Becoming An Excellent Facilitator

By Adam Fletcher, President, CommonAction Consulting

Groups can be rough. Okay, okay, not really - all of them can be supremely useful. But when
things go bad, and frequently they do, groups can be counterproductive and actually work
against the very things they were designed to do.
After teaching folks how to successfully facilitate these types of gatherings for the last
decade, I'm writing some tips, concerns, and considerations for being an EXCELLENT
facilitator. This is written out of love and respect for all the youth, friends, colleagues, and
clients who have ever sat through a sucky group event and wanted to do it differently. If
you are really committed to being an excellent facilitator, read on. If you're not, well, good
luck, and dont give up.

Before You Start

Before you start down the road of becoming a better facilitator, think about these
questions:

Who were the best facilitators you've ever experienced? The worst? What made
them that way?
What is your goal for being an excellent facilitator- productivity, interaction, fun? Do
you think you can facilitate all those at once?
What assumptions do you have about facilitation?
Why do you really want to learn more about excellent facilitation?

After thinking about all this you are ready to begin learning more about being an excellent
facilitator- but not before then! Take a little while and really consider those questions, and
then read on...

Be a Facilitator- Not a Teacher, Speaker, or Preacher.

There's a difference between a teacher, a speaker, a preacher, and a facilitator. A
facilitators job has three parts:

Lead the gathering or group

Guide towards goals
Lead by example

A excellent facilitator always starts by setting the tone of the group. A facilitator is not
expected to know it all, nor are they expected to drive everything. Insecure leaders do this.
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Secure leaders follow the maxim that, "A good leader makes the people believe they did it
themselves." You have knowledge and experience that you can and should share; however,
you do not have to be the expert. Allow your participants to teach you. Also, remember that
the mood of the facilitator will set the tone for the entire workshop, and that enthusiasm is
contagious. Strive to be positive, be human, and have fun in every group, no matter what its
about.
Six Tips for Excellent Facilitation
1. Set aside your needs in favor of the needs of the group.
2. Establish a friendly atmosphere and open sharing of ideas.
3. Encourage participants to take risks. When in doubt, check with the group. Its not
your responsibility to know everything.
4. Be aware of participants engagement: Observe what is said, who is speaking, and
what is really being said.
5. Respect is the critical ingredient in effective groups.
6. Successful groups can be uncomfortable. Address conflict and do not try to avoid it.
Create an atmosphere of trust so that disagreements can be brought into the open.

Create Guidelines and Goals

Many well-meaning facilitators come from cynical perspectives that disallow us from
acknowledging the norms that make successful groups work. We can overcome this by
having participants create ground rules or guidelines before you begin. Brainstorm
potential rules and write them down but avoid too many rules. There are three essential
guidelines:

Stay on task. Every group should have a clearly stated purpose and agenda. This
allows us to stay focused, considerate, and action-oriented.
Avoid rabbit holes. Alice fell into a world away from reality - Your group doesn't have
to be that way. Stay aware of off-topic banter, read your audience, and consider
other ways to share ideas before getting too far away from the point.
Look for diamonds by working through the coal. There are rough things to go through
in some groups. Instead of avoiding them commit- as a group- to getting in and
going through them.

Every group should have some specific guidelines that all participants agree on. Some goals
can include:

Accomplish the specific task at hand, and when we're done say we're done.
Build a sense of teamwork and purpose.

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Show that everyone has different strengths and abilities to offer the group and that
no one is better than anyone else.

Think about Framing & Sequencing

Framing. Facilitators introduce the purpose, or frame, the group they're leading. Framing
happens when a facilitator sets a simple prompt that lets participants know there is a
purpose to the group.
Sequencing. An important consideration is the order in which you present groups, or
sequencing. If a group has never learned together, it might be important to follow the
sequences laid out beforehand. If they spend time together a lot, following the formal
sequence isn't always necessary. If a group is more comfortable with each other, try
bursting the bubble by digging right into deeper group times. It is important to try to put
heavy activities after less intensive ones, to build a sense of rest and preparedness.

Reflect, Reflect, Reflect

One way make group events matter is to reflect before, during, and after the reflection. You
can see reflection as a circle: You start with an explanation what you are going to learn and
frame its purpose and goals to the group. As the activity progresses, the facilitator taking a
more hands-on or less guiding approach as needed. Finally, group reflection helps
participants see how they met the goals of the workshop, and helps them envision the
broader implications. Then the group has came full-circle.
Five Types of Reflection Questions

Open-ended Prevents yes and no answers. What was the purpose of the activity?
What did you learn about yourself, our team, our program, our organization, or our
community?
Feeling Requires participants to reflect on how they feel about what they did.
How did it feel when you started to pull it together?
Judgment Asks participants to make decisions about things. What was the best
part? Was it a good idea?
Guiding Steers the participants toward the purpose of the activity and keep the
discussion focused. What got you all going in the right direction?
Closing Helps participants draw conclusions and end the discussion. What did
you learn? What would you do differently?

Make Meaning With Participants

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At their best, group events can serve as bridges between participants and promote learning
through community building. They can reinforce the need for communication, co-learning,
and collective action.
At their worst, group events can actually be tools of oppression and alienation and serve to
support vertical practices that isolate people from each other everyday. As Paulo Freire
wrote, A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages
him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favor without that trust. In this
sense, excellent facilitation requires that we all become humanists who engage participants
with each other, followers with leaders, and teachers with students.

Create Safe Space

It is vital to create, foster, and support safe spaces where participants can learn together. In
a society that is openly hostile towards critical perspectives, participants in any activity
need support when they make their voices heard. Establishing a safe space is powerful,
positive, and hopeful, and hope is a requirement for excellent facilitation.
Seven Ways to Create Safe Space
1. Acknowledge that everyone has preconceived ideas about others or prejudices
that can damage others and ourselves.
2. Ask participants, Who should be in this group but is not?
3. Focus and limit our conversations until trust increases (sometimes it is better to
agree not to talk about specific issue/problem right away.
4. As the facilitator, seek true dialogue and ask real questions.
5. Encourage participants to examine their personal assumptions by checking in with
others rather than hiding or defending them.
6. Speak from personal experience by using I statements and do not generalize about
others.
7. Be open to a change of heart as well as a change in thinking.

Seek Consensus
Whenever a group is discussing a possible solution or coming to a decision on any matter,
consensus is a tool excellent facilitators turn to. Following is a consensus-building
technique I wrote up originally in 2001.
Fist-To-Five Decision-Making

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Start by restating a decision the group may make and ask everyone to show their level of
support. Each person should responds by showing a fist or a number of fingers that
corresponds to their opinion.

Fist is a no vote - a way to block consensus. It says, I need to talk more on the
proposal and require changes for it to pass.
1 Finger says, I still need to discuss certain issues and suggest changes that should
be made.
2 Fingers says, I am more comfortable with the proposal but would like to discuss
some minor issues.
3 Fingers says, Im not in total agreement but feel comfortable to let this decision or
a proposal pass without further discussion.
4 Fingers says, I think its a good idea/decision and will work for it.
5 Fingers says, Its a great idea and I will be one of the leaders in implementing it.

If anyone holds up fewer than three fingers, they should be given the opportunity to state
their objections and the team should address their concerns. Continue the Fist-to-Five
process until participants achieve consensus, which is a minimum of three fingers or
higher, or determine they must move on to the next issue.

Embrace the Journey

Learning is a process, not an outcome. Encourage participants to view the group process as
a journey that has no particular destination. However, even experience cannot teach us
what we do not seek to learn. John Dewey once wrote that we should seek, Not perfection
as a final goal, but the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of
living. This is true of excellent facilitation.
Participants should use group action as a starting point for a lifelong journey that includes
learning, reflection, examination, and re-envisioning democracy in our communities;
facilitators help groups down that path, and encourage participants to embrace the
journey.

Embrace Challenges
Since excellent facilitation is a process, it is important to understand that there will be
difficult times ahead. One of the keys to excellent facilitation is knowing that criticism will
come and that can be good. We cannot grow without criticism. In a society where
criticism is often a one way street, we must be aware of the outcomes of our actions,
embrace these challenges, and learn from them. Following are several strategies for
fostering critical thinking with participants.

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Seven Ways to Grow Groups

1. Use think-pair-share. Have individual thinking time, discussion with a partner, and
presentation back to the group.
2. Ask follow-ups. Why? Do you agree? Can you elaborate? Can you give an example?
3. Withhold judgment. Respond to answers without evaluating them and ask random
group members to respond to them.
4. Summarize. Asking a participant at random to summarize another's point to
encourage active listening.
5. Think out loud. Have participants unpack their thinking by describing how they
arrived at an answer.
6. Play devil's advocate. Asking participants to defend their reasoning against different
points of view.
7. Support participant questions. Asking participants to formulate their own questions.

Closing
These are the plainest steps I can write down right now for becoming an excellent
facilitator. There is plenty of information about facilitation online, and some of it is good.
This is meant for those who want to be Excellent. I hope you join us!

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