Can groups look after themselves?

The $100,000 question!   Several of us over the years have written things on it (I wrote a whole book trying to understand it) but it is an elusive process.   And I think it changes with the scale and size of the group AND most importantly with the pre-existing depth of their own relationship.

If I was to generalize I would say that holding space means helping the group find its highest potential realized.   For some groups, in some contexts this might be a very controlling kind of thing and for other groups not so much.   In my expereince where there is a deep underlying and pre-existing architecture of relationships and collaboration, there is very little an individual can do to control the outcome, so getting out of the way seems the best option.   Lately I’m learning a lot about working with fields of learners or people engaged in large scale and longer term change.   What I’m learning is that it takes a field to hold a field, as my late friend Finn Voldtofte once said.   In other words, at large levels of scale within organizations or communities, the act of holding space is actually all about attending to the relationships of the group of people that are holding the deepest intention for the work.   In an organizational development context this means that the core team spends a great deal of time working on its own relationships and in so doing, they are able to hold space for the bigger field of learning.

And then having said all of that, I think there is an art   to intuitively knowing how much or how little to “hold.”

Yes a group can hold its own space, but not any group.   My hunch is that we can let go into groups like this when there is at least a minimal form of relationship in place.   How much or how little is immeasureable, but you can sense whether a group has that capacity or potential if you let go of your expectations for the role of facilitator.

I am working a lot these days with the chaordic path, the idea that there is a way forward if we dance between chaos and order.   In that respect I think the facilitator can play a valuable role in brining minimal elegant structure to chaos so that the conditions for self-organization might be met.   At it’s most basic level, this structure looks like or is an invitation, a calling question that taps passions and responsibility   Once passion and responsibility are tapped, the group can look after itself.

Most of our lives are spent without facilitators helping us be around other people.   We can learn a lot from those situations.   If you engage in a little appreciative inquiry project on your own life, you might remember stories about times in your life when you experienced great strides without a facilitator.and then harvest the key conditions from those stories.