Facilitation…
I was talking to a colleague at work today about what kind of job is a good one to be in and requires a skill set that will always be in demand. It was an interesting conversation but we ended up talking about being a facilitator. Every company holds meetings every day and every company struggles in most of those meetings in the area of agenda control, goal setting and flow. The problem is a fairly straightforward one; usually the facilitator is someone who has a vested interest in the outcome of the meeting and has ’skin in the game’ so to speak. A good facilitator has no skin in the game and runs the meeting as an interested outsider, moving through the agenda towards a conclusion.
I consider myself a good facilitator. Indeed I facilitate meetings on a daily basis with different project teams that have different agendas and we generally get to a very good outcome by the end of the meeting. What is it that makes a good facilitator though? It’s a set of ‘soft skills‘ that doesn’t seem to be taught and varies enormously depending on the situation in hand. My colleague and I had a hard time just trying to verbalize the soft skills required.
I think that one of the reasons why people are generally not good facilitators is that they are not comfortable in the role of teacher, trainer and speaker. It’s tough to stand up in front of a group of people and talk about something. Yes, I know facilitators don’t exactly have to do this but they do have to have the confidence level that is demanded by these roles and also be able to understand other people’s body signals given in these roles. In order to control a meeting and lead it to its outcome you need to be able to read people and know when to jump in or let things go.
I run a trivia night (aka quiz night) once a week at a local Irish pub and I really believe that this has helped me become a better facilitator. Having to stand up in front of a crowd of 50+ people every weekand keep them entertained for an hour and a half is not the easiest task in the world, but it is one that has taught me many things.
I am sure many of you facilitate meetings on a regular basis, but what are you doing to become a better facilitator? How do you judge the reactions of the crowd? How do you stay removed from the minutia of the meeting and not have too much skin in the game? How do you ensure you are fair in your facilitation and get everyone’s involvement without belittling, ignoring or trampling on others? I would suggest the first step is to push your envelope a little and get out there and teach, train or speak some.
I’ll post some more thoughts on this subject soon.
