By Katia del Rivero

Versión en español aquí

Eight days ago, I wrote an article about what behaviors to observe in a facilitator to know if he is really working with a systemic approach, especially from the social perspective, which is what concerns us humans and our ties.

The structure I offered in that post was taken from one I read about “how to identify a doctor who might not be the most appropriate” and I really liked it.

In this structure we talk about identifying “behaviors” that could indicate that it is not the most suitable facilitator. So Aitor, a reader with whom we have co-created several times, very enriching conversations, wrote me to tell it would seem much nicer if the article were written in terms of what a systemic facilitator actually does.

So in honor of his contribution here is the note.

What does a systemic facilitator actually do:

1. It stays in the form. If he makes contributions to the customer’s content, he may recognize that they are from his reality building and personal experience and that he could even “step on his client’s tomatoes”.
2. The facilitator as a co-creation process. He knows “he is not a facilitator”, that “the facilitator” is the person who emerges in the cocreation process with another human being who contributes as a “client”.
3. It is oriented to processes. While he understands that to simplify complexity in a social system, he can make use of the construction of reality “elements”, his focus is on the process of social construction, the type of contributions and the possibilities that emerge from the construction of reality of his client.
4. Work with future orientation. His success is that his client identifies what he wants in his future, he can feel able to do it and he does not require the facilitator to do it.
5. Incorporates dialogical tools into the form. Avoid preset phrases or prejudices. It looks for alternatives of dialogue that allow the client to express their own constructions of reality.
6. He knows that his direct work is with himself. Michael said that when we learn to think and look systemically, it becomes in a way of life. He was the most consistent man I ever met. Its focus was not only on accompanying the client from the form, but on distinguishing himself and his internal processes from the client’s process.
7. He can distinguish the boundaries in him/her, not the client. When he chooses not to work with a client, when he considers that something is missing for the process, when he finds some reason for not joining, knowing that this belongs to him/her and his construction of reality and to the way he chose to signify
8. Look at his customer enough. From his knowing/feeling/living fit to live life and equipped with everything he requires to live a good life, look at his client in a similar dimension.
9. Accompanies the construction of alternatives. Once again as Michael said, he seeks that after his contribution, his client has at least a different alternative than before the process.
10. Speak from the heart. Speak in first person and take responsibility for his contributions. It recognizes its meanings, explores and builds.

Finally, he knows that all this is only a construction of reality, that the process is in the process, in the form, in the structure of a social construction, in its contributions and in total uncertainty.

You can see that even the proposal of the previous paragraph is also a construction of reality and that life is life, beyond how we conceptualize it, name it or try to simplify it in its complexity.

And he masterfully manages both dimensions, takes care of the form from the conceptual framework and in the end knows that we only live.

Living a good life is his decision and the good life of his client is as well.