The role of the complexity practitioner

Dave continues and concludes his posts on anthro-complexity, with an important post that captures my feelings exactly about the role of the facilitator-host-practitioner*:

When the practitioner’s contribution is methodological rather than interpretive, the basis of their authority shifts. They are not authoritative because they can see what participants cannot; they are useful because they can design conditions that the system itself cannot easily design from within its existing patterns. That is a more modest and more honest claim, and it is one that can, in principle, be contested and revised by participants rather than being grounded in a theoretical framework that participants are not trained to evaluate. The mandate question remains: who commissions the work, on what terms, accountable to whom, but at least the answer is no longer occluded by the mystique of expert interpretation.

The whole post is an important read – as is the whole series. It offers a very important set of observations about the work of the complexity practitioner and should spark discussion in the facilitation community amongst thoughtful practitioners around the areas where their roles and work still sit uncomfortably with themselves.

____

* I use this hyphenated term because in conversations with Dave about this thinking over the past few weeks, and with others, I recognize that what we call ourselves, and how we are viewed as “facilitators” or “hosts,” has much to do with the assumptions we all make about each other’s practice. Most facilitators don’t have much experience seeing other facilitators in action. Certainly almost all of my clients have seen far more facilitation approaches and actions than I have. So I find it important to try to tell people HOW I work rather than what title I use for myself, especially if we are contracting for work. Nevertheless, I’m appreciating Dave’s “practitioner” label as it is a neutral enough term that avoids a named role that comes with so much baggage. Me, I frequently use the terms ‘”host” and “facilitator” interchangeably and loosely, because I am trying to reach people and communities that describe themselves this way, so we can be in a much more sophisticated conversation about practice in complex systems and situations.