Meeting Facilitation
How It Helps Groups
What is facilitation? It is a way of providing leadership without taking the substantive reins of a meeting or decision process. A facilitator’s job is to enable others to assume responsibility and take the lead. The facilitator role includes:
- Helping a group define its overall goal and specific objectives
- Helping members of the group asses their needs and create plans to meet them
- Providing processes that help members use their time efficiently to make high-quality decisions
- Guiding group discussion to keep it on track
- Making accurate notes that reflect the ideas of members
- Helping the group understand its own processes in order to work more efficiently
- Making sure that assumptions are brought to the surface and tested
- Using consensus as the primary method for making group decisions, taking all members’ opinions into account
- Providing feedback to group members so that they can assess their progress and make adjustments
- Managing conflict using a collaborative approach
- Helping the group communicate effectively
- Creating an environment in which members have a positive, growing experience while working to attain group goals
- Fostering leadership in others by sharing the responsibility for leading the group
- Teaching and empowering others to facilitate
Evelyn H. deFrees
E. deFrees Consulting
evelyndefrees@gmail.com | 207-462-0815