Presence is Everything

FACILITATION

10/6/20263 min read

I certainly never said as a kid, “I want to grow up to be a facilitator.”

But it has become the most rewarding job I’ve ever had.

Presence is Everything

What has surprised me most about this work is that presence is everything. It's not about the perfect agenda, or leading a discussion from the front. It's not even about having a toolbox of activities or a graceful way to interrupt the person who won't stop talking — though those come into play.

I’ve learned that facilitation is an ongoing practice of using your whole body as an instrument. You take in what people say, but even more, you attune to what their energy and body language are telling you. You listen for what isn't being voiced. You read where the energy needs to flow for the good of the group. And you have to be willing to abandon the best-laid plan and improvise into the conversation that actually needs to happen.

The Facilitator Who Showed Me

I first saw that kind of presence in my mid-twenties. Meri Justis led our Eugene/Springfield leadership cohort through nine months of learning and reflection together, and she was always right there with us. She listened with real focus, letting what we said redirect the conversation so that we became co-creators of where it went. When we hit a hard moment, she would set the plan aside, name it, and sit in it with us. When we needed to go deeper, she challenged us with questions that were hard to answer.

It wasn't until years later that I recognized these gifts in myself. Despite a career of leading teams of many shapes and sizes, I never thought much about the facilitation skills I was developing. Then I experienced one of the most meaningful days of my professional life, leading a leadership retreat for my own workplace. I had to sit up and pay attention. I went through a six-week facilitation training. I started to build my business.

One Retreat, and What it Built

My favorite retreats blend deeper team connection with shared, actionable strategy. One recent one, with a board that already had real familiarity and trust, ended with people remarking on how much more connected they felt. We used image cards to talk about what mattered most in their life's purpose — a big hit — and later paired off for walk-and-talks built around questions they would never raise in a regular board meeting. Then, through several rounds of reflection on past success and what mattered most for the organization's future, we built a one-year plan together, with goals and action steps that left them ready to move.

Why Not Just Do it Yourself?

Plenty of organizations run retreats without a facilitator. Leadership facilitates important conversations every day, and it is easy to assume a well-planned agenda is all you need. But an agenda carries a bias — that this is the right direction — when often the real issues need to surface first. When the leader runs the room, people behave according to the leader's expectations and their own role, and the leader cannot fully take part in the connection they are trying to build. Icebreakers done poorly feel superficial, even damaging. And you miss what a facilitator brings from experience: a feel for what works and what flops.

Working with a good facilitator, a team leaves as something different than it was when it walked in. People feel the value of being held in a space designed for them. Exercises built for connection create bridges that last. Strategic conversation, designed to include every voice, surfaces ideas and issues that never had a channel before. People align around shared purpose, direction gains clarity and collective ownership, and everyone leaves with renewed investment — in the work and in each other.

Twenty years ago I couldn't have named this job. Now I can't imagine doing anything else.

Coalesce Consulting

Organizational Culture Development · Team Facilitation · Strategic Planning