Facilitation Skills – November 2019
Exclusively for members of Leaders Excellence at Harvard Square, Facilitation Skills is the topic and lecture series in November.
Preface
Facilitation is often referred to as the new cornerstone of management philosophy. With its focus on fairness and creating an easy decision making, facilitation can make any organization make better decisions. This month’s topic will give you an understanding of what facilitation is all about, as well as some tools that you can use to facilitate small meetings.
Understanding Facilitation
Groups are powerful resources in any organization. When you tap into groups, you don’t just get the best of individual members, you also get the best of group interaction. The result is a more dynamic, creative and empowered team. To get the most of groups, you need facilitation skills. In this month’s topic, we will discuss what is facilitation, what is a facilitator and when is facilitation appropriate.
What is Facilitation?
Facilitation is a manner of handling group meetings in a way that takes the focus away from just one leader, and instead distributes leadership to all members of the group. There is premium on democracy, group involvement, and cooperation. The focus is not just on getting things done, but also in feeling good about it. Consultant Dave Sibbet defines facilitation as “the art of leading people through processes towards agreed-upon objectives in a manner that encourages participation, ownership, and creativity from all involved.” Facilitation is often contrasted with presentation, which is delivering information or decisions to a group. Facilitation is group-centered while presentation is leader-centered. For this reason, facilitation is incompatible with an autocratic management style.
This Month’s Topic Includes:
• Understanding Facilitation
• Process vs. Content
• Laying the Groundwork
• Tuckman and Jensen’s Model of Team Development
• Building Consensus
• Reaching a Decision Point
• Dealing with Difficult People
• Addressing Group Dysfunction
• About Intervention
• Intervention Techniques
