What is a Facilitator?

The role of a Facilitator can be mysterious for those that have yet to experience a meeting or workshop run by a professional Facilitator.  For those that have, the purpose and the benefits of a Facilitator become clear.

The dictionary definition can be a little vague too:

Facilitate verb: make (an action or process) easy or easier.

The French word “facile” means easy

Comparing the lesser-known role of the facilitator to other more well-known roles the one common area is that all these roles will be involved in supporting change to happen.

• Trainers usually provide the information.
• Coaches will help shape the goal and the journey
• Consultants will usually give advice based on best practice in the sector.

The change may be very small, or transformational.  The changes typically are skills, behaviours, performance, ways of working, products, processes and strategies…..and all these roles support that process of change, they help the change to take place

So ….‘what is a Facilitator?’  Facilitators will typically design and run workshops, meetings and conferences with the structure to engage the team to meet their objectives…….

The facilitator does not lecture the group on how to meet their objectives using a series of ‘death by powerpoint’ presentations.

A facilitator will use more engaging techniques than just asking the question to the group.We know that the typically in old style debates those that speak loudest are the only ones to get heard.

Using a facilitator means everyone gets a chance to take part, to listen, to talk and to build on ideas. The sum of the output will be more powerful than an idea generated by the senior team on their own because this time there is ownership.

At an event we recently ran for Basware  we asked the group to describe the process at the end. This word cloud captures their feelings about the event.

We know that participants leaving any group event with these thoughts have a far better chance of succeeding in implementing the outputs with energy, enthusiasm and vigour.

If results count for you is there then consider the value of having your meetings facilitated by one of our professional facilitators and see how much difference this makes to the engagement levels in your meetings.  Read about what our clients say

Lucybrownsdon@centreforfacilitation.co.uk