From Control to Collaboration: Why Leading Isn’t Enough - You Must Facilitate to Drive Real Change
During the year, I’ve worked with many teams at large corporations that struggle to push through major innovation or change projects. They often have brilliant people and promising ideas for how to grow, but meetings ends in frustration. No decisions are made, and team members are left feeling unheard and disengaged. I’m brought in not to solve their problems for them, but to help them get unstuck and unlock their own potential. Through structured conversations and activities, we are able to turn frustration into focused collaboration, and by the end of the process, not only do the teams have a clear direction—but they have regained their excitement for the project.
This is the power of bringing people together through effective guidance. In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations are under constant pressure to innovate and adapt. Yet, despite significant investments in new technologies, processes, and strategies, many struggle to achieve meaningful change. Why? Because at the heart of innovation is the ability to collaborate, solve complex problems, and make decisions—areas where facilitation plays a crucial role.
What is Facilitation?
Facilitation is more than just guiding a meeting. It is the art of creating a space where diverse voices can come together, feel heard, and work collectively to solve problems. Unlike traditional leadership, which may focus on setting direction or making decisions, facilitation enables teams to find their own solutions, and build ownership and engagement.
Facilitation is often the missing piece in organizations’ innovation efforts. While leadership sets the vision and strategy, it is the facilitator who helps teams navigate complexity, collaborate effectively, and overcome resistance.
Facilitation is What Makes Change Stick
Innovation thrives on collaboration. However, bringing together individuals from different departments, with varying perspectives, often leads to friction or confusion. A skilled guide can navigate these dynamics, ensuring everyone contributes while keeping the conversation productive.
Manages complexity - Facilitators help manage the complexity that innovation often entails. Wicked problems—those that are difficult to define and have no clear solution—require a structured approach to uncover insights. Facilitators guide teams through ambiguity, helping them define the problem and explore a range of possible solutions without getting stuck in dead ends.
Creates psychological safety—a crucial ingredient for innovation. When people feel safe to express ideas, challenge assumptions, and take risks, they’re more likely to push the boundaries of what’s possible. In a well-orchestrated session, the team feels comfortable engaging in the messy, creative process that leads to real breakthroughs.
And it works - Research shows that organizations that focus on facilitative leadership and collaboration experience a 33% increase in creative problem-solving abilities among employees, higher outcomes, with 30-40% better performance in terms of new product launches and revenue from innovation, and reduce conflict levels by up to 50%, allowing teams to focus on innovation rather than resolving disputes.
A Technique That Accelerates Innovation
Needed to apply the right processes and frameworks - Effective facilitation isn’t just about keeping people on track; it’s about leading teams through structured processes like co-creation workshops, design thinking, and agile methods. These frameworks offer clear steps for problem-solving and decision-making, but it’s the facilitator’s role to adapt these methods to the needs of the group and the challenge at hand.
For example, in a co-creation workshop, the facilitator ensures that every participant, regardless of their position, feels empowered to contribute. By carefully steering the conversation, they help the team move from divergent thinking—where all ideas are welcome—to convergent thinking, where the best ideas are selected and refined. This balance is key to producing actionable outcomes.
Facilitators also help speed up decision-making, often a major bottleneck in innovation. By ensuring clarity around the criteria for decisions and creating an environment where people feel confident enough to make choices, facilitators help teams avoid the endless loops of indecision that can slow progress.
Helps You Overcome Resistance to Change
Innovation and change often face resistance, whether due to fear, uncertainty, or entrenched ways of thinking. Facilitation plays a critical role in surfacing these concerns and addressing them head-on. A skilled facilitator creates opportunities for people to voice their doubts and reservations, helping the team understand the root causes of resistance.
Once these concerns are on the table, the facilitator can guide the group through processes designed to build alignment and trust. By focusing on shared goals and encouraging open dialogue, they help the team move past their fears and embrace the changes necessary for innovation.
Effective Facilitators are not Born, they are Trained
Reflecting on the teams I work with, I realize how different their journey could have been without someone to guide their collaboration. Many are ready to abandon their innovation or change projects, overwhelmed by complexity, silos, and corporate politics. But through structured dialogue and co-creation, they can regain clarity and reignite their passion for the work.
Really good facilitators are not born, they are trained. It’s a skill you can learn by mixing theory and practice. For leaders, teams, and organizations looking to drive real innovation, investing in facilitation—whether through training internal teams or engaging external experts—could be the key to getting unstuck from unproductive work and driving innovation and change that lasts.
Interested in learning how to master the art of facilitation?
Our intensive 2-day training is designed to give you the methods, tools and skills needed to facilitate the innovation process and create strong group dynamic that removes silos and effectively solve complex problems with speed.
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Written by Tove Chevalley
Co-founder Formation. My days are filled with writing, listening, and connecting people, problems and tools. Anything that makes growth more sustainable, for people, the planet, and business.
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