Facilitation For Good: Q&A with Lina and Matt

Explore your facilitation-related questions and wonderings with us this July

Think of this as a one-off mentoring session with Matt and Lina.

We’re here to support good people to do better work. Through small-group conversation, we’ll share insights from our practice to support you with yours.

You’ll leave with new perspectives on your facilitation practice.

Join us.

Who this is for

For those using facilitation to improve our world - whether in environmental, social justice or community settings:

• 'I Want To Facilitate Well' - You’re an emerging facilitator keen to improve your craft

• 'Oh, I’m a Facilitator Now?!' - You’ve found yourself facilitating and sometimes feel out of your depth

• 'WTF Just Happened?' - You’ve tried a few things working with groups and found yourself in a pickle

• 'Surely We Can Do This Ourselves?' - You’re a group who wants to build your internal facilitation skills

What can I ask?

Literally any questions about facilitation:

• Craft or technique questions

• Hypothetical scenarios or real-life situations

• Things you’re worried might happen

• Challenges or fuck ups you’ve experienced

• Anything else (we won't be able to answer everything but are happy for you to ask)

Who this is not for

If you're a seasoned facilitator, you might not find much here you don’t already know. Though you’re welcome to join us to talk facilitation.

Also: billionaires, oil barons, mining magnates and executives from the exploitation industries, tech oligarchs (and any other oligarchs). This probably isn’t the event for you.

Why this, why now?

To support you to facilitate with confidence and clarity.

When times are turbulent, we need each other. And when we come together, we need to gather well.

With decades of experience as professional facilitators, people often ask us how to support groups to thrive, or to move through complexity constructively. Now we’re writing a book about facilitation and are exploring the common challenges people are facing.

The session will be recorded for Lina and Matt’s use only. The questions you ask will inform the thinking in our book.

Why us?

Hi, we’re Lina Patel and Matt Wicking and we practice facilitation for good. 

We often work together on programs and projects brimming with insight, kindness, and delight. We choose to direct our facilitation efforts towards collective good - for all living beings.

We’ve run award-winning sustainability leadership programs, supported purpose-driven organisations, built thriving teams, worked with community leaders in disaster-affected regions, and much more.

Facilitation is a complex craft.

One that can never really be perfected.

But we’ve learned a thing or two over the last couple of decades working as professional facilitators.

And we’re here to share because change happens together.

What we stand for

We’re here to support good people to do better work.

1. We believe in the value of coming together in turbulent times.

2. We believe facilitation is a powerful craft and a political act.

3. We believe in groups rooted in choice and care, not coercion.

4. We start with an understanding of power and structural rank, to shift the status quo - because the status quo isn't working for most of us.

5. We end with rest.