Book excerpt: Today, maybe more than any point in our history, facilitation--the philosophy, the skill, the process and the profession--is critical to our continued evolution as individuals, as groups, as organizations and as societies. To survive and thrive, we need to harness the power of facilitation to help us hold the authentic and intentional conversations that will help us understand ourselves, each other and the world around us. Thinking together is the only way we will be able to grow through the chaos and disruption and end up in a better place. 2020 has been an extraordinary year! A global pandemic, economic upheaval, leadership changes and system level changes that rival those not seen since the First and Second World Wars. But whether we think back on this as a time of growth, chaos or disruption, it is what we do next that will define the outcomes. Our collective purpose of writing this book was to inspire you, the reader, to discover and unleash the power of facilitation in yourself and in others. All solutions start with a conversation. This book is intended to help you begin your own very interesting conversations and our hope is that this book will act as the catalyst to help you do that. We also hope that you will be inspired to weave facilitation and facilitative principles throughout your life, your interactions, your thinking, your decision-making and your actions. But most of all we hope that you will take the ideas, examples and concepts described in the following chapters and apply them in your groups, organizations and communities.