In the everyday business setting, managers regularly suppress reflection and discussion in favour of action because the day-to-day pressures of work make it difficult to take anything other than the short term view. Team facilitation provides an opportunity for to break from the daily activity and reflect on the bigger issues .

Facilitation provides an opportunity for groups to develop shared mental models by integrating data, ultimately leading to a course of action. In their book Facilitating Groups to Drive Change Bettina Buchel and Ivan Moss have carried out valuable research on when facilitation is best used and how to ensure success from the intervention. They conclude that facilitation is best used when there is low perceived urgency for change and low organizational readiness. In this event facilitated events are a key tool for any change leader.

External v Internal Facilitator
Through their research Buchel and Moss have identified the situations where internal or external is most appropriate.

An internal facilitator is better when

• Good knowledge of the group members, other people in the organization and organizational culture is important.
• Detailed understanding of the business processes and technical issues is important
• Transaction costs of planning and managing the facilitation need to be kept low
• You consider these benefits to outweigh the risks of the internal facilitator having less independence and more preconceptions of the issues at hand (and of the group having preconceptions and influence over the internal facilitator.

An external facilitator is better when

• The facilitators autonomy is important, enabling them to be seen as totally neutral
• Providing a challenge to the organizations thinking is important
• There is an inequality of power, status and position (or verbosity) among participants
• You consider these benefits are more important than the risks of the external facilitator having less knowledge and understanding of the business