Facilitation Secret Sauce: FSI

What if city planning meetings left folks more deeply connected to their neighbors,Energized about the practice of democracy, AND ignited our collective imagination?

Mark-n-Sparks’ unique flavor of facilitation creates this secret sauce for dynamic community engagement by embodying a set of core facilitation principles. When practiced, these principles can turn meetings into gatherings, competition into collaboration. The space created by embodying these principles encourages participants to listen for understanding and values different perspectives. These practices open up the possibility for a more democratic and beautiful world.

 

Mark-n-Sparks Five Facilitation Principles:


Dramaturgy

Radical Hospitality

Collective Participation

Shake It Up / Shake It Out

FSI (pronounced “fizzy”): Flair, Surprise, Imagination

PLUS Emergent Strategy, which has influenced our facilitation processes for years.

 

Dramaturgy: The intentionality and craft of structuring an experience for participants.

Our work as facilitators is rooted in theater. We start with defining the POP (Purpose Outcomes Process) for any gathering.

We then go a step further to think about the dramaturgy.

There is care and focus placed on considering:

What is the tone of the event? 

How do the parts of the agenda fit together? (Like a puzzle? A fractal?)

What is the overall arc of the participant experience? 

We weave together POP + Participant Experience into . . . POPPE!

We consider the culture of the participants and differences in adult learning styles. choose activities that encourage genuine community building. 

 

Radical Hospitality: A practice of putting extraordinary effort and emphasis on making people feel welcome. 

Photo by Jacob Metzger

Be the host. As facilitators, we set the tone for the gathering.

Our tone allows individuals and the group to feel welcome, contributes to fostering a safer space, and invites belonging.

In faith communities, this concept is also referred to as “radical welcome,” and focuses on creating a tone of invitation. Consider:

Accessibility. This includes language, physical/virtual space, technology, etc.

Food. Even for short gatherings, small tasty treats can go a long way in changing the tone of how we are gathered. 

Greetings. Take the time to say “Hello” and welcome as many people as possible. 

 

Collective participation: Everyone does a little something. 

When we design an agenda, we offer opportunities for people to participate in different ways. These range from low-stakes to high-stakes depending on the purpose of the gathering. All meetings should include moments where participants are hearing a range of ideas, perspectives, and are directly invited into conversation. Simple ways to do that include:

  • People talking in pairs, or pairs talking to each other

  • Small group activities 

  • Group voting 

 

Shake It Up / Shake It Out

You have a body.

Move it.

Our bodies show up to gatherings. We are already breathing when we arrive, and we’ll hopefully be breathing when the meeting is over. This “somatics of facilitation” principle is an invitation to include movement in your agenda. Movement can mean:

  • Stretching or breathing together

  • Making decisions by moving around the room

  • Including activities that ask participants to change seats and location

As facilitators, we keep this principle in mind as we are reading the room. Sometimes what the group needs is a moment to breathe, and we always have the agency to guide that. 

Be aware of accessibility needs when inviting physical movement. 

 

FSI: Flair, Surprise, Imagination

Pronounced Fizzy!

Every agenda should have a bit of FSI!

This is the place to flex one’s imagination and creativity. This is one of the antidotes to white dominant / professional culture that stifles our ability to generate expansive solutions.

Low-tech and gentle FSI examples are:

  • FLAIR: Provide stickers and table toys

  • SURPRISE: Use music at a key moment to change the tone of the room 

  • IMAGINATION: Create space for daydreaming about future policies 

When in doubt, memes and pop culture references can sprinkle a bit more joy into your meeting. 

Emergent Strategy Facilitation Principles 

In addition to the above, Mark-n-Sparks has incorporated Emergent Strategy into our work for many years. In particular, we focus on these elements:

  • Intentional Adaptation

  • Creating More Possibilities

  • Interdependence and Decentralization 

And this guidance: 

  • There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.

  • Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass. Build resilience by building relationships. 

 

We’ve found that, Mark-n-Sparks Five Facilitation Principles + Emergent Strategy embodies energizing and democratic engagement. These principles are a pathway to including more creativity, community building, and pop culture in your gatherings. The results are meetings that leave participants feeling both connected to one another and highly productive.

So if your meetings have been getting mixed results, we encourage you to add a little FSI and see what happens.  

Here are some other facilitation resources we love.

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Imagination for Pragmatists

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The Most Beautiful Lehigh Valley… Maybe: A Future Forum