Think Better. Collaborate Better.

What Great Facilitators Notice Before Anyone Else

Gathering the right stakeholders to co-create shared direction for society's most complex challenges. A few days ago I made what, at first sight, looked like a very small change. I updated my LinkedIn headline and replaced the different descriptions I had been using over the years with a much simpler one:

A polished LinkedIn post can appear to have been created in a single moment: one photograph, one prompt and a few seconds of artificial intelligence.

Or, in plain English: looking back at the first semester of the year, and trying to make sense of what the second one is asking from me.

Reflections from Digital Tourist 2026 in Benidorm. On 7 and 8 May 2026, I had the opportunity to participate in Digital Tourist 2026 in Benidorm, Spain — an event that brought together public leaders, technology providers, tourism experts and territorial innovators to explore the future of smart destinations.

In my previous article, I explored how the "Just Stand There" philosophy of Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff depends on a robust external architecture. I connected that architecture with the Roundtable Principles: the conditions that allow a group to participate, think and act together.

In their seminal book Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!, Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff offer a piece of advice that feels like heresy to the modern leader: Stop helping. They argue that most facilitators and managers intervene too much, driven by their own anxiety to "fix" a group's confusion. Their solution? Master your internal state, set...

There are moments in the life of a professional community when something seemingly small reveals a much larger shift.

In the lead-up to Birmingham, I had the opportunity to read a piece of work that deserves our attention. A study led by Hideyuki Yoshioka and Linmin Zhang gathered reflections from 81 facilitators worldwide as part of their AI Persona co-creation project.

If you've been living — as I have — in the world of workshops, facilitation, and digital collaboration, you probably crossed paths with Butter.