The Art of Facilitation: The Essentials for Leading Great Meetings and Creating Group Synergy [Hardcover]

Dale Hunter (Author), Stephen Thorpe (Contributor), Hamish Brown (Contributor), Anne Bailey (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0470467924 | ISBN-13: 978-0470467923 | Edition: Revised Edition

Praise for the Revised Edition of The Art of Facilitation

"The Art of Facilitation picks up where most other books stop. It describes a whole new array of process tools in a totally accessible way. It delves into the underlying ethics of facilitation to clarify complex questions. This book is also beautifully written. After many years in the profession, I was surprised at the subtle way it helped me gain a new understanding of a number of important facilitation dilemmas. A very insightful contribution to the field!"
—Ingrid Bens, M.Ed., facilitation tutor, Sarasota, Florida, and author of Facilitating with Ease, Advanced Facilitation Strategies, and Facilitating to Lead

"Few books attempt such a broad scope and enriching view of group facilitation. Hunter provides a 'philosophy' of group facilitation, mixed with 'how to.' This is an impressive book, integrating a sincere concern for the reader's personal development."
—Sandy Schuman, editor of The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation

"Dale Hunter is a giant among practitioners, one of the pioneers in the field, and The Art of Facilitation is a classic. This book distills Dale's years of experience into straightforward, practical advice. Her wisdom comes through in every chapter."
—Sam Kaner, Ph.D., author of the international bestseller, Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making

"In The Art of Facilitation, Dale Hunter treats readers to an exploration of the field of facilitation at the same time she presents her unique approach. Throughout the book, in simple language, Hunter offers a powerful and important message—to facilitate others effectively you must facilitate yourself. Take Hunter's advice and your clients will thank you."
—Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator and coauthor of The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Dale Hunter has done it again! She has taken what was already a 'must-read' for our industry, updated it, transformed it, and produced both a road map for aspiring facilitators and a value-added toolbox for crafty veterans. The Making Intervention and Processes chapters alone contain more insights than most books in their entirety."
—Michael Wilkinson, author, The Secrets of Facilitation

This thoroughly revised edition of the classic book on facilitation offers the most current research available on the topics of facilitation and group dynamics. A comprehensive resource for facilitators, trainers, HR professionals, and consultants, The Art of Facilitation describes the profession of group facilitation and the role of a facilitator, and outlines the key elements of facilitation. The book also examines the most common challenges that facilitators face, as well as the ethical issues that pertain to the facilitation process.

Written by Dr. Dale Hunter—acclaimed facilitator, mediator, and coach—this revised edition includes new information on facilitation in organizations, sustainability, therapeutic group work, and online facilitation. The book also includes an examination of the wide range of approaches and methods that have emerged in the field in recent years.

In addition to providing an updated guide to the topic, the book contains a training program that can be used by a group of aspiring facilitators as a peer learning framework. It also includes fifty-two processes that are useful for both facilitators and facilitation educators alike.

About the Author

Dale Hunter is a group facilitator, mediator, coach, and author in the field of facilitation. She is a director of Zenergy, a New Zealand–based company providing facilitation, mediation, and coaching services to government, business, and community sectors.

Stephen Thorpe is a facilitator specializing in online facilitation and a director of Zenergy. He is secretary of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and editor-in-chief of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal.

Hamish Brown is a facilitator and registered psychotherapist specializing in psychodrama.

Anne Bailey is a facilitator and a founding director of Zenergy.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; Revised Edition edition (August 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470467924
• ISBN-13: 978-0470467923
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Dale Hunter is a group facilitator, mediator, coach and author in the field of facilitation. She is a co-founder and director of Zenergy Ltd. a New Zealand-based company providing facilitation, mediation, and coaching services to government, business and community sectors.

Dale facilitates conferences, public meetings, seminars and workshops both in New Zealand and internationally. She is also a mediator trained by world leaders in this field. Her client base includes local and central government, business, NGOs and special interest groups.

The Zenergy 8-module Diploma of Facilitation, co-designed by Hunter, now has 1500 people who have have participated in one or more modules. In addition, Dale has led facilitation training workshops in Europe, USA, Canada, China, Malaysia, South Africa and Taiwan.

Dr. Hunter is a member of the Generative Change Community, Asia; a sustaining member of the International Association of Facilitators; a former board member as Vice Chair International (2001-2007) and was instrumental in the development of the IAF Code of Ethics for Group Facilitators.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, engaging, informative... dust free, January 19, 2011

By 

Daniel - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Facilitation: The Essentials for Leading Great Meetings and Creating Group Synergy (Hardcover)

A way of testing the quality of a book is to monitor the amount of dust it collects. Many books are read once, thought about briefly, and then cursed to spend a lonely existence gathering dust on the bottom of a bookshelf.

This book resides happily on my bookshelf, dust free.

There are two primary reasons I find myself continually drawn back to reading the Art of Facilitation. The first is its breadth - it contains a general theoretical overview of facilitation as well as useful practical guidance which is helpful to refer back to. The second reason relates to the gems that it contains. The book is packed full of useful little snippets including processes, intervention strategies, methods for shifting levels in a group as well as questions to reflect on to become a more grounded person/facilitator.

This book is not a fancy, fashionable new approach to facilitation. Neither is it a dense overview of every approach to facilitation possible. It is an informative, very readable, clearly written, highly entertaining book which I would wholeheartedly recommend to novice facilitators as well as those more experienced in the 'Art' of Facilitation.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, person centred facilitation, February 2, 2011

By 

Barney - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Facilitation: The Essentials for Leading Great Meetings and Creating Group Synergy (Hardcover)

This book opened my eyes to completely new ways of working with people. In the local government context, the norm is innefficent meetings which often lack purpose and clear desired outcomes. The approach, tools and methods outlined in this book offer an engaging, fun and growthful alternative to this norm.

At the heart of this book lies the 'person centred approach' to facilitating groups and leading group discussions. This approach posits that self awareness, emotional intelligence, empathy and the ability to listen deeply to others are not just 'nice to haves' but base and core skills which every effective facilitator must strive to develop. As well as providing guidance on how a facilitator should 'be' it also suggests what a good facilitator should 'do' - including how to best use intervention techniques, how to resolve conflict, and how to appropriately match processes to particular group dynamics.

In short I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in working with groups in more purposeful, creative and engaging ways - whether you are new to the art of facilitation or are a seasoned facilitator looking for fresh perspectives.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is an absolute gem, January 19, 2011

By 

idil (Ankara, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Facilitation: The Essentials for Leading Great Meetings and Creating Group Synergy (Hardcover)

Art of Facilitation by Dale Hunter is a must to have book for anyone who is involved facilitation of groups. The book consists of three parts and covers easy-to-digest theory on essentials of facilitation and some very useful facilitation tools. I got this book in early 2009 without knowing much about facilitation or the book. I wanted to learn about group facilitation since I was going carry out some workshops as part of my PhD research. I read the book in a couple of days with great interest and joy. It was clearly written, fun and easy to understand. The book helped me to learn how to facilitate groups, be a fun and creative university lecturer and resolve conflicts whenever I face them in my life. Strongly recommended!