Complexity and participative facilitation

Facilitated workshops are a very common feature of organisational life and are sometimes very good examples of the kind of thinking that assumes we need to design a process to have a process. This layering of process onprocess arises from the idea that groups of people called managers or facilitators can design interactions for other people which will encourage them to act in particular and more predictable ways, and will optimise people’s time together. Additionally, these designed processes of engaging are often informed by cult values, such as inclusiveness, openness and honesty. The point of designing workshops according to these values is to make them highly participative, democratic and ‘transparent’. By applying processes to the process of interaction, managers and facilitators believe they can achieve particular outcomes which tend towards the good. They are designing a culture for the workshop where people can express themselves freely, and have a safe and perhaps fun experience with others and ‘share learning’.

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