Framework Fetish

Whether it’s Theory U, Peter Block’s Six Conversations, Spiral Dynamics or anything else - gripping these books until your knuckles go white will not help your facilitation skills improve. A dear friend of mine, Silvia Zuur, was watching me prepare a workshop a few years ago and pointed out that I habitually started my designs with theory. She reminded me kindly that there’s no perfect pattern to lay over human messiness; “learning more about how to hold space is about practicing with frameworks again and again until you don’t need them anymore”, she said. Ever since then I have tried to learn new concepts by trying them out, but focus my real energy on who will be in the room and what are they ready for and who do I need to be. The frameworks come to life intuitively with more power and effect the more I let go of them.

This is so much easier said than done. For me, knowing the shape of an experience allows me to relax. At the heart of the framework fetish lies a desire for active experimentation and learning-by-doing, but also a compulsion to control and create certainty. Learning to breathe into this tension, I created a mantra for my work: Be prepared enough to be flexible. What this really means is to be prepared enough to relax into your intuition and bring insightful sponteneity. “Enough” preparation is different for everyone. I still need to sketch a whole program and deeply grasp the intent before we begin in order to feel empowered to invent it as we move through it. The value of the plan is in the planning. This is one of those life-lessons that goes beyond facilitation. This is an easy one to practice in your work in order to make it easier to respond well to changes in the runsheet of your life.