[Re: External facilitators: When are they called?]

[Edward Ruete]

Paula wrote:
"My colleague proposed that if an organization hires an outside
facilitator, it
means - more often than not - that the organization believes it is unable
to
accomplish a particular task using its internal resources. That there is
some
serious problem in the organization. Based on that theory, my colleague
suggests that a facilitation job is never "just" a facilitation job - that
one
must be prepared to provide more comprehensive services, such as executive
coaching, a pretty comprehensive organization assessment, etc. (and, to
tell
you the truth as an outside facilitator newbie, I don't even know what all
of
the "etc." consists of)."

I have said before that all consultants should be facilitators, but that I
wasn't sure that all facilitators had to be consultants. Paula's posting
and her colleague's remarks seem to say that yes, very often facilitator DO
have to be consultants. Roger Schwarz's chapter on "Contracting" in _The
Skilled Facilitator_ also makes the point that some kind of pre/post work
is needed even if it's just the project manager down the hall calls on your
facilitation skills to run a project meeting.

And for Paula and all the others like her out there that are just getting
started, I just found out (20 minutes ago) that there is a _Consulting for
Dummies_ out there.

Ned
nru...@csc.com
check out our new website at:
http://pages.cthome.net/nruete/