You're leading a diverse group facilitation session. How can you ensure all voices are truly heard?

Creating an inclusive and respectful psychological safe space and a positive environment where all the voices are heard start by setting the tone through clarifying the objectives to make participants understand the scope, being sure that all are on the same page, pointing ground rules and guidelines for active listing and communication to encourage participation and foster productive inclusive conversation

My go to tools for inclusion are the liberating structures. 33 different frames which create inclusion and great outputs. There is a free app called liberating structures which is easy to use.

The Thinking Environment (TE) approach is deeply rooted in inclusion, creating environments where every person feels able to think for themselves, as themselves. The TE facilitation approaches include Rounds, which help equalise airtime as well as encouraging equal attention given to each person's contribition, and Thinking Pairs which offer both safety and equality to explore thinking before bringing it back to the wider group. It's essential to use approaches which foster psychological safety as your lovely diverse group of people will only share their ideas, thoughts and concerns if they feel safe enough in each others' company to do so.

My response to this is simple. Get each person to practice listening techniques and skills using a round robin exercise just to prove how easy it is to get simple message wrong. Learning about listening done, now back to the session

Group dynamics have always been a sensitive matter for the facilitator. Rule number 1, 2, 3 and oh well, all of them. NEVER chastise someone who is behaving badly in a group in front of everyone else. Cardinal sin of facilitation. Instead of everyone thanking you for your intervention, you end up in the wrong as group think and learner protectionism kicks in. Instead, call a natural break for drink or comfort and take offensive person to one side out of sight of others, explain what you have observed regarding their behaviour and how it is affecting others and their learning. Give them choice to stay and change or leave.

If the group are not immediately forth coming with differing view points, posing questions such as 'If I was X, how would I experience this?' 'Put yourself on the other side what is your view now?' 'Describe how this would impact you as the customer of this process.' Allowing time for individuals to consider alternatives and space for others to come forward into the discussion.

Reflecting on your facilitation skills is such an important thing to do to enable your own development to improve. When asking for feedback from delegates make it an open narrative question and try not to take what is said personally. Everyone is different and there is no perfection in facilitation.