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.

This is the era of ease

This is the era of ease.

The world of work has changed. If you're a leader, you need to be more collaborative, able to help a group of individuals play to their strengths and get great work done.

You need to be able to make the workplace safe for them to be themselves. And to be able to bring them together, to remove barriers, roadblocks and obstacles to their progress - not create them.

This is a bigger role than just you and your title, your package, ego or status. You'll need to bring empathy, great listening skills, clever questioning capabilities and the ability to chill the %$#& out - to stop being so driven, anxious and intense.

'Facilitation' means ease, to make easier. Today's world of work needs you to be a leader who makes things easier. That's making progress, meetings, problem-solving, conversations, influence, starting and finishing things - all easier.

Help make it all easier. This is the era of ease.

Handling the sh*t that goes down in teams

Whether it's in a meeting, a conversation, a workshop or general day-to-day stuff, when you get people together, it's natural that some sh*t is gonna go down. 

People being humans, that's all. Trying to get something done to the best of their ability, trying to work with others, work with constraints of time, budgets, environments and .... other people!

You've likely seen it today... stuff going down like: 

• someone interrupting someone else
• another person who's all-talk and waffle
• some blame going on 
• not getting to a decision (in a meeting that was meant to come up with a decision!)
• people who have views but aren't expressing them at the all-important meeting
• some people not seeming to listen because you just explained it, again
• ... and some dude going on and on and not making much sense. 

These are all human behaviours and they can be handled, clarified, refocused and made sweet so you can get on and do the great work you've got to do.

You don't need to 'slap down' people or to bark out "order" in a meeting or workshop session. Neither do you need to be the soft-as person who just lets it all go wildly off-track. (Urgh, don't you just wish the meeting leader would DO something to bring it back on track!)


I see there are four things you need to do to handle the sh*t that goes down:


1. Get your own sh*t together
Yes, you be a leader. You need to get ready to lead a meeting or brief a team, or elicit information or be prepped for that thing you're about to do. Think mindset, get ready and be in the right 'space' to do this thing.

2. You make the environment 
Some people brighten up a room just by leaving it. Don't be that person. Don't. Be the person that people go 'Oh thank goodness you're here; now we'll get great stuff done'. You impact the vibe in a room by what you say, do, how you look, how you handle every little thing. Eye-rolls, sighs and other verbal nasties leak out of us all. Keep the environment positive, productive, focused, creative. You influence the environment and you can change it if it's not working. 

3. Follow some type of process 
Don't wing it or make it up as you go along. There are many tools, models and processes you can apply and follow to make for a good interaction in a team. I love my Facilitator 4-Step process (the visual is about to be translated into Spanish) to help people move from giving their opinions, to coming up with ideas, to finally committing to action. Otherwise, you'll be lost in an infinity loop of 'OMG when is this thing gonna end'. Even if your process is a series of three or four questions, it's a process nonetheless. 

4. Respond. Handle what happens. 
When you're ready, the environment is good and you've got a process you're running... then all you have to do is handle what crops up in the session. You'll have your attention on the people and the work to be done, rather than your agenda or the timing or how you're feeling.

 

Avoid the cliched advice on how to shut up a non-stop talker or the corny questions on how to get input from the quieter people in your team. They are just that - corny cliches. 

Too often we're killing collaboration and diversity - without even knowing it.  "Gulp, what me? No, surely not."

So look out leader, there's this contemporary capability I call Leader as Facilitator. You've got to achieve an outcome, get people on board and keep engagement high. It really is a balancing act. And it doesn't happen by accident or by 'winging it'. 

Think about it. Be ready. Do these four things so you're ready to handle what happens in the moment. No sh*t. 

Project Introverts - how to get out of that meeting ASAP!

Diversity in backgrounds, cultures, languages, thinking, styles and communication - they come together every time we communicate, engage and connect with people we work with.

If you're an introvert, you'll want to get your message across quickly, understand your colleagues quickly and then get outta that meeting or conversation ASAP. You may want to get back to the good stuff you were working on earlier - alone!

I've seen in several project teams recently how so many delays, derails and slow-downs come from simple misunderstandings.

"I thought you meant ..... when really you meant ....." or "You're talking about the big picture; I'm talking about this specific thing..." and it all drags on and on and on.

Being able to capture, draw out and understand what someone else is saying, and then convey your ideas and thinking is critical. To do it rapidly is the game here. The faster you can understand others and get your point across, the happier we'll all be. Unless you just want to sit 'n talk...

To speed up the process, get it sorted, get to understanding quicker and then get on with the other good stuff you're working on, you need two key skillsets...

1. facilitation skills (how to handle the stuff that happens when groups meet) and

2. visual agility (not arty drawing, but rapid sketching and visualisation).

When culturally, linguistically and geographically diverse teams 'get this', they step way up into higher levels of performance and move on (quickly) from misunderstandings and cultural hurdles.

Project teams have the opportunity to build this awesome skillset at a one day workshop I'm running in Melbourne on March 4, Visual Facilitation for Projects. Details here, early bird until February 19.