What are the best practices for transitioning from a different career to Facilitation?

If you're transitioning into facilitation, doing an honest assessment of strengths and gaps can be incredibly insightful and create a roadmap for the areas to put your energy into sustained growth.

9 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE FACILITATORS Facilitating large groups is a highly delicate endeavor, where a single mistake, an erroneous judgment, or a lack of response can lead to losing the group’s commitment forever. With two decades of experience as a professional facilitator of innovation, I have led over 1000 workshops globally. Through numerous mistakes, unexpected challenges, and encounters with diverse human behaviors across cultures, I have gathered invaluable insights. I have distilled 9 essential habits of highly effective facilitators for you in this article: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/9-habits-highly-effective-facilitators-front-end-innovation-fztuf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

Building a network applies no matter what direction you go in and is a wonderful way to learn from others who have been on the path before you. Facilitation is about inspiring, teaching and learning the skill of reading a room and understanding group dynamics that may be going on beneath the surface. You can start by observing groups at work, in your family and developing the skill of empathy to see what narratives play out in a group. As far as networks people are usually happy to share what they've learned along the way so be brave enough to ask in a curious way that offers value to your network too

When I first built our company's online group coaching program, I asked my first client if they'd be willing to take a chance on me and run a pilot program with a small subset group of their organization. It was a shot in the dark then, but taking that chance proved influential and instrumental in growing the business. One of the best ways to build a network is to be clear when asking for what you want and need.

There's a lot that can be learned on courses and there's even more that can be learned from putting yourself out there in order to boost confidence and learn from a live experience. Don't shy away from feedback as well as learn how to critically assess your own performance by reading the room and asking curious questions. Self awareness is key and being open to learning.

Investing in learning from others and developing facilitation skills is invaluable, but perhaps most important is developing a strong belief in self and a sense of humility. The stronger your internal foundation is, the more you can integrate a diverse facilitation skill set.

Feedback comes in many forms and is always helpful if you're open and willing to receive it. You can open input lines to colleagues, participants, and peers during or after facilitation. Plus, you can take some honest time for self-reflection and provide yourself with feedback. Giving feedback is a skill; receiving feedback is just as essential to develop. It's important to note that feedback won't always feel good. It may trigger uncomfortable emotions and push up against your ego. Awareness of its potential impact is essential to stay emotionally grounded and stabilized.

The most significant gift you can give others as a facilitator is to be yourself and not be afraid to stumble throughout the process. Acknowledging those moments when things aren't going smoothly creates deeper connections with your audience and strengthens your adaptability.