Facilitation

Not every team needs a facilitator, but every team needs facilitation.

What makes an effective team ?

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. The role of the Facilitator is to improve organizational effectiveness while addressing the multiple demands and needs of the diverse groups and individuals that they serve. Effective Facilitation allows the group to move toward a flexible, sustainable culture of participation that takes into account its vast human resources.

Wisdom of Teams, Katzenbach and Smith 1993

Profile of the great facilitator

Purpose: To create a safe environment for participation and collaboration by modeling 4 critical and related attributes:

Highlights the positive aspects of a situation and the potential for success Demonstrate the coming to agreement is possible and desirable

Collaborative

Creates opportunities for people to work together Shares the power of decision-making

Win-win

Receptive and flexible

Actively encourages others to contribute, and adjusts plant to meet changing needs, Accepts other's ideas, perception, and feed-back in a non-defensive way

Keeps attention focused on the important issues and activities Reminds other of the big picture and the overall goal

Strategic

Open-Narrow-Close
All meetings are a series of discussions where team members are opening, narrowing and closing on different topics, building agreements (sometimes disagreements!) as they go. In order to reach understanding and agreement, team members gather and clarify information, narrow the options and select the best approach

It is the job of the facilitator to ensure that all participants are in OpenNarrow-Close at the same time !

Note: the triangle is not representative of where time is spent !

Guidelines for gaining consensus

1. Allow time for all team members to voice their opinions 2. State your position clearly 3. Openly listen to what others have to say 4. Do not avoid conflict

5. Work toward decisions that all team members are willing to accept and support.

Decision-Making Strategies
Strategy Pros
Its quick Responsibility is clear No team research needed Responsibility is clear Its quick Some customer feedback is received Responsibility is clear Democratic Its quick All members give feedback All members support decision All members agree

Cons
No support solicited No feedback on decision No feedback No customer information included Frustration due to lack of follow-up

Autocratic
Expert

Autocratic with input from team Majority rule Consensus Unanimous consent

Some members still lose Responsibility unclear May take time May never happen.

Listen and give feed-back

Humans have two ears one mouth.. . to listen twice as much than you speak
(Conficius)

Especially in cases of resistance: Make sure to clearly listen to the message of your counterpart. Why is something said? What is the message behind the words?

Everybody needs feed back to develop a realistic self image

Feedback Rules
Feedback-Giver: Feedback-Taker:

get other person self-assess first offered and requested, not forced given immediately be specific (use example) do not postulate changes constructive subjective formulations (I) describe behavior, do not rate or evaluate give balanced feedback (sandwich: pos-neg-pos)

express, if and what feedback is requested

listen and let other finish speaking

do not defend yourself, no excuses, no justification

take it as a chance for improvement

be grateful