📚10 Books That Will Help You Become an Exceptional Facilitator (and all-around wiser person)
Learn the secrets to designing and leading exceptional live sessions
There are a few books that have led to major breakthroughs in the way I design and lead live online sessions.
They have inspired concepts and activities for my Breakthrough Facilitation course. And they have taught me life lessons that have made me a better person. I have them all within arms-reach of my desk where I lead most of my live online sessions.
None of them actually have "facilitation" in the title. But each book reveals the secrets to leading exceptional group experiences. Listening, asking powerful questions, authenticity, presence, self-awareness, gathering people, creating memorable moments, and more.
By the way… if you are interested in facilitating and leading live online sessions you’ll love my free newsletter The Quest where I share actionable insights and tips every Monday. You can subscribe 👉 here.
I am excited to share the list with you. You’ll find a summary list. Keep scrolling down for a short description of the book, how it helped me design and lead better workshops, and my 3 favorite insights for each book.
Before we dive in…
This is not an exhaustive list. There are facilitation and experience design topics that aren’t covered in these books. I am always on the lookout for books that uncover new aspects of the fascinating practice of leading groups.
This is not a representative list. Many of the authors on this list are white Western authors. There are important voices that would add diverse perspectives to design and facilitation practices - and make this a better list. I am on a Quest to find them.
Are there books that have influenced the way you lead groups? I’d love to hear about them. Drop them in the comments below.
Okay, 🥁 here’s the list ...
🎨 The Art of Gathering , Priya Parker
💡 The Power of Moments , Chip Heath and Dan Heath
💪 The Coaching Habit , Michael Bungay Stanier
🔎 Insight , Tasha Eurich
🙏 Thanks for the Feedback , Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
🔥 Embrace Your Weird , Felicia Day
⭕The Creative Act, Rick Ruben
🗣️ Find Your Voice , Caroline Goyder
💥The Anatomy of a Breakthrough, Adam Alter
🪄 The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures , Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless
And a bonus book —> 😌 Siddartha , Herman Hesse
Let’s dive right in!
1. 🎨The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker
What makes a gathering effective and memorable? That’s what Parker explores in her book The Art of Gathering. I read this book when it came out in 2018. And I have re-read it several times since.
I have used AoG to design facilitation workshops. It was also my guide for designing my son’s virtual graduation and my mom’s virtual 80th birthday.
My favorite insights:
Have a clear purpose. Knowing your “why” is how you will know what is right and wrong for your event
Don’t be a “chill host”. As the host, it’s your job to set up the rules and set the agenda “selflessly for the sake of others”.
Don’t be afraid of the heat. “Good controversy can make a gathering matter more” when some good can come out of it.
2. 💡The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
What makes for “defining moments” and how can you create more of them? That’s the question that the Heath brothers answer in their book The Power of Moments.
This book helped me to start thinking in moments. It’s helped me shift from designing workshops to designing experiences.
My favorite insights:
Design defining moments. Build “peak experiences” by adding interactive elements that spark emotions.
Break the script. Disrupt routines and welcome humanity and spontaneity into the system.
Create shared meaning. Design a mission that binds people together.
3. 💪The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
To be an exceptional facilitator you need some coaching skills like active listening and asking questions. In the Coaching Habit, Bungay Stanier has distilled the 7 core questions at the heart of exceptional coaching.
These questions have helped me lead better group discussions. It also helped me to understand how asking powerful questions can create conditions for breakthroughs to happen.
My favorite insights:
Stop giving advice and start asking questions. Asking the right question will lead others to find the right solution to the right problem.
Ask what not why. “Why” puts people on the defensive. “What” opens up a conversation.
Get comfortable with silence. Silence lets people think and creates space for learning and insight.
4. 🔎Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, And Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think by Tasha Eurich
Self-awareness can be one of those fuzzy concepts that’s difficult to wrestle down. That’s why I loved the book Insight by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich. She unveils the secrets of self-awareness, what it is, and how to build it.
This book reminded me how crucial it is to keep developing self-awareness to increase safety and trust with groups.
My favorite insights:
Self-awareness is a developable skill. It can be long difficult, and messy. And It never really ends.
Reframing helps increase self-knowledge. Looking from new and different angles gives us an opportunity to grow.
To be truly self-aware we need to know how others see us. Seek out feedback from people who will tell you the truth.
5. 🙏Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
I like giving feedback. But when it comes to receiving feedback, well, that’s a lot harder for me. That’s why I was so happy to discover Thanks for the Feedback by Harvard profs Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen on how to receive feedback well.
This book has made me more open to receiving feedback. It has also helped me understand how to set up a framework for peer feedback in my groups.
My favorite insights:
Understand the feedback. Be curious, ask questions, and understand what they are recommending.
See your blind spots. Ask what others are seeing that is getting in your way.
“Right size” the feedback. Be aware of your own distortions so you can hear the feedback more clearly. And remember – you decide whether you take it or leave it.
6. 🔥Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity by Felicia Day
Day writes a hilarious and profound book about embracing your “weird”. By that, she means the things that make you unique. She argues that your weirdness is the fuel for your creativity.
It’s one of the best and most practical books I’ve read on authenticity - yet another exceptional facilitation superpower.
My favorite insights:
Being weird is about being yourself. Channeling that uniqueness helps others build trust in you.
We need to know the truth about ourselves to create. That means taking time to build our self-knowledge.
Self-awareness is a muscle we need to flex. It will make us more comfortable expressing our point of view.
7. ⭕The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Ruben
My early facilitation mentors showed me that leading groups is a highly creative endeavor. I was reminded of them when I read The Creative Act by nine-time Grammy-winning producer Rick Ruben. In it, Ruben shares his lessons on creativity from years of getting the best out of groups of musicians.
This book helped me understand the often invisible elements of being an effective guide. Especially being willing to listen for the things in groups that want to be said that haven’t yet surfaced.
My favorite insights:
Look inward. If we focus on what’s going on inside ourselves - sensations, emotions, the patterns of our thoughts - a wealth of material can be found.
Lower the stakes. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without an attachment to the results.
Accept self-doubt. By accepting self-doubt, rather than trying to eliminate or repress it, we lessen its energy and interference.
8. 💥The Anatomy of a Breakthrough: Get Unstuck and Unlock Your Potential by Adam Alter.
All of us go through episodes of being stuck. Be it at work, with creative pursuits, or in relationships – just to name a few examples. But what if there was a proven plan to get unstuck and breakthrough? That’s the question that Adam Alter seeks to answer.
This is the best book I’ve read on breakthroughs and how you can create the conditions for them to happen - for yourself and for your groups.
My favourite insights:
Getting unstuck almost always takes longer than we expect. Too often we surrender just a few steps short of the finish line.
Aha! moments are more likely to arise the longer you spend immersed in a creative pursuit. You may not know when breakthroughs are going to happen. But you’ll have a better chance of stumbling on them if you give them time to flourish.
The richest advances come from getting stuck and then unstuck over and over. Over time your ideas improve. You discard strategies and approaches that don’t work.
9. 🗣️Find Your Voice: The Secret to Talking with Confidence in Any Situation by Caroline Goyder
What really helps you connect to your relaxed, expressive, confident power? That’s what voice coach Caroline Goyder reveals in her book Find Your Voice.
Find Your Voice taught me how voice and breath are connected to presence – yet another facilitator superpower. And thanks to Caroline I now sing before every live session to help me tune up my voice.
My favorite insights:
Your voice is an instrument that improves with practice. The best way to practice is to sing (I have tried it – it works!).
Your diaphragm is the “king of confidence”. It helps you to control stress and keep calm in front of an audience.
We breathe our thoughts. Understanding how to use your breath is the secret to developing your presence.
10.🪄The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash a Culture of Innovation by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless
A book by two seasoned veterans of organizational change and innovation. It gets to the heart of how to engage people so they can collaborate, learn, and discover solutions together.
This book helped me understand how to tap a group’s collective intelligence. And it gave me simple and easy methods to do this.
My favorite insights:
Structure helps get things done: To get the best out of groups you want to aim for well-structured and distributed control (not too much or too little control).
Engaging people is not difficult. Liberating structures are techniques that are easy to learn and apply without special skills or formal training.
In person time is for interaction. Time together is best used be used for discussing, collaborating, asking, and explaining - not lecturing.
Bonus Book: 😌Siddartha, Herman Hesse
You may be wondering what Hesse’s epic book on enlightenment is doing on our facilitator reading list. Good question!
This book helped me understand some of the more profound concepts of exceptional facilitation that are not always easy to grasp. Concepts like attunement, deep listening, curiosity, engaging our many ways of knowing, and more.
My favorite insights:
You cannot learn by studying alone, nor only through life experience. It is the combination of the two that leads to true understanding.
We all have many ways of knowing. Finding out how to engage these ways can help you examine your own assumptions and free you of the expectations that others have of you.
Nature is often our best teacher. It was a river that teaches Siddartha his most profound life lessons.
Gwyn Wansbrough is a Facilitator and Experience Designer based in Barcelona, Spain. She helps online professionals design & lead instantly engaging virtual group sessions with training and coaching. She runs an online cohort-based course called Breakthrough Facilitation. She writes a weekly newsletter called The Quest with actionable insights and tips on leading exceptional online sessions. Visit www.gwynwansbrough.com to learn more.