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

Can you Collaborate?

Collaboration is everywhere. Companies are seeking to collaborate with others to develop their brand. As team members we are urged to collaborate with other teams so that we can better serve our customers. Large public sector contracts are requiring the competitor teams to work collaboratively together on the project and to demonstrate competence in collaboration before the contract is awarded.

• But do we really get what this means to us as individuals?
• Do we recognise what we need to change in our behaviour so we are seen as someone who can be collaborative?

Probably in answering these questions your responses could be:

Who would not want to be collaborative?

It has become one of those characteristics like communication that everyone believes they do well but equally complains that everyone else does badly!

Collaboration v Competition

At the heart of our challenge with collaboration is that although we think we want to collaborate we have a deep grained tendency towards competition and to wanting to win. This desire to win can mean that we inadvertently do things which cause the collaborative relationships we have been building to break down. We cannot resist the desire to show that it was our unique contribution/idea that allowed the team to be successful. We do this even when it means the others in our team will appear less effective.

As a facilitator I will often be asked to observe team working on real or simulated problems and am always fascinated to see how any element of competition will hinder attempts at collaboration. The team just wants to do whatever will lead them to be successful at the task in the short term.

Building Trusting Relationships

So what is it that is needed to make collaboration more possible? The key to this is the ability to trust others. We need to trust that the others in our team will put the urge to win aside and will do the right thing for the team even at the cost of their own personal gain.

• How do you know you can trust others?
• How do you make sure that they behave in the interests of the team?

The short (and I know rather disappointing) answer to this is that you can’t. You cannot make others do anything. How they behave in a collaborative relationship will be in reaction to your own behaviour and this is the part you can control. This means that the more useful question to ask about collaboration is “what can I do to be seen as trustworthy?”

In the past trust was always seen as something that took time to build up. Recent insights from Swift Trust Theory have indicated that this is not always the case. In reality a lot of trust comes about through our actions and by consciously demonstrating trust in our behaviour we build that trust relationship.

Can I Be Trusted?

The three main actions you can take to build up your reputation for being trustworthy (and therefore someone I would want to collaborate with) are:

• Do what you say you will do, when you said you would do it
• Share what you know with others
• Do your job well, be competent

This sounds simple but these building bricks start to build up the trust relationship and from this you have the basis of an excellent collaborative working relationship.

The extent of collaboration across different organisations is growing and so we need to make sure that in our organisations we create the conditions that make it possible for teams to collaborate.

There are four key areas to work on with your teams:

1. Agree ways of working – it is vital to be clear about who does what, what the expectations are for how things are done before starting the tasks.
2. Define and Share Goals – there will be shared goals for the project but also different team members have different goals. Being open about these personal goals helps each party to get what they need from the collaboration
3. Manage Behaviour – we all think we are trustworthy, we all think we are great listeners, we all think we are open to feedback but the truth is often very different. We need to support teams to address behaviour and increase the self-awareness within the team.
4. Review and Reflect on Practice – collaboration needs practice so your teams need to take stock of what went well by conducting a structured lessons learnt review.

Most importantly teams need time to support them in becoming collaborative. Sharing information with others, discussing joint plans, identifying personal objectives, all of this is time consuming. The final goal will be a richer outcome but there will be short term pain which will sabotage the collaborative working unless we recognise this by allocating more initial start-up time for our project teams. A great example of where this valuable time made a huge difference to a start up project is in our case study.

So can you collaborate?

There are some important things you can do to manage your collaborative behaviour by recognising how strong your competitive desire to win is and looking at ways in which you can rein this in!

You can start developing your trustworthy behaviour so people want to collaborate with you and finally you can give others and demand for yourself the time and space to work in a collaborative manner.

Our facilitation team are skilled in working with teams to encourage greater collaboration. Do contact us for a chat!

What Makes Change Programmes Stick?

Currently I am working on four independent pieces of work which can be described as business change. These involve, to varying degrees, changed ways of working, new IT solutions, strategic initiatives to address the market. All have in common the desire to improve the organisation. In every case there is a senior sponsor holding some fairly clear thoughts on the need for the change but not so sure about the means to achieve. Ultimately what is achieved from all of these various programmes will be largely dependent upon the extent to which people grasp the change and make it happen.
I am quietly very confident that all of these programmes will be successful. Yet this seems at odds with the numerous surveys that would suggest that as many as 3 out of 4 change programmes fail to meet expectations. In a way it feels as though we have grown change programmes into monsters – and they scare us! This often leads to a response that mobilises various resources, books, courses, consultants, complex models which in turn either leads to confusion or paralysis or both. Does this have to be so? I think not!

At the heart of many, if not all, change programmes – are people. All sorts of people, people who have identified the need for change (sponsors), people who agree the need (advocates), people who feel threatened by the change, people who can bring potentially useful specialist expertise and other people, probably the majority, who either haven’t heard about the change programme at all, or if they have – just wonder what is going on.

If the situation described above is the reality, then it seems that fundamentally that to move forward and to build momentum it is simple…. people need to talk to each other. However, somehow this gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day pressures. Combine this with the noise from the advice and teachings of the books, courses, consultants, complex models and the desire to be ‘seen to be doing something’ and surprise, surprise whatever results are, or are not delivered, there are always massive gaps versus expectations.

Compare this to my current role as a facilitator on the four different change programmes. In each case I am working closely with the sponsors to ensure that we create the appropriate environment for people to be able to talk to each other. Of course, it is not just to talk, it is to listen, to ask questions, to challenge, to propose, to explore and to listen again – so that everyone builds a shared understanding, not only of what the change is aiming to achieve, but also how they can shape, influence, contribute to –  and ultimately own the change. I know how important these discussions will be in making the change stick and I am looking forward to observing how powerful this seemingly simple process is in practice.

nigelchapman@centreforfacilitation.co.uk