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Mastering Facilitation: 3 Principles for Effective Group Work · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

• 0:05
  Welcome to Professor Peterson's Psychology Classroom,
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  connecting the science of human behavior to everyday life.
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  Here's Dr. Curtis Peterson.
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  All right, so let's start this developing skills stuff,
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  and, uh, the first thing that we're gonna do is
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  give ourselves what's called an operational definition
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  of facilitation, what it looks like in a
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  kind of action. Okay,
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  so the first thing that we note is
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  that facilitation— that we use facilitation skills
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  to guide and direct key parts of the work that
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  we do. And this first
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  definition, I'd like to just kind of bring to our
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  attention for a minute because these skills are
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  not just narrowly defined when we're
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  in the treatment setting. You can use these skills
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  when working with coworkers, when you're
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  with family, friends,
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  because they're really about facilitating
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  good communication skills and ways of communicating
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  and opening up individuals.
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  A facilitator— this is you— is someone who helps a
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  group meet their goal. Okay, now, In this
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  definition, I want you to note the word help.
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  We're not using the word guide, we're not using
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  the word instruct, we're using
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  the word help because the facilitator, as the
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  term suggests, is there to help move
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  the group along to achieve goals.
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  And there's really kind of 3 principles of effective
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  facilitation, okay? The first principle
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  is that a good facilitator draws out opinions
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  and ideas, okay?
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  And probably the second one is one
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  of the most important, but is also one of the hardest to
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  kind of understand and
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  one of the hardest to kind of get out of our practice of,
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  of doing. Okay, and this is the focus
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  on the how and what. All right, um,
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  one of the reasons why this is a difficult
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  skill is that you notice that there's usually another
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  word that comes after that, and that's why.
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  Okay,
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  and if you're in social work,
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  counseling, therapy, it's very
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  difficult to really make sure that
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  your groups focus on the how and what,
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  because as counselors, the first part
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  of treatment is really trying to answer
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  the word why. Okay, so in the first components
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  of treatment, we're trying to figure out a therapeutic
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  diagnosis that answers the why. We're trying
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  to figure out the, uh, what symptoms and
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  why those symptoms are arising to give away to
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  the diagnosis. And so, uh,
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  we need to leave that behind the group door.
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  Okay, because we really want the group to
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  go through their discovery phase of
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  understanding the how and what so that then they can
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  explore that why question.
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  The other principle that
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  often does take some development is
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  never take sides. All right, never take
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  sides is, uh, a natural
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  human, uh, tendency. We tend
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  to gravitate towards those who have similar attitudes,
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  beliefs, and emotions that we have,
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  and we have a natural graduation— graduate
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  from those who make us feel uncomfortable Uh,
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  don't hold our same ideas and beliefs.
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  And so this is the 3rd principle, is another
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  one that tends to be one that takes skill
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  development, uh, because our job
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  is not to, not to declare who's a winner and who's
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  a loser. Our goal is, is to bring
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  them together to have healthy, productive discussions
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  about their experiences, whether they differ or
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  not. Okay, so those are
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  the 3 principles, and I'm just gonna, uh, well,
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  I'll just stop the recording real quick.