Why I wrote Captains of Leadership …
The most obvious reason to write this book is because Guide, Conduct and Catalyse has helped me to become a better facilitator and when teaching this framework to other people it gave them more confidence to tackle the next facilitation challenge, and grow as a facilitator.
From the moment that the first course participant told me that this framework really helped them to get to grips with the meaning of facilitation and the kind of facilitator they want to be, I knew I had to explain this to a broader audience.
As for the second reason. When teaching people at different organizations about facilitation, I noticed how many of them have a natural neck for facilitation while not knowing yet the value of facilitation, nor did anyone ever acknowledge them for their natural facilitation skills.
During facilitation training, they understood the impact they could have as a facilitator. It gave them additional meaning to their professional life. I felt more people should be aware of the important role they could play to help others find coherence in their thought processes and their creativity. This second reason pushed me through the more challenging hours of writing. I kept thinking about people I met in my courses for whom becoming a better facilitator became an important part of their career goals. Initially, I wrote the book with them in mind.
While writing, and at the same time experiencing the Corona health crisis, the vaccination debates, the polarization, the lack of social contact and existential fear, it became more clear than ever why I should finish and publish this book.
I realized that facilitation is mostly known as a way to structure meetings or moderate discussions and that most people don’t know that there is a lot more to facilitation. It is the key to co-creation. It is the key to bring people closely together to deal with our struggles in a human-centered way, much more than any methodology could help us do.
You can have an amazing outcome from co-creation by only having a really good facilitator and not applying any structured process or methodology like Lean, Design Thinking, Agile or any other.
A good facilitator alleviates our fear of the unknown, our fear of the loss of control. A good facilitator can make us brave enough to face any reality and still make the best out of it for everyone, for all perspectives, for all people.
I truly hope you see the potential of facilitation. And if you do, I wish this book builds your confidence to become the best facilitative leader you can be.
