Facilitating Breakthrough

How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together

By: Adam Kahane

Narrated by: Jeff Hoyt

Making progress on complex, problematic situations requires a new approach to working together: transformative facilitation, a structured and creative process for removing the obstacles to fluid forward movement.

It is becoming less straightforward for people to move forward together. They face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people from across more divides. In such situations, the most common ways of advancing - some people telling others what to do, or everyone just doing what they think they need to - aren’t adequate.
One better way is through facilitating. But the most common approaches to facilitating - bossy vertical directing from above or collegial horizontal accompanying from alongside - aren’t adequate. They often leave the participants frustrated and yearning for breakthrough.

This book describes a new approach: transformative facilitation. It doesn’t choose either the bossy vertical or the collegial horizontal approach: it cycles back and forth between them. Rather than forcing or cajoling, the facilitator removes the obstacles that stand in the way of people contributing and connecting equitably. It enables people to bring their whole selves to the process.

This book is for anyone who helps people work together to transform their situation, be it a professional facilitator, manager, consultant, coach, chairperson, organizer, mediator, stakeholder, or friend. It offers a broad and bold vision of the contribution that facilitation can make to helping people collaborate to make progress.

©2021 Reos U.S. Inc. (P)2021 Reos U.S. Inc.

Loved it as I work through change

Going through change on so many levels and this book was the perspective shifter I needed.

Very clear and helpful

This book really helped me to see what my job is in a better way. Excited to get started.

Powerfully Enlightening and Humbling

This book has made a HUGE impact on my perception of what it means to be a facilitator.

Facilitation isn't about what the Facilitator is BRINGING to the engagement, but rather what they can REMOVE in terms of obstacles to Connection (Power), Connection (Love) and Equity (Justice).

The book flowed really well. The conclusion was just as meaningful as the intro. In the end, the author beautifully ties in Power, Love and Justice.

This made me wonder how systemic inequities look through the lens of Justice and Power. It makes me hopeful for one day being able to bridge those gaps. But it will only happen through intentional serving act of Breakthrough Facilitation.

Cool story, interesting idea, little practical advice

As a professional facilitator, I recognize some interesting observations in Kahane's book and he tells cool stories and anecdotes about how fantastic a facilitator he is, but he goes into very little detail as to how to do any of this. A more suitable title might be "reflections opon my career in facilitation" as 80% of this book is quotes and anecdotes. Alternately, if the author would like to spread this supposedly effective methodology, I'd love it if he'd spend less time on stories and more on the nuanced technique he tangentially refers to. The proper execution of this would be about a 20hr listen, but for those doing this in practice it would be much more helpful. If the author reads these reviews, I ask he please write us a practical guide with more practical examples and fewer circular meanderings.

Not much practical tips, too elongated

It’s better to read the summary online if you’re interested in the tips for facilitations. Most of the book is repetitive stories that doesnt really provide much insights.