as we believe that there is a quiet urgency for a rethinking of facilitation in the graduate design education community to better sync up with the already in operation emerging Design for Complexity practice community. Getting there will likely require the leaving behind of considerable misunderstanding in the design community regarding what facilitation actually is.

In our last book Rethinking Design Thinking we included the NextD Geographies Framework, but perhaps more importantly we unpacked and described numerous methodology related shifts occurring within that framework related to making the journey to the complexity arenas that we described simply as Arena 3 / organizational changemaking and Arena 4 / societal changemaking .

Image Credit: Rethinking Design Thinking 2020, Humantific.

In that book we tried to think of ways to visually communicate, to the design education community part of our audience in particular, not only that facilitation was rising as challenges scale in complexity and multiple stakeholders arrive, but that the shift presents numerous challenges to traditional design methodology constructions.

We pointed out that this particular methods shift actually represents the on-boarding of a new form of language, not native to Arena 1 and Arena 2 and thus for many a sizable headshift and a steep learning curve.

METHODS AS LANGUAGE

To keep it simple, in the book we describe a Language A / Mixed Mode and a Language B / Split Mode with Language A being deeply embedded in Arena 1 and Arena 2. In Language A content and process are intermixed. In Language B content and process are differentiated and recognized as two different things.

What’s the rethink shift you might ask? Oddly what we have noticed recently being tabled, often by the graduate design education community is a rather steady stream of postings advising a new generation of students that facilitation in the context of Arena 3 and 4 work involves the continuation of the Language A logic constructs seen in Arena 1 and Arena 2 while talking up cocreation. For anyone familiar with the discipline of facilitation that is a bit-of-a-head scratcher narrative.

We note this simply to point out that not only is that assumption/guidance incorrect, misleading, but it misses a rather fundamental shift in mindset, skillset and methodology. We consider that advice to be a red flag, signaling, not a difference in opinion, but rather a fundamental lack of understanding regarding the long, deep subject of facilitation and what is involved in Arena 3 and Arena 4 cocreation work today.

While Arena 1 and Arena 2 are primarily geared to Language A it is in the transition to Arena 3 and Arena 4 that one encounters the rise in complexity of challenges necessitating cross-disciplinary cocreation, necessitating facilitation, the need for Language B.

Perhaps not so well understood in the design community is that “facilitation” itself is a discipline, a profession, with numerous frameworks, knowledge chunks and learnings embedded within. Facilitation is not a term or a skill-set just made up in the design community last week. In fact, human-centered cocreation facilitation has a long history that predates the design methods movement and the soft systems thinking movement.

Checking in with Aimi Winkler: “The term “facilitation” has deep linguistic and conceptual roots, spanning language, psychology, education, and group dynamics, involving a period from the 19th century to today. Earliest meaning: “to make something easier” — a general verb applied to processes, actions, or experiences.”

EARLY VOICES

Early voices regarding facilitation: Norman Triplett, 1861-1934, Kurt Lewin 1890-1947, Floyd Allport 1890-1979, Carl Rogers 1902-1987, JP Guilford 1897-1987, Ruth Noller 1922-2008, Sid Parnes 1922-2013.

Our Aimi Winker notes that highly influential “Kurt Lewin never wrote a “how-to” book titled Facilitation, but his view on the foundations of facilitation and group dynamics are distributed across a few key texts and papers — some by Lewin himself, and others by his collaborators…” (See paper by others; Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s Legacy, and Related Previously Published below)

Guilford wrote “Creativity” in 1950, “The Structure of Intellect” in 1955 and Parnes wrote numerous “how-to” books including “Creative Behavior Guidebook” in 1967 and “A Facilitating Style of Leadership” in 1985.

Lewin is credited with introducing and modeling the notion of process expertise as he spanned academia and practice. As the practice dimension of heavy lifting Guilford, CPS pioneers introduced, modeled and taught a similar orientation to process mastery with many added dimensions. The idea that process expertise is more versatile and as valuable as content expertise was planted early and has been evolving for decades since then. What that Language B expertise is to today is many versions beyond what was tabled at that time. (See Rethinking Behaviors, Making Sense of Lewin & Guilford Today in this book.)

DEFINING COMPLEX COCREATION FACILITATION TODAY:

The art and practice of enabling groups to work together more effectively by guiding process, fostering/enabling diverse participation, supporting emergence, *balancing table-top power dynamics, and ultimately aiding in the construction of collaborative organizational cultures. (*See Power Dynamics in Notes to Readers below.)

DEFINING THE FACILITATION ROLE TODAY:

The Complex CoCreation Facilitator role is focused on creating conditions for *diverse participation, orchestration, self-organization and emergence rather than directing outcomes.

Designs and holds the process. (high level of adaptive process mastery)
Does not impose content or outcomes. (neutral enabler, not advising on content)
Enables inclusion, shared learning, collective intelligence. (cognitive inclusion knowledge mastery)

The facilitation model is widely known as the Guide-on-the-Side, in contrast to the Tell-Tell model which is known as the Sage-on-the-Stage. (Guess which model they typically teach in graduate business/management school.)

In a previous chapter entitled Rethinking Behaviors: Making Sense of Lewin & Guilford Today we shared some of the roots underneath the facilitation of multi-disciplinary cocreation. Both root streams appear in the present state of Design for Complexity, one at a high altitude and the other more table-top. Both have decades of building accumulated on top of the original foundational logic. Lots of tacit and explicit knowledge exists there around the human-centered discipline of facilitation.

HAND-SHAKES

Known to Complex CoCreation Facilitators, a few not-so-secret tacit knowledge handshakes:

*Hand-shake 1: Distinguishing between content knowledge and process knowledge with equal value being placed on both.

Content Knowledge is subject matter expertise.

Process Knowledge is how to structure, guide, orchestrate and enable cross-disciplinary collaboration, tying into methodology navigation, group dynamics, dialogue methods, common language construction, and organizational implications.

*Hand-shake 2: Distinguishing between widening/divergent thinking and narrowing/convergent thinking with equal value being placed on both.

Hand-shake 3: Scaling the dynamics to team building and inclusive culture construction.

The mechanics inside “facilitation” have evolved to the point where they are no longer just about meeting dynamics.

So long story short: The role, the skills and the psychology around Language A are vastly different from Language B. With so much of the traditional design community heavily invested in Language A numerous challenges are within viewing range.

HERO LEGACY COMPLICATION

Among those challenges is the complication of the hero legacy. In design history the designer as hero model was, and to a large degree still is, in Arenas 1 & 2, deeply engrained and thus represents a not insignificant (elephant in the living room) evolutionary hurdle for the present and future of design.

How does the hero model work in Arena 3 and 4, when the facilitation leader standing at the front of the room is in process, not content? This is among the numerous Design for Complexity related questions that pop-up to be grappled with by the graduate institutions that will presumably want to participate in the education of a new generation of Design for Complexity leaders.

Everyone involved in the Design for Complexity evolution is, in one way or another, grappling with such issues. It is true that as more and more cross-community Think Blending takes root in order to meet the complex and diverse needs of Arena 3 and 4 it becomes clear that some merging disciplines are better equipped to deal with this particular shift than others. Some in the merge have deep facilitation knowledge spanning decades, while others are recent arrivals at the facilitation party. (See Revelation Surprise? in Notes to Readers below.)

EVEN WHEN I GET A HAIRCUT?

Whether focused on future casting or strategic intervention, most Design for Complexity approaches are wrestling with multiple factors occurring simaltaniously; 1. rise in complex fuzzy problematic situations 2. making sense of information tsunamis, 3. onboarding hybrid knowledge additions, 4. the rise of cross-disciplinary cocreation and 5. holding core aspects of design together while making that journey.

Whether everyone likes it or not there are numerous shifts underway in the jump to Arena 3 and Arena 4 that are not native to traditional design and high mastery of cross-disciplinary cocreation facilitation is one of them. There are going to be different appetites for and views on what constitutes a valuable addition.

Here an analogy would be useful :-) Some of our readers would know that in a completely different 1972 context, architect Louis Kahn once said "Even when I get a haircut I'm an architect." This more or less sums up what is being grappled with in the context of Design for Complexity today with heavy Think Blending going on out of necessity in a changing world.

Figuring out what the core aspects of design present and emerging future need to become in the context of complexity is itself a complex undertaking, a work in progress for all involved.

Some seem to have in mind taking Design for Complexity off in the direction of reformulation around the imported from elsewhere dynamic of privileging convergent thinking / decision-making. Others strongly resist that reformulation. Some have in mind finding a space in the advanced cocreation conversation where advanced framing and enabling inclusion are sought after and embraced. That push and pull will likely exist for a long time to come.

GOOD NEWS

The good news is that one result of that diversity is that there is now and will probably always be choices to make regarding which train one wants to get on and be part of as the future unfolds. Which train makes the most sense to you? (See Design for Complexity Archetypes in this book.)

Presently some Design for Complexity approaches have just the method, leaning towards Language A, B or both. Others have constructed a knowledge sharing system including having a complete skill-building program up and running, including teaching Complex CoCreation Facilitation, Team Dynamics, Inclusive Culture Construction.

The ackward notion that design education can just make up what facilitation is because change is difficult is bound to be a hard sell outside of design talking to itself.

Design for Complexity approaches generally are works in dynamic progress. This will likely remain the case for an extended period of time. At the end of the day, it's difficult to imagine the future of Design for Complexity without embracing a significant rise in the onboarding and ramping up of Complex Cocreation Facilitation.

End.

*NOTES TO READERS:

*Revelation Surprise? Perhaps the most astonishing mind-bender clarification that comes out of this kind of cross-community book research and writing is that neither the Lewin influenced Action Research method, or the Guilford influenced Creative Problem Solving method were focused on Arena 1 or Arena 2. It is the history of design that has been focused there, not Action Research and not CPS. This is a revelation that runs contrary to conventional design community kool-aid narratives. What that means is that neither Action Research or CPS is on a journey from Arena 1 and 2 to Arenas 3 and 4. Both are involved in evolutions and collaborations but each has long since already been operating in Arenas 3 and 4. This realization might be shocking to some readers.

*Hand-shake 1: The distinction between process vs content is now foundational to facilitation and cocreation but it wasn't always explicit, emerging gradually over the 20th century thanks to the building blocks contributed by various thought leaders, described earlier in this chapter. It is a distinction that appears in early Action Research and in CPS, both of which have influenced many other approaches. The Lewin [fly-over] change process described as “Unfreeze, (Preparing for Change) Change, (implementing the desired Change) and Refreeze (solidifying/adopting the desired change) and the more detailed multiphase CPS process containing divergence and convergence in each phase represented two early views on how process can aid in multiple participant changemaking. Later arriving others deepened each process with the various evolutions and spin-offs continuing to today.

*Hand-shake 2: To better understand this distinction, when it arrived, where it originated, and what it means now, see the Rethinking Behaviors: Making Sense of Lewin & Guilford Today, chapter in this book.

*Diverse Participation: How to enable diverse participation is an entire topic onto itself within the facilitative Language B. Some versions are depicted as enabling cognitive inclusion and or psychological safety. In Facilitative Language B it is understood that cognitive inclusion and or psychological safety cannot be realized by privileging divergence or convergence.

*Power Dynamics: In Language B the balancing of table-top power dynamics take place in the orchestration of cognitive inclusion.

*Complexity: Regarding the terms “complex” and “complexity” and what that is exactly in the context of this subject, see the Rethinking Complexity chapter in this book. We often use the NextD Geographies Framework to denote what we refer to as the complexity arenas. Those are Arena 3 organizational changemaking and Arena 4 societal changemaking, the focus of this book.

DESIGN FOR COMPLEXITY / THE BOOK?

This chapter is part of the book in progress. If you would like to be notified when the book is published, feel free to join the Design for Complexity Group on LinkedIn.

RELATED PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED:

The Conceptual Representation and the Measurement of Psychological Forces, 1938, Kurt Lewin

Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Social Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change,1947, Kurt Lewin

Resolving Social Conflicts and Field Theory in Social Science: 1948, Kurt Lewin

Creativity, American Psychologist Journal,1950, JP Guilford

Creativity and Intelligence, 1962, Jacob W. Getzels, Philip W. Jackson

Contrary Imaginations, A Psychological Study of the Young Student, 1966, Liam Hudson

The Nature of Human Intelligence, 1967, JP Guilford

Creative Behavior Guidebook, 1967, Sid Parnes

Creative Leadership, A New Generation of Leadership,1977, Sid Parnes

A Facilitating Style of Leadership, 1985, Sid Parnes

The Leader as Facilitator: Towards a Model for Facilitation of Creative Problem Solving, Journal of Creative Behavior, Scott G. Isaksen,