Effective Meetings
When Dot Voting is Unfair and Ineffective – What to Do Instead
I think everyone I know who has heard about facilitation or practices it, also knows about dot voting. It may be one of the most popular yet misused tools I’ve ever encountered in the field. I feel so strongly about it’s misuse that I’ve probably only used it twice in my entire career. Those two…
People Who Talk Too Much in Meetings – Respectfully Dealing with Dominance
When I looked up the phrase “dominant behavior” on the internet, I found a lot of articles on dominance in animals – the alpha male phenomenon etc. In fact, one definition of dominant behaviour said it was “initially established by fighting, threatening displays or interchanges. AND, once established, usually maintained by competitive behaviours…” I realized quickly…
Seven Facilitator Tips to Make Your Training MUCH More Engaging
You have your training plan ready and you realize you want it to be more engaging. Typical training is about passing on learning and content, in small or large blocks. It provides theory, information, and ideally activities to help retain the information. But the emphasis is on a hierarchical model where the trainer is the…
Facilitating When Senior Leaders Are in the Meeting
We’ve all been in meetings where our direct boss is attending or there are very senior leaders in the room. That’s a real facilitator dilemma. You the facilitator should have full control of the group, but you may not feel you can do this with senior leaders in the room. This is a common question…
Treat Your Groups to 6 Energizers From Our Menu
Here are a few really cool meeting energizers from colleagues whom I deeply respect or whose processes I have used and found to work extremely well. Please read also our earlier blog on why I normally disapprove of energizers just to energize or have fun! These energizers are relevant, fun and produce an outcome. The…
How to Overcome Your Fear of Co-Facilitation
Just back from Osaka, Japan (Typhoon occurred just before I arrived shutting the Osaka airport down for a week+ and knocking out electricity at our Bed and Breakfast for a day!) and Hong Kong (Super Typhoon while I was there delaying my flight home by a day). I share this because I was jointly facilitating 6…
Energizer: Positively Connecting the Group
True to my word, we are keeping the blog very short and sweet for the next little while. Here is a quick energizer I’ve used in various formats for many years. I learned and adapted it from my Portland colleague Paula Manley! It is also based on the “flow” concept of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It works…
Making Your Job Easier as Facilitator – The Art of Preparation
Today, we’re going to talk about how our team usually prepares for a facilitation event. It is a little bit like preparing a picnic! You want to get all of your dishes figured out ahead of time, know which dishes go together and decide how you are going to arrange them in the agenda. We’re…
Short But Powerfully Participatory Meetings
The Diagnosis You have 20 to 30 minutes to hold your regular team meeting. You’ve fallen into the bad practice of just having people report out. It has become an informational meeting where there’s not very much interaction. Some people may be paying attention for part of it but probably not all of it! You…
Brainstorming Gone Wrong? Here’s How to Fix It
We suspect you have seen poor brainstorming technique by people NOT trained as facilitators. Typically here is how brainstorming goes: The meeting person says: “We have problem x. What can we do to solve it?” The leader writes down as many ideas as they can get from whomever has an answer on a flipchart or…
