Facilitation Made Easy

Most workshops and meetings will achieve more in less time if they are facilitated professionally. This book gives an introduction to the essential skills needed when running a facilitated workshop.

Most workshops and meetings will achieve more in less time if they are facilitated professionally. This book gives an introduction to the essential skills needed when running a facilitated workshop.

As a facilitator, you hold the amazing power to make a meeting or a retreat energizing and productive--or dry and demoralizing. Most of us have clear memories of attending painfully unproductive meetings; so how do you create memorable, engaging sessions that solve problems and move organizations forward? This book will serve as your trusted guide in stepping up to the plate and facilitating a room full of people--who, as you know, typically are just "thrilled" to be there. You will find everything you need to make it a great day--including pre-planning steps, agenda designs, how to get people talking, managing difficult participants, facilitation dos and don'ts, and how to finish strong. Mary Tomlinson shares her own personal stories and keys to her success from 18 years at Disney and 13 years in her own company--facilitating a variety of challenges and people groups. Her humorous examples and insights along the way will inform anyone needing to facilitate a meeting ensuring success while avoiding potholes! Facilitating is not for the weak of heart--but with the right tools, you too can be a Pro!

The latest research about improving education shows that when educators work together to examine data, brainstorm strategies, implement those strategies, and check the data again, student achievement rises. These processes are well known and effective. What is often overlooked or taken for granted is the process the educators will use to work with one another and find effective solutions. It is easy to say that educators will just meet with each other and work these things out. However, as we have learned with students, people are not born with all of the skills to work in teams. This book teaches a process that will help both teachers and administrators plan for and conduct meetings that are meaningful, useful, and that generate results.

Help them make the most out of every meeting. Rambling group discussions, tangential concerns, difficult attendees, and unclear objectives can all derail a facilitated event—and often do. But more than just learning how to avoid the pitfalls, effective facilitators ease the way for groups to achieve desired outcomes, redirect them to constructive paths, and rally commitment to action plans. Expert trainer and facilitator Kimberly Devlin has designed interactive half-day, one-day, and two-day workshops to develop the essential skills of facilitating meetings that inspire, engage, and get results. Complete with all the activities, handouts, assessments, and presentation slides you will need to accelerate learning, these programs make planning your next workshop easy, whether you are new to facilitation or a seasoned pro. About the Series The ATD Workshop Series is written for trainers by trainers, because no one knows workshops as well as the practitioners who have done it all. Each publication weaves in today’s technology and accessibility considerations and provides a wealth of new content that can be used to create a training experience like no other.

Making progress on complex, problematic situations requires a new approach to working together: transformative facilitation, a structured and creative process for removing the obstacles to fluid forward movement. It is becoming less straightforward for people to move forward together. They face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people from across more divides. In such situations, the most common ways of advancing—some people telling others what to do, or everyone just doing what they think they need to—aren't adequate. One better way is through facilitating. But the most common approaches to facilitating—bossy vertical directing from above or collegial horizontal accompanying from alongside—aren't adequate. They often leave the participants frustrated and yearning for breakthrough. This book describes a new approach: transformative facilitation. It doesn't choose either the bossy vertical or the collegial horizontal approach: it cycles back and forth between them. Rather than forcing or cajoling, the facilitator removes the obstacles that stand in the way of people contributing and connecting equitably. It enables people to bring their whole selves to the process. This book is for anyone who helps people work together to transform their situation, be it a professional facilitator, manager, consultant, coach, chairperson, organizer, mediator, stakeholder, or friend. It offers a broad and bold vision of the contribution that facilitation can make to helping people collaborate to make progress.