Facilitation is one of the best ways to make your meetings efficient, and your group content with the way decisions are made. With a little effort your meetings will be a whole lot better.
Aston University P&P use facilitation techniques during a group meeting
Image © Jennie Dodson
Meetings: don’tcha love’em?
How many times have you been in a meeting that…
- …went round in circles?
- …was dominated by just a few people?
- …went on longer than planned?
Group meetings are an essential part of campaigning. They are our discussion forum, our main planning tool and an opportunity to share successes and disappointments. A good meeting not only gets work done, but also involves, supports and empowers.
Good “facilitation” can help to make all these things happen and prevent difficult meeting problems from occurring.
So what is facilitation?
Facilitation moves away from the idea of leadership such as a ‘chair’ to the idea of service. The facilitator(s) is(/are) a neutral servant of the group who encourages participation, maintains group processes, resolves conflict and makes agreed tasks happen. Facilitation involves the whole group and not just one person.
Chair vs Facilitator
In comparison to a chair, the facilitor is:
- appointed at each meeting rather than elected;
- is given power by the group rather than having power over them;
- doesn’t participate in discussions unless stepping out of their role;
- uses consensus to take all views into account.
Was the meeting successful?
Outcome |
Process |
|---|---|
What got done? Did problems get solved and things planned to meet the objectives of the group? |
How did it get done? How did people feel? Did the meeting make good use of everyone’s talents? Was it enjoyable? |
Outcome and Process
The facilitator(s) create a balance between getting things done and feeling good about the way they were achieved. Facilitation can be broken down into OUTCOME and PROCESS roles. These are roles that need doing before, during and after meetings. The following pages look at these roles and useful tools for fulfilling them.
Being a good facilitator
Anyone can learn to facilitate meetings and P&P does excellent training to help your group use these tools. A few skills and qualities will really help you:
- Little emotional investment in the issues discussed. Avoid manipulating the meeting towards a particular outcome. If this is difficult, step out of the role and let someone else facilitate.
- Energy and attention to the job in hand.
- Good listening skills including strategic questioning to be able to understand everyone’s viewpoint properly.
- Confidence that good solutions will be found and consensus can be achieved.
- Assertiveness that is not overbearing, knowing when to intervene to give some direction to the meeting.
- Respect for all participants and interest in what each individual has to offer.
- Clear thinking, observation of the whole group and both the discussion and the process.