09 · Facilitate rigorous challenge
Colabmo development course A-P02
Learning objective: Intervene in conventional thinking while keeping the team responsible for its solutions.
A facilitator should make reasoning visible without becoming the team’s substitute expert. Ask for the outcome, premise, source, inference or test that is missing. Avoid supplying a preferred solution and then questioning the team until it agrees.
Set a working agreement: challenge statements rather than status; distinguish experience from evidence; invite exceptions; record disagreement accurately; and allow people to correct their claims. Amy Edmondson’s 1999 study found an association between team psychological safety and learning behavior in 51 work teams. It does not make agreement the goal. In this course, respectful challenge and evidence standards operate together.
| Signal in the room | Useful intervention |
|---|---|
| “We have always done it this way.” | “What outcome did that arrangement protect, and what evidence says it is still necessary?” |
| “The system will not allow it.” | “Which specific capability is missing? Who can verify that limitation?” |
| “Let us just automate it.” | “Which necessary function would automation perform, and which assumption are we preserving?” |
| “That is best practice.” | “Under what conditions did it work, and do those conditions hold here?” |
| “Everyone knows customers hate this.” | “What observations distinguish a common pattern from a memorable incident?” |
| “That would never work.” | “Which premise fails, or what test would reveal the failure?” |
Use a short reset: quote the claim neutrally, ask the person to classify it, request the source or test, and return it to the correct stage. Give inquiry a time limit. If evidence is unavailable, record an owner and conditional decision rather than repeating the same argument.
Balance participation with silent writing, round-robin contributions and pairs before plenary debate. Invite control owners and frontline staff to describe what a change would break. Ask a senior sponsor to speak after others when their position could anchor the group.
When conflict becomes personal, pause. Restate the shared outcome and separate factual disagreement from different priorities or authorities. A facilitator cannot settle a genuine authority conflict by a group vote; route it to the decision owner.
Practice
Form triads: facilitator, SME and observer. The SME uses two conventional-thinking statements from the table. The facilitator has six minutes to surface the premise and agree a next step without proposing the business solution. Rotate roles. The observer records the exact intervention and its effect in W9.
Check your reasoning
How can a facilitator challenge a senior SME without dismissing their expertise?
Worked response
Acknowledge the experience, ask for the conditions and supporting example, then make the inference explicit. Invite the SME to identify a counterexample or test. The target is the claim, not the person’s competence.
There are no comments for now.