Group Facilitation

Group facilitation involves serving as a content-neutral individual who by not taking sides or expressing or advocating a point of view during a meeting can contribute structure and process to group interactions; advocate for fair, open and inclusive procedures to accomplish the group's work; encourage balanced and active participation by group members; promote mutual understanding; and cultivate shared responsibility—thereby enabling the group to collaborate more effectively, do their best thinking, search for inclusive solutions, make high-quality decisions and achieve a better result collectively than any individual group member could have produced working alone.

For over three decades and more than two hundred diverse organizations we have facilitated group meetings, large conferences and many other kinds of collaborative processes designed to support self-directed change and increase organizational effectiveness.  Whenever we are facilitating group processes within the context of an organizational effectiveness intervention, we typically perform one or more of the following tasks:

• Consult with meeting, team, agency or organizational leaders or sponsors and research the programs, projects, issues, goals or tasks they wish to address collaboratively.

• Design one or more group processes for program, project, issue, goal or task driven collaborations in meetings, teams, agencies or organizations.

• Bring together diverse individuals, teams or groups with common and divergent interests and perspectives and plan and organize the subject matter content of their deliberations.

• Develop, recommend, define or refine discussion agendas, problem solving techniques and decision making methods for preventing, containing, mitigating or resolving disputes and disagreements and for surfacing, aligning, reconciling or integrating divergent interests and perspectives.

• Identify needed logistical support, recommend optimum meeting space configurations and help prepare presenters and resource persons for each session.

• Convene and facilitate or lead large and small group briefings, discussions, exercises and other sessions as requested and observe and guide the work of other facilitators as needed to ensure the accomplishment of session goals.

• Focus and document problem solving and decision making processes and record the discussion content, review the notes and data collected during each session, and report out on group and breakout group activities and results.

• Assist in preparing and publishing reports and other documents for a variety of audiences detailing or summarizing session proceedings and outcomes, and in planning and coaching for post-session follow-up implementation and evaluation activities.

The following steps are common to the group facilitation component of our organization consulting assignments: building agendas; structuring understanding; encouraging participation; maintaining focus; summarizing results; and planning follow-up.

Throughout all these steps we help structure the understandings and behaviors that enable a group to define its goals clearly and move toward them efficiently.  We typically proceed (after helping to set the context) to play a supportive role, stepping in to guide, educate or redirect group member behavior or group procedure when and only when necessary.

 Building Agendas. To ensure that the meeting participants have a common purpose, prior to their meeting we help them to structure a list of discussion topics that will: create a sense of mission for the group, focus their energies on a manageable number of well-defined objectives and allocate their discussion time to topics in accordance with their relative importance and the total time available for the meeting.

 Structuring Understanding. Once we are satisfied that the meeting participants have a common purpose, we begin the process of helping the group to gain clarity concerning the specific objectives of the meeting, the reasons behind the objectives, and the roles the meeting participants are expected to play in helping to meet those objectives.  We ensure that some background and context are provided for each phase of the discussion, and we test whether the group members view the discussion topics in the same or different ways.

 Encouraging Participation. After helping the group to define their meeting’s agenda, objectives and context we next turn our attention to ensuring that the people who come to the meeting actually participate in it.  Our goal is always to facilitate balanced participation, in which everybody has some degree of input but nobody has too much, and active participation in which there may be some vigorous disagreement but not to the point of abuse or disruption.

Maintaining Focus. When a meeting gets off track, our interventions include reminding the group to get back to the topic, helping the group to redefine the issue it is working on, raising the question of whether an issue has been discussed too long, or simply pointing out that the current issue appears to be taking precedence over the one it supplanted in the discussion.  Our facilitation strategy is always to stay open-minded about whether the group needs to change its focus and, once we see how things stand, to acknowledge and clarify where the group really is.

 Summarizing Results. When decisions are made and agreements are reached, we help bring closure to the issue by restating its resolution (often on a whiteboard or flipchart), so that the group can examine its accomplishments and move on.  When a decision is deferred or agreement is not reached, we simply recap the group members’ thinking on the issue.

Planning Follow-up. We facilitate the transition from decision to action by helping the group to develop a clearly structured plan written down for all the group members to see.  Often, all that we use is a simple format specifying what actions are needed, who will do them, the required resources, and the targeted dates of completion.

Our ability to be effective as group facilitators depends critically on how we are perceived by the group members.  Therefore we are always conscious of the behaviors we exhibit and the image that we project.  We know that whenever we stand in front or sit in the midst of a group, the members are forming an opinion about us—deciding whether we are up to the task, whether they can trust us and whether they think we are sincere.  Accordingly, we strive to be an effective instrument for positive and productive interaction by projecting a calm and confident demeanor, making ongoing eye contact with group members that is both comfortable and welcoming, and communicating our genuine interest in serving the group by being candid and open with them.

In addition, we show sensitivity by listening actively and intently, noticing concerns and reactions and never hesitating to ask about thoughts and feelings when it is helpful to do so.  We manage our emotions and show self-control even in difficult situations, and we avoid losing our temper, becoming embroiled in disputes or conveying displeasure when the atmosphere becomes strained or combative.  We pay close attention to the proceedings, never forgetting key ideas or allowing ourselves to become distracted, and we demonstrate our flexibility by continually testing the process, offering options and adjusting activities as needed.  We make every effort to remain unobtrusive, avoiding the limelight and talking little, to ensure that participants’ ideas dominate the discussion and group members experience a sense of ownership of the results of their deliberations.  Finally, we strive to stay energetic and totally engaged throughout, managing our personal energy so that the proceedings achieve and maintain momentum.

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