FS83 - Facilitation as a super skill with Robert Cserti

In todays episode Sam is joined by Robert Cserti, who traces his path from a single transformative team building workshop nearly 20 years ago to co-founding SessionLab in 2013 as a side project (built during evenings and weekends while he consulted and his co-founder did a PhD) that grew into a company helping facilitators design and deliver better workshops. The conversation centers on facilitation's rising status  from a "soft skill" to a strategic, organisation-wide capability tied to empowerment and employee engagement and on Robert's own philosophy of intentional process design, handling reluctant groups, and the blurry line between being a facilitator and being a participant/stakeholder in the room.

They talk about:

• Facilitation is becoming a "super skill." Organizations increasingly treat it as a core leadership and organisational competency, not just a nice-to-have for running meetings.
• Empowerment is the underlying goal. Good facilitation creates participative environments where people feel heard and have real input into decisions  this is a cultural shift, not a one-off event.
• Scaling facilitation takes infrastructure. Beyond training individuals, organisations need central "facilitation hubs," shared tools/templates, and a critical mass of skilled people.
• Passion and "the fun-dar" sustain long, hard build processes. Both Robert and Sam agree that enjoying the work is what carries you through the grind of building something over years
• Handling unwilling participants requires listening first. When a group doesn't want to be there, the fix is giving them space to voice frustrations, then collectively finding the overlap between the sponsor's goals and the group's actual concerns.

Quote highlights

"I'm seeing that it's  becoming one of the future super skills at workplaces that if you can facilitate as a manager, as a leader as a team member, it just opens so many doors for you because you can actually help teams to work effectively and achieve their goals."

"We were organising a large event and a person came who was called a trainer and then a lot later I understand that what actually we had was not training. it was pure process facilitation to help our team align and really understand each other better, build bonds, flesh out potential friction points and build trust while we did hands-on work together."

Links

Todays guest: Robert Cserti - Co-Founder SessionLab

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcserti/

https://www.sessionlab.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/trainedon/posts/?feedView=all

https://www.instagram.com/sessionlab/

https://www.youtube.com/@TrainedOn

Todays host:

Sam Moon: Community Facilitator. Director of Sam Moon Facilitation Ltd

www.linkedin.com/in/theboymoon123

To find out more about Facilitation Stories and the IAF England & Wales Chapter:
🎧 https://facilitationstories.libsyn.com/
📧  podcast@iaf-ew.co.uk

🌐https://iaf-members.org/site/chapters/england-wales

Sam: Hello, and welcome to Facilitation Stories, the community podcast of the England and Wales chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as the IAF. My name is Sam Moon, and my guest today is Robert Cserti. Co-founder of SessionLab, Robert's first encounter with facilitation happened nearly two decades ago, where he was deeply inspired by how powerful a well-designed and facilitated workshop can be to shift the way people think and work together.

Over the next few years, that hands-on experience as a facilitator planted the seed for SessionLab. Robert found himself running into the same frustrations. The tools available just don't support the real creative and logistical work behind designing great sessions. So in 2013, he and his co-founder, Philip Kish started building something better.

For several years, it's a side project which eventually turned into a full business to help individual facilitators design better workshops and organizations scale facilitation and so much more that I'm sure we're likely to noodle on today. So welcome, Robert, and to get us started and add your own flavour to my introduction, what in your world of facilitation is making you smile?

Robert: First of all, thanks so much for that intro Sam, its a pleasure to be here

Sam: welcome. Great for you to be here.

Robert: And so what is making me smile in the world of facilitation? I think what is really nice to see is that facilitation as a skill is getting more recognized in all sorts and sizes of organisations. And my background is that I started as a facilitator and then as you mentioned we saw a need how we could help facilitators.

And then if I look back especially as we've worked with a bunch of facilitators at Session Lab, is that more and more large companies as well recognise that facilitation is an important skill to invest in as, and not just as a personal skill, but as an organizational skill. So, with all the rapid transformation that happens at workplaces with AI changing how various jobs are done Facilitation as a skill is getting more and more important.

In a way I'm seeing that it's  becoming one of the future super skills at workplaces that if you can facilitate as a manager, as a leader as a team member, it just opens so many doors for you because you can actually help teams to work effectively and achieve their goals.

So this, this is a, great shift to see that facilitation is growing as a skill.

Sam: Yeah, that, that's really lovely how you're, framing that, Robert. And um, tell me a little bit more about why that matters to you. And is there a kind of... Do you have your own story about when that, when you had that penny drop moment for yourself in terms of seeing facilitation be important and, and then potentially be recognised?

Robert: so why is this important to me? I have, have a passion for facilitation, my love for facilitation. I see how, big impact that can make on teams how much it can help work to move forward. And that's really great to see that at larger scales as well, organisations care more about facilitation.

Say an example there is leadership development programs. Very many large organisations do have their leadership academies, leadership universities, and we are seeing that facilitation is more and more often not just yet another soft skill to train leaders on but a core skill that they find really important for people to have.

And uh, there is, there's always a space for complex workshops to be facilitated by professional facilitators whose main job, whether as freelancers or working at large companies for their primary role to be a facilitator. But then it, unlocks so much more potential when more people is able to put facilitation skills to good use to create participative environments where people are engaged.

So yeah this makes me smile.

Sam: Yeah, so what you're seeing and beginning to see emerge is organisations and perhaps wider into kind of other areas begin to recognise facilitation as something more than someone just running a session, and it being an important skill within the workplace, be it an organisation and wider, as an actual thing, as a named skill.

Robert: Yes, exactly. And, as a strategically important skill in a sense that it's having engaged people who have the chance to participate at making decisions really empowering people more to do a great job. And this becomes not just about effective meetings, but really a, an organisational differentiator.

Sam: an empowering people. And so when I hear that, that's about like culture of an organization or a culture of a thing. Empowerment isn't something you go, "Right, we're now gonna empower people.

Off we go." That's about a mindset, and that's about a culture that's being created. And what I hear you talking about here is how facilitation plays an important role in that. What I'm interested in, or what you're seeing emerge is, how does this happen?

What are you seeing or do you feel are the conditions that enable that empowerment to happen, or what enables facilitation to be recognised?

Robert: I do think for any scale of facilitation, it's important that there are some people who recognise the opportunity, that facilitation is important, and then creating the infrastructure for it and having a, critical enough mass of people equipped with facilitation skills.

Just to share an example. I have the opportunity to speak with, various organisation development leaders to understand how they look at facilitation. And for example, people expect a difference that when employee is running a meeting, they don't just want them to, put up a slide deck and, put some content on that to have one person talking, but really be more intentional what they want to achieve and have the skills and the framework how to think about it, plus having access to the right tools, the right templates, and the right infrastructure.

Because usually in most organisations, there are people who are trained as facilitators, whether they officially wear the title or, another hat then how this initial individual competence is getting into more central facilitation hubs, and then how other people are enabled to work off from the knowledge of that hub and then how then facilitation is supported through that.

There are steps to go through that and, that's a very interesting challenge to see that, more and more organisations seems to care about enabling a wider circle of people to have access to facilitation knowledge and also to train them facilitation skills.

Sam: What helped you get into this work? What was the conditions that helped you step into this space?

Robert: First of all I definitely needed inspiration. still very vividly recall my first encounter with facilitation which was a simple team building, team cohesion workshop/training session which was really a facilitated process to get a team of eight people aligned.

We were organising a large event and a person came who was called a trainer and then a lot later I understand that what actually we had was not training. it was pure process facilitation to help our team align and really understand each other better, build bonds, flesh out potential friction points and build trust while we did hands-on work together.

And when I look back after, when the day was over, it was such a just energising and transformational experience that, wow, I would love to be able to do this one day. So, that was a really good motivation, to look around at what was this person doing and how was he knowing all this?

' 'Cause, he was barely talking. He was just giving us some instructions some guidance and then it was feeling very magical how smooth it went. So then years later when I was able to put words to it what it was like, wow. And then what enabled me to get into facilitation right place, right time.

I was at that point very active in um, European youth organisation, which had a strong training and facilitation system.

And the core approach was a very facilitative one. So that, gave a lot of opportunity to practice designing and delivering sessions and then afterwards in my consulting work, I also had the opportunity to keep facilitating various workshops, which overall these years led me to understand, well, there could be better paths tools available for facilitators to really help to make the work, especially when it came to collaboratively designing workshops and co-delivering and all the preparations when you send over spreadsheet version 11 but your co-facilitator works in version 10, and, all the mess that comes with that and then also passion met opportunity as we started working on a tool to just make our life easier, and it turned out to be useful for more people too, and that's how, SessionLab started too.

Sam: Yeah. Was it something that just emerged one thing led to another thing, and you followed that? And/or was there also like a penny drop moment? Was there a crossroads sort of moment where you went, "Right, this is what I'm going to do and this is the direction I need to follow"?

Robert: It's an interesting question because I think for me it was a very, organic process. similarly as, doing more facilitation helped me to realize that there is an opportunity to make parts of that work easier, smoother, better, with various tedious aspects of the prep work around facilitating so I can focus more on the facilitation experience itself.

I think in some ways it's always a good moment when ideas come and, and when you start working on something and you see people using what you do in the room of, helping people or through a software.

Sam: And how does that make you feel when you see that happening?

Robert: Proud. think we all, are happy to make an impact. And I often feel some imposter syndrome because not a full-time professional facilitator I always love when I have the opportunity to facilitate and in my business work I'm facilitating still relatively frequently, so I wouldn't say I'm, just simply a software entrepreneur.

Sorry, what was the initial question? I think I just diverted, uh-

Sam: I was very interested in the direction that, you were going with it. What I like about these conversations is, when I'm, having this conversation with people they follow their own train of thought.

Which for me is almost more important than the question I'm asking, because people will answer. the question that they want to answer. but question was really around was there a penny drop moment that you followed and then you thought, "Right, this is what I'm going to do."

Or was there like a crossroads in having to make a decision of one way or another? Or was it just something that happened and what you talked about was that you found yourself, organically, working your way, to that, as well. So the question was, was there like a penny drop moment was there a sudden catalyst that you think, "Yes, this is the North Star, this is where I'm going"?

Robert: I would say, it just been very organic and, uh, gradually building things, both facilitation practice-wise and also business-wise for SessionLab. a background there, my co-founder and I, essentially started this as a side project and for five years, he did his PhD.

I worked as a consultant and occasionally facilitating, and we were, passionate enough to keep doing this on, evenings and weekends as a hobby. And I think that's important, to work on things you are passionate about because then, um, work can feel energizing if you care about what you do.

Sam: Indeed, for me, I call it the fundar. it needs to feel fun. when the fundar fades, that, tells you something that you need to, think about the direction you're going or what will bring, that back.

cause it's a lot of work, and what you've described is a long process and a lot of work. So unless there is joy from that, you start to question like, why am I doing this?"

Robert: That's so true, and I think, if, I reflect on this part because it's been a while we, started, um, SessionLab, as a company, as well, and, I, think for me, I always enjoyed, building things and not just in the sense of building product, but like building something where I have really the context of everything within that organization or that project.

So in, this sense, the company building part is exciting. I think that's what led me to this path from my consulting career where it was, in a way, a lot more diversity new clients, new industries to learn, and I think a frustration that whenever I felt like, "Okay, I'm finally getting the hang of this," then moving to a new project. Compared to that, building one's own business, has this, stronger feeling that I actually understand the context around- what we are doing. and that's always growing with new challenges each year. but as you mentioned, it's, really important that have that feeling of fun and growing as well.

Sam: Yes. Yeah. And on that, subject of learning, it brings us neatly onto another question in terms of that learning, and particularly if you're creating... I mean, what you're talking about is creating, your own company, your own way of working with, your co-founder.

And, the journey of that, there's a lot of bravery and a lot of courage there, as you figure that out and work out what works and what doesn't work. So with that in mind, my next questions, is what fluff-ups or mistakes, have you learned from?

If any at all, of course.

Robert: oh, yeah. think from the facilitation side, uh, to jump back to that side, I think it's a, common learning for most, facilitators, but, like, the participation must come from inside for participants. still remember in my few experiences, from my consulting years that, when a workshop, or a training session was mandated, by the manager and then you turn up there and, you have a bunch of people who just really don't want to be there. And you have a day with them, and, uh, that's extremely challenging to create space for learning and, creating when there is no motivation for it. And of course, there is always ways to use that time well and, dig a bit deeper of, the root cause of that issue.

 But yeah, it's very challenging when people don't wanna be there where they are sent, for your workshop

Sam: is there a particular story or experience of having to figure that out with a, a group of people who don't wanna be there or, people in the room? Obviously, without naming names.

Robert: yeah, I think it just, I, I was in a, um, how do you say, lucky [00:14:00] situation with my first few such encounters because I had a more senior, facilitator next to me who were handling the harder parts. And, and, they just taught me so much about, uh...

I mean, I'm a big believer in, preparing, for workshops and, also in general I really enjoy the process design part, of facilitation. but also understanding that, all the work that goes into the preparation are essentially there to, uh, make you feel more confident when you need to make changes and adapt to what the group needs, and, uh, just that flexibility of, well, uh, great, we had a plan, and now that plan, is going to change based on- what the needs of the group is.

Sam: Yeah. And just a couple of notes so on the people in a, in a room potentially not wanting to be there or the feel that people don't wanna be there, I'm really interested in what, did you do? What, happened, in that case? You know, for our listeners, What did you learn from that, and what did you do, or what happened?

Robert: I think what we did for this, uh, one of the situations was, uh, just, really putting more time, at the very beginning to let people be heard and, [00:15:00] let out their, frustrations and, and, uh, so we can understand that, okay, what, were they expecting? which, is the second one of, actually understanding what, in this situation, what could we reasonably do? What expectations they have, and which are the one which we, which we have the liberty or mandate to address here? and that's a tricky situation when the sponsor is not in the room and, you are asked to do something. So then, finding that, common ground together with the group of, okay, we, we had goal X. there, there are, Y, Z, and W other issues, which, is the, common area in that Venn diagram, can reasonably address together.

And then, okay, how, to handle the rest of the issues, how to bring those, um... Luckily, it, it wasn't a one-off, event, it was part of a bigger project, so there was, opportunity to handle the, other issues too. but yeah, making people heard, understanding what the expectations are and, uh- Collectively, building that, buy-in and, consensus of, okay, so what are we going to do together? And not, told by the facilitator, not, told by one person in the group, but collectively the group deciding of what are the, issues that it is, uh, willing and able tackle in that, timeframe that's available.

Sam: Yeah. so what you're doing there is you're listening to what's coming up, and then you're asking the question of like what is it, what's going on. you're naming what's happening in the room whilst also inviting how can your own agency start to shift this so that you begin to want to be here based on being able to shape it alongside that challenge a facilitator has of, "Well, i'm here as a, my, client wants me to do this." but by holding that space with the group, you can start to work towards, both. And I think that comes onto my next question on what you said around the process of design and, SessionLab is and correct me if I'm wrong, but is like a software platform that allows facilitators to design their sessions with a whole bunch of tools that are within the, platform. So just sort of say a little bit before we come onto next question in terms of like, what is important for you about the process of design to be able to respond to, things that come up that might be harder to plan for?

Robert: considerations do I find important, uh, while designing?

Sam: Yeah. in what you were saying, you touched on the process of design as being a key learning thing and an important thing. my question is why is that important?

Robert: I think that comes from the, starting point of, just understanding so what are the needs of this group? And, building a design is, For a workshop, for a facilitated process is, the vehicle through which to really understand, like, what do I want to achieve here and, how to satisfy each of those objectives. I'm trying to simulate somewhat mentally what is going to happen in the room and understand, what are the potential issues that will arise, and what can I do now to have, the right tools available for me the right processes so I can address those. And that really forces me to understand the needs of the group deeper and deeper.

 I think the other angle is nowadays I'm a lot more facilitating internally, which is another challenge when you are both a facilitator and a participant or important stakeholder in the room. Some-sometimes you as the, uh, leader of a group or a member of a group, are running the process as well and, and, and that's another challenge when you, need to be intentional that when, when you communicate, okay, am I wearing my facilitator hat now or, or my participant hat? but especially there, uh, in these type of situations, it's, just whenever I walk myself through how we are going to do, for example, a strategic planning or an offsite, it, really helps to clarify the goals that we want to achieve.

 So you may be playing more a part of a host in terms of hosting that conversation for want of a, better word in a sense. I was gonna ask in terms of like how do you square that when you are participant and facilitator? But I think what you touched on there is about being clear on your goal, and that is what helps hold that.

Yeah, think being clear on the goal and, u-understanding what do I want to achieve, not just outcome-wise, but in terms of, if it's important that, there is a participative environment where people are equally heard, then, that's a consideration too when designing. And then I need to create a process, to satisfy that. so it's like what is the organization that, we want to have and what type of behaviours that mean? so what process is in line with that?

Sam: Yeah. So from our conversation, because we're coming to the end of our conversation, I've got a few round-up questions, to finish with, including our previous guest question. But what I'm picking, what I'm sort of the words I'm coming away with the moment, Robert, from our conversation is empowerment, intentional and process.

And how they influence facilitation and the important role that they, play with that. so my question to you around that before we move into the guest question, arena is, a question in terms of let it sit with you for a little bit first, if nothing comes to mind straight away.

But, what, if any, meaning was made for you through the course of our conversation today?

Robert: I found useful, this reflection on the, uh, facilitating internally versus as a real independent, facilitator and just like, I think I will ponder longer on this host versus facilitator, distinction, that you were putting. So I think I would, pick, it first, this one

Sam: Thank you. So, um, that brings us onto our previous guest question. And the previous guest question was: what book do you recommend? And I'm gonna just add to that in tell me why your choice of book is important to you, Robert.

Robert: Hmm. So, um, I loved reading sci-fi, but I probably wouldn't recommend sci-fi books now here.

Sam: Right. Okay. it's your question, and you can answer it however you wish.

Robert: just, my, go-to tool for, unwinding, from work. But it comes to more, sort of business,  or facilitation relevant books, I was thinking and, then one book that,  it struck my eyes on my, um, reading list was the Never Split the Difference, which I was surprised that I, would highlight this on a facilitation-focused podcast 'cause  I don't regard this as a book that is about facilitation.

but I remember it had just-- firstly, it was very detailed with examples, and I always love books that, that is very detailed with, with specific cases. and I think what I really enjoyed there or what, what I found interesting is that while a facilitator's job is, not to negotiate, but what I really found interesting that it also had an angle that a good outcome depends less on logic and more on making the other person feel genuinely heard. a way it was fun to observe similarities that, Now, put it aside that I'm not a big fan of bestsellers, but still this, book with its specificities, I found this very useful and applicable for a number of things. but ultimately, it's-- I think there was this underlying similarity that both in the negotiation space and in the facilitation, there is a, a tie about, control and safety that, both as facilitators, we, want to create a safe space for participants where they feel, empowered to, uh, make decisions and, feeling rather in control than cornered. And, that is also true for negotiation situations. this gives some inspiration, es-especially for, the, the business side as well. But it was fun to observe that, something which I initially did not find so relatable to facilitation actually has, a bunch roots.

Sam: they very often do. I often find that with other books as well. But also what you're talking about there very much ties into where you were telling me about when there was a, case in terms of, struggling with a group who, initially didn't wanna be there.

And what you talked about there was that once they started to feel heard, they did want to be there. And I think there's some similar things that apply there as well in terms of, that facilitator creating space for people to be there, and then you're creating a brave space for those things to come out.

And then you can get on with the facilitation because people are in a space where they, they're being confident and being part of, I think, is what I'm picking up from what you're saying there as well. So with that, and to sort of finish with, what question would you like to ask, Our next guest.

Robert: Thank you. So, I think one question I would be particularly interested in, is related to, to the impact of facilitation, which is, by the way, also a topic that we, focused on, the latest State of Facilitation report. curious that, how do you know that your facilitation has made an impact?

that would be my question. Especially because, Uh, there is all the emotions and energy in the room, during and after facilitation, which gives an impression. But then, what helps to know that the facilitation [00:24:00] has really made an impact? I'm, I'm just very curious to hear, perspectives on that.

Sam: Brilliant. That's a lovely question, and something for our, next guest to chew on, I am sure. Robert, thank you for your time today. I very much enjoyed our conversation and getting to know you a little.

Robert: Likewise, Sam. It was a pleasure to be here, and thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation too.

Sam: thank you very much. Be well, everyone