The Importance of Environment for a Successful Facilitation

contributed by Sharon Carruthers

The facilitator is not only responsible to ensure that the group achieves the agreed tangible outcomes. Of equal importance, the facilitator ensures that participants feel involved and engaged throughout the process, buy in to the results and are committed to implementing agreed actions – i.e. their experience during the process and how they feel at the end of the process.

Facilitators utilize many facilitation skills and techniques to encourage all group members to participate fully, remain fully engaged, collaborate, effectively deal with conflict and make meaningful decisions in an efficient and effective manner, and gain the desired results. Effective facilitators know that the environment in which the group works is very important to ensuring these results. When group members are relaxed, comfortable, energized, enjoying what they are doing, and feel safe, this stimulates creativity and teamwork, helps generate ideas and keeps participants engaged for as long as is necessary to achieve desired results.

This is why at GF we spend so much time, effort and money on creating and maintaining the right environment. It begins with the selection of the venue. We always recommend that groups come out of their normal office environment and go somewhere scenic and away from distractions. It continues with the layout of the rooms – round tables for collaboration versus classroom style, to the use of ice breakers and energizers, bright colours – (markers, coloured paper), music, table toys, prizes, fun activities and games.

In any GF workshop you will observe laughter, active engagement of all in games and other fun activities, and colours galore. In this newsletter you will see some photos of us at work in creating environments where participants are having fun while working hard.

So as you select a facilitator or seek to enhance your own facilitation skills, consider the importance of creating and maintaining the right environment to the success of the event. A successful workshop is much more than the facilitator just showing up with flipchart and markers!

Facilitation - A Powerful Tool for Group Effectiveness (contributed by Sandra Cooper, CPF)

One of the realities of organisational life is that groups are needed to do what cannot be done by individuals alone. However, working groups are not always effective. Capable, talented individuals are often frustrated by the myriad challenges unearthed when they come together to get things done, challenges such as:

Long-winded discussions without resolution
Lack of buy-in to group goals and decisions
Domineering leader or group members
Personality differences and clashes causing lack of cooperation
Members giving in to decisions without really supporting them
Decisions, actions and responsibilities not formally recorded, so members “forget” or are not clear about what was said from meeting to meeting

And the list could go on and on. A group is as complex and difficult as the sum total of the problems and people that comprise it. Without skilled leadership and good process management, groups will not be as effective as they could be. More and more organizations are recognizing this and are increasingly drawing on those with facilitation skills to help in addressing this phenomenon.

What is Facilitation?

Facilitation is a form of leading and communicating with the intent of achieving results with maximum creativity, involvement and commitment to a task. It involves the use of a rich and well-defined set of internationally recognised tools and practices that improve group effectiveness by overcoming some of the inherent difficulties of working in groups, and makes the work of the group easier (facile – to make easy), while achieving the best possible results. Let’s look at an example. Meetings are the fundamental way people get together as a group and the arena in which decisions are often made. Yet people complain of spending their lives in unproductive meetings without accomplishing any “real” work. Many organizations have learned over a long history of unproductive and contentious meetings that results don’t happen just by bringing team members together in one room. Anyone who has sat in a meeting that was dominated by one member, that never produced an action plan, that was sparsely attended, or that was punctuated by cell phones ringing every two minutes and team members running out of the room constantly, will agree that meetings need guidance and structure, ground rules, and results. Unless an organization sets out to intentionally cause productive meetings, poor meeting practices become a habit. Facilitators are needed more than ever to help organizations improve meeting productivity by providing focus and structure, managing the meeting environment, addressing disruptions, difficulties or conflict, soliciting feedback and careful recording of the output and results generated by the group.

The Role of the Facilitator

The facilitator’s role is to manage the process and to remain neutral about the content of the discussion. The process is how group members work together and interact with each other and how decisions are made. Content refers to the ideas generated, the arguments proposed, the decisions made and the actions planned. The facilitator takes an active role describing, suggesting, leading and intervening so as to make it easier for the group to complete its tasks successfully. A skilled facilitator continually considers questions like: Are the objectives clear? Are they being adhered to? Is the meeting on schedule? Are people listening to one another? Who talks with whom? Is everyone contributing? Is the energy level of the group high or low? While working with a group, he of she can:

Draw out participation
Encourage dialogue among participants and different points of view
Listen actively and asks others to do the same
Record, organize and summarize input from group members
Move the group through stages of group decision making and consensus
Help the group resolve conflict in a positive and productive way
Encourage the group to evaluate its own progress and development
Protect group members and their ideas from attack or being ignored
Emphasize that the group is a reservoir of knowledge, experience, and creativity and use facilitation skills to tap this resource

Who Can Become a Facilitator?

Just about any professional in an organisation with good communication and interpersonal skills can become a facilitator. Indeed, it makes good sense for team leaders and department managers to develop facilitation skills so as to support their work group in achieving its objectives and in maximizing effectiveness. Teams that need to develop corporate strategies, make decisions, plot technical directions, plan consistent communications messages, or do any of the myriad of other organizational direction-setting activities need a discussion leader. They need a facilitator who can lead them into focused areas of discussion, can assist in recording and clarifying proposals and ideas, can diplomatically move past controversial and unproductive arguments, and can apply a structured process to getting results from meetings. Facilitation is also a skill that every consultant needs to develop, one that produces results for clients in ways that pure technical or subject-matter expertise never could.

Dynamic Facilitation Opens Doors of New Possibility

In today’s economic climate of stretched resources, uncertainty and unpredictability, can you imagine a workplace environment where there is open communication, teamwork and harmonious interpersonal relationships prevailing at all levels of the organization? Such a state of organisational utopia in not as far-fetched as it may seem, indeed, the participative nature of facilitation opens doors of new possibility as:

Employees are more motivated to support decisions made
Maximum participation and involvement increase productivity
Managers and leaders are better able to draw on those they lead as resources, an ability that is critical to organizational success
Everyone has a chance to be influential and useful, and people sense that they are an integral part of a team effort
Organizations can be flexible and produce results more quickly because people are committed to the decisions made
People realise that the responsibility for implementing decisions lies with everyone
Innovation and problem-solving skills are built
People are encouraged to think and act for the overall good of the organisation
Negative effects such as low morale, low involvement, and withholding information from others, as well as attitudes such as “It’s not my job” are less likely

There are so many events and activities that can benefit from the intervention of a skilled facilitator. These include but are not limited to Strategic Planning, Crisis Management, Creative Problem-solving, Visioning, Staff meetings, Trust Building and Team Building, Conflict Resolution and Mediation.

Facilitation and the Way Forward

In the future, as more and more organizations come to realize the importance of group productivity and effectiveness at all levels, the role of the facilitator will become increasingly important. The more there is change, the more need there will be for group communication, group involvement and group decision-making. Organizations that want to increase their overall effectiveness might consider developing a core of trained and experienced facilitators drawn from all levels of leadership and available to the organisation to lead and coach teams, design and facilitate important meetings and retreats, and widen the channels of communication and cooperation. Indeed, facilitation skills can be applied by just about anyone; in the family, in communities, in the church, in schools, in government, and in any setting where people with diverse interests, personalities and backgrounds come together to meet, discuss and decide. Facilitators and those with facilitation skills have much to contribute.


Sandra Cooper is a Certified Professional Facilitator and CEO of Partners for Change. She can be reached at sandicoo@cwjamaica.com


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References:
Rees, Frans: The Facilitator Excellence Handbook John Wiley and Sons 2005
Friedman, Rick: The IT Consultant: A Commonsense Framework for Managing The Client Relationship; Jossey Bass 2007