Reflects on the impact of politics on facilitation. The aim of facilitation is to establish and maintain an environment in which learning is created. Central to this aim is the need to work with power relations between organisations, groups and facilitators. Facilitation may be thought of as a part of the political dynamics at play in systems. Discusses three propositions: that organisations are political, facilitation is political and facilitators are political. Proposes a framework showing four positions of awareness about the politics of facilitation. Offers the framework to those who wish to learn more about being a facilitator, and to those who wish to teach others about facilitation. Aims to add to understanding about how facilitators may act more confidently, authoritatively and ethically in the complex, dynamic and unpredictable role of facilitator.

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Research was commissioned to identify the competences that are required by local authority chief executives in the UK. It emerged that the “competence approach” was inappropriate for their needs. Instead, “capacity” – a concept originating in psychoanalytic theory – was adopted as one which reflected better the reality of the chief executive’s role. Through a qualitative research approach with a sample of chief executives, five capacities were identified. These were seen as central to the effective performance of the chief executive’s role. The research suggests that policies concerned with the development of chief executives should not be based on an orthodox competence approach. It recommends the use of “capacity” as a better way of conveying chief executives’ capabilities to “hold” many interconnected, dynamic and paradoxical dimensions in their work.

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Can the worst time for an organisation provide the best circumstances for management learning? One UK local authority began a management development programme 18 months before a wholescale reorganisation. This was not regarded as a rational thing to do. Explores the messiness and the politics that had to be worked with by those believing that a programme was necessary. However, training anxious and cynical managers about rational strategic models of change would be wholly inappropriate. Instead, the programme addressed the often hidden struggles, messiness, anxiety, incertainty and politics which influence management learning in a complex and turbulent organisation. The article outline participants’ feelings about the learning processes, and explains how connections were made between personal learning and organisational change. Finally it assesses the programme’s outcomes, concluding that this “bad time” for the organisation resulted in the development of managers’ ability to handle a terrifying amount of change.