Facilitating Q&A

What are my responsibilities as a Facilitator?
I consider this, whenever I do this particular role. Its answer can be deceptively simple - I'm there to help. "Help in what?" would be the next obvious question... and I would probably reply, help in making the person or persons that I am facilitating, better understand and appreciate the reasons we are meeting / training and help them achieve goals that they may be able to achieve by themselves (I'll take nothing away from them on this possibility) but will definitely get a whole lot more perspective with me doing the guiding part.

Boy, that was a mouthful (or should I say keyboardful?).

Why'd I get into this?
I guess it was a seeming knack for communicating to others - seeing their POV and addressing my case / position / trainings to address their POV.

How'd I get to be such a sensitive guy...?
Maybe it stems from the fact that I was rather frustrated with some of my teachers "I'm here to fail you, not help you attitude" in college. Sort of reminds me of a friend who majored in Math since he was frustrated with the way his instructors taught him - or did not teach him.

Is this something anyone can just do?
Sure, why not? All one needs is the proper skills (that can be learned) on facilitating, the necessary understanding of what the topic might be is a given - though some people may swing this one, even if they have little or no knowledge of what the topic may be. I say 'may', but will not reccomend it.

Another, more important aspect of facilitating is the need to have the right attitude - just like customer service, this means wanting to help... really wanting. One cannot fake emotions and get away with it all the time.

Is it worth it?
This is the kicker - and we can get all emotional or philosophical here. Suffice it to say that if one did not like what he / she was doing - they'd not last long in this field. After all, though I will not agree to the statement that its not just material gains (in some way, this is a deciding factor too), the self-fulfillment can be high in this regard... if that is your cup of tea.

So far, thats all I can think of.