Facilitation

This first in the mini-series on rockstar team skills, this Connect is on facilitation. It’s rare to see a team leader facilitating team discussions (and it’s challenging as they have their own say too!) but when it happens, it transforms the outputs and is more inclusive and engaging than yet another group conversation. For workshopping ideas, this is a very handy website: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/

What is Squadify Connects?

Punchy, actionable insights and tips to make the life of the team leader a breeze.

[00:00:00] Pia: Welcome to the miniseries on rockstar team skills. This is your grab bag of mind and skill sets that will help you to handle almost any situation and deliver the best possible outcome. We will be keeping this simple and using just a couple of core tools in different ways so that you don't have to remember a thousand frameworks and you can go deeper with your expertise through practice. I'm Pia.

[00:00:27] Dan: And I'm Dan, and this is Squadify Connects. The first of the skills we'll cover is facilitation. This is often seen as the preserve of those expensive consultants like us who come into companies, um, and actually work together with teams. But this is an actually crucial but rarely use leadership tool. So let's look at the why, what and how of facilitation.

[00:00:51] Pia: The why is that facilitation is a way to run group interactions in a way that involves everyone and gets the best possible outcome. Taking a facilitative approach, you can break out of the usual meeting format and help you actually make progress. It has four key parts. First, facilitation is outcome focused. The facilitators ensure that there is a clear outcome for the session. This is not defining the answer but an outcome. For example, by the end of the session, we will have agreed how we will approach the launch of Product X in territory y.

[00:01:29] Dan: And secondly, facilitation is about using a range of approaches to workshop, not just talk. The facilitative leader will ask, not what needs to be discussed, but how do we best discuss or cover this topic? You might have people share ideas on post-Its or find images on the internet that best represent their view on a topic and then put words against it. There are some ideas in the show notes to get you started.

[00:01:55] Pia: Third, and importantly, the facilitator makes good use of questions while there's a balance to be struck. If you are also contributing to the discussion, your main role is to ask good quality questions that will help the team to explore more and challenge their own thinking. If in doubt, keep the questions wide open.

[00:02:17] Dan: And finally, and this may sound obvious, but facilitation should lead to the stated outcome. If you're making a decision, use a funneling technique to narrow down the options. For example, instead of just a big brainstorm, let everyone reflect, come up with three ideas, have them share them in small groups, and then vote on the best three ideas from those small groups to be taken back to the main team. A final vote will get to your decision. See the 1, 2, 4, all in the resources section in the show notes.

[00:02:47] Dan: Now, you might be thinking that just sounds like good leadership or meeting management, and you'd be right, but how often do you see it?

[00:02:55] Pia: Very true. So, um, give it a go and try it out for yourself this week. Take a couple of risks and do something different. We will continue the miniseries on rockstar team skills next week with a related topic, oh, and one that's close to our hearts running effective meetings. So see you then.