One of the most powerful leadership tools available is the ability to facilitate a meeting or a work session. Too often, these gatherings are a disorganized jumble of unprocessed ideas that leave participants frustrated and feeling that “nothing much got accomplished”.

Effective facilitation is simple. With a bit of practice, anyone can learn how to do it. There are 10 key steps to becoming a master facilitator:

1.Prepare in advance. Put yourself in the role of a participant and think through the logical elements that need to come together in order to achieve the desired outcome.

2.Define the meeting objective. Finish the sentence: ‘the purpose of this meeting is….”. Make sure that you and everyone else is clear what the expected meeting outcomes are.

3.Set your time parameters. A startling amount can be accomplished in an hour if you know that’s the time frame. Pay attention to the clock.

4.Define a set of questions that lead logically to the desired outcome. As you’re preparing the questions, work your way through the possible answers. This will help you define the next question.

5.Record feedback. Use a flipchart, digital projector or some other public recording device so participants can see, discuss and revisit their answers. While modern technology is great, flipcharts have a significant advantage in keeping the process leader front and center, and in control of the meeting.

6.Keep the process moving. Don’t dwell on any topic for too long. Frequently, the best thinking comes fast and early – belaboring an issue is seldom worth the loss of momentum.

7.Get contribution from everyone. Don’t let participants hang back in the weeds and don’t let any one person dominate.

8.Listen hard. Don’t be afraid to recast a participant’s perspective in simple terms that everyone understands. This will make you a hero. Be respectful of the participant and their input and insure you’ve recast their thoughts accurately.

9.Learn some simple voting techniques. Sometimes it’s necessary to prioritize ideas or action plans. Getting participants to do their own prioritization, then capturing their ranking and adding up their votes is a simple, effective way to get group consensus.

10.End by summarizing agreements, next steps and who’s responsible. That way, things will get done and no one will leave the meeting feeling that your meeting or work session was a waste of time.

Effective facilitation significantly increases the value of group meetings. It saves time and increases the quality of output. With some logical thinking, preparation and practice, anyone can become a great meeting facilitator.
 

About the author:
In 1983 Jim started his consulting career with CMA Consulting. However, what goes around comes around, and several times as a consultant, Jim has found himself in charge of a company he's working with. Currently that includes a small, fast growing software company that is harnessing the internet to revolutionize insurance claims processing.