Facilitator Development

Facilitator Succinctness

SUCCINCT! I’ve always loved that word. So my question to everyone of us who facilitates meetings and workshops is: Are you succinct enough? In our recent concurrent session at IAF Asia, several people noted that we needed to be clearer in our instructions with the big group. This is an example of where we were…

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Facilitation Tools – Do’s and Don’ts!

Everyone seems to want to know more facilitation tools. Every course we teach, we hear participants say, “I want more tools for my facilitation toolkit”. We’d like to remind you that a facilitation tool is worth nothing if you don’t know how to do it correctly and you don’t have the right tone and stance…

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6 Facilitator Styles That Will Keep You Out of Trouble!

In this blog we will talk about our facilitator style and presence. These are the things you need to cultivate in yourself to effectively solicit meaningful participation or group engagement. Personally, as I look back over 20 or more years of facilitating, I think my style has been one of the most important aspects of…

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Four Steps to Elegant Meeting Design

Recently I have been thinking a lot about designing. For months, I’ve been designing a three-part series for people who want to learn the essence of elegant meeting facilitation. There is nothing more satisfying to me than designing an agenda, or a curriculum. It is a creative and logical process that uses every once (gram!)…

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When You and the Group Are in the “Abyss”: What to Do About It

Otto Scharmer and his team have been exploring a model called Theory U for several decades. More and more I find myself drawn to it as a metaphor for the journey I go on with a group. The Theory U team speak of a great divide, a chasm which we must cross with a group…

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Little or BIG Impact – Which do you want?

Everything is in place. Your client has chosen you as the facilitator because your style and experience appeal to them. Jointly, you have collaborated on the agenda and activities to use and the pre-work information participants will receive. Are you intentional about what your impact will be or is has it been left to chance?…

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Are Learning Styles Really Going Out of Style?

It all started when I read an article re-posted by my Australian colleague that was titled, “The concept of different “learning styles” is one of the greatest neuroscience myths”. Like many of my colleagues, I have been a proponent of using a variety of participation formats in all my meetings. And, I have no doubt…

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I’ve Been Electrified Into a New Level of Competency!

I got this idea to write a blog about a thrilling (electrifying!) insight I got about facilitator competency from a recent cycling class! The reason I wanted to write about the difference between the four stages of learning competency is the experience I had last week.I have been taking these spin (i.e., a term for…

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Time – The Ultimate Asset in Meetings

Today’s blog is about a topic I have never written about but it is SO important, I do not know why it has taken me 75 blogs to get to it. It also is extremely difficult to give you a really good tool for what I want to convey to you. I don’t know of…

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People Dozing in Your Meetings? 7 Ways to Get Their Attention

There are some interesting statistics about meetings that I’ve been coming across while creating two new simpler levels of Meetings that Rock online course that are going to be launched in the next few months. For example, one statistic said that 91% admit to daydreaming in meetings and 39% admit to dozing off! Here is…

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