Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, 3rd Edition

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD EDITION

1. The Power of Groups

When we began writing this book in 1990, the term group facilitator was still rather exotic. Most people said, “Facilitator? What's that?”

Things have shifted quite a bit in 25 years. From an obscure “neutral third party” role – narrowly focused on helping groups do their best thinking – now “facilitator” is a synonym for a wide collection of group leadership roles, from “trainer” to “chair” to “convenor” to “manager.” Thus, at the time of this writing, in 2014, the word has come to mean anything and everything that is associated with healthy group functioning.

Yet in another sense, the essence of the role has remained constant: facilitation, first and most, is about groups. Whether the ...