Are you a good facilitator?

You may be able to chair meetings or manage team projects, but do you have the skills and ability to be a good facilitator?

If you are the manager of a team or chairing a meeting you may well lead the meeting or project to move in the direction that you want them to go in and seek to influence decisions so that they comply with your personal aims and objectives, this is not facilitating. Training too differs from facilitation in that the trainer takes the lead role and in many ways can dictate what the learning objectives and learning outcomes are and drives the communication process in order to achieve that process. So we have defined what facilitation is NOT, then what is it?

On one level a facilitator is a person who makes things happen e.g. is an organiser or provider of administration services. However, a business facilitator is a person who is an enabler, i.e. someone who provides others with the ability, means or opportunity to find their own solutions to problems or issues. They can also be a catalyst to develop strategy or implement organisational change. Facilitation is an acquired skill and the ability to facilitate effectively improves more and more with experience.

A facilitator is a good organiser with regard to meetings, developing agendas, keeping records of discussions and interactions effective time management and driving effective communication especially of any specific actions that are required with responsibilities and timescales. They must be able to define and at times bring the group or meeting back to the aims and objectives of the interaction and the planned outputs. They need to enable others to communicate with respect and also be able to understand human interactions and how conflict can be resolved. They must be able to assist all individuals to make an active contribution to discussions and use a range of questions in order to stimulate discussion and assist participants to reach appropriate conclusions. Facilitators must be able to intervene effectively and if agreement cannot be reached, assist individuals or teams to understand the reasons why there are differences of opinion and the options available to seek to reach consensus. In short facilitators must be good communicators, flexible, able to think on their feet, sensitive and unbiased; well do you fit the bill?