You're conducting a performance evaluation in facilitation. What are the most common mistakes to avoid?

1 Not seeking feedback

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a facilitator is to rely solely on your own perception of how well you did. You may miss important aspects of your performance that others noticed, such as your body language, tone of voice, or bias. You may also overlook the impact of your facilitation on the participants, such as their engagement, satisfaction, or learning outcomes. To avoid this mistake, you need to seek feedback from multiple sources, such as your co-facilitators, the participants, the sponsors, or the observers. You can use various methods to collect feedback, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or observation forms.

3 Not being balanced

A third common mistake you can make as a facilitator is to be biased or unbalanced in your performance evaluation. You may focus only on the positive or negative aspects of your performance and ignore the other side. You may also exaggerate or minimize your achievements or failures and distort the reality of your performance. To avoid this mistake, you need to be balanced and fair in your performance evaluation. You need to acknowledge both your successes and challenges and recognize the factors that contributed to them. You also need to be honest and realistic about your performance and avoid self-deception or self-criticism.

4 Not being reflective

A fourth common mistake you can make as a facilitator is to be superficial or passive in your performance evaluation. You may simply describe what happened or what you did without analyzing why or how it happened or how it affected the process and the outcomes. You may also fail to identify the lessons learned or the actions needed to improve your performance. To avoid this mistake, you need to be reflective and active in your performance evaluation. You need to examine the underlying assumptions, beliefs, values, and emotions that influenced your performance and how they aligned or conflicted with the purpose and expectations of the facilitation. You also need to draw conclusions and recommendations from your performance evaluation and plan how to apply them in your future practice.

5 Not being consistent

A fifth common mistake you can make as a facilitator is to be irregular or sporadic in your performance evaluation. You may only evaluate your performance when you have a problem or a complaint or when you are required to do so by someone else. You may also evaluate your performance in different ways or with different standards depending on the situation or the audience. To avoid this mistake, you need to be consistent and systematic in your performance evaluation. You need to evaluate your performance regularly and frequently, not just after a major event or a crisis. You also need to evaluate your performance in a similar way and with the same criteria regardless of the context or the feedback source.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?