Facilitation

When the conversations or decisions are consequential, meetings deserve more than a standard agenda –
they require intentional design and careful facilitation.

We work with boards, leadership teams, communities, and multi-stakeholder groups to design and facilitate high-stakes conversations involving between 5 and 200 people. We bring the process expertise that allows meeting participants to bring their knowledge, aspirations, and energy to the conversation. The goals of these meetings vary widely and include:

Setting strategic direction and priorities
Articulating or revisiting purpose and core values
Designing new solutions, products, and services
Engaging stakeholders in envisioning the future
Learning from important successes and failures
Moving beyond entrenched positions to mutual understanding
Making decisions about how to allocate resources

When done really well, meeting facilitation, can feel like magic.
But it’s not magic. It’s mastery.

Our facilitators possess the ability to help a group of people do their best thinking together, especially under conditions of complexity, tension, and uncertainty. Our unique skill set focuses on enabling your group to reach clear decisions, commit to shared ownership, and make meaningful progress without sacrificing dignity, inclusion, or learning.

Our facilitators know what to do and when to do nothing — intervening with intention, timing, and restraint so your group builds its own capacity rather than dependence on the facilitator.

(click here to learn more about How to Evaluate the Need for a Facilitator – downloadable pdf)

Our Approach

We bring hundreds of group process tools, tactics, and techniques to the work of facilitation. But technique is not the most important part of the equation – it’s presence – it’s how we show up in the work. We call this “facilitator grace.” It is guided by six principles:

Collaborative Design.

We partner closely with you to understand the context (e.g., your culture, history, and realities of the moment), define desired outcomes, and shape the agenda.

Wisdom in the Room.

We facilitate the process so that participants and conveners are freed up to do the work of creative deliberation and decision-making.

Process Stewardship.

We are neutral about content and outcomes, while being deeply attentive to how the work is done – ensuring rigor, inclusion, and forward movement.

Structure and Flexibility.

We use a clear and intentional structure in order to support focus and balanced participation, while remaining flexible to respond to what emerges in the conversation.

Tension as a Resource.

We help groups stay in the work when conversations become complex or uncomfortable, trusting that honest disagreement is necessary for sound decisions and meaningful change.

Thoughtful Pace.

We slow the conversations enough to surface assumptions, notice patterns, and reflect on impact. This creates the conditions for wise decisions and a necessary level of commitment.

Click HERE for a free resource to assess whether investing in a professional facilitator is right for your situation.

What Our Clients Have to Say

Larry helped us develop a method by which people on often opposing sides could come together, find common ground, and be inspired to work together in service of change. This method has catalyzed important improvements in our health care system, and it has been adapted to create change in other key social sectors like housing. Working with Larry is a dream - he is thoughtful, responsive, strategic and the absolute best at what he does.

Our time with Larry and Blue Wing Consulting has been invaluable. As a flourishing but young company experiencing growing pains, Larry helped guide us toward a healthy, mature, and prosperous future. He helped our executive team navigate difficult conversations, find common ground, and realign around a shared vision. With his support, we clarified who we are as a company and what we are working to achieve together. We articulated our core values—principles we refuse to compromise—which now serve as a powerful compass, shaping our direction and guiding nearly every business conversation.

Larry facilitated our board through a series of conversations during a crucial transitional chapter of our organization. Our founder was skeptical of bringing in an “outside consultant” but by the end of the day, people were so glad we did. Larry brings a strong but understated grace to facilitation – setting people at ease while at the same time asking provocative questions that moved us beyond routine discussion into the realm of breakthrough thinking. It is remarkable to watch and a treat to be part of any conversation Larry facilitates.

Working with Larry over more than a decade was enormously helpful and rewarding for our family foundation. His wisdom, experience, and strategic guidance helped our next generation clarify how they wanted to contribute their talents and led to the creation of a new next-generation fund with a clear mission, structure, and process. Thanks to Larry’s leadership, our sons and their wives are now meaningfully engaged in leading grantmaking, fulfilling a long-held dream and strengthening our foundation’s ability to deliver on its mission.