I was recently in Greenville, South Carolina providing training on the art and skill of facilitation for a major international corporation. They had wisely decided that prior to implementing a lean process improvement initiative; their folks needed specific training around facilitating process, if a process improvement initiative was going to be successful. Having seen other organizations just “roll out” similar performance processes, without facilitation training, and therefore experiencing subsequent lack of traction and ultimately failure, I was impressed with the wisdom of this leadership decision.

During the facilitation training, in the process of debriefing a recent exercise, one of the participants asked how the facilitator decides between two different ideas being suggested in a given group. I responded by saying that it is not within the role of the facilitator to make that decision. Actually, the facilitator would do best to facilitate that decision amongst the group.  As a facilitator of a group process, it is important not to get caught in deciding the either/ or. When we are in the role of being a facilitator, it is best if we live in the Land of And, and not the either/or.

The group just chuckled at the idea of “the Land of And”.  It became a pivotal idea and fun mantra for the rest of the training. One of the participants said that I should write a blog about it. Thank you for the idea and here you go.

In business and in politics, we live in a culture of debate.  In debate, one makes arguments for, or against, a particular proposition, in order to prevail against the other team.  I remember this from being on the high school debate team. As a logical practice, debate was intended to explore both sides of any given proposition, in order to facilitate greater understanding of the proposition. However, I don’t experience it being used that way in our culture. Debate seems to have taken on more of the trappings of competition, than greater understanding. I am right or you are wrong. I win or you lose.  It is either/ or thinking to the extreme, and it polarizes people.

Living in the Land of And is more inclusive. It makes room for all of us to be part of the conversation, and not the debate.  If you want to engage folks in the process of improving performance, or anything for that matter, then we need to intentionally co-create the space for conversation that is more akin to dialogue than debate.  We can help folks to work better – together by facilitating conversations about them, with them.  When we invite folks to join us in the Land of And, they become our partners and not our competition.  And in these challenging times, I welcome partners.