Values that shape how we learn, practise, contribute, and steward
At The Facilitators’ Muse™, values are more than statements of what matters to us.
They influence how we approach professional practice, learn from experience, work with others, and contribute to the continuing development of facilitation.
Our values are interconnected. Together, they reflect a view of facilitation as a practice profession—one in which professional judgement and practical wisdom continue to develop through experience, reflection, inquiry, learning, and contribution.
Curiosity
We remain open to what we do not yet know.
Curiosity keeps practice alive.
It invites us to notice what is happening, question assumptions, explore different perspectives, and remain interested in what experience may still have to teach us.
Rather than rushing toward certainty, we make room for questions worth staying with.
“We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released.”
— Jean Houston
Reflective Practice
We examine experience so that experience can become learning.
Experience alone does not necessarily produce wisdom.
Reflection helps us notice patterns, reconsider choices, surface assumptions, and understand more deeply what happened, what shaped our choices, and what we might carry forward.
For TFM, reflection is not an occasional activity.
It is part of professional practice.
Participation
We create conditions in which people can contribute meaningfully.
Participation is more than giving people an opportunity to speak.
It requires thoughtful attention to whose voices are present, whose may be missing, how power shapes participation, and what conditions enable people to contribute meaningfully.
Meaningful participation strengthens both the process and what becomes possible through it.
Collective Wisdom
We trust that important knowledge can emerge through people thinking together.
No single practitioner, method, organization, or tradition holds all the wisdom the profession needs.
TFM values dialogue, practitioner experience, research, inquiry, diverse perspectives, and collective sense-making.
Professional knowledge grows when insight is shared, examined, tested, and carried forward together.
“We can be wise only together.”
— Margaret J. Wheatley
Stewardship
We care for what we inherit, what we create, and what we leave for others.
Professional knowledge is something to develop and share—but also care for.
Stewardship asks us to preserve useful knowledge, acknowledge its sources, refine it as understanding develops, and contribute what we learn to the profession.
It shifts the question from simply:
What can I learn?
to:
What am I responsible for carrying forward?
Integrity
We seek alignment between what we believe, what we say, and how we practise.
Integrity calls for professional honesty, ethical awareness, transparency, and responsibility for how we practise.
It includes acknowledging uncertainty, recognizing the limits of our knowledge, respecting the contributions of others, and being willing to examine our own practice as carefully as we examine the work around us.
“Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean.”
— Don Miguel Ruiz
Courage
We are willing to remain present when the work becomes difficult.
Professional practice sometimes asks us to surface what is being avoided, challenge assumptions, reconsider long-held beliefs, acknowledge uncertainty, or enter conversations where the way forward is not yet clear.
Courage does not require certainty.
It requires a willingness to stay engaged with complexity, difference, vulnerability, and learning.
“There is no courage without vulnerability.”
— Brené Brown
Practical Wisdom
We bring knowledge, experience, judgement, context, and discernment together in practice.
Professional facilitation is more than the competent application of methods.
Practical wisdom develops as practitioners learn to interpret what a particular situation requires:
when to use a method,
when to adapt it,
when to slow down,
when to intervene,
and sometimes when not to intervene at all.
It is judgement shaped through reflection, learning, experience, inquiry, ethics, and practice.
“We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.”
— Malcolm Gladwell
Continuous Learning
We regard professional growth as an ongoing responsibility.
The defining characteristic of a professional is not simply what they already know, but their capacity and commitment to continue learning.
Methods change.
Contexts change.
Groups change.
Practitioners change.
And the profession itself continues to evolve.
We approach professional development not as something to complete, but as a lifelong process of learning, judgement, wisdom, and contribution.
The Values Spiral™
Our values do not operate independently.
Within the TFM Knowledge System, they form the Values Spiral™:
Curiosity → Reflective Practice → Participation → Collective Wisdom → Stewardship → Practical Wisdom → Continuous Learning
Integrity and Courage underpin the entire spiral.
Curiosity opens inquiry.
Reflection deepens understanding.
Participation brings experience and perspective into the conversation.
Collective wisdom allows new understanding to emerge.
Stewardship carries that knowledge forward.
Practical wisdom brings what we have learned back into practice.
Continuous learning begins the cycle again.
Integrity and courage help us remain faithful to the work throughout.
Values in Practice
Ultimately, values become meaningful through practice.
They can be seen in the questions we ask, the conversations we make possible, the perspectives we seek, the sources we acknowledge, the decisions we take time to discern, the learning we carry forward, and the knowledge we choose to contribute.
For The Facilitators’ Muse™, this is part of what it means to:
Nourish the Facilitator. Advance the Practice.
The Muse asks:
Which value is asking more of you in your practice right now?