Continue to cause damage - or decide you’ll make a difference

I’ve been posting this week on how being a leader who has contemporary facilitation skills is a huge advantage in today's workplace.

The time we waste in dull/boring/ineffective meetings should be enough of an incentive to make change!

Massive productivity gains are made when leaders know how to lead engaging, inspiring and productive meetings that get work done AND protect people’s self esteem so they stay engaged.

You can change culture by changing how you run meetings, workshops, consultations and conversations.

But damage is done to people in meetings when they're treated poorly, ignored, interrupted, excluded, forgotten, shut down.

It’s not on them to ‘speak up’; it’s on you to extend your leadership capability to include people, elicit information and contributions, helping to make work easier.

Facilitation is a life skill to be developed, not a simple skill to read a few articles about.

Do you commit to putting facilitation on your professional development agenda?

The difference you'll make will be immeasurable; the damage to people otherwise could be extreme. 

The clichés of average facilitation

Despite all the advice on how to lead better meetings, we still see many behaviours and clichés that stop, block and slow group progress.

By using a cliché or common saying we might be trying to make things happen quicker.

But some clichés cause problems. They can kill collaboration, smash diversity and slow up progress. Usually the reverse of what we’re aiming to do!

Here are 10 workshop & meeting clichés I see and hear way too often:

1. Would you take the notes please (insert woman's name)

2. I hear what you’re saying but...

3. Let’s car park it

4. Let’s take it offline

5. What do others think?

6. We need to move on

7. Are we all in agreement then?

I know I promised 10 clichés but there are only 8 because...

8. We've run out of time! Leader as Facilitator: whether it's a leadership position, title, role or responsibility, or a mindset and way of working, leaders have incredible opportunities to build engagement, gather diverse views and get important work done via facilitation.

Avoid clichés. Keep conversations going, building engagement - be anti-cliché.

We’ve all experienced ‘average' facilitation

Facilitation: someone at the front of room, leading a meeting/workshop, helping make things easier. (Whether it's the right definition or not isn't what this is about.)

My point is: there's an abysmal standard of facilitation in workplaces today.

You might think it’s not ‘that bad' or workshops you’ve attended have been mostly ok.

Not so quick. Know that facilitation is something you learn: like making an omelette, riding a horse, flying a kite. You’re not born with facilitation skills, you learn. It's not long at work before we experience average facilitation.

Think of all the sh*tful meetings you’ve been in.

Meetings that:

😖ran over time

🤯were dull and disengaging

😠achieved few outcomes

🤢were dominated by a few/same voices

😱were unsafe or awkward ... the list goes on.

Bad workplace meetings contribute to bad workplaces and working environments. They're time wasting, energy-draining, enthusiasm-robbing ... feeding cynicism, negativity and disengagement.

Yuk!

If you're a leader or want to be, it starts with you at every meeting.

You can learn contemporary facilitation skills. Then you won't lead sh*tful meetings. 

'The consultant’s facilitation skills were average'

I heard this comment from a big company ... reporting on a big consulting firm’s management consultant... and how average their facilitation skills had been at a significant workshop event.

The fee that consulting firm charged for their services DID NOT MEET the value or expectation of the calibre of facilitation skills that were required.

And it was one of the BIG consulting firms.

You’d think - or assume - that the facilitation capabilities of management consultants would be contemporary, collaborative, impactful. They're always leading meetings and workshops as part of company transformations and consulting engagements.

But nope. It was average. Most average.

Time on your feet does not equal quality. Most of us think we're better at facilitating meetings and workshops than we are. It's like driving. Most of us think we're above average drivers. We're not. Some of us suck. We think we’re good but we’re average. Most average.

An easier skill for the future

Futurists and foresight genies tell us the skills we need for the future. 

But what if we had a skill that just made things easier, less difficult? How good would that be!

There’s a mix of skills that are a stand out in the world of work - they're about collaboration, safety, inclusion and progress. They help get things done, in ways that help people work together, and make them feel safer and included.

Great leaders know that facilitation - not the hippy ‘what do others think’, bell-dinging moderator, wafting about a room - but an outcome-focused, engagement-driven enabler who helps people do better work together - is a power-house competency. Facilitation helps support a team to achieve the 'magic four'.

To be:

1️⃣effective

2️⃣productive

3️⃣collaborative, and

4️⃣creative.

All at once! Drop one and the team, project or work suffers, crumbles.

Facilitation means 'ease'. It’s no wonder it’s the skill of the moment.