How can you develop essential facilitator skills?

Facilitation, like many other skills, can be honed by watching masters practising it. But, unlike many other abilities, you can also learn a great deal by seeing people underperform in it. Me and my good friend Liza were preparing a Facilitation session as part of a Train the Trainer experience, and she had the idea of starting it by badly facilitating a discussion on purpose to introduce the concept of facilitation and how important it is. Our participants felt first-hand the need for proper facilitation as they were interrupted, ignored, or talked over - within boundaries, of course - and it was a revelation. Are you feeling unhappy during a facilitation session? What caused it? How could have you avoided it if you were facilitating?

In my opinion in order?to improve our facilitation skills~ ?We need to see opportunities to facilitate. ?We need to think about progress frequently. ?We need to be ready to adapt and be flexible. ?We need to practice Time Management. ?We need to be empathetic towards others.

There are different types of facilitation. Facilitating a process for an outcome. Facilitating a learning experience. Facilitating an emergent conversation. First rule: know what you are facilitating.

Beyond anything, follow the Facilitator’s TAO: take Time for your group, make Agreements - preferably with followable examples, and be Observant - with empathy and for the full body language too. Listen, please. You are facilitating, not lecturing!

In my experience, one of the best ways to learn from expert facilitators is to shadow them. i.e. be in the room with them as they do their work. 1. Set up a mutual arrangement with them that explicitly outlines what you want to learn from shadowing them. 2. In the setup, identify a handful of facilitation areas that you want to learn more about e.g. framing, contracting, asking questions. This will help you focus your attention. 3. As you observe them in action, notice what they do or say, and notice the impact it has on the group. 4. During breaks (and / or afterward) debrief what you observed and encourage them to unpack their approach / logic with you. 5. Reflect on what you observed and learned. What surprised you? What might you try?

Facilitation has some similarities with chess, you can study it a lot but it has so many possible scenarios that you can't predict all of them, and the best way to be more and more prepared is to keep playing. Or, practising, in our case! You will have to deal with different kinds of people, that will interact differently among them, in different settings and under countless different circumstances. There will always be a situation that can crack even the most seasoned of facilitators and our goal should be to encounter it as soon as possible by exposing ourselves to as much facilitation practice as we can. But make sure to note down learning points each time, as it's extremely easy to lose findings over time. Practice, report, repeat!

There is no subsitute for repeated practice combined with self-reflection and helpful critique. Assuming this is already happening, what else might be done to better prepare yourself? Here are three helpful methods. 1) Volunteer to take notes or minutes of proceedings. Do this anyway, even if you are not the official notetaker. Keep capturing the essence of decisions and outcomes, creating the artifacts you as a facilitator would use to help a group of people track their work over time. 2) Be a helpful and fully present participant any facilitator wants in the room. In other words, help other facilitators succeed. 3) Identify facilitators you would like to emulate. Buy them a cup of coffee and ask them about how they grew their skill.

An example I’ve seen work for me and many fellow coaches is to hold online Zoom sessions with each other and practise our skills and techniques. This way we have a dry run of the activities we might be planning to use before the event and we also, more importantly, receive direct, real time feedback from our peers as we deliver our sessions. I have found this collaborative approach invaluable.

Each room is different because of the different learners. That's why more than knowing the theory of facilitation is required. As one of my teachers, Alex Mandossian, taught me - "Experience is NOT the best teacher ... It's the ONLY teacher!" Therefore, you must be open and willing to practice and test different things for different rooms. Practice does not make perfect, but permanent!

For me, coming from an Equine Facilitated Learning background practice using clean language. What I mean by that is to ensure you are not interpreting or judging what is going on with groups / individuals. It is very easy to come at things from our perspective or our experience or use expression or descriptions that someone else might not be clear on. If it's all perspective then you're just seeing what you want to see, not what is. Describe what you see, hear, experience but allow the participants to connect the dots themselves. Practice saying what you see, hear, notice - not what you think and then ask a question. I notice we now have 2 group of people - why is that?. I notice the noise levels have increased - what do you make of that?

Je pense que l'analyse de pratique reste un incontournable, animer sous le regard d'un pair peut aussi aider à l'évolution des pratiques. Se former bien s?r aux outils permettra une montée en compétence, et enfin se tester dans de nouvelles approches, tester en live pour mesurer les effets.

It is essential to pass our experience through different lenses in order to see every detail useful to improve. What lenses? The first lens is the personal one, through our own eyes, let's first do a personal assessment and write down our thoughts. Once this is done, ask other people: participants, and friends who can check the recording of the session. What do they have to share? It's important to have our own idea first as it can change later after we hear other people's feedback, but we can't stop to our own reality as it is extremely prone to biases. Our participants are a gold mine of insights, how did they feel during our session? What would have they changed? How can you improve, according to them? Always reflect on your session.

Facilitating the experiences of others toward objectives they want to reach means that the most important reflection is whether organizers and participants were able to progress from where they were to where they wanted to go. Once you've reflected on this, and especially if the event was successful, the next question is, "What about the way I facilitated would have been even more effective?" These two areas of reflection are the most critical in building your skills and a reputation for being an effective facilitator.

One of the core elements of seeking feedback is the technique called "AS-IS"+ing. It means the facilitator's willingness and ability to deal with the 500-pound gorilla in the room by asking, "what happened"? That is not just about having the courage to do so; from my experience, it's about being present. At the same time, I have my observer (and I call him my "advisor" sitting at the back of the room) and get his feedback during breaks to find out what worked and what could be improved. Having a third-party lens to support me makes me an excellent master facilitator.

One thing I’ve found helpful is video recording yourself when facilitating. Following the session, I then watch the recording (or part of it) back three times: - once watching just the image with no sound - once listening just the audio with no picture - once all together. This allows you to reflect on how your sounding, how your presence is, and how it’s all coming together.

We can't create a space, teach, or inspire, if we aren't able to understand the needs and perspectives of those around us. Emotional intelligence is the buzzword of the year in leadership spaces, and rightly so. It all starts with understanding what your needs are in the moment (are you engaged, tired, anxious) and finding techniques to move through these feelings, leveraging what you can, and leaving what you can't. Then start doing the same with your groups. Raise up what you're seeing and sensing, with people's energy and physical reactions and co-create learning solutions that will meet their needs. By doing this, you'll not only be boosting your own EI, but theirs as well. (And ultimately, we only learn through practice!)

Emotional intelligence in facilitation is also inclusive. It means remembering that not everyone in the audience has the same background, education, or work experience that you do. It is also being open to different types of feedback. What may appear as rude disinterest from one person might actually be a coping mechanism for a neurodivergent person. Keep in the front of your mind that most people in a facilitated session want to see you succeed, so if you are catching a vibe that is contrary to that, consider not only your delivery but what might be going on in the individual or organization that is triggering that reaction.

In my experience this is the most important skill to develop. The group is relying on you to create a safe and creative space to do their work, and get them to their goal on time. Managing both the content of the meeting and the process of the meeting requires strong emotional intelligence and courage to hold the structure and move the discussion along as they’ve asked you to — which means you’ll need to be aware of what is happening emotionally with both the group and each of the individuals. Leveraging this energy (and not shutting it down) is where the magic is! And this process starts before the meeting begins.

This is key. If you don’t have the ability to notice what is coming up in those around you, you cannot facilitate to the best outcome. A good facilitator is able to read the feedback, nonverbal, of course, and adapt accordingly. It is also about being able to regulate your own emotional responses to what’s happening in the room.

Agreed. Many times, I see facilitators have the right skills to facilitate,. Still, they just cannot connect with their audiences (and I can smell very quickly nowadays after having studied from Larry Gilman in his program called Mastery of Self Expression). Emotional Intelligence ("EI") is more than just having empathy, one of the five components Daniel Goleman has been discussing. Raising your EI and connecting with the audience at their heart will make you an exceptionally awesome master facilitator.

The art of facilitation encompasses so many different abilities that are evolving quickly that you can no longer rest on your previous knowledge, it requires active efforts in exploring new methods, frameworks, and techniques. Have a well-known framework? Search for alternatives, draw from the best of both worlds, challenge your current knowledge. Talk with an AI and share your knowledge, see if they have similar approaches to suggest that you haven't yet explored, and do the same with colleagues and fellow facilitators. Many models are copies of each other, but once in a while, you can find out something revolutionary. Keep digging!

I can realize today that flipped learning is the most effective technique, despite of fact that it is very challenging to apply. You have to change your standing position from "I know" to "I'm also here to learn".

A skilled facilitator needs to be equipped with a variety of techniques to drive participant engagement. What’s applicable for a small group won’t necessarily land well with a large audience. Consideration also needs to taken when you’re facilitating a remote activity versus in person. Poll your network of experienced facilitators to find out what’s worked for them. Then practice, practice, practice.

While having more tools in your toolbox is excellent, I still maintain what Blair Singer has taught me ... they are just the "contents" of your facilitation. For example, we can play a game in the room with the learners. What makes someone a master facilitator is their ability to draw the lessons from the learners on the game and stabilize the room (which is the context). I still remember what Blair taught me - if you think playing a game is about imparting a new skill to the learners, think again. You can have an awesome game but need help to draw the lessons out from the learners. Or you can have a "suckish" game, but learners' lives are changed because of your ability to debrief the lessons and stabilize the room.

One handy addition to your toolkit can be LEGO. You can use it to enable participants to access different perspectives and to crystallise nebulous ideas. Get them to do communication and team building challenges or create models of teams and their relationships with other stakeholders. Debrief the activities to elicit insights.

I see continuous improvement in facilitation as the sum of more practice, research of new approaches, and challenging of old ones. More practice is self-explanatory, expose yourself to all different kinds of environments to grow as a facilitator. Looking for new models and frameworks is essential given how fast each component of facilitation moves. Be on the lookout for the next ground-breaking approach to group facilitation. As for challenging old knowledge, it is essential once in a while to put everything we know on the table and tear it apart. Take a model, search for its detractors and why they are against it, see alternatives, check relevance and effectiveness. Do all of that constantly and you'll have continuous improvement!

#lifelonglearner We live in a world that is constantly evolving… keep learning and evolving to stay ahead of the curve. If facilitators remain the same, they will not become future ready.

It is key to put you in the opposite position of the facilitator which is become an invitee and look to other facilitators and put yourself in the position to be influenced by them. It will be a great chance to leverage what you are doing.

Facilitation starts with analysing the energy of the room and making extraordinary conversations out of ordinary resources. Facilitation skills are always an integral part of my training. I have witnessed well- crafted content going into vain due to lack of focus on facilitation. The facilitator has to choose the speaking style, resources, technology and tools that suit their audience the most. Your sessions need to be performed in your head first, then, practiced in a controlled environment. And after it has been polished, it can put out as an experiment on the final day to generate the required impact and engagement. Thanks for sharing! I hope the contribution will be useful.

Understanding what "facilitation" is, is important. Many people believe it is the same as teaching or lecturing, when in fact it takes a special skill set. Facilitators might not be the subject matter experts like a teacher. They do have special training in group dynamics, using processes such as conflict resolution, strategic planning and team building. In any group setting, a facilitator can quickly determine what the group knows so the group can proceed to build on that knowledge. By asking questions and keeping the group focused, a facilitator helps the group establish a set of ground rules, as well as its own learning objectives. The facilitator also helps the group evaluate what group members learned from their activities.

I think one of the things that makes me a great facilitator is that I can create a safe space in which to explore whatever is coming up. I am also not afraid to hold up the mirror and address the tough stuff. But the biggest secret of all is the ability to ask provocative questions that encourage participants to look deeper for answers on their own, with the facilitator, guiding and supporting that process.

Consider if your session is truly facilitated or simply directed. It takes courage to go into a facilitated session with the scaffolding in place but with the flexibility to follow where the group / individual leads not where you've planned to go. Facilitating a session on wellbeing - ask what wellbeing means to the group and then follow that thread. You don't have to have the answers - good facilitation is about allowing participants to find their own personal and unique answers. But do have a list of good, clean questions to rely on when you feel stumped - what do you make of that? How do you make sense of that? What do you take from that. What is happening at this moment? I noticed that ... is that important? What have you learned?

An assumption about Facilitation is ''It is just about a few random conversations or motivational talks. A trainer discusses anything & everything during the session.'' Rather, the True story is a well-delivered session is not just a matter of a fluke. Instead, facilitators need to prepare for even the most unexpected questions that may be asked during the session. It is also about empowering professionals with accurate solutions to their problems. To do this, the trainers do extensive research beforehand & understand the industry insights; KRA's of participants'.It is also about guiding the participants with concepts that can be integrated into their work. Moreover,not necessarily all Trainers or facilitators are Motivational Speakers.