Building good collaborators for a better world

If you work with other people, if you’ve ever led a meeting with colleagues, brought together in conversation diverse project partners with different perspectives, or stood at the front of a room to help everyone find a solution, then you’ve used facilitation skills.

Sustainability aims to make the world a better place – and that can’t be achieved without bringing people together to create visions, implement projects, and navigate trade-offs. Success relies on skilled facilitators who can help diverse voices speak up, find clarity, and achieve shared goals. The stakes are high, but many sustainability practitioners have never been trained to facilitate.

At MSDI, one of our defined capabilities is to create and strengthen partnerships and align stakeholders for co-ordinated action. That’s why we’re taking the time to build our capacity to facilitate better and more productive collaboration in our work.

A team of experienced MSDI facilitators have been running two-day in-house masterclasses to upskill staff from across the institute, giving them foundational concepts, helpful tips, and lots of hands-on practice to be better facilitators. The training gives the participants the skills to help collaborators build a shared understanding of common purpose, develop mutual trust and get more out of everyone’s contribution, which creates more successful outcomes in our work.

One of our lead trainers, David Robertson says, "We ensure that people can contribute in a safe way and they learn how to manage conflict. This is important, we’re working in sustainability – a sector that’s been grappling with climate change for decades. We want our partners to keep turning up and feeling positive about their work. By encouraging each other, working with each other, committing to tasks and making shared decisions, it becomes a shared culture, and you are more effective. And you leave no one behind.”

Facilitation skills are valuable any time you’re working with people. For me, it starts with a curious mindset: How can we help people connect with each other, and commit themselves to the process of tackling complex problems together?

Former participant and current teaching team member, Kavya Raj has experienced the training from both sides:

The masterclass stretched and expanded my skills. The training is both educational and therapeutic, I learned practical tools in how we can incorporate facilitation in our work, in everything that we do. It’s an immersive, rich and deep learning experience where you get to reflect on your own style and how you work.”

In the last three years, 58 MSDI staff members with a range of facilitation experiences have completed the training and they maintain their connections through a Community of Practice to continue experimenting with new skills and sharing insights from their experiences ‘in the field’.

Some of our clients have also benefited from the course, with BehaviourWorks Australia running a version of the masterclass with the NSW Government’s Behavioural Insight Unit Bootcamp. And there are more collaborations in the pipeline.

This is our not-so-secret superpower that we’d like to share – creating a safe space for many voices and guiding them towards a shared goal, while ensuring a positive and productive culture. It’s a vital skill for our organisation with transforming systems at the heart of our work.