YOU NEED TO BE A GOOD FACILITATOR

I remember my last mentor saying to me,
“Craig if I had realised that, as a leader, I would spend the majority of my time either leading a group or in a group, I would have learnt a lot more about how to facilitate group process”.

If you have been a leader for more than a year you know he was speaking wisdom and truth. Think about all of the meetings you are in, they are groups needing to be lead with skill. Some groups’ are permanent (your team), others are temporary (those groups that come together to deal with a singular issue or project).

For all the time that we spend in groups, very few understand how group process works and how to facilitate with skill.

When done well, facilitating a group or meeting looks effortless. It looks like the person is hardly doing anything and anyone could do it. However, we all know the feeling of frustration when a group or meeting is not facilitated well. We walk away feeling like our time has been wasted, we have been disrespected, even angry and many other feelings.

I have the privilege of facilitating many groups. I can tell you of some horror stories of times where I got blindsided, side-tracked or the process I designed just didn’t work at all. When I look back on those I see it was a skill issue more than anything.

Facilitation as a skill is something that I believe every leader needs to invest in and learn more about because it helps in multiple areas. Here are a few:

• Meeting are run more efficiently
• Employees feel that their opinion is valued
• Employees feel more engaged
• You get better outcomes because the discussion is fuller
• You avoid unnecessary conflict (and provoke it when it needed)
• It helps build a safe space where innovation and relationships can flourish

What is Facilitation?

To facilitate is “to make easier” or “help bring about.” (Merriam Webster). Thus, facilitation is about helping to smoothly manage the flow and discussions of a meeting or event. The facilitator guides the dialogue and attempts to maximize member’s time and energy by keeping the event and discussions on track – in terms of time and topic. By taking a group through a process that produces a specific outcome (learning, decision-making, problem-solving, etc.), facilitation generally encourages all members to participate in some way, shape or form. By recognizing and utilizing the unique and valuable contributions of each member, an effective facilitator increases the collective value of the entire community. By managing the group process, the facilitator plays an active and critical role in ensuring that a group taps deeply into its own knowledge.

What Makes a Good Facilitator?

Competent facilitators have both personal characteristics and acquired skills that make them good at what they do.

Some key characteristics are:

• Good facilitators value people and their ideas
• Good facilitators think quickly and logically
• Good facilitators are excellent communicators
• Good facilitators are both product and process oriented
• Good facilitators have high emotional intelligence skills
• Good facilitators are courageous.

Think of a good facilitator like a conductor of an orchestra.

Creating a Productive Group Process

Many people think that facilitation is about turning up and seeing what happens.
Facilitators must pay attention to at least three threads of interaction with the participants: structure, content, and process.

Structure can simply be seen as the workshop itself, its agenda, exercises, deliverables, formats. Typically what most think of as process can be reduced to structural components. Structure provides the framework for activities, leading to deliverables. It is the “what” the workshop is about.

Content is the “why” of the meeting or workshop. Participants are most concerned with organizing, designing, and making something of value with their time. The content deals with the facts and ideas related to the purpose of the meeting.. Usually the facilitator doesn’t contribute to this area, but must attend to its progress, to the productive creation of the content.

Process. Process can be thought of as the “how” of the meeting or workshop. Designing and attending to the way in which the meeting structure unfolds, the way in which content is developed. The facilitator becomes fully present to process trends in the group, along the dimensions of affinity, emotion, agreement, cooperation, values, and even spirit. Effective process facilitation requires taking the risk of dealing with human issues in the team, which raises the possibility of irritating those who merely want to proceed with “business as usual.” Minor detours to handle group process concerns are often necessary, and these excursions prevent major delays caused when unmanaged issues blow up into conflicts later.

Logistics and Room Arrangements

Believe it or not: how people sit, whether they are hungry and whether they can hear can make or break your planning process. As a facilitator, the logistics of the meeting should be of great concern to you, whether you’re responsible for them or not. Some things to consider are:

Chair arrangements: Having chairs in a circle or around a table encourages discussion, equality, and familiarity. Speaker’s podiums and lecture style seating make people feel intimidated and formal. Avoid them at all costs.

Places to hang flipchart paper: You may be using a lot of flipchart paper during your meeting. Can you use tape without damaging the walls? Is an easel available? Is there enough space so that you can keep important material visible instead of removing it?

Structuring a Meeting as a Facilitator

There are typically two versions of an agenda. The participant agenda is the concise version participants receive before a meeting. At a minimum, the participant agenda includes the meeting title, location, start and end times, objectives, discussion topics, and information about how and when attendees will participate. The participant agenda is a clear and streamlined version of the detailed process agenda. The process agenda has the additional information the facilitator and meeting leaders need to ensure that the meeting runs smoothly. Putting together the detailed process agenda helps the meeting leaders think through the details of the entire session.

The letters “OPQRST” provide an easy way to remember the six components of a process agenda:

• Order of the facilitation processes (the agenda) and specific Objective for each
• Process techniques used to gather information throughout each process (e.g., listing, brainstorming, grouping, prioritizing, sticky-dot voting, etc.)
• Question (starting question) and the explanation given to initiate each facilitated process
• Recording method used to document the information as it is received during each process (e.g., three-column matrix)
• Supplies needed to perform each process (e.g., Post-it notes, dots)
• Timing and estimated duration for each process

Do you want an open discussion, or a structured process?

An open discussion, well facilitated, may be the simplest option for your group process. But ask yourself whether you will be able to achieve the participation you need, and manage the discussion with the number of participants involved with this format.

Some considerations:

• Can you cover the variety of topics needed?
• Can you generate enough ideas and solutions?
• Will everyone participate?
• And can you involve everyone, and get their buy-in?

What structured process should you choose?

If you need to accommodate participation from a large group, consider smaller “break-out” groups. Are you concerned about getting enough participation? Then give people time in the agenda to think about and write down the things they want to contribute.

Other factors to consider
You won’t be able to change some constraints. However, you may be able to change others to optimize your process and agenda. As part of this, consider:

• The number of participants.
• The nature of the topics under discussion.
• The type of involvement people need to have.
• The background and positions of the participants.
• How well they know the subject – and each other.
• The time you have available.

Remember, whatever group process you define; it’s a question of keeping your focus on outcomes. Find the best way to achieve the objectives of the overall event.

Designing the Flow

When you are thinking of the outcome, you want to reverse engineer. Some of the questions I am asking myself when designing a process.

• How do help people feel comfortable to share their ideas?
• What things to I need to get people to think about in order to move us forward? This will tell you what questions to ask?
• If I ask that’ question, where might the discussion go?
• How do I get information out of people’s heads and into the room in an orderly, manageable amount?

Attending to Information and Decision-Making

The following concepts are helpful models for facilitators and meeting leaders. The models enhance insight into group interactions and will help to design the agenda and facilitate discussion. Stages of a Discussion Meetings can be viewed as a series of discussions with three phases.

1. Opening – where multiple ideas are generated and clarified, or information is gathered. This phase includes brainstorming, general discussion, and question and answer sessions
2. Narrowing – where the information gathered is organized by eliminating duplicate ideas, combining similar ideas, or evaluating options.
3. Closing – where decisions are made, priorities are selected, or agreement is reached.

Viewing discussions in this way helps facilitators keep the group focused on specific tasks. For example, during the opening phase of a discussion, a facilitator will encourage participants not to evaluate any ideas but just to generate as many ideas as possible.

During the closing phase of a discussion, it can be useful for the group to use specific criteria for deciding on a preferred solution or prioritizing options. For example, if the organization is trying to decide on the best projects to take on over the next year, the criteria for prioritizing may be that the project (a) be feasible given current resources and (b) advance the mission of the organization.

Guide and Control the Event

With the agenda and group process in place, it’s time to think about how you’ll guide and control the proceedings. There’s still some preparation to do for this, and then there’s whole business of guiding and controlling the event itself.

The final stage of preparation is to think about how you’ll guide and control the meeting. This is where you prepare the ground rules for the event, polish your facilitation skills, and also consider some what-if scenarios: What if there is major disagreement? What if a solution does not emerge? and so on.

At the meeting itself, as facilitator, you’ll set the scene and ensure that participants are clear about the desired outcome, the agenda, the ground rules and expectations for the event. By doing this, you help everyone focus on the task at hand. At the start of the meeting, and throughout, your role is to use to ensure the meeting keeps progressing towards a successful outcome.

To guide and control the meeting, you will need to:

• Set the ground rules – What rules should participants follow in the meeting? How will people interact? How will you ensure that people respect each others ideas? How will questions be handled? You’ll prepare some ground rules in advance, and propose and seek agreement to these at the start of the event.
• Set the scene – Here, you’ll run through the objectives and agenda. Make sure that everyone understands their role, and what the group is seeking to achieve.
• Get things flowing – You’ll need to make sure that everyone introduces themselves, or perhaps use appropriate icebreakersto get the meeting off to a positive start.
• Keep up the momentum and energy – You might need to intervene as the proceedings and energy levels proceed. Make sure that people remain focused and interested. (If energy levels are beginning to flag, perhaps it’s time to take a break?)
• Listen, engage and include – Even though, as facilitator, you’re taking a neutral stance, you need to stay alert, listen actively, and remain interested and engaged. This sets a good example for other participants, and also means you are always ready to intervene in facilitative ways. Is everyone engaged? If not, how can you bring them in? How can you get better participation?
• Monitor checkpoints, and summarize – Keep in control of the agenda, tell people what they’ve achieved and what’s next; Summarize often.
• Intervene only if absolutely required.

Tips to Remember:

• As a facilitator, there are many situations in which you may need to intervene. Rehearse when and how you’ll do this. Keep the lightest of touch. And bear in mind the need to remain objective, keep focus on the desired outcomes, and generally maintain a positive flow.
• The most difficult types of intervention are those involving conflict, anger and disagreement. Remembering your role, it’s important to focus on the needs of the group, whilst considering the feelings and position of both parties involved in any disagreement.
• To keep the event flowing and positive:
  • Watch for and close any side conversations. These limit the ability of others to focus, and often people are exchanging ideas that should be brought to the group.
  • Keep a close eye on the timing. Be flexible, and balance the need for participation with the need to keep things running efficiently.
  • Learn what to do when a discussion isn’t reaching a natural conclusion. Is more information needed? When and how will the discussion proceed? Park topics that cannot be concluded, and ensure that action time is scheduled to address these issues.
  • Be on the lookout for people who aren’t participating fully. Are they experiencing discomfort? What is the source of the discomfort? What can you do to bring them into the conversation?
  • Pay attention to group behaviour, both verbal and non-verbal. Some of the most damaging behaviour is silent, so know how to spot it and stop it effectively.
  • Step in and mediate immediately if there are obvious personal attacks. Effective facilitators look for the least intrusive intervention first, so reminding everyone of the ground rules is often a good place to start. Whatever the issue, you can’t allow bad behaviour to continue so be prepared to take the steps necessary to stop attacks.