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A Workshopr field guide

Facilitator DNA

A field guide to the five facilitator profiles, and what to practice next.

The Facilitator DNA quiz ends with a name and a short profile page. The page names the result. It doesn’t say what that result looks like at 2:40 in the afternoon when the room has gone flat, why the move that saved the morning is the one that sinks the afternoon, or what to practice before the next session. This guide covers those three things.

It is written for working facilitators, who run workshops, retros and offsites often enough to have habits, and for the team lead who runs the weekly planning meeting and never calls it facilitation. Neither needs a timebox explained. Both want to know why their sessions keep going the way they go.

Every strength has a failure mode

  1. The Energizer. Lifts a flat room, then fills the thinking silence.
  2. The Architect. Makes the detour safe, then refuses to take it.
  3. The Connector. Gives every voice room, then avoids the hard call.
  4. The Explorer. Follows the unplanned thread, then never lands.
  5. The Sage. Finds the real question, too slowly for the room.
How the guide is built

One template, five profiles

Every profile chapter has the same six parts, so any two can be read side by side. Hold your result and your most frequent co-facilitator’s, and compare their “With the other four” sections.

  1. An opening scene

    One real moment from a real room.

  2. In the room

    What the profile reaches for first, and what it does when the plan breaks.

  3. Strength to failure

    The single mechanism that turns the best move into the characteristic mistake.

  4. Spotting it

    The tells in a co-facilitator, a client or a participant.

  5. With the other four

    What each other profile brings, and where the friction sits.

  6. Growth practices

    Three or four practices, each with a moment and a measure.

The chapters

Contents

The book is a reference and works in any order. Someone holding a result can go straight to that profile; someone without one can start with Five defaults.

  1. 4 Introduction How to use this guide What the quiz result leaves out, who the guide is for, and how to read it in any order.
  2. 6 Part One Five defaults Every facilitator has a default. The five are equal, none of them is a box, and type is not skill.
  3. 11 Part Two The Energizer Momentum is the instrument, and the instinct that lifts a flat room rushes the moments that need quiet.
  4. 17 Part Two The Architect Structure is the instrument, and the planning that makes a detour safe becomes the grip that refuses it.
  5. 22 Part Two The Connector Relationship is the instrument, and giving every voice room becomes reluctance to make the hard call.
  6. 27 Part Two The Explorer Discovery is the instrument, and following the unplanned thread becomes a habit of never landing.
  7. 32 Part Two The Sage Meaning is the instrument, and the patience that finds the real conversation sets a pace the room cannot keep.
  8. 36 Part Three Reading your result Primary and secondary, near-ties, and the gap between type and skill scores: a snapshot, not a verdict.
  9. 39 Part Three Flexing by session type What each kind of session asks of you, and how to borrow another profile’s moves on purpose.
  10. 42 Part Three How the quiz works How the answers are scored and the result is built, and what that method cannot tell anyone.
  11. 44 Back matter Sources, and about this guide Every study the chapters lean on, and where to go next: the quiz, The Second Chair, and the author.

No result yet?

Fifteen scenario questions, about three minutes, free. You get a primary and secondary profile and five skill scores, which is where the book picks up.

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