Fearless Facilitation: Checking-In

Facilitation is becoming a lost art at a time when it’s needed more than ever.

In the new world of work our conversations and collaborations are often mediated by a small screen, occur asynchronously, and take place in increasingly brief slices of time.

This is not how relationships are built. And it’s not how things get done, or done well.

So, I’m on a mission to promote facilitative leadership - the art of providing direction without taking control.

Facilitation has been such a big part of my professional life that my colleagues know me as a facilitation junkie.

But it isn’t always easy, and I’ve experienced my share of tricky situations.

Like the time a client in the insurance industry staged a mutiny in the middle of an innovation workshop and all the participants walked out.

Or when the president of a prospective telecommunications client challenged our understanding of his business by pounding his fist on the table and declaring he could “crush us” with his knowledge.

Or when the CEO of a national automotive services organization walked in at 8:00 am on the first day of a carefully planned three-day strategy workshop and informed our team that he wanted to toss our entire agenda - and we improvised 24 hours of programming.

These may sound like nightmare scenarios (and, I’ll admit, a bit tame relative to what can go on in today’s workplace), but I’ve grown to accept, and even kind of enjoy, these facilitation challenges. That’s because I’ve learned how to stay calm in any situation. And in collaboration with some very talented colleagues, I’ve also developed a set of tried-and-true facilitation techniques.

I’m going to share many of these techniques, and how you can use them, in a series of posts.?

Today’s technique is “Checking In”

Have you ever found yourself at the start of a meeting where everyone is at the table or on the screen and yet they’re not quite there?

They may be present but they’re not yet present if you know what I mean.

As facilitators we sometimes need to literally facilitate the transition from whatever everyone was just doing to what we are all about to do together.

Often our habit is to simply ask “how’s everyone doing?” but it’s such a rhetorical question that many people stay silent and those that answer say something like “fine”.?

Ok, but they’re still not present!

There are three ways to conduct a “check in” that I’ve grown fond of - which one you may choose to use will depend on the audience and what you’re comfortable with:

• The first is a simple two-minute box breathing exercise that involves breathing in for a count of 4, holding for a count of 4, and exhaling for a count of 7. Guide everyone through a couple of rounds of this and it will activate the calming effects of our parasympathetic nervous system. P.S. People love this.
• A second way to check in is to ask everyone to share their personal weather report.? Ok, this may sound silly but it helps you as the facilitator to get a finger on the pulse of the room without anyone having to explain why they feel “cloudy with a chance of storms” when everyone else is saying I feel “sunny with clear skies.”
• A third way to conduct a check in is to ask everyone to write on a piece of paper or post- it what they were doing or thinking about just before the meeting started.? Then have them put it aside, out of sight, with the assurance that it will be there, waiting for them when the meeting is over.

Here’s your practice challenge:

1. Observe how others begin their meetings - do they dive right in?? Do they acknowledge who’s there?? As the facilitator, do they appear focused or distracted? And what is the impact of how they’re showing up as a facilitator on the rest of the meeting?
2. The next time you facilitate anything, be conscious of how you begin the session - what will you do to make sure you are present and that your participants are as well?

I hope you find these tools useful for engaging all participants in productive conversations, whether you are on the phone, on Zoom, in-person, or a combination of these.?

I welcome your insights, questions, and stories in the comments.